Customer Reviews

Original Spunk Bootleg

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To my mind, there are four landmark recordings that characterise and embody '70s punk - The Ramones first album, The Clash first album (UK version), The Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch EP and Spunk, the Sex Pistols demos. And what a stormin' powerhouse of a record this is!

To those unfamiliar with the story, The Pistols recorded a series of demos in late '76 / early '77 while Glen Matlock was still in the band. These were issued as a bootleg called Spunk several weeks before the Never Mind The Bollocks LP and then promptly withdrawn. To this day there is still a mystery as to who put it out in the first place but it was obviously someone well-placed because the sound quality was extremely good. The recordings have re-surfaced here and there over the past 30 years but now finally, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of these recordings, here are those magical nuggets once again, re-issued in exactly the same packaging as the original.

Perception of the Pistols has often suffered due to their iconic status. It's often been very hard for people (myself, at least) to separate the myth from the music, to able to appreciate the band's recordings without being aware of the phenomenon behind it. No such dilemmas with Spunk. On this record, you'll get to hear what a sledgehammer of a Rock 'n' Roll band they really were. They didn't need all the negative publicity or the cachet of being 'iconic'. These demos are as powerful as anything in Rock 'n' Roll's history.

Although most of the tracks later surfaced in re-recorded form on ..Bollocks, the re-recorded versions suffered from a slickness and polish that did not truthfully represent the band. On Spunk, we get the unadulterated action - raw and snarling. So compact and basic are these recordings that they all sound as though they were recorded in mono even though they were cut in stereo. Steve Jones' axe sounds ferocious throughout and you just have to appreciate the contribution that Glen Matlock made to the band - his wonderful bass playing evidenced here gives The Pistols both a musciality and a muscularity missing on their legit record. The rhythm section as a whole is totally pumping! And this is all before John Lydon/Rotten opens his mouth, spewing venemous attitude in a way that makes his lyrics seem all the more necessary and pointed. With the recordings on Spunk, you get to really understand the Pistols and what they were trying to achieve. And you get to rock out to the boys with wild abandon.

Take God Save The Queen for example. Although to less cultured ears the version here may sound distinctly similar to the Bollocks version, there's something tighter and more focused about this performance. It's one of numerous subtle revelations. My personal fave has to be Submission - a slower, grinding, sleazeball performance complete with swampy underwater effects. And this is just one of the many delights on show here.

The Sex Pistols were a great Rock 'n' Roll band as well as a social force to be reckoned with. This record will appeal to anyone who wants to discover that former quality of the band that changed the world we all live in.

This one's for true fans of the Sex Pistols only. While it's a treat to here some of the raw footage of the band's first-ever recording, the sound quality is less than professional, and the band lacks the energy found in "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" and later recordings. The only true gems on this album are the '76 demo versions of "Anarchy in the UK" and "Pretty Vacant" and their cover of the Iggy Pop classic "No Fun," which was also recorded in '76.

Aside from that, stick to never minding the bollocks when it comes to the Sex Pistols. Your ears and your wallet will thank you.

But it has to be done. In fact, this is a bootleg that was released a month before "Never Mind the Bollocks". It's a different album, containing different songs, or at least much different versions of said songs. This really isn't a rehash so much as a reissue of something you can't get anywhere else.

It is one of those music industry mysteries that will probably never be solved; about a month before the release of the debut album on Virgin Records, 12 tracks from sessions produced by Dave Goodman appeared on this then bootleg. It had pristine sound quality and captured the "punk" power better than the official album.

And to make things even more intriguing, a bootleg (No Future UK?) of the bootleg - with additional tracks - made it into the "underground" marketplace. The lineup is bassist Glen Matlock (before he was replaced by Sid Vicious), John Lydon, Paul Cook and Steve Jones.

The 15 tracks of this now official bootleg (there has also been a number of "official" releases of Spunk) captures the band in full-flight, minus the media drama that was drummed up by Malcolm McLaren. Goodman understood his role as producer and let the music do the talking.

The back-story is interesting, but the music shows the full potential of the "Fearsome Foursome," since the person directing the show understood that "punk rock" needed a healthy dose of the latter to go with the swagger of the former.

Sex Pistols / Spunk: Ah, the eternal question, "Never Mind..." or "Spunk"? The fanatic will want both. The casual fan will want "Never Mind...". The person who wants a disk that's a little different and yet still excellent (as far as a Sex Pistol disc ever is) this is the disk to get. I love the thing, so I give it Five Stars.

The Sex Pistols were the Stock-Aitken-Waterman pop creations of the punk years. Much as they are touted by populist historians as the progenitors of the British Punk movement, they came second, third or last in every category. The Damned beat them to virtually everything and sounded better, UK Subs had better punk credentials and there weren't any punk bands that sold as completely as the Sex Pistols, not even the Clash.

"Never Mind..." was their only real album, these recordings floated around at about the same time and to every interested punk were infinitely more exciting. "Never Mind..." was turned out as pop-punk, over-produced with half an eye on the singles charts and the newspapers, designed to sell to an enormous potential in the USA market.

Spunk on the other hand was raw, featured the classic line-up of Lydon, Matlock, Cook and Jones and had the Sex Pistols sounding like a band with energy, talent and some great great songs. They had something to say and knew how to say it.
On the album there are a couple of weak songs, most notably track 6 "Nookie" (Anarchy in the UK) which always sounded trite and pretentious, a sort of hair-metal type of punk appealing to silly teenagers who will eventually evolve into the sort of idiots who wear baseball caps backwards and think they look something other than stupid. The sound quality isn't the studio-polished quality you'd expect if you'd heard the same tracks on "Never Mind...", rather there are mistakes, poor edits, vocal errors and so forth that you'd actually like to associate with a great punk band doing their Do-It-Yourself best on limited studio time and cheap equipment. Real late 70's music in other words. However, the album is obviously a studio production and not a live bootleg or true rehearsal tape gone astray, these are early cuts and alternative versions of songs that would be released professionally and make a legend from a bunch of hyped-up teenagers.

What appears here is a demonstration of exactly how talented the Sex Pistols really were. Guitar riffs that rock, Lydon's vocals excellent and the rhythm section very tight.

So, if you're looking to buy a Sex Pistols album, buy this one. It's far and away their best. Get "Never Mind..." too to hear how awful they were to become when the money men got hold of them and produced their music to death.
If you're looking for a great sound of 70's punk, listen to the Damned's early efforts, or Eddie and The Hot Rods, or even the Ramones.

Better than the studio debut if you ask this listener. Reveals many facets to the Sex Pistol's sound that were scrubbed and scraped off the finished "Never Mind..." tapes. Almost psychedelic in it's flanged, mid-paced delivery. You can really hear what they probably sounded like live and their musicianship is surprising. Although these are demos, the sound is clear and well-rounded. If you have any interest in this band or punk rock in general, this is a must have.

The same set of songs from `Bollocks,' but in a more vibrant and in-your-face presentation that seems to me to be more a rehearsal or perhaps a run-through ahead of the taping. Some have said this was a stolen master; that it is clearly not. Variations in lyrics - in `Seventeen' for example - and playing are very apparent. The mixing is also different, at times making Rotten's phrasing more clear.

It's odd that this disc should be reissued after all these years. Between `Spunk' and `Bollocks' and `Kiss Me' and `Flogging a Dead Horse' and `The Great Rock `n' Roll Swindle and `Live from Cheltenham Prison,' there are only about 15 or 20 songs that the original band (Rotten, Jones, Cook and Matlock) performed. Not exactly a large body of work. Nor has anything else appeared ; even after the Filthy Lucre Tour.


So why do we keep buying the same recycled material?

Because this band was, is, and always will be unique in that it did - in its incredibly brief life - act as a tipping point in rock `n' roll that was right up there with Elvis and The Beatles. It was - as is necessary - ready, willing and able to not just upset complacency but to seek its negation. That's proably why, 34 years later, as the world - not just England - finds itself staring at a socio-economic and political abyss signaling No Future is once again the status quo, the music is made even more pertinent.

One of THE best Pistols albums ever to be released !! A must for any REAL SEX PISTOLS FAN !!!!!

World's greatest punk band and almost as good as 'Never Mind the Bollocks'. Please, guys, do a reunion album !