Top 10 of ... Punk Dub

That punk rock, it was all shouty noise and noisy shouting wasn’t it?

Ah, now you see one of the great stereotypes of our times; that punk was just about making a racket. Well, it wasn’t jazz but there was far more to the genre than a lot of people think.

Back in 1976, punk and reggae seemed intertwined; at the punk clubs, reggae was played by Don Letts and other DJs as there were so few punk records to actually play. Bob Marley & The Wailers got in on the act with 1977’s ‘Punky Reggae Party’ … “The Wailers will be there/ The Damned, The Jam, The Clash/ Maytals will be there/ Dr Feelgood too.”

And punk bands found dub reggae to their liking.

That produced the cracking records from punk and post-punk outfits. Like these …..

The Ruts: Jah War (1979)

Hit singles such as ‘Staring at the Rude Boys’ and ‘Babylon’s Burning’ tick all the requisite punk purity boxes. But The Ruts were far more diverse than many of their peers, which can partly be attributed to being late starters and hearing more than the early punk rockers. ‘Jah War’ appeared on the classic 1979 debut The Crack. It has a heavy roots-reggae feel and is also political, tackling the violence perpetrated by the London Police’s controversial SPG (Special Patrol Group) during trouble in the ethnically-diverse suburb of Southall in 1979.

Released as the third single from The Crack, the BBC banned it for its message.

The Clash: One More Dub (1980)

The Clash laid their love of reggae and dub to the mast early on: a cover of Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’ was released as a single in 1977. A year later they released ‘White Man (In Hammersmith Palais)’ which namechecked a litany of reggae stars to a Jamaican vibe backdrop.

‘One More Dub’ followed on from ‘One More Time’ at the end of side two of the triple album meisterwerk Sandinista. The standard track is about poverty and its effects in so-called ghetto towns; ‘One More Dub’ strips the lyrics down, more or less to the chorus: “One more time in the ghetto/ One more time if you please/ One more time for the dying man/ One more time if you please.”

 Generation X: Wild Dub (1978)

Generation X’s second 45, glam-punk stomper ‘Wild Youth’ was paired with ‘Wild Dub’ which revealed the band’s reggae influences with singer Billy Idol toasting at the end, “Heavy, heavy dub/Punk rockers!”. The single was produced by Phil Wainman in late 1977, and while neither track were included on the self-titled debut album, they were both part of the much-changed US version.

Stiff Little Fingers: Johnny Was (1979)

A cover of a Bob Marley & The Wailers song, the Irishmen’s version revamped the lyrics to reflect the violence of the time in Northern Ireland. While both songs convey the horror of a mother who’s son has been killed by a stray bullet, the Wailers made it non-geographical while SLF’s take added the following line to make clear where the incident occurred: “A single shot rings out in a Belfast night and I said oh Johnny was a good man.”

Steel An' Skin ‎- Afro Punk Reggae (Dub) (1979)

Steel An' Skin were a British-based group who came from West Africa, the Caribbean and the UK. Reggae, post-punk and Caribbean steel drums are all prevalent on this 12-inch record. Perhaps the punk link in the title was somewhat tenuous but there’s no doubting that some of the influences could have been from Bristol’s The Pop Group or London all-girl four-piece The Slits.

Alternative TV: Life After Dub (1978)

A-side ‘Life After Life’, B-side ‘Life After Dub’. The A-side was a clear nod to Jamaica, with vocals from Sniffin’ Glue editor Mark Perry, sounding positively positive. The B-side was a straight-through dub version with echoes and clipped lyrics. One of the band’s finest moments.

Bad Brains: Bad Brains LP (1982) 

American band Bad Brains were out on their own, with many of their songs actively fusing hardcore punk and roots reggae. They were that rarity of being a black punk band. They were also followers of the Rastafari movement, so the reggae/dub side came easily to them. The first five tracks of this debut LP are pure hardcore (with noticeable nods to reggae) then track six, ‘Jah Calling’, is akin to a dub interlude. ‘Leaving Babylon’ is another track that is 100 percent reggae and the shift in moods works perfectly, though it does seem at times that there are two bands at play on the same record.

Public Image Ltd: Metal Box (1979)

After the punk wave disintegrated by the beginning of 1978, post-punk came into play. The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten reverted to his birth name John Lydon and formed PiL which threw out the three cord thrash and explored a buffet of divergent genres.  Jah Wobble’s booming bassline sounded like it was torn directly from dub plates. Same for the band’s production, especially on the second LP, the much-lauded and pioneering Metal Box.

Gang of Four: I Love A Man In Uniform (Dub version) (1982)

Way before the Gang’s finest hour, the Leeds disruptors were well versed in the art of reggae and dub with the band’s discordant basslines clearly being influenced by Kingston producers. This version of the group’s biggest hit single only initially appeared on US and Canadian 12-inch releases. It helped the single become a big hit in American clubs and on the dance charts.

Bauhaus: Bela Lugosi’s Dead (1979)

Bauhaus are often unfairly labelled as a Goth band, so many people will be surprised to learn that they highly influenced by dub, with bass player, David J saying that their signature song "was our interpretation of dub". Several singles contained dub-tinged versions.

Guest Post: 1977 and all that … Turning Rebellion Into Money?

It’s time for another Guest Post, where we welcome our good friend Porky to the everythingsgonegreen pigsty. Porky tries to claim he was “too young” for the first outbreak of punk, but he still has some thoughts about the legacy of 1977 and all that …

This year is the 40^th year of punk, if you take your starting point as 1977, rather than 1976 or 1969, or even 1956.

Punk’s origins are less important, the essence is. The Sex Pistols’ anger, The Clash’s passion, the Slits female revolution, the Saints and Radio Birdman’s honest, upfront bad attitude, the Suburban Reptiles’ uncomfortable Auckland abrasiveness and Bad Brains’ fusion of hardcore punk and roots reggae. These and many other bands shaped music in a way that still has some authority today.

Punk was the kick up the backside music needed in the 1970s, the swift sweep of the broom to prog, American MoR, cockrock and novelty guff that permeated the airwaves and Top of the Pops at the time. Music had become the mere background to lavish costume designs, puerility and daft dances as style supplanted substance.

 It wasn’t just angry; it was political: whether from 1977 (Pistols, Clash, Adverts) to its younger siblings (Crass, Dead Kennedys, The Exploited), on through the ongoing revivalist acts such as NOFX and Rancid, punk has been resolutely anarchist, socialist, feminist, reggae-loving, anti-racist, eco-warrior, and opposed to conservatism. It’s the voice of the disaffected.  

And yet, four decades on, I feel a cold breeze feather my skin as I think of what punk has become. What exactly does punk mean anymore? Is it about rebellion or has it become a nostalgia it’s okay to like? Was it even radical in the first place, and just another phase that the music industry soon latched on to and exploited? Oh my, I never wanted to have these questions floating around in my head. I was too young for the first outbreak, but you didn’t have to live through the Punk War to know what it fought for, daddio. 

So now we have the ungainly sight of John Lydon becoming John Liedown. The antagonistic rebel typified the movement in 1976 when he reflected the views of millions of bored British teens, beaten-down by the threat of rising unemployment and austerity, with Thatcher’s ghastly ‘I’m all right Jack’ vision just an election away.

John Lydon

 Now, Lydon is happy to reveal he thinks ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage is fantastic, Brexit is good for the working class and that Donald Trump is a nice chap and not racist at all. Always an enigma, Lydon carefully crafted himself an image of the apolitical warrior, the man on the street who just wants to stick two fingers to the man. His latest comments seem to suggest he is part of the establishment, happy to promote New Zealand butter.

He is only one, of course, and I’m unaware of any other punks that have drifted to the right. Joe Strummer’s final gig was a benefit for striking firefighters, Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers remains resolutely anti-fascist, and most new punk bands retain some semblance of that bolshy youthful angst.

But what of one of my original questions, has, in the Clash’s words “turning rebellion into money” become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Perhaps the answer lies in the actions of Joe Corre, the son of ex-Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren.

On a barge on London's River Thames late last year, the businessman set fire to his ₤5 million collection of punk memorabilia in protest against the commercialisation of the once-feared movement.

Joe Corre

Corre didn’t have anything to lose, he’s already rich, so the excessive worth of his pile of bondage trousers, bootleg recordings and trinkets would never have made a dent in his bank balance.

“Punk has become another marketing tool to sell you something you don’t need,” he said before striking a match to some Sid Vicious posters.

Who indeed is making money from the many punk special publications, the compilation albums and the books reflecting on the productive period from 1976-79 when anything seemed possible? I’d bet my prized copy of The Clash’s self-titled 1977 debut that the people that many punks hated are banking that filthy lucre.

But strip away all the exploitation and murky views and punk remains the one true musical revolution, when hating the British monarchy, opposing the fascist National Front, and wanting a riot of your own was not merely two fingers up to the establishment, it was the voice of an angry, youthful working class.

Now, fuck you. 

You want more Porky? ... you can find him here.

Classic Album Review: Various - F**K Art Let's Danse / 28 Classic & Rare Tracks (2007)

I've been thinking quite a bit this week about the 40^th anniversary of the infamous Punk Festival held at London’s 100 club. About how that momentous event is often considered a defining or pivotal moment in wider pop culture or rock music history – heralding as it did, the arrival of an exciting new phenomenon. Or that’s how the story has been told, and it’s certainly the narrative we’ve been fed in one or two published articles this week. And then I recalled this album, one of the most treasured compilations in my possession, a comprehensive collection of tracks which serve to highlight the roots of the genre, and an album that throws a rather different light on the evolution of punk. I reviewed it for another site not long after its 2007 release:

If asked to come up with a list of bands or artists most influential in the rise of the UK’s late Seventies “punk” scene, the majority of self-respecting music historians would doubtlessly look first and foremost to the USA and its late Sixties/early Seventies “underground” scene. Indeed, any quick perusal of Jon Savage’s seminal book ‘England’s Dreaming’ (a history of the Sex Pistols and Punk) or Simon Reynolds’ ‘Rip It Up And Start Again’ (which covers the post-punk era) would reveal the massive debt owed by UK punk bands to their anti-establishment cousins from across the Atlantic.

It is a debt however, seldom fully acknowledged by compilers of punk collections; they’re more often than not very UK-centric, with mere lip service being paid to the influence and momentum provided by a wide variety of US-based bands – usually with the inclusion of an obvious track from The Ramones, and maybe something from um, Blondie. This is where F**k Art Let’s Danse differs from the large majority of the many so-called “punk” compilations … and as a 28-track, double CD compilation, it is all the better for not only acknowledging the transatlantic link, but actively celebrating it.

40 years ago this week ...

Take a look at this list of names: The 13th Floor Elevators, the New York Dolls, Iggy & The Stooges, Patti Smith, MC5, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, Suicide, Television, Pere Ubu, and the Dead Kennedys. Oh, and just for good measure, The Ramones.

 

That list represents a veritable Who’s Who of the Seventies US underground scene, and all of the above bands feature prominently on F**k Art Let’s Danse. Only the addition of material from the Velvet Underground and/or Talking Heads would have made it something close to definitive in terms of US contributions to the scene. In fact, the album digs deep and travels even further back in time to the decadent mid-Sixties with the inclusion of garage and psychedelic tracks from the likes of The Sonics, The Seeds, Fugs, and The Creation.

But, similarly, if you think F**k Art Let’s Danse is all about those damned yanks and the template they provided, then you’d be wrong. The UK is represented by the not insignificant likes of The Damned, X-Ray Spex, Sham 69, the UK Subs, The Slits, and The Adverts.

 

Hell, we even get a couple of notable “hit” singles from Ian Dury (‘Sex And Drugs …’) and The Only Ones (‘Another Girl Another Planet’) … neither track being particularly authentic “punk” but the inclusion on here of each nonetheless pays tribute to the role pub-rock played in the development of the genre, and both bands flirted with the fringes of the movement without becoming completely consumed by it.

It could be argued that the album is weakened for the fact that it doesn’t include anything at all by the Sex Pistols, The Clash, or early Buzzcocks, but you can find that stuff practically anywhere, or at the very least on one of the other many compilations on the market. Clearly, the compilers of this album were wholehearted in their commitment to avoiding the bleedin’ obvious, and in truth that is one of its best features.

Overall, F**k Art Let’s Danse is a superb collection, and worthwhile alone for the sheer variety on offer. Punk is often viewed through ill-informed ignorant eyes as being a short-lived entirely British phenomenon; a scene that lasted three years max (between 1976 and say, 1979), but this collection begs to convince you otherwise.

CD1 Highlights: X-Ray Spex – ‘Identity’, Dead Kennedys – ‘Too Drunk To F**k’, MC5 – ‘Kick Out The Jams’, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers – ‘Roadrunner’, and Department S – ‘Is Vic There?’.

CD2 Highlights: The 13th Floor Elevators – ‘Slip Inside This House’, New York Dolls – ‘Looking For A Kiss’, Patti Smith – ‘Piss Factory’, Pere Ubu – ‘Heart Of Darkness’, and The Slits (live cover) – ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’.