Formed in post-Postcard Glasgow as Popgun, Kevin McDermott (vocals/ guitar), Davie McCormick (drums), and Ross Drummond (bass/vocals) were joined by Roddy Johnson (guitar/vocals). In 1983, they changed their name to The Suede Crocodiles and released ‘Stop the Rain’ on the NoStrings label.

Single of the Week in both NME and Melody Maker, this jagged-edged, spiky pop-punk single caught the ear of many. The Suede Crocodiles went on to tour the UK with Nick Heyward.

The band split before releasing their second single, ‘Paint Yourself A Rainbow’ with songwriter and lead vocalist Kevin McDermott going on to form the Kevin McDermott Orchestra and having a successful solo career.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Stop The Rain
Side B
Pleasant Dreamer

Echo & The Bunnymen formed in Liverpool back in 1978, with Ian McCulloch on vocals, Will Sergeant on guitar, bassist Les Pattinson with Pete De Freitas on drums. Their first release came in the form of the single The Pictures On My Wall, with the B-side Read It In Books. Both tracks would appear on their debut album Crocodiles, released in 1980. Released amid the growing wave of post-punk, Crocodiles cemented the band amongst the best around, with the NME at the time describing it as “probably the best album this year by a British band” and featuring amongst many greatest ever debut album lists.

The lead single from the album, Rescue, was produced by Ian Broudie who would later produce more Echo & The Bunnymen material, as well as later forming The Lightning Seeds in 1989. The single would enter the UK charts, with the album breaking into the top 20 and going on to be certified Gold. The original cover was shot by Brian Griffin near Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. The atmospheric, moody aura of the sleeve sets the tone for quintessential post-punk.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Going Up
2. Stars Are Stars
3. Pride
4. Monkeys
5. Crocodiles
Side B
1. Rescue
2. Villiers Terrace
3. Pictures On My Wall
4. All That Jazz
5. Happy Death Men

"For me, Crocodiles represent everything I love about life-affirming Rock'n'Roll: they bring light out of darkness; they match reckless noise with the most beautiful melodies; they catch you off guard whilst sounding like the most perfect kind of right for the right here, right now. They remind me of all the things I've loved but they also make me hungry for what I've not yet tasted.The claustrophobia and pain of the recent past is dealt with bravely and the road ahead is wide and open. It is all my favourite records playing at once; the trick to it being the truth; the truth being that great, life-affirming music must be bittersweet; anger is an energy that can be churned to positive. We who face the demons of derailment out to destroy dreams must harness the hate and turn it back on itself -- it is from this that great art is begat. And so these songs rage and chime at once, in organized chaos, like life. Charles and Brandon have been making music together since they were 18. They met in the dirty glow of San Diego sun and now split their lives between New York City and London. Their music has grown up over the last decade just as they have. New blood in the form of producer Sune Rose Wagner of Raveonettes fame oversaw this recent endeavour and it was a quick, natural Los Angeles creation. Duncan Mills mixed for the third time, to maintain their catalogue lifeline. Crimes Of Passion kicks off with "I Like It In The Dark," which could be their best to date; a joyous hymn to atheism and closes with the aching beauty of "Un Chant D'Amour," a simple and direct ode to heartbreak. These songs bookmark an album bursting with sounds inspired by the likes of the Soft Boys, Street Hassle era Lou Reed, the Notorious Byrd Brothers, the Jackson 5 and even Glenn Branca. This is certainly the most fully realised Crocodiles album to date. It is a sadly accepted impression that life is cooler in song, on screen, in art, or in poetry, but it is far superior when the creative process is fed back into real life and an album like Crimes Of Passion is borne. -- Kristian Atkinson, Sonic Adventurer, United Kingdom.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Ex San Diego residents The Crocodiles haven’t reinvented themselves with ‘Crimes Of Passion’, as much as expressed their saucy, irreverent souls in a slightly more diverse and subtle way. The wild, free spirit of ‘Endless Flowers’ is alive and well, the front cover speaks very eloquently of the that; of their playful iconoclasm - “I Like It In The Dark”, which opens the debauchery, is not a paean to modesty in the bedroom, but a big fat tongue stuck out at the religiously impaired – of the celebration of deviance, and the cheery reinterpretation of aching as a part of life: “My girl lives with so much pain” croons Brandon Welchez lovingly over a playful, fuzzed-out psych backdrop in “She Splits Me Up”, as if he was singing about bunnies in the spring. Bittersweet, we used to call that, when the Buzzcocks honed that idea to perfection.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Like It In The Dark
2. Marquis De Sade
3. Cockroach
4. Heavy Metal Clouds
5. Teardrop Guitar
6. She Splits Me Up
7. Me And My Machine Gun
8. Gimme Some Annihilation
9. Virgin
10. Un Chant D'Amour

'Welcome to the art-punk renaissance', declared Rolling Stone magazine last year, triumphantly heralding Crocodiles’ debut album. It was all just deserves for a San Diego duo who’d spent years kicking against the mundanity of their sprawling military town. As singer Brandon Welchez remembers it: 'My neighbourhood was just so boring that a lot of my friends started doing hard drugs at an early age. A lot of kids were growing up too fast, like, in a gross way…losing teeth. Plus my high school was full of racists and homophobes. Music was an escape from all that'.

Sharing both Brandon’s love for girl groups and punk, and his feeling of small-town-alienation, was guitarist Charles Rowell. Meeting at an anti-fascist rally when they were teenagers, the two have been in countless bands together since.

Last year the pair released their acclaimed debut album as Crocodiles. Alongside Rolling Stones support, "Summer Of Hate" also garnered them endless blog buzz and tours across the US and Europe supporting bands like Holy Fuck and The Horrors. Straddling vast sonic terrains from the jagged guitar stabs of street-strutting lead single "Neon Jesus", to throbbing kraut rock, expansive shoegaze and irresistibly danceable disco-punk jams, "Summer Of Hate" drew comparisons with The Velvets and Primal Scream.

Significantly, it also caught the ear of one James Ford - Simian Mobile Disco man and producer of Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons and Florence & The Machine amongst others. Together, all three headed into the desert in early 2010 to create "Summer Of Hate"’s psychedelic, hypnotic and anthemic follow-up. An album that would later be christened, somewhat fittingly: "Sleep Forever".

Raw it may be, but "Sleep Forever" is still an unmistakably more refined beast than its predecessor. Drums and organ whirls envelope you on tracks like "Mirrors" and "Sleep Forever", which nod to "Ladies And Gentlemen…" era Spiritualized as much as they do Neu! and The Velvet Underground.