Dave The Punk

Party Games & Ultimate Challenge: The Records That Never Were

No official releases. No barcodes. No label deals. Just cassette copies passed between friends, hissy rehearsals, and one glorious biscuit tin archive. Party Games (1984) was our mythical debut — twelve tracks of teenage fury, distortion, and questionable tuning. Ultimate Challenge (1985) followed posthumously: an 8-track swansong nobody asked for, but everyone secretly loved. Neither album was ever properly recorded, produced, or released… which makes them even more legendary.

Plug in your imagination, drop the needle in your mind — and welcome to what might’ve been.

Party Games

• Year: 1984
• Label: Self-released (i.e. imaginary)
• Format: Cassette-only, badly dubbed, sleeve photocopied in the college library.
• Tagline: Twelve tracks. Zero apologies. One trip to A&E.

A chaotic debut that captured the rage, confusion, and slightly off-tempo energy of a band trying to burn the world down with blunt instruments. Half political, half absurd, entirely teenage. Includes the infamous “double bass” closer.

Tracklist:

1. Repulsion Rock – The perfect opener: brutal, twitchy, and barely in control.
2. P.N.E.U. – Four letters. One obsession. Whispered in corridors, chanted at gigs, never explained.
3. Oral Sects – Punk rock wordplay at its filthiest.
4. Desensitized – Moody, minimal, with synths that sounded like dying microwaves.
5. Party Games – Title track. An anthem for the disaffected sixth form revolution.
6. To Know the Unknown – Gothic paranoia with a sneer.
7. Holocaust – Melodic, bleak, confrontational — very banned-in-the-library-core.
8. Dance of Consecration – The cult classic. Eerie, slow-building chaos.
9. Land of Filth and Money – Thatcher gets both barrels in 90 seconds.
10. Never Say Die – Irony level: high. Volume: higher.
11. Walk of Death – The Mk III version. Lyrically grim, musically feral.
12. Killing on a Sunday – The legendary closer. Dual bass. Maximum doom. Sung like a sermon gone wrong.

Ultimate Challenge EP

• Year: 1985
• Label: Still none
• Format: 8-track EP. Possibly recorded on a Fisher-Price tape deck.
• Tagline: More focused. Still furious. Slightly better at tuning.

Tracklist:

1. Ultimate Challenge – Title track. Big riffs, big themes, small budget.
2. Capo Joe – Character study of a man, a capo, and poor life choices.
3. Always Loose – Punk-funk messiness. No idea what it meant. Still cool.
4. Media Trance – Broadcast brainwashing never sounded so catchy.
5. The Cutter – Razor-sharp rhythm with lyrics too dark for college print.
6. Modernization – Buzzsaw guitars vs. dystopian synth. Punk goes paranoid.
7. Snow Flame – Psychedelic-ish and completely out of place. Loved by three people.
8. Words Will Come – Slower, spoken-word bits, and an almost poetic ending. The closest Esprit de Corpse got to a ballad. Still terrifying.