The Riot City Years

Chaos UK are an English punk rock band formed in 1979 in Portishead, near Bristol.They emerged as part of the anarcho-punk scene, developing a fast and aggressive hardcore punk style.The original line-up of Simon Greenham on vocals, Andy on guitar, Chaos (aka "Lice") on bass and Potts on drums recorded two EP's and a full LP for Riot City Records.In the process they along with fellow Bristolians Disorder and Stoke's Discharge revolutionised the hardcore punk scene.In particular the Japanese 80's hardcore punk bands were heavily influenced by Chaos UK and Disorder's brutal take on punk.Chaos UK's debut LP was notable in the fact that the band's label claimed it was the "fastest, noisiest LP in the cosmos" in the short lived "Punk Lives" magazine; vocal duties on this recording were also handled by bassist Chaos. The mid-1980s saw an almost new line-up, with Chaos remaining the only original member.He was joined by Mower on vocals, Gabba on guitar (previously with Nottingham's The Seats Of Piss) and Chuck on drums.Over the rest of the 1980s, Chaos UK were the mainstay and lynchpin of the UK hardcore punk scene playing many hundreds of shows around the world, including Japan (the first English punk band to do so, but with a stand-in drummer, Blackmore of Bristol punk band Lunatic Fringe), the US, Mexico and all over Europe.

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