Messthetics #101 DIY 77-81 London CD

22 tracks of DIY tunes from Messthetics. I am aware of DIY thanks to Ugly Things and a few reviews of this series. I was hesitant to even check it out. The last thing I need is to expand my wantlist into another entire genre(using this same reasoning I avoided a lot of the late 90 New Zealand indie scene-knox,gailbraith, etc). But I was curious and how much trouble can one cd comp be? I figured it would be art school rambling on some Beefheart or post punk level. I figured it would all sound like the Swell Maps or Soft Boys or something. Well it is all "English,English" but it runs the gamut form catchy proto pop to arty damage to stuttering punk. Generally more reverb than distortion and more keyboards. Not unlike some stuff you would hear later on K Records or other anglo-influenced indies here in the States.
These were some of the tracks that stood out to me. Rich and Famous's "Machine Gun" sounds like the Buzzcocks with synths replacing the guitars. Super catchy. Acid Drops have a classic catchy anglo tune with "Distance"-the kind of song you swear you've heard before. Existence follow a few tracks later with the laid back and catchy "I'm Glad". For the truly dedicated beat digger, you could try and grab The Door and the Window's "part time punks" single which has a nice break that is unlikely to have been sampled. A hit or miss collection. Interesting, but not mind blowing-there were definitely a chunk of tracks I skipped through, but most are painless at less than 3 minutes a pop.
This is really like kicking over a rock and finding a giant hole in the ground. Check the Hyped to Death website and you will discover a whole world of comps of super rare records. And don't worry once you get through all 8 of the Messthetics series you have 7 volumes of Homework-the US DIY comp series. Jump in if you have the time. Good news is Hyped2Death keep it affordable with a CDR series. Nice.
Soul Jazz is releasing a comp covering the DIY scene. In general I am a supporter of theirs, but the take the loss trying to launch a one disc comp against this mountain of material from Hyped to Death. Especially when SJ have more mainstream bands like the Buzzcocks and Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry taking up space on their comp.