Step Forward - I Wanna Punk Rock (The Singles Collection)

Mark Perry (aka Mark P) was the editor and main voice behind the seminal U.K. punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue, and in 1977 he decided to start a record label to give some of the bands he was raving about a chance to be heard on vinyl. Step Forward Records didn't last very long -- the label was history by 1982 -- but they burned bright for a few years, and this CD collects the label's first ten 7" releases in their entirety, in order of original release. Step Forward started out offering up straight-ahead proletarian punk, with the first three releases devoted to the Cortinas, Chelsea, and the Models, and if none of these bands added much new and challenging to the punk lexicon, they all made rough, exciting singles, and the Cortinas' "Fascist Dictator" and Chelsea's "Right to Work" still kick hard today. Perry unleashed Sham 69 on the world with Step Forward's fourth release, but "I Don't Wanna" is more engaging (and less overbearing) than the later work that would make them stars for a while. The label took a left turn with their seventh release, the first 7" from the Fall, and sandwiched between the Cortinas and Chelsea it's not hard to imagine how off-kilter Mark E. Smith and company must have sounded in 1978. The collection wraps up with the significantly weirder experimental meanderings of Lemon Kittens, which hasn't stood the test of time as well as the rest of the tracks, though the group did serve as an early vehicle for Danielle Dax and Karl Blake. (Elsewhere on the disc, you can hear a pre-Adam & the Ants Marco Pirroni playing guitar with the Models, and Nick Sheppard of the Cortinas later played guitar in the post-Mick Jones Clash). I Wanna Punk Rock is an eclectic and entertaining collection of early British punk that also offers a glimpse of the post-punk that would thrive a few years later, suggesting Mark Perry had a surer sense than most of where this music could go. ~ Mark Deming|