INTERNAL AUTONOMY

Hard to understand why this band continues to fly under the radar, but here I am with their fifth demo from 1991 and I'm still pinching myself hearing these sounds for (not the) first time. Authentic dark wave steeped in UK anarcho with BLACK SOLSTICE connections, INTERNAL AUTONOMY are a truly unique (sounding) collection of souls - and to go from the chaotic CONFLICT-esque bombast of "The Time Has Come" and the mania of "Doesn't Anyone Believe Me?" to the PINK DOTS vibes in "An Anthem For Humanity" and the pure proto-goth of "Just Another Day" and "Foresight + Hindthought" is a magnificent feat. Every IA release hits different, and the experimental phase/s at the end of their run are often the most compelling for me - I hear new sounds literally every time I listen. My copy is a dub labeled '5th DEMO - MASTER TAPE' so any souls holding a copy with the artwork....? You know how to find me.  

PURPLE AVANT GARDE NOIZE EXPERIMENT

X-RAY SPEX

The target audience here might be small, but hats off to the tape makers and traders from past punk generations for putting all of this shit in our hands today. I'f you're still reading after noting X-RAY SPEX on the title bar then just skip my drivel and go right to the download link, because you clearly know what you want and it's right fucking here. A live version of "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" with several tracks from Germ Free Adolescents (taken straight from the record), plus nine cuts from a 1977 demo recording and four from a Peel Session the same year. And then, because I love you (and someone who came before all of us loves you too) you get three tracks from THE SAINTS and goddamn it's good to hear "Demolition Girl" again because that song just rules. It's been too long. You're welcome, punk.

GERM FREE + DEMO + PEEL + SAINTS

KILLED BY GIRLS '82

 

A deadly (and essential) collection of UK82 burners from bands with female members. Slightly deeper cuts from some of the obvious players (VICE SQUAD, RUBELLA BALLET, DIRT, VIOLATORS) mingling with less heralded stalwarts like ICON A.D., ACTION PACT, ICONOCLASTS and POST MORTEM while POTENTIAL THREAT, THE EXPELLED and PARTISANS are in your face reminders that the women who powered so many early punk bands weren't necessarily in your face. There's an earlier volume featuring hardcore bands from all corners of the world - someone feels like sending me that one (hint, hint) and maybe you'll see it here too.

KILLED BY GIRLS 82

STATEMENT // SOLSTICE

 

Wild bursts of anarcho-noise from STATEMENT, brooding anarcho-goth from SOLSTICE. The song listed as "X Marks The Plot" is probably actually a STATEMENT track, but these damn dadaists made the cover next to impossible to decipher and there are no titles for the STATEMENT tracks anyways. I can only do so much...also, I strongly suspect that SOLSTICE = BLACK SOLSTICE (who are connected to CYANIDE SCENARIO) so I'm posting prematurely because what I really want to do is dig in deeper. Instead I'm just listening again...which is also fine. 

STATEMENT // SOLSTICE

DEATH PATROL

 

A couple of tracks on under the radar comps is all I've come across before, which makes this studio session even more special. Raw, rough, fiery Welsh punk from DEATH PATROL - nine tracks recorded in the early '80s, climaxing with the bizarre "Grizzly Dub" that makes me wonder what else this outfit could have done if only time had given them the chance. 

DEATH PATROL

TOTAL CHAOS

No...not that TOTAL CHAOS. The TOTAL CHAOS who dropped a couple of impossibly good dark UK punk singles in 82/83 but no one talks about for some weird reason. Start talking.

TOTAL CHAOS

 

HOWLING MAD

 

Absolutely raging UK hardcore infected by the mid decade proto-thrash craze and fronted by an almost metal and and almost Biafra vocalist. Listen to them just decimate riffs, playing them into the fukkn earth until there's no life left in them before lurching into a solo and then back to flogging that dead riff some more. And they are good riffs - buzzsaw riffs that infect you - and you want to hear more of them. Seems like this 1987 recording is all we're gonna get, so clench fists and strap in. 

A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME

LA PLANETE DE TOUS LES DANGERS

 

I have become low-key obsessed with the compilation tapes released by Acts Of Defiance from France in the late 80s and into the next decade. Top quality international punk/hc collections that seem to always manage to reel you in with the candy you know you want (in this case: THE SNAPPING BOGSEATS,  FINAL BLAST, CIVILISED SOCIETY?, THE DIRTY SCUMS) and then smash you over the head with under the radar freaks like DISTURB, RICHARD III, PIN PRICK and LD50. La Planete De Tous Les Dangers was the first of these comps...and the search for the rest continues. 

ACTS OF DEFIANCE: LA PLANETE DE TOUS LES DANGERS

===

IDIOT CLONE

 

What a glorious beast IDIOT CLONE is. Hand drawn cover, destroyed bass tone (the beginning of "Roolz And Regulations" should be enough to settle any doubts, and that's the first 15 seconds of the damn tape) and six brilliant doses of early '80s anti-system idealism, this is messy and earnest UK punk of the highest order. While they struggle to keep it together musically, they rail against the mundane and the cops and the normal and the state with an urgency rarely seen after the age of 19 or so...and all of this is what we're here for. File alongside DISORDER, DEATH SENTENCE (UK), and the like. I shared this tape back in 2009 (HERE) and a few chumps have plopped that rip on the youtube with no background info...but punk is for the punks so I ain't complaining. 

LIVE AND LET LIVE

ALIENATION

 
========

Two tapes, both reposts from early Escape years. As far as I can tell, Worceter's ALIENATION were a blip in late 1980s UK punk - when wild thrash and ugly stench were taking over the grooves and the anarcho punks were...well, simply not making as many interesting records as they had been just a few years prior. Greatest Hits (1987) is a band who might be trying for commercial success - kinda dark wave and/or post punk but their shot lands somewhere between endearing and off target (check the vocals in the verses of "Live A Lie 'Til You Die" and let's cringe along together). There are great moments here, and this vision taken to its ultimate potential could have been something special ("Vicious Circle" in particular). What ALIENATION did after that however is truly special - on 1988's Yeah, That'll Do they lose the bass and really hone their approach. Vocals are less in front of the mix but more controlled (read: more intense) and the guitar work is abrasive and overbearing; it's like they just decided to cut all of the bullshit and created urgent punk with a deep and frustrating edge. And then....well, as far as I can tell, that was it. 

GREATEST HITS Vol.II (1987)
YEAH, THAT'LL DO (1988)

MALICE

Someone wrote me about this one a few days back, and their message reminded me that I hadn't pulled MALICE out in far too long. I initially posted this demo in 2009, when The Escape was just a few weeks old, and I swear it sounds even more special years later. The band lands somewhere between more standard hard driving UK82 fare and the brainier Bluurg and/or small town Welsh punk of the time. Making their own rules and just being fucking punk....very happy that I came back to MALICE. But now I'm really after the other tape, if it actually exists. 

 MALICE

PSEUDO SADISTS

 

I picked up a box of mostly Welsh tapes from my mate Tim a while back. I resisted the urge to devour all of them at once, instead opting to ration them out over time....and I still get butterflies each time I reach inside to grab a new one. Like many (most) of the bands in the box, PSEUDO SADISTS were from Wales (Swansea) and like most (all) of the bands in the box, their lone demo is an absolute scorcher. Primitive and fiery UK punk - just four kids who had done time in PAY DAY and THE NOISE before joining forces in 1981. According to Tim's source, they played just a handful of gigs, their singer may or may not have been missing his two front teeth and was "mad as fuck," and had called it quits by '82. All of these songs have been comped either then - Oppose Or Decompose, Bullshit Detector, A Country Fit For Heroes - or later on the (essential) Bullsheep Detector comp/s. And that....that paragraph and this eight song demo is all you get. 

 PSEUDO SADISTS

CLASSIFIED PROTEST

 

Yesterday, Karoline and I had a spirited two hour long conversation with a gentleman writing a(nother) book on the heyday of 1980s UK punk. We briefly touched on cassette labels and how seemingly any band with a four song recording could start one. The regional compilations that were little more than mix tapes made by friends with crude hand-drawn covers. And the small towns that became flash pots of honest, earnest, pure and determined punk. Take a one hour minute bus ride and maybe you'd be in another small mining village with another youth center with another crew of a dozen kids making up another four bands and if they didn't all know each other then they all wanted to know each other and support each other with gigs and create an actually community out of a world that seemed overwhelmingly inhospitable in so many ways. Sure, most of those idealistic young adults have grown up or moved on or died, but that doesn't mean that the desperation of "Self Defence" or the pure idealism of "Monarchy Needs Anarchy" will knock you on your ass in 2021 even more than it probably did in 1984....because these kids from Nantyglo (that's in South Wales, population something less than 5,000) were just doing the damn thing. They were a part of something bigger than themselves. And that's what I (still) want to hear.

CLASSIFIED PROTEST

CHARLIE'S FAMILY CRISIS

 

What grabs me about CHARLIE'S FAMILY CRISIS is the way it hits like so many late '80s under the radar USHC acts (NEANDERTHAL SPONGE, BIG DEAL, NAKED HIPPY and the like). It nods to the early part of the decade but the sound is infected by crossover and metal and the early stages of melodic punk in the 1990s. Vocals remind me of CONCEPT OF NONSENSE, some of the more disjointed parts remind me of BURIED or DEMISE, though mostly I think that Family Life sounds familiar, as if it comes from a place that I would have been...if I had been there. Perhaps that's why my reference lines all originate from somewhere close to home, but I've never been to Wales, so maybe punk is universal after all. 

FAMILY LIFE

WAKE UP SCREAMING

From the two riff simplicity of the opening track "Escape The Mind," there's no doubt which direction this tape is going - full throttle, ramshackle and wildly catchy when they want to be. The bass is super farty, the mix is all over the place, the vocals can't keep up with the music half of the time and the backing vocals are almost always slightly off, the rack tom fills leading into the chorus of "Polluted Atmosphere" are almost comical, the guitars have that inimitable clean/destroyed tone that gets mostly buried by the rhythms section but the solo in "Insane Brain" earns full legend status. In other words -  this unknown UK thrash screamer from 1985 sounds real. And it's intense as fucking hell. Ten studio tracks, with five live tunes (yeah - they're rough...but you could have figured that) and four more recorded at rehearsal (in case you thought the live recording wasn't quite rough enough) and a "Paranoid" cover that makes no sense whatsoever. You're welcome. 

WAKE UP SCREAMING

UK PUNK

Imagine you were trading tapes of underground recordings with an excitable young punk in Southern England sometime around 1982. You sent them shitty live recordings of the hardcore bands playing basements and hall shows in your suburban shithole, and they sent you third generation demos of then unknown English bands you had never heard of. Maybe one of those tapes might have sounded like this...

ANTISOCIAL - 
A little over half of the New Punks demo. Hard to believe this band still flies mostly under the radar. If nothing else, snag yourself a copy of the admittedly generic looking Made In England EP in your local shop. It's probably there, and it's probably less than $10. 

NAKED - 
This nine song demo from 1981 is probably the highlight of this tape. This came before the EP on Bluurg and features a chilling version of the chillingly appropriate "Mid 1930s / Pre-War Germany" which is one of my favorite punk tunes of the era. 

SUBURBAN STUDS -
Three song Peel Session from 1977. Think EDDIE & THE HOT RODS and other power pop/mod crossover acts of the time. 

RUBELLA BALLET - 
Another Peel Session, one that suffers slightly from generational duplication. No introduction (should be) needed for RUBELLA BALLET, and this session includes: "My Love Life," "Newz," "Exit," "Death Train" and "Trial 13." I'm struck by how much this sounds like a punk incarnation of GIRLS AT OUR BEST, but also struck by the fact that I've never had that thought before. 

Your friend in England hooked you up good with this tape. Hopefully you'll be returning the favor with a tape filled with bands from your area. Who knows, maybe you live in Michigan...and maybe NECROS are playing down the street next Thursday. You should probably take your tape recorded...just in case. 

ANTISOCIAL // NAKED // SUBURBAN STUDS // RUBELLA BALLET

SKULL ATTACK

 

Gloriously pure UK82 mania from Wales. I sincerely hope that there's a world where we all get to hear Demo I and Demo II, but when you realize that all six tracks on 1982's searing Demo III made it onto the stunningly comprehensive Bullsheep Detector comps, it feels like this might be all that we're going to get. So blast "Killed Someone" at full volume and strap in, because SKULL ATTACK only get better from there. Hot take: this "Born To Lose" stomps Thunders' "Born To Lose."

DEMO III

DAN

You can't really go wrong with DAN. Their somewhat second tier status is likely a product of a few years and scene fluctuations more than a reflection on their recordings - image these tracks had come out in 1983 with a slightly less metal guitar tone, and I think you'd have an entirely different legacy. DAN were serious, but DAN seems fun. Like you imagine their shows were smart and sharp and intense, but you can also picture everyone smiling and singing along to "Into The Field" and leaving all sweaty and full of hope. The instrumental "The Cull" and "Once Upon A Time," presented back to back, are indescribably powerful, and then they launch into the demo of "Loophole" which sounds so totally fucking weird - an all out thrasher, but recorded quietly so to not wake up the parents? The seeds of MANKIND? are here, the bridge between early '80s UK anarcho and the metallic anarcho thrash that dominated the end of the decade is here, but Here's The Story....The Furthur Adventures Of DAN is also packed with demo recordings, live cuts, outtakes, which is what makes is such a great listen (even still) because everything is here. If "anarcho twee thrash" was a genre....

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF DAN! 

DECAYED YOUTH

 

Diehards only for this one....but diehards fucking rejoice. DECAYED YOUTH existed for a few months in 1982 and played just two gigs in that time and released no proper recordings. This tape is from an early rehearsal, 58 minutes of some kids bashing out marginally competent punk in a Welsh mining town because...because that's what you did in Ebbw Vale in 1982, apparently. The punks you hear on this tape would later go on to play in bands like UK SUBS, COWBOY KILLERS, and MAGGOT SLAYER OVERDRIVE. For fans of THE DECAY and shit-fi punk in general. 

DECAYED YOUTH

CAN YOU SEE THE SHIT

A powerful batch of '80s UK punk on this early Mental Tapes compilation. The DEVOID tracks are straight up gold, and worth way more than the effort it will take you to download this comp...fortunately you get even more. OBSCENE FEMALES and INSTIGATORS are known entities, but you'll have to dig a fair bit deeper to find most of the others. POISON JUSTICE had a tape on the S.A.S. folks' label (a tape that I want to find, by the way), P@X were new to me and have a nice dark THE MOB vibe. VICTIMS OF RIDICULE are primitive and inept, while searching for XOSET U.K. and ANARCHIST ANGELS only led me to scores more early comp tapes that I now need to hear (fuck) and KERES is a complete mystery, but their sole track "Inquisition" is a raw two-riff UK punk (by way of STOOGES) stomp with a fucking filthy lead around the 1:30 mark. All this collection does is make me want to know more, make me want to hear more. So just keep listening while I keep searching. 

 

CAN YOU SEE THE SHIT

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