Punk & Post-Punk reviews

Russ Bestley and Mike Dines, of Punk & Post-Punk, the newsletter / reviews fanzine of the Punk Scholars Network, have been reading a lot of Earth Island Books lately and have just published their reviews of Welly Artcore’s ‘Nefarious Artists’ book about punk compilations and Ian Glasper’s ‘Silence is no reaction’ book about the Subhumans…

NEFARIOUS ARTISTS: THE EVOLUTION AND ART OF THE PUNK ROCK, POST-PUNK, NEW WAVE, HARDCORE PUNK AND ALTERNATIVE ROCK COMPILATION RECORD, 1976–1989, by WELLY ARTCORE

Reviewed by Russ Bestley, London College of Communication for Punk & Post-Punk / Punk Scholars Network

Compilation albums were once a staple of the recorded music industry, ranging from showcases and samplers featuring artists contracted to one label to themed collections of popular songs in a particular genre. Licensing and publishing regulations governed production, with artists tied to exclusive contracts (Barfe 2005), though many major labels could field enough talent from among their ranks to curate a commercially viable collection. Archive compilations of blues, country, folk, rock’n’roll and soul rebranded popular music history for contemporary consumers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, alongside budget samplers of new artists, collections of pop hits and more avant-garde, experimental sets aimed at niche listeners and new markets. One retrospective compilation of 1960s garage rock bands – Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (Various artists 1972) – has even been credited as an inspiration for numerous early punk pioneers on both sides of the Atlantic, with tracks by the Standells, the Seeds, Count Five and the Electric Prunes providing a blueprint for a rudimentary and immediate punk sound.

In his second book for Earth Island, Welly Artcore, a graphic designer and musician with extensive experience in the international punk scene, has put together this overarching guide to punk, new wave and post-punk vinyl compilations, based on what the author calls a ‘field study’ of more than five hundred records in his personal collection. The selection is relatively broad, ranging from early US samplers of live tracks drawn from CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City in New York and the Rat Club in Boston to major label, new wave cash-in collections at the scene’s commercial peak and short-run, hyper-local DIY anthologies as international hardcore punk took over the punk under- ground. An interesting subtext becomes apparent through the way the author has selected and curated the content in loosely chronological order.

Punk compilations started out as they pretty much ended up; as label samplers or live showcases, but in-between the idea grew from early collections of major label fare to statements on everything from local, national and international scenes to political causes and themes.

The book is divided into four main sections: ‘1976–1979: Business Unusual’, ‘1980–1982: Declaration of Independents’, ‘1983–1986: The Blasting Concept’ and ‘1987–1989: Hardcore Evolution’, each with a brief contextual introduction and sub-chapters covering releases across each year in alphabetical order. This is not a critical history of punk genre(s), nor does the author attempt the impossible task of documenting every single punk collection spanning thirteen years around the world, but it does offer some fascinating historical context in the gaps between entries and the imperceptible progression of different punk-related styles over time. To Artcore’s credit, this is presented upfront as a central ambition for the book.

The compilations will speak for themselves, and you will read as gradual shifts occur; from punk to new wave, post-punk to hardcore, not only in style of music, but as major label involvement wanes as the independents take over, and a massive creative explosion of underground D.I.Y. compilations takes place.

The cover for each featured album (or EP – there are a few 7”and 12”examples) is shown in its relevant chapter, accompanied by a relatively brief, half- page description of its context and contents. As a graphic designer himself, it is commendable that the author also includes commentary and in some cases design credits relating to many of the record covers, though space is too limited for any detailed analysis.

Brief, two-page section opener essays offer a commentary on wider geo- politics, pop music trends and big-name Hollywood film releases during each era, along with limited introductions to notable punk labels. However, there is little reflective commentary on changes within punk scenes around the world, or on the ‘gradual shifts’ the author notes in the introduction. Of course, given the extensive, detailed content spread across 414 pages, that may well be asking too much, and it might be better for readers – or other authors – to work that overarching narrative out for themselves, using Nefarious Artists as more of a source book than an objective, analytical history. In that respect, this book follows in the footsteps of another regular author in the Earth Island Books team, Ian Glasper, who has documented the 1980s punk generation exhaustively through band biographies and detailed discographies but also leaves the ‘bigger picture’ story to the reader.

Nefarious Artists has much to commend it as a guide to a broad selection of punk and punk-related compilations. There are naturally some quite personal and subjective choices by the author – Artcore notes in the introduction that the selection could never be comprehensive – and many longstanding punk collectors (this author included) could suggest their own ‘missing entries’ that should, in their opinion, have featured in the final set. To an extent, this mirrors the personality and history of Artcore himself, with early punk and new wave compilations soon giving way to the UK82 punk scene along with US and international hardcore, the author-as-curator learning as they go along and developing an astute and detailed expertise in the process. By nature, this results in exclusions – notably the overlap between post-punk and what was becoming known as indie in the mid-1980s, a punk trajectory that ran parallel and in large part in opposition to the evolving international hardcore scene. New wave, equally, merged with post-punk and synth-pop in the 1980s and it is difficult to mark boundaries between genres that were always fluid and subjective, or worse still initiated by journalists and marketing teams as the next big thing.

Ultimately, Nefarious Artists fulfils its author’s intention as a guide to punk-related compilations within a single volume. It would be good to learn more about the overarching narrative, though that purpose might be better served by listening to the albums in sequence and charting emerging themes, using this book as a foundational route map to further research.

SILENCE IS NO REACTION: FORTY YEARS OF SUBHUMANS, by IAN GLASPER

Reviewed by Mike Dines of Middlesex University for Punk & Post-Punk / Punk Scholars Network

There are, one could contend, three key figures in the ongoing saga of anarcho-punk. The first is the indubitable influence of Crass, not least through their innovative sound, sustained political message and multi- media presence. This also includes the various offshoots: Steve Ignorant still performing the songs of Crass today, the various reissues of Crass albums and the continuing interest in Gee Vaucher’s artwork, for instance. The second is that of Chris Bowsher, poet, raconteur and the frontman of Radical Dance Faction (RDF). Formed in the late 1980s from the remnants of Military Surplus, RDF have been stalwarts in the anarcho-punk/traveller scenes ever since. And third, of course, is Dick Lucas, frontman and

performer extraordinaire of the Subhumans, Culture Shock and Citizen Fish. Whilst Crass have, to an extent, built a somewhat cultish following, Ignorant, Bowsher and Lucas remain grounded in a rigorous touring and recording schedule that would put many a younger artist to shame: and it is Lucas’s band the Subhumans, which Ian Glasper turns to in this latest work.

Glasper’s Silence Is No Reaction: Forty Years of Subhumans provides a detailed – and thorough – history of the band, beginning with Bruce Treasure’s debut with his band Vermin on 16 March 1979. ‘If you’re wondering why this is of such significance to this particular tale’, notes Glasper, ‘it’s because Vermin only played two gigs before they became Stupid Humans, who them- selves only played three gigs before they became Sub Human, and then the Subhumans’. Here, Glasper’s interview with Treasure epitomises the depth of research undertaken throughout the book. Although he had previously seen 10cc, he notes how his first punk gig was seeing the Stranglers in 1978: a band who he had encountered via his sister, who was 4 years older than Treasure and who was dating a Hells Angel at the time. He recounts the story of his travelling to the gig with his ‘punk mentor’ Mike Bradbury, who was in the band Organized Chaos, noting how they camped down in a phone box on the night after the gig due to not knowing anyone in Bath. He also tells Glasper that this was a catalyst for seeing a number of other bands, including the Damned, the Skids, the Clash, the Ruts and Elvis Costello.

The volume is structured in clear chronological detail, with each providing an overview of the year. Chapters 1–7, therefore, recount the band’s journey through the years 1979–85, whilst Chapter 8 looks at 1986–97; leaving the remaining book to lead us up to the present day. As many a reader may already know, the Subhumans split in 1985, with Lucas citing ‘musical differences and a growing divergence over approach’. However, as Glasper notes, other band members had a slightly different take on things. ‘After some of the high points of the American tours, we hit a slump’, notes bassist Phil Bryant. ‘Dick always totally believed in it, and wanted to keep going – he was like, “why stop?”’. But the rest of the band seemed disenchanted. ‘We’d just done quite a few gigs that were disillusioning’, continues Bryant, citing trouble at recent gigs with ‘people gobbing and fighting… and musically we couldn’t see where it was going, with all these bands edging towards crap metal’.

What provides the book with further depth, is Glasper’s – and the band’s – analyses of track-listings. Worlds Apart (Subhumans 1985), released after the band broke up is discussed in detail, for instance, alongside earlier releases such as The Day the Country Died (Subhumans 1983) (157–78) and From the Cradle to the Grave (Subhumans 1984) (262–71). Regards the latter, there is the obvious discussion of the B-side, what Glasper calls ‘a sprawl- ing, complicated sixteen-minute song’ (266). ‘It was written over three days at work in spare moments’, notes Lucas. ‘From birth to school, I just carried it on through, until the day you die, and the message was – unless you wake your- self up, this is more or less how your life is going to be’.

He continues, and it went on and on, page after page, and I said, ‘look, I’ve written this song, but it’s really, really long ...’. Bruce got into the idea then, because he had all these ideas that were hanging around that he hadn’t used in songs yet, and they were a bit rocky, so they didn’t fit in our normal two- and-a-half minute songs. And over a few weeks of practicing we nailed all the bits together and sorted out the structure – it was like doing a very large jigsaw, and it worked well.  

Interestingly, the remaining discussion on the album centres around what the New Musical Express journalist, Seething Wells, called ‘the most boring record cover in the history of record covers’, with Dick himself admitting to not liking the cover.

It may indeed be a cliché, but to encompass the breadth of research covered by Glasper is difficult to sum up in such a short review. Yet, a key strength of the book lies in the way in which Glasper makes the volume about the Subhumans – the band as a whole – and not about Lucas: one that high- lights an adeptness of Glasper’s writing throughout. As evidenced above, this hefty tome of over six hundred pages contains not only a valuable insight into the formation and evolution of the band, but also includes parts of Lucas’s lyric sheets, a plethora of photos and an endless stream of flyers and posters. Furthermore, one finds an accompanying Discography, with a complete list of gigs compiled by Lucas, which includes support bands and approximate crowd capacity.