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

Conclusion of the War and Peace of record reviews. Blimey, this guy’s long-winded!

Ain’t she purty?

PREAMBLE: Just Joining Us? Duck.

Last week, The Saints’ (I’m) Stranded box set tore through here with four sides of gospel and fury—ripping apart expectations, scenes, and speaker cones with every note. We covered the brutal birth—both mixes[!]—the first eruption of noise that rewrote punk’s coordinates. (Catch up here for all the gravel and guitar abuse.)

Now we move deeper into the fire. We have two more LPs to cover.

The Saints fool an idiotic Australian TV interviewer into thinking Ivor’s the singer, 1977.

“This Perfect Day” and the Art of Double Negatives

The remaining pair of albums in the box take the ship further into this universe — familiar, but stranger worlds, where everything’s evolved a few aeons ahead. LP #3, Singles & Live 1977, begins with a side of the brain-eviscerating 45s they released in (I’m) Stranded’s wake through 1977. These were the follow-up punches to Earth’s Most Definitive Punk LP and its Most Definitive Punk 45. (Okay, fine. “New Rose” too.) But these were not leftovers, not repeats. These were advancements, proof The Saints were not a one-shot. They learned to weaponize themselves. Albums are fine, but singles are where punk bands get ruthless.

"This Perfect Day," recorded after their relocation to a London which could not comprehend their lack of leather jackets or spiky hair, blew the doors off — The Saints now fully dialed in to kill, tighter and nastier, blasting at full speed.

And yet, there was some unfathomable sophistication lurking somewhere beneath. The chords are “Paint It, Black,” rendered with more ferocity. The message is probably also akin to that Jagger-Richards chestnut, but more savagely rendered in its explosion of double negatives.

Its B-side, "L-I-E-S," just spits. Pure bile. No wasted breath.

“Do The Robot,” recorded back in Sydney at the "L-I-E-S" session and later added to the 12-inch of “This Perfect Day,” keeps that snarl alive. It’s far more vicious than “International Robots,” the neutered remake on Eternally Yours.

Yes, on the surface, it’s a barbaric parody of some Chubby Checker ‘60s dance record. But couldn’t it also be another attack on the mindless conformity they were seeing in 1977 punk rock London?

The Saints, to quote Groucho Marx, wanted to join no club that would have them as a member. Good thing the English scene clocked their long hair, scruffy lack-of-image, and general surliness, and rejected them upon landing at Heathrow. It was mutual disinterest at first site. The Saints weren’t going to join any scene. They were gonna burn it down.

One-Two-Three-Four: Brass Knuckles in the Studio

Then came the Summer of Seventy-Seven’s magnificent One-Two-Three-Four EP. If it was meant to showcase The Saints in a proper London studio, what it actually did was detonate them.

Connie Francis’ anodyne “Lipstick On Your Collar” opens like a bar brawl in progress — a warped Gene Pitney by way of a migraine. Chris Bailey doesn’t so much sing it as bark it through clenched teeth, like he’s trying to grind down whatever saccharine ‘60s memory it once had. It’s nostalgia turned inside out, bleeding down the walls.

Then come the do-overs: “One Way Street” and “Demolition Girl,” revisited with better gear, tighter arrangements, and way more fury. The original versions on (I’m) Stranded were already unpolished glory. This time, they’re surgical strikes. Every cymbal hit cracks, every downstroke feels like a punch in the chest. Kuepper’s guitar has even more chain drive and serrated teeth than ever. The Saints didn’t soften or smooth anything out in the studio — they sharpened it, even adding a goon squad chorus to “Demolition Girl”’s coda they apparently hadn’t imagined back at Window Studios in October 1976. It’s like they finally got the budget to bring brass knuckles to the fight.

One-Two-Three-Four was them not treating the studio like a luxury, but a weapon. Ed Kuepper always said they considered the original album a demo session. This EP documents what they would’ve done had someone let them set the place on fire properly the first time. And it turns out, what they'd have done is level the block.

The closer, “River Deep Mountain High,” is the final, delirious twist — an Ike & Tina Turner classic turned inside out. Instead of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, you get The Saints’ Wall of Destruction. They don’t romanticize it, they ravage it. Bailey sounds like he’s trying to tear the lyrics from his throat, while Kuepper shreds all over the track like he's chasing something just out of reach.

This is rendered as sheer sonic pressure. It’s The Saints showing you they could take any song, point it at the ceiling, and blow the roof off.

LIVE FROM SYDNEY: Paddington Town Hall, 1977

Flip to Side Two, and we land at one of the most infamous gigs in Australian rock history: Paddington Town Hall, April 21, 1977. The Saints hadn’t yet made their way to London. They'd broken free of their Brisbane cage, now howling in Sydney's pubs. That night, they shared the stage with Radio Birdman, whose banners and iconography loomed large over the venue like totems of underground order.

Bailey didn’t take kindly to that. Right after tearing through “This Perfect Day,” he snarled: “We want to thank, as a group, the local chapter of the Hitler Youth, who put up all the fine props….” It didn’t go over well, especially with the headliner. But that was The Saints: no gods, no scene, no diplomacy. Just noise, nerve, and the absolute refusal to play nice.

And the performance? A goddamn nervous breakdown, committed to tape. You get five cuts: “This Perfect Day,” “Run Down (Orig. Version)” — after which Bailey dryly mutters, “Better than a fuck up the arse…” — followed by “Erotic Neurotic,” “Demolition Girl,” and “Nights in Venice.”

They’re not just live versions — they’re live wires. “Erotic Neurotic” isn’t coy or clever. It’s Bailey spitting out every half-formed lust and loathing in one breath, while Kuepper plays like he’s trying to saw the neck off his guitar. It’s sex, shame, and survival, all bleeding through the speakers.

“Demolition Girl” hits harder than ever. This is punk as a boot to the chest, meaner than the studio take, now with none of the restraint. Every beat lands like a dare.

And then there's “Nights in Venice.” In the studio, it was already a siren song at the end of the world. But here? It is the end of the world. Live, it slows down like a city collapsing in real time — menacing, echo-drenched, beautiful in its ruin. You can hear Bailey’s voice crumbling around the words, the band drifting between tight control and total implosion.

This is the sound of a band still in exile, still being told they didn’t belong, and playing like they were going to drag everyone else down with them. Paddington wasn’t just a show. It was a warning. To whom? Australia? Radio Birdman? London, looming on the horizon? Most likely all the above… .

Here’s the complete gig. You’re welcome.

THE HOPE & ANCHOR RECORDING: The Final Detonation

Which brings us to Record #4: Live at the Hope & Anchor, London 26.11.77.

It was taped for that Hope & Anchor Front Row Festival album from '78, which I only really bought for The Saints and X-Ray Spex tracks. And considering how brutal the take of "Demolition Girl" was on that album, it's no wonder this vies with the Stones' Got LIVE If You Want It!, Kick Out The Jams, Sam Cooke’s Live At The Harlem Square Club — 1963, and Cheap Trick At Budokan for the honor of Greatest Live Rock 'n' Roll Recording Ever!

Kuepper, assisted by co-producer Alex Compton and engineer Don Bartley, mixed the original multitracks in February 2004 at Sydney’s Studios 301, for inclusion on an earlier Saints career summary box. This marks the first vinylization of the live set, that scorched-earth version of “Demolition Girl” aside. Hearing in context, you realize this doesn’t just belong in the conversation—it dominates it.

Future Damned bassist Alisdair “Algy” Ward has replaced Bradshaw’s nimble, near-Entwhistle pressure drop with a more thuggish, driving bottom end, placing this 13 song set under heavy manners. In fact, everything about Hope & Anchor makes this the most sawn-off, feral, and disruptive music The Saints ever played. Ivor Hay, already the most idiosyncratic drummer in all of punk, pushes the band to their limits — not just faster and harder, but with a sense of, “There’s the cliff! LET’S FUCKING FLOOR IT!!”

Kuepper, with his SG, his MXR Distortion+, and church PA for a guitar amp, has never made a more tuneful grind in his life. This is him feeding sheet metal into an industrial meat grinder and delighting in the unholy racket. And fucking Bailey! He sounds like a man clawing his way out of his own skin, but bored with the effort. Every syllable is spit like a curse, like he’s seconds from either setting the room on fire or walking out without a word. It’s desperation and disgust twisted together, but all delivered with that infamous Bailey detachment—pure, snarling ennui laced with barely-contained fury. Like he’s too smart for the apocalypse, but he’ll sing through it anyway, just to say he told you so.

Of course, it closes the box. No music could withstand the onslaught. Not even (I’m) Stranded.

CLOSING ARGUMENT: Feed the Kids The Saints, Not Sandwiches!

So, dear reader—2928 words later—you ask, “Is this for real? Should I buy this box set? It does cost over $100.” Honestly, do without luxuries like rent and groceries this month. The Saints’ (I’m) Stranded box is the album of the year. The kids don’t need their shoes or PBJ sandwiches in their school lunches. They need you to buy this. And now. It is your duty to the youth of America. Don’t blow it.

Bonus: Bailey confounds Countdown host Molly Meldrum, who happens to be in London, searching for punk, 1977.

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Coming this week at The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack:
A tribute to the enigma that was David Thomas.
A celebration of Elsbeth and her psychic daughters saving the modern detective show.
And a scorching reminder to one Detroit redneck: don’t ever drop the n-word on my phone.

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