25 September 2015

BRITISH AIRWAVES


I think that my vinyl copy of this release was the product of an expedition to Tulsa in the late '80s (teenage Wizard was neither adventurous nor mobile) and resulted in my discovery of 18 then-new-to-me bands (which is precisely what a comp is supposed to do). That said, the 1000 MEXICANS track gets stuck in my head at least once a month (it's that damn bass line), THE RENEES are killer, THE THREE JOHNS track is mediocre but resulted in several of their records in my arsenal, and this JAZAWHAKI tune is as infectious as anything I can imagine.In addition, you get burners from THE GLOBAL INFANTALISTS, HAGAR THE WOMB (my first introduction was this track), THE MOODISTS, NIKKI SUDDEN, and THE RENEES ("Drink Problem" seemed so racy as a 16 year old...) among many others. I think the motivation for this comp was financial, as British Airwaves seems to have been compiled and released by a label hoping to break UK post punk/new wave acts into the US market, but I can't really see anything here that we Americans ever gave a shit about aside from NEW MODEL ARMY....though this is still my favorite NEW MODEL ARMY jam. But seriously, "Last Pop Song" is beyond devastating....turn and face the lights.

Turn up the music, one last time // This is the last pop song, come on and sing // This is the last pop song, it didn't mean a thing...

1 comment:

Raga said...

Thanks a lot for the upload of this.

New Model Army put out their own compilation of their Vengeance album, and it sounds as fresh and vital as when it came out. A personal favourite.

Pretty much all of The Moodists' material is out of print as well (sans the 2016 digital live album that stems from the 2004 DVD), and spread across different albums and compilations, so it's awesome to track down another one of their tracks.

Cheers!