Off the Beaten Path Post Punk Thread

[shadowplay]

I'll definitely check out more of the EMAK stuff. (tangentially, I wonder if the Drive soundtrack will get a new generation into this genre).

Good call on Mona Mur.

The Drive Soundtrack is a funny thing, for years I tried to get some people into The Chromatics and Desire who I love to bits and they were resistant and then post Drive they all seem to get it. Have you heard the Johnny Jewel Symmetry record which is and isn't rumoured to be the rejected Drive sound track. I do notice a growing appreciation of John Carpenter.

Totally off topic but have you seen this amazing drive tribute animation?

The Olympia scene is very much akin to the Glasgow scene with the Pastels and the Vaselines etc.

The Smiths did massively change UK music but it wasn't so much as the band as the power the NME wielded in the mid 80's. The other UK weekly music papers were quicker onto the likes of AR Kane but the NME had a very rigid world view and a distrust of overly impressionistic music. I think they regarded anything too spacey as decadent.

D

[cestlamort]

The Smiths did massively change UK music but it wasn't so much as the band as the power the NME wielded in the mid 80's. The other UK weekly music papers were quicker onto the likes of AR Kane but the NME had a very rigid world view and a distrust of overly impressionistic music. I think they regarded anything too spacey as decadent.

D

I like to imagine what NME would have used for headlines if it weren't for the Smiths.

[blacktiger]

Pigbag - The Brit equivalent to Liquid Liquid, more or less.

Rip, Rig & Panic - Funky, punky and featuring a young Neneh Cherry.

[shadowplay]

Pigbag

Maybe in America but they were fairly big over here.

Almost impossible to go to more than three football matches without wanting to kill the person who keeps playing Papas...

The Flowerpot Men - Joe's So Mean (to Josephine) I love this to death, I still play it and the kids still dance to it. One of my favourite singles regardless of genre. Produced by Steve Severin and sounds massive in a club. That's cello not guitar. Not sure if this counts as obscure, hard to say.

Getting the Fear - Last Salute man I was so fucking sick of hearing this in diskos but I've mellowed.

which by association bring me toDormannu - Degenerate club mix a collision of the Native American craze and raiding the bins of New Order. As above for the disko saturation.

I'll also offer up two linked by extended family. As you can see I wore a lot of black in the early 80's

Ritual - Brides mmm saxy

Furyo - The Gold Of Our Lives


D

[blacktiger]

Yeah, they actually had a couple of hits over there, right? No one knows who the Pop Group were over here, much less the bands that followed.

[Tristan]

Savage republic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNUYEHXggrQ
chrome/ helios creed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdBQFlDOv0s

[Tristan]

throwing muses ?

[shadowplay]

throwing muses ?

Too late, even 85' is pushing it in my opinion and not off the beaten path enough in any case, again in my opinion. Still a good band, especially before the big change in sound that came in after that horrible UK tour they had with Pixies.

My take on Post Punk is generally it's two things; a time period 77(8) depending on your mindset - 85 (at latest) and (this is a more contemporary idea) a sound. If you take the time period thing you can rope in all sorts of stuff that was a result of the change in mindset punk offered but if you take it as a style things narrow somewhat. Of course there is a great deal of overlap between genres and things like synthpop (or minimal wave as it's getting redubbed) are both their own thing and strictly speaking post punk.

I wouldn't include Savage Republic and Chrome either if we are talking off the beaten path because I think they are well know but maybe they aren't to others. When I started this it was more towards the bands you NEVER see mentioned and who rarely got a digital release but another take on it could be very different, this is kinda one of my pet subjects and I own pretty much every post punk record you could think of or I am at least getting close (been at it since I was a pup)

D

[misanthropic-man]

Man, I wish I read this before I went music hunting today! I have been in San Francisco this week, and finally got around to Amoeba Music. I love post punk, but I was not from that generation, and even though I know some of what's on here; I know the usual ubiquitous staples, groups, etc from the more known and some not so well known bands. It would have been fun to go through this list, find some discs and blair it in this shitty CD player stocked in my hotel! I have work to do!

[shadowplay]

There's a regular post punk thread/list you might want to check out, it's not perfect in retrospect but ok and some good contributions from others.

post punk guide

Ameoba is a good shop, I'd like to go back.

D

[DarnWeight]

A few who deserve a mention, I reckon...

Big Flame - bridged the end of the "classic" post-punk phase and into the indie scene of the mid- to late-80s. Great stuff. There's other goodies to be had on the Ron Johnson label from a similar period (Jackdaw With Crowbar, A Witness)
Camberwell Now - much more than a This Heat footnote. The All's Well compilation CD is brilliant, if you can still locate a copy.
The Homosexuals - a bit Wire, a bit Ubu, that kind of thing. The Homosexuals compilation CD is really good.

[shadowplay]

A few who deserve a mention, I reckon...

Big Flame - bridged the end of the "classic" post-punk phase and into the indie scene of the mid- to late-80s. Great stuff. There's other goodies to be had on the Ron Johnson label from a similar period (Jackdaw With Crowbar, A Witness)
Camberwell Now - much more than a This Heat footnote. The All's Well compilation CD is brilliant, if you can still locate a copy.
The Homosexuals - a bit Wire, a bit Ubu, that kind of thing. The Homosexuals compilation CD is really good.

Good picks. Talking This Heat, have you heard The Gareth Williams & Mary Currie LP? Used to be very rare because it was cassette only, I always though it ripe for a proper release and recently it's got just that treatment with an LP release on Blackest Ever Black. Brilliant Stuff.

D

[DarnWeight]

A few who deserve a mention, I reckon...

Big Flame - bridged the end of the "classic" post-punk phase and into the indie scene of the mid- to late-80s. Great stuff. There's other goodies to be had on the Ron Johnson label from a similar period (Jackdaw With Crowbar, A Witness)
Camberwell Now - much more than a This Heat footnote. The All's Well compilation CD is brilliant, if you can still locate a copy.
The Homosexuals - a bit Wire, a bit Ubu, that kind of thing. The Homosexuals compilation CD is really good.

Good picks. Talking This Heat, have you heard The Gareth Williams & Mary Currie LP? Used to be very rare because it was cassette only, I always though it ripe for a proper release and recently it's got just that treatment with an LP release on Blackest Ever Black. Brilliant Stuff.

D

I have a downloaded (ahem!) copy of the After The Heat compilation which includes the entire Gareth Williams & Mary Currie LP (digitised from the original cassette release, or so it sounds to me), along with a couple of essentially solo Hayward and Bullen tracks. Nice to see that it finally has an official re-release from the original master material.

[DarnWeight]

...(*idly trawling my NAS*) Oh, almost forgot The Gist, Stu Moxham's post-YMG project. Patchier than YMG, admittedly, and some very big nods to Eno's earlier solo stuff, but there are some real treasures in there (Love At First Sight is an absolute classic, and Public Girls, Clean Bridges, and Concrete Slopes are all standouts for me).

[shadowplay]

It's a moot point if this is really off the beaten path, given the high esteem Eyeless in Gaza are held in by some and the fact it was well regarded at the time but Martyn Bates first 10' solo LP Letters Written (1982) is a record that hardly any people seem to know. It's a beautiful Hymnal record, in my opinion it's ahead of it's time and unfashionably at the time, connected to a distant folk past. The past week I've been playing it a lot and it's such an emotionally arresting, album of crepuscular, bucolic wonder and I thought I might share. I'd also say that Eyeless In Gaza in general don't get the credit they are due, back in the 80's their folding folk tropes into post punk/synthpop was very bold and very much against perceived wisdom. Letters Written isn't exactly fitting the season. it's more for the bleak midwinter but I've been playing it to death with misty eyes. Incidentally Eyeless in Gaza have IMO been one of the few post punk bands to take and extended hiatus and come back with anything worthwhile to say, I thought the Butterfly Attitude LPon Downwards couple of years ago in particular was excellent.

Martyn Bates - Mirrored in me

Martyn Bates - Overflowing look

Martyn Bates - Aftertaste of old

Martyn Bates - Cut like sunset

In 1995 Martyn made a sequel - Mystery Seas (Letters Written #2) - CD only sadly. It's very similar in style.

Martyn Bates - Over The Waters

Martyn Bates - Shorepoem

Martyn Bates - You, Looking To Me For A Sign

Probably of interest to precisely no one but what the hell...

D