Originally published in Noise for Heroes #21 by Steve Gardner

Adverts - Costello, Elvis  |  Damned - Hollywood Brats  |  Jam - Only Ones
Radiators from Space - Ruts  |  Saints - Thunders, Johnny  |  UK Subs - Yachts

THE DAMNED
Damned Damned Damned (Stiff)
Machine Gun Etiquette (Chiswick)
I bought the first Damned LP on Stiff from a Wherehouse chain shop import bin in 1978. At the time I'd never heard anything so raw sounding, including the first Sex Pistols record. Unused to the wild production style, I took several months to absorb it all; at first it was some of the slower tracks like "Fan Club", with it's killer guitar hook, that caught my interest, but as time went on it became obvious that tracks like the hammering "New Rose", "Neat Neat Neat" and "So Messed Up" were the real aces. In a year's time I was playing this LP constantly, and now it's apparent that it's one of the punk LPs that has aged most gracefully...it still sounds great today with wild drumming, great hot guitar licks from Brian James, and some killer songs. How anybody could listen to this and say that punks couldn't play is beyond me! By the time of their third LP, Machine Gun Etiquette, the Damned had split up and reformed several times, and now had Captain Sensible moving up to replace Brian James on guitar. Although it might have been expected that the band would have matured some by now, little of the sort had in fact happened. There are some more sophisticated songs with more complicated structures, but basically it's more of the same rave up stuff, especially with "Love Song", "Plan 9 Channel 7" and "Smash It Up" as signatures.

THE DEAD BOYS
Young Loud And Snotty (Sire)
We Have Come For Your Children (Sire)
Cleveland's Dead Boys moved to New York almost at the start of their career and quickly established themselves as the hardest and nastiest of the CBGBs bands signed to Sire. For a while they swapped rock and roll headlines with the Pistols with one incident after another, culminating in a member getting stabbed. Their style was a great metallic punk sound epitomized by the classic "Sonic Reducer" from the first LP. Cheetah Chrome spilled out some of the toughest, nastiest guitar ever heard at that point, and Stiv Bators had the snottiest vocal style of all the American bands. Their songs could be pretty inflammatory; imagine requesting "Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth" from your local station! But at the same time, they understood the need for hooks in songs, and they've got some great ones. On the second LP, the sound was more produced and a little less raw, but there are still lots of great moments like "Third Generation Nation", "Ain't It Fun", or the monstrous "Son Of Sam".

THE DICKIES
The Incredible Shrinking Dickies (A & M)
The first time I heard this record, I figured there was just no way a band could play any faster. When thrash came along that was proved wrong, but few bands have ever played songs with pop hooks this fast. It's totally silly cartoon punk of the lowest caliber, but it's so hokey it's like the movie Airplane...it becomes great. Their 100 mph version of "Paranoid" is one of the greatest punk covers ever, and some of their own songs like "You Drive Me Ape" are as good. They couldn't continue to match this brilliance though as their second LP had only a couple of good tracks and now they're just plain stupid.
See Also: Still Got Live, Even If You Don't Want It (Roir)

THE DIODES
The Diodes (CBS)
Canada's entry in the hot 100, the Diodes actually had quite a few records but this is the only one I've heard that I'd recommend. And it's a great one. It starts with their killer version of the Cyrcle's folk/pop classic "Red Rubber Ball", and it maintains the pace through a batch of their own cool tunes like "Child Star", "Blonde Fever" or "Behind Those Eyes". As with a lot of records from these days the sound is a little confused...the Diodes here sound like a early 70s heavy rock band blended with the Ramones. Lots of good power pop vocal harmonies add to the confusion.
See Also: Tired of Waking Up Tired (Anagram)

THE DRONES
Further Temptations (Valer)
Aside from the fact that this is a great punk record, I love it because I got it at the swap meet in front of the Capitol Records building in Hollywood for 49 cents when it first came out and now people are paying outrageous sums for it. Every review I ever read of it (and there weren't many) panned it, but I can't figure out why...it's got the same kind of chugging rhythm section that made the Vibrators so great, and the songs are real catchy Ramones-type tunes with a hot guitar sound. The singer's got a period-perfect Cockney-yobbo voice. The Stooges-riffing in "Movement" and the racy guitars of "Look Alikes" are the highlights, but there's plenty else to hang your hat on here.

EATER
The Album (The Label)
This is probably overrated, but it's interesting to hear the racket made by a bunch of teenagers from the late 70s making it to record. The main problem Eater had was that they had a crappy Fender guitar sound with next to no distortion, which makes things a little weedy, but you can rely on the bass to drive things along. If the guitar could match the Drones, this record would be on a similar level with theirs. I list it here primarily because it's a good sample of some of the more run-of-the-mill dole queue punk rock.
See Also: All of Eater (Creative Man)
The Complete Eater (Anagram)

EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS
Life On The Line (Captain Oi!)
Hard to figure these guys...they started with an OK record called Teenage Depression which was a weird mix of live and studio stuff that showed promise but not much more, then hit huge with this record, and subsequently slid into oblivion behind a series of defections and horrible producer choices. On this LP, Eddie And The Hot Rods are probably better described as a high-octane pub-rock band than a punk band, but they sure did some great songs, starting with the brilliant "Do Anything You Wanna Do" but continuing through "Quit This Town", "What's Really Going On", "Ignore Them" and the title song. Singer Barrie Masters later adopted a style that sounded really fakey (much like the change in the Who's Roger Daltry as he got older), but on this record the singing sounds real and urgent. Great stuff.
See Also: Teenage Depression (Edsel)

THE FALL
Live At The Witch Trials (Step Forward)
To me the Fall were too dry to really be contenders, but lots of other people thought (and still think) they were fabulous, so I figure I ought to list them here to be complete and let you make up your own mind. These songs definitely do not have pop hooks; they feature Mark Smith talking the lyrics over the top of scratchy guitars and mercilessly overplayed drums...a fill at the end of every vocal line and no two the same. The structure of things is rock and roll, but like a lot of noise bands today, the rhythm foundation is rock and roll while the vocals and guitar are off doing other things. I don't know if I'd say the Fall were ahead of their time; it's more like they were off to the side of it.

GANG OF FOUR
Entertainment (Warner Bros)
Although this is a terrific LP, I can't help but look at it as marking the end of the seventies punk era...it seemed like this was the record that made critics convinced that it was safe to go looking for music that wasn't bristling with energy and speed. Gang Of Four were followed as press darlings by Joy Division, then by the Human League, then by OMD, then Soft Cell, then Boy George and the slide still hasn't ended in the UK. But Entertainment was a pretty amazing accomplishment...at the time it was virtually a brand new style of music; a sort of funk based punk rock with this sharp edged, jarring guitar sound and highly political lyrics. And unlike most bands that reach for a dramatically different style, Gang Of Four made something really good and listenable. Except for the Mekons first LP, there really isn't another record out there that sounds comparable to this.

GENERATION X
Generation X (Chrysalis)
Here's another one where you have to be sure to get the US copy. Funny how the US labels screwed us by putting out all the weakest punk songs as singles but on the LPs, they regularly replaced softer tracks with much better songs available only as singles in the UK. That's the case here...this thing's loaded with the best of Generation X all on one record. Yeah, it's Billy Idol singing, but he's a 17 year old kid here, and MTV hasn't made his head too fat yet. These songs have a great feel for pop hooks and they convey the sense of teenage rebellion that drove punk rock about as well as any record ever made. Compare this to the amateurish Eater and it's amazing to think that a bunch of guys under twenty could put together such a great set of material. Awesome. Warning...all other Gen X records are lame.

THE HEARTBREAKERS
L.A.M.F. Revisited (Track)
There was much moaning for many years about how the first Heartbreakers LP was ruined by a shoddy mix, so celebrations were in order when this version remixed by Johnny Thunders and Tony James came out in 1984. It's basically the same record as the original L.A.M.F. (it's also been re-sequenced) but it sounds so much ballsier that there's no point in looking for the original. This is the basic set of songs that Thunders played for most of his career, all written in a burst in the mid 70s. It's amazing how he could come up with such a great batch of tracks and then write only about four more good songs the rest of his life. But it's all here, the slashing classic Thunders guitar style and snotty vocals. This record is one of the ten best ever.

RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS
Blank Generation (Sire)
Richard Hell was a co-founder of Television and another CBGB alumnus, but his approach was much more art oriented than a lot of the other bands from that club. As a result, this record has to be approached with a jaundiced eye...I look at it as an important artifact to give a well rounded view of what was going on, but that doesn't mean I play it a whole lot. "Blank Generation" is a pretty great song, and "Love Comes In Spurts" is good for a few snickers, but the rest of it is kind of average.

HOLLYWOOD BRATS
Hollywood Brats (Cherry Red)
Recorded in 1975, released in 1980 and still ahead of its time today, this is a fantastic record of snotty, glam punk with Thunders-like guitar, New York Dolls styled rock and roll songs, and great lyrics of life in the gutter. Totally brilliant from the opening "Chez Maximes" to the closing blast of "Sick On You", if someone had gotten this out in 1977 it would have taken a place next to the greats of punk rock records. As it was it was a little too late and has been ignored ever since. It's interesting to note that Casino Steel went on to play in the Boys and several of these songs are on the first Boys LP in radically different form.