Short Sharp Shock

Compilation CD

Independent Recordings - UK 1977

Track Listing

Anti Social

1. Traffic Lights

2. Teacher, Teacher

Bee Bee Cee

3.You Gotta Know Girl

4. We Ain't Listening

Blitzkrieg Bop

5. Let's Go

6. 9 Till 5

7. Bugger Off

The Drive

8. Jerkin

9. Push 'n' Shove

The Exile

10. The Real People

11. Tomorrow Today

12. Disaster Movie

Headache

13. Can't Stand Still

14. No Reason For Your Call

Jerks

15. Get Your Woofing Dog Off Me

16. Hold My Hand

Le Ritz

17. Punker

18.What A Sucker

Neon Hearts

19. Regulations

20. Venus Eccentric

The Now

21. Development Corporations

22. Why?

The Panik

23. Modern Politics

24. Urban Damnation

25. Murder

The Valves

26. For Adults Only

27. Robot Love

Sleeve notes by Mario Panciera.

An excellent DIY punk band from Peterborough cretaed in the first half of 1977 by Mike McGuire (vocals), Steve Rolls (guitar), Paul Farrer (bass) and Joe MacColl (drums). After some local gigs The Now introduced themselves to the London pink circuit (having been there during the first weeks of The Roxy as members of the scene, as well as  a couple of gigs with The Now at the same venue) by playing the Vortex on 30th August 1977 with 999, Art Attaks and The Flies. The first single of the group, Development Corporations b/w Why? was released in November 1977 by Ultimate Records. Ideas, energy and innocence are blended together in a magix symbiosis that mixes the Sex Pistols with the Desperate Bicycles. The single attracted positive criticism but couldn't get beyond local popularity because it sold out so quickly. A blue vinyl re-pressing was issued but the implosion of punk sucked in The Now. A deal with Lee Woods' Raw Records eventually returned the band to the studio in March 1979 (** Not quite right. The recoding took place at the end of 1977 but didn't get released until much later. See Below. Steve Rolls **) and by the end of April the band had recorded a new single, Into The *0;s b/w Nine O Clock. Because of the difficulties of this Cambridge label the release was delayed for several months and in the end the single was issued in November in an edition of just 800 copies (the bulk of which were destoyed in a warehousefire immediately after release, making this one of the rarest first wave of 77 punk records). Once again, these great songs went completely unnoticed and the band didn't see out the end of the year.

The Now remain the cream of the forgotten groups of this era.