Cool Punk

There are a lot of blogs out there who specialize in African music like Global Groove, African Music Treasures, Awesome Tapes from Africa, Likembe, matsuli music, Sea Never Dry, Voodoo Funk, whatsinmyipod or ýlowek scavel-cronek. So I'd like to offer some CDs from Africa too. I bought these 4 years ago while visiting relatives in Namibia. The first one is called "Cool Punk" and it contains obviously NO music from Africa but strange unknown punk from the UK from around 1977/78. I know next to nothing about these groups, I've seen a picture of a Blitzkrieg Bop-7" in (German) Sounds 2/78 and of course "Jet Boy Jet Girl" is a well known tune, and this is the original version by Elton Motello, not the Plastic Bertrand-cover (Does "Ca Plane Pour Moi" also praise homosexual intercourse?). But the CD was damned cheap (1,59 €), so I had to grab it at the HiFi Corporation at the Maerua Mall in Windhoek - which is not a good place if you are interested in music from Namibia at all. So why am I posting this CD? Maybe just to annoy you, but also because it represents a forgotten side of punk, the thin undistorted sound of punk guitars. Imagine a guitar sound like Stooges, MC5, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Lurkers and these would be all classic punk chartbusters. But no, these groups went to studios with engineers who didn't care for rock'n'roll or had no telephone numbers of interested producers. So they ended up with a product which neither was up to the standards of the music business or the punk audience which was already used to more distorted guitars from Ramones, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Lurkers and other chart bands, probably because distorted guitars spound more tame and melodic than undistorted ones. And so the enthusiasm of these bands was in vain. This CD looks like one of those ugly cheap punk compilation CDs which mostly offer a stupid mixture of Sex Pistols Demos, New York Dolls, "Ob Bondage Up Yours" from X-Ray Spex and tracks from the Eighties without any additional informations (and the subtitle of the CD "The Taste Of Musical Anarchy" is more than stupid because the only musical anarchy punk every cam up was "Amnesty International Report on British Army Torture of Irish Prisoners" by the Pop Group), but in fact "Cool Punk" has some kind of historical value.

COOL PUNK (THE TASTE OF MUSICAL ANARCHY)
CD, UK 2000, NEWSOUND NST 015
BLITZKRIEG BOP - Let's go / ELTON MOTELLO - Jet boy jet girl / THE MIRRORS - Cure for cancer / THE JERKS - Come back bogart / THE NERVES - TV adverts / JET BRONX & THE FORBIDDEN - Ain't doin' nothin' / TOO MUCH - Who you wanna be / DIRTY DOGS - Let go of my hand / FRUIT EATING BEARS - Chevy heavy / CANE - Dice / KRYPTON TUNES - Limited version / DIRTY DOGS - Shouldn't do it / MARTIN & THE BROWNSHIRTS - Taxi driver / THE JERKS - Get your woofing dog off me / HORROR COMIC - I don't mind / CANE - DK dance / CANE - College girls / NEVILLE WANKER & THE PUNTERS - Boys on the dole / THE MIRRORS - Dark glasses / BLITZKRIEG BOP - UFO / THE JERKS - Cool / TOO MUCH - Kick me one more time (download)