UK Subs

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UK Subs
UK Subs (Café Central, Weinheim, 2020)
UK Subs (Café Central, Weinheim, 2020)
General information
Genre (s) Punk rock
founding 1976
Website www.uksubs.co.uk
Founding members
Charlie Harper
Richard Anderson (until 1977)
Steve Slack (until 1977)
Robbie Harper
Current occupation
singing
Charlie Harper
guitar
Steve Straughan
bass
Alvin Gibbs (since June 1980)
Drums
Jamie Oliver
former members
saxophone
Dave Collins (1977)
Guitarists
Greg Brown (1977)
Nicky Garratt (from 1977)
Captain Scarlet (1983)
Tim Britta (1984)
James Moncur (1985)
Darrell Bath (1987/1989)
Alan Lee (1987-1989)
Karl Morris 1990
Jet Storm (2005-2016)
Bass player
Paul Slack (1978-1982)
Tezz Roberts (1984–1985)
John Armitage (1984)
Ricky McQuire (1985)
Marc Barratt (1986)
Steve Jones (1977/1983/1984)
drummer
Flea
Rory Lyons (1977)
Robbie Bardock (1978–1980)
Steve Roberts (1980–1982 / 1984 / 1988-)
Mal Asling (March 1982-)
Pete Davies (1984)
Matthew 'Turkey' Best (1984)
Rab Fae Beith (1984–1986)
Geoff Sewell (1986)
Dave Wilkinson (1987)
Duncan Smith (1987)
Matt McCoy (1989)

The UK Subs is a British band that was formed in 1976 as one of the first punk bands in London. The name is short for "The Subversives" (see: Subversion ). Since there was already a Scottish band with the same name, UK was put in front.

Band history

1976-1979

Charlie Harper 2008

Charlie Harper previously played rhythm and blues with "The Marauders". In the Roxy Club had him The Damned excited, so he founded the UK Subs, with whom he also wanted to pursue this kind of music.

First Steve Slack played the bass , Richard Anderson the guitar and Robbie Harper the drums. Shortly thereafter, Anderson was replaced by Greg Brown. There was a new drummer named Steve Jones and Dave Collins played the saxophone. In October 1977 guitarist Nicky Garrat was accepted into the band. The UK Subs played many live gigs in London during this time, for example in the "Western Counties Pub", the "Castle Pub" or the Roxy Club . Charlie Harper organized everything from his hair salon in Tooting , where he worked during the day and which was the meeting place for the band for many years. In 1977 the band recorded a live set at Roxy in the hope it would be released as their album, but the recordings ended up in a drawer and wasn't released until 1980 under the title Live Kicks .

They now played in the 100 Club and the Vortex , John Peel invited them to the studio several times in 1977 and 1978 and finally they signed a record deal with the label "GEM". The debut album Another Kind of Blues reached number 21 in the UK charts, and there were also a number of hit singles from UK subs. Each chart single resulted in a television appearance on Top of the Pops . All renowned music magazines - such as Sounds Magazin , which published a two-page cover story about the band, and Melody Maker  - reported on the band. They were also the subject of Julien Temple's documentary Punk Can Take It . They appeared at the Glastonbury Festival and in September and October 1979 they gave three concerts at the Marquee during their first extensive tour of England . In 1980 they accompanied the Ramones on a few stops in Europe, and on a small tour in the USA they appeared as the opening act for The Police . Brand New Age was released as another studio album and climbed to the top of the charts, as did the live album Crash Course , which was recorded at London's Rainbow Theater in late May 1980 .

1981 until today

UK Subs (Ruhrpott Rodeo 2013)

As public interest shifted from punk to new wave and synth pop in the early 1980s, the popularity of UK subs dwindled as well. As in earlier times, the band members kept changing, and although frontman Charlie Harper was the only founding member to play, the band did not break up. With the albums Diminished Responsibility and Endangered Species , which continued the tradition of having the first letters of the title follow the alphabet on official albums, they changed their sound towards hard rock and heavy metal . The band toured half of Europe in the following years, with stops in Holland, Austria, Switzerland and Germany. In Finland they opened for Hanoi Rocks and in the US they played several concerts in Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. In the spring of 1983 they were the first western punk rock group to enter a communist country to give some performances in Poland. The band is still on the road to this day and mainly plays in clubs and festivals.

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Another kind of blues
  UK 21st 10/09/1979 (6 weeks)
Brand New Age
  UK 18th April 19, 1980 (9 weeks)
Crash Course
  UK 8th 09/27/1980 (6 weeks)
Diminished responsibility
  UK 18th 02/21/1981 (5 weeks)
Singles
Stranglehold
  UK 26th 06/23/1979 (8 weeks)
Tomorrow's Girls
  UK 28 09/08/1979 (6 weeks)
She's Not There / Kicks EP
  UK 36 December 01, 1979 (7 weeks)
Warhead
  UK 30th 03/08/1980 (4 weeks)
Teenage
  UK 32 05/17/1980 (5 weeks)
Party in Paris
  UK 37 10/25/1980 (4 weeks)
Keep On Running (Til You Burn)
  UK 41 04/18/1981 (5 weeks)

Albums

  • 1979 Another Kind Of Blues
  • 1980 Brand New Age
  • 1980 Crash Course (live album)
  • 1981 Diminished Responsibility
  • 1982 Endangered Species
  • 1982 AWOL
  • 1983 Flood of Lies
  • 1985 Gross Out USA
  • 1985 Huntington Beach
  • 1986 In Action (Tenth Anniversary)
  • 1987 Japan Today
  • 1988 Killing Time
  • 1990 Live in Paris
  • 1991 Mad Cow Fever
  • 1993 Normal Service Resumed
  • 1994 Occupied
  • 1995 peel sessions
  • 1996 Quintessentials
  • 1997 riot
  • 1999 Sub Mission (scrapbook)
  • 2000 Time Warp (double album)
  • 2002 Universal
  • 2005 Violent State
  • 2008 World War (live album)
  • 2011 Work In Progress
  • 2013 XXIV
  • 2015 Yellow Leader
  • 2016 Ziezo

Web links

Commons : UK Subs  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Charts UK
  2. Ziezo black vinyl / CD available in store! - UK Subs. (No longer available online.) In: www.uksubs.co.uk. Archived from the original on June 20, 2016 ; Retrieved June 20, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uksubs.co.uk