5 songs of British self-produced sloppiness from the glorious year of 1979 = great punk rock in my book, and Hornsey At War was truly sloppy in all aspects of the word. With shitty production and songs very much on the edge of falling apart all through the record H.A.W. could hold a candle to Sarah Coffmann and Desperate Bicycles without any doubts what so ever.
Hear the musicians try hard to play the same song at the same time while the singer mainly mumbles as the vocal microphone is way too loud compared to the other instruments. The guitars comes and goes and the tempo in the intro is never constant for more than a few seconds as it seems like the drummer can’t hear the other members. And what about the guitar solos? And the truly deadbeat back up vocals in Anti-ego? Totally amazing in every single way and for once a saying is true; If you don’t love Hornsey at War when you’re young you have no heart, and if you don’t love them when you’re old you have no brain.
I can’t really find to much info about them online, but I’m quite sure they were from London and I just realized that Johan Kugelberg included them on his D.I.Y. top 100 list but still moderately priced far as I know, maybe because it was pressed in over 500 copies but what do I know?
Country: UK
Year: 1979
Label: War
Format: 7″
Songs:
Hornsey At War.mp3
U C 2 Much 4 Me.mp3
Anti-Ego.mp3
Dirt in my eyes.mp3
No roots.mp3
It’s the new chic to like crap bands and sometimes I think I’m partially responsible for the trend. You’re too young for such lousy records, Martin. Listen to electronic music or something you can relate to, don’t waste your life to become a loser like me.
You’re funny Erich, and I wish I could blame you, but unfortunately I discovered the joys of punkrock 20 years ago, and sloppiness has always had a huge impact on me.
This is a fucking charming record. I fucking love it!! Thanks
Martin, you won this record from an auction put out by Patrik Caganis right? I actually think this particular copy belonged to me some 10 years ago as I traded it to Patrik along with lots of other kbd stuff for my first copy of the Vicious Visions single (which ended up as the cover for my book). I remember where I bought it and I even think I know how sold it to the store where I got it! The history of a copy of perhaps the sloppiest UK effort of the first wave. Really really interesting, isn´t it?
Now get that Anders Ångest record you´ve been talking about so that the we all can learn to appreciate the art of out of tune/key vocals at its best! Anders Ångest = Swedens answer to TVP!
Yeah, I know it’s your old copy and you should feel ashamed for getting rid of it.
I got the Anders Ångest record now and it will be posted later.
One may recognize Hornsey At War from the Killed By Death album that had nothing but bands from the U.K. on it. It is good to hear more from this band. There isn’t a bad song on this record.
Hornsey at War were indeed from London. The drummer -Billy Vine – was also a part-time member of another band from that era, London PX. He played drums on their first studio recording, and also played sound FX on a WASP synth with them at a few live gigs. Also, Hornsey is an area of North London
Hi Michell and thanks a lot for the additional info. Had no idea they had a connection to London PX, but that makes me love them even more.
Since I’ve posted this EP I’ve come to realize that it’s pretty well produced compared the the Mell Square Musick comp EP that I will post here later on if I can rip it good enough to make it sound the way I want it to. Really hard to makesuch a shitty and low produced record sound good enough to actually listen too, believe it or not.
wow. sloppy as hell. awesome! noone’s too young to like punk erich i found that out.