Standing Over By The Record Machine: The Saints’ *(I’m) Stranded* box set, Pt. One

4 LPs’ worth of punk rock’s greatest album?! Of course we’re going long!

The objects of our affections this week, The Saints, at Club 76 (4 Petrie Terrace), circa 1976—Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper, Ivor Hay, and Kym Bradshaw, captured sonically reducing their Brisbane sharehouse-turned-venue. This image also serves as the cover photo for the first LP in the new box set. (📷 Pic: Jennifer Fay Gow)

The Definitive Document

Last Saturday, I closed work on my first book, Anarchy In The Studio: Punk Music 1977-1979—The Rise Of Punk Rock. I know, I know—it’s been two years in the making, and you’re all sick of hearing about it and wondering when you can buy it! Believe me, you’re speaking for me too…

I learned a lot while writing it. A lot of my opinions changed along the way. I still love every band I have ever loved. But I decided history’s greatest, most-definitive punk rock record was a sole, homemade 45 from 1976: “(I’m) Stranded” b/w “No Time” by The Saints.

Which means the album those seven inches eventually spawned, also called (I’m) Stranded, has to be Thee Definitive Punk Rock Album. Period. And no, I will brook no argument here.

And now, my favorite extant record label, In The Red Records (though Damaged Goods and Cherry Red come close) has blessed us with 4 LPs’ worth of (I’m) Stranded, in a black box with all kindsa case candy, like stickers and photos and a book of memorabilia. And yes, you need this. Now!

Punk Happened

Why am I speaking so strongly, and have just knocked Raw Power, New York Dolls, Rocket To Russia, Never Mind The Bollocks, Generation X, and Singles Going Steady off the top shelf in my chamber and displayed this box set so proudly? Because it's the best illustration of the theory that drove my book:

Punk wasn’t invented. Punk happened.

It originated nowhere, unless we are talking about Detroit in 1969. Punk was the reaction of a buncha far-flung Stooges and Dolls fans the world over, sick of how the '70s was turning out, forming the band they heard in their head because they weren't hearing the music they wanted out there in the real world, whatever the fuck that was.

People wanna pin the birth certificate on the Ramones. Sure — they were a template. But here's this band in Brisbane, being shit on by a conservative government until all they can do is react through cranked tube amps, pouring all this desperation into their version of rock 'n' roll.

Brisbane Is a Cage

The Saints were fucking REAL, maaaan! Not posing. Not sitting around Soho, pretending to be alienated while sipping overpriced lager. Singer Chris Bailey sounded like he just got evicted, dumped, and kicked in the teeth all in the same hour — and then wrote a hook about it. Ed Kuepper’s guitars? Chain saws and broken glass, but melodic. Like if The Kinks got mugged behind CBGB.

And they were FROM NOWHERE—Brisbane! That’s not a scene! That’s EXILE! That’s what made 'em special. They weren’t New York cool or London chic. They were desperate, pissed off, and didn’t care if anyone else got it.

“(I'm) Stranded” wasn’t a debut, it was a declaration of FUCK YOU! They sounded like The Pretty Things in a wind tunnel. They sounded like The Pretty Things if somebody took Phil May’s mic, shoved him down a drainage pipe, and told him to scream louder while the band played from across a six-lane highway in a storm.

It’s a swirling, ugly form of beauty. The Saints had that dirty, mid-‘60s garage snarl all chewed up and spit back through busted amps. But instead of being all retro and cute about it like some Nuggets wannabes, they sounded like they were living it. No nostalgia. Just urgency and resentment. That’s why “(I'm) Stranded” wasn’t just garage or punk, but its own goddamned monster.

Follow the Void

Punk was spontaneous combustion in a world soaked in gasoline. The Ramones weren’t handing out blueprints, they were one ignition point. Same with The Saints in Brisbane. Same with The Damned in London, same with Death in Detroit (who never even got to release their stuff at the time), same with people banging out three chords in basements in Cleveland and L.A. and wherever else there were weirdos who thought YES — music should be more raw, more real, more desperate, more NOW!

The noise that The Saints kicked up sounded awfully close to what the Ramones did, yes. But The Saints did not hear the Ramones until one month before they entered the studio to record the "(I'm) Stranded" 45! Kuepper told me he went to Bailey's place and told him, "Shit, we got beat!"

But The Saints didn’t need the Ramones to tell them how pissed off they were. “(I’m) Stranded” was the universal scream. These guys weren’t following each other — they were following the void. They had to.

When "(I'm) Stranded" came out, everyone was dumbfounded! Punk rock was a virus, spread among a few like minded souls who did not know one another in these far-flung climes, and it just went pandemic! It was, “Oh, there’s others like us? No shit — better turn up even LOUDER then.”

It wasn’t a movement yet. It was parallel evolution. Same as what happened with free jazz in the ’60s or garage in ’66. Nobody was trading tapes or TikToks. They just felt the pressure, and boom — same explosion everywhere at once. That 45 from Australia that sounded like it’d been smuggled in from another planet where people actually gave a shit proved it.

That’s why The Saints are the most punk of the punk rockers. Brisbane wasn’t a scene. It was a cage. And they kicked the goddamn door down and came marching in, anyway. That’s the whole punk rock contract. The Saints didn’t wait for permission—no one should.

The Box, The Mix, The Revelation

Which is all fine and good. Now you get the context and appreciate Why The Saints, and This Record, Fucking Well Mattered. But do we really need four LPs of (I’m) Stranded?!

In a word? “Yes!” Because this isn’t purely four LPs of (I’m) Stranded! This ain’t some half-assed reissue slapped together to milk nostalgia dollars. In The Red knew better. They did it right — and loud.

Inside this black box with the “THE SAINTS (I’M) STRANDED” legend painted on the band’s Club 76 practice space — the same typography that fronted the original LP — the first of the four 12-inches features the official 1977 release of the album.

It was recorded in October 1976 at Window Studios, where engineer/producer Mark Moffat had already cut “(I’m) Stranded”/“No Time” that May. This time, EMI was footing the bill, with Rod Coe at the controls. What we didn’t know, until now? That familiar version was a later remix by Bailey and Kuepper.

“When I heard it, I thought, ‘Oh, this makes us sound really weak,’” Kuepper told Ugly Things editor Mike Stax on his podcast. “I heard the band in a much more mono kind of way. Rod had done this — by my standards at the time — fairly expansive, almost commercial mix. I thought, ‘It doesn’t sound like the band sounds.’”

Coe’s original 1976 mix — with its original running order — takes up the second LP. It’s a hell of a contrast.

Bailey and Kuepper’s familiar remix is big, monolithic, brutal — a solid blast, with Kuepper’s SG buzzsaw ripping through everything, including Bailey’s snotty Phil May-on-skid row vocals.

Coe’s mix? Totally different animal. Everything separated. Kuepper laid down two interlocking guitar tracks. Coe pinned them hard left and right, instead of creating that giant, hairy wall of noise. Bailey’s vocals are much more exposed here, which made him uneasy: “He wanted reverb on his vocals,” Kuepper explained.

It’s like that Star Trek episode where the Enterprise’s transporter malfunctions like Chat GPT trying to write my Substack for me, and Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura swap universes by accident — same faces, same ship, but everything’s off and just a little meaner. Except everything’s off on Coe’s mix, while the Bailey/Kuepper remix we all know and love is a LOT meaner! There’s nothing wrong with the ‘76 version, but it’s a different look at (I’m) Stranded, with a lot more details surfacing. You can REALLY hear the rhythm section now. Kym Bradshaw wasn’t just thumping root notes — he played fully formed basslines, much like, say, Glen Matlock.

“Captain, why is this being from the 21st century comparing us to a ‘70s punk band? Isn’t that illogical” (📷 Pic: Courtesy Paramount Pictures)

And just to continue the “Mirror, Mirror” effect, LP #2 features an earlier version of “Untitled.” With an entirely new set of lyrics, it was a highlight of Eternally Yours, the band’s 1978 second album. “Untitled Orig. Version” works just as well, enough to make you wonder why Bailey re-wrote those words. Then again, Bailey was Bailey — always ready to change it up, just because.

END PART ONE.

To be continued in Part Two: 45s, fists, live breakdowns, and brass knuckles in the mix. You’ll want the full blast.

This Is the Part Where You Join the Band

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