New Wave / Post Punk Quotes III - The Revenge Quiz

Answer: "Ghost Town" - The Specials

Singer Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Nevill Staples left The Specials after the summer of 1981, to form the Fun Boy Three. They scored their first hit later that year with the brilliant "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum)" and the following year they had their biggest hit with "It Ain't What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It)", with Bananarama.

After two albums the FB3 split up. Both Golding and Staples have since toured with reformed versions of The Specials. Singer Hall and Specials main man Jerry Dammers won't have anything to do with the various reunions.

Answer: "Shipbuilding" - Elvis Costello and the Attractions

Robert Wyatt recorded this song in 1982. It's about how ironic it is that Margaret Thatcher's dirty war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands reinvigorated the shipyard industry, thus providing income for the crisis stricken English working class. In 1983 Costello recorded the song himself, and put it on the "Punch The Clock" album.

Answer: "Cardiac Arrest" - Madness

"Cardiac Arrest" was the first single by Madness that failed to make the British Top 10. It charted at 14, due to the fact that it was somewhat boycotted by the radio because of its not exactly cheerful subject matter.

Answer: "The Magnificent Seven" - The Clash

After their masterpiece - "London Calling" (1979) - seriously broadened the punk rock palette The Clash felt like they could do anything. Subsequently they did. Their next album - "Sandinista" (1980) was a triple set, which incorporated disco, dub, rap and gospel.

But keeping with their true punk spirit, the album was sold for the price of a single album. The band itself put up the money thus lost by the record company.

Answer: "Message Of Love" - The Pretenders

"Message Of Love" was featured on the Pretenders' second album "Pretenders II", which was released in August 1981. On June the 14th of the next year bassist Pete Farndon was kicked out of the band, due to his drug abuse. Two days later guitar player James Honeyman-Scott died of a drug overdose.

At the start of 1983 Farndon was dead too. Singer Chrissie Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers got a new band together, which recorded the album "Learning To Crawl". After that Chambers also got kicked out of the band.

The Pretenders is an ongoing concern unto this very day, but it's a Chrissie Hynde solo-project in all but its name.

Answer: "No Mercy" - The Stranglers

In 1976 most of the punk movement (bands and fans alike) thought The Stranglers weren't real punks. They were too old for one thing. They had degrees and one of them used to be a teacher. And keyboard player Dave Greenfield even sported a moustache. This did however not keep them from being one of the most succesfull singles bands the era produced.

Their list of hits is seemingly endless: "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)", "Peaches", "Something Better Change", "No More Heroes", "Nice 'N' Sleazy", "Duchess", "Golden Brown", "La Folie", "Strange Little Girl", "Skin Deep", "No Mercy", "Always The Sun". OK, that's not exactly endless, but they definitely had more hits than the Sex Pistols for example.

Answer: "Loco Mosquito" - Iggy Pop

"Loqo Mosquito" opens Iggy Pop's 1980 album "Soldier". It was supposed to be The Big I's comeback album, with a lot of punk musicians paying tribute to the man's gigantic influence: Glen Matlock (ex-Sex Pistols) played bass, Steve New (Rich Kids) was on guitar, as was Ivan Kral (Patti Smith Group) and former XTC-man Barry Andrews (now of Shriekback) played keyboards. David Bowie and former Stooges cohort James Williamson were also aboard, as producers, but they hated each other and both walked, leaving producer Pat Moran to clean up the mess.

In the end it turned out not to be the really great record everyone was expecting. But there's some pretty cool songs on it anyway ("Loco Mosquito", "Dog Food", "I Need More" and "I'm a Conservative").

Answer: "Ceremony" - New Order

"Ceremony" was originally a Joy Division song. But singer Ian Curtis had hanged himself before they could record it. Thus it became the debut single of New Order, the band the three remaining members formed after the loss of their lead singer.

Answer: "Rise" - Public Image Limited

"Rise" appeared on the album "Album" (1986), which was also called "Cassette" or "Compact Disc", depending on the format you bought it on. By this time PiL had become the 'John Lydon one man show'. Key members like Jah Wobble and Keith Levene had long since departed, and had been replaced by session musicians like Bill Laswell (ao. Material), Ginger Baker (ex-Cream), Ryuichi Sakamoto (ex-Yellow Magic Orchestra) and Steve Vai (former Frank Zappa guitar player). Still, it's a pretty great album.

Answer: "E=MC2" - Big Audio Dynamite

After he was kicked out of the Clash, guitar player/singer Mick Jones formed Big Audio Dynamite with some of his old chums, like Don Letts (who DJ'd at all the right spots in London, back in the early days of punk, who also filmed a lot of early punk performances and who'd worked with The Clash).

The song "E=MC2" was based on the movies of Nicholas Roeg ("Performance", "Walkabout", "Don't Look Now" and "The Man Who Fell To Earth"). "E=MC2" was one of the first rock songs to use sampling.