Random Hand, Dirty Revolution: Camden Underworld
Posted by jamie on Dec 12, 2011
Random Hand, Dirty Revolution, Smokey Bastard
Underworld, Camden
10th December 2011
Jamie
Originally booked as part of Big D’s planned headline tour, this was one of few shows to survive, Random Hand stepping up to headline with labelmates Dirty Revolution and Smokey Bastard in tow as well as Chas Ikstan and the Bon Bon Bons and Beat the Red Light.
This was always going to be an emotional show: most obviously, of course, we had the sad news that Big D’s David McWane has been diagnosed with throat cancer only last month. Reb’s pregnant, and Random Hand are getting old - their words, not mine – so this also the last we’ll see of them and of Dirty Rev until festival season of 2012 at the earliest. Oh, and it’s Adam Dalton’s birthday. Almost. It all ends up turning in to a bit of a love-in.
Thanks to my own incompetence, I arrived to find Chas Palmer-Williams being congratulated by all and sundry on what was, apparently, an entertaining and very enjoyable set. I missed it completely, and didn’t see Beat the Red Light either, which was gutting, but, at 19:00, the Underworld is already uncomfortably warm and the air is heavy with sweat and drunken enthusiasm and that can hardly be a bad thing.
Smokey Bastard are in their element. They open with My Son John, one of my favourites from their stunning second album Tales from the Wasteland, a delightfully surreal sea-shanty-cum-folk-song sung in four-part harmony. From there, they set off at breakneck pace and scarcely look back. Their energy and presence on stage is infectious, and they’re clearly having a wonderful time romping through their catchy little songs and poking fun at the semantics of whether or not vampires can haunt if they’re not technically dead, and the bemused faces standing hushed in the half-light in front of them. Something in that banter sparks the crowd to life, and they quickly have the front few rows jigging about and the rest of us spinning in circles like Cotton-Eyed Joe. The brilliantly epic quick-slow-quick “like songs should be” Aspirations, I Have Some and set closer Wasteland, in particular, are highlights of a delightfully irreverent set of high-speed folk-punk played at speed and with feeling. They’ve definitely made a few friends here.
Dirty Revolution enter to a giant roar. They’re much loved here, and in fine form as well. They’ve toured Before the Fire for some time, and everyone here knows the songs from that. They open with Years and Years, System and Where are the Police? before eventually taking a little break. Reb has to ask a few very large, and very drunk, men to please calm down. As mentioned, she’s six months pregnant and has spilt some water on stage. Happily, she reassures us it’s from a bottle and she’s not about to give birth, but could still do without being clattered by any of the boisterously clumsy crowd-surfers all fighting to get on and off of the stage. There are lots of them, and some, in fairness, look very heavy. No offence, lads.
50p is an instant hit, and the glorious sunshine sound of new song Down Low, straight after, is greeted as enthusiastically as the promise of a new album we’re to expect in 2012. To keep everybody safe, some of the girls are lifted out of the front row to have a little skank on the stage during Rude Girl before I Love Reggae and Permanent Damage bring the set to a triumphant close. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dirty Revolution play better.
And so to Random Hand. Bigger and better with every live appearance, they’re at their belligerent best throughout what’s effectively a greatest hits set, wringing every last drop of energy and beery sweat out of a delighted pit. Robin stops to pay tribute to David McWane, to all of tonight’s bands, and to his adoring London crowd for braving the cold weather, in amongst a high-speed stomp through the anthemic Scum Triumphant, Devil’s Little Guineau Pig and a gigantic rendition of new single Floating Ghosts.
While there’s plenty of material from latest record Seething is Believing, with 3 from 6 even more brutally splendid than the rest, it’s testament to the sheer power behind their sound in 2011 that all of their back catalogue sounds as just as enormous. If proof were needed, Random Hand also have so many stage invasions to cope with that it actually becomes a problem. Matt has to explain that he will actually knock someone out if they damage his guitar, and then lightens the mood by performing a funny dance. It’s not that funny, but in the moment it’s absolutely hilarious. Robin tops it, though, by promising and then retracting £40, cash, to anyone who achieves it.
A naked man runs on stage. He tucks his rude bits back between his legs to make himself look like a woman (he’s got the hips for it, in fairness). He runs off. Hilarity ensues, but he doesn’t get knocked out. And then we all sing happy birthday to Adam Dalton. Random Hand wrap up with Anger Management, obviously, and then Bones. They actually return for an encore but then change their minds and leave the stage again, apparently for technical reasons. It’s a strange end to triumphant set that epitomises everything that skacore, at its best, ought to be about: racing through their biggest songs with terrifying pace and power, and performing knowing comic turns in between. It’s impossible not to love Random Hand as a bunch of blokes, and they’re entertaining during an emergency change of strings, but in concert tonight they’re at their exhilarating, enormous best. Definitely not for the faint hearted, but a real treat for those who dare.
We’d like to send all of our love and support, once again, to David McWane, to Big D and the Kid’s Table, and to all of Dave’s family and friends. Get well soon.
Slackers: new record
Posted by jamie on Dec 9, 2011
NYC jazz/ska/soul legends the Slackers popped in to tell us about their newest record. Here’s what they had to say:
Our latest release is a compilation of familiar and unfamilar cover tunes. Old favorites like “Strychnine” get the studio treatment, and classics like “I’m Still Standing” get the proper Slackers reinvention. It’s part of the Whatevski Big Tunes Project, an initiative to help put out more great records, give our bands better support, and open a co-op digital store where any ska band, artist, or label can sell music and build a community.
Check it out here.
Or hear a sample track here:
Here’s the full track list:
1 Attitude (The Misfits)
2 Like A Virgin (Madonna)
3 Strychnine (The Sonics)
4 I’m Still Standing (Elton John)
5 Jeepster (T-Rex)
6 The Letter (The Box Tops)
7 Game of Love (Wayne Fontana)
8 Reach Out (The Four Tops)
9 Bitch (The Rolling Stones)
10 Ganbare (The Blue Hearts)
11 Volunteers (Jefferson Airplane)
Picture taken at this show, where Gecko and the Slackers slayed Camden’s Jazz Cafe. Whether you’re a person or a panda.
Drewvis: posting new songs
Posted by jamie on Dec 9, 2011
The lovely Drewvis has started work on his new album!
Here’s what he told us:
I can’t reveal much about it yet, other than I have recorded 5 tracks, and 2 new demos can be heard here.
I hope you like them!
We do, Drew. Thank you. If you missed it - you should check out his last record. It’s wonderful.
Chris Murray: new album news
Posted by jamie on Dec 9, 2011
A sneaky update from nomadic, Canadian acoustic-ska troubadour Chris Murray. He’s almost finished recording a second album with his band, the Chris Murray Combo.
Great news is that they’re at last going to play outside Southern California. Sadly, the show will be in Chicago. Chris is hoping to be back in the UK and in Europe in 2012.
For the past few months Chris Murray Combo have been working on our second album, and it is sounding great so far! Projected release is for spring 2012. More details will be announced when available.
They’ve also told us what they’ve been up to since we last heard.
Earlier this year I produced an album for The Bricks, a 10-piece ska band led by Dan Potthast of MU330 glory. Seriously, the album turned out amazing and is now available here.
One final note, a benefit track in support of the rebuilding Japan post-earthquake/tsunami is now available. All proceeds will go towards building three small live venues in areas completely destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Please check out this track here.
Here’s a picture of me hugging Chris in the Underworld, Camden, in 2008.
Skints: big news on new album
Posted by jamie on Dec 5, 2011
We’ve got some exciting news about the Skints‘ new record. The exciting news is that there’s going to be some, uh, exciting news. Soon.
It’s not going to be little exciting news, either. Have a peek at this, from our inbox..
Smokey Bastard: Tales from the Wasteland
Posted by jamie on Dec 4, 2011
Smokey Bastard
Tales from the Wasteland – Bomber Music, 2011
3rd December, 2011
Jamie
There’s a lot to be said for Smokey Bastard: their brilliantly bonkers live shows are irreverent, raucous and reliably cause pandemonium. It’s a daunting task to take such a wilfully chaotic force and squash it back in to recorded form, but here, on their second album Tales from the Wasteland, they’ve given it a good go.
Tales stands apart from a lot of folk/punk records because, essentially, it’s folk music, and fairly traditional folk music at that. The thing is, it’s folk music played by punks, and at a punk tempo. The songs and their arrangements are, for the most part, fully faithful to the traditions of classical folk song-writing, but performed with the speed, intensity and pure, belligerent aggression that made the first wave of punk so exciting. And they’ve got banjos. Scratch that, they’ve got banjos, mandolins an accordion and a tin whistle. And it’s punk.
To get all of this working together is impressive, and to do it at such blistering speed, incorporating so much detail, is nothing short of astonishing. Early, very early, in the opening track, Wasteland, that they hit top gear and rarely look back after that. Wasteland is anthemic: a glorious collision of soaring melodies, high-speed reels and all the epic pomposity of Welcome to the Black Parade. What Wasteland started comes to a wonderful fruition in this record’s finest moment, the gloriously epic Aspirations, I Have Some, almost five minutes of heartfelt tribute to John McClane, Jesse Costa and Bruce Springsteen. It’s fittingly aspirational, channelling the wistful fantasies of emulating our childhood heroes and wrestling with personal inadequacies. The song also highlights everything that’s great about Smokey Bastard on this record: their understanding and proficiency of classical British folk music, the blistering speed and emotional intensity of their performance, their knowing sense of humour and the immediate and obvious reliability of their lyrics. And the banjos. At times it’s a desperate sprint, and at its breakdown it’s a mellow, acoustic number. It’s also got every speed in between, and some wonderful gang and backing vocals. The whoahs at the song’s very beginning are impressive, credible and wonderfully effective, and the group chorus of “he says they’re pretty good” (you’ll know it when you get there) is hilarious every time you hear it.
On Token Folkin’ and My Son John, Smokey Bastard are at their folkiest, and they’re great at the traditional stuff too. When they’re not singing about Die Hard or the Gaslight Anthem, these songs could easily straight from the sixteenth century. They’re pretty raw, though, at times, so they’d have to have been sung by pirates, I guess. It’s easy to picture that: the vocals are gravelly enough at times, and there’s plenty of fist-pumping chants of “hey!”.
Tales from the Wasteland is an intelligent, and, even if they wouldn’t admit it, extremely musically proficient, marriage of all the best bits of traditional folk, soft rock and classic punk song writing. It’s exhilarating from the very beginning to the end, where they gleefully rip up Abba’s Mamma Mia, tongues firmly in cheek, and at full speed.
Stand-out tracks:
Wasteland
My Son John
Cheer Up, Love
Aspirations, I Have Some
Dear Mol
Gecko & friends: Amersham Arms
Posted by jamie on Dec 1, 2011
Gecko & friends
(the Leano, Liam O’Kane, Perkie, Joe York, Chapter Eleven)
Amersham Arms, New Cross
26th November 2011
Jamie
[WE’LL HAVE PICTURES OF THIS GIG UP SOON.]
For the end of November, we’ve got very few clouds. Were it not for the fact that we’ve travelled North to South across London in pitch darkness in the early evening (prevening?), it could easily be April. If these are the ideal conditions for a relaxed, intimate and ever-so-friendly show, where lots of people are family, and the rest of us are made to feel like that, then the Amersham Arms, bang across from New Cross Station, is close to the ideal venue: the back room is warm, dusty and dimly lit.
By the time we arrived, the music had started, and the atmosphere was already excellent: whatever the quality of the performances, it’s very rare to feel this privileged to have been a part of something that’s this nice. From the off, it’s clear that everyone is really delighted to be here, to be enjoying each other’s company and excited about all of the music.
Credit’s due to the lovable urchins in Gecko for that: they’ve called this the Gecko and Friends UK Tour, and it clearly was that, but tonight we’re all lucky that Gecko are friends with so many artists that are so talented, and that they’ve found the charisma to bring them all together for this: a brilliantly entertaining and eclectic bill that’s managed to show off six excellent and very different takes on exactly where reggae, punk, folk and ska all come together.
Without Hassan permanently, and missing Sweep for the night, Asher Baker represented Chapter Eleven, by all accounts, to distinction. Having misread the facebook event, we actually missed his set (sorry, bud), and arrived midway through a charmingly idiosyncratic performance from Joe York. As ever, Joe plays his rabble-rousing songs with his heart on his sleeve. Tonight, he’s got a three-piece going with a drummer and another guitarist: it’s given a lot more body to the sound, and it’s great to watch - all of a sudden those edgy little acoustic folk/punk tunes sound bigger and more powerful, his lilting, eerie reggae melodies embellished nicely by the added power in the guitars and the messages in his lyrics given real strength by the gang vocals: it’s a gang of three to begin with, but a gang of everyone you can see by the time he’s done. Joe’s great fun to watch, as ever, and bigger and louder with his band.
Perkie, next, is something else entirely. A hurried little chat with the ever-charming Liam O’Kane had warned me to “prepare to be moved”, but there’s not much that can prepare you for this. It’s my first time seeing Perkie perform, and I spent most of it standing still with my mouth open, which doesn’t happen often. Her songs are excellent: lovely, hummy protest-folk, but the money-shot is her incredible voice: rich, soothing and so smooth it’s enchanting. The inside of my head feels like your fingertips do after a long soak in a Radox bath. Impossibly powerful for something that sounds so soft.
Perkie forgot the words to one song, and gave up on it a few times. Such is the warmth and sense of intimacy in the room, though, that it’s just a little bit funny and her set carries on seamlessly. She sits and chats for a bit, toying over what to play, and aimlessly charming all of us as she thinks about it. Eventually someone decides for her, and it turns out she’s got just three songs left. It feels like it’s over much too quickly.
Liam O’Kane is on fine form. He opens with Jimmy the Squirrel’s Leave the Grey, and chats matter–of-factly about the need for us to “be more like Perkie and less like him”, as an introduction to his next song, about how important it is to protest against things we see as wrong, rather than just moping about it. It’s appropriate, given the context, not least as he was introduced on stage by Attila the Stockbroker (yes, really, and yes, it surprised me too) that there is that element of social commentary in Liam’s songs. It’s equally evident in his patter, of course: his brilliantly dead-pan, self-deprecating wit sparkles as much outside his songs as it does in them.
Liam’s solo set is full of that, and it’s an absolute treat. His lilting, melancholy vocal really hits the spot, and draws real appreciation from the hush down here in the near-dark. It’s mainly newer songs, the tone in keeping with Jimmy’s Whatever the Weather, until his last one, the infectious, sing-and-clap-along joy of Politeness is Free, as enjoyable as ever.
There’s more from Attila, and then we’re treated to an extraordinary performance from the Leano. Throughout his set, his mouth never stops moving: instead he’s constantly cajoling us in to circles, moving us around, and even making Theo a conductor. It’s a surreal and totally unique take on audience participation to accompany his distinctive unity songs that mash rap with spoken word with acoustic guitar. The way it’s all put together is ingenious, but, again, it’s the way it’s performed that makes this work: the Leano speaks earnestly and with authority, while ushering and organising his growing crowd around him in circles, orchestrating every movement and even making us conduct ourselves. It’s the hardest thing in the world to explain, because it’s so different to what we’ve seen before, but it’s the oddest, most empowering fun going. At one point he has us all turned around to face back out towards the bar, and singing at the people sitting drinking. I can’t remember why. It was joyous, though, and they dug it.
And so, at last, to Gecko. We’re all well and truly warmed up, in every sense of the words, by the time they step in to the half-light on the stage: first Ben, then Simon and Gabe. Will steps on last, rock-star style: strolling through the crowd from the back and stepping on to stage at front centre after the band have begun to play Got Science. Despite having become famous as a sort of semi-acoustic act, tonight Gecko are the first and only “full” band to play. That, and their, triumphant end-of-tour home-town-show swagger has transformed them in to bona-fide rock stars: impudent as ever, but oozing confidence and owning their headline slot with nonchalant ease. They’ve brought a big crew with them, and we’re all eager to bob and sway along to Falling Down, Too Much, and the Library.
Best Friend is the only song from the Pigeon EP in tonight’s set, and goes down well: fairly obviously, most people here are familiar with Gecko and already know the new songs well. Perkie joins the lads on stage to duet on Kelis’s Millionaire and sticks around for I Got Time. They wrap up with Camden, and, obviously, Guananabana Juice. At this point there’s a few Guanabana Juices in the air: Juna Fruits have discovered Gecko and followed them on tour to give away the best of all drinks at shows. It’s actually very, very nice, by the way.
It’s all over much too quickly: it might be the crazy warmth, the Guanabana or whatever, but that seemed to happen really fast. Noone’s really ready to go home, except Attila the Stockbroker, who has a train to catch, and so there’s scope for two more songs. Those songs are Gotta Wait and, finally, Pigeon, performed with Ricky, off of the cover of the Pigeon EP, and every single band member on stage.
It’s the coolest thing when everyone is friends with each other, and, in rooms like this, on nights like this, everyone you haven’t met quickly becomes your friend anyway. All of that, and the pogoing, arms over shoulders, and mass bawling of “he’s got nothing to say!” have sort of turned us all in to one right now. It’s finished after this, and it turns out that we should have been on Attila’s train. The Leano was around to help us on a bus back to North London, though. Just in case. He’s a thoroughly nice chap.
Kudos to Gecko for meeting so many lovely and exciting musicians, and for bringing them all here to play for us. They actually really are all friends. By the end of this, everyone is.
Travel warning: if you’re coming to New Cross – for this, for example – check your trains. It takes a long time to get home by bus.
