Greetings From Shitsville -The Wildhearts

‘Ere she is. The opening track from the greatest album of the 1990’s. It’s OK. You take a moment. I’ll say it again.

Track one side one from my favourite debut album of all time. You OK My Old China?

I’ll do this one more time. The only 7″ single release I can think of where a turd brown coloured vinyl was the label endorsed sleeve design because the band approved ‘one with the pita bread’ is now the stuff of rock and roll urban legend.

Greetings From Shitsville is an incredible song. It’s an incredible single. It’s a fantastic way to open an album and it’s all about living in that there London Town.

“The papers hanging off the walls, there’s roaches dancing in the halls, you still pay a fortune to crawl down misery street, the euthanasia dream brigade is melting in the Hampstead shade, the zombies of life they parade down misery street”

Ginger may be one of Rock N’ Roll’s most famous Geordies but The Wildhearts are a honorary London band. Earth Vs The Wildhearts is a blisteringly brilliant collection of hook ridden pop metal which came out when I was 16. It’s no wonder it’s left an indelible mark on me.

“The heating’s set to sauna and the carpet’s getting thin, My vacuum cleaner’s blowing out instead of sucking in, I drink myself to coma so that sleep escapes the din and start this shit all over again”

The song is just as much about living in poverty as it is about the capital. The struggle and strife of life in the bus lane fills this greeting card from NW3. I almost went with The Dogs D’Amour’s Kid From Kensington to scratch this same itch so have a link for that one too but the Metal section of London Week has to go to the Smiley Bones themselves for nailing my time in the city with couplets like the below.

“So now I got a brand new day to tackle in the same old way, the ducking and diving of bills are arriving, there’s seemingly hundreds to pay”

Inner City life, Inner City pressure. You can’t have an uptown without there being a downtown. Opening that glorious album with Shitsville set the stage for hit single proper TV Tan and deeper fan fanatic cuts like Everlone & Shame On Me.

The genuine 90’s rock club mega hit Caffeine Bomb and the ‘couldabeen’ single Loveshit work their magic. Side one of Earth Vs. is a rollercoaster.

Shitsville’s B-Side And The Bullshit Goes On is an equally brilliant and scathing rock and roll moment, during a time where the band (it seems) couldn’t lay down a dud track if they tried. All the B-Sides from this era could have made the album they were so good. So good they’re still live set staples to this day.

When you flip the disc for side two you get to the really ‘shouldabeen’ single Miles Away Girl followed by the double team of My Baby Is A Headfuck into Suckerpunch and to crown the album off with the trilogy News Of The World, Drinking About Life and Love You ‘Til I Don’t on the end makes this juggernaut of a record an essential for head-bangers the world over.

London does metal rather well… Just ask this band of Geordies.

 

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