“60 Years On…” 03-13-25 playlist Hr.2
*Saucers – Muckraker
Mink DeVille – Let Me Dream If I Want To
*Saucers – Orpheus
The Stranglers – Hanging Around
*Saucers – Roadmaster
The Reaction – I Am A Case
*Saucers – I Didn’t Get It
The Boys – I Don’t Care
*Saucers – What We Do
The Undertones – Teenage Kicks
*Saucers – A Certain Kind Of Shy
The Jam – Town Called Malice
*Saucers – Quiet Boy
The Vibrators – Baby, Baby
*Saucers – Annie
*Saucers – I Need Drugs
The Damned – Neat Neat Neat
*IMC ‘Zine #Supplemental Issue Apr. ’03 Feature CD – Saucers – “WHATWEDID”
26 years ago on Sept. 1, 1998 I founded IndepenDisc Music Club.
To Celebrate, during hour #2, we will revisit all the IndepenDisc Monthly Feature CDs/Artists from 1998 – 2013.
Supplemental Issue Apr. ‘03
SAUCERS – WHATWEDID
“I received the “WHATWEDID” CD by Saucers and couldn’t believe it!
After listening to this CD over and over again, I find myself wanting, no, NEEDING to tell people about it, to turn them on to it, to let them hear what a complete diary of the Punk/New Wave scene of New Haven, CT in the late 70s/early 80s sounds like. This is more than a nostalgia trip, I feel it is a very important historical document, and needs to be presented to more than just the Connecticut Local scene. I can’t tell you how amazed I am at the accuracy of the music in reflecting the times; it has brought back floods of great memories, of great times, and has really given me a fresh shot of musical adrenalin from my youth.
I saw you guys at Ron’s place a lot back then, Oxford Ale House too. I trolled the bars and was into the Punk/New Wave scene of the late 70s. I also enjoyed The Poodle Boys, and Hot Bodies (as you mentioned in your liner notes), as well as The Snotz and others my mind cannot recall at the moment.”
That’s part of my reply to Craig Bell, founding member of Saucers, a late 70s New Haven phenom that burst forth from the ruins of Cleveland, Ohio’s Rocket From The Tombs. While other RFTT members went on to form Pere Ubu and The Dead Boys, Craig Bell migrated to New Haven CT, and through a series of personal ads created Saucers in 1977. The band went through a couple of minor line up changes over 2+ years, played many, many, many gigs at the afore mentioned Ron’s Place and Oxford Ale House (2 of the finest underground Punk/New Wave bars that dotted New Haven’s city streets in the prime years of musical upheaval/revolution from the underclass form of music, which was used as an escape from the reality that we lived under the shadow of the atomic sun, in the “No Future” present of the times.), released 2 singles (What We Do, A Certain Kind Of Shy), had a cut (Muckraker) on the 1982 Gustav compilation “It Happened But Nobody Noticed” LP chronicling Connecticut bands of the time, and then parted ways.
So began my literal journey back to a time when Corporate Rock-n-Radio – finally getting its toehold in the majority market when, WHAM! Punk smacked the shit out of it, which allowed New Wave to sneak in – began the feeding frenzy of turning the music revolution into a commercialized commodity (so in realistic terms Punk won). But those who saw the reality as an artistic way to improve their life, not on the monetary plane, but on the spiritual one, couldn’t survive. They couldn’t keep on doing what they did in a burst of creative effort when the results were the sum of the whole (scene), the magic could not be carried on in a band by band basis.
That is why I’m telling you that no matter how much I try to write about the importance of this CD, I don’t think I can ever get across the whole aura, the whole perspective, the whole culmination of everything the music and the “scene” had to offer and gave us – the members of the late 70s “Lost Generation” (as I have coined it) – as well as the music actually says for itself. Here is a CD that presents for the first time a chronological history of a DIY band born of a revolution, a scene; and yet lost in the overwhelming body of that revolution, that scene. It speaks out as a document of the times on every level and leaves us to shake our heads and wonder why it’s been all but forgotten.
Craig Bell hasn’t forgotten – that’s why 25 years later he’s finally released (for the first time – except for the previously mentioned singles and album cut) everything the Saucers ever recorded. It’s all here; it defines a generation that found itself in the music, a generation that survived because it escaped into the simple joys of freeform musical expression. It’s a testament to the creativity of youth and the timelessness of its power. Listen to it. It truly is What We Did.
– G.Gone
