punk
howard.male
What do you get when you cross a Swiss Cajun punk band with a London garage rockabilly band? Well, if it’s not a contrived record company manoeuvre, but instead came about because the two bands just happened to bump into each other at a festival and got along like a house on fire, you get a wonderfully organic, rough-edged party of an album which makes you suspect that the genre of Cajun punk garage rockabilly has always been with us.Perhaps part of this record’s success lies in the fact that both bands are only trios, so Hipbone Slim brought a double bass to the table, and Mama Rosin a Read more ...
joe.muggs
The last time I saw Atari Teenage Riot play was in a gig venue above a pub some time around 1999 and it was one of the most intense gigs I've ever experienced. Then-member Carl Crack – who would take his own life not long after – was clearly a man on the edge, and the entire group were acting wired, scared and weird. They made the most stupendous racket, and the well-over-capacity audience reacted by leaping about so violently that the building needed structural repairs afterwards. To be part of that seething crowd required commitment, passion and complete obliteration of ego – it was easy to Read more ...
bruce.dessau
One can safely say that there is never a dull moment with Peter Doherty. His life is such a soap opera it is often easy to overlook the fact that, even if you don’t buy the tortured-poet schtick, he is clearly a gifted songwriter. It is such a shame he cannot knuckle down and stick to his day job and bash out some more classics. This week he set out on a solo UK tour, not coinciding with a new album, but nicely coinciding with the promotion of his beloved Queens Park Rangers to the Premier League, which probably explained his cheerful if occasionally subdued mood in Shepherds Bush last night. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It's been a while since I've spent time with Asian Dub Foundation. In the mid-Nineties, when they first appeared, they were one of the most exciting acts around and I enthused about them in print at every opportunity. They were born of an east-London community music project, mashing up the then-new sounds of drum and bass with agitprop showmanship and anti-racist politics. The result was a visceral live act that fitted as well beside the rising Brit-Asian wave (Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney, Badmarsh & Shri, etc) as with punky post-Levellers roots rock.However, I never felt ADF captured Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The death of Poly Styrene (Marianne Elliot-Said) is more than another reminder that the ever-influential punk era is further and further away. It is also genuinely sad as she was always helpful, always approachable and – simply put – a nice person. Her vision was a singular counterpoint to the period’s often simplistic political stance and macho outlook. Her death comes soon after the release of Generation Indigo, her latest album. It has become her final word.Concerned with the issues in society that formed personalities and affected outlook, songs like X-Ray Spex’s “Identity” - Read more ...
bruce.dessau
One of my most enjoyable gig-going experiences last year was seeing Mick Jones guesting with Gorillaz at the Roundhouse. The former Clash guitarist was clearly loving every minute of it. So much, in fact, that shortly afterwards he decided to reform his second-best band, Big Audio Dynamite, for a short UK tour, including the first of two London dates last night. But after two decades since this original line-up played together, the burning question was would this be a cynical, pension-funding slog, an arthritis-fuelled embarrassment, or something special?Within the first few beats and Read more ...
joe.muggs
Often at gigs by bands of a certain vintage, the fans can look like they're on a special awayday: like they've dug their T-shirts out of the back of the drawer and geared themselves up for one last canter round the paddock. Not so for Killing Joke. At the Royal Festival Hall last night, a very large section of the crowd had the look of still actively living very rock'n'roll lives, and of having done so for at least the last 30 years. “How many times have you seen them?” asked a shaven-headed gent in the seat next to me. “This'll be my 46th Joke gig,” he continued with obvious pride. This is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Anyone expecting the 1977-style foghorn-voiced Poly Styrene from Generation Indigo is going to be disappointed. Instead, this album is sweetly delivered, melodic and driving modern pop with a Euro electro-dance sheen. She’s not bellowing “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” over bee-in-a-jar guitar and caterwauling sax, but embracing something much more friendly.Of course, this review is tempered by the recent news that Poly has been diagnosed with cancer. Produced by Youth, Generation Indigo isn’t for those sporting punk blinkers, although she’ll always be defined by having fronted X-Ray Spex between Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Follow that. It's the inevitable two-word mantra after a band has released a defining debut. The Strokes delivered their seminal statement of intent with Is This It in 2001, proving that a decent leather jacket, attitude and a rock riff will never let you down. Well, a decade on and with their fourth album out on Monday, there is much muttering of rock letting you down. Can Angles do anything to stop the rock rot?The simple answer is no. The more complex answer is maybe, if only the New York quintet would pull their fingers out and deliver something more cohesive. The opening track, “Machu Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
I didn't realise how much I liked dirt. Especially New York dirt. I was going to do a rant about boutique designer hotels, which seem ubiquitous in Manhattan. Major case in point: the Gramercy Park Hotel, where I used to stay in the Nineties and Noughties. It was independent, a bit scruffy, with a great bar full of artists and rock'n'roll types and other degenerates, a perfect location and cost about a hundred dollars a night. Last time I looked it had been ponced up – fish tank in the reception, a Buddha, fancy doorknobs and good-looking but no doubt useless staff. Clean as a whistle. This Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Bob Geldof only shuts up in the end because a plane he should be on is imminently taking off for India, and he is still in his local South London pub, refusing to let a heavy cold stop him from talking like others drink - with unquenchable relish. He is in passing promoting his new album, How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell, a lesson Geldof could have given with conviction during his old band the Boomtown Rats’ pomp between 1977 and 1980, when their first nine singles hit the Top 20, climaxing with consecutive Number Ones “Rat Trap” and “I Don’t Like Mondays”. The way those Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Gang of Four vocalist Jon King remembers the last time he was in Heaven – the venue, not the celestial aftershow party. It was the night of the Great Hurricane of 1987 and as he walked down nearby Villiers Street later that evening two trees blew past him. "It was a gusty night," he recalled onstage with a smile last night. The question was could the latest Gang of Four line-up blow up their very own storm in WC2?The answer is a defiant yes. With a decent first original album in 16 years, Content, under their belts, original members, King and guitarist Andy Gill, plus new boys Mark Heaney on Read more ...