punk
Javi Fedrick
Sleaford Mods are not just those two sweary guys with a laptop from Nottingham. Their unique mix of acerbic, politically conscious lyrics and lo-fi earworm loops have rightfully earned them a growing and devoted following across the country. Indeed, the audience at Manchester Academy is packed with moody 20-somethings and middle-aged punks. Rather than appearing intimidating, however, the atmosphere is full of camaraderie and childish excitement, as everyone waits for these de facto voices of the disaffected to take to the stage.First up, though, is Nachthexen, an all-female four piece Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols was issued on 28 October 1977. It’s an anniversary worth marking. Forty years is a long time and the decades between then and now have not reduced interest in the band or the punk rock maelstrom surrounding them. Naturally, yet another reissue of the album has just appeared – an unnecessary repackaging of 2012’s 35th-anniversary limited-edition configuration – but although British punk rock was kicked off by the Sex Pistols, they were not the whole story.This romp through 20 memorable moments could be all about Johnny Rotten’s band and nothing Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Both Rhode Island’s Downtown Boys, and Washington D.C.’s Priests sit at the centre of today’s feminist punk scene. As stated in a recent Downtown Boys press release, they oppose “the prison-industrial complex, racism, queerphobia, capitalism, fascism, boredom, and all things people use to try to close our minds, eyes and hearts”. This, perhaps, explains why the promoters have listed the night as a “radical double bill”. Having also both released extremely well received albums this year - Cost of Living and Nothing is Natural respectively - they descend on Manchester’s Deaf Institute amid a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Super Besse are from the Republic of Belarus, Europe’s sole dictatorship – a country where freedom of expression and opportunities for individual self-determination are limited. As there’s little musical infrastructure in their home country, the label they are on is Latvia’s leading independent imprint. Despite the obstacles, the Minsk-based trio – named after a French ski resort – have played across mainland Europe. La Nuit* is their second album.Given where they are from, Super Besse would be notable whatever the nature of their music. However, what they deal in and how they put it over Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Before they even step on stage The Pretenders win me to their side. An announcement prior to their appearance tells the audience, “The Pretenders request you keep your phone in your pocket.” Brilliantly, these aren’t idle words. As the gig progresses security quietly but firmly approach anyone with their phone out and asks them to desist. A few songs into the set, Chrissie Hynde has just begun a stripped-down take on her 1986 hit “Hymn to Her”, accompanied only by Welsh keyboard-player Carwyn Ellis, when she stops short. “Would everyone rather watch you take pictures than me sing?” she asks Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Immediately before recording their first album in 1977, Motörhead were on their last legs. They went into the studio after playing what was initially conceived as their farewell show. Appropriately, no one then could have predicted that the band formed by Hawkwind’s former bass player in 1975 would become integral to rock’s rich tapestry. It wasn’t even their first attempt to make an album: one begun in 1975 had been shelved. The early Motörhead were bedevilled by false starts and upsets.The unpremeditated subsequent durability of the band has ensured Motörhead was never deleted. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
That this year is the 40th anniversary of 1977, the year punk rock went mainstream, shouldn’t obscure the pub rock foundations underpinning much of what was supposedly new. The Clash’s Joe Strummer had fronted pub circuit regulars The 101’ers. In 1976, the Sex Pistols regularly played West London pub The Nashville Rooms. The Damned came together after Brian James and Rat Scabies scouted the audience at a Nashville Pistols/101’ers show for potential members of the band they intended forming. The Damned’s future label Stiff Records was run by pub rock movers and shakers. Their producer, Nick Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
This is, in many ways, an underwhelming evening, but the fault does not primarily lie with The Psychedelic Furs. Things start well with support act Lene Lovich who gives a lively performance, in a black’n’red ensemble with striped sleeves and a gigantic, beribboned, plaited wig/hair/hat confabulation which has something of Big Chief Sitting Bull about it. Despite not playing her only Top 10 hit, 1979’s “Lucky Number”, she whoops and theatricalises while her band delivers a suitably punchy new wave racket.The Psychedelic Furs aren’t going to get away with not playing the hits, especially as Read more ...
joe.muggs
With the wind behind them, the San Francisco-founded band Deerhoof are one of the greatest live experiences you can have. Two decades since their first album, they still have a relentlessly experimental hunger for sonic surprise, mixing extraordinary virtuosity with an indie/punk directness, love of infectious melody and natural surrealism, which all together makes every moment of their shows full of ideas but also thrilling on an immediate sonic level.It's tough to bottle something so predicated on spontaneity, and given years of studio experience the Deerhoof sound has naturally been Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
TV Tube Heart, the debut album from The Radiators From Space, was issued on 21 October 1977, a week before the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks. Each was a punk rock album and one, inevitably, has been subjected to greater historical analysis and many more reissues than the other. Of course, Johnny Rotten and co’s first and only long-player was significant but the other band’s album was important too. The Radiators From Space were the Republic of Ireland’s first punk band –The Boomtown Rats, if they were punk at all, were relative Johnny-come-latelies – and TV Tube Heart remains a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As a live phenomenon Gogol Bordello are unstoppable, a crowd-whipping Balkan-punk storm that sweeps venues away with them. For some years this blinded me to their recorded output. Their albums sent shivers up my spine, a tinctured version of their explosive performances, and I was unable to understand why, despite their wildness, rock’n’roll attitude, and ability to rip out a solid tune, their success remained of the cult variety. Listening to Seekers and Finders, things are clearer.Frontman Eugene Hutz has the charisma and zip of Joe Strummer, with whom his artistry has much in common, but Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
At the start of 2016 shouty Essex bedroom musician Jordan Cardy – AKA Rat Boy – was on all those media tastemaker lists of stars about to imminently explode. Maybe he’s been in major label development hell since. His debut album’s been a long time coming and, commercially, it will possibly need that lost initial momentum. But that’s for the streaming public to decide. In the meantime, SCUM is a bouncy, youthful, over-excited Labrador of a thing, distortion-amped, loud, flicking the Vs, and generally bringing the kind of party where crockery gets smashed.The obvious comparison is Jamie T’s Read more ...