The Looks or the Lifestyle - Sleeve Notes

[tezzer]

Hello all,

Hope everyone's doing well.

I was moved to post this evening after reading Adam's notes for The Looks Or the Lifestyle (I choose Lifestyle), in which he mentions certain websites on which readers maintain that This is the Day, and Cure For Sanity were the "best albums of all time". He also mentions some people thinking that the Poppies were the "best band in the world".

I'm not sure if he's referring to this website and its previous incarnations or others. But if he was referring to the good ship pweination, then he misses the point. I have never heard anyone, *anyone* say that PWEI released the best albums of all time. The Poppies are a great listen, for sure, but the reason (I think) people followed them was they they saw a bunch of guys on stage that weren't much different from themselves, getting away with it, having a great time and coming up with some good tunes along the way. Who wouldn't love to be there too - a cracking excuse for a lot of good nights out.

From '93 onwards, right from when the first USENET newsletters were written, for me personally, pweination was as much about the "nation" bit, as it was about PWEI. Talk to most fans about PWEI and you'll probably hear more about the gig experiences, friendships secured, scrapes got into, stages dived, beers drunk than you would about the "quality" of the music as a standalone entity. Much like the band were off enjoying themselves through their tours, so too were the fans who attended the gigs each night. I'm not saying the songs were secondary, but they served to bring friends and relative strangers together for a great night out.

To use a football analogy, you may get beat every week but who goes to the footy to see the footy? It's all about the people you watch it with and the banter that ensues. If the Poppies are/were ever the best band in the world, it's because they served as a proxy to bring together some of the best people - people just like you.

If someone says the word PWEI to me, I don't think of the music - I think of the people, and the gigs. Whilst you can't (unfortunately) bottle and sell that essence, it's the energy created in those live performances, and the people that shared them, that will forever be the Poppies' legacy. And what a fantastic legacy to have created.

Tezzer

[payback3000]

Hi,

I probably posted a few things to the effect of what Adams is saying. This Is This is a classic LP...so I probably posted a lot about that. I think a lot of other nationers probably did too, about that LP or others... I guess PWEI mean different things to everyone. I wasn't a big gig goer, I'm still not so seeing them 7 times between 1990 - 1995 was a lot of gigs for one band for me. As unforgetable as tose gigs are i still consider the music to be the main focuisr of my fandom. I'll go to my grave flying the flag for This Is This as the most overlooked classic LP of the 80's.

[Onket]

I would also say the band were my favourite band (and also the best band) in the world, when I was properly into them in the nineties.

This is This is an incredible album and is still my favourite today.

I never even saw them live until 1994.

[Onket]

That said, I do understand where Tezzer is coming from.

[Snackula]

i suppose it depends on how you define it. I've got thousands of albums, cd's, singles, tapes etc but not a lot of my collection would feature in anybody's all time classic album list.

I started buying records in 1973, going to gigs and reading the music press in 1977. I had a blinding time in the punk years and it still influences how I dress now but realistically there is very little music I bought then that I still listen to now. Those gigs were the ones I went to with my mates. I go on the Damned's forum but haven't listened to anything new by them since around 1996. The three years of anarchy chaos and destruction were brilliant but they did descend into farce. I don't think I've listened to Never Mind The Bollocks all the way through since 1978, even though i've bought CD issue's etc. That, according to many is a classic album (and there are quite a few references to it on NNDBAS) but not for me. I will go through stages every couple of years of listening to the Clash and have fond memories of seeing them live.

I loved Carter USM and probably met and spoke to them more than any member of PWEI (Fuzz and Adam, once). I used to exchange letters with somebody in Blackburn, could have been that Jon Beast fella and I still have the typed washing instructions fron Jim Bob with the first shirt I bought. The first two albums are classics to me, but I haven't listened to them in a couple of years.

Which brings me to the Poppies are Ace. I used to go record buying every Friday in the many record shops we had in town before the empire closed them all down. I looked at Box Frenzy for a good few weeks before I bought it, on a lean week when there wasn't a lot else to buy. It seemed to me like they were like me - ex punks with varied music tastes (just that they have talent). I think the next three albums are in my all time favourite album list and I have listened to every track of every disc of the Cherry Red reissues and loved them all instead of buying a CD reissue, skipping through it and filing it away. Its probably close between PWEI and the Damned gig wise. I saw the Poppies a lot but with my ex-wife not mates so it was the music I was there for. They made me dance once, at the T&C and she went and stood at the back. Unlike the Damned, the new PWEI isn't an embarrasing let down either.

I havent read the sleeve notes on this one yet as that involves trying to find my glasses nowadays. I would like to think this is a corking bit of writing but realistically its the ramblings of an old man doing this at work when nobodies looking.

[payback3000]

Adams sleeve notes are ace. Very candid and funny. He also states thery are his memories, no matter how fuzzy, of PWEI, no one elses. Adam & Cherry Red have kindly passed us the full unedited sleevenotes for each LP. We will be publishing them on the main site at some point in the near future.

[Snackula]

[Coops]

They're better than Radiohead (posh wankers).

Does that count?

[Coz]

I'm with Teezer on this. This is This is one of my favourites albums of all time but not my number 1.
When I first bought it I was very impressed but not blown away. It wasn't until my first gig at Brixton Academy in Jan 91 that I was hooked.
I was a 19 year old kid for the countryside who had only every been to a handful of concerts but nothing like this.
The energy on stage (& off-stage), the light-show, the crowd surfing, the moshing. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, It was like nothing I
had ever witnessed before. That was the day I began my love affair with the Poppies.

[payback3000]

Adam has not stated he believed PWEI fans thought this LP in particular was the best LP ever made, we seem to be drifting away from what he stated here...lets clarify...


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'I found it impossible to comprehend people thought we were the best band in the world or 'This Is The Day, This Is The Hour, This Is This' or 'Cure For Sanity' were the best albums of all time. Reading some web pages today in 2011, some people still believe this to be the case. It is very flattering, I could never understand how a PWEI album could come close to 'London Calling', 'Never Mind The Bollocks', 'The Scream' or 'Three Imaginary Boys'. But thanks guys, thanks very much! '

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