I Can't Complain We Went Down the Drain

There's a new multi-disc PIL retrospective doing the rounds, featuring hits, b-sides, rarities and out-takes from John Lydon's post-Pistols career. I'm pretty sure this won't be on it though. During the 'Flowers of Romance' sessions in 1980, Lydon and Keith Levene were actively involved in the production and recording of tracks by their friend, the journalist Vivien Goldman. The resulting 'Dirty Washing' 12" EP  was issued in America and parts of Europe in April 1981, with a UK 7" release containing two of the three tunes (the third being a dub version) coming later in the Summer. These songs are a must for lovers of that particular strain of scratchy groove based post-punk that runs from The Slits, Raincoats and early PIL through to LoneLady and beyond.

In addition to the PIL factor, 'Launderette' also boasts the violin of Vicky Aspinall from the aforementioned Raincoats, musical maverick Steve Beresford contributes toy piano and percussion comes courtesy of Robert Wyatt, while 'Private Armies' adds a production credit for one Adrian Sherwood. This second tune wasn't so much covered as replicated wholesale by Sherwood and used as the closing track on the debut LP by New Age Steppers, which was also released in that heady year of 1981.

Vivien Goldman - Launderette 

Vivien Goldman - Private Armies 

New Age Steppers - Private Armies

An Ear Inflamed On My Dog Chain

                                  The 2016 Small Wonder mock-up                                   The original shop

(Continued from the previous post)

After leaving the British Library, I jumped onto a Victoria Line train at Kings Cross and took myself over to Walthamstow, where, in an empty unit at the top of the High Street (just a couple of hundred yards from its original location), a mock up of the old Small Wonder record shop frontage has been created as part of the Punk Waltham Forest series of events. Stepping inside revealed a virtual continuation of the Punk 1976-78 exhibit I'd visited an hour earlier, with displays of flyers, posters, photos, sleeves and other memorabilia relating to Pete Stennett's hugely important shop and record label. While browsing the collection I fell into easy conversation with two other visitors of a similar vintage to myself, who had dropped in on their way to the British Library's exhibit. We sat for a while and exchanged our individual memories of the punk and post-punk years in general and Small Wonder in particular. It turned out that in spite of having been loyal mail-order customers in the late 70s and early 80s, neither had ever been to Walthamstow before in their lives. After half an hour or so, we all shook hands and went our separate ways, they on to the British Library and me off down memory lane, because unlike them I know Walthamstow very well, or at least I used to - I spent the first 15 years of my life in the place.

My family moved out of London in 1975, one year before Small Wonder opened, though initially I returned regularly, to visit friends and also to buy records from Pete. The last time I crossed Small Wonder's threshold was probably late 1981, a couple of years before it closed down. Gradually my trips to Walthamstow became less frequent, until they stopped altogether - in fact before last Monday, I hadn't walked around the old home town in over 30 years.

One bitterly cold winter day in early 1978, I dropped into Small Wonder and, after a bit of a rummage through the racks, approached the counter with a couple of singles. Pete smiled at one of my purchases and paused as he was about to drop it into a bag. 'Do want him to sign it?' he asked, gesturing to a shivering figure sitting on the floor next to an old two bar electric fire. The record in question was 'Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart' and the man trying to warm himself was Patrik Fitzgerald.

Patrik Fitzgerald - Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart 

(Buy 'Safety Pins, Secret Lives and the Paranoid Ward: The Best Of Patrik Fitzgerald 1977-1986' here.)

Kleenex / LiLiPUT

Championed early on by John Peel (which is how I bumped into them), Swiss band Kleenex signed to Rough Trade in 1978 and, in a six year career, blossomed from scratchy art-punk primitives into angular, melodic adventurers. Given their chosen name, they can't have been altogether surprised when, in 1979, a solicitor's letter dropped onto the doormat, threatening legal action if they didn't re-brand themselves pretty damn sharpish. So, in 1980, after one of their occasional line-up re-shuffles, the group re-emerged as LiLiPUT and continued, undaunted, on their post-punk way. 

Kleenex/LiLiPUT released an EP, five singles and one LP between 1978 and 1982, with a second album arriving in December 1983, by which time they'd already split up. Since then there's been a 46 track compilation of their entire studio output and a CD/DVD collection of live rarities, together cataloguing every recorded moment of their existence.

Objectively selecting representative tracks by a group you love can be a fiendishly difficult business, so I've simply plumped for three personal faves. Single number four, 'Die Matrosen' from 1980, spotlighting that most under-used weapon in the post-punk armoury - the whistled chorus. Also from 1980, the brilliant 'Hitch-Hike', a song that, in a sane world, would've been a single, but instead was lost, hidden away on a various artist, Swiss music sampler album. And finally, the faintly unsettling 'Terrified', from that posthumous 2nd LP in 1983.