London, UK · punk

UK Subs

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Charlie Harper still fronting one of punk's most relentlessly touring institutions, an album for nearly every letter of the alphabet.

UK Subs formed in London in 1977, growing out of a pub-rock band called the Marauders. After frontman Charlie Harper and his bandmates caught early punk shows at The Roxy, they renamed themselves the Subversives and then UK Subs, settling into a lineup with guitarist Nicky Garratt, bassist Paul Slack and drummer Pete Davies. They remain one of the longest-running groups from the first wave of British punk.

Signed to GEM Records in 1979, the band scored a run of hit singles including “Stranglehold” and “Tomorrow's Girls”, both reaching the UK Top 40, and their debut album, Another Kind of Blues, and its follow-up, Brand New Age, both charted. John Peel invited them in for radio sessions during this period.

Crash Course, taped live at London's Rainbow Theatre in 1980, became their best-selling album, while Diminished Responsibility the following year was the last to chart. Slack and Davies left soon after, replaced by Alvin Gibbs and Steve Roberts, the first of many lineup changes the band would go through over decades of constant touring.

Harper first sang in Britain's rhythm-and-blues scene before punk, and that rock-and-roll swing has stayed part of the band's fast, stripped-down sound. Their studio albums have been titled alphabetically ever since Another Kind of Blues, a scheme carried through the decades regardless of who else has stood alongside him.

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