The Greatest Post-Punk Bands You Never Heard

Those in Chicago might like to know that Reckless has a used copy of the Kill Rock Stars double CD reissue of poll co-winners Liliput for just $6.99. You already probably know but you can call and put it on hold or transfer from the Broadway store to downtown or Wicker Park.

The Flexible funding campaign for Post-Punk magazine ends Feb 27. $15 gets you their first issue plus a CD comp, $30 an issue + backer t-shirt and $75 a year sub + t-shirt, not much more than it would normally cost for getting a UK sub in the US anyway. I might do the amount where they post a profile and my top 5 post-punk albums.

http://www.indiegogo.com/post-punk

Dangit, I missed the deadline, got swamped at work and spaced. Looks like they didn't make it unfortunately. I just saw this comment on my site from Feb 7 from a Rob Cioffi:

Nice work, brilliant for the uninitiated!

A few things to add -

Sad Lovers And Giants: continue to stage a few shows per year and have been readying a new LP. They have self-released a new single in recent years (Himalaya/Happiness Is Fragile) and have included several new songs in their current set-lists. Singer Garce self-released his first solo EP in 2012. Tony McGuinness (guitars) is 1/3 of progressive trance global heavyweight Above & Beyond. The band is very active on Facebook and have a rabid, loyal following world-wide.

Modern Eon: I actually emailed LTM label head James Nice about releasing Fiction Tales for the very first time on CD (the only CD releases have been two widely circulated bootlegs, one Fiction Tales Plus , the other Peel Sessions & Live). The label investigated this and passed. Cherry Red may end up issuing this sometime down the road.

Breathless: hailed by Jack Rabid in the pages of Big Takeover, and ended up in several best of lists there.

Asylum Party: released 2 LPs, both were reissued as The Grey Years Vol. 1 (2-CD set) and The Grey Years Vol. 2 (2-CD set), both bolstered with singles, non-LP tracks and demos. Both sets can be ordered direct from their label, infrastition.com, and via Discogs.

And Also The Trees: several compilations can be great entry points. The best that is still in print is 1980-2005 but the best is From Horizon To Horizon (Singles 1983-92), which is long out of print.

Lowlife: their final LP, Gush, remains out of print. LTM will not be reissuing due to lack of bonus material.

Opposition: their entire back catalogue, remastered in digital form, is available from their website, http://www.theopposition.fr/ To my knowledge, these are unlikely to receive a physical release.

The following band should also be considered for this article:

Abecedarians

This brilliant Los Angeles post-punk band released their first single on the legendary Factory label and has opened for New Order when they toured Southern California. Their sound is similar to The Chameleons, etc and until 2012, their entire back catalogue remained out of print. Their magnificent debut album, Eureka, was finally released on CD via Pylon Records and can be ordered here http://pylonrecords.com/ in a several different formats.

Their are plans to reissue final LP, Resin, as well.

Despite their demos collection being released on the famed indie label, IPR, they never received recognition for their musical legacy and thus were the hidden jewel in the deepest of deep post-punk collections.

If you love any of the above bands, you must check them out...you will not be disappointed!

Those Asylum Party reissues are tempting, but are possibly more than $30USD each with shipping! Ugh. I was excited about the Opposition site but it looks like it's just streaming. They need to get their post-punk asses on Bandcamp. Abecedarians is interesting, though the only way to get the bonus CD of songs from their 1985-86 era is to buy the vinyl, which is a load of crap.

How can you tell what's on those Abecadarian releases? I have the IPR vinyl but never really dug it. All I want is Smiling Monarchs on vinyl.

forget it, I see the tracklisting on discogs

this stuff come with downloads? It's criminal if labels put out vinyl and not include a download code.

The Dark Entries and Medical Records releases are without downloads, unless I've been missing something. Extra work...

Speaking of Dark Entries, the reissue of The Thing from the Crypt compilation LP is very fine. Grab one. The Fall of Saigon 12" has its moments.

we'll have to talk to those folks. what are they doing without downloads.

FFS, offer a CD option of "The Thing From The Crypt"! Didn't it have a sequel too?

I support not releasing CDs. Gotta have downloads though! Ill bring it up at our next meeting.

Another Thing from the Crypt. Bands not quite as iconic, but still a good record. Don't think anyone will be reissuing it. Mutant Sounds had it up at one point, I think.

Posted this the other day in the Australian Post Punk thread, but that may be too narrow a demographic....

For my money, the greatest post-punk band that nobody's ever heard is a group from Wollongong Australia called the Sunday Painters. Three singles, two LPs, cassettes, and comp tracks. At work on a reissue, but thought I'd put a song on on Sound Cloud since Monday marked the thirty-year anniversary of one of their high points: the Sedition Festival, a three-day showcase of 22 bands, as well as assorted video artists, at the Trade Union Club. $10 for the lot….Other bands included the Scientists, Wet Taxi, Celibate Rifles. The Same, and Severed Heads.

The Painters played the opening night. Three and a half songs have survived from their set; two of which made it onto the Sedition—Go Broke cassette. This one, “In My Dreams,” did not, though it’s a monster, reworked into drum-machine form from its origins as a practice-room kraut jam outtake that made up the b-side of the band’s second single (Painting By Numbers, 1980, 250 copies). Like X covering PIL, with a New Order keyboard flourish.

Please feel free to share, to download, to play.

https://soundcloud.com/michael-train/in-my-dreams

Taught myself to play "Smokescreen" by the Desperate Bicycles and it only underscored how unusual it is. The guy sings straight through for three and a half minutes or however long it is and there are eight verses.

hey, thanks, that's pretty awesome! xpost

Thought I'd try it as a video (well, at least a photo montage):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NTISSJPyLw

Cool. I'm really proud of the iMovie Ken Burns video montage I made for Disco Zombies and Happy Refugees.

Crazy what you can do within ten minutes of opening iMovie for the first time, but wow do I now have respect for real video editors....

One year anniversary, here's a Spotify playlist finally! None of the early And Also The Trees, The Sound or Comsat Angels, but a good sampling of most of what I wrote about.

http://open.spotify.com/user/1212496385/playlist/3RkhJjuRHTIamrXejVwa9H
spotify:user:1212496385:playlist:3RkhJjuRHTIamrXejVwa9H

50 Minute And Also The Trees documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp8gwgjTPs&list=PL6B10D8ECB2D36111

90 Minute live show recorded September 28, 2013 at La Cave à Musique in Mâcon, Burgundy, France:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iOivHqNgpQ&list=FLvS7HOg0xXDKPhctmMyG1Qw

Documentary embedded (I hope?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp8gwgjTPs&list=PL6B10D8ECB2D36111&feature=share

Tiny Desk Unit has never been mentioned on ILM? I stumbled across this video today and remembered the name, probably from New York Rocker. This kind of art/dance/drone/skronk would have been like catnip to me when this was new, but I'm finding it only mildly interesting in 2014. Great that these Hurrah videos are out there, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHHwKO9NvgU

Nice to see this topic active again. Reminds me that we've finally made some real headway with our Sunday Painters reissues. (The Painters were a Wollongong, Australia art punk band most active from 1980-86, putting out records on their own Terminal Records in minuscule runs.) We'll be collecting the band's three singles on one LP (see the link below), out in January, then doing the two albums by the end of spring. Each with digital downloads and bonus tracks drawn from live cassettes and a radio appearance. Punk, industrial, pop, prog, and experimental, sometimes all at once. A Cab-Voltaire take on "Rebel Rebel." The Homosexuals with a drum machine. And so on.

Out on Whats Your Rupture. Home also to the Tronics and Parquet Courts.

http://whatsyourrupture.bigcartel.com/product/sunday-painters-in-my-dreams-lp-pre-order

So we now have hard copies of the Sunday Painters singles collection. Should start to show up in stores soon. Very exciting. There'll also be digital downloads from all the usual places. For those of you in Australia, your best bets will be R.I.P. Society/Repressed Records in Sydney, or Music Farmer's in Wollongong, though there may well be some other spots, too. By May we're hoping to get the band's two albums out.

Sounds great, let me know when they become available on CD or reasonably priced lossless.

Speaking of unheard post-punk bands (who have been heard with the help of Michael Train and myself!)...Happy Refugees are following up our reissue from a couple of years ago with a self-released newly recorded album, some new songs, some vintage unrecorded songs. Great stuff. A bit less edge than the old stuff, a bit more mature, but what do you expect? Great website here: http://www.happyrefugees.com/

been getting into the deep freeze mice reissue a bit, anyone else a fan?

No plans for any CDs, but I'll look into the possibilities for lossless. Still not sure what sites will have the record, so I'm not sure if it will be up on any that offer lossless. If I learn of one, I'll post it here. That said, it takes a superior set of ears and equipment to tell the difference between lossless and 320 kbps coding these days. I listen with mastering-quality AKG headphones and Focal monitors and can only occasionally notice the difference, and then only in direct A/B comparisons on a high decay.

I think most, if not all episodes of New Wave Theatre are on YouTube which feature a bunch of mysterious post-punk bands. (as well as other genres)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA70OzHvxP4

You can stream all the Sunday Painters singles here:

http://noisey.vice.com/en_au/blog/stream-the-of-the-sunday-painters-early-80s-diy-punk

here's some post-punk / diy spam. it's out in july. michael train did the audio restoration, there's an introduction written by dan selzer and i compiled it, so should be fairly ILM friendly spam.

Now That's What I Call DIY (Cult classics from the Post-Punk era 1978/82) - https://soundcloud.com/optimo-music/various-now-thats-what-i-call