Personality Crisis - Take a Drunk to Dinner (live)

It's Personality Crisis, it's live, it's great quality and it's still Personality Crisis.

Love this band. More here.

Music

The Chris Bald 96 - Uglified 7'' (1990)

I've always had a soft spot for Chris so it was a shame he seemed to have stopped producing music so early on. This predates the album listed here. Again this isn't hardcore, but is interesting music that does hook you in and keeps you interested.

This recording, and the album, had Julian Weber  on drums and Ralf N on bass,

Music

Punk at the Beeb

For the none UK residents it might come as news that the BBC has been running a Punk Britannia series on BBC4 recently. On the one hand this is really interesting and encouraging; on the other it’s same shit, different day. This is due to the beeb rolling out the same old faces to talk about music/life 35 years ago. I won't dwell on this too much as I could go into full rant mode, which is never pleasant, but safe to say that so far we've heard most of it before.

This is a three part series where the beeb have, so far, done a "pre punk" episode and a "punk" episode. Charlie Harper has so far made the most relevant quote in that "the first wave was art school students, the second were punks" and I paraphrase there, but the gist is accurate. I'm hopeful that the 3rd episode, due tonight, will go beyond '78 as it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring to hear from the same people that punk died in '78. It didn't; FACT! (I kinda doubt it’ll go past ’78 though).

Alongside these three episodes they have been throwing in documentaries on various people and programme made up of live performances or a collection of appearances on the BBC.

The files below are a recording of TV Smith and encompasses his entire career from his pre Adverts band, Sleaze, through the Explorers and Cheap to his current solo/acoustic career. It has some great footage of the adverts and covers their lifespan from the band we all know to the, very, short lived 1979 incarnation.

Now here comes the apology.

I'm not that up on technology and I have no idea how to compress the recordings I've made of some of these programs, so the links below are large. ….4 gig so it’s best to start this before you go to bed if you want it.

I intend to post all the punk Britannia series along with a couple of the other programs, such as a Poly Styrene documentary and a couple of live progs/compilations. However, as they're so large they have the chance of pushing me over my mediafire limit they will only be available for a limited period of time; probably 3 months. So if you want it, download and enjoy as they will be taken down.

You need both of these to unzip and watch.

Mediafire 1
Mediafire 2

Songs for Snakes - Charcoal Heather (2012)

Songs for Snakes come out of San Francisco (Kenny why haven't you told me about these?) and make music that just blows the cob webs out of my head. When I listen to this I hear Husker Du, Moving Targets, Asexuals, Jawbreaker, The Replacements...... so it can't be bad!

The band comprise: -

Bill Taylor - Guitar/Vocals
Nick Waters - Bass
Paul Furusho - Drums

Undoubtedly the major comparison that will be made here is with Husker Du; Bill's guitar playing is full of the distortion and melodies that Bob used to spit out in the 80's.

That decades alternative college radio would have gone mad for Songs for Snakes had they been around at the time. The blend they concoct with hooks dripping off the guitar, the beautifully rumbling bass and thundering drums is as close to perfection as I've heard in some time. They are exciting, captivating and wholly satisfying. I love this; it's amazingly good. There isn't a bad track on this album and they've been switching place as to which is my favourite constantly.

To me this is pure punk; classic, melodious, catchy as hell and one that I can sing along with to my hearts content.

Two of the bands releases are available here and you get to choose how much you pay for them. I've bought both of them. If you like this then support the band and buy one of the best releases of the year in Charcoal Heather. Sleep through this is also very good btw.

Have a listen if you don't believe me how good this is. My favourite tracks at the moment are:  Charcoal Heather, The Most Documented Man and FEAR