Wall Of Voodoo

Killer Bees

Lucky Number

Since Lene Lovich burst onto the scene with her 1979 hit single "Lucky Number," ushering in the New Wave era, her life has been defined by an unyielding commitment to the arts and activism. She starred in the French television film Rock, costarred (with Nina Hagen and Herman Brood) in the motion picture Cha-Cha, and co-wrote and played the lead in the London stage play Mata Hari. She co-wrote the score to the short film Alpha Girls, and also wrote the libretto for the opera The Collector, and recorded Peter Hammill and Judge Smith's opera Fall of the House of Usher. She recorded and toured in support of the fundraising single "Don't Kill The Animals" with German star Nina Hagen. The Stereo Society, the on-line label founded in 1999 by celebrated producer Mike Thorne (Wire, Bronski Beat, John Cale), now proudly presents us with Lene's greatly anticipated new album: Shadows and Dust.

The Word Is Hate

The Sound of the North

At the height of the so-called 'Madchester' scene or 'baggy' if you will, this captured everything in all its glory. For a start Northside featured in a major item. Footage shows the band in interview, rehearsal, live in concert and even at work (well, the one band member who worked); Central Station Design in their studio creating something out of a pane of glass and loads of ephemera; Happy Mondays in Amsterdam - including Derek Ryder soundchecking for his son!; also includes 808 State and MC Tunes; Celebration was a Granada Television arts strand and undoubtedly Anthony H Wilson (So It Goes, The Other Side of Midnight, Remote Control, Content) must have had some influence in the making of a programme featuring Northside from his own record label.

Funk Pop A Roll

Emerging from the British Punk/New Wave movement of the late seventies,
XTC quickly established themselves as a band that transcends either category with the angular, hook-filled "White Music" album, featuring the songs, unconventional guitar and voice of leader Andy Partridge, bassist/vocalist/songwriter Colin Moulding, quirky organ by Barry Andrews and drummer Terry Chambers. One more album with this line-up, "GO2", quickly followed. After this less accessable collection, Andrews left to form Shriekback. He was replaced by guitarist/keyboardist Dave Gregory and in the first few years of the 80s, XTC produced the three albums, "Drums and Wires", "Black Sea", and "English Settlement" that firmly established them as one of England's "bands to watch".
Combining literate, pointed lyrics with Beatles meets Captain Beefheart instrumental sensibilities, XTC seemed poised for stardom when they unexpectedly stopped touring in 1982 due to their leader's stage fright.

South Of Watford

Michael Moorcock hosts 1983 ITV show about the Positive Punk genre based on an NME article by Richard North.

Yashar

The Cabaret Voltaire of 1973 to 1976 was purely involved in the manipulation of these sounds and the compilation of tapes of them.

As part of the confrontational energy of punk, itself inspired by the Dada and Situationist art movements, the early titles of the records didn't mince words - 'Baader Meinhof' and 'Do The Mussolini (Headkick)' were indicators that were bound to lead to a certain notoriety. To the press they appeared to be immersed in a world of paranoia fed by conspiracy theories, political control and the use of drugs to both liberate and inhibit the individual.

The band began working with Rough Trade in 1978, producing the now seminal triumvirate of albums "Mix Up" (1979), "Voice of America" (1980) and their most prophetic album "Red Mecca" (1981), an album released to an excellent response from the music press. All these recordings were assembled in the seclusion of the band's own studio in Sheffield called Western Works.

Atv

Alternative TV (often referred to by fans as ATV) were an English rock band, formed in London in 1976. Their punk rock and post-punk sound has proven influential for several musical artists.

As the founding editor of the pioneering Sniffin' Glue fanzine, Mark Perry gained attention in the English punk scene. He formed the band while producing the fanzine, although eventually diverted his energies solely to this band.

Key members of the band were Perry and Alex Fergusson, who described their music as "closest to Can and reggae-type rhythms".

The band's debut single was "Love Lies Limp", a free flexi disc issued with the final edition of Perry's Sniffin' Glue fanzine. On this single Perry and Fergusson were accompanied by John Towe (ex Generation X) and Tyrone Thomas. Towe left to join the Rage and was replaced by Chris Bennett, so completing a line-up which early punk fans consider to epitomise the punk era (the band subsequently underwent extensive line-up changes). Shortly afterwards they released the "How Much Longer" / "You Bastard" 7" in December 1977, the A-side being a critique of youth culture apathy.

Soon thereafter at the end of 1977, Perry sacked his chief collaborator Fergusson. The latter went on to form Cash Pussies and, a few years later, Psychic TV along with Genesis P Orridge. Fergusson was replaced by Dennis Burns.

A dub influenced single, "Life after Life," was released as well as a debut album, The Image Has Cracked. The band's second album, Vibing Up the Senile Man saw the band take a more explicitly experimental direction however, which alienated many of their followers as well as the music press. Around the same time, a live LP, split with commune-dwelling hippy band Here and Now was released (a document of their tour together), marking the band's movement further away from the ever more predictable punk/new wave scene. Alternative TV soon evolved into the avant-garde project, The Good Missionaries (taking the name from a track on the 'Vibing' album), releasing one album, "Fire From Heaven" in 1979. A series of releases under Perry's own name as well as an album under the name Door and the Window followed before Perry, Burns and Fergusson briefly reformed Alternative TV along with former members of Fergusson's Cash Pussies in 1981. Alex briefly returned to collaborate with Mark on the Alternative TV's 'pop' album, Strange Kicks which was produced by Richard Mazda.

From 1981 to 1984, Perry had a new project, Reflections, collaborating with Karl Blake (of Lemon Kittens) and Grant Showbiz among others, before concentrating on production.

Perry reformed ATV in 1985. This line up started with Karl Blake, Steve Cannell and Allison Philips. Protag and then Clive Giblin featured later on guitar and ATV released further records on and off over the following decade or so with varying line-ups, Perry being the only constant member. Another line up followed with James Kyllo and Steve Cannell which lead to the releases of "Sol" and "Dragon Love".

Lost Moment Records released the 2001 studio album, "Revolution", followed in 2003 by the official bootleg album "Viva La Rock'n' Roll - comprising of live performances recorded in the UK, France, Germany and the US. In 2004 Mark finally gave in to logic and recorded the Ramones classic "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" for a Lost Moment Single and an Argentinian Ramones tribute CD, and the world heard at last his version of the song that his pioneering fanzine took its name from. Cleopatra Records released a compilation of the Lost Moment output for the US market in February 2006, entitled "In Control".

Mark Perry is currently (Dec 2006) in the process of forming the new Sniffin' Glue Records label, which will feature a third Long Decline album as its first release.

Gaznevada

Gaznevada adventure started at the end of the seventies when Billy Blade (vocal and sax), Bat Matic (drums), Andy Nevada (vocal and synth), Chainsaw Sally (bass) and Robert Squibb (guitar) decided it was time to give to their social / sonic hysteria a form.

Ivan The Terrible

Ivan is introduced in the legendary parties of the swinging London ’70. Here he knows Cat Stevens, Marc Bolan, the photographer David Bailey and the famous painter Francis Bacon.
He comes back to Italy for the military duty, but he is immediately refused because of his “strangeness”..
He starts to hold the first concerts, in meetings and in alternative pop festivals which belonged to the underground area where Ivan moved his first steps. Right there he meets Nanni Ricordi, father and inventor of all the Italian singer-writers, who propose him to take part in ULTIMA SPIAGGIA, the only Italian firm of vanguard, with CRAMPS.
In 1975 he records his first LP, “UOAEI”, like the vocals of the alphabet, in which Ivan uses his voice in an experimental way, quite like an instrument, and a completely invented language.

I Wanna Be Free

The Rings were formed by Twink (real name John Alder) veteran of many psychedelic bands including Tomorrow and The Pink Fairies. While primarily a drummer he took on the role of front man in the band while Alan Lee Shaw played guitar and wrote the songs. Songs at the time included a mix of originals and Fairies numbers. Rod Latter played drums (later to join the Adverts). The band was completed by Dennis Stow on bass. A one off deal with Chiswick brought the excellent single I Wanna Be Free / Automobile in May 1977. Band played all the usual 'toilets' like the 100 Club and Roxy.

Punk Witches

Fatal Microbes

The Fatal Microbes were a UK punk group that existed in the late 1970s. Honey Bane (Donna Tracey Boylan) was the lead singer. Other band members were Gem Stone (Gemma Sansom) on drums, Pete Fender (Dan Sansom) on guitar, and Scotty Boy Barker (Scott Barker) who was briefly replaced as bassist by It (Quentin North).

In 1979, Small Wonder and XNTRIX Records co-released a split 12" EP entitled "Violence Grows", which also featured the (at that time) Epping based Poison Girls (whose singer, Vi Subversa, was also mother to Gem Stone and Pete Fender). Due to the popularity of Fatal Microbes, Small Wonder Records released a 7" single featuring "Violence Grows", which was hailed as a classic by John Peel.

N.F.A.D

While grunge reigned in the early '90s, New Fast Automatic Daffodils made its mark on the indie rock scene in Manchester, England. Bassist Justin Crawford, guitarist Dolan Hewison, and drummer Perry Saunders got together in 1988, and singer Andy Spearpoint joined soon after. Spearpoint's obscure lyrics spoken over repetitive riffs and beats gave NFAD's music a dream-like quality. While many bands of that era were preoccupied with displaying their angst on the world stage, NFAD was concerned with creating groovy, spacy music you could dance to. And they made plenty of it: three full-lengths, five EPs, and ten singles all in roughly four years.

Heaven 17

Taking their name from a fictional pop group mentioned in Anthony Burgess's novel, A Clockwork Orange, (where 'The Heaven Seventeen' are at number 4 in the charts with "Inside"), Heaven 17 formed when Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware split from their earlier group, The Human League, and formed the production company British Electric Foundation (BEF). BEF’s first recording was a cassette-only album called Music for Stowaways and an LP called Music for Listening To. Shortly after, they recruited their friend and photographer Glenn Gregory on vocals to complete their line-up for Heaven 17. Like The Human League, Heaven 17 heavily used synthesizers and drum machines (the Linn LM-1 programmed by Ware). Session musicians were used for bass and guitar (John Wilson) and grand piano (Nick Plytas). Where as the band's former colleagues The Human League had gone on to major chart success in 1981, Heaven 17 struggled to make an impact. Their debut single "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" attracted some attention and, due to its overtly left-wing political lyrics, was banned by BBC Radio 1[2] DJ Mike Read (who is a staunch Conservative).[3] However, neither this or the other four singles taken from the band's debut album Penthouse and Pavement managed to reach the UK Top 40.[1] The album itself proved to be a minor success and peaked at #14 on the UK album chart, and was later certified Gold by the BPI in 1982.

Love & Rockets

Three fourths of Bauhaus formed Love And Rockets, who defused Bauhaus' gloomy pop and linked it with the generation of shoegazers and ravers. More electronic sounds and dance beats, plus evanescent vocals and evocative guitars, lent Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven (1985) the quality of a mirage, accomplishing de facto the old hippie ambition of turning acid-rock into abstract trance. After the commercial Express (1986) and Earth-Sun-Moon (1987), the band reached a new synthesis for the rave generation on the hyper-psychedelic Love And Rockets (1989). But the style was still in progress. The lengthy ecstatic litanies of Hot Trip To Heaven (1994) contributed to found the genre of acid ambient music (like Stone Roses covering Pink Floyd's A Saucerful Of Secrets), whereas the ethereal Sweet F.A (1996) exaggerated and diluted the idea (early Pink Floyd fronted by Donovan and arranged by Brian Eno). While not up to their creative standards, the futuristic/edonistic electronic music of Lift (1998) seemed to come full circle and to eventually make sense of their entire career.

Saturn 5

The Inspiral Carpets are one of those great English singles bands.
Up there with Madness or the Kinks or The Buzzcocks those effortless purveyors of a machine gun rush of fine three minute statements.
In the late eighties and early nineties The Inspiral Carpets hit the chart far more consistently than their fellow Madchester travellers the Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.
Playing their psychedelic punk pop in the mid eighties way before anyone was putting the ’Mad’ into Manchester.
They had the trippy light show, the short snappy songs and the frazzled fringes of prime time garage gonzoids.
Maybe that was because The Inspirals were always a punk rock band at heart and cranked the energy level accordingly.

99 Records

The 99 Records (pronounced nine nine) story is really the story of a guy called Ed Bahlman and the events that surrounded his life for a few short years in the early 1980's.



99 Records was started by the aforementioned mythical, visionary Bahlman and named after its location in the basement of 99 MacDougal Street, just off Bleeker Street in New York's West Village. Originally it was a hip clothes shop run by Ed's girlfriend Gina Franklyn (a Londoner who incidentally was the first person in the States to import Doc Martens). Later Ed turned part of the shop into a record shop - 99 Records - which became a hang out for all sorts of muso types. The shop was one of the very few places to sell imports of many of the releases on Ed's beloved UK indies (he would go on trips with Gina to the UK and bring back the first copies to reach the States of many releases) and you could actually hear the records before you bought them, which was pretty much unheard of in New York back then. Gina would later split up with Ed and open a clothes shop called 99X on 6th Street. It still exists to this day but is now on 10th Street. Today the MacDougal Street shop is an Indian restaurant whose owners looked a little perplexed when I (in true saddo style) took some photos of it a few years back.

Ed was very involved in the New York music scene, putting on gigs and doing the odd bit of production. Sal Principato from Liquid Liquid recalls that he was 'thee hip underground guy at the time'. Right at the start of the 80's, he was really inspired by UK labels such as Y Records, On U Sound and Rough Trade and thought New York needed something along those lines, so after some gentle persuasion decided to start a label. Luckily this coincided with a very fertile period in New York's music scene. Importantly, Ed had a very clear idea of the sound he was looking for and was involved in mixing and producing many of the 99 releases.