The Action
Complete Punk Recordings 1977-1978
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Label: Sudden Death Records
The Action were an early Canadian punk rock band from the Ottawa, formed before the big, British punk explosion carried groups like the Clash and the Damned around the world. The Action grew up on a steady diet of workingman's blues, like the Stones and Status Quo, but as the scenes in New York and London started to make headway, they were quick to adjust their sound - the first EPs, like Downtown Boy, catch lead singer Ted Axe growling and rolling his r's like Johnny Rotten.
As "Success Without College" suggests, the Action were not about book-learning, nor was their music full of lyrical allusions. The sexual innuendo of "Seafood Mama" was about as complex as it got. Their first single, "T.V.'s On The Blink," is entirely without the irony that made Black Flag's "TV Party" a hit, though Action were much more approachable. To their credit, the Action wrote and performed in an era that valued simple and direct songwriting, with an emphasis on performance. Perform, they did, grinding out their identity with residencies in Quebecois dive bars, earning themselves spots opening for the likes of the Ramones and the Stranglers- a British band with whom they shared many similarities. Songs like "Do The Strangle" demonstrate that the Fenton brothers (John, Mike, and Paul) were far better musicians than many of their contemporaries, a testament to the long hours playing two sets a night while dodging beer cans. Later songs, such as "Let You Down All The Way," recorded live in their second home, Montreal, catches the band in full flight with simpler rhythm and blues fare played out at an aggressive pace. There's a fairly rambunctious eight-minute cover of the Stones' "Midnight Rambler," unfathomably long for a punk song, as well as the Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man." The band was proud to claim Lou Reed included it in his own record collection.
The Action didn't make it much past 1981, as the emergence of hardcore swept away much that went before it. The bad was too steeped in pre-punk music and were too solid as musicians to transition into the no-holds-barred frenzy that was to come. Slower, more expansive songs like "Zona Rosa," a hit with older fans, sounded limp and flaccid to younger ears raised on the Germs and Minor Threat, while other songs like the bluesy "Arena" sounded positively baroque. However, The Action were not alone during that first flowering of punk to combine soon to be classic rock stylings with a punk edge, and fans of early punk will be happy that the western Canadian record label Sudden Death, longtime home to D.O.A., has chosen to unearth the group, since D.O.A. played a large role in the ushering in the hardcore age. Listeners interested in hearing how North American punk sounded outside the major coastal centers would also do well to pick this one up.
by Sean Marchetto