The Users Sick of You & Show # 418

Released in 1977, Sick of You by the UK band The Users was the first of two singles that this band released before splitting up. Coming from Cambridge, their debut single starts with the raw Stooges/New York Dolls sound of “Sick of You”, while the song treads along with this obvious influence it also features a groove not unlike that of early Brian James-era Damned recordings. Lyrically, the song featured plenty of attitude, adhering to the ethos of Punk Rock, this song was also the debut single on the Raw Records label. When it was initially pressed the first 2,500 copies were mastered poorly, as a result there was a second pressing of the single made. The second pressings featured number picture sleeves as opposed to the first pressings, which did not. At the time of this recording, The Users had only played two gigs, the songs were recorded with producer Mike Kemp in March of 1977 along with two other songs “Louie, Louie” and “Message”, both of which wouldn’t be released for sometime until a compilation album of the bands material was released.

The B-side to the single was “I’m In Love With Today”, the song addressed living for the day and not worrying about anything else, with lyrics such as “People always talk about money saved away/ I just wanna spend it I’m in love with today”, the song attacked the standard view of suburban life, it true Rock and Roll style, these lyrics emphasized the live fast lifestyle. Musically the band also had a Garage Punk element featuring the same rawness of a band such as The Troggs, while the bands output may have been short lived it was like the late 70s Punk scene, brief but explosive. What set this band out from many of the other bands at the time was that the band simply did not just apply the same Ramones aesthetic to their music, but added a bit of Proto-Punk/Garage to the music. The Users second single was the Kicks in Style single, which had a little bit better production to the songs, but it did not have the same reckless abandon as their first single.

The Play List:

1. Mach Kung-Fu – Jungle Bandstand
2. Phono-Comb - Grip n' Grin
3. This Machine Kills Robots – Mineshaft
4. Frontiers – Years
5. Modern Superstitions – School Days
6. Rah Rah – Little Poems
7. Flamin’ Grooves – High Flyin’ Baby
8. Lew Lewis – Boogie On The Street
9. Little Junior’s Blue Flames – Mystery Train
10. Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup – My Baby Left Me
11. Lou Reed – Merry Go Round
12. The Yardbirds – Got To Hurry
13. Drums Along The Gardener – Fish
14. The Beaumonts – She Treats Me Right
15. The Dynamics – I’ll Be Standing There
16. The Mokkers - This Boy
17. The Vores – Stress
18. Colleen Green – I Wanna Be Degraded
19. Forgotten Rebels – This Ain’t Hollywood
20. Cellos – Mass Production Scheme
21. The Users – Sick of You
22. The Users – (I’m) In Love With Today
23. Cold Warps – Dream Creepin'

To download this weeks program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and download the file for August 21. Or subscribe to Revolution Rock as a Podcast.