Tuesday 5 August 2014

Skrewdriver - Anti-Social

Back to the punk classics and this is right up there with the best, 1:27 mins long of anti-social lyrics.

Skrewdriver's excellent second single 'Anti-Social', was against everything:

"I don't wanna wear no three piece suit, I don't want no family"
and
"I don't wanna listen to another word, I'm so bloody bored"

and altogether for the chorus:
"Coz I'm Anti-Social, Anti-Social, Anti-Social, I hate The World"

I used to sing along to this with all my heart, and in my younger naive days, it meant so much.

The b-side has an OK punk cover of the Rolling Stones '19th Nervous Breakdown' the best bit being the nonchalant finish "such a breakdown"

One etching on the a-side "With Thanks To Rebel Eddie" Anyone know who that is?

Band: Skrewdriver
Label: Chiswick
Year: 1977
Tracks:
1. Anti-Social
2. 19th Nervous Breakdown

Ripped from glorious scratched vinyl:


See comments for why there are no recommendations in this posting

36 comments:

djalminho said...

I'm really disappointed

how can you post such crap?! this is a nazi band?!

check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skrewdriver
if you don't know

Bryn said...

The first Skrewdriver albums have nothing to do with all that nazi shit, but because of later associations, are only available thru white power distributors.

The early stuff is usually repackaged with racist extra tracks... probably better to download the old stuff than give your money to the white power crowd in my opinion.

Thanks for these tracks and all that you have put up!

Anonymous said...

Check out Voice of Britain and Boots and Braces also. Excellent stuff. Forget the politics and listen to the music!

Anonymous said...

A classic 77 period punk release. I first heard it on the Peel show. Did they even do a session for him? Maybe not. Too long ago to remember.

You probably find it difficult to locate their stuff Gary as they are now largely considered persona non grata in punk circles due to the ugly politics surrounding their latter period. But this was a punk rock classic. Long time no hear.

mrpoopy said...

Everything through "Hail The New Dawn" was decent in my opinion but, after that, they got pretty cheesy and the quality of musicianship and lyrics actually DECREASED over time--probably because they couldn't keep their bandmembers out of prison!

Punkzer0 said...

Thanks for all of the comments.

Like many of you when I heard this it was pure punk. There were no racist connotations. I personally never heard of their move to right wing and I only bought two (Your So Dumb) of their singles both in 1977.

I am not one of these people who try's to eliminate my past because someone does something in the future.

Would I buy anything from them now? The answer would be NO.

Nuzz Prowlin' Wolf said...

A brave but important posting,respect to yer Gary, cos it's a great tune, there's too much of this Stalinist revisionism taking place these days, no shame in liking early skrewdriver, it's important to remember where you came from, but more important to remember where you are now. Skrew...who. All the best mate.

Anonymous said...

Cheers Gary. I still own this single + You're So Dumb too. I've also got the 1st album All Skrewed Up. I refuse to part with them just because of what Ian Stuart turned into.

Classic 77 punk. Just a crying shame the name "Skrewdriver" will forever be remembered for far more (right) sinister reasons. With song titles such as "Nigger I hate your face" frankly I'm glad Mr Stuart is 6 feet under!


Longy

Anonymous said...

DJ Mark Radcliffe played drums for Skrewdriver many years ago too!

Clint Iguana said...

MMMM... yes, as the prowler says a brave and risky posting, cos they turned into one of the nastiest bands this country has ever seen, being heavily involved with the likes of combat 18. An interesting posting though for historial purposes.

Anonymous said...

I don’t think this is a 'Risky' post at all.
Sure, most right (Small r!!) thinking people abhor what the band later came to represent, but this single was before all that transpired. It was played by John Peel on certainly more than one occasion, and you used to hear it played over the PA at punk gigs in late '77 a fair bit as well. Always got a rousing response if I remember correctly. It’s also a classic example of what was the punk sound of 1977. For those reasons it deserves to be here.

Playing devils advocate for a moment -
No one kicked up a fuss about the Banshees Mittagiesen single being posted. It’s b side Love In A Void has the lyric ‘Too many Jews for my liking’ and Siouxsie did of course were a Nazi arm band for a while in late 76, early 77. But that was Ok, because it was ‘Art’ ????
In fact that particular post has no comments at all. Interesting.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Longy. Great stuff. I too own these early records and will always hold onto 'em despite what they became. Later SD was mostly Ian as I think the rest of the band quit sometime after 'All Skrewed Up'.

Anonymous said...

Good stuff. Anyone got a non-paying, non-torrent link to the Boots n Braces/Voice of Britain LP? This has Your So dumb, Built Up Knocked Down and Back With A Bang singles, all of which, I recall, we're great too.

Anonymous said...

The 2 b-sides on the Built Up Knocked Down 7" are fantastic. Classic pub rock!

Clint Iguana said...

"White Power, Smash The IRA, Shove The Dove, When The Boats Come In, Voice Of Britain, When The Boats Come In".. and many others listed here all sound like bile from the wrong end of thier career to me.

its a risky posting becasue they became so vile they contaminate everything that comes in contact with them.

Tom Knox said...

Skrewdriver had great music period.

Punkzer0 said...

Thanks again for all of the comments. I'm with you Clint and deleted that the comment that you commented on (sorry I took so long to remove it, I only just noticed. (ASFM is not sharing links to racist music).

As I said I loved Anti-social when it came out, and still love it today. Like Nuzz prowling wolf said you cannot delete history because of what someone does later on.

Anonymous said...

No racist stuff here. A classic 1977 release.

All Skrewed Up

Track Listing:
1. Where's It Gonna End (2.32)
2. Government Action (1.34)
3. Backstreet Kids (1.39)
4. Gotta Be Young (2.00)
5. I Don't Need Your Love (2.02)
6. I Don't Like You (1.55)
7. An-ti-so-cial (1.26)
8. (Too Much) Confusion (2.34)
9. 9 Till 5 (2.05)
10. Jailbait (1.14)
11. We Don't Pose (1.50)
12. The Only One (2.50)
13. Won't Get Fooled Again (2.25)

Bitrate: 256K/s 44100Hz Joint Stereo

Download-Link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/104392165/Skrewdriver_-_All_Skrewed_Up.zip.html

Anonymous said...

Cheers, Whats the password anon?

Anonymous said...

Sorry!

password:

bloodyrevolutions

Anonymous said...

Hi anon, this password doesn't work, is it me?

John Spithead said...

I agree that there's no problem with early Skrewdriver - they were just another punk band. Of course the band turned into a bunch of fucking idiots, that's as clear as the nose on your face, and - it seems to me - that people should focus their (understandable) indignation more effectively.

http://ballisticwax.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Try this link for All Skrewed Up

http://sharebee.com/278d8a52

Imposs1904 said...

TBH, it's not that good is it?

Bearing in mind Skrewdriver's later musical and political history, I'm glad that this doesn't qualify as a guilty pleasure.

Punkzer0 said...

I still love this song darren, I know if you dissect it is most probably quite average, but it just had memories for me and how I felt when I was young and rebelling against everything.

Yep the latter history is bad, but you can see the feeling of most people, which is good to see

Imposs1904 said...

Gary,

fair play. If I'd liked the song, I would have put my hand up to it. People can have a past and a future.

To give an example, I discovered the group Crisis through your blog, really liked them but later discovered that a couple of the members of Crisis were later heavily involved in the far right music scene.

Saddened to read that they decided to go down that fucked up road, and It leaves a sour taste in the mouth but I'll still listen to the Crisis songs.

arstider said...

Hello again

I know I asked for this some time ago, haven't had time to look at your blog for same time.

You got lots of comment for this one...... It was one of my favorits in the year of 1977.

It's sad what happen later on but we still got this one..... :-D

Best wishes from Sweden

Anonymous said...

So they became Nazi hobbyists after this SO WHAT!! This is some of the best Punk that Chiswick ever released along with the other single and of course "All Skrewed Up". Thanks for posting this!

Punkzer0 said...

Thanks for the comment anon. Enjoy.

Anonymous said...

The early band that recorded the first 45's and LP broke up around 1981 and returned home to their native town of Blackpool. The only original member mainstay throughout the band's existence was Ian Stuart Donaldson. Yes they took on a ultra-nationalist BNP front. They became fascist tools at best. The original band had no part in the new band which reformed around '82 in London. Ian Stuart as he was to be called then on out recycled the bands name as it was already recognized. Unfortunately their fascist tidings makes them standout and clouds the bands previous work and recordings rendering them tarnished to public opinion for all time.

They were originally on Chiswick Records. They did one radio one session for the John Peel show.

The only way to purchase any stuff by the band nowadays is to give money to the same fascist organizations that existed back then under new names. This keeps the money out of their hands.

Anonymous said...

Really good to see people discussing the Skrewdriver's (bizarre) history without throwing cheap insults at one another. I downloaded their Chiswick debut out of curiosity & am shocked at how good an LP it is - great pub punk & up there with early Eddie & The Hot Rods - which makes their subsequent descent into moronic racist doggeral difficult to understand & even harder to stomach. And they DEFINITELY did a Peel session btw - the details are on the BBC web site. What a sad story. At least we needn't worry about downloading it illegailly though, eh?

Punkzer0 said...

Thanks for the comment anon. Yep their first album is great and as you can see in the comments everyone who has it, plans on keeping it. I agree It was a sad story.

Anonymous said...

There was a band from Munich, Germany, called Tollwut who covered "Antisocial" in bavarian language in 1981. And to add to the confusion they were decidedly leftist - although there later was a German nazi band with the same name.

Punkzer0 said...

Hi Anon thanks for info, now we know what to look out for and avoid

Anonymous said...

When I was a young punk I really wanted to buy their album cos they looked like me!I couldn't afford leather jackets and bondage trousers, so my clothing was charity shop chic. I guess i looked a bit like a skinhead in thoughs days. Because I was skint my money usually went on the more essential stuff like SexPistols Ramones damned and Clash so I never got round to purchasing Skrewdriver. Then came the nazi incarnation and there was no way I was going to touch any of this shit! many years later I did down load All Skrewed Up out of curiosity and apart from a couple of songs(Government Action for example) I really thought it was a piss poor album. Nazi or not 95% of their out put was shit!

Punkzer0 said...

Hi Anon, you sound like you dressed the same way as me.

I bought their songs and dropped out of the punk scene before the Nazi thing even came around. For me its the memories of jumping up and down shouting anti-social, and naively thinking that we were making a statement and rebelling. I still have fond memories of those gig and songs. I am sure if I listened to them without ever having those early memories I would feel the same.