Jul 032011
Maybe those English weren’t so bad after all. Lots of great stuff in here. Elvis’ “Watching the Detectives” is worth it alone.
Maybe those English weren’t so bad after all. Lots of great stuff in here. Elvis’ “Watching the Detectives” is worth it alone.
The title should be “The Revolution of ’77”. My favourite moment is Joe Strummer falling ass backwards into the drum riser. ouch!
Very cool, machinery. Is it too late to rejoin the empire?
Surprised by how much I enjoyed that New Order song.
I love how the Steve Coogan — who did Tony Wilson in 24-hour Party People — totally nailed the cadence, etc …
What often gets overlooked is the influence that Peter Hammill – lead singer of the prog group Van Der Graaf Generator – had on the early UK punk scene. In February 1975 he released a fairly popular album under the guise of Rikki Nadir called Nadir’s Big Chance which had a few protopunk songs. Johnny Rotten once called it a favorite. This was a full year before the Ramones released their first album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hAb5RJfYds
I’d never heard of that album, tonyola. That song reminds me of something another proto-punk influence in the UK, Hawkwind, might have done. Obviously punk didn’t come from a vacuum, as some at Year 0 might have liked people to think.
I’ve got a VGG album that’s pretty good, but there’s a Peter Hammill song I’ve been searching for for years – it was from some benefit compilation for WOMAD or some other organization that helped Peter Gabriel attain rock ‘n roll sainthood. I used to have it on cassette – XTC had a song on it, some “World Music” artists, maybe Talking Heads… The Hammill song was a standout, but I don’t recall much about it other than the fact that at the time I’d never heard of the guy and this slow burn, art-punk song was a keeper.
Ah, this may be the song I was looking for:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEnmXD7ZQoE
Go Google!
Van der Graaf Generator was always something of an acquired taste – I like them at least up to the late ’70s but it’s hard for some people to get past the turgid poetry and Hammill’s doomy, hoarse, and overwrought vocals. Even hard-core progheads can’t agree on VDGG’s merits. I think H to He and Pawn Hearts are great albums but I don’t try to inflict them on friends. Hammill also had a long-standing and interesting solo career alongside VDGG.
Hey, just keepin’ it All-American for a few minutes. This one goes out to andyr and dbuskirk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf3KG8VAtJg