tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36313981155092201352024-02-21T09:37:57.853-08:00Through Being Coolkngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-49711645991765035152015-11-16T13:41:00.001-08:002016-06-08T06:41:27.694-07:00Poison Idea, Ian MacKaye and that record cover: an interview with Kalv of In Your Face records<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12iU1Od3KezoucbeCFnAg3N2ZAY-yXqvNKaJ7wkNEVuUEw5hMaGJ5Hg8yAKpF9jSX-Et_E0-x80s8x5jH_yctPu9oTsVNjYvn6MwtPCSzpsobNTPZrns2nbZkgwoc6_1nnOItRX7_TIUM/s1600/DSC_0005_edited_edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12iU1Od3KezoucbeCFnAg3N2ZAY-yXqvNKaJ7wkNEVuUEw5hMaGJ5Hg8yAKpF9jSX-Et_E0-x80s8x5jH_yctPu9oTsVNjYvn6MwtPCSzpsobNTPZrns2nbZkgwoc6_1nnOItRX7_TIUM/s400/DSC_0005_edited_edited.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>'By using my name, P.I. themselves have elevated me to a god. Surely no one would treat a human being like that'</b> </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b></b><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><b><b>Ian MacKaye, July 23, 1989</b>.</b></b><br />
<b><b>
</b></b></div>
<b>
</b></blockquote>
<div>
It's with those words – in that pointed, gnomic tone familiar to anyone who has listened to Minor Threat, Fugazi or any other of MacKaye's many bands – that the target of Poison Idea's ire skewers his unsolicited appearance as the title of their 1989 mini-LP. It was one of the most contentious moments in the career of the Portland, Oregon punk pioneers, no mean feat for a band who were never ones to shy away from controversy.<br />
<br />
And those sentiments form part of a terse letter written to my friend and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jywu1bVIkP8">Geriatric Unit</a> bandmate Kalv – who pressed the Ian MacKaye EP (grotesque cover and all) on his <a href="http://www.discogs.com/label/296143-In-Your-Face-Records-2">In Your Face</a> label – after he alerted MacKaye (as a matter of, I suppose you could call, 'courtesy') to the fact that his name was going to be plastered all over a record cover that would eventually be deemed too obscene to be printed in the UK.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>A little backstory: it was during a long drive through the mountains of Catalonia on a Geriatric Unit tour of northern Spain that me and Kalv were chatting about records, rarities and obscure one-offs – the stuff that middle-aged punks discuss to while away the time while stuck in a van for hours on end. The conversation, as it often does, turned to Poison Idea:<br />
<br />
'I've probably got something most PI collectors would like to get their hands on,' said Kalv, in typically understated manner. <br />
<br />
'Oh yeah?'<br />
<br />
'Yeah, it's the Ian MacKaye test press, but with a couple of extra pictures from the band, and a letter from Ian in a Dischord stamped envelope telling me how pissed off he was about it.'<br />
<br />
'Fucking hell!'<br />
<br />
I knew straight away I had to see this, and get some words from Kalv about it, too – so during the last (for now) of many, many great Saturday nights of drinking budget booze and playing superlative vinyl at his house, we sat down for a quick chat about how the record came to be, the struggles to get the cover printed, and how – a quarter of a century after <a href="http://www.markprindle.com/mackaye-i.htm">Ian MacKaye made his objections known</a> – the whole episode looks in hindsight.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
First though, is MacKaye's letter to Kalv in full. It's hard not to feel more than just a little twinge of sympathy for him, isn't it? (Caps and underlines are his own.)<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
'JULY 23 1989<br />
KALV,<br />
IF INDEED THE CONCEPT OF THE <u>POISON IDEA</u> LP WAS TO REMIND PEOPLE THAT I'M NOT A GOD, CONSIDER THIS … BY USING MY NAME, <u>P.I</u> THEMSELVES HAVE ELEVATED ME TO A GOD, SURELY NO ONE WOULD TREAT A HUMAN BEING LIKE THAT.<br />
<br />
I'VE DONE NOTHING TO THEM, I'VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU, AND WHILE I LAUGH AT THE INSANITY OF THE SITUATION (MY NAME AN LP TITLE!) IT HURTS MY FEELINGS TO BE TREATED LIKE COMMODITY BY PEOPLE WHO I CONSIDERED TO BE MY PEERS.<br />
<br />
IAN'</blockquote>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwP5Gw7X03pVvxJAAj-GM7NBe8QFTyBkFIu7Qx6yqYJpJ_zOJSnNbBDqYN-JhjKCjQQ-cV39-E1o3X7ZHvbDkKz3d0U1ChnWsaRtAshyphenhyphenmLmdywtfY_Fj80nzbBlDHgsx0QUrdoWpGIqIty/s1600/DSC_0006_edited_edited.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwP5Gw7X03pVvxJAAj-GM7NBe8QFTyBkFIu7Qx6yqYJpJ_zOJSnNbBDqYN-JhjKCjQQ-cV39-E1o3X7ZHvbDkKz3d0U1ChnWsaRtAshyphenhyphenmLmdywtfY_Fj80nzbBlDHgsx0QUrdoWpGIqIty/s400/DSC_0006_edited_edited.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">Kalv's Ian MacKaye test press, with letter from MacKaye and Dischord stamped envelope, top, and extra PI pictures: Tom draining a can of Old English, bottom centre, and Jerry A in the studio, bottom right. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
And once all you Poison Idea collectors have composed yourself following the revelation that there is an iteration of probably their most notorious release – and one, which, by rights, should probably belong in a museum – that you'll never get your hands on, read Kalv's take on the matter. It's a great yarn. <br />
<br />
<b>So how did In Your Face start?</b><br />
<br />
What started it really was when we started to fall out with Dig Pearson. We used to be mates, when Heresy was going – our first release for a <a href="http://www.discogs.com/Heresy-Never-Healed-EP/release/548331">flexi 7in</a> was joint financed by myself and Dig. We were mates in those days, and as the band got more popular, he set up Earache, and one of his earliest releases, obviously, was the split with Concrete Sox.<br />
<br />
By the time we got enough material to do our first full album, things were getting pretty strained. Jon (March, Heresy singer) was sharing a place with Dig at the time and they weren't getting on, and we were full of these big ideas about what we were going to do. So we decided to set up a label - that was myself, Jon and Trevor who used to drive for us - and we were going to put out the first Heresy album ourselves.<br />
<br />
Obviously Dig wasn't too pleased at the time, as he thought he was going to have it [on Earache]. That was the main motivation behind it.<br />
<br />
So for a while we did the label – we got set up on a <a href="https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/help-for-young-people/support-starting-business">Prince's Trust Scheme</a> where, if you had £1,000 in your bank account, the week [your application] was submitted, you could get on it, so all of us had to beg, borrow and steal to get £1,000 from our relatives just to have the money in the account for that week, then the money would get taken out and given straight back.<br />
<br />
We didn't exactly get flying in that first year – there were only two releases, well, it turned into four, with two coming right at the very end of that financial year. And it was obvious that we couldn't keep doing it together as we were off the dole at that point, and running the label. In that first year, they'd give you your dole money, just to get you off the system, and after that first year, you were theoretically up and running.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWhkTOiTNhVWyZKAce4munLoVD7Ev2AGV_1-XVSzAYw-NhR0Q9QiTRsybxR4c8-EuuTrBzjEL6aMt2smsU86qnePIQFNVYvw6iISfdHdqWWMJo89VOBA1IBTw0wstDmszzMWQX86PA-ly/s1600/DSC_0007_edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWhkTOiTNhVWyZKAce4munLoVD7Ev2AGV_1-XVSzAYw-NhR0Q9QiTRsybxR4c8-EuuTrBzjEL6aMt2smsU86qnePIQFNVYvw6iISfdHdqWWMJo89VOBA1IBTw0wstDmszzMWQX86PA-ly/s320/DSC_0007_edited.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The back of the Jerry A picture:<br />
'Kalv, here's a pic of Jerry A <br />
looking like your YOUR <br />
hero Garry Bushell or whatever <br />
the fuckhead's name is!'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<b>Ah, so it was like a Young Enterprise Scheme type thing?</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Yeah, it was something along those lines … So with me having four releases under my belt, I decided to give it a go, and it kept me off the dole for four years after that, although I wasn't on money that was any better than being on the dole, but it basically meant that I never had to go and sign on any more. But at least when I talk about my past, I can say I was self-employed for a while, even though I was getting out of bed whenever I wanted.</div>
<div>
<br />
<b>You were a young entrepreneur!</b><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
[Laughs] Richard Branson, it wasn't, I promise!<br />
<br />
<b>So how did you come to get Poison Idea on board?</b><br />
<br />
We were big fans, especially me and Steve [Charlesworth, Heresy drummer]. At around that time, Heresy had split up, PI had put out the Filthkick EP, which had come out just after the War All The Time album, and the Getting The Fear 12” - the records were kind of small pressings for a band of their stature, and were pricey, as they were imports.<br />
<br />
I'd been trading records with Jerry A, and at the time – just as an idea – I wondered if I offered them £1,000 they'd let me release both recordings, the <a href="http://www.discogs.com/Poison-Idea-Filthkick-EP/master/546429">Filthkick</a> EP and the <a href="http://www.discogs.com/Poison-Idea-Getting-The-Fear/master/677949">Getting the Fear</a> 12”, as a mini-album. But the way it was released, they dropped the cover of The Damned's New Rose off the 7in, and instead put on a song called Burned For The Last Time, which is a kind of Maiden-esque heavy metal song.<br />
<br />
So I got this phone call from an American guy at about 4 o'clock on a Sunday morning. We'd occasionally get phone calls like that because we'd put our numbers on the records sleeves, which wasn't necessarily a great idea because you'd get people from Italy or Greece just phoning up to talk about the band.<br />
<b><br />[Regrettable comedy foreign accent] 'You are my favourite!!!'</b><br />
<br />
Yeah – all that nonsense! But so there was an American guy on the other end of the phone, and it was stupid o'clock – four or five in the morning, and I could hear this American accent: 'Hey Kalv … ' And my first response was: 'Man, do you what time it is?' He goes: 'Oh sorry man, I didn't realise, but, hey, it's Jerry A from Poison Idea here' [laughs]<br />
<br />
Suddenly, I woke up, and was not bothered at all about this American guy calling me at stupid o'clock. So we talked and he said 'Yeah, yeah, we'll take the £1,000, man,' which at the time, because the exchange rate was quite good, I guess they got $1,800 to spend down the pub for something that was already recorded, as it was basically a licence deal.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
It sold about 4,400 – and that was it. They eventually signed with Vinyl Solution who reissued it a couple of years after my version went out of print, and they [the label] didn't call it Ian MacKaye, quite reasonably, after all the controversy.<br />
<br />
<b>So how did that cover come about?</b><br />
<br />
Well, they sent the sleeve over before it ended up having to be censored. At first I couldn't believe it. Personally, I laughed – but then I thought, having played with Fugazi, and, you know, having thought … well, Fugazi were great, but Minor Threat, especially, were one of the most important bands in punk rock. And I'd met Ian, and he was a really nice guy. So I thought, well, it's not very nice having your name being plastered all over some hairy buttocks and plums on a record sleeve. So I Xeroxed the sleeve, sent it off to Dischord, and hoped that he'd see whatever funny side there might be. I got a letter back: he wasn't best pleased and I don't blame him.<br />
<br />
I think if it was any other band I would have probably talked them out of the idea, but at that time, Poison Idea were just my favourite band, and I was just so stoked to release the record. They could have pretty much anything they wanted on the sleeve, and I would have gone along with it.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Jello Biafra saw a copy and just shook his head: 'It's the wrong guy. It should be Ray Cappo!'</span></b></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Well, you did account for yourself. However torn you might have been, you did at least present it to Ian MacKaye. I'm not saying you covered your arse by any means, but you did say: 'This is happening.'</b><br />
<br />
Oh yeah, yeah. It was all upfront. He basically got a copy of it well in advance of the record actually coming out. I spoke to Tom Pig, and they thought it looked great, but apparently it showed up in San Francisco, and Jello Biafra was in a record store, and saw it. He saw it and just shook his head, and said: 'It's the wrong guy. It should be Ray Cappo!'<br />
<br />
<b>Yeah, I remember thinking that at the time. It seemed … </b><br />
<br />
Yeah, why go after the guy who was the originator of it all? It was the second-generation copy guys that need to be laughed at.<br />
<br />
<b>Right. So what was Poison Idea's reasoning?</b><br />
<br />
Just that he was the polar opposite of what they were into, which was drink and debauchery. <a href="http://www.killfromtheheart.com/interviews.php?id=122">Their reasons at the time probably carried a bit more weight than they do now</a>. Now it looks a bit childish, which frankly it is. {laughs]<br />
<br />
<b>So what happened with the printing of the sleeve?</b><br />
<br />
I sent it down through Revolver, who pressed records for me. They got back within a few days and said, 'No printer will touch it. We can't print it as it is.'</div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>Under obscenity laws?</b></div>
<div>
<br />
Yeah, it was considered obscene. So I called Tom Pig and said, 'As long as we obscure the nastier parts … ' And he said, 'Yeah, go for it.' So I put the 'Banned In The UK' there just as a laugh, because the printers were too limp to touch it, and when PI got it, they loved it. They said, if anything, it adds to it: makes it look even crazier.<br />
<br />
There were 150 copies with the stickered sleeve [of the uncensored cover]. Andy Larsen, a mate of ours from the Heresy days, a German guy who worked at a printers who was also friends with Poison Idea, got a copy of the original art, ran off 150 sticker-copy sleeves, <a href="http://www.discogs.com/Poison-Idea-Ian-MacKaye/release/5132050">which have ended up becoming collectible</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>So this was just an afterthought?</b><br />
<br />
No, basically he was distro-ing the record. I think I'd sent him 90 or so copies. And he said, “I've made a sleeve for all the copies you've sent me, so here's the other 60,” and he sent me them in the post. I did the same. Sent some out as mail order; some ended up in Selectadisc; some ended up in Japan. So yeah, if you were around at the time, and you were first in line, you got one. There was no thinking 'Ah, this will be collectible. I'll stick half-a-dozen aside.”<br />
<br />
<b>Looking back, any regrets? In hindsight, would you have done it any differently? Or even tried to suggest Ray Cappo's name?</b><br />
<br />
I was 23: they were my favourite band in the world. There was nothing I could have done at the time that would have been that much different, so it is what it is. As time goes by, straight away I can take Ian's point of view. He's right: he doesn't deserve to be called an arsehole. It's a bit late in the day for regrets, though. I did it; I put it out, and I stand with it. But Minor Threat are one of my favourite hardcore bands of all time, so … respect due, yeah.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>UPDATE: Jerry A posted this on his Facebook page on 7 June, 2016, after my pal and former Nation of Finks bandmate Tommy Duffin (check out his new band <a href="https://headlesskross.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">Headless Kross</a> - they rule) shared this blog with him.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<i>I'll tell the story one last time, and maybe it'll clear some stuff up. I doubt Ian is on FB, or that he will ever see this. But then again, when that record came out, we didn't think he'd ever see that either. Kalv was going to re-release a couple singles onto a 12" and we were doing the cover/art. the model, asshole, was Kevin the bass player for The Imp. Pigs and Tom's room mate. We took the photo, it came out as we expected. And then we went to name this comp. record. At first it was to be called, "Dinner Is Served". That didn't seem too intense or even funny, so we threw around a bunch of names, and then we started naming people. I think Biafra even might have been named. Someone said Ian's name, and we laughed. Then someone said no, we should stick with that. It was a split second decision, decided while drunk and if we would have made time to really think about it, we probably would have came up with a better title. We didn't set out to attack Ian. We were all Minor Threat fans, who wasn't? I never thought people would be talking about it years later. I wrote a letter once to Ian, at the Discord house explaining why we did it, and never heard a word back. So like I said, it wasn't us hating and attacking this guy. There are a lot worse people in the world to call an asshole. And if anyone would have calmly taken the time to ask us, back then, we would have said the same thing.</i></div>
</div>
kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-83554872772461842452014-10-19T09:00:00.001-07:002015-11-18T07:06:15.667-08:00The Top 10(ish) gigs I've missed A six-week period of enforced immobility due to an ankle injury that has baffled (or bored) medical science reached its nadir last week, when - in the space of two days - I managed to miss gigs by Lecherous Gaze, Beastmilk and Systematic Death. To soothe my tortured soul, I did what any right-minded person would do in this day and age: I had a moan about it on Facebook. 'You should do a Top 10 review of the gigs you've missed,' suggested Brockley's answer to Atonio Gramsci, my pal <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sociology/people/peoplelists/person/130632">Karl</a>. So, given that I wasn't really going anywhere, I did. I didn't include the gigs that I just had a desire to go to but no real plan: <a href="http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/glastonbury-ad-1987-450.jpg">Husker Du at Glastonbury in 1987</a>, the <a href="https://flic.kr/p/7no6hS">Cro-Mags at the Christmas on Earth fest</a> in Leeds in the same year, Bad Brains on the I Against I tour. However much I may have bemoaned on missing out on these in the following years, those excursions did not exist outside the realm of fantasy, because - as a 14 year old - I had neither the money, nous or parental approval to just pack my bags, jump on a bus to parts unknown. (I waited till I was at least 16 for that). No, these are the gigs that - were it not for the pernicious influence of something or someone (usually myself) - I would definitely have been in attendance. And not always for the better, either ... <br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Nirvana – Reading festival, August 30, 1992</span></h3>
I was never a fan (Negative Creep was pretty cool, but Smells Like Teen Spirit sounded to my smug teenage ears like turgid, sub-Pixies schlock aimed at credulous fools who'd never really heard loud guitars before) but I'm a sucker for an epoch-defining gig (it was to be their last in the UK), so had me and my friend not fried our brains on ridiculously strong acid on the Saturday night, we would have stuck around for their headline set. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://nme.assets.ipccdn.co.uk/images/gallery/CharlesPeterson180311.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://nme.assets.ipccdn.co.uk/images/gallery/CharlesPeterson180311.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cobain, defying our lack of faith</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Instead, following a tumultuous 24 hours that saw our previously healthy stockpile of Buckfast, lager, cash and – most importantly – mental fortitude dwindle to naught, we accepted defeat and decided to retreat back up the road to Glasgow. Besides, our tent had flooded, and, trudging <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47206000/jpg/_47206079_reading_6.jpg">across the storm-ravaged campsite at midday</a> as the wind carried the Melvins' portents of doom from the main stage, it really felt like hopelessness had enshrouded everything here. The rumour was that Nirvana were going cancel anyway because Kurt Cobain had done something or other to himself (rumours that had clearly got back to him, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJGl0FQK9Ew">as he mockingly came out on a wheelchair at the start of the set</a>), so we wouldn't be missing out on anything. <br />
<br />
That night, one day into a marathon three-day hitchhike home, we slept on a motorway roundabout behind some bushes, after making sure we had enough money in our pockets so we didn't get arrested for vagrancy. Around about the same time, Nirvana didn't cancel, and thousands of indie moppets jumped up and down on the spot to Smells Like Teen Spirit. If you were to push me then yes, I'll concede that I'd would have probably preferred to be among their number.<br />
<br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Madness – Glasgow Apollo, 8th March, 1983</span></h3>
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<a href="http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/168637907-english-ska-band-madness-photographed-in-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=GkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7QQFm%2FdIznheOijS4GqkvbmYv2kyN13nYQYdvu0sj8%2FNX" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/168637907-english-ska-band-madness-photographed-in-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=GkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7QQFm%2FdIznheOijS4GqkvbmYv2kyN13nYQYdvu0sj8%2FNX" height="131" width="200" /></a></div>
I loved Madness as a child – like most kids in the late 70s/early 80s, I believed it was a toss-up between them and Adam and the Ants as to who really were the kings of pop. I also loved the Glasgow Apollo. I saw my first 'proper' gig there (I say 'proper', as I'd been dragged around countless folk festivals by my parents before that – and saw stuff that would have present-day folkies gnawing their hands in envy: any number of Fairport members past and present; Martin Carthy; Richard Thompson, that sort of thing - but this was The Clash: they had electric guitars, and there wasn't a beard in sight! So aye, proper). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilg6v21LHgzln5YoHgsIOHG_ESWLX8CRYMgcDDc8QPv3i9A4H2fUdb8VsoWBHfpBmRk2qhgqb27-maGaljx4ngtGWhKx8YzwcYIIQ2_mYIEslGtvCOU5Zru4qp-1ZAsjyHGcsn1xTfNJOT/s1600/036.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilg6v21LHgzln5YoHgsIOHG_ESWLX8CRYMgcDDc8QPv3i9A4H2fUdb8VsoWBHfpBmRk2qhgqb27-maGaljx4ngtGWhKx8YzwcYIIQ2_mYIEslGtvCOU5Zru4qp-1ZAsjyHGcsn1xTfNJOT/s200/036.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still got the ticket</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I'd also seen the Ants on their Prince Charming tour and, erm, Toyah (who was entertaining enough to my yet-to-be-jaded palate). This was all down to my father, who'd appointed himself pop columnist on the local paper he was working on, and who could lig with the best of them. So the chance to see Madness was tremendously exciting – what could be more fun, more perfectly in my milieu? The Nutty Boys! The Magnificent Seven in the flesh! <br />
<br />
When we got off the bus at Renfield St, it wasn't long before we realised something was up. While repeated viewings of <a href="http://www.madsounds.co.uk/COMPLETE%20MADNESS%20VHS%20STIFF%20A.JPG">the Complete Madness video tape</a> (another otherwise unimaginable luxury afforded me thanks to my father's press contacts) alerted me to their rude-boy aesthetic, I don't think, for the life of me, I ever considered their fanbase would be drawn from the same demographic. They were lovable cartoon characters – surely it would all be kids with their parents, like a Two-Tone TeleTubbies live show! But, unfortunately for us, the stormtroopers in Sta-Prest were out in force, and my parents and I were, in our woolly jumpers and general 70s shaggy hirsuteness, attracting an increasing number of glares and growls as we made our way to the venue. <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://vintagebrighton.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/National-Front1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://vintagebrighton.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/National-Front1.jpg" height="227" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Look, they're getting off the bus!'</td></tr>
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Unperturbed, my father strode up to the box office to get our press tickets, while my mother, bless her, chose this moment to remonstrate with some spotty young skinhead selling some poorly reproduced iteration of <a href="http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/2550/from_skinhead_bulldog_to_catholic_man_of_letters.aspx">the National Front's youth newspaper, The Bulldog</a>. 'That's illegal. You can't sell that here,' said my mum. 'What's it to yooooou?' screamed some scooter girl in her face.<br />
<br />
The situation had escalated far beyond my comprehension and I remember very little other than my mother marching down to a phone box to call the police, while I gripped on to her hand for dear life, my face buried into the fraying ends of her earthy knitwear. At some point, my father reappeared to say that we weren't on the guest list (however strong my dad's relationship with the good people of Stiff records was, their grasp of Scottish geography was less firm: we'd been put on the list for the Aberdeen gig instead) and would have to pay in. We decided pretty quickly that we'd probably be better off going home. Not surprisingly, I never really enjoyed Madness's music quite in the same way again. But then neither did most people, as the album the tour was supporting, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_%26_Fall_(album)">The Rise and Fall</a>, was prophetic in mapping out their subsequent decline. A couple of years later, I was listening exclusively to hip-hop and electro. In your face, nazis!<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Devo - Glasgow Apollo, 1st June, 1980</span></h3>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/T39yXcEwWoU" width="440"></iframe><br />
One Saturday morning, I was watching Fun Factory, a very poor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiswas">Tiswas </a>replacement, when a pop video featuring some peculiar men in even stranger headgear came on. <a href="http://youtu.be/g4-2onb62y8">The video was intriguing</a> – hinting at some kind of Beatlemania. I knew about Beatlemania and felt cheated that I'd somehow – through a quirk of time and space (and quite possibly gender) – missed out on such an earth-shattering phenomenon. But this video seemed to bear all the hallmarks of such a thing, so maybe this was my chance to get in on the ground floor with these new pop idols. Then the uncomfortable interview with Gary Crowley began – even I could see these weird robot men were ripping the absolute pish out of the presenter.<br />
<br />
Halfway through, my father walks in and says: 'Oh, it's Devo. That's who me and your mum went to see the other night!' *Splutter* I beg your pardon? I knew you folks went out that night - I got a pizza and was allowed to stay up slightly later than usual. It was a wonderful, memorable evening – but to see this? How could you, oh, 25-year-old out-of-touch Methuselah, have possibly derived any pleasure from something that was clearly designed to appeal to me and me alone (even though I was unaware of their existence five minutes ago)? <br />
<br />
It was the first time in my life where not only did I feel sad for missing something, but I burned with an aggrieved sense of entitlement: I would have enjoyed it more, and understood it better, than anyone else (I was seven years old at this point, it should be mentioned). I'd like to say that kind of insufferable arrogance didn't stay with me for too long, but, yeah … moving on.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/fresh-act-for-mould-1.811404" style="font-weight: normal;">Bob Mould Acoustic Set, Sub Club, Glasgow, 1st Dec, 1991</a></h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not as pretty as Curve</td></tr>
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I'm still really not sure how this happened. I loved (and still do) Husker Du – and I religiously bought everything Mould put out subsequently, even though eking out the pleasures of those two solo albums was considerably more challenging than from the easy charms of Candy Apple Grey, Warehouse or New Day Rising. But somehow that Sunday night – with money in my pocket and a desire to stand in a room with music played at me – I ended up at the QMU watching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moAIaLbcKb0">Tesco Value shoegazers Curve instead</a>. Inexplicable. I mean, they were alright-ish, but I couldn't hum you one of their tunes if you put a gun to my head.<br />
<br />
I'm going to place the blame squarely with my mate, who was never the biggest Husker Du fan, but was definitely a fan of Curve's singer (as most young men were at the time, it has to be said.) And, as immediately as the next morning, I knew I'd made a massive mistake. Later, I bumped into an acquaintance on the street who'd made the correct choice. 'How was it?' I inquired. 'Life-changing!' he beamed. 'Oh, fuck off!' I replied.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Larm reunion, Trashfest, Hoogeveen, 25 June, 2005</span></h3>
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One of my favourite tales in the estimable <a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=(language%3Aeng%20OR%20language%3A%22English%22)%20AND%20subject%3A%22zine%22">hardcore zine Hardware</a> details the anguish of the author when he realises that, having dipped out of a CBGBs matinee to get something to eat, he's managed to miss <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dr6HeTcZK8">an impromptu reunion by his favourite band, Straight Ahead</a>. It clearly tickled me to the point that I unconsciously copied it to an almost uncanny degree (Larm and Straight Ahead <a href="https://files.nyu.edu/cch223/public/comps/endthewarzone.html">even appear on a record together</a> – that's how uncanny.) Wearying of Trashfest's relentless blasts of noise, myself and my friend Tom decide to go and get some pizza, giving ourselves a good hour and a half to <br />
make it back in time for the highlight of the day – a very rare reunion of Larm's original lineup (or so I'd been led to believe). The pizza place is beyond ridiculously slow – a flurry of … oooh …. half a dozen orders means their normally glacial pace of making one pizza an hour is being ruthlessly challenged. So we wait, and wait, and wait. I start getting antsy and make arrangements to meet Tom back at the venue and half-jog/half-stride in order to catch some righteous Dutch thrash in its purest form. <br />
<br />
In the original Straight Ahead tale, the protagonist bumps into his friend coming out the venue, reeling from what he'd just witnessed. My gods go one better, and just as I get to the foot of the stairs leading up to the gig floor, I'm confronted with the sight of Larm bass player Jos, drenched in sweat, descending the steps. 'Please tell me you haven't just played,' I implore. 'You mean you missed that?' he replies. I howl expletives at the ceiling while Jos fixes me with a look of detached disappointment usually reserved for <a href="http://www.keiroze.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/JosHoutveen800.jpg">so many Dutch schoolchildren</a>. The pizza was fucking dreadful, too.<br />
<br />
It wasn't the first time I missed them either – back in the 80s, when the networks of DIY touring were less entrenched, Larm found themselves in the seldom regarded Glasgow satellite of Paisley while on tour with<b> Heresy </b>and Belgium's<b> Heibel</b>. I knew nothing about it at the time, but speaking to Kalv and Steve (of Heresy) about it, it seems hardly anybody turned up due to a bus strike. A few folk I've since become friends with in the Glasgow scene made the trip through (I think they had a van), but back then I didn't move in those circles, so I was blissfully ignorant of it (rather than cursing the existence of all Glasgow bus drivers). Which brings me neatly to … <br />
<br />
<h3>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2uiKmi3Uqo"><b>Gauze - Scotland 1989</b></a></h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.shamefulotakusecret.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/gauze1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.shamefulotakusecret.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/gauze1.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gauze, not at Scotand</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Gauze played in Scotland. I'll repeat that. Gauze played in SCOTLAND. Now, I realise that you have to be into Japanese hardcore and be Scottish (and there's about 12 of us) to appreciate the significance of this, but – if you are neither one nor the other – then let me explain: it's an “<a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/article3198445.ece">Elvis Presley at Prestwick Airport</a>” kind of deal. Now I know very little about the details, other than there is recorded proof in the form of the 'Live at Scotland' tracks on their third LP. I don't know when it happened (other than the year), I don't know where it happened (although someone told me it was in Falkirk, which raises it to an even higher level of surreality), and I sure as fuck don't know how it happened.<br />
<br />
All I do know is that, as I was alive, breathing and capable of sentient thought for the entire duration of 1989, had I known Gauze were playing in Scotland, I would have gone to see them. (I wasn't any kind of authority on Japanese hardcore or anything – but I had the Pusmort sampler, and I'd seen enough pictures of Lipcream and GISM in Thrasher to know that, if there's a chance of seeing some straight-up, uncut Japcore, <i>YOU DO NOT PASS UP THAT CHANCE!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-150-1769135-1242193642.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-150-1769135-1242193642.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thrash Till Death</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But, as alluded to earlier, I didn't move in the kind of circles where this information may have been passed on to me. But this wasn't some kind of hardcore kid/crust punk schism, where never the twain shall meet. There was the Glasgow punk scene – and then there was me and my best mate sat in my bedroom drinking tea and listening to Infest and Youth of Today. For some reason our little world refused to collide with their bigger and better-informed one. And that's why I never got to see Gauze.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRg4CcghNa0">25 Ta Life, Underworld, London – sometime in early 2000</a></b></h3>
I think it was about four or five years ago that I realised I fucking hated going to gigs. This breakthrough came as a bit of a shock to me, as it was something I'd been doing on average three nights a week for the past 15 years. But there it was – this 'passion' of mine was actually making me miserable, due in no small part to all the hours spent standing around, fighting my way to the bar and, most crucially of all, dealing with other, disgusting, humans in their most uninhibited form. (What is it about people that think just because they're in a dark room with some instruments being battered semi-competently that this is now their cue to regress to a bestial approximation of their very basest instincts? That's the band's job, pal. So keep your fucking clothes on and shut your stupid, boring face).<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLCHANA_yPiLyLisyZFIJG-eq6BHF3G7gWlMHWk_TttAgzr2CYiapaLzMZ_Wye4hgIFy1Ad4QyX4FlN3v0_ZtjUFBgPExaiXhXd2ixxVfm5Oo40nJJEDk1t0X1qvaT5RivkfX7vz-yYziI/s1600/shanktalife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLCHANA_yPiLyLisyZFIJG-eq6BHF3G7gWlMHWk_TttAgzr2CYiapaLzMZ_Wye4hgIFy1Ad4QyX4FlN3v0_ZtjUFBgPExaiXhXd2ixxVfm5Oo40nJJEDk1t0X1qvaT5RivkfX7vz-yYziI/s320/shanktalife.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and Rick in happier times</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This particular near-miss took place well before that epiphany, as – had I seen <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTuIObT0OXc">Rick Ta Life's cartoon cavalcade</a> - I would have set a new record for gigs attended in one week (and, believe me, that was the sole reason for attending) – taking the total to nine in seven days. It's incredible to me now, but this didn’t seem like time wasted. Integrity and Unruh were some of the more notable performances I caught, if memory serves. So I clearly thought I was enjoying myself, even if it only became obvious to me much later that I was living a lie. <br />
<br />
Not having accounted for the Underworld's newly-adopted policy of starting gigs at around lunchtime so as to accommodate whatever shite indie disco they were putting on later, I arrived about 10 minutes into the band's set at – what? - half-seven, maybe?<br />
<br />
'Box office's closed,' grunted the man in the wee box at the top of the Underworld's stairs, as I proffered a tenner at him. 'Um, how about you just take the money and let me in?' I bargained. 'Camera's everywhere,' he sneered, the syllables barely making it out of his pinched, sweaty lips. 'So you're telling me I can't even pay in? That's fucking ridiculous. Can I just walk in then, if it's nearly over?' I couldn't believe I was having to beg to get in this stinking shitehole with its choking aroma of open trenches only occasionally masked by the smell of stale beer and cheap bleach. And to see 25 Ta Life?!?!<br />
<br />
'Try getting past him first!' he smirked, gesturing to a massive hulk of a man with a head like a phrenologist's nightmare. I snapped. 'You know what? You're a fucking prick, pal!' I shouted. <br />
As if triggered by a motion sensor, the lumpy-headed sentry stirred and lumbered in my direction just as I felt a hand on my shoulder. Seamus, handing out flyers for a <a href="http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=288519">Throw Bricks At Coppers</a> gig, had been watching the whole exchange, and – mercifully – came to intervene just as things started to go a bit awry. I only barely knew the man at the time, but his interjection of 'Don't waste your time with these cunts. Let's go and get a pint' was advice I was happy to take, and we spent a good portion of the rest of the night supping Guinness and chatting about Celtic. Cheers, Seamus – and fuck you, Underworld, you reeking cloud of airborne toxins. So my record for attending gigs in one week still stands at eight, and is unlikely to be broken for the reasons mentioned above. I can live with that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Business – Water Rats, London, 1997</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://legacymedia.localworld.co.uk/275786/Article/images/13721267/3295868.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://legacymedia.localworld.co.uk/275786/Article/images/13721267/3295868.png" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It probably looked a bit like this</td></tr>
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A week or so prior to this now infamous gig, Madball and Ignite played the Underworld (yep, that place again – central to so much misery in my gig-going life). It might have been due to one of the supports, or it might have been Madball's Agnostic Front connections, but there were a lot of dodgy skins and other assorted hoolies in the venue that night, certainly more than I've ever seen at a HC gig in London, even a Madball one, since. 'Watch your back,' said one friend. 'I think there's a bunch of Chelsea Headhunters in.' I rolled my eyes. Aye, right. Twats.<br />
<br />
As it was, with my shaved head, Get-A-Grips and black flight jacket, I was unlikely to draw any unwelcome attention to myself (how long ago that Madness debacle seemed). If anything, I was subject to a bit of target marketing from my bald-headed brethren – a friendly entreaty to a secret, invite-only Last Resort gig ('No politics,' he said. 'None of that … ' I nodded, my immediate thought being that 'no politics' tends to mean 'lots of politics', almost exclusively of the straight-armed variety), and I was given the address of a man setting up a one-stop shop for skinheads: 'The good stuff, y'know, that we're not allowed to sell in the shops …' Hmm, do they not have the British Standard Institute <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/BSI_Kitemark.svg">kitemark </a>on them, perhaps?<br />
<br />
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During Madball's set, the Club 88 types (or the Chelsea Headhunters, I never got close enough to have a good look) started singing 'No Surrender to the IRA' as well as chants about the UVF and the like. Incandescent (and ever so slightly drunk), I replied with shouts of 'Fuck the Queen' and 'Up the 'Ra!'. Well, I tried to, but I was restrained by my less drunk and more clever St Pauli-supporting friend from Germany, who clasped his hand over my mouth whenever I looked like I was about to shout out something a bit feniany. I conceded defeat, but – after being handed a flyer for the upcoming Business gig at Camden Water Rats on leaving the venue, and still fizzing with Republican anger – I turned to him and said: 'Right, fuck these orange nazi bastards. We're going to this gig with our Celtic tops on. They can shove their No Surrender up their arses.' He didn't look convinced. But I was undeterred. I probably even ranted about it to whoever would listen when I was getting rat-arsed on the eve of the gig: 'Bloody nazi UVF scum ….<i> grumble grumble </i>…. I'll show them ….<i> mutter</i> …. chucky ar la and that, ya bass …. <i>etc</i>' <br />
<br />
Getting so hammered that I couldn't move out my bedroom the next day, let alone make the trek to north London to see a band that I was, at best, only moderately keen on, was probably the best thing I've ever done. I doubt I would have worn a Celtic top, but I was determined to have some sort of representation of my hastily cobbled-together terrace politics on my person. A <a href="https://www.rocknshop.de/images/product_images/popup_images/FC_St_Pauli_Gegen_Rechts_Patch_weiss-6556_0.jpg">St Pauli patch with Gegen Rechts</a> on it, perhaps – or even just a green-and-white scarf.<br />
<br />
I would have been a dead man.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/bowie-victoria.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/bowie-victoria.jpg" height="128" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bowie on his way to Water Rats</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The gig (and everyone in attendance) was attacked by a mob of Combat 18 bullyboys (quite possibly the same mob that were at the Madball gig) in probably one of the worst instances of far-right violence at a UK gig since the Rock Against Racism days of the late 70s. I know a couple of folk who were there, and – despite being no stranger to a bit of direct action themselves – they made it very clear just how terrifying an experience it was. Apparently, there was a guy who was picked out for wearing a Plymouth Argyle top, purely because there was a bit of green on the shirt. Yep, I would have been toast.<br />
<br />
This wasn't the only gig they smashed up around that time. They stormed into the Dublin Castle when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Beat"><b>The Special Beat</b></a> (a short-lived amalgam of the two ska bands) were due to play a few days later in a similar fashion. Coincidentally, I was sat around the corner in The Good Mixer with a couple of mates, deciding against going because we couldn't be arsed, and, well, we've just bloody sat down, haven't we? <br />
<br />
In the end, it's the not taking part that counts.kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-72481101123577224122013-09-09T07:29:00.003-07:002015-11-17T06:19:42.190-08:00Bl'ast on Discharge's grave in the new world<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OsUY3fif9zxgn8lwT6aVw3SI6sVU_x1HOdGVEESq5uRcL4wmBKayH9_ezLD65DQR3_TybT1wSM_26T5EANYEmzeesslgzwAaEi7Wxw_f5vOhzKSIpMt7VkAsuW7qQzCcUgsta18C4roR/s1600/BLAST2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OsUY3fif9zxgn8lwT6aVw3SI6sVU_x1HOdGVEESq5uRcL4wmBKayH9_ezLD65DQR3_TybT1wSM_26T5EANYEmzeesslgzwAaEi7Wxw_f5vOhzKSIpMt7VkAsuW7qQzCcUgsta18C4roR/s400/BLAST2.jpg" /></a></div>
If you haven't already read <a href="http://theappendix.net/issues/2013/7/rules-of-the-tribe-hardcore-punks-and-hair-metal-in-the-1980s">this appraisal</a> of Discharge's fall from grace in 1986, do so. It's a pretty entertaining and well-researched read (if a little short on actual new information), but the real gem is Nate Wilson's recording of the show, which definitely deserves to join the (admittedly quite small) pantheon of '<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3SZM-jEpbTs">great gig riots caught on tape</a>'.<br />
<br />
By sheer coincidence, during an interview with Clifford Dinsmore of Bl'ast, we took a detour from talking about his old band's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S22aJ_948n0">pretty fucking amazing bit of archive raiding for Southern Lord </a>(the interview can be found on <a href="http://thequietus.com/articles/13355-blast-interview-dave-grohl-greg-anderson">The Quietus</a> btw) to discuss Discharge, their ill-fated US tour in 1986, and Bl'ast being witnesses to one of the more notorious episodes in punk rock history.<br />
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Dinsmore takes up the story:<br />
“We played with them on that tour in San Diego. We were in New York at the Ritz. It was a bill we were supposed to be on. It was Discharge, DRI and Corrosion of Conformity. It was supposed to be us, but that was our first tour and Chris Williamson [infamous NY promoter] was like: 'Oh we can't have that unknown California band on that tour, we have to have Youth Of Today.' So we left <br />
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after DRI after played. We were like: 'Ah, we heard what's happened to Discharge. We've heard the record. We don't even have to check this out.' And I guess it got really, really hectic. Everyone flipped out and really hated it. And HR from Bad Brains walked up on stage with a garbage can and dumped it on Cal's head. And it spread like wildfire about how bad they'd gotten.<br />
<br />
"I feel bad saying this because I can appreciate bands want get into different stuff, and they want to go in different directions. But it's almost like you should just break up – form a different band with a new name. Die hard fans who want to see a certain thing are not going to react that pleasantly when you totally change your whole format.<br />
<br />
"So, we were playing with them in San Diego, and we went across the whole country and the word was just spreading across the country. So by the time we got to San Diego ... it was us and Dr Know playing with them, in a YMCA with bleachers behind the stage. And we were all sitting in the bleachers after our sets, us and Dr Know, watching Discharge from behind, basically. And of all a sudden the crowd started pelting them with shit - cans, bottles, you name it – anything they could throw they were throwing. And we were sitting behind them, so we all jumped off the bleachers pretty fast!<br />
<br />
"I guess it got to a point where … well, they were playing Fender's Ballroom the next night, which is basically the most violent place in the history of hardcore – just straight up. I mean, maybe there was places on the east coast that were similar, but Fenders was a phenomenon – it was just war! If Discharge had gone there, I don't know if they would have came out there alive. <i>[NB It seems they did indeed play Fender's, and then The Farm in San Francisco the following night - the one caught on tape by Nate. One has to applaud their tenacity, if nothing else, given the reception they received.]</i><br />
<br />
"But it was pretty blatant, though – it was kind of appalling for them to come out the way they did, all glammed up, and the drummer was wearing these weird shiny Kiss boots. It really was just a mindfuck!"kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-43943918291979532532013-08-02T04:59:00.000-07:002015-11-17T06:20:20.152-08:00How The Process destroyed hardcore in Oakland FOREVER!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The calm before the storm</td></tr>
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So I had the pleasure of hosting Alicia and B. from <a href="http://r-e-p-l-i-c-a.bandcamp.com/">Replica </a>(Great band. Check them out.) earlier this week, and Alicia passed on to me a thoroughly entertaining piece of information. We had played together in Oakland, Ca, in October last year, with Iron Lung and Gehenna, and the show was absolutely nuts - 300-plus crammed into a room that should really only accommodate half that. The cops eventually came and closed it down during Iron Lung's set, there was barely enough to room to breathe when Gehenna played, and, when we were on stage, things had already got so nuts that some kid - who was getting in people's faces, punching them and, laughably, attempting to attack Gav - had a bottle smashed over his head for his troubles.<br />
<br />
Take as evidence <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIUhnNIhD4">this video</a> from our set. It's all vacant stares and the occasional nodding head, but even by the end of this small section, we'd started to win over the crowd (and even the guy filming it, judging by his comment - cheers!). If you extrapolate that over another 15 minutes then the chaos you're picturing might just match what was going on in front of me when I was playing. (Seriously, I did wonder if I was going to have to jump off the stage and sort out the wee dick that kept trying to punch Gav; of course, the Guvnor doesn't need my help, and defused the situation (a bit) by bending over and laughing in his face. Then, naturally, someone smashed a bottle over the guy's head.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS_7oDTVaT6ttpynzLo_pnVGT3mUfCXW1ibVwYI_gcV-fnn4eIYDZcwPZXztfiVIlQs0eqHqY7xW40OGxefhREnRmwwNa4Dzevk4wlzSvzJ5ZnGUNNuu2WR1HZsOVZMTY0Lvuo1GCscQv0/s1600/process.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS_7oDTVaT6ttpynzLo_pnVGT3mUfCXW1ibVwYI_gcV-fnn4eIYDZcwPZXztfiVIlQs0eqHqY7xW40OGxefhREnRmwwNa4Dzevk4wlzSvzJ5ZnGUNNuu2WR1HZsOVZMTY0Lvuo1GCscQv0/s320/process.jpg" width="123" /></a>Then there were fights outside, people collapsing drunk all over the shop, and - this is when the city of Oakland really springs into action - any number of fire code violations taking place. The end result was that, only four songs into their set on the last show of their West Coast tour with The Process, Iron Lung were cut short by the cops turning up and closing the show down.<br />
<br />
Now that sucked for Iron Lung, and the 300-plus people there to see them, but it was wonderful for me! Are you kidding? I've always <i>dreamed</i> of playing a show that's been shut down by the police - that's pretty much No 1 on the California hardcore bucket list. Then, as I mentioned earlier, came the icing on the cake from Alicia. It seems that Sugarmountain (a very cool space by the way. Much more reminiscent of a well-run European squat than a typical US venue.) decided to stop booking hardcore shows in light of the carnage that took place that evening. Now let me ask you, had the crowd remained in their stupor as displayed at the start of that video, would the good people at Sugarmountain have had any problems with booking more shows in that vein? I sincerely doubt it. But they didn't. As hinted at by the footage, at the end of that first song, this was a pack of animals waiting to be whipped into a blood-thirsty frenzy by our sexy riffs, pale skin and jet-lagged demeanours. The end result was the cops being called and Sugarmountain effectively banning hardcore bands from ever darkening their doors. And that, my friends, is how The Process destroyed hardcore in Oakland forever*.<br />
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Here's Iron Lung's truncated set and the moment the cops turned up.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Un1JWXIQhG4" width="420"></iframe><br />
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* I know, I know. We didn't really.<br />
<br />kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-23527679236049884042013-04-12T06:08:00.000-07:002015-11-17T06:20:40.724-08:00Degraded in Chelsea: my DJing stint at the American Hardcore 1978-90 exhibition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Yes, but how much can you take'... DJing at the American Hardcore show</td></tr>
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“Welcome to the final nail in hardcore’s coffin,” was how I greeted my friends who stopped by to say hello. Sweaty and harassed, hauling a box of old HC 12s and 7s from South Kensington tube to a posh side street, I’d barely had a chance to register my surroundings before being led up to the glass-fronted DJ parapet overlooking the gallery, other than that the place seemed pretty bloody swank. But the looks of bemusement from those that trudged up the stairs to ask me what the fuck I, of all people, was doing here consolidated the uneasy feeling I’d had since I walked in – this had the makings of a weird fucking scene, and a significant distance from the "Hey, let’s get pissed and play some raging old hardcore records" party I’d deluded myself into thinking I’d signed up for.<br />
<br />
The first half-hour was fine, because the place was basically empty, and I got the chance lazily switch between Rodney On The ROQ and Let Them Eat Jellybeans comp tracks and then amuse myself by playing songs that, to me at least, commented on the stupidity of trying to reframe hardcore as an antiquated gallery exhibit in the posh part of town: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJCKwqyR7KY">Flipper’s Ha Ha Ha</a> – “Isn´t life a blast/It´s just like living in the past” – or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txtCND0kDTo">Urban Waste’s Reject</a> – “Cos they’re really the rejects/for liking music from the past.” The gallery staff were awfully nice – and made sure my beverage requirements were attended to with haste. But as the place filled up, I could tell something was wrong - so terribly, terribly wrong. For every familiar (albeit confused-looking) face, two dozen moneyed Made In Chelsea extras swanned in and swooned as Toby Mott, the artist behind this exhibition, greeted them at the door. These were clearly his target demographic – Prada-clad west London fuckwits so far removed from punk’s milieu that the irony of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Mott#The_Mott_Collection_-_CRASS_exhibition">high-class gallery show dedicated to Crass’s seditious rage</a> (one of Mott’s previous projects) wouldn’t occur to them in a million years. The angrier I got, the more obnoxious my music choices became – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V47_DQ3WT6c">Reagan Youth</a> (‘Sieg Heil!’), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmCss3eZrjU">Angry Samoans with the Hitler speech intro</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYHA7I6g5wk">Vile’s 5 to 10</a> (‘Rape little girls? Not me!’), and to round off my section of the evening, SS Decontrol’s endurance test <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thbMaR6nyxY">How Much Art</a>? I wasn’t expecting a riot (although, in my wildest dreams, I would have loved one), but I was kinda sorta hoping that someone might accost me about the off-colour nature of my selections. But nothing. It was every punk’s nightmare: impotent rage being met with indifference, or worse, smug indulgence. <br />
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Once I’d finished my stint, I went downstairs to find Katie, who was beginning to fizz with fury at being surrounded by braying Kensington twats enjoying the chance to shout at the top of their ding-dong voices at yet another gallery opening for – what was it this time, darling? Punk rocks? (“I just wanted to go around grabbing them and shout: ‘You know she’s burning in hell, you Tory cunts!” she told me later, this being only a couple of days after Thatcher died, of course.) <br />
<br />
We stood in front of the giant oblong frame of 50 7in sleeves – for this was what this entire exhibition consisted of: no explanations, no notes, no additional material – just a bunch of record sleeves, albeit mostly great ones. “So, is this it?” my wife asked me, verbalising what most folk even vaguely conversant with punk would have thought as they walked in the door. <br />
<br />
“Uh, yeah … weird, isn’t it?” <br />
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“Mmm, so are these all important records then?” <br />
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“Well, kinda …” And then I systematically went through the rows of records, grading them in the manner of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_UGD7AazMI">Chewin the Fat “Good guy/wank”</a> sketch: “That’s great, that’s great, that’s OK, those five are stone cold classics, that’s pretty good, fuck knows what that’s doing here. And that one?! Christ, I got that in a trade as a freebie because the guy took so long to send me the record I actually wanted – I mean, it’s got a cover of La Bamba on it, for fuck’s sake!” At this point, unbeknown to me, Mott had become aware of my animated appraisal of his “art”, and loomed at my shoulder. Katie ghosted off into the background as I heard him greet me: “Ah, the music man!” Hmm, only slightly patronising, so I’ll play nice. <br />
<br />
Now I don’t want to be too disparaging about Mr Mott. For someone who describes himself as a “Gold card anarchist”, he seemed, in his own raffish “can’t quite believe I’m getting away with this” way, a perfectly agreeable host. He even brought me up a beer at the start of the night, which, as anyone who knows me well will be aware, goes a long way to getting in my good books. <br />
<br />
“Yeah, was just pondering some of your choices there. The inclusion of a couple of records puzzled me.” Internally, I’m screaming “White fucking Flag – Live in Sweden – what the fuck is that about? Not even a <i>member</i> of White Flag would consider that an important development in the career of <i>White Flag</i>, let alone the entire genre of hardcore!” <br />
<br />
“Well, if you look in the top left corner,” he said in an authoritative tone I recognised as the one used to deliver rehearsed spiels at gallery openings, “You’ll see The Middle Class EP, which is generally recognised as …” <br />
<br />
“Aye, Out of Vogue,’ I replied, cutting him off. ‘Total rager – the blueprint for hardcore. I would have brought my own copy to play, but, y’know, bit of an expensive record to be carting about to DJ with.” We both laughed awkwardly. <br />
<br />
This was an absolute bare-faced fucking lie – I don’t own the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQNTtZ3qXs">Out of Vogue EP</a>. The closest I ever did come to owning it was holding it in my hands when I found it in <a href="http://bucketfullofbrains.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/minus-zero-new-shop-opens.html">Minus Zero</a> about 12 or so years ago for the very reasonable price of £35 (current Popsike valuations are in the $150 range). I wasn’t exactly rolling in cash at the time, so it was a luxury that remained just out of my grasp. Who knows? Maybe Mott breezed around the corner from his Notting Hill Gate gaff and bought it with his gold card just hours later. But enough with the vinyl envy … <br />
<br />
“So yeah,” I continued, “what was the thinking behind some of these? Because, like I said, some of them seem a bit incongruous when you’re talking about this history of hardcore …” <br />
<br />
“Well, it’s about the aesthetic.” <br />
<br />
“Rather than the content?” I replied, my eyes narrowing slightly. <br />
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“Well, um, yes, I wanted to show off covers that I thought …” He was cut off by some rich society cunt in a Burberry fur coat coming to air-kiss him and congratulate him on whatever the fuck it was he was doing here, and wasn’t the gallery just an amaay-zing space for this kind of thing? <br />
<br />
My prejudices reaffirmed, I rejoined my wife who was reading the one piece of blurb about the exhibition painted on the wall. Blah blah … west coast … blah blah … suburbs … blah blah … DC … <br />
<br />
“Is it weird that it doesn’t mention New York?” asked Katie. <br />
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“Well, they were a little late to the game in the scheme of things but … yeah … come to think of it, that’s total bullshit.” <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In defence of Old New York</td></tr>
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Fuelled by a fresh wave of indignation, and a shitload of free Moretti, I pushed my way back up the stairs to the booth, barged aside my estimable DJ partner <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/life-of-pain">James Knight</a>, and shoved on<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HydaGM7Y_jM"> Last Warning by Agnostic Front</a>. “That’ll show the cunts,” I thought to myself. Of course, it didn’t – nothing would. But that became the pattern of the evening – bouts of anger following by bursting in on an eternally patient James demanding to play <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzaVQOee0B4">Greedy and Pathetic by MDC</a> or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gVcveVJbi0">Sick of Talk by Infest</a> or something else that would simply be received as white noise above the din of self-congratulatory cunts celebrating their charmed lives. At one point I did hear someone mention the word “Judge”, but quickly realised that they were talking about the profession of one of their dear, dear friends, not New York’s sXe legends. <br />
<br />
At the end of the night I was presented with my copy of the book and my fee discretely placed in an envelope. I toddled off into the night, heaving my records along the road, spending the money immediately on booze to drown my sorrows and then a taxi home in a fit of largesse. <br />
<br />
Waking up the next morning with a Withnail-esque bastard behind the eyes, I was still incandescent about the whole affair, but – aware that anger is so often just disappointment in oneself externalised – I came to the conclusion that, really, I was annoyed at myself for not assuming the obvious beforehand. This was a gallery in Chelsea, not a squat in Hackney: of course it was going to be full of moneyed arseholes with nary a clue about what they were listening to nor the inclination to investigate any further. I mean, for Christ’s sake, I’ve spent most of my adult life playing in bands to people staring vacantly at me with their arms folded – and these were people who actually liked the music I was playing. And I was somehow expecting to turn the world upside down by playing a song about Hitler’s cock. Fuck’s sake, Jamie – get a grip! <br />
<br />
Then I looked at the book ...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Adolescents had that retro sound down in 1990</td></tr>
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<strike style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></strike>At the start, there is an interview between Mott and another collector where our esteemed artist admits he knows very little about hardcore, being more interested in UK punk, and draws parallels between USHC and the Amish community (I know, right?). His interviewee is a lot more clued up – shame he didn’t help out on the captioning of the records. The minimal information given – Band, EP, Title, Year of release is often so crazily wrong, it’s laughable. The reasoning behind the peculiar time frame of the exhibition – 1978-90 – becomes clear when you see the records that are placed chronologically towards the end: 7 Second’s debut <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51PBYRWSVbs">Skins Brains and Guts</a> is given a 1989 release date, because that’s when the Pazzafist reissue came out. (Christ, if only 7 Seconds had given us that record in 1989, instead of that Soulforce Revolution piece of crap!) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_ZiS76jSak">Adolescents’ Welcome to Reality</a> is listed as being from 1990, rather than a decade earlier, because he’s used the fucking repress, too. For fuck’s sake, hardcore is no longer a folk culture, as it was in the pre-internet era, when that kind of arcane knowledge was passed down by word of mouth. All this information is freely available <a href="http://www.fuzzlogic.com/flex/doku.php/start">here</a> – and has been for years. </div>
<br />
Worse still are the listings for the Fear and Bad Brains EPs, which refer to the boots of those respective records, and even then the fucking dates are wrong. The exhibition blurb claims it “visually documents the scene’s subtle shifts and changes between the late seventies and early nineties”. To put it in visual art terms, they’ve listed <a href="http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/222/w500h420/CRI_159222.jpg">Warhol’s Campell Soup Cans</a> as hailing from 1987, because that’s when you could buy a poster of it in Athena. And, lest we forget, now we’re just looking at covers of bootlegs in this special book? Maybe that’s why they’re charging £50 a copy, so he can afford to buy the originals and put them in their own special little exhibition. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGhJ6AVGG03Phwqz8CVdBLOThyphenhyphenSL8AKw3HTkILSIu1R6ZANRHdpSmO5TvWdhF3ZKpgjkPJnIkgzQxBSX0xDDQqW7-TBrswbTZRWfr5Cx76Z0N7vP6bqO5Rb_aoHGhD5EmHJtB82PDj517/s1600/20130412_130749+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGhJ6AVGG03Phwqz8CVdBLOThyphenhyphenSL8AKw3HTkILSIu1R6ZANRHdpSmO5TvWdhF3ZKpgjkPJnIkgzQxBSX0xDDQqW7-TBrswbTZRWfr5Cx76Z0N7vP6bqO5Rb_aoHGhD5EmHJtB82PDj517/s200/20130412_130749+%25282%2529.jpg" width="190" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look! It isn't the 1st press! Woo!</td></tr>
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Yes, that’s right. Fifty fucking quid – for a book of record covers with scant, and often erroneous, information. And these aren’t beautiful glossy colour plates like in the first edition of <a href="http://www.akpress.org/hardcorecalifornia.html">Hardcore California</a>. Or the culturally priceless collection of painstakingly arranged and annotated flyers in<a href="http://www.gingkopress.com/03-gra/fucked-up-photocopied__pop.html"> Fucked Up + Photocopied</a>. No, along with an entirely unessential 7in that features a 1981 interview with those underexposed punk underdogs Black Flag, this is just a bunch of pictures of some records owned by some guy – on crappy paper. Or according to The Vinyl Factory’s guff – “printed on a Risograph machine. This is a special print process akin to screen printing, and perfectly reflects the DIY aesthetic of the artwork in the catalogue.”<br />
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So something expensive and elitist deliberately being downgraded in a bid to seem more gritty and authentic, then? Hmm, seems like this whole thing was more genuinely punk than I’d originally given it credit for. <br />
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<i># American Hardcore 1978-90 is at The Vinyl Factory, South Kensington, SW1 until 4 May. Details: <a href="http://www.thevinylfactory.com/">www.thevinylfactory.com</a>. Alternatively, you could just look at some record covers on the internet, and the effect would be just as visceral i.e. not in the fucking slightest. For that, you’d actually have to listen to the music. How much art can you take? </i></div>
kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-32609369398762119332011-08-27T05:01:00.000-07:002011-08-27T05:01:39.947-07:00Conquest for Death videoI guess this is a bit of cheat, as I have nothing to do with this band other than they are my friends - but I feel my life in HC is inextricably linked with these dudes. I've known Devon and Craig for what seems like half-a-lifetime (and I take a perverse pride in featuring in one of Craig's legendary <a href="http://www.yourmother.com/whn/europe/9.htm">tour journals</a>), and Shank had the pleasure of Robert - a prince among men - chaperoning us around the Bay Area when we were over there, the first of many rather lovely times spent in his company. We even ended up going to see <a href="http://www.mikegiant.com/index.php">Mike Giant</a> together about getting tattooed, before he became an international art superking.<br />
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Anyway, this is an awesome video, with amazing footage of some of their outlandish tours - Namibia, China, Botswana, Mauritius - which foments two (kind of conflicting) thoughts in my head. THIS is what DIY touring is about - blazing new trails, rather than just trudging around the same well-worn sequence of Euro squats and municipal youth clubs. Secondly, while I'll never miss the tedium of long-ass drives and the ennui of trying to fill the gap between a 4pm soundcheck and a 1am stage slot with anything other than alcohol or sleep, I do miss the camraderie of life on the road and the joy of hosting old friends who swing by your city on their tour or being hosted by them when the roles are reversed - and I miss these guys a lot, too.<br />
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<object height="390" width="640"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/lT8AbQnk6dI&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/lT8AbQnk6dI&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="500" height="390"></embed></object>kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-73587710680569087092011-08-06T11:35:00.000-07:002011-08-06T12:02:31.900-07:00Shank, Live in LA, 2003<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><iframe frameborder="0" height="300" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27375367?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400"></iframe><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/27375367">Shank, Live in LA, 2003</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user7338987">Jamie Thomson</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWVXbzCwo5xmZDBcMCrxw-91h4VgUNND0i8cYZQzEIuwcAWiIaMbNoNBGr96MWBM2Sdi786ZqZ2hdRgE8SWjKENG5fYix2iPkQEU91_yJLWIrIOhi1TRQt0FU0Vsv6rEAkmZ3nV2lexEu/s1600/shankla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWVXbzCwo5xmZDBcMCrxw-91h4VgUNND0i8cYZQzEIuwcAWiIaMbNoNBGr96MWBM2Sdi786ZqZ2hdRgE8SWjKENG5fYix2iPkQEU91_yJLWIrIOhi1TRQt0FU0Vsv6rEAkmZ3nV2lexEu/s320/shankla.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>Been meaning to get this up on the web in some form for years - because it really was the highlight of our existence as a band. We thought Gilman St a week earlier wouldn't be beaten, but we hadn't counted on the LA kids. And it seemed the perfect way to bow out, too. This is the shortened version that starts about five minutes in, when it starts to get really nuts. It's not that the first five minutes are in any way dull, but who watches an internet video for more than five minutes, really? And I wouldn't want you to miss the real chaos. Some choice quotes from the crowd include: "You guys from Russia rock!", and "Somebody just broke a leg - yaaah!" (He didn't, but I don't think he was going jogging anytime soon either.) On a personal note, today I was actually wearing the very same grey shirt as in this video, cheapskate that I am (although, it does fit me much better these days). That makes that shirt nearly nine years old! Those Dickies guys, they don't fuck around ...kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3631398115509220135.post-32457883853448832462011-08-06T10:05:00.000-07:002015-11-17T06:22:07.260-08:00Why bother?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FDjUOXTfWORvh0l1qu7OmsuNSqcZHi6ebzsOLHZq3ThB5GdaW_wumazKq2BfhAB2ahdDO9TOf0f6v66w4fQ80gtG0NjUIA2Zt_dutQfguuTNTgORINve8qa-VlU-Zaou3sHtU399J34V/s1600/ct.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FDjUOXTfWORvh0l1qu7OmsuNSqcZHi6ebzsOLHZq3ThB5GdaW_wumazKq2BfhAB2ahdDO9TOf0f6v66w4fQ80gtG0NjUIA2Zt_dutQfguuTNTgORINve8qa-VlU-Zaou3sHtU399J34V/s320/ct.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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.<br />
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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. <br />
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<a name='more'></a>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<a href="http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/reviews/?id=5894"> our split with Iron Lung</a>, 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 <a href="http://www.myspace.com/nationoffinks">Nation of Finks</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/suburbandisease">Suburban Disease</a>, possibly a video of <a href="http://www.myspace.com/theeprocess">The Process</a> 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.<br />
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And of course, there will be nuggets of occasional wisdom, too - you lucky people, you.kngenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09633532233292927176noreply@blogger.com0