D.I.Y.: The Modern World - UK Punk II (1977-78)

"The Modern World" or "Suspect Device" for me.

Tempted to go with "Alternative Ulster" mainly because hearing it for the first time got me to research the song at the library the next day because I didn't even know what Ulster meant.

good lord this is even harder

Borstal Breakout, the SLF tunes, Rezillos, Magazine, Buzzcocks, Subway Sect, and Soft Boys are all contenders for me

Going with Subway Sect. Who compiled these? From a time before "post-punk" was a retro/revival thing, or a few of these songs wouldn't have made this cut.

apparently compiled by this guy:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/671573-Gary-Stewart-4

wow at least some of these weren't even released in the UK, wonder if that was a licensing thing

Could go with a bunch of these. "Alternative Ulster" used to be the king of the jukebox at LES stalwart Downtown Beirut and still holds up as far as I can tell.

This is the best of the Rhino DIY comps imo

xpost pretty sure I agree, it's such a highlight

Magazine

I'm a lazy gal today, is there a Spotify playlist please?

buzzcocks

impossible! could happily go with any of these -

Shot By Both Sides, What Do I Get?, I Am The Fly, The Day the World Turned Day-Glo, Suspect Device, Action Time Vision, Alternative Ulster, Hong Kong Garden or Ambition.

hmmm.....

Wire, so easily, even though it's 75% of the way from punk to post-punk and owes a lot of its uncanny effect to Thorne's production (Wire live in 77 is much harder to appreciate).

Magazine, Soft Boys, Fall, Banshees tracks are great but don't scream punk to me. They point the way to the 80s psych revival I guess. Rezillos isn't very punk either but it was nice having the 7" version, superior to the version on the album. And "Homicide" by 999 is totally punks doing classic rock, although I'm not sure what band it reminds me of.

Of the things that actually sound like Ramones/Pistols punk, it's gotta be Borstal Breakout...

shot by both sides. or soft boys.

feels like such an oversight not including an ultravox! song here

I listened to this way more than the first one polled. Not exactly punk, to be sure, but this stuff works together incredibly well. Maybe the best compilation ever not compiled by Ian Manire?

OK, this is impossible, but I voted for Anglepoise Lamp, the song on here that's truly in the inner circle of my all time favorite songs ever by anyone. But could have easily voted "Shot By Both Sides" or "Alternative Ulster" or tbh anything from "Borstal Breakout" to "Day-Glo," a 5-song run that's almost too good and too intense, there's no place to rest....

Thirty years after first listening to this comp (I think) I still feel too close to it to discuss it articulately, as you can see.

Don't know the 999 or the Soft Boys' songs, all the other songs are good to great.

wow, this one's even better. something from stirmonster's list, or maybe "Emergency."

Voted for "Action Time Vision" although there were 10 other possible first choices.

I saw Stiff Little Fingers in 2019 not knowing what to expect (Avengers were opening so it seemed like it'd be worthwhile) and couldn't believe how great it was / how Jake Burns continues to perform with such intensity.

voted atv but woulda just as soon voted for subway sect

or the fall
or the rezillos
or even sham

i've never encountered these comps before. i take it they were well known in the usa?

very much so, available in malls across the country starting in the early 90s

I was too old for this demographic, and owned most of this stuff already, but I definitely burned a few from friends, iirc the Boston one for the Cars demos and other stuff

now that I look, the entire series appears to have been released in 1993

I played this on cassette as God intended btw

Yeah these comps were huge. Could get them anywhere and they went surprisingly deep at times. Distractions Times Go By So Slow on one of the Uk power pop editions iirc. Good Boston and LA volumes and the NY volume is where I fell in love with Cheree.

These were the first CD-era comps to really do a good job contextualizing Punk in an expansive way, and at the time were particularly valuable for making a lot of the tracks easily available on disc stateside, as much of this stuff hadn't been otherwise reissued or had only been as imports.

And as I pointed out on the prior thread, after these went OOP in the late '90s, remaindered new copies of most of the series could be had for super-cheap in chain store cut-out bins.

Voted Subway Sect as I'm a massive Vic Godard fan and they don't get the love they deserve.

It's fascinating to hear about the impact of these CDs in the US, and the way that they made previously rare tracks so widely available.

Bought on 7" at the time: Wild Youth (there's an extraordinary dub B-side), Shot By Both Sides, The Day The World Turned Day-Glo, Suspect Device, If The Kids Are United, Bingo Master, Alternative Ulster, Hong Kong Garden. I had all the others taped off John Peel, except for the 999 tracks (he didn't rate 'em) and The Soft Boys (whose debut A-side "Wading Through A Ventilator" would have been a great choice).

Spooling through them in my head, I'm leaning towards Shot By Both Sides and Bingo Master, but this lot all deserve a careful listen before choosing.

Oh, 999 did a Peel Session in October 1978 which included Homicide - I hereby retract!

Here's a Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0sBBV2fxKfPUuynBIccvbR

The Soft Boys track is only on Spotify as a live version, so here's the studio version.

Thanks for the playlist! It's going to be tough choosing...

I remember listening to this way back when and thinking 'I even like "Borstal Breakout"!'

Although I only tolerated "If the Kids Are United."

emergency!!!

HI DERE

Borstal Breakout is a banger and a half.

The Fall

I had just always read about how bad Sham 69 was and had never heard them until that CD. Unlike the thousands of times I had heard "Alternative Ulster," say.

Hi Mike T, the Rezillos track, for authenticity's sake, and because it's a better version, the CD used the 7" version, found here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5SGtl6n0r89zUUFFctklM5?si=9e74fe1f978b4edf

You might want to swap it out!

I had just always read about how bad Sham 69 was

There are so many Sham 69 greats. Huge among 11 year olds in the uk at that time, Hersham Boys was one of the first records i ever bought.

...and of course, one of the oddest moments of the punk(ish) era, Sham 69 with Steve Hillage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPkt-JS_jDA

I actually own this one. As with the last, I am sticking by my rule to always vote for Poly Styrene if it's an option.

I guess I was misinformed about Sham 69. By Trouser Press maybe? Anyone else in the US want to weigh in on how they were perceived back then?

They weren't held on very high regard in the UK either.

Yes, I was assuming they were never compiled.

There's a comp featuring Crass coming next year.

Ah, apart from various tapezine type things, two only

One "Rough Trade Shops" has "Reality Asylum" and "Revenge of the she-punks" out just now has a track from "Penis Envy"

There was something in the liner notes about how they couldn't licence the Clash, Elvis Costello, and (in the NYC set) Talking Heads.

IIRC, a similar thing happened with the Just Can't Get Enough New Wave series. Several bands were unavailable to them at the time.

I recently got a UK punk scene box set called "No Thanks" which was apparently what the Sex Pistols replied when approached to license a track for it.

That's a good set but the UK set "1 2 3 4 Punk & New Wave" is even better.

Bought on 7" at the time: Wild Youth (there's an extraordinary dub B-side)

Wild Dub: Dread Meets Punk Rocker Downtown
1) The Ruts - Jah War
2) The Clash - Bankrobber [Dub Version]
3) Generation X - Wild Dub
4) Basement 5 - Immigrant Dub
5) Pil - Death Disco
6) 3 Be 2 - One Of The Lads [Dub]
7) Stiff Little Fingers - Bloody Dub
8) The Pop Group - Where There Is A Will
9) Red Beat - Red Beat
10) Killing Joke - Turn To Red
11) Grace Jones - Private Life (Dub Version)
12) The Slits - Typical Girls [Brink Style Dub]
13) Vivien Goldman - Private Armies [Dub Version]

Follow up by other hands/headz:
https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/va-modern-wild-dub-dread-meets-disco-punk-rocker-downtown-cd/EB.045CD.html

That is, the first comp, though of tracks recorded much earlier, came out in '03, the second, in response, recorded about then and released 2004.

1. "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo"
2. "Alternative Ulster"
3. "Hong Kong Garden"

if we're talking other mid 90s CD comps, this one was way ahead of it's time:

https://www.discogs.com/release/925941-Various-Totally-Wired

dan, that's a killer tracklist!

Xposts yeah I got that "wild dub" cd last year.

My copy of "Wild Youth" had "No no no" on the b-side. Quite rare, but.

Was gonna mention Totally Wired after my previous post! Is Razor & Tie still around? Got some other good stuff issued by them.
(Anthologies, sometimes like Complete Works, of some heavy hitter individual UK bands from this era could still be found on Kill Rock Stars' Bandcamp last time I checked.)

I don’t think razor & tie are still around but our own veronica moser wrote some liner notes for them back in the day

I've compiled my own third volume:

D.I.Y.: It's The New Thing - UK Punk III (1977-78)
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3Lf7wqYn4ezUwh0sYRREwX

(THE RULES: no act appears more than twice on Vols I-III combined, no duplicates with the Rhino UK Pop comps, all on 7" except for two Peel Session tracks, total playing time fits on a CD, approximately chronological, strict cut-off in December 1978)

1. White Riot - The Clash
2. Sick Of You - The Users
3. Young Savage - Ultravox!
4. Johnny Won't Get To Heaven - The Killjoys
5. Can't Stand My Baby - The Rezillos
6. Ain't Been To No Music School - The Nosebleeds
7. Shadow - The Lurkers
8. Newtown (Peel Session) - The Slits
9. Complete Control - The Clash
10. Science Friction - XTC
11. Wading Through A Ventilator - The Soft Boys
12. Love Lies Limp - Alternative TV
13. New Religion - Some Chicken
14. Mirage (Peel Session) - Siouxsie & The Banshees
15. Suspended Sentence - John Cooper Clarke
16. Don't Ring Me Up - Protex
17. Gordon - The Cravats
18. C.I.D. - UK Subs
19. Read About Seymour - Swell Maps
20. Nobody's Scared - Subway Sect
21. Sweet Suburbia - Skids
22. Public Image - Public Image Ltd
23. Damaged Goods - Gang Of Four
24. Where Were You - The Mekons
25. Part Time Punks - Television Personalities
26. It's The New Thing - The Fall
27. 10:15 Saturday Night - The Cure

The Stranglers is one of the bands I always think about where I ignored later material at my own peril...another is Undertones, where some true punks only like the first two, when the third is the real masterpiece, and even I avoided the fourth for years only to finally put it on and go hey, this is also really good.

It's a shame some fans were always so tight-assed about what was and wasn't punk, even before "hardcore" (not that some bands weren't just as bad about it) To me, it was always most of all the attitude, pushing yourself and your audience, even or especially if it meant to crash and burn (or just look a fule) and keep going. Not, "oh this bit is from that music crowd over there, not acceptable."

(of course that's not just a punk thing)(omg jazz controversies)

Mike, that's a fabulous comp, gonna spin that today! Some great obscure picks. That's a killer Subway Sect track, too.

The Cravats! Good call

Don't know them or Protex or Some Chicken (best name) atall---will dive in, thanks!

I <3 The Cravats

me too. that's a great comp Mike.

Some Chicken is a v underrated record imo! love the guitar on that, both sides

for the comp in the poll - the first 2 tracks are my least favourite, then it's basically all good

Borstal Breakout is a banger and a half.

― Narada Michael Fagan (Tom D.), Friday, 30 September 2022 15:17 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

^ 1000%

am emotionally attached to The Day The World Turned Day-Glo for reasons so probably that one

that's not my favourite Cravats song, I do like it a lot but I would pick Who's In Here With Me?

"Precinct" for me but yeah

hi bovarism <3

oh yeah Precinct is great! that's the A side. it's about a shopping centre in Redditch which I should know about because I grew up near there but I've never been to Redditch

Alternative Ulster, narrowly beating I Am The Fly

Protex is great irish power-pop from the label Good Vibrations. What I really regret is not yet watching the movie Good Vibrations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Vibrations_(film) which is all about the founding of that record label and the belfast punk scene and looks like a lot of fun.

Is VG+

I was limited in my Cravats choices by the December 1978 cutoff, which left only one single. Protex particularly needed to be in there repping for Ulster, as The Undertones were also ineligible (according to The Rules). “Alternative Ulster” came within a whisker of getting my vote, but having the lyrics written for them by a journalist, and having “IG-nore the bores and their laws” in said lyrics, stopped it just short of perfection.

Is the titular Gordon the same one that Jilted John referred to as a moran?

No relation.

Deep cut the youtube pushed my way that I can't believe isn't anthologized more on 77 punk comps: The Wasps "Teenage Treats"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6svx8Qtcam0

The Fall

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

aww poor "Borstal Breakout"

Hooray for Subway Sect.

I voted Subway Sect in the end.

i always knew they were a big infuence on all the Fast Product / Postcard Scottish bands but didn't realise just how much until i read Hungry Beat.

https://www.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/titles/douglas-macintyre/hungry-beat/9781399600248/

Great read!

sad i missed this til now. alternative ulster/hong kong garden, even though closer to that era i woulda picked uhhh let's see what did i really want back in the day. probably buzzcocks and the jam, really.

fwiw if that X-Ray Spex song wasn't here I would've voted for Borstal Breakout

Been waiting for my copy of Hungry Beat for ages, can't wait to read it, and can't wait to see if it effects my decision to try to move ahead with a publishing project.

but regarding Subway Sect, being who I am, I think a LOT, i mean A LOT, about post-punk. What it is. What it means. Where it came from. Where it went etc.

disregarding america, where what we now call post-punk if often just as likely pre-punk or Television or Talking Heads or weird art-damaged proggy DIY releases from 1975 cleveland, I do look at the UK narrative separately, despite obvious influences and overlaps with america...

point is from what I've read Subway Sect is sort of where it started. The early days of UK punk here's this band that's wearing sweaters and sports coats and singing this literate stuff. Maybe it's just one version of punk, but important seeds are sown with them. Simultaneously add Siouxsie and the Slits. Then, and timelines get confused as it's all happening really quick, The Prefects and The Fall.

Follow this by Magazine and PiL and the gates are wide open.

A lot of these bands though, such as Subway Sect, the Fall, Prefects etc, existed for a year or two before getting their records out.

Dan, are you still in the business of releasing compilations or obscure artists? I imagine you could do justice to many unsung heroes.

I am very much not in that business. I wrote this in 2017: http://acuterecords.com/blog/?p=1114

I may be entering the business of publishing instead, for various reasons, though that would be on top of a few other businesses like a day job and a side-gig so who knows.

There are a lot of great labels doing great reissues these days, so I feel like it's covered pretty well.

america, where what we now call post-punk if often just as likely pre-punk or Television or Talking Heads or weird art-damaged proggy DIY releases from 1975 cleveland

ha yeah, i totally get this and have "felt" that but never thought enough to draw the line more cleanly.

despite being a new yorker I was always a bit UK-centric and like, didn't really get into the Talking Heads until well after I was a decent UK DIY type collector and it's pretty shocking to realize how much great post-punk is a reflection of that. Like uk post-punk is the influence or dub, reggae, jazz, funk, disco, krautrock etc into and w/ punk energy, but also the influence of Talking Heads, Television, No Wave, Pere Ubu etc.

so much of my historical perspective/ignorance/listening is right on this line and like i know maybe enough to see all the 76-78 divergence/coalition going on in uk music and i am AMAZED by all the cross pollination going on in there. so i end up getting super fascinated by like, what is monochrome set really doing in here at all? how would blitz kids even get spun off it? how is an outlier like bill nelson out there? (last two is just bowie lol)? why was american band friends of this uk band and went over, but not aware of usa band who did stuff more like themselves?

and looking at uk stuff i am always amazed how all them ppl knew/interacted with each other, so much more intensity

well UK is much smaller than US, and a lot of that US stuff came out on big labels like Sire and was promoted well. Then it's a question of what Rough Trade would have imports of?

D.I.Y.: Teenage Kicks - UK Pop I (1976-79)