King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo -- 1976

I did warn you all that there might be some Reggae on this blog, and here's some already...

Jacob Miller and Augustus Pablo's 1975 album Who Say Jah No Dread, featured the song Baby I Love You So: 




All other things being equal, this largely unremarkable song would have been forgotten as soon as it was recorded if it hadn't been for Augustus Pablo deciding to do an alternative version of it, what was called in Jamaica as 'Version,' but better known to the rest of us as 'Dub.' This new 'version' of the song, released at some indeterminate point in 1976, was called King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown, and may be the single most important dub record ever released. It's release in the English market meant that it had a huge impact on the music of the time, and dub effects would be heard in all sorts of places over the next few years.



You can buy Augustus Pablo musichere

So it Goes - Nick Lowe -- 14th August 1976

It struck me that this year, and particularly next year, mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of Punk Rock, and what came after. I turned seventeen towards the end of 1976, and am fifty-one now, and it's not overstating the case to say that the music of 1976 and 1977 changed my life. So, I decided to try to mirror the events of that time by posting YouTube videos of the songs that meant so much to me, as much as possible posted thirty-five years to the day after they were originally released.

This blog will not be confined to just Punk, though, or it would be a very short blog - even if I could decide on a practical definition of Punk, which I can't. There was Punk, New Wave, Power Pop, Ska, Post-Punk, and any number of other things that made up the soundscape of my life back then, and it'll probably all get a look in at some point.

There's any number of dates I could choose to start what is going to be a very personal view of Punk and its times. I could have started with the first single by The Ramones, Blitzkrieg Bop, released on the 9th of July 1976 -







You can buy Ramones musichere.


However, this is not actually the point I'm going to choose. Instead, my beginning is going to be with the release of Nick Lowe's So it Goes, not only his debut single, but the first single to be released on the recently-formed Stiff Records. My view of Punk Rock is predominantly from my side of the great Atlantic divide, although this is not to say the Americans won't get a look in, of course. But first listen to this:






You can buy Nick Lowe musichere.


And remember: