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Mar 13, 2011

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols (1977)




















Here's the complete discography for Sex Pistols:

Anarchy in the UK (1976 single)
God Save the Queen (1977 single)
Pretty Vacant (1977 single)
Spunk (1977 alternate debut album bootleg)
Holidays in the Sun (1977 single)
Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols
No One Is Innocent (1978 single)
Something Else (1979 single)
Silly Thing (1979 single)
C'mon Everybody (1979 single)
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979 compilation album)
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979 single)
Some Product: Carri on Sex Pistols (1979 interview album)
(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone (1980 single)
Flogging a Dead Horse (1980 compilation album)
Sex Pack (1980 compilation album)
Anarchy in the UK - Live at the 76 Club (1985 live album)
Kiss This (1992 compilation album)
Filthy Lucre Live (1996 live album)
Spunk/This Is Crap (1996 compilation album)
Live at Winterland 1978 (1997 live album)
Jubilee (2002 compilation album)
Sex Pistols Box Set (2002 box set)
Raw and Live (2005 live album)
Agents of Anarchy (2007 compilation album)
Live & Filthy (2008 live album)





If you have any suggestions for where the tour should go next, please give a shout.

Pass the Headphones!!

Mar 6, 2011

Siouxsie and The Banshees - The Scream (1978)


"I'm Cold" was a b-side to The Cure's third single "Jumping Someone Else's Train" and featured guest Siouxsie Sioux on the backing vocals. Not only were The Cure and Sioux's band two of the leading forces of the post-punk movement, but they also held a strong respect for each other and the groups' members collaborated often on side-projects. Robert Smith (lead singer of The Cure) even substituted as The Banshees's guitarist for the length of a 1979 tour.


Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin first became known as prominent members of the Bromley Contingent, vocal followers of the Sex Pistols that helped popularize the fashion of the early UK punk movement. Several bands came out of the Contingent such as Billy Idol's Generation X and Sioux and Severin's Siouxsie and the Banshees. The band debuted at the 100 Club Punk Festival in Fall of 1976 to fill in for a last minute empty slot despite not having enough members to round out the band. The gig survived with the aid of borrowed musicians Marco Pirroni on guitar and still unknown Sid Vicious on drums. Severin played bass and Siouxsie naturally rounded out the quartet with her unique vocals. The two intended to break up the band after the festival but were asked to keep performing. With a serious future now in mind, they officially added two members to the Banshees: Kenny Morris (drums) and John McKay (guitar).

The Banshees, who were now selling out venues, held out for a contract that allowed complete creative control and eventually received one from Polydor. The first result of the contract came out in early 1978 with the Top Ten UK single "Hong Kong Garden". The band released their debut album The Scream by the end of that same year that peaked at 13 on the UK charts. A follow-up single "The Staircase (Mystery)" was released early in 1979.

With all expectations that Siouxsie and The Banshees be a punk outfit like their figureheads Sex Pistols, their debut album became one of the earliest works to be described as post-punk. They began with the foundation of the punk movement and pushed it in a more complex and experimental direction that contrasted with the pure, raw energy of their predecessors. Siouxsie and the Banshees also strayed away from calls for revolution, instead lyrically turning inward to more personal and individual issues while delivering them by more poetic means. Earlier, calling Siouxsie's voice unique might have been a bit of an understatement. Her one-of-a-kind delivery slides and jumps through every song and ties the music together. Her voice, just like her image, is unmistakably punk because it breaks all the rules.

Here is the discography surrounding Siouxsie and the Banshees's debut album:

Hong Kong Garden (1978 single)
The Scream
The Staircase (Mystery) (1979 single)
Love in a Void (1979 single)





If you have any ideas for where the tour should go next, please give a shout. I'm always open to new artists and genres, and even if I don't take the recommendation, I always keep it in mind.

Pass the Headphones!!

Mar 2, 2011

The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys (1979)


Two producers worked on The Jam's debut output: Vic Smith and Chris Parry. The latter also worked as a scout for Polydor records and had the fortune of discovering the demo of a band called The Cure. He signed them to his young, independent record label, Fiction Records, and produced much of their early recordings including the band's early singles and their debut album.

The Cure existed for several years before they were widely known and called The Cure. Formed in 1973 at a middle school in Crawley, Sussex, the band would go by the monikers The Obelisk and Malice; bands that held inconsistent lineups. By the time the band members graduated from secondary school, they stuck with a name (Easy Cure) a sound inspired by English punk, and a fairly solid lineup: Robert Smith (lead vocals, piano, songwriter), Porl Thompson (lead guitar), Mick Dempsey (bass), and Lol Tolhurst (percussion). After winning a talent competition, the band had a brief stint under the wings of German record label, Hansa Records. They soon fell out with their first big break, however, after refusing to compromise their artistic vision as they were expected only to cover songs.

Robert Smith, who had been forging himself as the leader of the band with his front man duties and creative output, would drop Thompson from the lineup (taking over lead guitarist duties) and change the name of the band to The Cure. By the fall of 1978, the trio were signed by Chris Parry to Fiction Records. Later that year, they released their debut single "Killing an Arab", a song title that seems racist even though its content derives from Albert Camus's The Stranger. Despite or because of the controversy, the song had no chart success. In May of 1979, The Cure released their debut album Three Imaginary Boys, a well-reviewed record that just missed hitting the UK's Top 40. The album was quickly followed up with two more non-album singles: "Boys Don't Cry" and "Jumping Someone Else's Train". The two songs had a more pop quality than their previous output but still didn't cause a ripple on the charts. In 1980, their debut album was repackaged to substitute in singles for an American release, called Boys Don't Cry, that gained no traction at the time but is now considered a classic.

The Cure had a post-punk sound that, at this early point in their creative arc, had two distinct products. Their singles tended towards pop-ier, riff-oriented song structure with simple, emotive lyrics and topics, while Three Imaginary Boys's music had a more descriptive, minimal feel to it with lyrics that tackled a wide range of subject matter in pretty clever ways.

Here is the discography surrounding The Cure's debut album:

Killing an Arab (1978 single)
Three Imaginary Boys
Boys Don't Cry (1979 single)
Jumping Someone Else's Train (1979 single)





If you have any ideas for where the tour should go next, I'm open to all suggestions.

Pass the Headphones!!