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 SAINTS
I'm Stranded (Sire)
Eternally Yours (Sire)
With Radio Birdman, the Saints complete Australia's best known pair of punk bands. The Saints got more credit early in their career, although Birdman are most touted now. There's been all kinds of music under the Saints banner over the years, but these first two LPs, recorded with Ed Kuepper still in the band, are by far the best. I'm Stranded is full on guitar punk with simple, burning blasts. It's basic, primal, animalistic punk rock at its best. The second LP has similar songs but more complex production. Amazingly it integrates horns into the sound without losing punch a bit...just try "Know Your Product" for size if you have any doubts. Both these have stood up to hundreds of plays on my stereo and still sound great.

THE SCIENTISTS
Pink Album (EMI Custom)
I'm not going to pretend that I was hip enough to have picked up this record when it came out...few outside of Australia can make that claim. All I've got's a tape of it, but the fact that it was obscure or limited doesn't mean it didn't happen or doesn't count. This record features the Scientists playing punk pop before they started into their subsequent noisy grunge stuff. It's got a pile of really cool songs filled with teen angst. My favorite is the rocking "Walk The Plank", but they all connect great...kind of like a Perth version of the Radiators From Space but with better singing.
See Also: Blood Red River (Sympathy for the Record Industry)

SEX PISTOLS
Never Mind The Bollocks (Warner Bros)
In 1977 the music papers were full of stuff about all these punk bands in Britain...problem was I was in school in rural western Massachusetts and the network for imports wasn't at the point where shops out there got such bizarre objects as imported singles, so it was months before I heard the 12" single of "Anarchy In The UK" owned by the guy who ran the best record shop in town (the only band I could imagine sounding like that was the Who), and even longer before the Pistols LP was actually out on a US label so I could bring a copy home. I remember when I first played it I could only listen to about three songs because it seemed so intense, and then for the next few weeks I'd play a couple tracks a day until finally I understood what was going on and I went wild about it. Playing it now it's got this feeling of total familiarity and the songs almost feel like pop songs to me. A lot of this is due to what came after and how much wilder bands got in between, but at the time there was nothing like it. But although it's no longer that fast, it still has great songs and huge guitar to go with Johnny Rotten's great singing. All other Pistols LPs are shit rip-offs except the Flogging A Dead Horse record, which has some great single B sides and half the songs off Bollocks, so be sure you get the right one.

SHAM 69
Tell Us The Truth (Sire)
The First The Best and The Last (Polydor)
Sham always wanted to be the Sex Pistols, and they aped the sound pretty well...fat guitars, cockney singing and the whole bit. Tell Us The Truth is their first rabble rousing LP...one studio side, one live side. It starts off with a great bit with Jimmy Pursey's mom giving him a hard time and then bursts into the great "Family Life". From there on it doesn't let up much anywhere...just basic full on power chording punk rock. The First The Best And The Last is a UK compilation of singles spanning their career, and it's a great collection from the riotous first single "Borstal Breakout" through "Angels With Dirty Faces" and all the rest. Not subtle but great fun.

THE SKIDS
Scared To Dance (US Virgin release)
Here's another one where you want to get the US copy because they've included some better single tracks that improve it from the UK release. The Skids were Scotsmen and included Stuart Adamson, who later fronted Big Country. But the Skids were primarily driven by Richard Jobson, who at the time of this record was only 18 years old but had already read piles of books about the two world wars, and the Skids songs all reflected it with militaristic topics and music with a beat that sounds like troops marching at double time. For the most part, Jobson's throaty singing is totally unintelligible, but songs like the powerful "Into The Valley", "Sweet Suburbia", "Charles" and the driving "Melancholy Soldiers" still make a statement. This isn't really punk music, but it certainly rocks along...unusual stuff to be sure.
See Also: Sweet Suburbia: The Best of the Skids (Caroline)

THE SLITS
Cut (Antilles)
I'm still not sure about the Slits, but there's enough people who swear by 'em that I figure I better give 'em a mention. The Slits were three women with drummer Budgie (later of Siouxie And The Banshees), and they played a sort of off beat, twisted reggae. To me the drummer is the best part of the band, and he's really only guesting. I suspect that more than a little of the affection people have for this group lies in the photo of band members as nude mud wrestlers on the sleeve. Still, they're yet another part of the bizarre mix of different musical styles that all got tagged as punk in the late 70s, so they deserve a mention.

THE SPECIALS
The Specials (Two Tone)
Hard to believe how many different movements splintered off of punk in the years from 1978 to 1981. As soon as bands found that being branded as punk was a ticket to commercial oblivion they began to do anything to try to come up with a different angle and a different label. Many of these turns sucked, but some were surprisingly good. This Specials LP marked the advent of ska in the consciousness of people other than hardcore fans of Jamaican music. It's still the best ska record I've ever heard, thanks in no small part to the production keeping things rough and rugged. The slicked up followers like the Beat or Madness just didn't wash. There's a pile of tracks on this that I can listen to any time and get a kick out of 'em.

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS
Inflammable Material (Rough Trade)
Nobody's Heroes (Chrysalis)
Go For It (Chrysalis)
I love all the Stiff Little Fingers LPs (prior to their re-union, anyway), though the live ones are redundant and not really necessary. SLF steadily got more produced and pop sounding as their career went on, but they never reached a point where it was too slick...right up to their last record it was still really good. But there's no topping Inflammable Material, their incendiary first record and one of those rare records with such intensity that you really feel it when you first hear it. It's the best kind of punk...catchy melodies played with a gut level kick, loud, raw guitars, inspired singing/snarling and words that really have something to say. Nobody's Heroes has some great songs, too, but not that same level of fire that the first one had. Go For It also has a batch of terrific tracks, some more pop tasting stuff, but there are still songs to remember for a long time.

THE STRANGLERS
Rattus Norvegicus (A & M)
No More Heroes (A & M)
Black and White (A & M)
I really hated the Stranglers when they first came out because with their cheesy keyboards they sounded like the Doors. After letting them sink in though I found that the comparison didn't stick. If one of these records came out today there's no way you'd call it punk, but we were confused then, and since this stuff had a dark power to it and felt kind of threatening, there wasn't anything else to call it. It sure wasn't the Bee Gees. Even though the swirling keyboard based sound isn't my favorite, there's a lot of really good songs across these three records, songs that I'd have to rate among the classics of the time, like "Sometimes", "Hanging Around", "Grip", "Something Better Change", "No More Heroes", "Tank" or "Sweden" to name the absolute highlights.

SWELL MAPS
Collision Time (Rough Trade)
You wanna know how to make a noisy record sound good? Use Collision Time as a text book. It's a greatest hits LP (there's been another one since), which is kind of funny since they never had anything close to a hit. But it's coherent and powerful by comparison to their regulation LPs with great songs like "Read About Seymour", "Ammunition Train", "Midget Submarines", "Let's Build A Car" and "Blenheim Shots". It's wildly amateurish with all kinds of odd sounds and off key singing plus guitars that are barely in tune but somehow it succeeds brilliantly. It's a unique and indescribable sound, and you'll just have to trust me on this one and go for it.
See Also: International Rescue (Alive)

TALKING HEADS
Talking Heads 77 (Sire)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (Sire)
Another band that really isn't punk but got called one because they played CBGBs. But they were certainly new wave, and though it was arty, there was a lot to recommend about these first two records. I thought 77 was pretty accessible and easy to latch onto, but More Songs actually has more staying power and sounds better today. "Psycho Killer" was one of my fave songs in 1977...it's the typical quirky David Byrne sort of track, but they were doing it better on these two records than they ever did later.

TELEVISION
Marquee Moon (Elektra)
This is another one I feel obligated to mention though I personally don't like it. Television were another CBGBs band and are sort of like the dark side of the Talking Heads...where the Heads are art mixed with pop, Television is arty but brooding and dark. The songs are long and sprawling and don't give you much to hang onto.

JOHNNY THUNDERS
So Alone (Real)
Johnny Thunders is high on the list of underground heroes these days and lots of bands cover his songs with the Heartbreakers but I've never heard anyone cover anything he did on this record, and there's some great songs here. The band changes around from track to track, including at various times former Sex Pistols, Only Ones, Humble Pies and Thin Lizzies. It's Thunders at his blazing guitar best, and when he's paired with Steve Jones at his prime there's an extra kick that his Heartbreakers stuff couldn't even match. The best track is the scathing "London Boys", which counters the Pistols "New York" and contains some hysterical lines about Johnny Rotten needing someone to help to the bathroom. There's also the best cover of "Pipeline" ever done, the killer loser song "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" and the blistering "Leave Me Alone" (which is really the Dolls "Chatterbox" with a new name). There's more variety here than the Heartbreakers would have shown, but it doesn't hurt a bit.