OffsetGuitars.com

I got asked to do this when I was last active here but never got round to it. However, a journalist friend is writing a Post Punk Gazetteer (78-85) that aims to shed like on the the bands who aren't PiL, The Cure, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Joy Division etc. I have been helping him build up the listening index and it's been good rifling through old releases and try to make sense of them in a modern context. The real aim is to try and tease out the tracks that aren't museum pieces, that aren't just postcards from the past, it's cool listening to old stuff but it's cooler digging out the stuff that still stands up no matter how primitive it seems on the surface. Some stuff actually sounds better now while some very successful bands sound terribly dated, I pretty much despise most revisionist PP histories and compilations which all seem a bit Readers Digest.

Oh and some stuff I wanted to choose is isn't linkable so I'll need to upload it myself.

Btw I was a teenage Goth so things might get gloomy. But I plan to slip in some curve balls like the Michael O'Shea below.

So I plan to post few tracks when I can and if there is interest I'll keep it up and on and outward. So let me know what you think, tracks that hit you and tracks that you already love.

Feel free to post stuff here I know there must be great records I haven't heard. My plan is to mix it up between the forgotten and the obscure and I will probably ignore bands trying to be punk during this period.

Five or Six - Polar Exposure. a bit funeral in pace but I used to play this for folk to dance to. Adorable detuned feel to it, in hock to Joy Division but I'd argue that this has a vision of Pornography a year early. I remember John Peel playing this at the wrong speed which is easy to do as it 45rpm on the A and 33 on the B.

The Passage - Watching You Dance (seven inch b side version) This is the Lorraine vocal version which I like best. Members included Tony Friel from The Fall Mrk1 and the original Magazine keyboardist. Were regarded in period as a bit uncool but then again so were The Sound. Most folk will know their track Drugface because it was sampled by Moby.

Michael O'Shea - No Journeys End Off an excellent 12' Produced by Bruce Gilbert. Like a punchy Laraaji or DCD gone drone.

Robert Rental - ACC I may have banged on a bit in the past of my love for Robert Rental and Thomas Leer but I get such a kick that they both came from the same grim wee Scottish port. Man there are so many bands on this tip now.

So let me know what you think and if this is worth keeping up and pipe in with suggestions.

D

there is a site called the post punk progressive pop party, thep5.blogspot.com , that i frequent for old post-punk groups, especially ones that flew under the radar.

for more well know post-punk, real life and secondhand daylight by magazine are two of my fave albums from the "genre."

i'll have to think of more when i get home from work.

A friend of mine played me The Lines a few years ago. I don't know much about them.
I assume you already know them, but they might be a nice addition.
I think this song is great.

Mr. Peabody wrote:A friend of mine played me The Lines a few years ago. I don't know much about them.
I assume you already know them, but they might be a nice addition.
I think this song is great.

Yeah I know this, good choice, always stuck me as being in the same spirit as Young Marble Giants, Rico Conning went onto be a well quoted engineer for Coil, Swans etc. I saw them live as support once, possibly twice, hard to say as long ago and I was overly refreshed.

D

Don't know if you'd forgotten about it but I found this thread a couple weeks ago and have been checking out all the stuff I never heard before. Great thread, by the way and might help yourself out here

after reading that list, only one i could think of that was missing was maybe Romeo Void and Silicon Teens.

RuffiansFC wrote:after reading that list, only one i could think of that was missing was maybe Romeo Void and Silicon Teens.

It's missing loads but I actually had work to do

D

you covered a lot. would you consider post-punk a genre, a timeframe, or just a way of doing things? people have referred to my band as post-punk, but i don't know if that is a fair statement or just a lazy tag to explain a sound that isn't strictly punk, pop, or rock. wasn't the phrase basically a catch-all term to begin with?

RuffiansFC wrote:you covered a lot. would you consider post-punk a genre, a timeframe, or just a way of doing things? people have referred to my band as post-punk, but i don't know if that is a fair statement or just a lazy tag to explain a sound that isn't strictly punk, pop, or rock. wasn't the phrase basically a catch-all term to begin with?

All very tricky to define. Depends if you want to roll in the synth stuff as well which is an argument all of itself. I'm pretty loose on it. It's safe to say it was pretty much done by 85 in the UK at least but there were bands like Asylum Party still pretty much on a Post Punk path quite late on in Europe and a lot of bands got rolled into what became EBM (and awful Goth bands with names like the Sphinxes of Endulin). One thing is for sure that people used to take the piss out of me for having masses of this stuff (there goes David back to his Batcave) and maybe only the last eight years have the sniggers stopped, I suppose the music had finally devolved itself from the haircuts.

For me it was and I suppose is a philosophy, for me Punk itself wasn't as interesting as what the idea of Punk made possible, I grew quickly bored with the gobbing three chorders. This idea could manifest in a DIY culture, it could empower odd left field ideas, it released the non musicians to make music, empowered perverted ideas, it sucked in other genres and influences like a (often very) black hole. That Post Punk is as likely to be influenced by Disco, as it is by Classical, as it is by Symbolist Poetry, maybe even all at once, is the great strength of the time.

Then again, you can see the ideas running through techno and other forms of electronic music.

As a side note a modern band I think carries the spirit well is Led Er Est, they sound both old and new. I can't wait for their new album this month because they are changing their sound up a bit.

D

Hard to think of stuff you might not be familiar with, but here's a couple of obscurities culled from my memory and old tapes of John Peel shows from the post-punk era.

(Not sure if the link will work, but here goes) Short Strings was the title track of an EP by Twisted Hand. My pal Peter was a roadie for The Fall during their early brilliant period and Fall drummer Mike Leigh (no, not that Mike Leigh) sat in with his band for this rare slice of wax. I had an idea Martin Bramah might've played guitar on it too, but google soon disabused me of that once fine notion. If you follow the link take the opportunity to remind yourself of the glory that is Fiery Jack. I live on pies-uh!

I heard In The Army by Blah Blah Blah on Peel one night and went out and bought it next time I was in town. I still like the singer's obvious ad libbing towards the end.

Not sure if this actually fits the text-book definition of post-punk - other than obviously having come out after punk (in 1980) - but it's so glorious that anyone who hasn't heard it already needs to right fucking now! : Holland Tunnel Dive.

The Door & The Window may well be The Worst Band I've ever heard, but I'll always have a soft spot for them.

Zip Nolan by The Cult Figures is maybe a bit too cheerful for this thread, but post-punk wasn't all that doom and gloom David favours. Some of those post-punks had a bit of joie de vivre about them. Can't find Zip Nolan on Youtube, so this'll have to do instead.

Some of The Swell Maps were involved in the Cult Figures. Seems like a good excuse to have a listen to Let's Build A Car. If that doesn't inspire a 'How can I get this guitar sound?' thread I don't know what will!

Remember Patrik Fitzgerald? I do! Not surprising as he was on Peel most nights throughout 1978-79. He seems to have emulated The Incredible String Band's "fame-to-obscurity ratio" latterly, but he remains living proof that you can do post-punk with an acoustic guitar. Here's All Sewn Up.

Not that obscure, but always worth a listen, two tracks on Edinburgh's Fast Product Where Were You? and Adultery. The latter is probably my favourite recording ever to have come out of Scotland and seems like an apt place to say goodnight.

Maybe more people should hear Lifetones?
This Heat could always use more listeners too.

Blam Blam Blam would fit your parameters, I think- here's a single of theirs from '81 that I've never stopped liking:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJbiu4l ... re=related

There is this new band that caught my eye, dont know if they can be called post punk or not,they're called savages, female fronted.

unfortunately i cant access youtube now but they are on there ....

A few bands that started as punk bands, but evolved into something else:

The Sleepers - Los Gatos

Middle Class - The Call

Die Kreuzen - Among The Ruins

On phone so brief;

Ulrich that Implog track is superb and one of the only time I ever engaged one of those record finding services you used to see pre Internet. A guy at a record fair told me I'd like them but never had them himself. Both that 12 and the she creatures seven are amazing records.

And oh Patrick Fitzgerald, reminds you of how punk threw up all these quirky types, most of them were strictly amateur and unsuccessful but remember Jane & Barton who had a big independent hit with (the much covered) A Fine Day.

Blacktiger; totally Forgot The Sleepers album, singer always reminded me of Mark Goldthorpe of Sheffield band Artery.

Lots of cool stuff posted here.

D