'''[[File:Stranglers.jpeg|thumb|300px]]The Stranglers''' are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring some 23 UK top 40 singles and 17 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning four decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving and most "continuously successful" band to have originated in the UK punk scene of the mid to late 1970s. Beginning life as the Guildford Stranglers on 11 September 1974 in Guildford, Surrey, they originally built a following within the mid-1970s pub rock scene. While their aggressive, no-compromise attitude identified them as one of the instigators of the UK punk rock scene that followed, their idiosyncratic approach rarely followed any single musical genre and the group went on to explore a variety of musical styles, from new wave, art rock and gothic rock through the sophisticated pop of some of their 1980s output. They had major mainstream success with their single "Golden Brown". Their other hits include "No More Heroes", "Peaches", "Always the Sun" and "Skin Deep". The Stranglers' early sound was driven by Jean-Jacques Burnel's melodic bass, but also gave prominence to Dave Greenfield's keyboards at a time when the instrument was seen as unfashionable. Their early music was also characterised by the growling vocals and sometimes misanthropic lyrics of both Jean-Jacques Burnel and Hugh Cornwell. (read more at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranglers Wikipedia])
'''[[File:Stranglers.jpeg|thumb|300px]]The Stranglers''' are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring some 23 UK top 40 singles and 17 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning four decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving and most "continuously successful" band to have originated in the UK punk scene of the mid to late 1970s. Beginning life as the Guildford Stranglers on 11 September 1974 in Guildford, Surrey, they originally built a following within the mid-1970s pub rock scene. While their aggressive, no-compromise attitude identified them as one of the instigators of the UK punk rock scene that followed, their idiosyncratic approach rarely followed any single musical genre and the group went on to explore a variety of musical styles, from new wave, art rock and gothic rock through the sophisticated pop of some of their 1980s output. They had major mainstream success with their single "Golden Brown". Their other hits include "No More Heroes", "Peaches", "Always the Sun" and "Skin Deep". The Stranglers' early sound was driven by Jean-Jacques Burnel's melodic bass, but also gave prominence to Dave Greenfield's keyboards at a time when the instrument was seen as unfashionable. Their early music was also characterised by the growling vocals and sometimes misanthropic lyrics of both Jean-Jacques Burnel and Hugh Cornwell. (read more at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranglers Wikipedia])
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Keyboard player Dave Greenfield died in May 2020 at the age of 71 after testing positive for coronavirus.
==Links To Peel ==
==Links To Peel ==
Revision as of 10:21, 18 May 2020
The Stranglers are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring some 23 UK top 40 singles and 17 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning four decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving and most "continuously successful" band to have originated in the UK punk scene of the mid to late 1970s. Beginning life as the Guildford Stranglers on 11 September 1974 in Guildford, Surrey, they originally built a following within the mid-1970s pub rock scene. While their aggressive, no-compromise attitude identified them as one of the instigators of the UK punk rock scene that followed, their idiosyncratic approach rarely followed any single musical genre and the group went on to explore a variety of musical styles, from new wave, art rock and gothic rock through the sophisticated pop of some of their 1980s output. They had major mainstream success with their single "Golden Brown". Their other hits include "No More Heroes", "Peaches", "Always the Sun" and "Skin Deep". The Stranglers' early sound was driven by Jean-Jacques Burnel's melodic bass, but also gave prominence to Dave Greenfield's keyboards at a time when the instrument was seen as unfashionable. Their early music was also characterised by the growling vocals and sometimes misanthropic lyrics of both Jean-Jacques Burnel and Hugh Cornwell. (read more at Wikipedia)
Keyboard player Dave Greenfield died in May 2020 at the age of 71 after testing positive for coronavirus.
Peel first went to see The Stranglers at the Hammersmith Odeon in October 1976 supporting Patti Smith, well before the band were signed to United Artists Records and subsequently became a champion of their music in their early stage. The band recorded two sessions for his show, the first of which was broadcast before their debut album "Rattus Norvegicus" came out and later repeated several times. During one of these repeats on 12 May 1977, Peel enthusiastically referred to them as one of the bands who were making "the first half of 1977 the best six months for music since the latter half of 1967" and added that the more he heard them, the more he liked them. He continued to feature exclusive tracks from their albums in the late 70s, including famously playing their third album "Black and White" in full before its release date[1]. He also featured tracks from bassist J.J. Burnel's solo album "Euroman Cometh" and from "Nosferatu", a collaboration between frontman and guitar player Hugh Cornwell and Robert Williams, the then-current drummer for Captain Beefheart, which also included cameos by Ian Dury and members of The Mothers of Invention and Devo, among others.
However, when the band signed to Epic Records in 1983, they changed their songwriting to a more mellow pop sound with less focus on Burnel's bass playing and more on Greenfield's synthesizers. This change of style wasn't appreciated by Peel who on his Peel 042 (BFBS) show called their "Nice In Nice" single "a bit of a bore". Nonetheless, their older more aggressive material still got occasional plays.
Dead Ringer / No More Heroes / Burning Up Time / Bring On The Nubiles
Live
Recorded at the London Roundhouse gig of 1977-11-06. Broadcast: 27 December 1977. Repeated: 23 January 1978. No commercial release but parts of this show appeared on "Live (X Cert)" (United Artists Records, 1979).
No More Heroes
Dead Ringer
Sometimes
Dagenham Dave
Hanging Around
Bitching
Burning Up Time
I Feel Like A Wog
Straighten Out
Something Better Change
London Lady
Peaches
(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)
Other Shows Played
(The list is incomplete. Please add further information if known)
The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus (Full Album)
1977
27 January 1977: Grip / London Lady (7") United Artists
28 January 1977: Grip / London Lady (7") United Artists
19 May 1977: 'Peaches (7")' United Artists (JP: 'I'm not quite sure why that's not getting played on the radio: it's a pity that it isn't, 'cos it's an excellent record. Perhaps it's because it's got a reference to "sewers" in it, and sewers as we all know are not fun places. The girls in the Radio 1 typing pool, who have fine taste I think, think that that and the Frankie Miller single [1] are the two best singles around at the moment, and they could well be right.')
12 July 1977: 'Something Better Change (7")' (United Artists)
14 July 1977: 'Something Better Change (7")' (United Artists)
29 August 1977: London Lady (7", Single: Grip) United Artists Records
03 October 1977: Hanging Around (12", Album: Rattus Norvegicus) United Artists Records
04 October 1977: Before the final hour, Peel promises "three from Randy Newman, three from the Modern Lovers, plus The Stranglers, Gladiators, Tyla Gang and oh so much more."
Peel 005 (BFBS): '(Get A) Grip (On Yourself) (LP-Rattus Norvegicus)' (UA) (JP: 'Goodness me, that used to sound really hard in the days when it first came out. It sounds sort of Gary Numanesque these days.')
1989
20 September 1989: No More Heroes (album - No More Heroes) United Artists
