Mark Beer "The Man Man Man"

I’m sure there are thousands more 7 inch singles sitting unlistened in record stores all across the British Isles, containing close to entire discographies from bands that broke up before putting out a full-length, or were a side project and never got around to worrying about things like that. So when singles comps like 7″ Up! come out (from Crippled Dick Hot Wax), it’s exciting to think about this subaltern universe of British post-punk/powerpop (the CD’s description), and what could have happened if these bands had caught on, made classic records, and defined a generation’s musical memories? Well yeah, okay, that’s a bit much. The songs on this compilation are the sort of punk that seems determined not to be popular, despite the preponderance of hooks and nods to all sorts of earlier British pop music. The immediate reference points, though, are the minimalist meditation pieces of the Young Marble Giants, Wire, and the Cure and the jagged dance-punk that came out of Leeds and Manchester (Delta 5, the Au Pairs, the Fall). A song like “The Man Man Man” (mp3) from a guy named Mark Beer, is the perfect starting point for a compilation like this—a soft, dark, propulsive bass drum and fingersnaps buoys the tiniest of bass lines, suggesting a minimal jazz vamp along the lines of the Cure’s “10:15 Saturday Night” or, well anything from Young Marble Giants, and then gives way to Beer’s voice, which trades off with (and perfectly complements) the toy synth twinkle that borders the rest of the song. Beer effectively channels mid-Sixties Ray Davies at his culture-skewering best, to the point where the song could also be called “A Well-Respected Man Man Man” or even “David Watts Watts Watts.” And then that honky sax comes in and blows the song to its finish, perfectly capturing the song’s push and pull between musical worlds—the dark, streetlit urban environment and the sunny afternoon.