New Music 2018: Subversions - U.K. Subs (June)

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Subversions - U.K. Subs
Cleopatra Records
Produced by Pat Collier and U.K. Subs
Released June 2018

Released on Limited Edition Red Vinyl (500 Copies) and on CD

Listen To The Album In Full Here:

Click on the links to hear the original versions:
A1 Kick Out The Jams (MC5)    
A2 Train Kept A Rollin (The Johnny Burnette Trio)    
A3 I Don't Need No Doctor (Ray Charles via Humble Pie)    
A4 Boston Babies (Slaughter and The Dogs)    
A5 Tired Of Waking Up Tired (The Diodes)    
A6 This Perfect Day (The Saints)    
B1 Get Out Of Denver (Bob Seger)    
B2 Feel Good Hit Of The Summer (Queens of the Stone Age)   
B3 Bomber (Motörhead)   
B4 Roadrunner (The Modern Lovers)    
B5 1969 (The Stooges)    
B6 Suffragette City  (David Bowie)

Personnel

2018 seems like a busy year for the U.K. Subs as not only are they out on the road and releasing two 15CD Box Sets containing the full set of their albums in Alphabetical Order (Volume 1 is A-M and Volume 2 is N-Z), a brand new studio album plus a new EP coming in November but Charlie Harper (vocalist) released (in April) his second solo album, 'Little Black Crow' (Road Dog Records - his Debut Solo was called 'Stolen Property', it was an album of covers and released in 1982!), he also received the 'King Rocker/Icon' award at the Vive Le Rock! Awards in March and has also had an exhibition of his art alongside Gaye Black down in Sussex. Alvin Gibbs (bassist) is due to release his Debut Album in December under the banner of 'Alvin Gibbs and The Disobedient Servants'. Jamie Oliver (drummer) also has a side project called You and they released their Debut Single (in April) entitled 'Selfish'.

U.K. Subs are no strangers to Cover Versions as over the period of 40 plus years they have played a fair few and even recorded and released some - 'She's Not There' (lead track on the 1979 EP), 'I'm Waiting For The Man' (B-Side of 'Warhead') - and there have been a fair few released on various albums as well but a whole album's worth is something they have not done before (at least as far as I can remember!).

Of all the tracks on Subversions I have to confess to not actually knowing two of them (the Queens Of The Stone Age track 'Feel Good Hit of the Summer' and Canadian band The Diodes' 'Tired Of Waking Up Tired').

As for the other ten they are pretty magnificent. The U.K. Subs are not over fancy and what you get is 12 tracks of raw power from beginning to end. The choices are interesting as there's a couple that would no doubt have been played by the teenage David Charles Perez ('Train Kept a Rollin' and 'I Don't Need No Doctor') and would be quite obscure to the rest of the band possibly and the rest, there's a number of Classic Rock tracks spanning the early 70s, a few Punk/New Wave Classics, a wee tribute to the genius of Lemmy's Motörhead, and the "newest" track is the Queen of the Stone Age song (and that's 18 years old!).

At 74 years old it's great seeing and hearing Charlie still doing what he loves and the current line up of the band is pretty tight and tidy as well. How much longer it goes on who knows but while they are still up and at 'em I'm going to enjoy listening and watching as I have done so for as long as the band have been around! 

U.K. Subs

Live at 100 Club, London

19th May 2018