TROUSER PRESS 
Many rock critics were not ready for a “concept album” from a punk rock band, and the Wanderers were often dismissed as “the Sham Boys” or “Stiv 69”, though they did get some favorable notices (from Trouser Press, among others). Their label Polydor Records had expected more than a cult following and made only minimal efforts at promoting the Wanderers; in retrospective paranoia, this seemed like sabotage to Stiv Bators. Today, the original album is almost impossible to find, but a reissue in 2000 on Captain Oi! Records has brought the album to a wider audience. (“Oi” refers to a working-class subgenre of British punk rock; Sham 69 was one of the first such bands). (February 2011) * * * At the beginning of the “Bio” section of his website is a quote from Trouser Press that says of Phil Gammage’s music: “. . . underwrought darkside Americana echoing Nick Cave’s fascinations minus the melodrama. Which might well make Gammage this generation’s Hank Williams.” * * * In 1982, Certain General signed with the New York independent record label Labor Records and issued their first release, an EP called Holiday of Love. The mini-album was produced by Peter Holsapple of the dB’s and mixed by Michael Gira of the experimental rock band Swans – “an interesting pairing if there ever was one”, said Nick West in a review for Bucketfull of Brains. (I don’t know much about Swans, except for their startling 1988 cover of the Joy Division masterpiece, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”). According to Wikipedia: “Holiday [of Love] garnered rave reviews, among them a Trouser Press piece that cited the disc as being created ‘for all the teenage devils of the world’.”
(March 2015) |