THE argument rages on over who has the greater claim to the power of Seventies punk and new wave, America or Britain?

The Press arbitration panel will sit on the fence between both camps, but only because we are delighted to throw fuel on the fire of debate by running a competition to win albums from both sides of the punk pond.

The Definitive Story Of CBGB is released on Monday on the eve of the New York club's October move from the Bowery. This has prompted the double CD retrospective endorsed by the club's owner and founder, Hilly Kristal, who oversaw the rise of The Ramones, Blondie, Television and Patti Smith - all featured here - in his run-down bar in the mid-seventies.

New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders, Pere Ubu, The B-52's and Suicide jostle for attention on this compilation with the lesser known Dead Boys, Tuff Darts and Bush Tetras, while Crystal's delightfully mad closing musical contribution, Mud, is the one and only indication of his original plan to showcase country, bluegrass and blues -hence CBGB - at the club.

We should be glad Television's manager set him on the road to punk Damascus. The Ramones, Blondie and Patti Smith all made the leap to the British charts but the headlines, police busts and radio bans went to Malcolm McLaren's splenetic London urchins the Sex Pistols.

Spunk, the legendary bootleg album first released in 1977, is now reactivated to mark the 30th anniversary of the Rotten, Jones, Matlock and Cook's very first demos in 1976 when Anarchy In The UK was known as Nookie and Pretty Vacant as Lots Of Fun and Sid Vicious was yet to hijack the party. It comes in its original format, spoken word audio clips and all, newly spruced up with Denmark Street demos of Anarchy and Vacant.

Here is the spit without the big label polish that was to follow on EMI and Virgin.