Not one of my favorite local compilations is this one,especially listening to it now; it seems even more dated these days,logically, than it did back in '79.
Liverpool kinda missed the post-punk,and punk rock boats by some distance.Blighted by that weighty melodic curse of the Beatles' long shadow,and wilting under the heat radiating from the northern powerhouse of Punk/post-punk capital,Manchester.
It starts off with the truly terrible 'Big In Japan',jam-packed with attention seekers ,and 'future members' of more sucessful dross......like a scouse 'London SS',but with members of the 'Bromley Contingent' instead of Generation X* (*er...wasn't Billy Idol one of the Bromley mob?) ,Damned and the Clash. Musically they had more in common with Generation X,no tunes but lots of posing. To paraphrase John Peel from the sleeve notes ,'a Quixotic conerstone' of the Liverpool scene.
Points of interest are, a track by Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark, before they were called Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark; in this case The ID. There's also an Echo and the Bunnymen track from before they had a real drummer,and used a drumbox called 'Echo';awful stuff.
The rest sounds like demos of minor chart hits from 1974,or some scally reggae numbers or melodic power pop by people who can't write melodies,sung by people who can't sing trying their level best to sing 'properly', ugh!
The only saving grace is that there's No 'Teardrop Explodes' or 'Wah!Heat!' on here.
Tracklist:
A1 –Big In Japan - Match Of The Day
A2 –The ID - Julia's Song
A3 –Jaqui & Jeanette - 194 Radio City
A4 –Modern Eon - Benched Down/70s Sixties
A5 –Activity Minimal - Television Game
A6 –Dead Trout - The Arab
B1 –Tontrix - Screen Love
B2 –The Accelerators - Radio Blues
B3 –Malchix - Crisis
B4 –Fun - I Heared You Call My Name
B5 –The Moderates - I Don't Want To Go Bald
B6 –Echo & The Bunnymen - Monkies