In the liner notes of this wonderful compilation the compilers try to figure out what ‘post punk’ really is. Well, it’s just a pigeon hole bands are put in to make it easier to describe them. So what’s this all about then? In the late seventies/early eighties and the end of the nineties/beginning of this millennium there were two waves of similar bands. The first came after the first punk explosion and took the punk DIY and against the grain culture to a musically more interesting level. Instead of just playing simplified rock with an attitude bands like Gang Of Four and Au Pairs dared to be different musically as well.

At the end of the millennium another generation of bands was fed up with what was going on and what they came up is something that sounded surprisingly a lot like what had been going on some 20 years before.

This time it were bands like Life Without Buildings and Chicks On Speed. And the compilers are right. These two generations of bands not only have similar ideas about music and image, there are similarities in production and songwriting as well. What strikes me funny about all these bands is that their anti-rock star image is just as much an image as, let’s say Manowar’s true metal extravaganza. I doubt they realize this themselves! And of course a lot of the bands are way too pretentious, but hey, that’s part of the fun.

The compilation has clearly been put together with care and love for the music. Song quality is high all the way through. Most interesting is the older stuff though, because most of all `Rough Trade Shops vol. 01` shows that good music stands strong in time no matter when, how or why it was made.