great punk shits O
k creeps, this column isn't intended as anything other than a celebration of the dishwater left over after the Stooges dirtied the sink and the gunk that Obscure Treats of the “Punk Rock” Era. grew from between the toes of the Pistols Part One of an irregular series by Sir Dugless. and the Clash: basically the lowest common denominators of a scorned music movement… the music press would have us believe that this punk rock thing was something that hung around in the trendy clubs of London and New York in the late seventies until people got tired of heroin and self-hate and got back into cocaine and going to discos. The reality is that before and after the mass media “punk heyday” (i.e. punk started with the Ramones and ended with the Pistols at Winterland) in thousands of garages and awful dives, people were hammering out an amazing array of punk related music that crawls out of the speakers like so much toxic gunk. Now, raise your tankards scumbags and stick your heads in the mire… THIS ISSUE'S CANDIDATES FOR THE HALLS OF PUNK ROCK VALHALLA….
CRISIS
THE SCREAMING MEE MEES
By '79 the Clash were bona-fide major label rock stars with all the trappings of success. Crisis on the other hand were their polar opposite, a real street level socialist punk band who manned the barricades for the Socialist Workers Party's demonstrations and regularly got into “scraps” with the local Nazi boneheads and even the pigs. Some might even argue that Crisis were more “authentic” than Strummer and Co., but really “authenticity” has no place in rock 'n' roll - that's for fuckin' stamp collectors man. What Crisis are is a great band who do what they do with ruthless efficiency and this scabrous blast of Commie rock 'n' roll is poetry in motion and probably their best song. The title says it all; it's a minute and a half of tight, feisty punk rock with great sneering vocals. The lyrics are pure poetry, there's a great line about the coppers being given “the freedom to tread on your balls” and it is the most perfect use of the word “balls” in a rock 'n' roll song ever. Unfortunately Crisis would disband after one “ruck” too many and most of 'em would go on to be grumpy goths in Death In June, sad really. Crisis
“HOT SODY”
“COMMITTED TO SUICIDE”
Hot damn! Imagine a bunch of kids left in a stinkin' basement with nothing to drink but the most foulest of warm sugar water as relayed through a kind of formless folk rockism, the ineptitude of which surpasses that of the most clumsiest of Mekons or Fall songs. This is the kind of sound that the noted scholar, Johan Kugelberg, refers to as “primitive shit music”. It's probably an apt term but the very innocence and lack of pretence of “Hot Sody” really makes it a candidate here. The Screaming Mee Mees are oblivious to everything except that their soda can is half full and has been left in the sun. As they say, “It Ain't No Fun”. Not to be confused with eighties Kiwis The Screaming Meemees.
When I was a wee fucker, I moved to Melbourne and The Sick Things were THE legendary group. Forget The News or any of those private school art groups, The Sick Things sounded like a huge mental prolapse. Their set of songs recorded to various unfortunate tape recorders over a 12 month period are guttural in the extreme. However, above the cacophony is a melodic resonance that places them beyond the realms of pure noise. If, as Lester bangs says, rock 'n' roll is a “raw wail from the guts” then “Commited to Suicide” is a whacking great tumour in the very same gut.
“PC 1984”
THE SICK THINGS
[Next issue we'll be paying a visit to THE NUNS, NY NIGGERS, DETENTION and DIETER MEIER.]