Jon Savage Presents Black Hole: Californian Punk 1977 to 1980

Jon Savage Presents Black Hole: Californian Punk 1977 to 1980
(Domino)

Compiled by punk’s chief archivist and all round eccentric Jon Savage, you’d expect some pretty eclectic choices on this survey of Cali punk’s first wave. And guess what? He’s scored! This is simply great: the hopeful and inspiring sound of experimentation and non conformist invention on a low budget, with much of the material sounding far from your expectations of what punk might sound like.
Take The Screamers ‘Peer Pressure’ for example. Featuring the kind of rudimentary electro also used on Iggy Pop’s ‘Nightclubbing’, it’s a sparse and murky song, recorded no doubt in the kind of dive lit by one swinging light bulb.
Later, Aurora Pushups ‘Victims Of Terrorism’ sounds like a DIY Jefferson Airplane, while The Zero’s ‘Wimp’ feels like a low-wattage premonition of Guns ‘N’ Roses.
Elsewhere there’s scathing wit aplenty, with The Avengers fantastic ‘The American In Me’ asking big questions in the chorus (“ask what your country’s been doing to you!”), while Crime are content with taking the piss out of axe-welding guitar heroes on ‘Murder By Guitar’.
It’s quite obvious that approximately zero cash has been spent on these recordings – many of them sound like demos – but the strong material still comes through as a testament to what you can with a little will and creativity. What’s not to like about this record?