Street to Street (1979) – A Liverpool Album. Vol 1.

The opening lines in OMD’s original website (see http://www.omd.uk.com/html/biography.html ) succinctly but effectively depicts the ferment of the post-punk era in Liverpool like this: “Liverpool's music scene in the late 1970's was an exciting and dynamic place to be. Everyone was either in a band, in-between bands or were forming a band.” The most sadly missed John Peel (RiP) defined such fertile and ever-changing quality characterising all sorts of activities related to music in post-punk Liverpool as “a study […] in impermanence and experimentation”.
The dynamics and the ever-changing … of the scene are
Such mix of naivety and ingenuity, serendipity and dedication, dreams, blisters and sweat, is best captured on anthologies like the Zoo compilations (posted a while ago, see below) and on the ‘Street to Street’ compilations posted here today.
The first Lp (1979) collected pieces released between May 1978 and May 1979. Here’s the track-listing:

Street to Street (1979) – A Liverpool Album. Vol 1.

1. Big In Japan "Match Of The Day"
2. The Id "Julia's Song"
3. Jaqui & Jeanette "194 Radio City"
4. Modern Eon "Benched Down / 70s Sixties"
5. Activity Minimal "Television Game"
6. Dead Trout "The Arab"
7. Tontrix "Clear On Radar"
8. The Accelerators "Radio Blues"
9. Malchix "Crisis"
10. Fun "I Heard You Call My Name"
11. The Moderates "I Don't Want To Go Bald"
12. Echo & The Bunnymen "Monkeys"

Beside Big in Japan, here are featured other interesting bands, namely:

The Id: This act, active between 1977 and the summer 1978, was a seven-piece band - three singers, two guitarists, bassist, drummer, and keyboard player. The line-up consisted of Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey, and Malcolm Holmes on drums, all of whom will end up in Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark (OMD). The song featured in the compilation was written by Julia Kneale (McCluskey's girlfriend) – hence the title – who also was a member of the band (on vocals). The Id, which had quite a following on the scene, split in 1978 due to musical differences, after which McCluskey started singing for Dalek I Love You, before joining up again with Humphreys, in a band call VCL-XI. The duo, heavily influenced by the emerging electronic music (Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, Human League, etc.), soon changed the name into Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The rest is history.

Jaqui & Jeanette: The only song by the band ‘194 Radio City’ was composed during a jam session over an original idea by Ian Broudie, who plays guitar (as on Match of the Day, by Big in Japan), together with Budgie (ex Big in Japan and currently with the Slits) on drums, Dave Balfe on keyboards, Ambrose (of Walkie Talkies and later Pink Industry) on bass. Former Deaf School Steve Lindsey sings with Gary Dwyer, (drummer with the Teardrop Explodes) behind the female duo. – (Curiously enough, in the same period – September 1978 – Broudie, Budgie and Lindsey formed the Secrets. Jaqui & Jeanette can thus be regarded as an early version of is this the Secrets.

Modern Eon (formerly Luglo Slugs/ Tank Time/ One Two) are here represented in their three piece formation, with ex Luglo Slugs’s members Alex Plain (aka Alex Johnston, guitar, vocals), Danny Hampson (bass), and Dave Hardbattle (drums). The tracks were rehearsed in a shed in Hasrdbattle's parents home prior to being recorded in the Open Eye Gallery Studios, then located on Whitechapel, Liverpool. Alex Plain/Johnston designed the album sleeve. Hardbattle would later be replaced by Joey McKechnie in the consolidated line-up, plus a yet non-permanent fourth member (probably Ged Allen on guitar). This was the first band release on vinyl (and not very representative of Modern Eon as we know it).

Activity Minimal: In this reggae/punk band (1978-80) met Joey McKechnie and Tim Lever – the former almost at the end of his experience with Modern Eon, the latter briefly before joining the same band. Among the other members of the band there was John 'Strange' Hawkins (later in Systems, featured in Street to Street, Vol. II). Drummer Joey was also instrumental in the establishment of the Merseyside Musicians Co-Op.

Tontrix: This was a very short-lived act (already split by the time the Lp got released) which is worth mention if only for the future career of the members: Hambi Haralambous (later of, Victims of Romance and Hambi and the Dance, with Wayne Hussey), Chris Hughes (later Hambi and the Dance and Adam and the Ants) – Hughes replaced former drummer Ian Johnston - Steve Lovell (later Hollycaust, Hambi and the Dance, and guitarist of Julian Cope), Mike Score (later Flock of Seagulls), Bobby Carr (former Those Naughty Lumps, and also with The Moderates). This is possibly one of the few ‘unknown’ band on the compilation (that is beside Big inJapan, and Echo & the Bunnymen) to have other vinyl releases (the single Shell Shocked, 1979) beside the ones on the compilation itself.

Very little info (and musical future for the other bands): Fun: (formed by future members of Berlin and Victims of Romance - Roy White, Johnny Reynolds, Jim Mealy, Gerry Garland and Brian Rawlins - some of which then became White & Torch and the Roy White Band; allegedly, they got the name from Iggy Pop’s number Fun House: the song featured here sounds like Iggy Pop singing over a Roxy Music tune); Accelerators (comprising members that will end up in the Adams Family and in Lawnmower); Malchix (collected former members of Hugo Dines Band, many of whom went on to form the act Cracked Actor and Poland in the late eighties); The Moderates and the Dead Trout (a mystery to my best knowledge).

The compilation ends with the then three-piece act Echo and the Bunnymen: here is one of the few traces on vinyl featuring the band original drummer: Echo, a drum-machine. According to some Bunnymen's biographers, Julian Cope plays the keyboards on this song .

Finally, the legend goes that The Teardrop Explodes had also recorded a track for this album, but an engineer inadvertently taped over it! (http://www.omd.uk.com/discography/id/html/street.html )