REVIEW: Various Artists, Punk University (Oglio)

- Joe Silva

Oglio continues to lead the charge back through the pre-120 Minutes playlists of college radio with this disc. Pulling together some already well celebrated tracks and a couple of obscuros for that flourish of authenticity, this compilation plays OK from start to finish, if not just a little unevenly. Oglio hits almost all the milestone moments of the safety pin set, gravitating from the early UK (Buzzcocks) and US (Ramones) takes on the punk subject, to the last hurrah's on the west coast (Suicidal Tendencies). Asides like Vandals "Ladykiller" is the kind of catchy dud new wave that's kept buried way deep in your vinyl collection and only gets played when no one's looking. The Bible for most of this stuff (read: The Trouser Press Record Guide) cites the Adolescents as bit players from Agent Orange and Social Distortion talented enough to slow down some just as Oi was revving up. Their inclusion ("Amoeba") as well as Redd Kross's "Annette's Got the Hits" point you to the old Rodney on the (Los Angeles radio station K)ROQ collections where they were lifted from and historically speaking, are probably better tours of the era gone by. Most out of place is the Killing Joke selection, "Eighties"; no doubt a peak point in their career, but a weird way to round this all up. Anyone who has any number of these tracks, probably wouldn't string them back to back for listening's sake, but they do show what a blissfully mixed bag the left end of the radio dial was in it's nascent days.