Audio Collection
I Fear No One...
Transmitters
Anarchic punk, experimental guitar and drums like Ravi Shankar tuning up, turning up and drinking heavily. Organized chaos.
Collection Contents
| # | Title | Length | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
0.5 Alive | 3:04 | Play |
| 2 |
|
Paper boy | 0:35 | Play |
| 3 |
|
Nowhere train | 3:11 | Play |
| 4 |
|
Uninvited guest | 2:46 | Play |
| 5 |
|
Persons unknown | 3:06 | Play |
| 6 |
|
Ugly man | 3:53 | Play |
| 7 |
|
The one that won the war | 2:18 | Play |
| 8 |
|
Free trade | 3:20 | Play |
| 9 |
|
Curious | 3:52 | Play |
| 10 |
|
Dirty harry theme - Ngungu | 3:16 | Play |
| 11 |
|
Bird in the house | 5:12 | Play |
| 12 |
|
Blankety blank | 1:42 | Play |
| 13 |
|
I fear no-one but my friends | 3:53 | Play |
| 14 |
|
Kill the postman | 1:45 | Play |
| 15 |
|
Testosterone | 3:44 | Play |
| 16 |
|
Ferry boat bill | 2:17 | Play |
| 17 |
|
Captain spot | 4:20 | Play |
| 18 |
|
Hammersmith | 3:47 | Play |
| 19 |
|
Silver car | 4:11 | Play |
| 20 |
|
Ache | 3:58 | Play |
| 21 |
|
Dead siamese sister | 2:32 | Play |
| 22 |
|
Hole-in-the-world | 3:03 | Play |
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Description
I FEAR NO ONE by THE TRANSMITTERS
Including full four-track PEEL SESSION
EXCLUSIVE TO CD BABY TILL MARCH!
Peel recognised it. So did Fluff. In 1979 The Transmitters were several decades and decibels ahead of even the most hardened post punk rocker. Now weve had our urban ears syringed by the likes of Franz Ferdinand and The Killers, we can all slip as comfortably into The Transmitters new compilation album, I fear no one, as if it was a comfy old pair of slippers. Only a lot louder.
Ah transmit me baby moaned an ecstatic John Peel in 1979 as the final bar crashed to a close on the first of the two full-throttle Peel Sessions the band were invited to record. The entire four-track session is featured on their new CD along with other belligerent memorables such as Dead Siamese Sister which Melody Makers Chris Roberts described at the time as one of their frenetic mutant paranoid stream-of-consciousness bohemian jazz-noise anthems which like very much to grab you by the retinae and throw you across the doghouse walls. Of Ache, also featured on the new CD, he said it was their finest murky mope, which sorely tempts me to write out its lyrics in full.
The compilation is anything but a souvenir of the seventies. This should come as no surprise since the bands explosive live performances put the fear of god into the listening public. Whiplash from the impact of the first chord is just one of the complaints guitarist Sam Dodson recalls when he leafs through his overflowing scrapbook of reviews, press releases and flyers.
The Transmitters spent the late seventies and entire eighties reducing audiences to meltdown, performing as headline act, or supporting bands such as The Police, The Fall, Scritti Politti, The Human League, Alternative TV and The Slits. In the words of Paul Morley of the NME, following a gig at the Greenwich Theatre
The Transmitters are the cheekiest group Ive seen since the Mekons, the wackiest group Ive seen since Public Image (and almost as sinister). They were, of course, great.
I FEAR NO ONE by THE TRANSMITTERS will be released on March 5th and will be available from Elsewhen / Voiceprint
Review by PAUL MORLEY. NME
THE TRANSMITTERS: Still Hunting For The Ugly Man, (Step Forward). Ealings Transmitters are an insular sort of a group. As is typical of those who for whatever reason, develop out of sight and mind of media scrutiny, they have developed a powerfully idiosyncratic sound. The group uses the same line-up as their labelmates The Fall, and it's not irrelevant to point out certain similarities.
Both groups are cynics and critics. Both groups are fronted by hurried, mocking inciters. Both groups deal with instabilities, abnormalities, ambitious truths....and make demented shell-shocked music.
This 12" four-track is an obsessive, frustrated record. Consistently effective and annoying, it rummages restlessly out on lunatic fringes. It's difficult, discomforting and oppressively manic, but worth exploring. PAUL MORLEY.
Review by LENNY KAYE
Melody Maker September 30th, 1978, Space Oddities
THE TRANSMITTERS "Nowhere Train" (Ebony EYE 12)
And The Transmitters, in an eerie, dronal tune, call up the ghosts of serpent power, an neat bit of seance, just following tracks . . .LENNY KAYE
Review by CHRIS ROBERTS
Subterania, London 1988
"LIKE a dead Siamese sister I carry your weight around." Well it beats "I should be so lucky, lucky lucky lucky".The first is the opening line of the Transmitters' song "Dead Siamese Sister", one of their frenetic mutant paranoid stream-of-consciousness bohemian jazz-noise anthems which like very much to grab you by the retinae and throw you across the doghouse walls. It's a truly great globule of self-expression and nearly as bitterly poignant as "Ache", their finest murky mope, which sorely temp me to write out it's entire lyrics in full. However.
Tim Whelan is the most restless man alive and demonstrates this by dancing like a young Jackson. pacing like Mark E Smith, and huling himself at the floor like any-age Iggy. He spits forth his topical angst ("there's a hole in the world") while his lanky henchemen beat manifold drums, extract Haitian war chants from keyboard thingies, and scratch shrill guitars like jaguars assualting sandpaper. They tangle with the Velvets' "Ferryboat Bill" quite swimmingly and, all things assimilated, are a cathartic anglepoise on the heart of darkness. Highly wrecked and mended. CHRIS ROBERTS. MELODY MAKER
Review by CHRIS WESTWOOD
The Transmitters were, as is their forte, unpredictable, uncalculatedly comic, inspirng and brilliant. A serious set? That may have been the intent, but one look at John, the vocalist, and a crowd can crack up. He stumbles around, fag in mitt, flanked by a drunken bass player, Simon Wells, a drunken guitarist, Sam Dodson, a workmanlike drummer Jim Chase, and the strangely sombre on-stage persona of keyboardist, Amanda De Grey.
The sound is open, free, off-the-cuff, bound together through all the stumbling, fumbling chaos that their approach entails. 'The One That Won The War', par example, a personal favourite, damn near falls apart at the seams, with clattering whining guitarthrashes mating with probably the most essential bass phrase this side of any other Transmitters number you care to name....
The fact that I believe in the Transmitters, their attitude, their music, their entire outlook, and - to some extents - their musical tastes, might just hinder my objectivity when writing about them. But see them. Don't let a good thing play itself out without deserving attention.
CHRIS WESTWOOD. Record Mirror Review
Review by PAUL MORLEY - NME
The Transmitters
Greenwich Theatre
Ealing's The Transmitters are the cheekiest group I've seen since the Mekons; the wackiest I've seen since Public Image (and almost as sinister). They were, of course, great. Naturally, their music is of Velvets' ancestry; deceptively nonchalant, barely controlled, repetitive, erratic and intoxicating, presented with an odd, wry condescension.
Their inscrutable lead singer has the comedy timing of a Dave Allen, the detachment of a Devoto, the amused poise of a Mark Smith, the cool of a Sinatra. The music is feverish and jumpy. NME 1979.
PRIME ACCOLADE OF THE WEEK
TRANSMITTERS: 'Still Hunting For The Ugly Man' (Step Forward)
The war dubs on, but in September 1979 the door suddenly close and all the lights go out and 'Still Hunting For The Ugly Man' raises its ugly curious head and shouts "I am GTREAT! I am IMPORTANT!!" And ...
What we've got in this is neither artificial splendour nor calculated brilliance; what we've got here is the year's (thus far) most tantalising and essential 45 rpm Ee Pee, something Pro, not Retro, ggressive, something as natural as breathing.
It's four tracks, 13 minutes of dexterity and brittle adrenalin, of arrogance and perception, of twisted reality and essential mystery Thrashing between fractured jazz and re-processed rock, The Transmitters are one of those little acknowledged bands who care and persevere and consequently create some of the most stunning late seventies music available, a band who've transformed un-discipline into a discipline.
Each of the pieces here - 'Ugly Man', 'The One That Won The War', 'Free Trade', 'Curious' - falls into it's own far-reaching mood mode, attacks, bubbles and scours: each is deceptively melodic, lyrically magnetic, instrumentally taut and rebellious, When the drugs all fade, this record pulls you back and demands your attention and nags like fury. Records like this make a lot of things worthwhile.
So mines a pint of ordinary, I fear no one but my friends, either ...
Reviewed by CHRIS WESTWOOD
The Transmitters Presumed Dead
Shepards Bush, Trafalgar London
The Ramshackle remnants of The Transmitters and Missing Presumed Dead have assembled in the name of fun, chaos and roo-beat enterprise.
The end - and beautifully unrehearsed - result is a temporary six piece, sax and flute and guitars and drums, that quite honestly asks questions of all our established and revered leaders. Why is everyone else so sober?
We're working on a smale scale here; in a Shepard's Bush pub with people being sill, playing sloppily but with undeniable width, stamina, ingenuity.
Mikel (Presumed Dead) sings and dances, spins tinny guitar in the path of writing saxaphone (Dave, Presumed Dead) and more jarring, clashing guitar (Sam, presumed drunk) while the conglomorate stagger from number to number: "Q-Tips" and "Catholics", "Kill the Postman" and "Change Gear".
Theres even a ska-like destruction of "Sugar Sugar", where everything is so bad but brilliant - guitars out of tune, vocals all over the shop - but the actual point of TPD lies not in their affected clumsiness but in to transform clever and demanding music into a touching, entertaining sort of hobby.
Reviewed by CHRIS WESTWOOD 1980