THE
MOST POWERFUL MUSIC ON EARTH: VOLUME ONE - The Punks (Dungeon through Motor
City Music)Could The Punks be The Other Ones That Got Away? The question arose
about
halfway through this 11-track album, available through the very cool Motor
City Music label. Motor City Music have only released a handful of
discs (and this one's presumably on licnece from the band), specialising in
lost treasures of the Detroit, and for this we owe them a great debt. The Punks were a Detroit five-piece that came onto the scene just as there wasn't one. It was 1975 and the salad days of Michigan musical greatness were gone, replaced by a few notable bands and fewer venues. Call it a sign of the times, more accurately tag it "desperation", but the lack of places to play (and people to listen) more than likely brought out another kind of greateness in the bands that were around; it often works out (perversely) that way. The Punks prove, posthumously, that this was the case.
Centred on the Iggy-esque vocals (and onstage energy) of Frantic and fuelled by a dual guitar attack that, on the strength of this, was more wah wah than wail, The Punks did what an original band had to do to make it in that place and time (ie. barely exist.) They even had a shot at a name change and a move to New York. Alas, success evaded them. This disc is culled from rehearsals/demos for a label deal that never transpired, as well as live performances from '75-77.
The Punks you can hear on this disc are all dissonance and feedback, their name a misnomer when looked at through the lens of hindsight. (Don't tell me - I know: It meant something different in '75, before the fashion stylists and Poms got hold of it.) Sure, they could ramp it up on the speedometer ("Darker Side" shows it to be thus), but the highlights here are the malevolent, slow burns. The 5min5sec crawl of the opening "My Times Comin'" sets the mood, with its filthy guitars and thudding backline. The collision of the Stooges' "Johanna" and "Open Up and Bleed" on "Always Had This Problem" captures the menace even more perfectly. And it's more than 7mins long. Get the picture? Tempo changes abound but when striking on a feel, the Punks are playing in the Funhouse rather than Searching and Destroying. Guitar thugs Al Webber and Steve Rockley fall back on the barest degree of restraint and interplay rather than flashy pretentiousness. These songs are all the better for it.
A Stooges rip off? Naaah. An influence, and overt to be sure, but if YOU grew up going to shows by those guys, the Five, the SRC and the Coop (before he became a cabaret joke), some of them (the good parts, hopefully) might have rubbed off on you too.
There's nothing wrong with influences when they're great ones. "Drop Dead" is The Punks' "Black to Comm": all insistent beat, room-clearing stun guitars and nihilstic-yet-goodtime lyrics ("I feel so good/I wanna drop dead/I feel good/Drop dead".) "No Mercy" has the serrated edge of a "Raw Power" outtake with its sinewy, extended intro slowing to a murderous stumble that rises and falls. Iggy's ghost (the original spectre - not the businessman of today) walks all over "Quick One", while "Chains of Madness" stretches out into para-funk territory (think: "She Creatures of the Hollywood Hills") similar to that occupied by the Stooges when Ron Asheton moved aside from guitar duties and moved into the engine room. "Drug Related Incident" is almost deft by comparison to much of the stuff here.
What makes a band succeed or fail? By any measure, The Punks were probably never to be gold record artists - in those times or any other - but so fucking what? Much of it isn't hi-fi. But it's real - which should be all the recommendation you need. Volume One? Let's hope Two transpires. Buy this and hear greatness: Listen up and bleed. - The Barman
