The roots of folk-punk!?

I went to see Flogging Molly this weekend and had a great time, the band was fantastic live and drinking excessively seems to be par for the course when watching these sort of Irish folk-punk bands.

So, I wanted to do something on my blog this week to tie in with this.

The Pogues were probably the group who pioneered this type of music and again they are another fantastic live act who I’ve been lucky enough to see.

Of course Shane MacGowan first started off in The Nipple Erectors – later The Nips – who played a typical late 70s style punk but with a rockabilly influence.

But what’s interesting is that fellow band member Shanne Bradley also went on to be in another folk/punk group around in the 80s – The Men They Couldn’t Hang.

I guess maybe the idea of crossing folk with punk may have first started within The Nips?

The Nips

01. King Of The Bop 02. Nervous Wreck 03. So Pissed Off 04. Stavordale Rd, N5 05. Venus In Bother Boots 06. Fuss & Bother 07. All The Time In The World 08. Private Eye 09. Gabrielle 10. Vengeance

Also, when I was thinking about this blog I discovered that Flogging Molly front man Dave King was previously in another band, in this case heavy metal group Fastway – which also featured Motorhead guitarist Fast Eddie Clarke.

Now I recognised the group immediately because they had done the soundtrack to this cheesy horror film from 1986 called Trick or Treat which had enjoyed a certain kitsch vogue among me and my friends.

The reason for this was because it was just so ‘Heavy Metal’ – the basic story line was something like metal star sells his soul to the devil and dies, but can come back to life if the secret occult message in his last record is played backwards. Teenage fan goes and does just that with ‘hilarious consequences’. The film even had a cameo from Ozzy Osbourne.

So in danger of turning my blog into a film soundtrack site here is the soundtrack to Trick Or Treat – just don’t play it backwards.

Trick Or Treat

01. Trick Or Treat 02. After Midnight 03. Don’t Stop The Fight 04. Stand Up 05. Tear Down The Walls 06. Get Tough 07. Hold On The Night 08. Heft 09. If You Could See

Halloween Horror Double Feature

Just to celebrate Halloween here are a couple of horror related items.

Return Of The Living Dead is a horror comedy from 1985.

I remember seeing it around this time as one of my friends had got a pirate video of it from somewhere.

The film is great, very funny and full of memorable quotes, while still remaining quite scary in places.

But of course what most impressed me most and my adolescent friends at this time was when the punk girl takes all her clothes off. No doubt some Freudian psychologist could associate my liking of punk music with this moment.

It was directed by Dan O’Bannon who was also involved in the Alien films, John Carpenter’s Dark Star and also a British Sci-Fi/Horror film called Lifeforce, which happened to feature in much of it a nude Mathilda May, who so impressed the Jamming Arabs they wrote a song about her.

Anyway, the soundtrack to Return Of The Living Dead is a great compilation featuring songs by some of the best Punk/Goth/Death Rock type bands around at that time, plus a solo track from Roky Erickson of 13th Floor Elevators fame.

Return Of The Living Dead Soundtrack

The Cramps – Surfin’ Dead / 45 Grave – Party Time / TSOL – Nothing For You / Flesh Eaters – Eyes Without A Face / Roky Erickson – Burn In The Flames / The Damned – Dead Beat Dance / Tall Boys – Take A Walk / Jet Black Berries – Love Under Will / SSQ – Tonight (We’ll Make Love Until We Die) / SSQ – Trash’s Theme

Second up is one of those compilations with all those one-off kitsch novelty songs that seemed to enjoy a certain popularity in the 50s and 60s. Great for a bit of fun at a Halloween party if anyone’s planning on having one.

Halloween Compilation

The Duponts – Screamin’ Ball (At Dracula Hall) / Billy DeMarco & Count Dracula – Drac’s Back / The Revels – Midnight Stroll / Virgil Holmes – Ghost Train / The Verdicts – The Mummy’s Ball / The Hollywood Flames – Frankenstein’s Den / Round Robin – I’m The Wolfman / The Nu-Trends – Spooksville / Milton DeLugg & The All Stars – Munster’s Theme / John Zacherle – Coolest Little Monster / Billy Doggett – Monster Party / The Jayhawks – The Creature (From Outer Space) / The Kac-ties – Mr Werewolf / Allan Sherman – My Son The Vampire / Bobby Please & The Pleasers – The Monster / The Fiends – Addams Family Theme / Billy Lee Riley – Nightmare Mash / Sonny Richard’s Panics with Cindy & Misty – The VooDoo Walk / Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Feast Of The Mau Mau / The Swingin’ Phillies – Frankenstein’s Party / The Monotones – Legend Of Sleepy Hollow / Bo Diddley – Bo Meets The Monster / Jackie Morningstar – Rockin’ In The Graveyard / Bobby Boris Pickett & The Crypt Kickers – Monster Mash / Orvin Yoes – The Vampire /

River’s Edge

River’s Edge was an independent American cult film from 1986, although I probably didn’t see it until 1988 on video. The film’s tag line of “The most controversial film you will see this year” was probably a key factor in what drew me to it.

What I really liked about the film was that the characters in it really reminded me of my group of friends a lot – not that we were ever involved with any murders of course – but the way they dressed, the music they listened to and the general way they hung out together.

At the time, I thought Keanu Reeves would go on to be this really cool star of independent cinema, then next year Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure came out - although I have to admit I liked that too.

The soundtrack was also great, mainly thrash metal – Slayer, Hallows Eve, Fates Warning – but it also had tracks by Agent Orange and The Wipers, which is probably the first time I heard these groups.

River’s Edge OST

Hallow’s Eve – Lethal Tendencies/Slayer – Die By The Sword/Fate’s Warning – Kyrie Eleison/ Slayer – Captor Of Sin/Slayer – Evil Has No Boundries/Agent Orange – Fire In The Rain/Slayer – Tormentor/The Wipers – Let Me Know/Burning Spear – Happy Day 

Punk Veteranos

The Plugz were an early LA punk group that formed in 1978. What set them apart from many of the other bands around at that time was that the group members of The Plugz (like The Zeros) were hispanic.

This had a direct effect on their musical style with their punk sound being mixed up with Mexican influences.

They released two albums – Electrify Me (1979) and Better Luck (1981) – as well as appearing on the Repo Man soundtrack.

Electrify Me

01. A Gain A Loss 02. The Cause 03. Electrify Me 04. Satisfied Die 05. La Bamba 06. Adolescent 07. Braintime 08. Wordless 09. Let Go 10. Infection 11. Berzerktown

Better Luck

01. Better Luck 02. Red Eye #9 03. Achin’ 04. American 05. In The Wait 06. Clavo y la Cruz 07. Blue Sofa 08. Touch For Cash 09. Gas Line 10. Cesar’s Song 11. Shifting Heart 12. No Love

Changing their name to Los Cruzados in 1984 they went on to play more blues/rock-orientated style music.

Members later went on to form Tito and Tarantula who had songs appearing on the soundtracks to two Robert Rodriguez films – Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn – with the band also making a cameo appearance in From Dusk Till Dawn as the bar band in the ‘Titty Twister’.

Tarantism

01. After Dark* 02. Smiling Karen 03. Slippin’ And Slidin’ 04. Strange Face Of Love^ 05. Angry Cockroaches* 06. Back To The House^ 07. Jupiter 08. Sweet Cycle 09. Flying In My Sleep 10. Killing Just For Fun

^ Desperado
* From Dusk Till Dawn

Everything I know I learned from TV

When I was first starting to get more interested in the American Hardcore side of punk it was really hard for a teenage kid living in a small town in the UK to find out much about it at all.

However in about 1987 I happened to see a couple of films on late night TV that gave me an excellent introduction to some of the bands that were/had been about on the American punk scene.

These films were Suburbia (1984) by Penelope Spheeris – who was also director of punk documentary ‘The Decline of Western Civilisation’ and who had later fame with Wayne’s World – and Repo Man (1984) by British director Alex Cox who had also directed the Sid & Nancy (1986) film, which I also saw on video around about this time.

I made an effort to track down and check out as many of the groups as possible who appeared on the soundtracks to these films and it was from this that I first found out about groups like TSOL, Vandals, DI, Plugz and the Circle Jerks – who appeared on both the soundtracks of the Alex Cox films.

As a side note Alex Cox directed another ‘punk’ film – Straight to Hell – that featured Joe Strummer, The Pogues and Courtney Love in starring roles.

It wasn’t long after this in 1988 that Alex Cox began hosting a late night TV series called Moviedrome, which showed various cult movies. I was an avid fan watching as many of these films as I could and it’s probably true to say that this had as great an influence on my taste in movies and was responsible for introducing me to the world of weird, underground film-making as much as punk was responsible for introducing me to alternative, underground music.

Repo Man

01. Repo Man – Iggy Pop 02. TV Party – Black Flag 03. Institutionalised – Suicidal Tendencies 04. Coup d’Etat – Circle Jerks 05. Clavo y la Cruz – The Plugz 06. Pablo Picasso – Burning Sensations 07. Let’s Have A War – Fear 08. When The Shit Hits The Fan – Circle Jerks 09. Hombre Secreto (Secret Agent Man) – The Plugz 10. Bad Man – Juicy Bananas 11. Reel Ten – The Plugz

Suburbia

01. Richard Hung Himself – D.I. 02. Wash Away – TSOL 03. Darker My Love – TSOL 04. Legend Of Pat Brown – The Vandals 05. Picking Up Joe 06. Ethan’s Rescue 07. Punk Parade 08. Sheila’s Song 09. Keep Off The Grass 10. Garage Raids 11. T.R. Revisited 12. Suburbia

Sid & Nancy

01. Love Kills – Joe Strummer 02. Haunted – The Pogues 03. Pleasue and Pain – Steve Jones 04. Chinese Choppers – Pray For Rain 05. Love Kills – Circle Jerks 06. Off The Boat – Pray For Rain 07. Dum Dum Club – Joe Strummer 08. Burning Room – Pray For Rain 09. She Never Took No For An Answer – John Cale 10. Junk – The Pogues 11. I Wanna Be Your Dog – Gary Oldman 12. My Way – Gary Oldman 13. Taxi To Heaven – Pray For Rain