Patricia Morrison

Back in 1987 I remember watching this music show on Saturday morning TV – in fact the same one I saw The Ramones on –  when a video came on for the new single, This Corrosion, by The Sisters Of Mercy.

Now they weren’t that well known at this time – although this single was to be a bit of a breakthrough for them – but I’d heard of them because at school I sat next to a guy in some classes who was really into them.

Watching it I thought it was great, I really liked that post-apocalyptic look and the song was cool, but what really stuck in my mind was the beautiful Goth girl who was the bass player for the band – Patricia Morrison of course.

Over the years as I got more and more into punk I was surprised to find her cropping up in numerous early punk groups – i.e. The Bags, Legal Weapon and Gun Club and then more recently playing with The Damned.

I’d have to say that that’s a pretty amazing ‘resume’ by any standards, working with such characters as Alice Bag, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Kid Congo Powers and Andrew Eldritch among others.

To this day I have a soft spot for that Goth girl look and it’s probably all down to Patricia Morrison.

 

The Bags – Discography

01. Survive 02. Babylonian Gorgon 03. We Don’t Need The English 04. We Will Bury You 05. TV Dinner 06. Violent Girl 07. Animal Call 08. Chainsaw 09. 7 and 7 Is 10. 1,2,3 11. Gluttony 12. In Love With Romance 13. Survive 14. Car Hell 15. Real Emotions 16. Bag Bondage 17. Disco’s Dead 18. Prowlers In The Night 19. We Will Bury You 20. Nothing’s Going On In Here

Legal Weapon – No Sorrow EP

01. No One Listens 02. Live My Way 03. No Sorrow 04. Pow Pow 05. Hostility

Gun Club/Fur Bible

Gun Club – from Las Vegas Story

01. Eternally Is Here 02. Stranger In Our Town 03. My Dreams 04. Give Up The Sun

Fur Bible

01. Plunder The Sun/Headbolt

Sisterhood – Gift

01. Jihad 02. Colours 03. Giving Ground 04. Finland Red, Egypt White 05. Rain From Heaven

Sisters Of Mercy

This Corrosion video

Patricia Morrison/The Damned

Patricia Morrison

01. The Living End 02. Love Never Dies 03. Untitled

The Damned – from Grave Disorder

01. Democracy 02. Song.com 03. She 04. Would You Be So Hot 05. Amen 06. Neverland

Jack Grisham

It’s time for another of my unpopular ‘punk rock personalities’ blogs – this time featuring Jack Grisham.

Jack Grisham is most famous as the singer of TSOL but has been the singer with various other groups – some punk, some not. He also stood for governor of California in 2003 and 2004.

TSOL are one of my personal favourites, at least in their original line up but as many of you will know they underwent various line up changes until by the late 80s/early 90s they were a pretty rubbish hard rock band with no original members.

Leaving TSOL in 1983 after the poor reception giving to the Beneath The Shadows album, Jack Grisham went on to be in the more keyboard-orientated groups Cathedral Of Tears and Tender Fury with TSOL drummer Todd Barnes, who had also left at the same time.

Later in the 90s he teamed up again with TSOL guitarist Ron Emory in The Joykiller, and went on to release three albums (four if you include the Best Of compilation).

Then in 2001 the original line-up of TSOL reformed – minus Todd Barnes who died in 1999 of drink and drug related problems – to release two albums in quick succession – Disappear and Divided We Stand – which were just as good as anything they released in the 80s.

Groups aren’t meant to do this, reunion albums, especially after an 18year gap, are supposed to be poor cash in attempts which fail to capture any of the original passion and inventiveness. I think the quality of these albums says a lot about TSOL.

Anyway, now the reformed line up have just released a third album, ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Free Downloads’ which is free for download from here – http://www.hurley.com/tsol

Jack Grisham is also currently in Jack Grisham and the West Coast Dukes where he takes on much more of a crooner role.

Jack Grisham

TSOL – 1980 demo
01.You Don’t Have To Die 02.Wash Away 03.80 Times 04.Superficial Love 05. You Don’t Have To Die 06.Abolish Government/Silent Majority 07.Peace Thru Power 08.Love Story

Cathedral Of Tears
09. A Situation Of…

Tender Fury
10.The Apartment 11.Talk About Living 12.Big E’s Night Move 13.Look Back In Anger

The Joykiller
14.Love You More Dead 15.Show Me The System 16.I Wanna Drink Over You 17.Unconscious

More Ants related stuff

This is a quick addendum to my previous blog concerning Adam and the Ants. Although he wasn’t in the original line-up, the member of the Ants who had the most creative input along with Adam Ant (continuing throughout Adam Ant’s solo career) was the guitarist Marco Pirroni.

Those who know their punk trivia/history will be aware that for the first gig that Siouxsie and the Banshees played at the 100 Club punk festival Marco Pirroni was on guitar, while Sid Vicious was on drums.

Marco was also in a couple of other groups as well before linking up with Adam Ant. These were the very punk rock Models and the more experimental/post-punk Rema Rema.

Here are the singles released by both these groups.

Models/Rema Rema

01.Models – Freeze 02.Models – Man Of The Year 03.Rema Rema – Feedback Song 04.Rema Rema – Rema Rema 05.Rema Rema – Instrumental 06.Rema Rema – Fond Affections

Darby Crash, John Lennon and Adam Ant

As I’m sure many of you will know, December 7th is the anniversary of Darby Crash’s death. He was supposed to have committed suicide, by taking a heroin overdose, in an attempt to immortalise himself and create another infamous rock ‘n’ roll legend of someone who lived fast and died young.

Of course the next day John Lennon was murdered, which of course dominated the news more than the suicide of an LA punk rocker ever could.

Now the death of John Lennon was a very significant event for me as a young kid. Up until that point I’d never really paid any attention to music at all – too busy playing with toy soldiers and reading war comics – but of course even I couldn’t fail to notice the huge amount of news coverage and pick up on the fact that obviously something momentous had happened that a lot of people were really affected by.

So I asked my dad what it was all about and as a way to explain he dug out his old Beatles records for me to listen to. I’d never even heard of the Beatles before but very quickly I became a huge fan and of course at this time there was a huge amount of Lennon’s solo stuff being released in the wake of his death, which I also got into.

After a while I then began to explore my dad’s record collection further and discovered all kinds of amazing music from the 50s and 60s – Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Jerry Lee Lewis, Beach Boys, The Hollies, The Searchers, The Byrds, Bob Dylan to name just a few.

Now that my mind had been opened to all these great artists and their music, I also began to be aware of what was happening around me in the current music scene and when my birthday came around I asked for my very first album as a birthday present. Adam and the Ants – Prince Charming. Yes, at that time I couldn’t imagine anything cooler than being a dandy highwayman.

Now admittedly in retrospect this was the album that killed the Ants cool image – probably because too many little boys who thought highwaymen were cool started listening to them, but up until that point they had a real cult following in that they seemed to inspire much more devotion in their fans than most other groups around. I remember seeing mainly older girls with those ‘Ant music for sex people’ badges and the band logo on the back of their jackets and feathers tied into their hair. There was a definite look that went along with being an Ants fan. Of course my mum would never buy me any of those style of clothes.

Now this actually ties back in with Darby Crash. At some point after the Germs had split up, Darby Crash had visited London and seen Adam and the Ants, which had really impressed him. When he got back to LA he formed the Darby Crash Band with Pat Smear and adopted a look very similar to that of the Ants.

So anyway, to mark the anniversary of Darby’s death and also my introduction to music here are the first two Germs singles (my bootleg copy of Lexicon Devil seems to have two extra tracks).

Germs singles

01.Forming 02.Sex Boy 03.Lexicon Devil 04.Circle One 05.No God 06.Lion’s Share 07.Manimal

And also, here are some early demos and singles by Adam and the Ants, from when they were still considered to be cool.

Adam and the Ants – Early singles and demos

01.Plastic Surgery 02.Deutscher Girls 03.Young Parisians 04.Lady 05.Zerox 06.Whip In My Valise 07.Cartrouble 08.Kick 09.Physical 10.Friends 11.Beat My Guest 12.Dirk Wears White Sox 13.Fat Fun 14.Hampstead 15.Punk In The Supermarket 16.Puerto Rican 17.Mice In Freefall 18.B Side Baby 19. It Doesn’t Matter 20. Il Duce 21.Fall In

And finally here is some footage of The Darby Crash Band and news coverage of his death.

By the way, I recently saw the Germs film What We Do Is Secret and while I was impressed that there has actually being a film made about the Germs, I have to say the film itself is far from impressive.

John ‘Speedo’ Reis

I went to see The Night Marchers, the other night, the new band of John ‘Speedo’ Reis, of Rocket From The Crypt fame who I first saw about 10 years ago.

It was an excellent night and the band was fantastic. Not surprisingly their sound was in the vein of that classic rock ‘n’ roll influenced punk that Speedo is famous for.

So here is a compilation of most of the various bands that he’s being in over the last 15 years or so, namely Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes, Sultans and Night Marchers.

This isn’t meant to be a ‘best of’ or anything like that, just a sample of stuff that I happened to have close to hand, as a way of a tribute to a great musician and performer.

The notable missing exceptions are Pitchfork and Drive Like Jehu, not because I don’t like them or because those groups tend to have a different sound to the others – more noisy post-hardcore sort of guitar stuff – but simply because I didn’t have any about when I was doing this.

Speedo Compilation part1

Speedo Compilation part2

Rocket From The Crypt – Middle/Born In ‘69/On A Rope/Carne Voodoo/SOS/This Bad Check Is Gonna Stick/I’m Not Invisible/I Wanna Know, What I Wanna Know/Outsider/

Hot Snakes – If Credit’s What Matters, I’ll Take Credit/Automatic Midnight/Salton City/

Sultans – It Meant Nothing/Hold You Down/Try To Forget You/Chances/I Don’t Care What She Thinks Of Me/Your Mouth Is Open And Your Eyes Are Shut/The Year Of Regret/

Night Marchers – Branded/I Wanna Deadbeat You/In Dead Sleep (I Snore zzzz)/ Jump In The Fire/Whose Lady R U/