It was a particularly hot summer of Zero Nine. I’d spent the beginning of the year in the studio with Ratbags recording our debut album, which was planned to carry a title inspired by the public transport of London: “Sorry, Out of Service“. Devi had already fallen in with a rough mix of Walking Dead, which was among the first patch of songs to be recorded and Charlie Harper from the UK Subs had heard a song off the album, which he had described as “Great stuff!”. So we were on our way… if it would not have been for the endless arguments over the mixing of the album and the various versions of the songs. Walking Dead ended up in Trippin’ and on one of the trailers as well, while rest of the album would be locked away in the vaults.
So as I was saying it was a particularly hot summer of Zero Nine. I was very inspired by Devi’s enthusiasm and also her talent. So I’d worked on some exclusive tracks for Trippin’, initally starting off in Finland where one of the instrumentals for the film was recorded and then relocated back to London to record a bunch of tracks under “Spider’s Sideshow” with some good friends of mine who’d been in such bands as Under the Gun, the Subzeros and Cavity Search. We entered a cheaply priced, good sounding yet badly organised studio in East London to with the intention of recording a theme song for the film among bunch of other songs and a ska punk ditty drawing inspiration from years earlier unimaginatively named Punk Rock Girl. As history would have a sudden deadline would appear and due to complications during the whole process these were never finished on time. Friend of mine who had been photographing the sessions at the studio sang the chorus line of Punk Rock Girl to me months later and I realised what a catchy number we had there. Another friendly musician who’d been in the Hydropaths entered my home studio giving help with a proper bass reggae line and Hammondesque organs. We had a uplifting song about a lost girl lost in the world, but I was equally lost what to do with it. A lot of songs had to be hidden in the vaults.
Got tipped off about a London based punk and ska compilation the following summer. Sent a track from upcoming Condition:Dead album “Famous… for fuck all”, which ended up carrying Active Distribution catalogue number 21. On top of that I ended up sending Ratbags’ Walking Dead and Spider’s Sideshow’s Dead Kennedys influenced Too Fucked To Drink along with Punk Rock Girl as I couldn’t decide which one to send.
Earlier this month it came to my attention that all three groups would be featured among the 20 odd artists selected for “This is London” compilation released on this very day.
London town – london diehards
Final straw – punchpuppet
You’d like to know – debt collectors
Search party- ten o sevens
Drop dead 2 – dilenquents
Punk rock girl – spiders sideshow
D list celebrity stalker – monkish
Paint th town dead – antibodies
You ain’t no fidel – griswalds
Another – condition:dead
Jäger song – Tmf
Law n order – minimal damage
Whiskey on the wounds – jack brews
Poetry of protest – jackal
Put ur boss in th bin – raw poo
Walking dead – ratbags
Bank job – sterilizers
Monkey food – bogus gasman
Flick knife – unreleasables
Billy bonds – hammered mother fucker
I put my foot in it – millwall dave
Cocaine – noxious toys
Tom – scaredy cats
Friday night feeling – tommy k
Bring on the weekend – uppercuts
So if you feel like hearing a little bit of what’s going on in London today getting hold of these mysterious lost gems you can drop us a line on spideremail (at) googlemail.com and get a copy for 10$ including postage and packaging worldwide.