| Supplemental
Issue
Apr. '03
“I received the "WHATWEDID"
CD by Saucers and couldn't believe it!
After listening to this CD over and
over again, I find myself wanting, no, NEEDING
to tell people about it, to turn them on to it, to let them hear what a
complete diary of
the Punk/New Wave scene of New Haven, CT in the late 70s/early 80s
sounds like. This is
more than a nostalgia trip,
I feel it is a very important historical document, and needs to be
presented to more than
just the Connecticut Local scene.
I can't tell you how amazed I am at the accuracy of the music in
reflecting the times; it
has brought back floods of great memories, of great times, and has
really given me a fresh
shot of musical adrenalin from my youth.
I saw you guys at Ron's place a lot
back then, Oxford Ale House too. I trolled the
bars and was into the Punk/New Wave scene of the late 70s. I also
enjoyed The Poodle Boys,
and Hot Bodies (as you mentioned in your liner notes), as well as The
Snotz and others my
mind cannot recall at the moment.”
That’s part of my reply to Craig
Bell, founding member of Saucers,
a late 70s New Haven phenom that burst forth from the ruins of
Cleveland, Ohio’s
Rocket From The Tombs. While other RFTT members went on to form Pere
Ubu and The Dead
Boys, Craig Bell migrated to New Haven CT, and through a series of
personal ads created Saucers
in 1977. The band went through a couple of minor line up changes over
2+ years, played
many, many, many gigs at the afore mentioned Ron’s Place and
Oxford Ale House (2 of
the finest underground Punk/New Wave bars that dotted New
Haven’s city streets in the
prime years of musical upheaval/revolution from the underclass form of
music, which was
used as an escape from the reality that we lived under the shadow of
the atomic sun, in
the “No Future” present of the times.), released 2
singles (What We
Do, A
Certain Kind Of Shy),
had a cut (Muckraker)
on the 1982 Gustav compilation “It Happened But Nobody
Noticed” LP chronicling
Connecticut bands of the time, and then parted ways.
So began my literal journey back to a time
when Corporate Rock-n-Radio - finally
getting its toehold in the majority market when, WHAM! Punk smacked the
shit out of it,
which allowed New Wave to sneak in - began the feeding frenzy of
turning the music
revolution into a commercialized commodity (so in realistic terms Punk
won). But those who
saw the reality as an artistic way to improve their life, not on the
monetary plane, but
on the spiritual one, couldn’t survive. They
couldn’t keep on doing what they
did in a burst of creative effort when the results were the sum of the
whole (scene), the
magic could not be carried on in a band by band basis.
That is why I’m telling you that
no matter how much I try to write about the
importance of this CD, I don’t think I can ever get across
the whole aura, the whole
perspective, the whole culmination of everything the music and the
“scene” had
to offer and gave us – the members of the late 70s
“Lost Generation” (as I
have coined it) - as well as the music actually says for itself. Here
is a CD that
presents for the first time a chronological history of a DIY band born
of a revolution, a
scene; and yet lost in the overwhelming body of that revolution, that
scene. It speaks out
as a document of the times on every level and leaves us to shake our
heads and wonder why
its been all but forgotten.
Craig Bell hasn’t forgotten -
that’s why 25 years later he’s finally
released (for the first time – except for the previously
mentioned singles and album
cut) everything the Saucers ever
recorded. It’s all here; it defines
a generation that found itself in the music, a generation that survived
because it escaped
into the simple joys of freeform musical expression. It’s a
testament to the
creativity of youth and the timelessness of its power. Listen to it. It
truly is What
We Did.
Saucers -
WHATWEDID
is available now for: $10.98
+s/h*
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