Nite Songs

  "Living in a rats' maze in a high rise concrete cell/Gonna do some damage 'cos it's worth my time in hell"  - The Wanderers  - Ready To Snap The Wanderers were a bit of a supergroup albeit one that circumstances sadly prevented from really reaching its full potential. The group were formed in 1980 upon the dissolution of yobbo-punks Sham 69. I've sort of touched on Sham a little bit in a few columns but they're not honestly the sort of band I'd do a Garbage Days Revisited on for the simple reason that I've always regarded them as a great singles band who, unlike those who came after them like the Cockney Rejects and the Angelic Upstarts , never quite managed an all killer no filler album. Their ultra-raw 1978 debut Tell Us The Truth  is probably their strongest effort with its mix of big Slade-style gang chant choruses and hoolie aggression. That's Life , which surfaced later the same year, was an attempt at a punk concept which had a few goo...

  "Welcome to Silicon City, it's all tits 'n' ass to me/Where Tropicana mud wrestlers marry rockstars, must be some social disease...L.A. sleaze (ugh!)"  - Shooting Gallery  - Restless It's been a bit of a busy summer for the former members of Hanoi Rocks with new albums surfacing from both Michael Monroe (who lest we forget has Sami Yaffa in his band nowadays) and Nasty Suicide (or Stenfors as he's now known). So it seemed like a good opportunity to fill in a few of the gaps in the story which we briefly touched on many moons ago here on Garbage Days Revisited. I'm going to do a quick look back at  Michael Monroe 's output in the '90s next week here with a revisit of one of his most overlooked moments but this week, we're taking a look at the Keef to his Mick, Andy McCoy. I s'pose Andy McCoy has always been the loose cannon in Hanoi, clearly influenced by Keef Richards and Johnny Thunders (and with a lot of their bad habits as we...

  "Truth can't be found on the television/Throwaway youth, you gotta make a stand!/Music is your only weapon/Spanners in the works, go and start your gang!"  - Lords of the New Church  - "New Church" One of THE great lost bands of the 1980s, the Lords of the New Church should have had a headstart just for the caliber of the guys involved alone. Fronting the operation was ex-Dead Boys legend Stiv Bators, on six string duties was original Damned guitarist Brian James, on bass Dave Tregunna from Sham 69 and on drums Nicky Turner from the Barracudas. Yet for some reason a chart breakthrough well and truly eluded them and they split after three awesome albums to essentially be remembered as a cult band. The group would put out three albums and all of them are well worth your while but for the definitive Lords statement, it's the debut you want. You'd maybe expect a band with the pedigree mentioned above to be a straight up Stooges style punk band with maybe ...