Saturday, December 8, 2007

The Nightmare Continues

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that Discharge was the greatest punk band of all time, and possibly the greatest band of all time in general. Thousands of bands have added the "dis" prefix to their names in hopes of capturing one iota of the power and glory of the masters themselves. The influence of these spiky lads from Stoke-on-Trent still reverberates throughout the global punk scene. Sure there were some serious trangressions later on (Massacre Divine, anyone?), but between 1981-84 there was nothing darker, more crushing or utterly resolute as Discharge. So absolutely fixed on their mission, Discharge's lyrics couldn't bother with rhyme schemes, metaphor, or anything else that might dilute the punch of their message. As a result, Discharge lyrics read like haikus of nuclear oblivion. It's been 24 years since I first heard Discharge and I still get chills when I hear Cal intone the words "Lied to, threatened, cheated and deceived" at the onset of "Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing." Live, Discharge was hit or miss. I've seen some pretty shaky performances on video, but here is a great live show. Not sure when and where it was recorded, but it is the same recording that Clay Records released in 1996 as "Live: The Nightmare Continues."
Here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6NLMACF7

4 comments:

Slobodan Burgher said...

Re: "Discharge [...] best band ever" - fucking A-right!

Anonymous said...

according to my mp3 player yes Discharge are the penultitimate winners for best band of all time but the winners are Goldfrapp :-{ dont tell any hard core punks or they will come round and kick my ass

Andy Rampage said...

"Groovy!" ALL this... AND BLOWFLY TOO!!?? TOOO MUCH!!

Deschain said...

Recorded in 1983, but not released until years later.