The Screamers – I Wanna Hurt

The internet is great and filesharing fucking rules. There is no chance on the planet someone like me born in the wrong country a little too late would be able to track down anything by The Screamers and not pay through the nose for it. Punks in Liverpool used to have the bands logo painted on the back of there black leather jackets. As iconographic as the Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, Black Flag and Big Black logos, the Misfits Skull and the Ramones insignia. If I close my eyes I can still see all these hand painted labor of loves, proudly worn statements of tribalism and belonging, studded, smelly and tossed on by some partially shave headed doc martined thug/thuget your mother pulled you away from when you walked past.

First time I was allowed in a record shop on my own (Probe) – straight for the Crass section, sorry mum. Narrowly avoided pen and needle tattoos (unlike my best friend Jay, who know runs the fucking tattoo shop in Quiggins).

A few years on and my checklist was almost complete of all the emblazoned jacket bands scarred in my head, except The Screamers. What happened to them? Why can’t I buy any? The leather jacket punks had gone from Liverpool to be replaced by baggy, heavy metal and dreadlock greebos. To this day I’m still mystified. All I could get was a school friend’s dad who was an old old punk to copy a copy of a cassette tape of an Italian reissue of a live bootleg recording taped off some European radio show or something. I thought they were a bit shit and couldn’t see why they deserved the honor of being on a anyone’s leather (but I was going through a bit of an Explo**ed phase, which we don’t mention any more…).

Fast Forward 15 years to 20jazzfunkgreats at The Freebutt and scarcly a night goes but without Tomata DuPlenty lending us his aggressive, theatrical intensity. Young kids, only a bit older than me in that last bit ask inquisitively “whats this?” Older bearded, bald and ex skater guys nod with satisfaction. If there were any leather jacket punks around I could point and say “look, its them!” but the old tribes are dead. Misfits logos are more likely to appear on a topshop converse than a leather jacket in Brighton. The Screamers vanished into thin air without ever releasing a single record and never officially toured. I have everything they ever did according to the bootleg sites. The internet is great and filesharing fucking rules.

Ruth – Polaroid Roman Photo (instrumental first mix 1982)

Ruth, a pop synth sideproject of Thierry Muller of Ilich is considered a classic by most people who hear it and regularly makes it onto compilations still today, for good reason.

On the cd reissue Fractal Records were nice enough to include this early instrumental mix of the most well known song on the album (apart from the awesome cover of Can’s She Brings the Rain). Its dated as 1982, three years before the albums release and at a guess we would think this was the ignition point for the entire album. It is similar to the more experimental build into nothing style of Ilitch, but with the obvious all important inclusion of a beat you can dance (all be it slowly) too.

This beautiful minimalist mix is even slower and longer than the eventual vocal track with a sense of space and restrained control for the first half before the release of those layered synths which flirt with each other, playfully pulling away but staying within range incase the other were to reveal an emotion. If you want a fuller description of this track, see the dictionary definition of the word cool.

The Knife – Pass this on (live)

In big letters on The Knife’s old website it said “The Knife do not play live”.

They did. At the ICA in London.

At the ‘gig’ they showed videos, venturing onto the stage to perform once. What did they play? This very weird so slow it hurts unrecognisable version of Pass This On. If you wanted a pop gig you were a little disappointed.

I bought the single of pass this on with this on and was hypnotised by its Chris and Cosey style electronics and have been playing it out ever since, either at 33 or 45 depending. It was what connected The Knife with our other fetishes and American bands like The Chromatics (who have covered R.L.Crutchfields Hands in the dark, how odd) and Genders, in strange fucked up xxjfg world there is a scene of music we fixate over, making connections that do not exists and planning fantasy festivals of ‘the scene in our heads’. James is calling it the neu glamorous underground, which makes me laugh.

When xxjfsteve heard the new Knife single Silent Shout he thought they had bootlegged themselves, and so they have. Pass This On live is the embryonic building block for what became Silent Shout. In one way I’m glad they didn’t throw away something so exceptional, but in another way I’m gutted because we were one of the rare few to know this entrancing arpeggiated piece of wonderment. It is as slow and relentless as The Screamers track, but in a totally different direction, still I find they make perfect bed partners in ‘the scene in our heads’. Watch the video for Silent Shout here.

xxjfsteve is broken at the moment, our best wishes go out to him.

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with black flag crass dead kennedys dreadlock european radio explo filesharing friend jay fucking rules fugazi i close my eyes live bootleg liverpool pay through the nose punks school friend screamers tattoo shop tribalism young kids