Surrender To the Rhythm: The London Pub Rock Scene of the Seventies

Following in the footsteps of EMIs 1996 compilation Naughty Rhythms and Castles 2007 set Goodbye Nashville, Hello Camden Town: A Pub Rock Anthology, Grapefruits 2020 triple-disc collection Surrender to the Rhythm: London Pub Rock Scene of the Seventies chronicles the raucous, lager-soaked rockers who paved the way for punk. Where the Will Birch-compiled Naughty Rhythms provided an essential primer, relying heavily on the genres biggest names, the David Wells-produced Surrender to the Rhythm casts a wide net, bringing in a bunch of rarities and oddities while only lightly touching upon Eggs Over Easy, Ducks Deluxe, Chilli Willi & the Red Hot Peppers, Kilburn & the High Roads, Dr. Feelgood, and Brinsley Schwarz, the band who recorded the song that gave this collection its name. Its expansive definition of pub rock makes Surrender to the Rhythm an unpredictable, even surprising, listen for those steeped in pub rock lore but that means this audience is also likely to nitpick; theyll wonder why Mott the Hoople, who were never on the pub circuit, are here, and perhaps think that Squeezes Goodbye Girl is a bit too New Wave for this beery lot. Wells justifies his inclusions in his fine liner notes, but the sequencing often makes its own logic: in this context, the Jams manic run through Slow Down -- a Larry Williams number the trio learned from the Beatles -- seems directly connected to the menacing R&B riffs of Dr. Feelgood. Most of Surrender to the Rhythm isnt nearly as familiar as any of these aforementioned artists. The set is filled with unreleased songs, early mixes, private press, live tracks, and deep cuts, not to mention a fair number of acts that made little impression at the time. Despite the relative prominence of cover of the Band and a handful of cuts in a similarly mellow country-rock vein, this leans toward the harder, messier side of pub rock, and thats the distinction and appeal of Surrender to the Rhythm: London Pub Rock Scene of the Seventies: Its the graduate course on pub rock. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine