A Tribute To Punk Compilations

Last week's Tribute To Tribute Albums got me reminiscing about making mixtapes: putting an LP on the turntable to add one perfect song to my newest compilation, then shelving it and grabbing another -- or maybe cueing up a tape-to-tape transfer.  Sharing these discoveries with friends and pen pals is kinda what Stinky and I do now in the digital age.

There was a fun discussion in the comments section here awhile back about the various artists compilation albums that had an impact on our musical tastes.  Fond memories were shared of records like IRS Greatest Hits, Urgh, The Enigma Variations, the Repo Man and Return Of The Living Dead soundtracks, the Flipside Vinyl Fanzines, The Blasting Concept, Tooth And Nail, The Wailing Ultimate, and a couple of comps that we've shared here:  Propaganda and No Wave.  

I decided to go through my own collection and pull a song (or two or three) that I would have put on a punk mixtape for a friend back then (or for my own entertainment).  Many of these songs still resonate with me all these years later.  My collection of vinyl and cassettes was mostly from the early 80's, and there were a few significant comps that I didn't own (or couldn't borrow to tape).  I tried to stick with the records I owned or had access to back then.

It's pretty heavy on US hardcore, with just a few of the first generation punk bands.  It's also skewed geographically toward Southern California and the upper Midwest.  What can I say -- in the early 80's, I was a teenager living in 'Scansin.  Most of my collection came from mail order purchases and review copies that were sent to my fanzine.  I used to write to some of these bands, and I got some cool responses from The Scapegoats, Secret Hate, Rebel Truth, and The Proletariat.  Die Kreuzen were local heroes, and I got to interview Bad Brains when they played Milwaukee.  Probably one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.  Both bands were on fire.

If you had asked me to make you a punk mixtape in 1984, most of these songs would have been on it.  Maybe with a few more tracks from Redd Kross, Secret Hate, die Kreuzen and The Sins.  Definitely more Angry Samoans and some Misfits.  Anyway, here's a 40 track compilation of tracks from punk compilations!

New Wave On My Radio in 1982 (Q-Wave pt 2)

Dig if you will a picture:  It’s a Sunday evening in suburban southern 'Scansin.  A pimply, bespectacled teenager peels the shrinkwrap from a C-90 and puts it in the tape deck.  He spins the FM dial from left to center, from WMSE to WQFM.  They’re probably playing REO Dragwagon. 

But soon it will be time for “Q-Wave”, hosted by “Downstairs Dan” Hansen.  Hit the record button!  The week ahead will be spent listening to that tape over and over, noting the song titles and artists.  Next, poring over mail order catalogs from Rough Trade, Rather Ripped Records, and Enigma in search of these punk and new wave records.  Or maybe a trip to Milwaukee, to comb the racks at Ludwig Van Ear with an alphabetized wantlist in hand, and cash in pocket from my after school job delivering newspapers by bicycle.

Here’s a sequel to my previous post of songs played on “Q-Wave”.  This music was hard to find back then in the ‘burbs.  I knew one kid whose family had cable TV, so I only saw MTV during sleepovers.  Once in awhile SNL would have a musical guest like Devo, Elvis Costello, or (gasp) Fear.  A rival late night show called Fridays hosted the Clash and the Jam.  But these were rare sightings, and we didn’t have a VCR.

I didn’t have older siblings or uncles to borrow records from, and the kids at school were mystified by my Circle Jerks and Bad Brains t-shirts. I was 16, and all-ages shows were rare. “Q-Wave” and WMSE (the college station at the Milwaukee School of Engineering) were my lifeline to the world that I read about in Creem and Trouser Press.  

I wrote letters to Downstairs Dan, and he read one of them on the air!  After I started a fanzine, he interviewed me on another WQFM show, “Talking To Q”.  Had I stayed in Wisconsin, I might have become a student DJ on WMSE.  But dad’s career uprooted our family again, this time to Georgia.

There were great college stations in Georgia (WREK, WRAS, and WUOG). And I kept my “Q-Wave” tapes. When I got into hip hop some years later, I found another weekly radio show (“The Beatbox” on WRAS, with DJ JD) and followed the same process: tape the show, learn the songs, find the records.

The New York Dolls, Simon & Garfunkel, and die Kreuzen walk into a bar...

 

Taking a brief respite from the triple song titles, here are a few collections of cover songs.

The first is a set of Simon & Garfunkel covers.  Some are respectful, others irreverent.  The well-known remakes by The Lemonheads and The Bangles are not included.  "Scarborough Fair" is included (despite the fact that Simon took credit for a song that he neither wrote nor arranged).  You get a funky "Scarborough Fair" by The Coolies (the Atlanta band that made an album of S&G covers, each in a different musical style).  

Speaking of irreverence, the image of Paul and Artie is borrowed from the artist Mark Reynolds.  

Next up is a collection of New York Dolls covers.  It includes all of the original compositions from the debut album and Too Much Too Soon, plus a couple of songs from the Red Patent Leather era.  The Sweet Relief organization is currently raising funds for David Johansen's care.  You can donate here.

In his book Mutations, Sam McPheeters calls the 1984 debut album by die Kreuzen "a wormhole into an obscene universe."  It's hard to explain the impact of this record on hardcore punk.  Maximum Rock & Roll was reduced to repeating the words "This is fucking great" over and over as their review of the record.  Having remade hardcore, die Kreuzen left it behind and did their own damn thing for three albums. Some say they anticipated grunge.  20 years after the wormhole was opened, a tribute album called Lean Into It was released.  Another 20 years have passed.  Here it is... again...  this time with 8 more songs.

MKE 80: Milwaukee Singles from 1980

Ama-Dots (Bill Moco photo)

A new documentary about Milwaukee's music scene called Taking The City By Storm (named after the Haskels' song) is currently screening in film festivals. Feral House just released a new book about women in punk called Hit Girls; its title is a reference to the Ama-Dots' song. Brick Through The Window (named for an Oil Tasters' song) is an excellent recent book which documents Milwaukee's music history from 1964 to 1984.

1980 was the annus mirabilis of the Milwaukee scene.  Several holy grails of punk rock record collectors came from the Cream City: 7 inchers by The Haskels, The Shivvers, The Lubricants, and Muscle Beach can fetch 3 figures apiece. MKE bands are comped on Killed By Death, Hyped To Death, and Bloodstains.  

Bruce Pavitt featured the Ama-Dots and Oil Tasters on his Sub Pop tapes.  Chuck Warner championed Milwaukee power pop with releases by The Shivvers, The Sidewalks, and The Orbits on his Teenline series (named for a Shivvers' song).

The Shivvers' unreleased album has been reissued by Bachelor Records and Rerun Records.  The Ama-Dots' unreleased recordings and a compilation of The Ones were also issued by Rerun (as well as new pressings of the singles by The Lubricants and The Ones).  Scavenger of Death repressed The Prosecutors' single.

Two outstanding albums of unreleased Haskels tunes and one from The Prosecutors have been issued by Milwaukee's own Splunge Communications. And the fine folks at Splunge are sharing the OOP two disc anthology History In Three Chords for free at mkepunk.com. 

MKE 80 (today's share) includes all the Milwaukee singles and EP's released in 1980, plus The Appliances (a band from Madison that regularly played MKE clubs). The Appliances' later records can be found here.

It took a few more years for the world to recognize the Dairy State's talents. The Violent Femmes' LP came out in 83, as did Die Kreuzen, followed by Plasticland, Timbuk 3, The R&B Cadets, and the heartland rock of The BoDeans, Fire Town, and E-I-E-I-O. 

The Starship (Ron Faiola photo)

More on Bandcamp: Boy Dirt Car, Couch Flambeau, Die Kreuzen, E-I-E-I-O, F/i, Frogs, Haskels, Laytons, Prosecutors, RPM's, Sidewalks, Spooner (old garbage from Madison), Surfin Fuhrers, Violent Femmes, Vocokesh, and Radio Ready: Wisconsin (Lost Power Pop Hits from 1979-82).  Radio Ready includes songs by The Baxters, The Dominoes, The Tyrants, The Valiants, The Wigs and some of the bands mentioned above.

MKE-TV 77-83: Those X-Cleavers, Tense Experts, Shivvers, Ozone (aka The Ones), Oil Tasters, more Oil Tasters, Haskels, more Haskels, even more Haskels, Die Kreuzen, Couch Flambeau, Arousing Polaris (pre-Plasticland), and Ama-Dots captured live. Many of these videos were preserved and posted by Ron Faiola.

Check out the trailer for Taking The City By Storm!

Downstairs Dan Made Me A New Wave Fan

Photo from onmilwaukee.com

At the dawn of the 1980's, it dawned upon my teenage brain that there were worlds of music beyond what was played on the radio and sold in the stores of my bucolic Wisconsin town. I eventually found college stations like WMSE and WCCX, but first I stumbled onto a Sunday night radio show on WQFM, an "album rock" station right in the middle of the FM dial. From atop Wisconsin's second tallest building*, 93QFM's broadcast signal spanned the plains, grains, and moraines of America's Dairyland. 

The show was called Q-Wave, and the DJ was Downstairs Dan. I began to tape Q-Wave every Sunday night, and listened to the tapes all week. They were a formative influence on my teenage tastes, and Downstairs Dan was my guide.

Promos from labels like Sire, PVC and IRS would have collected dust at WQFM if Dan hadn't played them. American stations like WBCN and KROQ championed the Clash, the Go-Go's, Devo and others long before they were added to playlists at mainstream radio stations like QFM. I heard the Stray Cats on Q-Wave a year before they hit the US charts. When Billy Idol became an MTV star, I already knew "Dancing With Myself" because Downstairs Dan often played tracks from the final Gen X album.

One memorable episode of Q-Wave featured local singles by Plasticland, Ama-Dots, the Haskels, the Shivvers, the Lubricants, the Blackholes' classic Warren Spahn, and (my favorite) Modern Problem by Buck Byron & The Little Seizures. It was another revelation: adventurous music was being made not just in London, LA and NYC, but close to home.

I think Dan Hansen still lives in Milwaukee. He was on the air for decades. There's a sandwich named after him. I salute you, sir.

*It's no Sears Tower or nothing, but it's pretty dang tall, doncha know.