Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias

The Albertos were to the British punk scene of the late '70s what the Mothers of Invention were to America's late-'60s psychedelic movement, arch-satirists and caustic commentators whose satirical assaults were so accurate that a lot of people missed the joke entirely. Certainly it is no surprise today to find such high-octane Albertos punkers as "Kill," "Snuffin' Like That," and "Anarchy in the UK" popping up on sundry otherwise straight-faced punk compilations, while the group's very proximity to some of the era's most hallowed acts has only deepened the confusion. The band was formed in Manchester, England, in 1973 by vocalists CP Lee and Les Prior, bassist Jimmy Hibbert, guitarists Bob Harding, Simon White, and Tony Bowers, and drummers Ray Hughes and Bruce Mitchell, many of whom had played together in an earlier band, Greasy Bear. Initially pursuing the same kind of musical hybrid that made cult heroes of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, the Albertos first came to attention as one of the era's most ubiquitous support acts -- there was a period when it seemed impossible to attend a show and not find them opening the bill. Neither did they find it hard to find an audience of their own; a wicked parody of Lou Reed's "Heroin," renamed for the headache medicine Anadin, became as beloved as the similarly irreverent Supercharge's notorious Drifters parody, "She Moved the Dishes First." Whereas Supercharge, however, was prone to wander off into less amusing funk pastures, the Albertos remained a sharp comedy team and, having signed with the Transatlantic label in 1975, they concocted a debut single that matched the recently proclaimed superstardom of Bob Marley with the simultaneous success of the movie Jaws: "Dread Jaws." A self-titled album followed in 1976, while 1977 saw...