• 5CD set bringing a comprehensive, big-tent look at the early years of punk rock in the US and Canada. • Over six hours of music. • Includes benchmark tracks by the scene’s most influential bands plus many rare singles making their first appearance on CD. Named after Richard Hell’s epoch-defining anthem, ‘Blank Generation’ documents the emergence in North America of what came to be labelled punk rock. A year or two prior to punk exploding in the UK, bands who’d been playing live in venues like New York City’s CBGB started releasing records, often on independent labels, as an antidote to the prevailing disco and corporate soft rock which dominated the US charts. This five CD reflects those influential NYC bands – Patti Smith Group, The Ramones, Television, Blondie, The Voidoids, etc. – as well as the scene’s other pioneers such as Pere Ubu and The Dead Boys (both Cleveland, Ohio), Dead Kennedys and Crime (San Francisco), Devo (Akron, Ohio), The Germs and The Weirdos (Los Angeles) and Mission of Burma (Boston, Massachusetts). ‘Blank Generation’ offers a deliberately broad definition of punk, encompassing contributions from such outré acts as Suicide, The Cramps and The Residents through to new wave/power pop combos (Sneakers, Chris Stamey & the dB’s, etc.). Also present are contemporary recordings by some of the mavericks who inspired punk – Destroy All Monsters (Detroit) boasted ex-members of The Stooges and The MC5 and The Heartbreakers and Killer Kane Band spun off the New York Dolls. While the US punk scene was arguably always more diverse musically than that of the UK, the music evolved quickly, as evinced by the choices heard on Discs 4 and 5. Many of the acts here such as X, The Replacements, The Feelies, Redd Kross, The Dream Syndicate, The Gun Club and Minor Threat would make an even greater impact as the 1980s wore on. It’s hard to overestimate the seismic shocks caused by the music on ‘Blank Generation’, not only on everything in alternative music which followed in North American, from the 80s hardcore scene and the music heard on the whole alternative college radio network through to grunge and beyond. And yet this era has never before been treated to a comprehensive retrospective of this kind.