The 1977 various artists compilation album New Wave looks like a major label cash in (it came out on Vertigo, a subsidiary of Phillips/ Phonogram). The cover, bright red with a photo of leather jacket clad punk spitting beer at the camera in front of a corrugated iron fence, is typically '77 punk. The album's title looks like an attempt to make something threatening palatable, new wave rather than punk. But the fact is, it's a really good primer of mainly American 1977 punk bands with some pre- punk or proto- punk acts thrown in and there's hardly a song on it you'd skip (I make an exception for The Boomtown Rats who I'd always skip). The sleeve thanks Linda and Seymour Stein (who scooped up most of the US punk/ New Wave acts for Seymour's label Sire) and also Jake Riviera and Kosmo Vinyl from Stiff Records, both of whom knew their stuff.
New Wave opens, as all punk compilation albums probably should, with The Ramones and one minute thirty two seconds of rushing buzzsaw guitars and Joey's snarled vocals about Judy and Jackie...
From there it's bam- bam- bam of U.S. punk and proto- punk- The Dead Boys, Patti Smith's Piss Factory, The Runaways, New York Dolls, Richard Hell and The Voidoids and Love Comes In Spurts. France and Australia are represented by Little Bob Story a Skyhooks. Flip it over and side two kicks off with Talking Heads (if you've placed the needle past The Boomtown Rats), jerky, staccato, New York art with two loves that go tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet like little birds.
The Damned show up with New Rose, the first UK punk single and the one that got them blackballed by the punk crowd for the crime of speeding up the recording in the studio, studio trickery being NOT PUNK. More Ramones, more Dead Boys, more Runaways, more Dolls and The Flaming Groovies who always seem like the outliers on this record, their 1967 San Francisco garage rock always feeling a bit too studied and retro for 1977 despite Shake Some Action being most definitely a good song.
New Wave was a second hand shop staple for years- all the way through the 80s a record you could guarantee finding in the Punk section. Pulling it out again and playing it for this post, it still packs a punch, a 1977 sock to the face.
