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ON DISC

TROUBLE MAKERS Various Artists

(Warner Brothers) Troublemakers is the latest entry in the Brothers Warner annual line of low-priced sampler LPs available only by mail order. This year's model focuses on punk/new wave performers and their early Seventies antecedents and it's a typically uneven collection of bona-fide gems, collectibles and curiosities for cult fanatics, and the old product-pushing hustle.

The sublime tracks come courtesty of Public Image (including their classic, previously unreleased in America, debut single "Public Image"), two funky dissections of cultural conditioning from the Gang of Four, and a pair of selections from the new, hardbitten Marianne Faithfull Collectibles include a pair of live cuts from the Sex Pistols' San Francisco swansong (distinguished chiefly by John Rotten/ Lydon's obvious disgust with the whole affair) and previously unreleased tracks by Devo (first LP era), John Cale and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

Corporate product-plugging accounts for the presence of such mediocre bands as the Urban Verbs, Pearl Harbor and Robin Lane, all of which sound slick, derivative and, well, utterly tame in comparison to their earlier counterparts.

The LP can be obtained by sending $3 to Troublemakers, Box 6868, Burbank, California, 91510.

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