EET U SMAKELIJK'S FIRST BIRTHDAY

Exactly one year ago this week I put the first EetUSmakelijk post online. I never thought I'd make it past 10 posts, and here we are! When I started out there were only a couple of blogs (that I knew of), and they were mostly about American punk/HC. Now there's literally hundreds of them, covering every sonic nook and cranny imaginable. A couple of the early ones have since quit, which is understandable considering the time put into it, and the fact just about every rare punk record has already been posted! I'm not planning on quitting any day soon, even though I'm fast running out of rare records to post. For me this blog's never been about rarity anyway. It's mostly about digging up old memories and providing (scratchy) background music to it. So, I might as well use this occasion to look back on how I started collecting. Collecting, as in actively searching for old stuff, as opposed to buying the new stuff that was around. For me, the Big Bang was issue nr. 15 of MaximumRocknRoll, which came out in July 1984. On the front there were just a lot of (badly reproduced) 7 inch sleeves, and the word "COLLECTING". Inside was an article by Tesco Vee of Meatmen/ Touch & Go fame with yet more (even more badly reproduced) pictures of old punk records next to it. The article was funny rather than informative, although there's a great innocence about it, this being pre-big bucks days:

"Occasionally I get frustrated at not having certain records, and bid outrageous prices to get them. This is essentially a bonehead move, as it only raises the price of what everyone else must pay. But if the record is worth $20 to you, pay it..."

More than the article, I was intrigued by the pictures, endlessly poring over every one of them, trying to find out the names and titles. Nowadays it's hard to remember how little information about this kind of stuff could be found (it took me 5 years to find out what, for instance, "EYES TAQN" meant!). Even now it's a great puzzle to look at (only just now I recognized Wire's "I Am The Fly", that's how badly it's printed, ha ha), with some super rarities (Fix, Necros, Misfits "Cough/Cool"), one Dutch record (The Mollesters' "Plastic"; back then I thought the band was called Lesters!), lots of Dangerhouse, but surprisingly mostly easy-to-find English stuff. Those old sleeves looked so great, especially compared to most predictable post-Crass/ post-HC-designs of the day, I figured the music had to be great as well! So that's how I set out to find those old punk platters...
For this anniversary, I'd just like to show a couple of those great sleeves accompanied by one mp3 each, covering the not-really-rare (and therefore seldom posted) UK variety.



Early Lurkers sleeve done by the great Savage Pencil (whose own band Art Attacks' single was also shown). Dismissed by some as Ramones copyists, B-side "Mass Media Believer" shows they did have a style of their own.



Great song, as urgent and in-yer-face as the sleeve pic. I know it's not rare but I got as much of a kick out of finding this than I got finding the Helmettes single.



Posted the flipside not too long ago, here's the A-side (different from the version on their LP, by the way).



Nice collage type thing from pop-punk pioneers the Boys; here's the flipside "Whatcha Gonna Do", which sounds a lot like Status Quo's "Down Down"!



Back then I thought the band were called Enemies. Great, melodic tune written by Philip Chevron, later of the Pogues.



The Mekons' (and Fast Product's) first. A pretty sophisticated-looking sleeve for such an ultra-primitive record. I like the way the shouty vocals jump out at you in "Heart and Soul".



Famous drummer moonlighting as obscure punk rocker in "Don't Care".



Early Step Forward release, with a pre-Adam & the Ants (and pre-fat & bald) Marco Pirroni doing some mean soloing on "Man Of The Year". My copy was pressed a little off-center, so I had to file a bigger hole for your listening pleasure!