It’s always disappointing when an album designed to showcase a movement’s strengths ends up revealing its shortcomings. Despite its title, this 2-CD set isn’t so much a pub rock anthology as a collection of tracks by bands who were around at the time and played the sort of country-rock/beat group R&B you might have expected to hear in any London pub on which the 1972-77 scene was centred, but who were never really part of it.
There’s plenty of great music here: Brinsley Schwarz’s Country Girl, some very early Eddie & The Hot Rods offerings (sleazy and greasy with Lew Lewis on harp), plus more from pub rock’s originators, Eggs Over Easy, Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers and Ian Dury’s Kilburn & The High Roads (who seem to sound even better in 2007 than they ever did). Oh, and Dr Feelgood end Disc One with Roxette.
The compilers should have called time there. Despite the absence of anything by Ducks Deluxe, The 1O1’ers or even Graham Parker & The Rumour, there are 20 really strong tracks in here. It’s just a pity that the other 29 are variously loose, limp and lacklustre, and quite simply give pub rock a bad name.
