punk
Snayx/Shelf Lives/Monakis, Patterns, Brighton review - storming, punking triple-headerFriday, 20 October 2023
Patterns is a small, low-ceilinged, underground, seafront venue. Tonight it would be a feast for any passing ancient succubae who happens to feed on raw human energy. From 7.00 PM until 10.00 PM, the room plays host to a package tour of three rising... Read more... |
Album: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers - I Love YouWednesday, 04 October 2023
Canberra band Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers continue the recent tradition of Australian indie bands having unwieldy comedy names. However, their music, as laid out on their debut album, has higher aspirations, bridging their scuzzy punkin’ roots... Read more... |
Album: Ash - Race the NightThursday, 14 September 2023
Northern Irish rockers Ash appeared in the mid-Nineties, channelling The Ramones when the UK was in thrall to either bangin’ club music or Britpop. They had a good commercial run, longer than almost all their contemporaries, mustering 18 Top 40 UK... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Keith Levene and The ClashSunday, 27 August 2023
Forty-seven years ago this week, a new band called The Clash were seen by a paying audience in London for the first time. On Sunday 29 August 1976 they played Islington’s Screen on the Green cinema, billed between Manchester’s Buzzcocks – their... Read more... |
Album: OSEES - Intercepted MessageMonday, 14 August 2023
On the face of it, this is an extremely simple record. It is big, stomping, party-monster neanderthal synth-rock.There’s no new sounds here: the structures are classic garage punk, the synthesisers’ growl and squeal sounds like some jerry-rigged... Read more... |
Album: Public Image Limited - End of WorldWednesday, 09 August 2023
The world might end with a whimper or an inferno, but it’s hard to imagine a day will dawn that extinguishes John Lydon’s scorn for other people’s fecklessness and idiocy. That hand-made polemic typically drives the cauterising post-punk hosannahs... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Autonomy - The Productions of Martin RushentSunday, 23 July 2023
Two producers named Martin worked with Buzzcocks and Joy Division. Martin Hannett was in the studio for Buzzcocks’ debut release, the Spiral Scratch EP, issued in January 1977, and also for the bulk of the tracks spread across their last three... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Keeping Control, Where Were You - Leeds and Manchester navigate the aftershocks of punkSunday, 16 July 2023
“Keeping Control” were the watchwords adopted by The Manchester Musicians’ Collective, an organisation founded in April 1977 to bring local musicians together and give them platforms. On 23 May 1977, it put on its first show – also the first live... Read more... |
Le Tigre, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow review - letting out their emotions while having a partyThursday, 08 June 2023
There was a youthful tinge to the jubilant chorus of “here we, here we, here we f****** go” that greeted Le Tigre arriving on stage. The band may have not released any new material in well over a decade, but the Glasgow crowd gathered for this... Read more... |
Album: Dream Wife - Social LubricationFriday, 02 June 2023
Five years ago, breaking dry January a few days early, I joined a throng of folks amongst the merch boxes and strip lights of Rough Trade East to see Dream Wife. The London-based trio has come a long way since those small-scale shows in the backroom... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Cock Sparrer - The Decca YearsSunday, 21 May 2023
“This is a record company’s idea of new wave. Clichéd heavy metal riffs and someone shouting in a cockney voice. This is a con and I hate it”.Notwithstanding that it would be a record company’s idea of things as just such an organisation was putting... Read more... |
The Great Escape Festival 2023, Brighton review - a long, hot, messy Day ThreeTuesday, 16 May 2023
“stay with the beer. beer is continuous blood. a continuous lover.” So said Charles Bukowski in his poem “how to be a great writer”. Who am I to argue. It’s a bright day and 11.50 AM. The sun isn’t past the yard-arm but the beer is cold and good.... Read more... |
