The Album Review Club - Week #145 - (page 1923) - Tellin' Stories - The Charlatans

Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts

It's probably a close call which has the most claimed attendees between York away and the Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall. Given the size of the respective venues I suspect that it's York away that had the most actual attendees although given our notoriously fickle away support who knows whether we would have taken more than a handful.

I wasn't at either. We were early in the adventure of parenthood as we created history in the third tier and well, between season tickets. I worked out I must have been 13 when the Pistols played the free trade hall gig that was, alledgedly, so seminal in the formation of so many Manchester bands.

Too young to be a punk then but like so many 13 year olds probably attempted the attitude as the shockwaves hit the country. It would be a little while longer before the development of my interest in music which inevitably over time becomes broader and broader. Still I do remember at the time listening to the "mainstream" bands such as the Clash, the Pistols, the Stranglers and others. Not the Adverts funnily enough although I must have seen them on Top of the Pops when Gary Gilmore's Eyes charted.

Nowadays it's very rare I would listen to the Sex Pistols although Never Mind the Bollocsks stands as an iconic album. Maybe it's the caricature that John Lyndon has become that blocks me. The Clash, the Stranglers, the Jam, not all even classicly punk but bands you associate with that era all get an airing but the album I listen to most is Crossing the Red Sea.

I can't remember how I first got to hear it. I suspect it was another picked up second hand from Sifters in Burnage. I was going to hail it an underrated classic but doing a modicum of research I see that isn't the case, it gets it's due respect according to Wikipedia as one of the most highly regarded albums of the punk era.

There was a great article about the Adverts in Uncut in December where the "lost heroes of punk tell their story". Sadly looks like these articles don't make their way on to the web, well not yet anyway but digital subscribers might be able to, erm give us a taste of it.

I won't go through this track by track. Instead I'll agree with those reviewers who say theire isn't a bad track on it. Well, New Day Dawning is propably the weakest but that came on the reissue and is amply counterbalanced by the excellent Gary Gilmore's Eyes. As I said previously, it's relatively lean at 36 minutes even with the additional tracks from the debut. Sounds like it will be a bit of nostalgia for some to listen to. Hope it still sounds as fresh to you as it does to me.
 
When this came out I was a bit too young for punk and then a couple of years later when I was old enough I had become involved with the youth wing of a Trotskyist cult. Which seems irrelevant but it turns out that when you are part of a cadre dedicated to establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat there's such a thing as 'good' punk and not good punk and to the best of my recollection The Adverts never made the grade. So my slightly skewed experience of punk (listening to Crass in order to have a po faced discussion about how the anarchists were useful idiots but could never be part of 'the vanguard' isn't actually very punk is it?) means that as far as The Adverts are concerned I only remember Gary Gilmore's Eyes though for some reason I seem to know Bored Teenagers too.

Anyway I'll get back to you in a few listens as to whether me and my comrades missed a trick back in the day.
 
threespires said:
When this came out I was a bit too young for punk and then a couple of years later when I was old enough I had become involved with the youth wing of a Trotskyist cult. Which seems irrelevant but it turns out that when you are part of a cadre dedicated to establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat there's such a thing as 'good' punk and not good punk and to the best of my recollection The Adverts never made the grade. So my slightly skewed experience of punk (listening to Crass in order to have a po faced discussion about how the anarchists were useful idiots but could never be part of 'the vanguard' isn't actually very punk is it?) means that as far as The Adverts are concerned I only remember Gary Gilmore's Eyes though for some reason I seem to know Bored Teenagers too.

Anyway I'll get back to you in a few listens as to whether me and my comrades missed a trick back in the day.
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Got vague memories of seeing Crass plus possibly Dirt, Annie Anxiety and Flux of Pink Indians at the Mayflower Club at Belle Vue, possibly one of the most frightening experiences of my then young and sheltered life.
 
journolud said:
Got vague memories of seeing Crass plus possibly Dirt, Annie Anxiety and Flux of Pink Indians at the Mayflower Club at Belle Vue, possibly one of the most frightening experiences of my then young and sheltered life.
Click to expand...

Lol, I bet it was. No idea what I'll ultimately say about this album but, having just had the thought 'I wonder how much Anti-Nowhere League there is on the streaming platforms', followed by 'I wonder if our resident metal heads were into Discharge back in the day?' - I think one way or the other I'm going to enjoy a trip down memory lane of some sort!
 
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