You could call
Chiswick Stiff's poorer brother and, to an extent, you'd be right, but it gets the time line slightly wrong.
Chiswick actually beat
Stiff to the starting gate, releasing the
Count Bishops' rip-roaring "Route 66"/"Teenage Letter" in November of 1975. Seven months later, they had the first single from
Joe Strummer's 101ers -- the infectious "Keys to Your Heart" -- then followed it up with the updated glam scuzz of
Gorillas' "She's My Gal," neatly establishing an old-time rock & roll aesthetic the label never shook. Caught at the crossroads between pub rock and punk rock,
Chiswick initially seemed like trailblazers, but they were soon overshadowed by
Stiff, who joyfully played fast and loose with the rules, leading to arguably the first British punk single in
the Damned's "New Rose." The
Damned later signed to
Chiswick but by the time the group's "Smash It Up" turned into a Top 40 hit in 1979,
Chiswick had long since established itself as an oddity yo-yoing between odes to oldies, and stilted reconciliations with new wave. All this is chronicled on
Ace's 2013 update of the 1992 compilation
The Chiswick Story, which tells the tale from that first
Count Bishops 7" to
Jakko's "Grab What You Can" from 1982.
Chiswick shuttered not long after that
Jakko single, by which point it had been a long, long time since they were a driving force in British rock but, as this generous 51-track collection proves, they built up a nice catalog. True, there's a sneaking nostalgia for the years before
the Beatles -- most prominent in
Rocky Sharpe & the Replays, a persistent presence throughout
Chiswick's story, and a band that toward the end of their run started to sound like a British
Sha-Na-Na -- and the label's attempts at synthesized pop were gangly, but that's part of the
Chiswick charm: after two years of blazing glory, they settled into a British eccentricity that remains endearing, if slightly bewildering, all these years later. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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