pretazzo

But think about it... I didn't know it was a cover... from a harmless 60s track no less... so besides being genius, these Y Pants were also sarcastic... out of this world: they had a unique sound, recognizable among thousands... but what were they playing with?! Were they xylophones or glasses filled to different levels and struck with chopsticks?!! :-D

I guess I have to listen to them then... regarding the discussion "feminism & slogans," I think actions speak louder than words, even in the musical-political field... proclamations often fade into rhetoric; a record of creative music, instead, intelligent, inspired, engaging, is the most effective way for a girl in a rock group to express her worth and convey her ideas... think of the Raincoats... think of Y Pants: they made a wonderful song "That's The Way Boys Are," which, in a subdued, resigned, and painful way, tries (as much as possible) to convey to the listener the horror of a rape (thanks to particular choices in arrangement)... no slogan can reach that depth...

@ Vortex: infinite thanks for the explanation... the punk/hc scene also followed the typical trajectory of many other "disruptive" phenomena: first subversive, then self-referential, and finally harmless... @ Germs: could you recommend an album that has around ten intense tracks, one and a half minutes long, systematically devastating like GI by the Germs, before 1979? I challenge you! ;-)

Nice review, I miss the album... lovely the expression "panoramic backing vocals", it conveys the idea of a more relaxed approach compared to the angular funk-punk beginnings... just one note on the ending: in my opinion, the early albums of GO4 can already be considered new-wave, right?

But how did I miss this back in the day?! Fantastic review, Maryg...Congratulations...you captured well how the MOB sounded, a FUNDAMENTAL band for the next 20 or 30 years of indie-noise-rock, even though this album still bears some wave influence (the Wire more than anything, but only in a few tracks)...the opener "Revolver" is a punch to the heart, with that frantic acceleration in the chorus and then the lyrics: "Once I had my hero, once I had my dreams"... lump in my throat...

I quote the definitions of IMASOULMAN, which capture the essence of how The Fall sounded... NO X-MAS 4 JOHN QUAYS!!! :-D P.S. if we really have to find a moment of lack of originality in the early The Fall, this could be Winter on the album Hex, because it seems too derivative of the Velvet Underground, with a keyboard playing almost the same notes as J. Cale in Sister Ray...

an indispensable group, one of the best of the new-wave, one of the most creative of the era... the first album Live At Witch Trials was already a masterpiece... then I would point out Hex, an essay in dissonant minimalism, which contains tracks like Jawbone, Hip Priest, and Who Makes The Nazis, songs that would be an understatement to call brilliant... for the inventiveness found in those tracks, only Pere Ubu could keep pace in the new-wave scene... The Fall's technique was to start from 4 broken garage chords and then build a whole series of variations, highlighting the most marginal harmonic/rhythmic details... M.E. Smith had personality to spare, he pretended to be uneducated but was very cultured, yet I like to emphasize how his collaborators (who, by the way, changed from album to album) were truly up to the task and knew how to instrumentally translate the moody and eccentric nature of their leader...

@ Vortex, a curiosity: what exactly happened in social centers in 1983? Were they different before? I ask you because I was just a baby back then :-) @ Kaczynski: beyond the entrepreneurial/organizational talks (which are still valid), what I personally consider to define a historical group (like rock, punk, hardcore, etc...) is the feeling that this group has left to posterity... It’s true that it’s hard not to contextualize, because it’s important to know that a certain record was self-produced, but it’s also true that what matters (for me, after 30 years putting a record in the player and starting to listen to it) is the music, the sound, the feeling it transmits... From this point of view, I feel a clear distinction between the genre that the Clash, Generation X, Sham 69, Adverts, Stiff Little Fingers, etc. were making and what the Germs were doing, and after them, the Adolescents or D.R.I. or Die Kreuzen, to name three very different bands... they are two different things that evoke different states of mind in the listener (at least as far as I’m concerned, because it’s subjective)... rightly you say that Darby Crash only thought about getting high, but perhaps deep down he already felt the need to look beyond, he had "sensed" something different and this "feeling" was hardcore (and that’s what you can perceive from the Germs' music)... another contemporary band, Black Flag with the "old" Gregg Ginn, had the clarity, the will, and the ability to concretely realize this ambition...

I really missed these debates :-) I stand by my position... it all depends on the meaning you give to the term hardcore, whether it's stylistic or attitudinal... the point you make about independent attitude is indisputable and I agree that punk, in the end, is a degenerated form of old rock'n'roll, while with hc we've taken a step forward, especially thanks to minds like McKaye, Albini, Rollins, Ginn, Graffin, Biafra, Dictor, Frank Discussion, Bob Mould... all these people, so different from one another, are still alive and kicking, they rejected the sex n' drugs label (which persisted up to and including punk) and showed that being creators of the most extreme rock doesn't necessarily mean living a reckless life or having an eccentric look: today Rollins hosts a talk show, Biafra has entered politics, Mould has embraced electronics, Discussion works as a programmer, Graffin teaches biology, McKaye testifies as a civil party against the All Ages Ban, and Albini is still the same nerd (although he's become less skeletal and maybe he even has a girlfriend!) :-D

I only listened to these bands on the FLEX YOUR HEAD compilation, where I was especially impressed by the Void, who were original with all those twisted guitar riffs, those abrupt stops in the middle of the accompaniment...breathless music...