To round off my Hard-Ons posts here is a 12-inch single from 1991 of Henry Rollins with the Hard-Ons doing a cover of a classic AC/DC song.
01. Let There Be Rock
02. Carry Me Down
Archive for the ‘Australia’ Category
Henry Rollins with the Hard-Ons: Another 12 inches
August 16, 2009The Hard-Ons 1984-1987: A full 12 inches
August 16, 2009This is kind of a companion piece to my last post about the Hard-Ons, which was a collection of their early singles.
The Worst Of… album is a collection of rare/unreleased tracks from their very beginnings, 1984 to 1987, and contains quite a few cover versions.
01. All Set To Go
02. Love Song For Cindy
03. Coffs Harbour Blues
04. School Days
05. It’s Cold Outside
06. Then I Kissed Her (Arabic)
07. By My Side
08. I’ll Come Again
09. Fifteen
10. Keish’s New Song
11. From My Window
12. Rock ‘N’ Roll All Nite
The Hard-Ons 1985-1991: The full 7 inches
April 10, 2009(If that title doesn’t get my blogspot more hits then I don’t know what will).
The Hard-Ons were one of my favourite groups in that late 80s-early 90s period, playing melodic pop-punk with a bit of a metal edge to some of their songs.
I saw them a few times (once with the Senseless Things) and eagerly awaited any new releases by them.
Then in 1992 they released the album Too Far Gone – it had a lot more of a grunge/metal sound to it than their earlier releases and the pop-punk element seemed to have gone.
Combined with a really lacklustre gig they played on that tour, when they just didn’t seem to care and finished early, I found myself losing interest.
After that the Hard-Ons just seemed to disappear and I assumed that it was just the inevitable end of a great group.
Imagine my surprise then a couple of years ago when I picked up my local paper to see the Hard-Ons were playing a gig that night in my home area.
A couple of hours internet surfing later and I realised that there were four albums (two just being released) out of some really great stuff that I’d had no idea about and they had been active again since about 2000.
In fact Boss Tuneage have just released a 25th Anniversary best of the Hard-Ons album and there has just being a Stupids/Hard-Ons mini-tour, (nowhere near where I live mind).
Anyway, here are their early singles from the first period.
01. Surfin’ On My Face
02. Bye Bye Girl
03. There Was A Time
04. Excuses
05. Girl In The Sweater
06. I Heard Her Call My Name
07. Ferdi’s Song
08. All Set To Go
09. Busted
10. Suck ‘n’ Swallow
11. Just Being With You
12. Growing Old
13. Where Did She Come From?
14. Get Out Of My House
15. Dull
16. Sri Lanka
Highway To Hell
June 10, 2008
I’ve noticed that at the end of this month Boss Tuneage is releasing a comprehensive discography of Stupids material, however the tracks from this special 10″ souvenir of the Australian Highway to Hell tour, undertaken with the Hard-Ons, are not included – probably because it’s not strictly just Stupids and Hard-Ons material but rather a number of cover songs performed by various members of those groups and their road crews.
There was always a lot of humour running through both the Stupids and Hard-Ons material – setting them apart from many of their more doom-laden crusty contemporaries – as can be seen by the between track banter on this record. You can really sense just how much fun they had recording this.
The Stupids were one of the first British groups to be heavily influenced by the American hardcore sound and likewise were probably the first British skate punk group.
To my mind they are one of the most important groups of the UK hardcore scene and their stuff is absolutely essential.
