the worst

quote from sound in 1977. "that if the music of the worst was as effective as thier spokesmen were on bbc's "brass tacks" then i was anxious to here them. and i meant every word.At Barbarellas only one band genuinely shone out as being different, fresh, the WORST. The WORST's alarming aural minimalism - a sandpapered hybrid of bleached Hawkwind and "case history" Kevin Coyne - and a total lack of orthadox techniques provoke immediate alienation and scorn. But it works because it as so totally unpretentious and spontaneous possessing absolutely no pose, and these lads mean it. Not one of the other bands touched any nerves. They were either entertaining or pretentious or hypocritical or ludicrous or all 4. The Worst just were.NEW MUSICAL EXPRESSAt one point the lead "singer" turned his back to us and played the notes A and B twice in a row. It was a solo.TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN GIGone things for sure.if you THINK you actually saw the worst and can't remember. YOU DIDN'T. hears a list of some of the bands they played with over the couple of years they lasted. BUZZCOCKS who they supported many times, THE FALL and THE PREFECTS (kindrid spirits) WARSAW (joy division) SIOUXSIE and the BANSHEES, GANG OF FOUR, MAGAZINE, THE SLITS,ADAM and the ANTS,THE KILLJOYS, THE DRONES, MANICURED NOISE, STEEL PULSE, PENETRATION, JOHN COOPER CLARKE, THE SPECIALS and last but not least JON THE POSTMANS PURILE. and not one of these bands would be sat in the dressing room while they were on.The Worst..."they stand for all the freedoms that can be imagined. They voice brutal imaginations of blurred everyday themes - urban alienation, distortion, depersonalisation - and their style is, by liberal intellectual standards, destructive and anti-social"The WORST were the epitome of the punk-rock era in all that it stood for - basically a "were not gonna take this any more" of the music establishment that controlled what we listened to and 'what was good for us'. Countless promises of record contracts were told to "shove it" and rather than, what we regarded as at the time, "selling out to the establishment" like so many of our contemporaries with similar ideals.The disillusionment came when one by one the bands signed up with the big record companies, it was signing away the control. They took one look at the size of the cheque and went into the music machine, the very thing we thought punk was trying to get away fromBAND CONCEPT No 'Image'. They play not as though theirlife depends on it, but because it does..