10 Commando Mix

Danny Taylor - Coffee Daddy Blues

Sonny Terry - Custard Pie Blues

INDICA ALL STARS - Open Your Eyes (Original)

ZOE - Sunshine On A Rainy Day (Reformation Version)

ETERNITY - Ashram House (Extended Mix)

There have been many punk collections over the years and former Zigzag fanzine editor Kris Needs possesses most of them so, when it came to compiling his own, he decided to avoid the predictable, except where totally warranted. Although featuring names without whom such a compilation should never be without, the set also highlights less likely candidates through their influence, attitude or sheer courage in the face of adversity; mavericks and rebels shooting for the stars and going against the grain.

Every track on Dirty Water: The Birth Of Punk Attitude is there for a reason, whether it’s a band which Kris has known, worked with or believed in, or just thinking some hair-bristling track deserves to be heard again or highlighted.

After starting with two quintessential garage-punk bands, the Standells [whose ’Dirty Water’ provides the snotty title track] and Seeds [covered by Needs’ own long-forgotten band 35 years ago], the album approaches the punk spirit as a way of making music or conveying a message by any means necessary, which makes Harlem’s Last Poets prime candidates for laying a hiphop template in 1970 with their first album. Around the same time, downtown in Washington Square Park, David Peel and the Lower East Side were delivering stoner street anthems which could only be captured by a live recording. Kris’s lifelong New York obsession continues with the untouchable New York Dolls, senses-shattering electronic punks Suicide, plus two of their influences in Silver Apples and vocal group the Silhouettes, displaying doowop’s DIY spirit on ‘Get A Job’. The Dictators show how their degenerate raunch influenced the Ramones. The Deviants were at the forefront of UK’s 1967 counter-cultural revolution, like the UK’s answer to America’s Fugs, MC5 or Mothers Of invention when it came to forging a new society and playing free concerts, before handing the baton to the Pink Fairies. 1970s UK proto-punk is represented by Jook, Third World War and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band‘s sinister, cinematic missives, while rarest tune [on CD for first time] is the Hollywood Brats’ storming treatment of the Kinks’ ‘I Need You’. Oldest track has to be ‘Blue Jean Bop’ by Gene Vincent, the original black leather man. As the restless punk spirit is usually associated with teenage years, Kris found himself reaching back into his own adolescence, reawakening long forgotten emotions, although the buzz never left; hence the inclusions of Mott The Hoople [first band to welcome him on board while they carved their trail of mayhem and some of the best rock ‘n’ roll ever committed to vinyl], Dr Feelgood [who named another fanzine with their ‘Roxette’, while cutting though prog’s excesses like a demented flamethrower], emotional whirlwind Peter Hammill in his punked-up Rikki Nadir incarnation, Germany’s inestimably-influential Can, T. Rex when Bolan went electric and Detroit’s incendiary MC5, who led to another fixation, with the Motor City, also represented here by The Stooges [scorching 12-minute tear-up with the short-lived twin guitar lineup captured live in 1971], other MC5 sister band Up and brilliant but overlooked black punk trio Death, providing one of the highlights with their searing ‘Politicians In My Eyes’. Sun Ra was a profound influence on the MC5 and stayed with Up when in town but he’s here for his star-sailing individuality and DIY spirit of his indie-pioneering Saturn label. The album also casts its net around the rest of America with seminal Midwest outfits Red Krayola and Rocket From The Tombs, San Francisco’s fabulous Flamin’ Groovies, unique L.A. aliens Zolar X and the Monks [American G.I.s stationed in Germany]. Dirty Water ends perfectly in 1977 with the timeless roots prophecy of Culture‘s ‘Two Sevens Clash’, highlighting reggae’s towering presence in all this. The set will be accompanied by extensive liner notes from Needs.

Year Zero

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