When punk first hit North American consciousness in 1977, I get the picture that unless you were living in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, or perhaps Seattle and Cleveland, the records you were coming across in stores and were hearing on late-nite “new wave” radio programs were almost entirely English in nature. This 1977 Montreal fanzine, Twist & Shout #2, certainly aspires to be Anglocentric in the extreme; or, whether it aspires to be or not, it most certainly is. Canada is part of the queen’s commonwealth, of course, but just based on the features and records reviewed here, it feels a lot like a Canadian version of Trouser Press, who were proud Anglophiles, and/or one informed very much by Britain’s own Zigzag. 

Nothing wrong with that, of course! If you were desperate for raw and wild rocknroll and all you could find were Cortinas and Boys and Johnny Moped records, of course you’d be going for it. In fact, Twist & Shout is one of many “searching for real rock and roll” fanzines from the 1974-77 time period, written by young men and sometimes women, desperate for raw guitar and who were starting to blend newly-arrived punk into whatever was considered frenzied, urgent and/or “street level” beforehand. Although, I must say Twist & Shout really stretches the concept, as we’ll discover.

Like a few of these ‘76-‘77 mags, such as Chatterbox and Radio Free Hollywood, there’s a continued allegiance to “hard rock” writ large even as punk is crashing upon their shores, and more power to them for it. The first interview is with Sean Tyla from Ducks Deluxe and Tyla Gang, the latter of whom were a boogie/proto-punk hybrid of sorts and fit in nicely with this mag’s aesthetic. I suppose so do Ultravox, a brand-new UK band on Island. John Foxx is interviewed. That rollicking ‘77 version of the band, as many well know, bears virtually no relation to the Ultravox many new wavers came to know and love only 3 years later. 

Pat Travers – the “Boom Boom Out Goes The Lights” guy??!? – does get some ink due to being Canadian, and for being a fine boogie lickmeister besides. And I love the interview with Terry Wilson Slesser, a class-A prima donna from the UK band Crawler, formerly known as Back Street Crawler. I’ve never heard of them. “Then we went to Kansas to open for Roxy Music. With our rock and blues approach we literally blew Roxy off-stage”. He then talks about guys in his band named “Sniffy” (wonder how many snowstorms that guy had to instigate to get that nickname!) and “Rabbit”. After the death of Crawler guitarist Paul Kossoff, it appears that Atlantic Records were trying to get them a new guitarist, and Mick Taylor from the Rolling Stones was suggested by the label. “I said Mick Taylor ain’t going to join Back Street Crawler. He joined the Stones after Brian Jones’ death; can you imagine him joining us after the death of Paul Kossoff? I did call him up and we got together and got pissed drunk, but there was no way he was going to join”. He then talks about how they might be going out on tour to support Kansas, one of the no-doubt worst bands of all time (and absolutely legendary hair farmers – please click the link), and how awesome that would be. So no, I really didn’t need to hear Crawler. But I listened anyway, and if you want to, you can too.

There are, in fact, a fair amount of interviews with Englishmen in Twist & Shout #2. We’ve got chats with Eddie and The Hot Rods, The Vibrators, Judas Priest (!!), Heavy Metal Kids (they’re extremely concerned about whether or not they’ll be able to “make it in the States” – spoiler: they didn’t); plus Mr. Big, David Essex and Goddo. Punk explosion! There’s also a minimal discography of all the known (to the editors) 1977 punk 45s so far – or, really, as they put it: “Various artists considered new wave or punk”. This includes Ultravox, The Stranglers and of course everything on Stiff and Raw Records (the latter of which was one of the great UK punk labels for sure). There’s absolute slavish worship of the newly released Never Mind The Bollocks (“album of the decade”, “people will worship this the way they worshipped The Beatles in 1964” etc), as well as reviews of Brownsville Station, Meatloaf, Ian Dury, Motorhead, Boomtown Rats and even that Raw Records Creation “Making Time” 45, something that I proudly used to own and somehow don’t any longer.

Finally, we get a mention of the only true Canadian punk in the issue: The Viletones’ debut Screamin’ Fist 45, reviewed by John Kearney: “This is Toronto’s answer to punk. They are The Viletones. Isn’t that name just right for a punk band and aren’t those titles fab. Just listen to the names of the guys in the band: Dog, Chris Hate, Freddy Pompeii, Motor X. It’s all there: the group name, the titles, the guys’ names in the band, the great picture sleeve, even the music, it’s pure punk. The only problem with it all is that it’s bloody awful. It shows that the best packaging etc. can’t replace talent”. This is about as withering, spiteful and worked up as a Canadian can get, I reckon. Aren’t they just the nicest folks?