“In 1978, to a backdrop of tribal youth cultures and economic crisis, The Jam answered years of snobbish disregard from the London-based punk elite when their aggressive and melodic sound, previously sneered at by the capital’s hip art school set, came of age with the release of their third album, ‘All Mod Cons’. By 1978 The Jam had released two albums of R&B-infused teenage punk to transient acclaim. … This scathing reaction shook main man Paul Weller and sent the band into a period of severe creative drought. Hoping the location would provide inspiration, Polydor hired an isolated country house to record the third album. Unfortunately the fresh air left little impression on the cappuccino-loving Weller and the new material drew a blank with the label. …”
Clash Music
W – All Mod Cons
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: All Mod Cons (Full Album)
YouTube: When You’re Young (Live), Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (Live)
Month: April 2023
Joyce Theater
“The Joyce Theater is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The Joyce occupies the Elgin Theater, a former movie house that opened in 1941 and was gut-renovated and reconfigured in 1981-82. The Joyce is a leading presenter of dance in New York City and nationally. In 1977, the Eliot Feld Ballet had begun exploring more affordable approaches to presenting its annual season of performances in New York City. Rental costs and house sizes of the theaters available to the company made these seasons financially risky propositions. … Major changes to the structure included the elimination of the original balcony configuration to create a steeply raked seating area on one level, new construction at the rear of the building to provide additional backstage space, and the installation of a 67 x 36 foot proscenium stage with a sprung floor. The completed theater had 472 seats. …”
Wikipedia
Joyce Theater (Video)
YouTube: The Joyce Theater Seat Renovation
Datapanik in the Year Zero 1978-1982 [Box] – Pere Ubu
“Pere Ubu’s troubles with record companies are legendary within certain underground rock circles. In perhaps the most bizarre turn of events, the group’s collected works of 1978-1982 — after being out of print for nearly a decade — were reissued by Geffen as a five-disc box set, Datapanik in the Year Zero. Named after the group’s 1978 EP, the set is arranged chronologically and occasionally substitutes live versions for studio tracks, but that hardly matters — nearly every song the band recorded during the five-year time span is included. In addition to the official Pere Ubu material, the box includes a disc of rare singles from early incarnations of Ubu and other Cleveland-area punk rockers like Rocket from the Tombs, 15-60-75, and Mirrors, which were released on David Thomas‘ independent record label. With this much material, it’s safe to say that the set is a definitive retrospective. However, if you’re simply interested in Pere Ubu, consider the set carefully before investing. Pere Ubu were indeed one of the most innovative and challenging bands of their era, which means that their music is an acquired taste. However, those willing to invest in the box will find a wealth of inventive, hard-edged avant rock & roll. …”
allmusic (Audio)
W – Datapanik in the Year Zero
Discogs
amazon
Archive – Datapanik in the Year Zero: 1975-1982 (Audio)
Book of Days – Meredith Monk (1988)
“Meredith Monk’s films and stage pieces contain visions of the past, particularly visions of her own Jewish heritage, which she uses to make sense of the present. Her early films Quarry (1975) and Ellis Island (1979) are silent, poetic meditations, using spare, black and white images, almost devoid of movement, to convey visions that are both thoughtful and urgent. In Book of Days (1988), her new film (released in two versions, one for theaters and a slightly shorter one for television), she tries to take the concerns and techniques of the earlier films and expand them into a full-length narrative with color and sync-sound. Her techniques do not make the leap into the feature-film format, and the formal devices she adopts do not convey her visions quite as powerfully as the ones she used in her earlier films. …”
The Films of Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk: Book of Days (ECM New Series 1399)
W – Book of Days (Meredith Monk album)
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Churchyard Entertainment (Live)
DAF – Alles ist gut (1981)
“Stripped down to the core duo of Robert Görl and Gabi Delgado and with Conny Plank again behind the boards with crisp, focused production, with Alles Ist Gut (Everything Is Fine) DAF turned into an honest-to-goodness German hit machine, as detailed in the 1998 Mute reissue’s liner notes by Biba Kopf. Even more important and impressive was how they did it — keeping the electronic brutality that characterized them, but stripped down to nothing but Görl‘s massive drumming, electronic bass and synth tones, and Delgado‘s deep, commanding singing. The result was and remains massively influential — Nitzer Ebb, to mention one later industrial disciple, would be nothing without this album as a template, while the genre of electronic body music, or EBM, got its undisputed start with the doom-laden death disco here. …”
allmusic (Audio)
W – Alles ist gut
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Alles Ist Gut (full album) 34:49
Marcus Garvey/Garvey’s Ghost – Burning Spear (1990)
“This disc brings together Marcus Garvey, Burning Spear’s debut album, with its dub counterpart, entitled Garvey’s Ghost. The resulting package is one of the pillars of roots reggae, an album packed with thick, heavy grooves and uncompromising religious and political messages. Although this Mango reissue has been criticized as sonically weaker than the Jamaican original, it will sound plenty dread to all but the most critical ears. Songs like the title track, ‘Slavery Days’ and ‘Give Me’ (with its remarkably well-integrated flute part) all tremble with the intensity of Winston Rodney’s dark voice, and some of the dub versions (in particular ‘Black Wa-Da-Da,’ based on ‘The Invasion’) number among the most frightening ever created. There are no sing-along melodies here; Burning Spear has always been more about setting up a relentless groove and using it to get the words across. But that groove is glorious, and it’s more than sufficient to support the significant weight of the lyrics.”
allmusic (Audio)
W – Marcus Garvey, W – Garvey’s Ghost
amazon
What Makes a Man Start Fires? – Minutemen (1983)
“… At almost twice the length of their previous album, The Punch Line, the Minutemen’s songs began surpassing the two-minute mark. Breaking another Minutemen record, the band took the longest time they took to date to record What Makes A Man Start Fires?. The basic tracks were recorded in one late-night session, but then the band held two separate late-night sessions for guitar and vocal overdubs. Watt has said that he considers this to be Minutemen’s ‘first real album.’ …”
Wikipedia
Minutemen – Reflecting on the 40th Anniversary of “What Makes a Man Start Fires?” (Audio)
The Genius Of… What Makes a Man Start Fires? by Minutemen (Audio/Video)
Discogs (Video)
Punk Scrawled Artist 