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the mid-to-late 80's weren't my favourite period in music. But if was bad in the US/UK, it was about ten times worse over here in Europe. While the early batch of Europunk/HC-bands had a certain naivety/cluelessness that only added to the charm, after about 1985 it was boring self-righteous goody-two-shoes stuff all over the map, with pretentious band names like Life... But How To Live It? and album titles like I Want To Tell About A Way. Even though a lot of those bands were nice people (some of them friends of mine), the sheer humourlessness of it all bummed me out even then. And then, in the middle of the hellish depths of 1988, salvation came in the guise of a tape sent to my friend Hans Engel (R.I.P.) by all-around cool guy Anderz Nielsen (who'd booked our band some gigs in Denmark earlier on). Wow, what is this? Everything about the President Fetch tape was perfect and totally at odds with the times; snotty, pissed off singing (only occasionally straying into "strangled eel" Jello-land), ratty guitar, drums that sounded like drums instead of "God's eardrum being whacked by the Eiffel Tower" (got this from someone who'd once tried to describe the Simple Minds drum sound, too good not to use) and great, simple, singalongapunk songwriting. We quickly got them some gigs around our home town; they came, blew the roof off and went. If the number of T-shirts worn around town is a fair indication of how good a band is, then President Fetch are one of the all-time greats, becaus