“The Rare Stuff” 1979 comp on Harvest Records of tracks by punk/new wave bands including The Saints, Wire, Rich Kids, The Flys, The Banned and The Shirts.  The Saints, early punks from Australia, have four tracks (they, and Wire, are probably the biggest acts showcased on the LP): “River Deep Mountain High” (a punked-up and almost unrecognizable cover of Ike & Tina Turner’s famous song), “One Way Street,” “Lipstick on Your Collar” (a golden oldie which was a hit for Connie Francis in 1959; The Saints version is much better) and “Demolition Girl,” all originally recorded during their debut album – (I’m) Stranded – 1976/77 sessions.  Experimentally punk Wire from the UK has just two tracks: “Dot Dash” and “Options R” which were recorded – but not included – on their amazing debut record Pink Flag. Rich Kids, formed by ex-Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock with vocals by future Ultravox member Midge Ure, have one track, “Only Arsenic” which they recorded during their sole album’s session Ghosts of Princes in Towers and released as the B-side to the LP’s title track single. It’s not particularly Sex Pistols-esque – rather it’s rough-edged 60′s-styled garage-pop, lending even more weight to the rumor that Matlock was fired from the Pistols for expressing his admiration for The Beatles. I’m not very familiar with the other bands on The Rare Stuff. The Flys, a British band described by Allmusic as “Half punk, half pop, a jangling, jarring cross between the Byrds and the Buzzcocks,” have four tracks: “E.C.4″ (which is really great!), “Love and a Molotov Cocktail,” “Can I Crash Here?” (also excellent) and “Civilization” which I believe were all recorded (but, again, not included) during sessions for their 1978 debut album Waikiki Beach Refugees and the EP Love and a Molotov Cocktail. The Banned, also from England, “only [released] two singles released at the height of punk. Both were cover versions delivered in a power pop vein – arousing suspicions that the group were among the many members of the pub rock fraternity attempting to jump onto punk’s bandwagon.” (Allmusic) All four songs from those two singles are on The Rare Stuff: “Him or Me,” “You Dirty Rat” (both originally by Paul Revere and the Raiders), “C.P.G.J.’s” and a fairly faithful rendition of “Little Girl” (originally by Syndicate of Sound, 1966). The final track is by The Shirts, the lone American band who were contemporaries of Talking Heads. They only get one song on the comp: a kinda sweet, arty song called “Cyrinda” which was the b-side to the song “Tell Me Your Plans” from their debut self-titled release The Shirts in ‘78.