The severed alliance of Johnny Marr and Morrissey which exists today seemed a million miles away from the creative force that once was, 39 years ago.
On the 20th of February 1984,-35 years ago today, The Smiths self-titled debut album hit the streets. The legend was quickly born and fully impacted as the album debuted on the UK charts at number two. It was at this moment that The Smiths heralded their arrival onto the international music scene. From this point and over the next four-years they would become the dominant force on the indie and alternative music scene.

Preceded in January by the teaser single-‘What Difference Does It Make?’, supposedly Morrissey’s least favourite single, the song did however build the momentum for what was to come, hitting a high of number-twelve in the charts. The previous singles, one included here, ‘Hand In Glove’, had failed to make an impression on the charts, although the beautiful single which sparkled of Marr’s fully recognized guitar orchestra, did however catch the eye of the critics and media, they had already tipped something big from this band, thankfully they were right.

The second single ‘This Charming Man’ faired better but only broke the top-30. Such a staple of Smiths songs failed to break the top-twenty seems strange now but the public had not fully caught on. Though not originally on the album, ‘This Charming Man’ however did appear on U.S versions of the album distributed by Sire Records.

The Smiths could very well be the most significant release of the eighties. Setting a tone for the rise of other such bands at the close of the decade, unsurprisingly from the same area of Manchester-The Stone Roses, The Happy Monday’s and what came to prominence in the nineties Brit-Pop era owe a debt of gratitude to not only The Smiths as a band, but the foundations they laid in a short four-years.

The Smiths (Original 1984-Rough Trade Track List):

Side A

1. "Reel Around the Fountain" 5:58
2. "You've Got Everything Now" 3:59
3. "Miserable Lie" 4:29
4. "Pretty Girls Make Graves" 3:44
5. "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" (quotation from "Sonny Boy" by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown and Al Jolson) 4:38

Side B

6. "Still Ill" 3:23
7. "Hand in Glove" 3:25
8. "What Difference Does It Make?" 3:51
9. "I Don't Owe You Anything" 4:05
10. "Suffer Little Children" 5:28

DISCOGS

[Kevin Burke - Feb 2019]

On the 18th-of February 1977 The Damned released their debut album ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’. The most important album of the late seventies punk movement, though when it comes to The Damned they are the architects of the revolution, what punk was and the direction it was heading.

Indeed, with The Damned there was a lot of firsts, they were the first band from the United Kingdom to release and chart a punk single in ‘New Rose’ in October 1976. The first UK punk band to tour America and play the blank generations ground-zero in New York’s CBGB’s. But it is that album ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ which is the true-milestone, it was the first album released by a UK band from the surge of punk. Eight months before The Sex Pistols released ‘Never Mind The Bollocks..”, though a more fully formed debut than the Pistols, and released while The Clash were only starting to record their self-titled debut.

Without doubt both the influence and quality contained with ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ made this the most important album release of the nineteen-seventies.
Produced by the Stiff Records maestro-Nick Lowe (Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric), this was old-school rock and roll fused with teenage angst and layered with escapism, atomic art aimed at the heart of the British establishment and the pretentious state with the rock music circus of the day.

Raw-energy, the essential ingredient injected into the albums twelve-tracks by Dave Vanian, Brian James(London SS), Captain Sensible, and drummer Rat Scabies. Opening with the single-‘Neat Neat Neat’, the incendiary slice of punk, released simultaneously with the album. And closing with the nod to their heroes, a cover of The Stooges ‘1970’-renamed ‘I Feel Alright’, the adventure The Damned brings the listener on is one which resonates strongly within modern society today.

The bulk of the songwriting for the release was done by guitarist Brian James, the man who many feel responsible for punk, although after the follow-up-‘Music For Pleasues’ this original incarnation would break up as Jones departed towards the end of seventy-seven. This makes ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ that bit more special as it the original sound captured of a band hungry and striving forward.
The only moment the band slow down is the terrifying-'Feel The Pain', the rest is an all-out attack on the senses as James is turning the guitar-sound into a noise-generator than an instrument. Tracks like- 'Stab Your Back’ is perhaps too moronic a track for even The Ramones, the collection is still the finest time-capsule from a moment in time where music had possibilities regardless of how it was executed.

New Rose;

Is she really going out with him?
Ah!
I got a feeling inside of me
It's kind of strange like a stormy sea
I don't know why, I don't know why
I guess these things have got to be
I gotta new rose, I got it good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town
See the sun, see the sun, it shines
Don't get too close or it'll burn your eyes
Don't you run away that way
You can come back another day
I got a new rose, I got it good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town
I never thought this could happen to me
I feel strange, why should it be?
I don't deserve somebody this great, oh, oh
I'd better go or it'll be too late
Ah!
I got a feeling inside of me
It's kind of strange like a stormy sea
I don't know why, I don't know why
I guess these things have got to be
I got a new rose, I got her good
Guess I knew that I always would
I can't stop to mess around
I got a brand new rose in town, uh
Oh!
Na-na-no!

The Damned (Track List; Original 1977 LP)

Neat, Neat, Neat
Fan Club
I Fall
Born to Kill
Stab Your Back
Feel the Pain
New Rose
Fish
See Her Tonight
1 of the 2
So Messed Up
I Feel Alright

-All tracks written by Brian James, except ‘Stab Your Back’ and ‘I Feel Alright’.

DISCOGS

[Kevin Burke-Feb 2019]

Today, exactly 20 years ago, American Industrial Metal band Ministry released their eighth studio album Animositisomina (18.02.2003). It was the last Ministry album to feature Al Jourgensen’s longtime partner in crime and bass-player / composer / producer Paul Barker, ending the Luxa/Pan production era. Later, Jourgensen would reveal in an interview that this is one of his least-favourite Ministry albums saying “it was no fun to make” as he was forced to quit his heroin habits during the recording sessions.

Animositisomina Tracklist:
Animosity
Unsung
Piss
Lockbox
Broken
The Light Pours Out Of Me
Shove
Impossible
Stolen
Leper

On February 17, 2014, Bob Casale died at the age of 61, in Los Angeles, California, due to heart failure. As with most musicians their legacy is both the influence and the music they leave behind, in the case of Casale what he accomplished with Devo is astounding.

The debut full-length album by Devo-“Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!” broke into the UK charts reaching a high of number-twelve, that set the chain reaction of legend.
Although released to mixed reviews, since then Rolling Stone has listed in amongst the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it is also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die-for a reason. It is the punk-electronic crossover, somewhere balancing between all-out rage and novelty recording. Produced by Brian Eno and David Bowie on the back of their experimental Berlin-trilogy, Devo became the perfect project.

“This is the band of the future”-David Bowie on Devo.

The strangest album-title comes from the lead single, released this month in 1978-“Jocko Homo" introduced the call-and-response "Are we not men?-We are Devo!". Indeed that single charted in the UK’s top-100.
“Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!” broke down barriers as it reflected perfectly the state of rock-music. The death of glam, the cliches which were already falling into the punk movement and the heavyweight stadium acts who played for the money and not the audience is meshed into every inch of the album. It flung back the pretentious notions of the old-guard with a cover of The Rolling Stones “Satisfaction”, became spokespeople for the hippy-drug generation with “Too Much Paranoias”. In time Devo could be perceived as journalists, highlighting their perception of what the music business had become.

Bob Casale was intricate in the Devo sound, providing back vocals, keyboards and that sixties-based rhythm guitar sound. Though his later years was spent in the field of soundtracks to movies such as - Four Rooms, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, the past would always reach for him in the form of reunion shows from 1996 until 2007.
Along with bands like Kraftwerk, Talking Heads, and Pere Ubu, Devo hailed a new era of electronic based compositions that set the trajectory for much of modern music. Looking deep with the modern framework of music points directly in the sound of LCD Soundsystem, Radiohead, even in Arcade Fire, you frequently find strong traces of Devo.

[KB]

"The Telephone Call / Der Telefon-Anruf" by the German band Kraftwerk was released in February 1987 as the second single from their ninth studio album, Electric Café (1986). The single became Kraftwerk’s second number-one on Billboard Hot Dance Club Play and stayed two weeks at the number-one spot. Although the unsettling black-and-white video suggests Wolfgan Flür is singing the lyrics It’s actually Karl Bartos Vaclas that can be heard!

The remixes on the singles were done by François Kevorkian.

The Telephone Call / Der Telefon-Anruf" (7")

A. The Telephone Call (Remix) 3:49
B. Der Telefon-Anruf 3:49

The Telephone Call / Der Telefon-Anruf" (12")

A1. The Telephone Call (Remix) 3:49
A2. Der Telefon-Anruf 3:49

B1. House Phone 4:54
B2. Der Telefon-Anruf" (Remix)

The Telephone Call - Lyrics

[EN]
I give you my affection and I give you my time
Trying to get a connection on the telephone line
You're so close but far away
I call you up all night and day

I give you my affection and I give you my time
Trying to get a connection on the telephone line
You're so close but far away
I call you up all night and day
You're so close but far away
I call you up all night and day

I give you my affection and I give you my time
Trying to get a connection on the telephone line
I call you up from time to time
To hear your voice on the telephone line
I call you up from time to time
To hear your voice on the telephone line

[DE]

Ich geb' dir meine Zuneigung und meine Zeit
Ich muß dich wiedersehen, wann ist es soweit?
Du bist mir nah und doch so fern
Ich ruf' dich an, ich hör' dich gern

Songwriters: Florian Schneider Esleben / Karl Bartos / Ralf Huetter
© Warner/Chappell Music, Inc