Why bother?

In my involvement in the hardcore punk scene - as consumer, spectator, active participant and, lately and most constructively, aged curmudgeon carping from the sidelines - I've accumulated a LOT of crap. Aside from the ludicrous impracticality of owning a large record collection (although shrinking by the day!) yet flitting from house to house year after year, I have countless boxes of MRRs, zines, tapes, flyers, shirts, badges - the detritus of a lifestyle that barely makes sense to me anymore, yet somehow still retaining a sentimental stranglehold, and making a 'clear out' far too brutal a prospect.

But that's not what this blog is about - instead, it's a clear out of creative detritus - a catch-all repository of the projects I've been involved in that never quite made it into the public domain, mostly musical (to date I've got at least two unreleased 7 inches and an album under my belt), but also videos, interviews, and quite possibly some photos, the occasional review (if I can be arsed), and - more than likely - the odd drunken late-night YouTube post of a Dictators song that is speaking to me profoundly at that particular moment in time.


First up will be the video of Shank playing in Los Angeles in 2003, probably our best show ever. This was actually supposed to be included on the CD version of our split with Iron Lung, but some dolt at the pressing plant didn't know how to open the DVD player or something. I don't think there is any other unreleased Shank stuff (other than a video of our first show, but no-one really needs to see that), but other 'lost classics' to come may well include unreleased material from Nation of Finks, Suburban Disease, possibly a video of The Process in Tokyo, and perhaps any other number of bands that I will join in the future who can't quite get it together to send their recordings to an increasingly despairing record label owner.

And of course, there will be nuggets of occasional wisdom, too - you lucky people, you.