The Vibrators – Automatic Lover // Destroy (Epic Records) 1978. I think The Vibrators are one of the most underrated class of ’77 punk rock bands ever. At the time they were dismissed as being out of touch pub rockers who jumped on the punk rock bandwagon. That was just silly. The great aesthetic punk purge of 1977. Anyone who has any early demo sessions by The Vibrators knows that these guys were rocking it pretty hard before Johnny Rotten put a safety pin in it. Who cares if they had long hair? Even if you do accept the idea that The Vibrators were a pub band that went punk due to changing trends, why did they get blamed for this while guys like Joe Strummer were let off the hook? Who knows! Even today, The Vibrators are viewed as sort of a second-tier act while lesser bands are far more bandied about. That’s crazy when you consider the fact that Pure Mania is only one of the rockingest rocksteady albums ever released. The Vibrators wrote hits like I write posts baby! C’mon….Pure Mania was then followed by V2, which suffered some sort of critical backlash for being behind the times or some such shite. Who cares? What did these guys do to piss of the critics so much? I dunno. Check out this great 7inch from 78 and tell me these guys weren’t awesome. C’mon. I dare ya.
Hardcore Podcasts
September of 2010 I put together eight Hardcore Podcasts. You can check them out here if you are interested. For more insight into how I came up with the years 78-90 for the First Wave you can read about The Hardcore Superiorty Myth.
The sleeve is truly amazing.
ooh,baby baby’s a classic. I will look into this,chum!
Always loved these guys. Once had a tape of some obscure 3rd record songs like “Do a Runner” and something else with a chorus of “Parties, parties…” That record rocked and all subsequent hunts for a “3rd Vibrators record” were just old reissues and other such nonsense. Rerecordings and the like.
Anyway, if anyone has a copy of the actual chronological “3rd” record the Vibrators released, please email me a link.
Thanks.
-humann
Loved ‘em then, love ‘em now…
Joe — We never got to play live because I quit the band, but LJT & the Duffs formed an alter ego project called The Copulators, who would have played nothing put punk covers from ’77-’81. Anyway, one of the songs on the list was Yeah Yeah Yeah. It was a blast to play in practice, and would have been great live.
Anyway, yeah, I’m a big Vibrators fan.
Another band that was introduced to me through Burning Ambitions.
Joe, do you have the ‘We Vibrate’ 7″? I still think that that is among their best. I’ve heard it written off as ‘Punxploitation’ but I think it’s just the opposite. It’s right up there with the Watusi and the Crusher as far as I’m concerned!
3rd album would be “Guilty” I guess, it has “Do A Runner” on it. I’m assuming it’s a different song than the Business’s song of the same name. I can not honestly recall most of the songs on it. Its been quite a long time since I’ve last listened to it. I’ll see if I can hook up my turntable this week and rip it if I can’t find it elsewhere. It came out in the 80′s on Anagram, so I’m assuming it might be available on CD??
You can buy it directly from their website:
http://www.thevibrators.com/merchandise.html
They are also selling Vibrators thong underwear-
I wish I had known that before I went and made my own!
That’s exactly why the music biz is in such doldrums… everyone making their own pirate thong underwear instead of buying them.
Thanks for the link! Just downloaded a funky sounding mp3 copy of the album, will have to pick the real deal. Plus it has the 4th Lp “Alaska 127″ combined with it.
…and still touring! thanx for the MP3s.