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

The ‘Tone

The ‘Tone were a British group of the 90s which included Ben Corrigan (vocals/guitar) who had previously being in Thatcher On Acid and Schwatzeneggar (with Steve Ignorant). Both those groups got lumped in with the Anarcho-Punk thing but had a much more melodic sound than you would normally associate with bands of that ilk.

The ‘Tone weren’t overtly political and had a more of a classic punk sound with ska influences. There used to be a bit of joking about how similar sounding they were to The Clash, especially with a lot of their intros, but then is it such a bad thing to sound like a great group?

This is actually a CD compilation made up of their three singles and a bonus track or two thrown in.

Wide Eyes and Nonsense

01. This Is A High
02. Nine To Life
03. Walking Down The Road
04. Virtual Punk
05. Pauline
06. Roadkill
07. Alright
08. Falling Over
09. Busy Being Bored
10. Bloody
11. Don’t Think
12. Back To Basics

Raise your glasses to Toast

Toast were a great British group from the mid-90s that seemed to have a very brief career involving four 7″ releases (on Damaged Goods and Crackle Records) and some infamous live shows.

They played fast snotty-nosed punk rock with songs about drinking and not getting on with girlfriends.

Toast were a great live act and were one of those groups that had that real ‘punk-rock’ attitude of liking to piss people off and baiting the audience while getting drunk.

I saw Toast when they supported the Descendents on their 1996 UK reunion tour. By the second song the lead singer had already been involved in fisticuffs and accused of being a nazi.

Toast

01. I Feel Sick
02. Waste Of Time
03. Sarah Jane
04. You Make Me Wanna Puke
05. One Chance
06. You’re Getting On My Nerves
07. Make It Up
08. Give Me A Beer
09. Mr Postman
10. Back To The Barrooms
11. Nothing At All
12. I Lose Friends Like I Lose Money
13. Latch Key Kids
14. Best For You

Happy Birthday

Well I’ve Heard It Before blogspot is one year old today.

When I started this blogspot I thought that if I could keep going for a year and do a post on average of once a week I would be very happy – just as an exercise in self-discipline, there’s way too many things I’ve started but soon lost interest in.

So how have I done? Well I just fell short of 52 posts but if my computer hadn’t spent all of last week getting fixed in the repair shop I’d like to think that I might have just made it.

Anyway, I’ve had some good responses and quite a few hits on certain posts and I’ve still got a fair few rarities and ideas for posts to keep me going for a while.

Of course, plenty of those rarities have been posted elsewhere previously but that was always kind of the thing with I’ve Heard It Before blogspot.

So taking things amazingly literally I’ve chosen Altered Images Happy Birthday album for my blog’s birthday post.

This must have been a very early buy for me as it came out the same year as Adam & The Ants Prince Charming LP and I remember at the time thinking of Altered Images as typical 80s New Wave pop.

But listening to this first album more recently, there is definitely a much more arty, almost post-punk edge to it. Some songs definitely have a touch of Siouxsie and the Banshees influence about them, which makes sense as the album was produced by Steve Severin.

Happy Birthday

1. Intro
2. Love And Kisses
3. Real Toys
4. Idols
5. Legionaire
6. Faithless
7. Beckoning Strings
8. Happy Birthday
9. Midnight
10. A Days Wait
11. Leave Me Alone
12. Insects
13. Outro

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.

Jailcell Recipes

Jailcell Recipes were another melodic UKHC group around in the late 80s and early 90s that were influenced by American hardcore music and also had an interest in skateboarding.

They came from the Liverpool/Wigan area, which kind of sticks to the tradition of these bands coming from out of the way places that I mentioned before.

Wigan was also the home of Alan’s Records, a punk record and mail order shop that also ran First Strike Records – the label on which Jailcell Recipes released their records – and organised gigs in the North West of England.

I saw Jailcell Recipes a few times, usually as a support group to a touring American band, and they were a great live act.

Here are the tracks from their first LP – Energy In An Empty Tank World, which was released in 1989 and suffered from slightly rough production – and the much better sounding Poulton Road EP from 1990.

They did release a second album in 1991 – Two Years Of Tooth Ache, which had cover art by Karl Alvarez of Descendents/All fame – unfortunately, I never got around to buying it but by all accounts it continued the sound from the Poulton Road release.

Jailcell Recipies

01. Endless Grind 02. John Is God 03. Shades of Grey 04. Dreaming 05. Wide Open Eyes 06. Drown 07. Part Of Me 08. Spontaneous Human Combustion 09. Our Recipes 10.Kick Yourself 11. Screams Of Blood 12. Kick Frank For A Change 13. Forced 14. Arm Twister 15. Those Long Days 16. Dead Serious 

UK Decay – Gothic beginnings

UK Decay was a punk group from Luton in the early 80s. I assumed for a long time, on account of the name and because they had released a single on Corpus Christi, that they would be a typical anarcho-type band.

When I did finally hear them I was surprised to find that, instead, they had more of a post-punk, early Goth sort of sound – not too unlike some early Siouxsie & The Banshees stuff – and in fact one of their early gigs was with Bauhaus.

Obviously some of their Gothic influences came from reading the works of authors like Edgar Allen Poe and HP Lovecraft – a bit like some of Rudimentary Peni’s music, who are also quite often mistakenly lumped in with the anarcho-punk scene.

I was never a Goth myself but I had a lot of friends who were in the late 80s – the popular Goth groups at that time seemed to be Sisters of Mercy, Fields Of The Nephilim, The Misson, etc – and I always had a bit of a soft spot for some of these groups plus a lot of the stuff associated with that scene, such as gothic horror novels, Hammer Horror films etc.

The key members of UK Decay were Abbo (vocals), Spon (guitar) and Steve Harle (drums) with a selection of bass players – that even included Creetin Chaos from Social Unrest for a while.

When they split up Abbo and Steve Harle went on to form Furyo, while Spon formed In Excelsis – whose Carnival of Damocles EP I include here.

There doesn’t seem to be anything available on CD at the moment as any plans to re-release material were put on hold with the untimely death of Steve Harle, while backpacking in India.

UK Decay

01 Black Cat 02 Middle Of The Road Man 03 Message Distortion 04 Disco Romance 05 Duel 06 Battle Of The Elements 07 Shattered 08 Stage Struck 09 Last In The House Of Flames 10 Unexpected Guest 11 Sexual 12 Dorian 13 Decadence 14 Mayday Malady 15 For Madmen Only

In Excelsis

01 The Sword 02 Vows (Initiation) 03 One Man’s Heaven 04 Carnival Of The Gullible

Sink

Sink were a melodic hardcore punk band from the UK who were around from 1988-1991. However, their music might better be described as post-hardcore as they were obviously trying to move away from the typical fast thrashy punk sound and develop in a different direction. There is a lot of country/blues influence on many of these songs, although on the odd track they do remind me a little of Fugazi.

Sink had a fairly changeable line up throughout their existence with the only two regular members, as far as I know, being guitarist Ed Shred, previously in the Stupids, and bass player Paul Duncan. At one time they also included Laurence Bell who was the singer in Perfect Daze.

Sink later morphed into the group Big Ray.

Mama Sink: The First 18 Years

Another Love Triangle

Old Man Snake And The Fat, Black Pig

Vega-Tables

UK skate punk

Unlike the US, skateboarding only enjoyed a brief fad in the UK in the late 70s then seemed to die out before making a gradual comeback from the late 80s onwards, initially among mainly grebo/punker type kids.

Like many teenage punk kids I had a skateboard but to be honest I was never really any good and it was more of an accessory on which I could put various stickers and paint band logos.

About 1989 (I think) a UK skateboard magazine – called Skateboard – was launched and the first issue came with this free 7″ flexi-single featuring some of the current UK hardcore groups around at the time.

What I like about this single is that not only does it show how closely connected the skateboarding and punk scenes were at this time but also the wide range of different sounding groups that were considered to fall under the term hardcore. From the grindcore/deathmetal noise of Napalm Death and Carcass to the more typical punk of Jailcell Recipes and the blues-tinged sound of Sink all these groups at that time were considered to be part of the same scene.

Skateboard magazine also used to have a really good music review section that covered all sorts of alternative groups.

Skateboard flexi-single

01. Dr & the Crippens – Braindead
02. Napalm Death – Muscle Head
03. Intense Degree – Skatebored
04. Sore Throat – Half Pipe
05. Sink – Bluesman
06. Carcass – Superration
07. Jailcell Recipes – Our Recipes

http://rapidshare.com/files/122926942/skateboard.rar