isksp

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Blue Peter - 1979 - Test Patterns for Living LP (CAD)

Monday, April 5, 2010

Wanka - 1977 - The Orange Album (CAD)

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Pointed Sticks - 1979 - Lies! 7'' (CAD)

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Ugly, The - 1996 - Disorder (CAD)

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Curse, The - 1997 - Teenage Meat (Canada)

Raw primitive studio and live recordings of North America's first all girl punk band 1977-1978

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Dishrags - 1997 - Love-Hate (CAD)

When the Dishrags formed in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1977, they were like the Runaways without Kim Fowley's behind the scenes machinations: three teenage girls -- singer and guitarist Jade Blade, bassist Dale Powers, and drummer Scout -- devoted to the Ramones and the Clash and creating their own short, sharp shocks. Moving to the more punk-friendly Vancouver scene (where bands like D.O.A and the Pointed Sticks were already defining the sound of western Canada's new wave) in 1978, the Dishrags made their debut on the now-legendary Vancouver Complication anthology. If they had never made another recording, the Dishrags would remain beloved in punk-fanboy circles for the track "I Don't Love You." 103 seconds long and built on an insistent, scratchy guitar riff and a positively crazed drum part played primarily on the ride cymbal, "I Don't Love You" is as clangorous and primitive as U.K. second-wavers like the Slits or the Desperate Bicycles, but it also features an instant-classic pure pop chorus that would do the Buzzcocks or the Undertones proud. The Dishrags followed that up with a slightly more polished three-track EP, "Past Is Past," and following a lineup change -- Powers being replaced by second guitarist Sue MacGillivray and bassist Kim Henriksen -- the band traveled to London to record the EP Death in the Family. Produced by Chris Spedding and featuring a more traditional punk-pop sound akin to the Adverts' first album, Death in the Family was insistently tuneful and clever. The wistful title track seemed to have actual hit single potential, while "Love/Hate" explored a darker post-punk sound along the lines of Siouxsie & the Banshees. Though RCA's U.K. imprint released the EP, it disappeared almost immediately, and the Dishrags broke up. Over a decade and a half later, the Canadian reissue label Other People's Music gathered the complete recordings by the Dishrags -- the two tracks recorded for the Vancouver Complication sessions, including the previously unreleased "Bullshit," the single, the EP, and ten demos and live tracks including covers of Lou Reed's "Vicious," the Ramones' "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You," and the Clash's "Janie Jones," alongside previously unheard Dishrags originals. This is a textbook example of how to do a punk-era reissue properly.

Review by Stewart Mason at AllMusic (link)

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Subhumans - 1979 - The Subhumans 12'' (CAD)

Monday, September 7, 2009

Spy's - 1980 - Machine Shop 7'' (CAD)

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Pointed Sticks - 2006 - Waiting For The Real Thing (CAD)

One of those bands that I had a very vague recollection of despite probably never having heard anything by them that I can recall until now, Pointed Sticks were one of the movers and shakers in the early Canadian punk scene, forming in 1978 and disbanding just three years later in 1981.

Canadian bands with few exceptions have the odds of achieving success overseas stacked against them and little has changed in the almost 30 years since the Pointed Sticks were in their heyday. For them that lucky break, despite a golden opportunity, would prove even more illusive than even they could have anticipated, of which more later.

Formed in the summer of 1978, when singer and principal songwriter Nick Jones returned to Vancouver from London, England that is rather than Ontario, where he’d been working in a record store, it’s clear that Jones had been paying attention to what had been going on around him.

Conjuring a winning formula of punk’s energy and no small amount of pop sensibility, the band churned out three cracking singles between 1978 and 1979. Sounding quintessentially English – the band even took their name from a Monty Python sketch! – the band should have gone down a storm in the UK. Stiff Records, one of the great record labels thought so as well, signing the band and releasing the Brinsley Schwartz-produced single ‘Out Of Luck’ backed with ‘What Do You Want Me To Do?’ and ‘Somebody’s Girl’ in 1979. Re-recordings of tracks featured on their first two Canadian singles, the original versions are included here, but whether the re-recordings captured the band’s energetic punk-pop hybrid as successfully as the originals had done, I don’t know. Had they done so, I’d have certainly bought a copy at the time, assuming I’d even known of its existence. Despite the lack of increased UK profile from the single, the hook-up with Stiff did succeed in gaining the band increased visibility and credibility nearer to home where they began to get regular shows and resulting acclaim from regular stints up and down the US West coast from where they ventured increasingly from their Vancouver base.

Stiff then invited the band to England to record their debut album which was when things began to go awry. Produced by Nigel Gray (The Police, Siouxsie And The Banshees), for reasons not entirely clear Stiff decided not to release the finished album, the band returning to Canada, very disappointed though not quite defeated, soon afterwards. Re-recording the album with producer Bob Rock upon their return, the band's debut album ‘Perfect Youth’ was finally released in Canada in 1981. Unfortunately though the band’s momentum, by now diminished on the international stage following the unsatisfactory conclusion to the Stiff deal, eventually saw the band stutter to a halt later that year.

‘Waiting For The Real Thing’ collates all six sides of their three original Canadian singles, a slew of compilation appearances, some unreleased material, including a number of tracks from the aborted Stiff album, and a live radio session from 1979.

Essential for the inclusion of the singles anyway, elsewhere though, perhaps lacking in fidelity at times, most noticeably on the radio session, this excellent set reveals a band fully deserving of their not even fifteen minutes in the spotlight and who deserved much more. For anyone enamoured of the punk/new wave scene of the late 1970’s, this retrospective reveals a band far too good to be forgotten.

source Penny Black Music (link)

Monday, June 8, 2009

Ugly, The - 1978 - Stranded In The Laneway 7'' (CAD)

Ugly, The - 1978 - Stranded In The Laneway 7'' (CAD)
download

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Pointed Sticks, The - 1995 - Part Of The Noise (CAD)