You may or may not know, but Switzerland is not only very small a country, it also has no less than four official languages, spoken in four different regions (those four languages themselves consist of numerous different dialects, some of them so different from the official language that they’re hard to understand even for swiss). Why am I telling you? Ever since I can think, I completely lack any sort of patriotism, in fact, it’s quite the other way round. Not that I hate Switzerland per se; it’s a swell place to live, fer sure. I just hate the idea of not hating it. Just like art comes from cultivating a certain proportion of negativity towards “reality”, being an individual (well, let’s pretend ….) or an intellectual of sorts requires first and foremost a negative approach towards different concepts of society or group as such. If that’s where it ends, though, it becomes nothing but a ludicrous scheme. Punk is full of such schemes and that’s what makes me hate Punk. “I would never become member of a club whhich would accept people like me”, as Groucho Marx (son of Karl) said. This very attitude itself prevented me from caring too much about Swiss Punk for a long, long time. This was not uncommon though: Many of my pals from the old days felt the same way. Sure, you might say, this was very short sighted, but then again, it’s the sort of radicalism and everyday-consequence I’m missing a lot these days.
This was the main reason why I didn’t give shit about THE BASTARDS until the 90s. THE BASTARDS came from the french speaking part of Switzerland. It’s crazy, but when you grew up in the german speaking part and had a working class backgound (like I did), you most likely knew more about the USSR than about the french speaking regions of Switzerland. I remember that I’ve been to Geneva (the capital of the region and home of THE BASTARDS) exactly once, ca. 1975 and that was it. Years later (when I had temporarily lost the little mind I have, being a left radical), I visited Geneva again, but this time, I had iron bars and stones in my backpack.
Can’t tell much more about the BASTARDS other than they had probably Punk’s sexiest woman (along with Alice Bag who I adore) and during their life time, only released this pearl. They also had a s/m image which works fine for me. When I’m sober again tomorrow, I will definitely remember the one of the other additional detail, but as for now, that’s all you can get from me. Oh yes: “Schizo Terrorist” is probably too good to be from Switzerland.
Impossibilities.mp3
Danger.mp3
Schizo Terrorist.mp3
31 Comments
One of the most brilliant stuff I´ve read:”I just hate the idea of not hating it.” totally relate. And this is such a great record I get tears in my eyes.
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AWESOME!!!!!!!!! You hit the nail right on its head with this post.
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even though i don’t fully agree with you i still think this is one hell of a post and a record.
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Just out of curiosity: What is it you don’t agree on, Elliott?
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Switzerland? Never heard of it. You must mean Swaziland. Is that it?
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Ooops, sorry Chano – I meant Sweden!
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love the cover combination with JAM and BASTARDS. looks way cool!!! thanks for this record which is absolutely new to me. the writeup is brillant. you’d make a pretty good pamphlet writer
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ok it took me another read through to get what you’re getting at. ok now i see. i didn’t get the you hate the idea of not hating it thing but now i see. word to the wise. if you’ve been up all night don’t read deep shit.
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Thanks for this gem!! All songs are great and the band knows haw to play their instruments, too!! Hahaha…
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Oww…..absolutely great. Sandro went on to the great Jack And The Rippers whose ‘Safe And Secure’ is in my top 10 punk tunes of all time. There’s an LP still available of the Bastards with 4+ extra tracks – Detour in the UK still has copies…I may have to snaffle one up…..
On another note entirely…to compliment this, how about posting the Finnish Bastards insane and great early 80′s HC classic 7″ EP. Such reckless flailing! As always, a great site Erich. Thanks.
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….and the Alice Bag comparison is apposite – she sounds a bit like her on Impossibilities.
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I’m going to college as an exchange student in Germany and it’s always cool to hear interesting stuff from Switzerland. I’ll have to make it back over to Switzerland.
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As much as I am reluctant to point out the dialectic inherent in S&M, I think it is what put you in a Hegelian mood!
I am pleased to hear this record, though I would definitely place myself on the negative side of a history that includes the sort of heavy metal guitar playing found on Danger.
Thanks for mentioning the Jacques Mesrine movie awhile back.
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Just read your entry from March 2006: “I finally decided to occasionally include audio files… This is for once because I find it inappropriate to do so without the artists approval… I don’t really see a point in supplying an anonymous mass of consumers with even more mp3 files… those who like the music should go and BUY it …” HAHAHAAA!
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Hahahaha
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Now was that a amused laugh or an annoyed laugh? Just for the record.
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Take a wild guess.
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Ha ha ha ha
.
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Impossibilities is the standout track for me. Thanks for making my day with this lost Bags..er Bastards..track!
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Yeah, even admitting the woman in the band is attractive would be considered sexist in most punk/crust/emo circles.
Well at least in the uber punk cities.
Ah, thank you internet for mail order and blogs like these. You don’t have to put up with bullshit in cities like Portland or Minneapolis (scum bag crusties or pc fascists)!
Eat a steak, watch “Batchelor Party”, blast The Ramones, get laid, laugh.
So what if Crass was wrong.
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Damn, this is great music. Too bad she sings in only one song. Is she still singing in a band, does anyone know?
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I bought the “Schizo Terrorist” DVD some time ago which features an hour long “documentary” about the Bastards (mainly Mr. Sursock talking about himself… ugh), a live TV broadcast from 1978 (Yay… dad ys da SHIT!!!! GREEEEAAAT) and footage from the 2006 Reunion gig (which is also da shit, but more in the sense of BULLSHIT).
THe music on the 7′ is really too good to be true, and Marie-Pierre was the sensitive-wanker-boys dream come true
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Hallo Erich, hat jetzt nix mit dem Thema zu tun, aber ich habe gesehen, dass du Freddy Quinns Single “Eine Handvoll Reis / Wir” suchst. Die B-Seite kannste auf meinem Blog runterladen, und bei Interesse kann ich dir auch dir A-Seite besorgen.
Ansonsten vielen Dank für diesen Blog, ich lese ihn seit Jahren, auch wenn ich selten was zu sagen habe…
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttG069n3aDE
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@ Schrottvogel: Vielen Dank für den Freddy Quinn Link auf Deinem Blog. Wenn Du bei Gelegenheit mal die A-Seite rippst, lass es mich wissen.
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hallo erich, gerippt ist bei mir nüscht, da 0% vinyl — alles nur von cd und aus’m indernet zusammengesammelt (cuz i’m a 21st century digital boy, i dunno how to live but i gotta lotta toys), aber die a seite findest du hier:
http://mutantenmelodien.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/freddy-quinn-wir-1966/
die ist zwar auch sehr aua aua, aber auch panker brauchen mal was für’s herz nicht wahr, ich versteh das, ich versteh’s….
vielleicht magst du mich im gegenzug für die ca. 5 minuten arbeit in deine geheiligten blockrolle uffnähma?
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ps. link ist ganz unten in den kommentaren.
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Danke, Schrottvogel! Den Link hab ich reingebastelt (hat mich ca. 1 Minute gekostet).
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This was quite a revelation.
There is a summary about their 2006 reunion.. actually liner notes, here:
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/featheredapple/bastards2.html
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thanx for this post!i don’t know why,it came out that i like everything that has been released in ’79…
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Admin Reply:
January 23rd, 2011 at 15:22
Everything? Really? Well, 1979 sure was a golden year for music. The first wave of Punk was over and fresh stuff was popping up all over the world.
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well,everything i’ve heard…happily there’s so much more to discover!
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