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What Gary Valentine did after Blondie features tonight. Was he pushed or did he jump, I'm still not sure...wait till i check.... he left of his own accord, it seems. Anyway, he recorded a fairly snappy little tune called "The First One" in 1978, which wasn't as big a hit as 'Heart Of Glass'.ÌýNever mind.ÌýHe didn't manage to get on stage with the rest of Blondie when they received their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame which produced an extremely embarrassing section of the great Â鶹ԼÅÄ4Ìýdocumentary on the band. Debbie Harry politely said no to Gary, Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison. I supposeÌýthere would be too many on stage.Ìý
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Ramones - Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Saints - Know Your ProductÌý
Adam & The Ants - Family Of Noise
Lurkers - I Don't Need To Tell Her
ÌýPop Rivets - Kray Twins
Dr Feelgood - Roxette
Standells - Sometimes Good Guys Dont Wear WhiteÌý
Gary Valentine - The First One
Feelies - The Boy With Perpetual Nervousness
The Jam - Non Stop Dancing
The Alleycats - Nothing Means Nothing Anymore
Radio Birdman - You're Gonna Miss Me
New York Dolls - Vietnamese Baby
Dislocation Dance - You Can't Beat History
Dictators - What It Is
The Barracudas were a great surf band who located themselves in London, Ìýa couple of thousand miles from the beaches of California. They were signed to EMI, who had high hopes for them until they realised that the surf revival was never going to happen. According to their singer Jeremy, the company saw more potential in Duran Duran. Indeed. Three picks tonightÌýfrom the Californian Punk CD 'Black Hole'. I think I may have got over excited, but the Zeros 'Beat Your Heart Out' and The Urinals song which gives the compilation its charming title make the playoffs. Speaking of charm, the late George Melly makes a rare appearance on a punk rock record courtesy of those nice young men The Stranglers.Ìý
Dils -I Hate The Rich
Skids - Test Tube Babies
Barracudas - I Can't Pretend
Gun ClubÌý- Bad Indian
Splodgenessabounds - Simon Templar
Ruts - Dope For Guns
Stranglers - Old Codger
Girls At Our Best! - It's Fashion
Redskins - LeanÌýOn Me
Flipper - Life
Urinals - Black Hole
Chocolate Watch Band - Let's Talk About Girls
TheÌýZeros - Beat Your Heart Out
Members - Goodbye To The Job
Josef K -ÌýEndless Soul
Television - Friction
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One of the great functions of a record company, aside from spending thousands of pounds on bands who don't deserve to be heard, is to curate the past. Elektra Records famously allowed Lenny Kaye to gather together the best American punk rock records from the mid 1960s for a double LP released in 1972. Originally Ìý was to reflect the best of the Top Forty but Lenny arrived back at the office with 27 examples of first generation US Punk records, from the Electric Prunes to the Magic Mushrooms. It was and remains a fantastic collection. If you think otherwise, turn around and walk back to the start of this blog with your head bowed. I suspect Nuggets was a once in a rock and roll lifetime event but I am very excited about a new compilation of Californian Punk Rock which has the unfortunate title 'Black Hole'. It's been curated by Jon Savage. You may remember him from other punk rock manuals like "England's Dreaming" and 'Punk Rock's Biggest Words". It has the perfect time parameters , 1977 to 1980, and features such bands as Dils, The Avengers and The Zeros. A CDfication of black vinyl singles from the Golden State, which proves that you don't need rain, repression and repossessions to be angry enough to write songs like We're Desperate, Nothing Means Nothing Anymore and Anti, Anti, Anti. It's issued by Domino records which has shown impeccable taste with the Young Marble Giants and Orange Juice revivals. Buy it when it comes out next month and get a fifteen year head start on the California Punk revival of 2025.
A nod in the direction of the World's Biggest News Story to start with , then back to the usual mishmash of great records that never got anywhere. Apart from Generation X, who can boast a top ten hit with their take on the imaginary clash between John Lennon and Elvis Presley. Remember that King Rocker was written when Lennon was still alive. I can only imagine the resident of the Dakota building playing the Generation X single over and over, listening for clues as to what young punk rockers thought of him. Or maybe he was too busy baking wee buns to listen.Ìý Ending tonight with the second best version of Gloria, a 1976 record whichÌýshowed many young bands the neat trick of taking and old song and speeding it up. Our band didÌýit with Can't Explain. Eater based a short and unspectacular career on it. Any other ideas ?Ìý
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Wire - Outdoor Miner
Shop Assistants - Fixed Grin
Broken Hearts - Tuesday Evening Girl
Damned - New Rose
Velvet Monkeys - Second Ave
Lime Spiders - Out Of Control
Generation X - King Rocker
Go Betweens - Karen
Left Banke - Lazy Day
X - Painting The Town Blue
Elvis Costello - Sunday’s Best
Vibrators - London Girls
Pere Ubu - I Will Wait
Human League - Empire State Human
Eddie & The Hot Rods - GloriaÌý
I'm as likely as the next man to complain about the number of lists that magazines, TV shows and newspapers seem to come up with constantly these days but then your band's featured in one and suddenly everything's alright. Funny that, the realisation that maybe a list is an interesting device to tell a story. Like the story of music in Northern Ireland. The Belfast Telegraph compiled a countdown of the fifty best musical moments here, starting at number fifty which was Eoghan Quigg on X Factor. Yes, Teenage Kicks would beat the small Dungiven schoolboy, I confidently predicted to any passing stranger in the shop where I read the paper. That's 'read' in the past tense, in case you think I spend my days using the paper shop as a library. I did keep an eye on the progress of the list as the week went on, just to make sure The Undertones were above Stiff Little Fingers, apart from anything else. Old punk rivalries never die, at least as far as the Derry ones are concerned.Ìý By Thursday I was beginning to get worried when I didn't see our name there but that night I got a phone call from Maureen Coleman at the Tele. Our debut single had been chosen as the best musical moment in Northern Ireland. For a record which struggled to number 31 in the charts in 1978, it has had a life which none of the band would have predicted when we were in the back room of Good Vibrations wrapping the discs in paper sleeves. After thirty two years, almost to the day, it finally made it to number one. Excuse me while I dislocate my shoulder slapping myself on the back.
Joe Strummer was less than a year out of pub rock band the 101ers when he recorded the first Clash LP. Listening back to it, the R&B roots are still audible, not least on tonight's choice Protex Blue. Yes, it was named after a brand of prophylactic. Not sure if they were trying to be big or clever, but London 1977 was a fairly liberal environment to be bandying about such song subjects. Not so over here but in Belfast the song did provide a group of schoolboys with a fairly risque name for their band. ÌýAnd so, Protex's 'Don't Ring Me Up' makes an appearance on the show, not least to mark the publication of a new book on Terri Hooley, the man who gave them room in his roster of the stars.ÌýÌýÌý
Lou Reed - Vicious
Clash - Protex Blue
Joy Division - The Only Mistake
Bandables - Love Lies Down
999 - Emergency
Avengers - We Are The One
Heartbreakers - Baby Talk
Echo & The Bunnymen - No Dark Things
Protex - Don’t Ring Me Up
Stiff Little Fingers - Gotta Getaway
Lilliput - Wig Wam
Madness - On The Beat Pete
XTC - This Is Pop
Count Five - Pretty Big Mouth
The Loft - Your Door Shines Like Gold
Everyone who ever meets him agrees that Chip Taylor is a lovely man. Down to earth, courteous and gracious. Talented too, of course. I carried his guitar case in my capacity as Gerry Anderson's butler on his radio show this morning, where Chip was a guest. It's not his first appearance on the show. He's a bit of a fan of Gerry, to the extent that he wrote and recorded a song called Stroke City Girls. So far, so not related to punk rock. But of course, Chip's most famous composition is Wild Thing, the three chord staple of any budding punk rock band. Its another Louie Louie, easy to play but brutally effective, as The Troggs discovered.Ìý They recordedÌý their version in three quarters of an hour, according to . And that included the time it took to bring the amps into the studio. Of course, Chip wrote more than Wild Thing. Another Troggs single 'Anyway That You Want Me' has his name in the brackets, as does 'I Can't Let Go' and hundreds more.Ìý Never mind the great singers, never mind the great guitar players. Without the great songwriter they may as well be in a prog rock band.Ìý He's around all this week. Go on, make the effort.
Punk rock has always been about short songs but sometimes it can be taken too far. Big Boys from Texas come up with a tune which only lasts 38 seconds. (Did they do it and run away ?) If they'd played it slightly slower, they may have stretched it out to 50 seconds at least. The Dickies also contribute a compact composition to tonight's show. Hideous is a song which they performed on TV in America in 1978. Not on Bandstand, but in a sitcom called . No, I've never heard of it but it was set in the US Navy and featured Don Rickles in the role of Sharkey. The voice of Mr Potato Head in Toy Story, that's right. Anyway, I mention this because it was an early example of a punk band appearing as themselve, playing a song as part of the story line. Of course, the main stars ridicule this type of music, to laughter by the studio audience. Hey, we can take a bit of ridicule. As long as we can see the band.
Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant
Ian Dury - Sweet Gene Vincent
Fleshtones - New Scene
Big Boys - Brick Wall
Devo - Shrivel Up
Richard Hell - Down At The Rock And Roll Club
Wire - Lowdown (Live At The Roxy)
Go Gos - This Town
Seeds - Mr Farmer
Blue Screaming - Gunpoint
The Young Idea - Stop And Think
Special AKA -The Lonely Crowd
Rubinoos - As Long As I'm With You
Thomas Leer - Private Plane
Dickies - Hideous
