The Sound of the Westway #2

Here's a fairly obscure west London fanzine from mid 1977..  Put together by Derek Gibbs, John Ellis, Alan Dearling and a few others, it's a hand written effort, illustrated with drawings but with nice collage front and back covers.  It starts with an article on the trouble s between punks and teds at the time, a Vibrators interview, Mink Deville and generation X gig reviews, record reviews plus some funny mini interviews in a section called 'How to Annoy Pop Stars' (Kid Reed of the Boys says Mick Jones was briefly in the Hollywood Brats,  Derek asks Mick who denies it,.. I'll have to dig into that one..).

Derek got his photo on the cover of Phonogram's 1977 punk compilation 'New Wave', gobbing beer at the photographer as we did back then.. nice. He was later lead singer of west London group The Satellites in around 1978-80.. a great live band.  I'll try to get their 45 Urban Guerilla posted up here some time soon..

Anyway, this is a great fanzine.. hope you enjoy it..

Download The Sound of the Westway #2

Oz #10 - The Pornography of Violence issue

Going back a bit further for this one.. This issue of the old hippy mag Oz is a bit harder edged than most, looking mainly at the Vietnam war and discussing the politics of the time, protests against the war as well as a bit of usual hippy weirdness.. It's from March 1968, so presumably came out before the big anti Vietnam war protests in London, notably the Grosvenor Square protest of  28th March '68. It's a fascinating glimpse of the mood of the time.. and of course alot of what the articles are complaining about still applies in Iraq and Afghanistan..  

Download Oz #10

The Barracudas - I Want My Woody Back / Subway Surfin'

I came across this recently, had totally forgotten how good it was.  I saw these guys live a few times in '79 around the time this came out and I vaguely remember one of them working at the old Vinyl Solution record shop in Westbourne Grove for a while.. (or possibly they just hung out there alot.. memory is a bit hazy around then!).  I also have vague memories of seeing them carrying a surf board though Kings Cross tube station as a publicity stunt..?  Formed by Canadian Jeremy Gluck and ex-Unwanted guitarist Robin Wills , along with Nick Turner on drums and David Buckley on bass they went off in their own direction about the time the punk scene started to splinter and became London's only surf band.  They signed to EMI after this came out and had a few minor hits and carried on till the mid -80's when the band split due to lack of success / musical differences, etc.. This has a rawer sound than most of their EMI stuff.. great double sider. 

I Want My Woody Back


Subway Surfin'

Mighty Diamonds - Jailhouse

A classic bit of roots reggae here from the Mighty Diamonds on the Impact! label from 1975.  This is the Diamonds at their best..great song, cracking production.. superb!   Bizzarely I don't think this one is available on CD or MP3 anywhere.. I spent ages looking for it after hearing the dub version on a Pressure Sounds compilation with no luck a couple of years back so eventually tracked down an original US copy.. a few crackles but well worth the effort. (It was originally released in JA on the Well Charge label)

New Pose #4

New Pose was an excellent fanzine, put together by a guy called Martin from Leeds.  It looks great, nicely laid out, good photos and well printed.  This issue is all hand written ..(apparently his typist quit after #3.. maybe northern men don't type?! ) but he's got hand writing abit like the guy who did Rock Family Trees so it all looks good..  There were 5 issues of New Pose.. I'll get all of them posted at some point..

Anyway, this issue is from Sept 77..great stuff in this one, a Cortinas gig review, Elvis Costello and Generation X gig review, a superb write up of the Pistols gig at Doncaster and an Adverts interview plus records reviews.

Hope you enjoy it..

Download New Pose #4

Gratuitous Gaye Advert pic

..cos she looked amazing and I haven't got time to do more tonight..

Hopefully I'll get a zine or two and some tunes up in the next few days..  Off to a beer festival tomorrow so will either post nothing or lots of drunken nonsense..!