Ghost Town - The Specials (Ghost Town, 1981)

So, like I said, 1981 things weren't looking too good in the UK, and it all boiled over in April with major rioting in Brixton, which kicked off an explosive summer of street battles. By the time Mark and I arrived to spend our summer holidays with our grandparents, the nightly news was full of flying bricks and burning cars as rioting raged up and down the country. Handsworth, Toxteth, Southall, Moss Side were a long way from the idyllic country life of Waltham St. Lawrence, but my grandparents talked of nothing else. The rioting hit its peak in early July. Sypathetically, 'Ghost Town' hit number #1 on the UK singles chart on July 7th and stayed there for three weeks.

Keep in mind that this was the era before MuchMusic and MTV. Music video was in its infancy, and, if you lived in England, everything stopped on Thursday night for Top of the Pops, the weekly chart show where with a countdown, live performances and awkward dancing. I remember seeing The Specials on TOTP that July. I was 14 years old, and I really wasn't sure what the hell was going on in England that summer, but I was absolutely convinced that 'Ghost Town' was going to give me a better idea than sitting in the country listening to my grandparents perspective on Britain's decay. I'm pretty sure this is the performance we saw. There's a bleak little video too.

Top of the Pops was cancelled by the BBC last year. They say it was because they couldn't compete with 24-hour music channels. I like to think it was because they went back and had a look at the archives and realized they hadn't done anything relevant since July 1981 and gave up out of self-disgust.

One in Ten - UB40 (Present Arms, 1981)

UB-40 are often dismissed as 'reggae-light' and, certainly by the time they were known in North America for 'Rat in the Kitchen' and Neil Diamond's 'Red Red Wine', the cap probably fit. However, Present Arms stands up as a solid document of the mood of discontent and social upheaval in Lady Thatcher's (more on her later) England. There are better songs on the album, but 'One in Ten' has stayed with me the longest. The teenaged me probably identified with the 1:10 living on the margins, isolated and mis-understood... a relatively benign bit of melodrama that leaves the rapidly middle-aging cringing with embarassment.

UB-40 also reminds me of me friend Michael Storch, mostly because he bares (bore) a pretty convincing resemblance to the band's lead singer Ali Campbell.

Youth of Eglington - Black Uhuru (Red, 1981)

When we started to dig a little deeper, we learned that there was more to reggae than Bob Marley. Black Uhuru was a discovery of my friend Michael Storch. Officially my longest serving pal, I've known Michael since Grade 3. He was always a little odd, but charmingly so. Somewhere along the way Michael discovered that you could borrow an unlimited number of records from the Southgate Public Library at any one time. Every two weeks he would return home with a massive stack of vinyl, more often than not chosen by the cover art. Things he liked would be copied to cassette (he still has a substantial collection of cassettes built through this approach) and played in his father's white (?) Toyota as we cruised around looking for places to drink coffee. I'm pretty sure this is how Black Uhuru entered our universe. Michael lives in Montreal and remains obsessed by Patrik Fitzgerald, one of the oddest of his odd discoveries.

Positive Vibration - Bob Marley & The Wailers (Rastaman Vibration, 1976)

Let's put aside The Pogues and the punks for a moment and talk about reggae and ska, shall we? Bob Marley: the alpha and omega of any discussion of reggae... not that we knew any better in 1982 when this was the soundtrack of the summer (and fall, and winter, and spring) of Grade 10. I first heard this record at my friend Dave Pankhurst's house. Dave I'd known since my first day of elementary school in Edmonton in 1975. He started Grade 3 with me at Westbrook Elementary in Aspen Gardens. I asked him if I could borrow his 'rubber'. He had no idea what I was talking about. We were estranged for a while during junior high, then re-united in high school. Dave's parents were always away, which made his house the logical place to hang around during spares (when we weren't otherwise studiously engaged in learning). His house had two things that set it apart from those of all my other friends: 1) a swimming pool; 2) the most elaborate stereo system you have ever seen including the biggest set of speakers known to mankind. We put both of these unique features to exhaustive use, much to the chagrin of Dave's neighbours.

I should also add that Dave is one of the very few people I know whose claim to be descended from somebody famous actually stands up to scrutiny. His great great (?) grandmother was Emily Pankhurst, a militant suffragette who fought for the right of women to vote.

Streams of Whiskey - The Pogues (Red Roses for Me, 1984)

This was my Xmas present from Mark in 1984 (?) - on cassette, of course, so that I could play it on my Walkman... actually it wasn't a real SONY Walkman, I only had some cheap rip off. It sounds improbable, but the Walkman was every bit as revolutionary in 1984 as the iPod is today. Everybody had one, and the newspapers were full of articles talking about an epidemic of premature hearing loss resulting from a generation of teens blasting their music too loud. Erin might differ, but I don't appear to have suffered a significant decay in my hearing resulting from too much Pogues - despite my best efforts. Pogues singer Shane MacGowan is both one of rock's greatest poets and biggest drunks. A quick perusal of the photo galleries of his website reveal just how deeply he's been ravaged by the bottle. MacGowan commits slow suicide. Meanwhile his 'Fairytale of New York' becomes further entrenched as one of the few meaningful recent contributions to the Christmas song book; one of the most popular songs of the season. It's a double achievement worthy of Dylan Thomas.

911 Is A Joke - Public Enemy (Fear of A Black Planet, 1990)

I don't know what I was doing when hip hop 'happened', but 15+ years after the release of Fear of A Black Planet, I'm a little embarassed to say I really wasn't paying attention. I was totally distracted by others things (many of which appear on vol. II of this compilation). However, you couldn't really have a pulse in 1990 and not be aware of Public Enemy. In retrospect they represent a special moment culturally, when there was something genuinely dangerous and subversive going on in 'mainstream' hip hop - before everybody got hysterical about gangstas and bling - before it was all about money and misogyny. Hip Hop and punk rock ran on parallel tracks in the 1980's and neither style has really survived the inevitable dumbing down at the hands of major labels, commercial radio and MTV / Much Music. Hip Hop in the 1980's represents something of a music regret for me. I wish I'd spent as much time listening to Chuck D as I did moping about to a soundtrack by Morrissey (vol. II, track 3).

MTV Get Off The Air - Dead Kennedys (Frankenchrist, 1985)

So, we've had British punk, New York punk, and Edmonton punk. This is California punk, characterized by being fast, nasty, and oh, so sarcastic! Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra was/is the king of the sarcastic punk sneer. I saw the DK's at Sports World Roller Rink in October, 1984. A mere four years earlier, Sports World was the place we went to every Saturday morning (a walk to the #54 bus, change to the #69 at Southgate Mall) for Roller Disco. Amazing how things change between the ages of 13 and 17. It's hard to properly explain how odd it was to be standing on the roller rink watching Chi Pig (S.N.F.U. opened) and then Jello Biafra do their thing. Media reports of the time don't really do it justice. My most enduring memory of the show is seeing the mosh pit parting like the Red Sea as a - somewhat portly - local punk Kelly Simpson (lead singer of Cadillac of Worms) took his turn to stage dive. Poor Kelly bounced ever so slightly off the plastic floor then slowly took himself off to a quiet corner to lick his not inconsiderable wounds.

She's Not On The Menu - SNFU (...And No One Else Wanted To Play, 1984)

Now there's a Christmas themed cover if I've ever seen one. Interesting piece of trivia about this cover art though. The original cover was a drawing of a child in a park holding a hand grenade wearing shorts and a really disturbing expression. Only problem is that the drawing was obviously a reproduction of a photograph by the famous American photographer Diane Arbus, called Child With Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, NYC, 1962. I guess the estate of Diane Arbus wasn't so keen on the cover... Nevertheless, 'the child' still makes an appearance in the new cover, this time with an elephant head, next to the fireplace. Aside from the strangling incident at The Ramones concert (described elsewhere), S.N.F.U. will always be synonymous in my mind with all ages matinees at Spartan's Mens Club. Good thing Wayne Skaret had his orange Datsun, because otherwise we'd never have got to these shows (or more importantly, got home!). Spartan's was on the north side, not far from where Mark lives now, right next door to the imfamous Gainer's Meat Packing Plant. Not the nicest part of town... especially then! Spartan's was a freak magnet. Punks, mods, skins, all matter of misfits paying (typically) $5 to see as many as four or five local bands, such as S.N.F.U., Down Syndrome, and Entirely Distorted (featuring one Brian Kassian on guitar), the Malibu Kens and Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra. Good times indeed!

Poice On My Back - The Clash (Sandinista!, 1980)

If you want to see your brother Mark pout, ask him what he thought of the Clash concert at the Kinsmen Fieldhouse in 1982. I'm not sure why he wasn't allowed to go with me and Brian, but I think missing this concerts may well be one of the great regrets of his adolescence. After The Sex Pistols, The Clash are the most famous band to emerge out of the British punk rock scene and have probably had the most enduring impact. They weren't just loud and aggressive, they were also political and had a real love of music that influenced both their own compositions and the choice of songs that they covered - including this song by Guyanese/UK musician/producer Eddy Grant. Predictably, I bought the t-shirt and wore it until it was threadbare. Remember, the whole point in purchasing the t-shirt was to commemorate your presence at the show - and then to have something to wear to future shows that would demonstrate your impeccable taste in music. I wish I knew where my Clash t-shirt was... I'd proudly wear it today if I could.

Teenage Lobotomy - The Ramones (Rocket to Russia, 1977)

According to Allmusic.com, The Ramones ARE the first punk rock band - so who am I to argue. In 1983, I went to see The Ramones at a ballroom in the Convention Inn South on Calgary Trail (where, incidentally, on a far less memorable night, I would later have my High School Grad dinner - an initiation into the banal world of $30/plate rubber chicken meals in the company of people I'd rather not eat with). I remember two things in particular about this show. 1) I was proudly wearing my Clash 'Combat Rock' tour t-shirt acquired earlier in the year (more on that later); 2) Chi Pig, lead singer of Edmonton band S.N.F.U. tried to strangle me in the mosh pit. To this day, I'm not entirely sure what provoked him. However, I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that I was wearing my Clash t-shirt and obviously had no idea what I was doing in the mosh pit. As I subsequently learned, there is a particular etiquette to moshing. It's far less violent than it looks and there is (or was) a spirit of sweaty camaraderie involved. For example, if someone fell down you help them up, and it's really bad form to shove someone from behind. I supect I was all testosterone and flailing elbows that night and probably did need to be taught a lesson. It's a badge of honour that Mr. Chi Pig administered the lesson.

Chi Pig is still the singer of S.N.F.U. and I suspect he still occasionally strangles young punks who get out of line in the pit. I, on the other hand, gave up moshing long ago, but I did go and see SNFU when they came to Ottawa in 2005. It was an all-ages show and I enjoyed it thoroughly... from the safety of the back wall of the club (the licensed bit).

I Wanna Be Your Dog - The Stooges (The Stooges, 1969)

Our history lesson is running in roughly chronological order - not so much in terms of the dates these songs came out, but in the sequence in which they had an influence on teenaged me. Strictly speaking, using either measure, 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' doesn't really belong here, but in so many other ways it logically links the British Metal period with the punk rock that followed. I always associate The Stooges with my friend Wayne Skaret (Karen's older brother). We started hanging out in Grade 10. Wayne was a brooding, angry, skater kid at the time, who owned an Orange Datsun 310 (0r something like that) which he decorated with plastic flowers and literally hundreds of plastic insects. We spent a lot of time in that car with the punk rock blaring - mostly doing 7-11 runs from the school parking lot, stocking up on Slurpees and 3 for $1 hot dogs. Always during spares... of course. We loved Harry Ainlay far too much to skip a moment of class.

Overkill - Motörhead (Overkill, 1979)

While Eddie is disturbing, it's entirely possible that Motörhead lead singer Lemmy Kilmister just might be the most genuinely frightening living creature in rock music. Dude's ugly. He wouldn't look out of place in Hogwarts... come to think of it, those things on his face might just be hogwarts! He's also a bit of a genius. Mark my words, if it's not already happening, Motörhead - especially early period - are going to be amongst the most frequently cited influences by young bands across a wide spectrum of music, not just metal. I would have loved to have included their most popular song 'Ace of Spades' but I couldn't find it on iTunes. I think it is probably one of the finest songs of the last half of the last century. If asked to provide the one song that best exemplifes heavy metal it would have to be 'Ace of Spades'. Happily you can watch the video of the song on You Tube. The thing about Motörhead in the early '80s is that they played so raw and so fast, and were free of the prancing, 'faeries wear boots', hair band aesthetic that was becoming so dominant in 'metal' that any self-respecting fan of the band really had to look outside the metal genre to find their musical peers, which frankly, at the time, meant punk rock.

Wrathchild - Iron Maiden (Killers, 1981)

Ah, Eddie... was ever a mascot conceived to alienate an adolescent's parents with such assurance? Now, imagine what the grandparents thought!!! Many summer holidays c. 1976-1985 were spent in England, and as we grew older, car trips to castles and country walks gave way to unaccompanied trips into London, where we essentially hung around record shops spending our pocket money on lps and little badges celebrating cover art such as Killers, to accessorize jean jackets already covered with band names badly rendered in bic pen. When we returned from a day out, we'd immediately disappear upstairs to put our latest purchases on my aunt's old portable record player. 'Wrathchild' or 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' (didn't they appreciate the literary references?) are hardly wall-shakers played on one of those things, but the vocals were sufficiently blood-curdling and the guitars screamed enough to put us on some kind of 'watch list' for potentially troubled teens... it least in the eyes of my grandparents Baker. Didn't help that we were spotty and smelly and were growing really bad peach-fuzzy moustaches. Not pretty. Fortunately few photos from this era survive... come to think of it, few were taken.

Paranoid - Black Sabbath (Paranoid, 1971)

I was four years old in 1971 when Paranoid came out. I don't recall the Old Man having a copy, and it wasn't until a decade later in 1981 that Black Sabbath came to mean anything to me. An essential part of the 'unholy trinity' of British Heavy Metal that kicks off this compilation, they were one of the bands in heavy rotation when I 'put away childhood things' and switched over from AM (630 CHED) to FM radio (K-97 - 'Edmonton's only rock!'). I was allowed to go to the concert with my friend Brian Kassian (who would go on, eventually, to become guitarist Mangus Hung in the AC/DC cover band BC/DC). Not the first concert I attended unchaperoned (that honour goes to the Streetheart / Aldo Nova concert a year earlier), but memorable for having rushed the stage and for the fact that a biker got stabbed during the opening set by The Outlaws. We didn't witness the stabbing, but did worry that if news of it reached our parents our concert going would be brought to an abrupt and premature end. Also noteworthy for the purchase of my first concert t-shirt - a totally outrageous thing with 'Mob Rules' on the front and a winged demon superimposed over a pentagram on the back.

More on Brian Kassian and the obligatory concert t-shirt purchase later...

As for Black Sabbath, Paranoid-era Sabbath remains a mainstay album of Classic Rock stations. I defy you to listen for more than three hours without hearing one of their songs.

Somewhat disturbingly, both The Outlaws and Black Sabbath continue to tour.