THE VIBRATORS - The Past, The Present, The Future

What can I say about The Vibrators? Punk Rock band wagon jumpers…..blah, blah, blah! yeah whatever but at the end of the day it’s all Rock’n’Roll, and The Vibrators were one of the best, much maligned by their peers and the 77 scenesters, for their pub rock roots, working with session muso Chris Spedding and generally not fitting the mould of a ‘Punk Band’ for example While The Clash were singing about Capital Radio being in tune with nothing, The Vibrators were singing Happy Birthday to the tower in the heart of London, possibly not one of their finer moments, but hey it’s only a bit of fun. The first two sessions on this download come from the time the band spent playing with Chris Spedding, the rest come from when they were doing their own ‘pUNK RoCK’ thang, including their capital radio tribute! Right, that’s the past dealt with, now the present. Knox is currently not too well suffering from a heart condition, but despite this the band have released their latest album a 14 track blast of garage punk cover versions entitled rather imaginatively Garage Punk, which does what it says on the tin. Here’s a 4 track sample of some of what’s on offer. MC5’s Shaking Street, The Members Sound Of The Suburbs, The Primitives Crash and The Electric Prunes. I had Too Much To Dream Last Night I was gonna include their take on The 101ers Keys To Your Heart, just to link it all together, but thought nah fuck it, if any of you want to hear that you’ll have to track down the album and buy it. As for the future The Vibrators are currently touring without Knox, Nigel Bennett from The Members is filling in while Knox is recuperating and planning a few things. This is what he had to say recently on his website.
“I'm going to try and sell my songs as I have to have a different career other than doing the band, because I don't think I can manage that full-time at the moment. So if anyone has any ideas about this let me know.
DESPAIR - this is a band I was in before The Vibrators, playing a lot of songs later done by The Vibrators and The Fallen Angels. A CD's worth of material is going out to record companies to try and get a deal on it.
KNOX AND THE TRAILER TRASH ORCHESTRA: "THE KNOXVILLE TAPES" - this is a Country album I made with that great band the Trailer Trash Orchestra from St Albans. We sent the album to quite a lot of record companies with no result so we're going to release it ourselves, no actual date but maybe in a couple of months?
URBAN DOGS ACOUSTIC ALBUM - Charlie and I have been hard at work recording this at Stan's studio. (Stan is guitarist with Demented Are Go.) It will probably be completed by the summer as is around two thirds or more done. Tracks include such classics as "Warhead", "War Baby", "Dragnet", as well as new songs and covers. (I'm not going to give too much away.)” Anyway all the best to Knox and here’s hoping that the stuff mentioned above gets to hear the light of day, the sooner the better if you ask me!
Many thanx to the music maestro MarkyDread with his Dreams Of Mystery Chords and Burning Sounds blogs, (Places where you can find some right little punk rock jewels and gems) for passing the Session stuff on to me.