Not even hardcore punks from the Class of ’77 are likely to remember Kleenex – Switzerland’s solitary contribution to punk. Or their two singles on Rough Trade that went on to inspire the Riot Grrrl movement.

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Here’s a recording that never gets mentioned in lists of the best cover versions… but it probably should. It takes the Righteous Brothers song in an entirely new direction. (more…)

Novelty records. They’re nearly always awful, aren’t they – Grandad, Ernie, Shadap Your Face. Agadoo, Gimme Dat Ding. Jilted John was different. (more…)

The Human League’s debut EP Being Boiled marked the transition of punk’s DIY ethic into new areas like electronic music. (more…)

Chuck Brown is surely not the only convicted murderer to have a hit record, but his crime lends a certain macabre cachet to his place in pop history. (more…)

Everyone knows them best for Boogie Nights but the Heatwave single I have in my collection is the 12-inch version of this sultry slow jam from 1978. (more…)

This isn’t the first recording by The Fall, but it’s the first to have been heard on the radio, when John Peel played their debut session in June 1978. (more…)

The first time I saw The Fall was at the opening night of The Vortex, a punk club at the top of Wardour Street just off Oxford Street on 4 July 1977. This was their first recording a year later. (more…)

Here’s a sentiment we can all agree with. And a song that ticks all the punk boxes: fast, angry, simple… and only two minutes long. (more…)

In many ways Crass are the quintessence of punk. You might call them punk in excelsis. No band walked it like they talked it with quite so much commitment to the cause of social change. (more…)