ZEITGEIST 1981 Post Punk

Zeitgeist - Stop/Time won't Tell 12" Jamming Records 1982

Zeitgeist,  originally from Cornwall, England relocated to London around 1979-1980. They put out a handful of incredible dancy post punk singles on Jamming Records in the vain of A Certain Ratio, Au Pairs, and Pop Group. The band had dropped a demo by Tony Fletcher who was the founder of Jamming Fanzine in hopes of a record review and some good press to get them some London shows. Zeitgeist had self pressed an impressive 7" single titled "Shake-Rake" which garnered the attention of Human records that re-released "Shake-Rake" as well as a new single called "Touch" before the label went out of business.  Fletcher had recently partnered up with Paul Weller from The Jam to form Jamming Records and decided Zeitgeist would be an excellent second release. Zeitgeist released a few more singles for Jamming before Fletcher and Weller went their separate ways.

Zeitgeist - Touch 7" Human Records 1980

Line-Up:
Boasting two lead singers Jaf and Zaz, Apparently they had a sense of humor and used abbreviated names: Jaf (vocals), Zaz Detroit (bass), Chris (percussion) and Dynamite (drums). (vocals), Tex (guitar), T.C. (sax)


Zeitgeist singles:
Sniper/Shake-Rake 1980 (Enchaine)
Shake-Rake 1980 (Human)
Touch 7" (Human) 1980
Ball of Confusion 7" 1981 (Jamming)
Over Againn/Ripped 12" 1982 (Jamming)
Over Again 7" 1982 (Jamming)
Stop/Time Won't Tell 7" 1982 (Jamming)
Time Wont Tell/ Stop 12" 1982 (Jamming)

Jamming Fanzine No.11

Zeitgeist - Ball of Confusion 7" Jamming Records 1981

For more info about Zeigeist and hear the cover of "Ball of Confusion" from this article on Zeitgeist by Tony Fletcher at his website ijamming.com.

The Raincoats

The Raincoats were one of the most experimental bands that immediately followed the initial burst of punk rock in the late '70s. With their minimalistic approach to guitar-driven folk-rock, the band developed a distinctive, jagged sound, punctuated by a shrill violin. The Raincoats were also one of the first all-female post-punk bands, which wasn't common in the late '70s and early '80s. When they were recording, the band gained a small cult following in their native England and an even smaller audience in America; they broke up in 1984. (AM)


The Raincoats, released in 1979, was the debut album by The Raincoats. The album is perhaps best known for its off-kilter cover of "Lola" by The Kinks. The album was re-released on 9 November 2009 in vinyl with a free MP3 download and an extra track "Fairytale in the Supermarket" and as a special edition enhanced digipak CD including live footage from 1977 and 1979 and a video of "Fairytale in the Supermarket" on We ThRee, the band's own label in the UK and on the Kill Rock Stars label in the USA. (wikipedia)


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   Odyshape, released in 1981, was the second album by The Raincoats.





 




Band Website

Jean-Michael Basquiat = Art Punk

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist and the first artist of African descent to become an international art star. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting. Basquiat died due to a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27.
While a high school student, Basquiat and Al Diaz started spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, working under the pseudonym SAMO. The designs inscribed messages such as "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause". In December 1978, the Village Voice published an article on the graffiti. The SAMO project ended with the epitaph "SAMO IS DEAD," inscribed on the walls of SoHo buildings.
SAMO© Graffiti appeared in New York City from 1977 to early 1980. They were short phrases, in turns poetic and sarcastic, mainly painted on the streets of downtown Manhattan. The tag SAMO© (pronounced Same-Oh) has been primarily associated with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, but was developed mainly as a collaboration between Basquiat and Al Diaz, with help from a few friends. Diaz had previously been part of the New York graffiti scene, using the tag “Bomb I”. Later Basquiat took on the tag himself, creating some non-graffiti work on paper and canvas using that tag, just before and after killing off the SAMO graffiti by painting “SAMO© IS DEAD” around the streets of downtown in early 1980. Basquiat claims the name was first developed in a stoned conversation with high school friend Al Diaz, calling the marijuana they smoked “the same old shit,” then shortening the phrase to "Same Old", then "SAMO".The character of SAMO was first developed by Basquiat, Diaz, and Shannon Dawson (artist) while they were fellow students at City As School high school.(wikipedia)

Pylon

Pylon is a rock band from Athens, Georgia, USA. The band's danceable jangle pop sound influenced the Athens, Georgia music scene and the 1980s American pop underground. Allmusic wrote that Pylon's "role as elder statesmen of the alternative rock explosion is unassailable". The group is named for a novel by William Faulkner.


All four members of Pylon were art students at the University of Georgia in Athens. Guitarist Randall Bewley and bass guitarist Michael Lachowski began playing music and attempting to form a band in 1978. They practiced in a studio in downtown Athens which Lachowski rented from Curtis Crowe, upstairs from the current location of the Grill on College Avenue. The room was lit by a single 40-watt light bulb, so the band referred to it as the "40 Watt Club." Crowe soon joined the band as a drummer. On February 14, 1979, the three held auditions for a singer. Vanessa Briscoe (now Vanessa Briscoe Hay) was chosen.Pylon played their first live show at a party on March 9, 1979. Members of The B-52's attended Pylon's third show. Fred Schneider and Kate Pierson of the B-52's were particularly supportive and helped promote Pylon's music in New York City, getting them a gig at Hurrah.Soon Pylon opened for Gang of Four in New York. Pylon's debut single, "Cool," appeared on DB Records in early 1980, and received many positive critical reviews. From 1980 to 1983 Pylon toured parts of the U.S., Canada, and the UK, playing with groups such as the B-52's, Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, Love Tractor, R.E.M., the Talking Heads, and U2. Pylon was the opening act for the first part of U2's first U.S. tour. Crazy/M-Train charted at #61 for Club play singles in 1982 according to Billboard Magazine entry in All Music Guide. At that time the members of Pylon were beginning to feel that playing together was becoming less fun and more like a business. They decided to break up the band in 1983. (Wikipedia)

Band Website
Myspace

Modern English Mesh & Lace

Everyone knows the hit "I Melt with You" but does anyone know that before Modern English hit the mainstream they were a post-punk noise band in the vein of Joy Division and Bauhaus? Their first album Mesh and Lace is a must have for any post punk collection.
Formed in Colchester, Essex, England, in 1979 by Robbie Grey (vocals), Gary McDowell (guitar, vocals), and Michael Conroy (bass, vocals),[2] Modern English were originally known as The Lepers. The group expanded to "Modern English" when Richard Brown (drums) and Stephen Walker (keyboards) were subsequently added to the line-up of the band. After a single on their own 'Limp' label in 1979, the band signed to 4AD the following year, with two further singles released, and a session for John Peel recorded before the band's debut album, Mesh & Lace, in 1981, the band in the early days showing a strong Joy Division influence.A second Peel session was recorded in October 1981. The follow-up, After The Snow (April 1982), was more keyboard-oriented and was compared to Simple Minds and Duran Duran.It was also released in the United States by Sire Records the following year, where it reached number 70 on the Billboard chart, and sold over 500,000 copies.Grey said of the album, "We used to think 'God, we'll never make a pop record. We're artists!', but things don't always turn out as you planned and when you actually create a pop record, it's so much more of a thrill than anything else". The second single from the album was also a hit in the US, the jangly "I Melt With You" reaching number 78. When he reviewed the album, Johnny Waller of Sounds described the track as "A dreamy, creamy celebration of love and lust, which deserves to be showcased on as 12" single all by itself, with no b-side", while his colleague Tony Mitchell described it as "suburban amateurism at its most unrewarding". The band relocated to New York City and worked on a third album, Ricochet Days, which again made the top 100 in the US, after which the band left 4AD and were solely signed to Sire outside the UK and Canada.The album Stop Start (1986) was the last record Modern English record released by Sire, with the band splitting up after its release. Grey and Conroy along with Modern English worked with This Mortal Coil before re-forming Modern English with Mick Conroy and Aaron Davidson for a new album in 1990, Pillow Lips, now on the American TVT label. The album featured a re-recorded "I Melt With You", which was released as a single, and saw the band again in the Billboard top 100.[3] The band split up for a second time in 1991, after contractual problems with TVT, with Grey forming Engine. In 1995, with the legal issues with TVT sorted out, Engine evolved into the next incarnation of Modern English and signed to the Imago label, with Grey and Matthew Shipley (keyboards). This line-up recorded the 1996 album Everything's Mad. Robbie Grey toured the US with a new Modern English lineup now including English drummer Roy Martin and travelled coast to coast across the US and recorded a new album with Hugh Jones (producer of earlier Modern English records). The songs written with guitarist Steven Walker and including Matthew Shipley came together on the road and back home in London between tours, after a few years on the shelf this collection of songs, entitled Soundtrack, was released on May 24, 2010. The original line-up of the band toured in July and September 2010. Members include Robbie Gray-vocals and guitar, Gary McDowell-guitar and vocals, Mick Conroy-guitar and vocals, Steven Walker-guitar, Stephen Walker-keyboards, and Ric Chandler on drums. (Wikipedia)