punk
Jim Bob
For a few months a couple of years ago, when you googled the name Jim Bob, although you’d get a lot of information about me, Jim Bob, the lead singer from 1990s UK indie punk heroes Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, the main image would be a picture of Donald Trump. I never fully understood why. I think it had something to do with the name "Jim Bob" being a thesaurus entry for "redneck".Anyway, here’s a chapter from my new book Where Songs Come From – The Lyrics and Origin Stories of 150 Solo and Carter USM Songs. It’s my first ever book of lyrics. I like to think of it as a memoir or Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Amy Taylor’s lyrics on Amyl and the Sniffers’ previous discs could hardly be described as demure – especially with song titles like “Don’t Need a Cunt (Like You to Love Me)”. So, it’s encouraging to hear that the band hasn’t decided to censor themselves in any way as they hurtle towards what promises to be their big breakout with Cartoon Darkness.In fact, the lairy “You’re a dumb cunt / You’re an arsehole”, which are the opening lines of the sharp and punky first track, “Jerkin”, couldn’t be more of a statement of intent from the Melbourne four-piece. That’s not to say that Amyl and the Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Londoner Ayman Rostom has been around the block and then some. For some 25 years he’s been a hip hop producer as Dr Zygote, for the past decade he’s made wiry and weird house music as The Maghreban – both of these aliases are still, it seems, fully functioning. Before that still he made jungle and drum’n’bass in the initial 90s boom. And now he’s got a new alias to write, as you may guess by the album title, some very sad songs.There has always been a deep strand of outsiderdom, of being the odd one out, of not doing things in the typically correct order, to his music. So it’s no wonder that Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Somewhat amusingly, the sign outside Birmingham’s O2 Academy on Saturday stated that the evening’s entertainment was to be provided by “Frank Carter and Members of the Sex Pistols”. In a way, it was a bit misleading, suggesting that the original and greatest British punk band was going to be backing a relative newcomer rather than that they were touring with a new front man and, no doubt was more driven by John Lydon’s lawyer than what was going to happen on stage.So, with the former Johnny Rotten having taken a hissy fit and leaving the fold, the Sex Pistols rocked up in the Brum to play the Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
Beth Ditto protests too much. 'Do you feel young" she hollered early on, before adding "I don't", one of several references during the gig to her age now being 43. Yet the Gossip singer still displayed the glee and energy of a teenager at their first show, even if her band are now into the reunion phase of a career spanning over two decades. From the start she was sashaying across the stage with joy, a state possibly pumped up by the fact one of her favourite ever bands, the Yummy Fur, had supported on the night. She even donned a T-shirt of the cult Glasgow group for the encore, and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
As a live sensation, Fat Dog have been the talk of the year. The London five-piece offer a dementedly energized night out. Performative concerts, tight as zip-wire but hedonistic and loose round the edges. They’ve developed a solid rep for sending audiences nuts. Consequently, there’s a hungry new fan-base salivating for their debut album, WOOF. Coming in at just over half-an-hour, it captures their battering zing; short, sharp and ballistic.Fat Dog’s sound is rooted in proto-techno crunch akin to the movement once known as Electronic Body Music, which is to say bands such as Front 242, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Aside from their musical output, the fame – or notoriety – of Californian rockers Osees derives from two main factors. First, their consistently changing the spelling of their name on different releases (eg, Thee Oh Sees, OCS, etc). Second, their gushing prolificness of output. They’ve been releasing music for 21 years and Sorcs 80 is their 29th album. That’s going some.The short version of this review is that it’s a spirited electro-garage splurge but its sameyness occasionally grows annoying. Although Osees is a band it mostly represents the artistic vision of one person, frontman John Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
After Sex Pistols have played “New York,” the fourth song in their set, someone from the audience shouts “Anarchy in the U.K.” "We've already played it, you fucking idiot" responds Sid Vicious. They have. It was the first song they did at Kristinehamn’s Club Zebra.The request begs the question of whether the person calling out knew what “Anarchy in the U.K.” sounded like. They may have known of “Anarchy in the U.K.” but not actually heard it. Considering where the particular show was, the information gap is possible.Kristinehamn is a small town about 250km north-west of Sweden’s capital Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
X, although beloved of music journalists, are one of American punk’s most under-acknowledged. They took a tilt at fame in the mid-Eighties with the radio-friendly Ain’t Love Grand album and its lead single “Burning House of Love”, but it wasn’t to be. They remained a connoisseurs’ choice (inarguable evidence of their abilities is the stunning 1983 tune “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts”). Now they reach the end of the line, persuasively so, with a wistful but sonically punkin’ final album.Led by the vocal spar-harmonising duo of John Doe and Excene Cervenka, the Los Angeles four-piece were never Read more ...
theartsdesk
The weather is perfect. Rare at a festival in this country. The sun shines. Occasional clouds pass. There’s a light breeze. Flamingods are on the Charlie Gillett stage. They are a London-based unit of primarily Bahraini origin who make psychedelic-electronic rock tinged with exotica and Middle Eastern flavour. Very WOMAD, in other words.All around are iterations of hippy, from gnarled Sixties originals, lined and lived-in, batik-patchwork panted, to psy-trancey youths, half-clad, sleek in bodypaint and retro pink Lennon shades. We jog and nod. The music is likeable, not ecstatic. The vibe, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
NME’s Paul Morley reviewed Angelic Upstarts’ debut album, the newly reissued Teenage Warning, in August 1979. He pointed out that they were “seen as the successors to Sham 69.”The assessment made sense. Their encore song was a version of Sham's “Borstal Breakout.” Both bands played a reductive punk which was long on musical attack and lyrical howls, and low on finesse. Around the time of Teenage Warning's 1979 release Sham's front-man Jimmy Pursey was busy with J. P. Productions, a concern where he picked up bands, became their producer and placed them with major labels. He took on Read more ...
caspar.gomez
SUNDAY 30th June 2024It’s late. But not really. Not by the standards of this place. Photographer Finetime and I are in Block9 in the South-East Corner. The so-called “naughty corner”. We take turns juggernauting quomble off a pinecone. Finetime’s right eyelid is twitching. This tic developed today. Nearby is a gigantic head. About the size of a large Victorian house. It’s at an acute angle to the ground. Instead of eyes it has a kind of welders’ mask blitzing white-noise light. Like the haunted, detuned television in the 1982 film Poltergeist.We all know what happened to the little blonde Read more ...