Punk

Here is the MC5’s infamous hometown performance by a Detroit highway in July 1970.  Thirty-four years later I finally got to see them play for myself.

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Here’s a trio of songs for Christmas – one for opening the presents, another for after dinner at the end of the day, and one for Boxing Day.

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Crime – Hot Wire My Heart

18th November 2023 · 1970s, 1976, Music, Punk

This lost gem from 1976 is a little piece of punk history – the first single to be released by a West Coast punk band. A double A-side of Hot Wire My Heart and Baby You’re So Repulsive (surely a contender for best punk song title), it was the debut single by a San Francisco band called Crime.

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One of the great singles from the punk period, Spanish Stroll has nothing much in common with the rest of the CBGBs crowd. But that’s where it came from. And it’s just a classic, with that lazily strummed guitar intro and the spoken word Spanish bit in the middle.

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Here’s an oddity from the depths of my punk-era singles collection. It was only decades later that a friend picked this obscurity out and recognised two of the names on the sleeve – not as musicians, but as music journalists.

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Here are The Slits, half of them anyway, with ex-members of The Pop Group and Rip Rig + Panic, in session for John Peel from 1981.

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I’m not sure I even like this song, but I feckin’ LOVE that monstrous guitar riff. And sometimes that’s enough. I’m also drawn to the title of the song, which is Unpopular Parts Of A Pig. And its lyrics, which are indistinct but seem interesting and funny.

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Unlike some other old punks of my acquaintance, I am no longer a fan of being hectored by angry men thrashing guitars and pummelling drums into oblivion.

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The Angelic Upstarts, led by shaven-headed Mensi, flew the flag for back-to-basics punk from the North East – and for socialism and kicked off the much misunderstood Oi! movement.

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The Zeros are another of the long-forgotten punk bands from the Class of ’77. This was on the fairly terrible Streets compilation on Beggars Banquet that year.

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