I used to love this record back in 1983. This is a video made by target videos so it is lip-synched which isn’t a bad thing because you can appreciate just how tight the band was at the time of this recording. The singer died recently which surprised me because I thought he had died long long ago.

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Huge in England. Virtually unknown in North America The Jam were one of the great rock bands of the punk era:

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Guys who can play drums and sing at the same time are freaks of nature if you ask me.

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Despite their role in launching the “New Romantic” movement I still love this song. They should play this at hockey arenas.

This was the best sound quality I could find - the vid cleans up a bit after the first little bit. Enjoy!!

(Funny how two drummers never really caught on)

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But there was some pretty awesome music among the crap that was the 70’s

Like this:

and this:

This band is criminally underrated in the annals of punk history in my opinion:

Sadly Devo pretty much peaked at this point (except for Gates of Steel) :

and possibly one of the coolest vids ever made:

I always thought the lyrics to this some were somewhat fanciful:

You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.

Then one day I woke and realized My God! It actually happened…..

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Why? Because in such troubled times we all need heroes to turn to for inspiration and my friends these people are truly heroes:

Via

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If you are of a certain age and were of a certain subculture say about 25-30 years ago this vid of Channel 3 covering The Nils will be jaw droppingly awesome. As for the rest of you I pity the vacant hole in your souls.

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Just so y’all know. I am still alive. I just seem to work longer and longer and longer hours. 7am-10pm is becoming normal these days. Would love to blog with the ferocity and tenacity of Kathy or Nick or all the other great bloggers who are still taking the fight to the enemy. But my business is my priority right now and the best I can do is promise that I will get back to regular blogging sometime before I reach old age.

In the meantime here’s one of my old faves from my punk youth:

YouTube - The Clash - London Calling

Oh and for those of you who disbelieve us Global Warming skeptics when we say that in the 70’s everyone said there was going to be an ice-age. Consider that it was talked about enough to show up in the lyrics of this song.

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Admit it. You woke up this morning thinking “I don’t hear enough versions of “Where’s Captain Kirk” by Spizzenergi these days.

Sooo……

Studio version with Star Trek vid clips:

Early 1977 live version by the original Spizzenergi:

The best live version is here (but embedding has been disabled)

REM (yes REM) cover:

“Spizzsexual”- 1985

Spizzenergi 20 years (and about 50 pounds) later:

You can thank me as you’re humming this song all day. Maybe next week I’ll do a 999 Homicide retrospective.

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This is all kinds of cool:

VIA Sand and Cotton by way of Gorillamask

Oh and we are all aware that this is technically not “Death Metal” so don’t bother pointing it out.

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Live stuff often sounds pretty crappy but this totally kicks ass (although the volume is a bit low - so crank it):

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Heavy workload today so I don’t have time to post, instead enjoy this old Echo & The Bunnymen song:

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Lots of work this week so blogging will be light. So enjoy some early B-52’s doing one of their greatest songs.

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I don’t think Mick Jagger was particularly happy with this cover:

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Back in the halcyon days of hardcore punk (early to mid eighties for you young ‘uns) the collective jammering of 8 million angry loud political Crass imitators was often too much for even the most hardened punker to bear. What was needed was a palate cleanser of sorts. Something to lighten the mood and make us all forget how Ronald Reagan was going to kill us all with neutron bombs trickling down from the sky, or voodoo, or something.

Out of (or into?) this void came New Jersey’s Adrenalin O.D. a band that defied punk convention by being lighthearted and silly as opposed to dour and hopeless. While heavyweights like Black Flag bludgeoned you with songs like “Damaged” “Thirsty and Miserable” or “Life of Pain” AOD countered with charming little tunes like “Pope on a Rope” “The Nice Song” and the classic “Rock n Roll Gas Station”.

Little or no video evidence exists of the band (and they don’t seem to have a myspace page) however some genius figured out that their classic song “Bugs” from the equally classic second lp (HumungousFungousAmongus) synchs up quite nicely to a scene from Starship Troopers (which is probably the only thing of value ever to come from this movie - and it is quite by accident) so here for your viewing and listening pleasure is AOD doing Bugs. Listen for the classic lyric during the slower middle part:

Two arms, two arms
We only have two arms!
How can we fight them?
When the Raid is gone?

A question for the ages.

Related: The Five Most Horrifying Bugs . Fun fact: I have encountered 4 out of the 5.

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The great tragedy for early 80’s banks tagged with the “punk” label was that it gave record companies and radio program managers a quick reason to discard a band without even listening to it.

X in my mind were one of the best rock bands to come out of the US yet despite several critically acclaimed albums never got the recognition they deserved. . And due to the era they operated in there is very little decent video evidence. Most videos of bands from that time are poorly shot handicam thingys in small clubs with lousy sound. Not the greatest artifacts.

After scouring around I found this appearance by X on some TV show doing “Motel Room in my Bed” from the phenomenal “Under the Big Black Sun” lp. Watch, enjoy, and you can thank me later (oh and sorry that the first bit appears to be cut off).

Fun X fact: Lead singer Exene Cervenka (aka Christine Edge) was married to Viggo Mortensen and has a 16 year old son from that marriage. After Viggo hit it big with LOTR Exene decided that 36k a year in alimony payments wasn’t enough to feed and clothe her child and immediately petitioned the courts for $18k a month in child support.

Oh,and can anyone remember their appearance on some Halloween special in about 1984 hosted by William Shatner? They did “Devil Doll”. Would love to find that on-line.

Update: This find via Damian tells you all you need to know about the music business’ ability to recognize talent.

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I’ve always loved this song.

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From the Wikipedia description of Norwegian Gothic Metal band Sirenia:

Sirenia is a gothic metal band from Stavanger, Norway which incorporates a mixture of gothic metal and symphonic metal, as well as black metal and death metal elements. The vocals consist of death grunts, operatic female vocals and a clean male singer.

Maybe we could start a new Metal sub-genre? Clean-Metal? It already has it’s polar opposite in Crust Punk: Perhaps the most stereotypical and infamous facet of this lifestyle is the perceived lack of hygiene, as many crust punks seemingly avoid bathing and grooming. Women and men commonly avoid shaving any body hair.

Sirenia performing Manic Aeon and looking like everyone showers regularly. here:

Pioneering “crust” punk band Antisect can be seen here 20 years ago performing one of their best songs (the singer looks a little like George Michael). The studio version of this track is a lot heavier. Worth downloading if you can find it, it’s from the “out from the void” ep but doesn’t have a title - it’s the first track (if that helps)

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This is from 1978 I think. A very early video of Devo doing “Come Back Jonee” when I first saw this back then it was the wildest most crazy dangerous thing I had ever seen.

The crowd looked totally insane. And then at the end the singer jumped into the crowd!! Fantastic!! I was hooked instantly. Looking at the video almost 30 years (yikes) later it seems like Nirvana might have watched it too, because the end reminds me a little of the “…teen spirit” video 15 years on.

Hmmm.

Anyway to get a real good feel for early punk/new wave this is a pretty good artifact.

Click here (then crank it.)

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