I appreciate the archival activity that's been going on over at Sing Sing Records. Tons of amazing reissue punk, pop stuff that I would never have been aware of, let alone be able to actually buy from that late '70s early '80s time period. My 7" single purchasing started around the middle '90s and I pretty much just kept looking forward, mostly because original releases from these underground punk bands would be snapped up by serious collectors. And it's a little intimidating, you can't casually talk to the guys that know about this stuff, especially on message boards sadly. I'd like to know more but I just haven't taken the time.
But thanks to Sing Sing and now Last Laugh Records, they're giving you an inexpensive place to start. I was completely ignorant of Last Laugh until this showed showed up the other day: a single originally released in 1977 from the band Puncture.
"Muckey Pup" from the A-Side:
I don't think I even registered this keyboard sound the first few times through, I have no idea what instrument could have produced it in '77, let alone what the forward thinking was behind this combination of simple, line in bass and siren, feedback sounding synth. It's a big precursor to The Units, who are another band that took me a great reissue on Community Library to even know about.
The lyrics of course I get, picking your nose, eating it, sniffing people, being a Muckey Pup...actually... looking at the lyrics on the reverse sleeve the last verse the nine o'clock news / something to trip on / I bleeding love / angela rippon, is the kind of pop culture fuck it lyrics that made this era. When I started being exposed to Dead Kennedys and Dead Milkmen, it opened up a whole new idea that you could even write about the specific dumb things in your life, either politically or imagined...and that line about the newscaster doesn't get old. I don't know who that was, and it doesn't matter, the act of singling her out is punk enough for me.
I couldn't get enough of Sid and Nancy, and I even loved SLC punk when I caught it in the middle of farmland, upstate NY on HBO one night. So today, to be able to experience the real thing like this, would have blown my mind. You have a starting point, but it's so important to trace this back to the source especially if it's been so distorted by popular culture.
This wasn't popular, it wasn't playing on the radio, (except the B-Side, "You can't rock and roll (in a council flat), which of course ended up on Mr. Peel's show. What a loss, I hope there is someone close to carrying on THAT tradition as well) this track is pretty blues influenced, a standard rolling riff which vocally can only be pulled off by someone like Paul, and his fuck all attitude that's going off about something so mundane as council flat rules, but hey...this was that microcosm that's pissing him off. That is punk rock. Fuck you copy machine! This iphone sucks! Netflix stop pausing my watch it now movie! These are the punk rock tracks of today.
Get this one from Last Laugh Records, forget ebay, and listen to this like it was '77. You aren't the first pissed off band to be innovating the hell out of sound.
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