Third World War - Third World War (1971) [1995]

Formed in England in 1970 by manager and producer John Fenton together with songwriters Terry Stamp and Jim Avery. Fenton came up with the band's name and provided a large part of it's musical direction. Phil Brown, the recording engineer of the band's first album quotes him as saying, "I want a no bull-shit working class band--I've has enough of all this pseudo "peace" crap." Do to this attitude, the band's raucous sound and revolutionary lyrics, the band has been described as England's first punk band.

In 1970, the band recorded it's first album Third World War which was released in 1971 on Fly Records. Largely, the themes of the record espoused far-left political sentiment. It featured Stamp on rhythm guitar and vocals, Avery on bass, Mick Liber on lead guitars and Fred Smith (drums). Tony Ashto also added piano on some of the tracks, and Jim Price (trombone and trumpet) and Bobby Keys (saxaphone), American musicians who were providing horns for the Rolling Stones provided some horn parts.

At the time the album was released, the band had yet to play live. In the summer of 1971, Avery, Fenton, and Stamp re-configured the group to get "the best 'live' grouping", which was Stamp, Avery, John Hawkin on piano, John Knightsbridge on lead guitar, and Paul Olson on drums. They toured Finland playing 35 gigs in 30 days, and then went to perform a series of festivals around Europe. 1971 also saw the release of two singles "Ascension Day" b/w "Teddy Teeth Goes Sailing" and "A Little Bit of Urban Rock" b/w "Working Class Man", both of which came out on Fly records.

By the time Third World War went in the studio in 1972 to record their second album, the management at Fly records were becoming unhappy with the band's lack of commercial potential. Hoping to guide the group towards more mainstream acceptability, the label demanded the song "Coshing Old Lady Blues" be removed from the album. Fenton refused to release the album without the track, so Third World War II came out on the Who's Track Records label. Personell on the album was the prior summer's touring lineup, except Craig Collinge replaced Olson on drums. During the recording, Fenton ran out of money and couldn't pay the musicians, and once the record was finished the band broke up.