The Drones
Live in Japan (45 Revolutions)
by Jon Sarre
At first glance, I misunderstood the title of this “caught in the act” release to mean “Inhabit the Isles of Japan,” or “Japan, That’s Where Our Mail Gets Sent To.” Thus, I incorrectly thought, “Nice, possibly a cool Japanese punk band.” Upon further investigation, I realized the Drones were one of those first/second generation UK punk bands. Not only that, I found that this record was recorded a couple years ago on one of those reunion tours. Great!
Unfortunately, for bands like the Drones, forming before the Buzzcocks (which the Drones, b. Manchester, England, 1975 certainly did) does not necessarily make ’em better, as good, or even as worthy to be listened to as the Buzzcocks, the Clash, Sex Pistols, Damned, or even more obscure contemporaries like the Lurkers or Subway Sect. The British Isles, circa 1977, were crawling with punk bands, most doubtlessly and rightfully unrecorded cuz they were either derivative or just plain sucked. The Drones were recorded, they did an EP, an LP, and a few singles. Should they have? I dunno, somebody thought so.
Judging from the two ’97 shows recorded as pleas for posterity, the Drones were/are a punked-up bar band (which sorta describes the mid-’70s “pub rock” scene they came out of) with the odd boorish Oi moment (possibly picked up later as bassist Gus Gangrene would later become a founding member of Skrewdriver) and Hugh Cornwell-sounding vocals (let us not forget that the Stranglers were a better fucking band than the Drones ever could hope to be, and given the opportunity, still made some terrible records). That’s not the recipe for an awful band, they’re just, well, what’s the point? This disc captures ’em onstage announcin’ damn near every song to an audience of Japanese kids who came out to see not them, but a real live claimant to the title of “First Punk Band in the UK.” And if they were, so what? Had they been the only punk band in England, we’d not have to listen to NYC partisans bitch about how the Ramones invented it and then the Sex Pistols ruined it, cuz even a bullshit-slinger like Malcom McLaren couldn’t’ve done a thing with the Drones.
(www.thedrones.co.uk)
