Various Artists - "Lend Us A Quid, The Tanked-Up, Dressed Down, Dirty-Ass R&B Side of Pub Rock!" (WAXCD 004)

Hi there! When I was in my teens, one of my dream jobs was to be an archivist on record companies in the likes of the British Ace. Actually I’m still dreaming of this quite a lot... You know, dreams are for free! Anyway, I was fascinated by the thing totally. I mean, you’re getting paid to search the vaults of legendary 
labels like Stax, Modern or Meteor, to write the liners, to interview long forgotten heroes and to gather a compilation for the listening pleasure of a majority that has obviously an upper IQ level and of course great taste! And this was the driving force for starting the whole WAX CDs compilations. The addition of JP makes many matters easier, BUT I tell you guys that this persuasion’s not an easy shit to do. You’re setting yourself higher standards every time and you’re coming to a point that you feel imprisoned on your own ‘fun’ idea. OK, I made it look quite weepy but what I’m trying to say is that when you get positive reactions from other people for your ‘work’, it is obvious and happens almost subconsciously to want to make it even better next time and all of a sudden this photo’s not so good, this track doesn’t fit well, and when you’re come finally to an end, you realize that you have already spent on this two or three months! But it’s still a fun thing to do and I wish this was my every day routine! As you can see, this time we have picked on Pub Rock. Be careful though, we didn’t want to make just ‘another’ gathering of well known songs. And we wanted also this stable to have a ‘concept’. And the concept here is the “Dirty R&B” side of the idiom. That means no Brinsleys, no Ace, and no Bees Make Honey. Nothing against these bands of course, Brinsleys in fact are one of my favorite combos of the era but this shit here’s about raw uncompromised energy! I wanted the punk forefathers, the ones that teach the Pistols and their generation who Music Machine was and where this evil force called rock & roll was born or/and by whom?! 

In my mind the best rock & roll combo came outta UK (in all periods of time!), hands down are Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. Way cool than many before or since! No wonder these guys were a huge influence on our subject. Mick Green patented the sound made Wilko a hero and their song was the reason why the Feelgoods christened themselves this way. I tried to stick to a ‘heavy’ R&B beat for all selections here and I tried as well to link past with the then present and future. Downliners Sect was no new to the game of course, but seeing their kids succeeding in their own game, jumped up the wagon and released at least one killer LP (they did the same with punk as FU2, but that’s another story waiting to be told). Lemmy and co. was no less than a kick ass pub band in their prime, and along with 'their gals' created a mayhem picking on Johnny Kidd’s classic “Please Don’t Touch”. MC5’s front man Rob Tyner left an interesting (at least) single with the Hot Rods backing him up, and the more garage approach of the movement with The Inmates and The Cannibals (driving force was and still is Mike Spenser of the MKI Count Bishops) who introduced the Nuggets to a generation of punks that wanted to re-establish rock & roll but not in the traditional way. I included also the Little Roosters (WHATTA NAME!) and the nuclear blast in the form of a song named “I Need a Witness (produced by Joe Strummer), a song the Cock Sparrer (!) made widely familiar, the Hammersmith Gorillas savage take on the Kinks (Gaaaaaaallll you really got me gowin!), here from the original single and not from the RAW records re-press that had mastering/sounding problems plus the Bob Seger Chuck Berry homage by none other than Terry Gibson of the Sect! The Untouchables Wilko produced single as far as I know is quite a rarity already, and Dr. Feelgood’s live hyper speed take on Jerry Lee just rips! There’s an interesting little story behind every track here and why chose it but we will need more time to put into shape a thing thats already late a bit… So, hope you enjoy it and try find all these bands if you already haven’t. And keep in mind that Pub Rock was the true but unfashionable movement that REALLY saved rock & roll’s ass! RESPECT!
PS: "Lend Us A Quid" was the ironic pin my idol Steve Marriott used to wear during his pub rock days. Many of the fans still believe this was the sad end. I'm not one of those! I wish anytime soon, some better sounding tapes from the ones already exist to surface in public... 

As usual no bootlegging on WAX CDs. Share and dance freely!