The Panik - It Won't Sell

Counting June of 1977, the Panik had an approximate twelve month lifespan, calling it quits in May of 1978. Ian went on to join the Manchester area band V2. In this short amount of time, the Panik played about fifteen shows, sharing stages with bands that included the Damned, the Vibrators, Warsaw/Joy Division and Reckless Eric, as well as being on the bill in October 1977 at the Electric Circus, some of the bands were recorded over the two nights and released on the Virgin Records 10” Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus.

“The songs for the EP were written in about two days, and recorded one-takes and mixed in a four hour session. The studio we recorded at was out in the boondocks, and the engineers were Country & Western fans who thought we and our music was from Mars (you have to remember this was before the Sex Pistols really took off and punk was brand new). As I recall Rob Gretton was really pleased with the results, though being quite a laconic guy refused to show it. He was worried about going to the pressing plant to master the tracks, since some of the language on it was not for the drawing room, shall we say. Conversely, the cutting engineer wasn't the least bit fazed, he said he'd had the Wurzels in before us (a comedy/novelty act quite popular in the UK at that time), and their language was fifty times worse than ours. When we got the vinyl, Rob and the band stuffed it into the sleeves by hand, aided by copious amounts of Polish vodka, while we listened to the record over and over (at the time there were very few actual "punk" records in existence).” --Henry Rollins