if it's not stiff... it ain't worth a fuck!! but at one time..... Hell Yeah Richard Hell!!

Stiff Records is a record label created in London in 1976 by Dave Robinson and Andrew Jakeman (aka Jake Riviera) and active until 1985. The label signed pub rock acts and marketed them as punk and new wave, including Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Elvis Costello and Ian Dury. The marketing and advertising was often provocative and witty. Stiff billed itself as "The World's Most Flexible Record Label". Other slogans were "We Came. We Saw. We Left.", "If It Ain't Stiff, It Ain't Worth A Fuck" and "When You Kill Time, You Murder Success" (printed on promotional wall clocks). On the label of the Stiff sampler compilation "Heroes & Cowards" was printed "In '78 everyone born in '45 will be 33-1/3". A very early Stiff sampler album, "A Bunch Of Stiff Records" (released in 1977), introduced the slogan "If They're Dead, We'll Sign Them" and "Undertakers To The Industry".Stiff also produced eccentric but highly effective promotional campaigns, such as the three package tours in 1977 (Live Stiffs), 1978 (Be Stiff) and 1980 (Son Of Stiff), Elvis Costello's "busking outside CBS Records" arrest and the at least 29 different wallpaper sleeves printed for Ian Dury's second album, "Do It Yourself", with associated unscheduled makeovers of unsuspecting record shops. Barney Bubbles was responsible for much of the graphic art associated with the early Stiff releases.The first tour, known as the Live Stiffs Tour or 5 Live Stiffs (October 3 to November 5, 1977), comprised five bands: Elvis Costello And The Attractions, Ian Dury And The Blockheads, Wreckless Eric And The New Rockets, Nick Lowe's Last Chicken In The Shop and Larry Wallis's Psychedelic Rowdies. Having signed all the named artists as individuals, bands had to be formed in order to tour: these were largely based on the session musicians used for the artists' solo records. There were 18 musicians on the tour, several doubling up, e.g. Dury playing drums for Wreckless, whilst the last two "bands" had the same line-up (Nick Lowe, Larry Wallis, Dave Edmunds, Terry Williams, Pete Thomas and Penny Tobin). The original idea was that the running order would rotate each night, but Dury and Costello were clearly the strongest acts. Costello played mostly new material and covers, rather than numbers from his recently released album "My Aim Is True", so the gigs usually ended with most of the artists on stage performing Dury's "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll". A live album "Live Stiffs Live" and video of the tour were produced, but the tour only covered the UK.After the departure of Riviera in early 1978, Robinson arranged a second tour, the Be Stiff or the Be Stiff Route 78 Tour (October–November 1978) again comprising five acts: Wreckless Eric, Lene Lovich, Jona Lewie, Mickey Jupp and Rachel Sweet. The UK tour was undertaken by train and then continued on to the U.S., without Jupp, who was afraid of flying. The artists contributed to an EP with covers of the Devo song and 1978 Stiff single "Be Stiff". The 12" EP was released in 1979 with the sleevenotes: "Many of these versions may bear no resemblance to the original Devo title. We hold no responsibility for any uptight people." The final tour, the Son Of Stiff Tour 1980 comprised Ten Pole Tudor, Any Trouble, Dirty Looks, Joe "King" Carrasco And The Crowns and The Equators. This was a Europe wide tour, undertaken by bus. The tour led to a 12" EP "The Son Of Stiff Tour 1980" (SON 1) and a short movie directed by Jeff Baynes. The movie has not been released for sale, but was shown on BBC4 in September 2006.The label was reactivated in 2007. Stiff became responsible for breaking one of the UK's hottest new indie acts The Enemy. It then released a string of acclaimed albums of new work from acts associated with Stiff Records, such as Wreckless Eric, Henry Priestman, Any Trouble and Chris Difford. Other brand new acts signed to the label included The Tranzmitors and Eskimo Disco. Swedish designer Tobbe Stuhre was appointed official Stiff Records designer.

this is a double album (2CD) with 45 Stiff singles, released in 1997 on Universal Music International & MCA Records.

Track Listing:
1. Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
2. Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives
3. Madness - One Step Beyond
4. Kirsty MacColl - They Don't Know
5. Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World
6. Jona Lewie - You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties
7. The Adverts - One Chord Wonders
8. The Members - Solitary Confinement
9. Pink Fairies - Between The Lines
10. The Yachts - Suffice To Say
11. Billy Bremner - Loud Music In Cars
12. Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin - It's My Party
13. John Otway - Green, Green Grass Of Home
14. Motorhead - White Line Fever
15. Graham Parker & The Rumour - Mercury Poisoning
16. Larry Wallis - Police Car
17. Nick Lowe - So It Goes
18. Richard Hell - (I Belong To The) Blank Generation
19. The Pogues - Dark Streets Of London
20. Tenpole Tudor - Swords Of A Thousand Men
21. Department S - Is Vic There?
22. The Damned - New Rose
23. Lene Lovich - Lucky Number
24. Elvis Costello - Alison
25. Madness - My Girl
26. The Pogues Featuring Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York
27. Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry
28. Furniture - Brilliant Mind
29. Theatre Of Hate - Do You Believe In The Westworld
30. Kirsty MacColl - A New England
31. Yello - I Love You
32. Department S - Going Left Right
33. Tracey Ullman - Breakaway
34. Rachel Sweet - B-A-B-Y
35. The Untouchables - Free Yourself
36. Jane Aire & The Belvederes - Yankee Wheels
37. Dave Stewart & Colin Blunstone - What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted
38. The Belle Stars - Sign Of The Times
39. Nick Lowe - Heart Of The City
40. Lene Lovich - I Think We're Alone Now
41. Tenpole Tudor - Wunderbar
42. Devo - Jocko Homo
43. King Kurt - Destination Zululand
44. The Damned - Neat Neat Neat
45. Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

 




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Richard Hell (Richard Meyers) is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer. Hell is best known as frontman for the early punk rock band Richard Hell & The Voidoids. He was an originator of the punk fashion look, the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins. Hell grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, in the 1950s. He attended Sanford Preparatory, a private secondary school, in Delaware for one year, where he became friends with Tom Miller (Tom Verlaine). Hell never finished high school, but moved to New York City to make his way as a poet. In New York he bought a used table-top offset printing press and began publishing books and magazines under the imprints Genesis: Grasp and then Dot Books. Before he was twenty-one his own poems were published in numerous periodicals, ranging from Rolling Stone to the New Directions Annuals. In 1969, Verlaine joined Hell in New York and they eventually formed the Neon Boys. Their 1973 demo tracks of "Love Comes In Spurts" and "That's All I Know (Right Now)", later released on Shake Records, were arguably the first punk recordings. In 1974 the band added Richard Lloyd as a second guitar player and changed their name to Television. Hell started playing his song "Blank Generation" during his stint in Television. In 1975, Hell quit (or was fired from) Television after a dispute over creative control. Hell claimed that he and Verlaine had originally divided the songwriting evenly but later Verlaine favored his own songs. Verlaine remains characteristically silent on the subject. He left Television the same week that Jerry Nolan and Johnny Thunders quit the New York Dolls and the three of them formed a band called The Heartbreakers in May 1975. After a few shows Walter Lure joined The Heartbreakers as a second guitar player.
A year later, in early 1976, Hell quit The Heartbreakers and started Richard Hell & The Voidoids with Robert Quine (guitar), Ivan Julian (guitar) and Marc Bell (drums). The band released two albums, though the second, "Destiny Street", was a less successful line-up that retained only Quine from the original group and suffered from Hell's distractions, narcotics especially, during recording, as he himself has described. Besides Hell and Quine, the line-up on "Destiny Street" was Naux (Juan Maciel) on guitar and Fred Maher on drums.