Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Swell Maps
International Rescue
(Alive, 1999)
...home to two of UK punk's pinnacle moments...
Much as I favour a bit of the old punk rock, I would always, if pushed, take the camp and weird over the gobby and beery. And while kneejerk values hold sway - in an undeniably bracing way - among the seminal releases of UK punk's first wave, the cerebral tangents of post-punk were already abroad, explicit in the work of Buzzcocks, Subway Sect, Wire and Solihull's Swell Maps. If the bandname were not advertisement enough of their outré sensibilities, the latter boasted the best noms de rock outside of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. And beyond the instinctive brilliance of singer Nikki Sudden's art-Bolan songs, it was the subversive, cross-grained shatter of Epic Soundtracks, Phones Sportsman, Biggles Books and Jowe Head - maverick technicians in a kind of junkyard pop laboratory - that signalled unbroken territory ahead, routes the UK indie sub-industry would explore, even unto the nascent Blur. 1977's 7" debut Read About Seymour (the song that would bequeath Colchester's Britpop darlings their original handle: Seymour) is the essence of Swell Maps' genius: tick-tocking guitar, blamming drums, neurotic nerd-yelp vox, extraneous irritants like the crappy drum-rim clatter at 0.40 and 0.50, and a chaotic spazz meltdown signalling an early bath. There is a challenge here, not only to old conventions but also to the new, plus a basic, savage rock'n'roll attitude turned inward. Their third single - also featured on this aptly scattershot 1999 comp - was the snooty Real Shocks, an arch critique of punk's style-into-revolt, transmogrified by the wholly unexpected, stunningly mournful piano knell that takes the song out of suburbia and into space. The Maps' subsequent long-players - 1979's A Trip To Marineville (Rough Trade's second full-length release) and 1980's Swell Maps In "Jane From Occupied Europe" - stretched this uneasy tension between rock and art, and are both essential purchases (only a fiver apiece on amazon.co.uk!), and when Swell Maps split the art gene went with drummer Epic (real name: Kevin Godfrey) while his brother Adrian (aka: Nikki) would become an increasingly spectral embodiment of the rock'n'roll fiction-romance - a British Johnny Thunders right down to the choice of leisure activities and manner of demise. Behind them, they left a glorious mess of music, which I can summarize no better than Richard Mason did some moons ago on Perfect Sound Forever: "The real point for me," wrote Mason, "is that Swell Maps epitomize punk rock as I see it, which goes something like this; do it yourself, do it cheap, do it your way, do it anyway and screw what other people think. Main thing is, do it. And they did. And how."
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 27/11/2009
Further Listening
Swell Maps - A Trip To Marineville (Rough Trade, 1979)
Wire - Pink Flag (Harvest, 1977)
Subway Sect - What's The Matter Boy? (Oddball, 1980)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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I LOVE the Swell Maps!
One of the greatest bands from the punk/post-punk era.
Posted by Peter at 12:17 PM GMT 27/11/2009 Report Abuse
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'A Trip To Marineville" plus one of the myriad of Maps compilation albums are both essential to any decent record collection.
The greatest thing about Swell Maps is the fact that they did not sound like anyone else. Oh for that type of band nowadays!
Posted by Alexander Meerkat at 8:28 AM GMT 29/11/2009 Report Abuse
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