Live Stiffs(Sorting through the vinyl#4)

And so onwards in my search through my bits of vinyl that really should be played far more than  in actuality it is!!...anyhow this entry is a reissue the clip above shows the first STIFF record released version of 'Live Stiffs' the one I own (found in a charity shop) is a Music for Pleasure reissue...that in itself seems odd a record company releasing a copy of a compilation featuring the cream of another record company(in it's early years anyhow) but that aside it's fundamentally the same album.

The tracklisting remains the same the cover differs but it's obviously still a photo from the same session I suspect they took different photos with all personnel getting the option to stand up front so as not to bruise any egos, the version above shows Nick Lowe to the fore my copy has wreckless Eric and Ian Dury at the front.

STIFF itself is a record label deserving if's own blog and maybe I will try and tackle it at a later point if I go through CD box-sets as I have the STIFF one that is deserving the nod, Anyhow STIFF was without doubt one of the more interesting small labels that thought big in the mid seventies through to the mid eighties when it eventually got absorbed by Island.

Set up with monetary help from personnel within pub rockers Dr Feelgood STIFF was home to the first UK punk single 'New Rose' by the Damned plus the first UK Punk album the thrice self named album by the same band.

STIFF were masters of marketing a mantle taken on later and maybe bettered by labels such as ZTT and Factory however in many ways STIFF were the precursor and certainly were one of the first cases where a release from the label would always garner interest just because of the name it had built up through clever marketing and quirky releases.

This album reflects an early package tour for the label, Legend has it that Costello and Dury were at loggerheads most of the tour both being arguably the biggest names, However Larry Wallis certainly had some heritage and I will always have a soft spot for numerous Wreckless Eric bits.

Of interest is Elvis Costello covering Burt Bacarach's 'I just don't know what to do with myself' decades before the two would embark on a brief creative relationship..everything aside and despite me being a bigger blockheads fan I think this track is the vinyl highlight with Costello's plaintive yet snarling vocal to the fore.

An ensemble version of Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll ends the LP and again alike the other live compilations I have so far looked at it's not necessarily pretty!!..it is however raw and it is authentic..more pub rock than punk in many ways given the nod to melody(plus the heritage of the players) it is however a great example of days when touring was about selling product rather than these days when it seems product sells tours.

Etched in the lead out groove on side one is 'Sex and Drugs'....and I'm guessing you can work out yourselves what is on the lead out groove on side two....oh go on then...it's 'and rock and roll'

The recordings themselves are from Punk rock year one...1977...and are from Leicester University,the University of East Anglia Norwich and the Lyceum in London.

The Track listing is



Nick Lowe's last chicken in the shop ..I knew the bride when she used to rock and roll

Wreckless Eric and the new rockets ..Semaphore signals..Reconnez cherie

Larry Wallis's Psychedelic Rowdies..Police Car

Elvis Costello and the attractions...I just don't know what to do with myself..Miracle man

Ian Dury and the Blockheads..wake up and make love to me..billericay dickie

All....Sex and drugs and rock and roll.



All told....a nice snap shot of a record company and artists in early days.