This Are UK Ska: Vol. 4
Posted by jamie on Dec 23, 2011
Various Artists
This Are UK Ska, Vol.4 – Do the Dog, 2011
9th December, 2011
Jamie
This is really, really exciting: the return of Do the Dog’s This Are UK Ska series of compilations is a long time coming, but definitely well worth the wait.
In the space of one wonderful little disc, the twenty two years (twenty two!) of tireless devotion given to supporting the UK’s DIY bands get their just rewards: the list of contributors to this record reads like a who’s who of ska and ska-punk in the UK in 2011.
The disc itself is, musically speaking, as diverse and exciting as you’d expect. It’s appropriate, given the brief and deliberately open-minded mission statement on the DTD website:
“We love ska in all its colourful guises, be it old school, laid back Jamaican style ska, bouncy 2-tone ska vibes, upbeat modern ska/pop or thunderous ska/punk!”
Given the enthusiasm with which DTD embrace new and different kinds of music and the rude health in which we find our scene, the potential was always there for a compilation this broad, this exciting and of such excellent quality.
To have pulled it all together, though, is still no small achievement. It’s excellent from start to finish, with scorching tracks from some of the scene’s exciting new talent mixing it with the more established names.
Of course, you’ll get to hear new tracks from some of the bands they’ve been supporting for years: alongside the sadly defunct Smoke Like a Fish, there’s also Do the Dog favourites, Rebelation, Drewvis and Cartoon Violence. The thing is, there are also exciting contributions from a new generation of great UK bands: keep an eye out for Miacca’s catchy Would You Like Me To Be the Cat? (unless you’re George Galloway), Copasetics’ sinister-yet-excellent Phantom Signals and the incendiary Wilsonator from John Player Specials. Then, fall in love with Breadchasers’ brilliant epic prog-ska-rock skankalong Time to Stop. It’s relatively light-hearted for the band, but fits perfectly on this compilation.
There’s so much here, and it’s all so different, so interesting and so enjoyable, that I could easily sit and type about it all day. Every track is a highlight.
This Are UK Ska Volume 4 is probably the most enjoyable so far, neatly showcasing a wide variety of established and up-and-coming UK acts. A perfect snapshot of where the scene is in 2011, it also highlights a few names to look out for in years to come.
Given that this was the label who first brought us Dirty Revolution, Catch-it Kebabs and the Skints, perhaps we were right to expect a lot from this disc. It doesn’t disappoint one bit.
This Are UK Ska, No. 4 is available now from Do the Dog Music.
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.
Random Hand / Big D: Underworld show
Posted by jamie on Sep 12, 2011
Big D and the Kids Table are back in the UK this December. They’re going to play with Random Hand, among others, on a super-exciting looking bill.
You can get tickets here.
See it on facebook here.
Random Hand: Camden Underworld
Posted by jamie on Jul 6, 2011
Random Hand / the Have Nots / Dirty Revolution
Camden
Underworld2nd July 2011
Jamie
There’s been a surreal atmosphere to most of today, and it didn’t end with this, a joyously boisterous romp of a skacore show on an otherwise quiet weekend, slap in the middle of a capital city that’s been smacked by a giant heatwave.Our crew rocked up having first been down to see acoustic reggae urchins
Gecko record the video for stunning new single Safest Bet. Halfway down a bustling Brick Lane, we met Will Sanderson-Thwaite in a tiger suit and his film make-up, and it just got weirder from there. Melting, we rushed back to the Underworld and in through the side door. That’s the one that usually gets used when no-one’s turned up, but inside Dirty Revolution had a sizeable crowd and kept them nicely entertained. Dirty Rev are always impressive, and seem to get better every time I’ve watched them, but tonight was a landmark performance for them in the way that they went out and performed: it really felt like everyone had come to have fun, and that extra energy was infections, certainly shared by everyone on the dancefloor.
The Have Nots, up next, are equally impressive: they play an edgy yet melodic take on original, 70s style, street punk: it’s not as snotty as Rancid or the Distillers, and is more faithful to conventional pop songwriting than some of the classic punk and post-punk bands. With the hooks just where you’d expect them, duelling guitars and soaring harmonies and choruses, they’re a pretty instant hit. The Have Nots are a new band on me, but instantly accessible and entertaining to watch live. They’ve been on all of Random Hand’s tour and clearly feel thoroughly at home. They’re confident, almost nonchalant, and it shows.And so to
Random Hand. There isn’t much that hasn’t been said about them, and yes, we do almost know what we’re going to get. This, though, is the first time I’ve seen them tour the monstrous Seething is Believing, though, and they’re bigger and better than ever. Like the Have Nots before them, Random Hand are in dominant, confident mood and swagger on so brimming with belief that it’s like they’re arriving in to their own front room in their trackies and slippers.It’s an intriguing transformation, actually: I’ve always sensed that part of that blistering rage was fuelled by a sense of some sort of frustration or inadequacy, the sort of angst so prevalent in first-wave punk. Here, though, they bowl casually on to the Underworld stage looking for all the world like they know exactly how gigantic their performance is about to be.
“Come on, don’t be shy, we’re all friends here” Robin grins, his toes curling over the very front of the stage. “Come forward”. Over the course of the set he spends a lot of time there, leaning right out over the top of the front few rows. Later on he steps on someone’s fingers, but apologises afterwards.From the very off, Random Hand fairly race through a set consisting mainly of the newer material, of which 3 from 6 and Bones are particular highlights. With their stature and tunes so enormous, and coming to the end of a long tour, a little over confidence is surely totally forgivable. To test this out, Robin embarks on a couple of epic rants: one which started out about Sean‘s technical issues with his drums and ended up being about his (fictional) menstruation problems – in fairness, he immediately apologised for this one – and an ingenious effort about strikes and then how many unemployed people they’d had at shows on their tour and eventually how “it’s our [punks on the dole] fault that the country’s in the state it’s in – single mothers are starving, and you’re having a dance?” and finally creasing us all up with the hilarious and outrageously inappropriate “we need another Thatcher!”.
Most poignantly, though, the lads pause briefly to pay their respects to the late Oli Smith, and his and their friends in Anti-Vigilante. There’s a quick show of hands as to who was at Thursday’s show*, a memorial to Oli and a benefit for
the Willen Hospice, where he was cared for. The magnificent Not a Number is dedicated to Oli and to Mouthwash, who, in case you’d somehow missed it, have announced that they’ve split. It’s all very emotional.From here on, it’s a bruising end to a powerhouse of a headline performance: a hilarious tale of how they’d never actually played the last song at all, throughout the whole tour, having not been called back for their encore -“we’d sort of over-egged our own popularity a bit. They’ve all just shrugged and gone home” – introduces first Anger Management and then that elusive encore, Scum Triumphant. And Random Hand fully deserved that encore: their new material in particular, is so incredibly powerful: every element of it, notably the three-part vocals, is enormous. Together, it’s positively anthemic. And they clearly had fun too: I’ve never seen them so blasé about it all. It’s like they were toying with us.
We weren’t at Thursday’s benefit for the Willen Hospice. However, Alex from Punktastic has covered it nicely in his review here.
Apologies to Tyrannosaurus Alan and Broken Nose. We got caught out by the early stage times, but we’ll come and watch you soon.
Dirty Rev: July tour dates
Posted by jamie on Jun 30, 2011
Our friends in Dirty Revolution have sent us a little reminder about their tour dates for July. A stunning array of support acts includes Random Hand, Tyrannosaurus Alan, Anti-Vigilante, Broken Nose and the Have Nots.
JULY 2011
2nd LONDON UNDERWORLD w Random Hand, Have Nots, Broken Nose, Tyrannosaurus Alan
4th LONDON VIBE BAR
9th CAMARTHEN PARROT MUSIC BAR w Broken Nose, Tyrannosaurus Alan
10th CARDIFF UNDERTONE w Broken Nose, Tyrannosaurus Alan
16th ASHTON UNDER LYME WITCHWOOD w Anti Vigilante, Broken Nose, Tyrannosaurus Alan
Slackers: UK tour dates for May 2011
Posted by jamie on May 12, 2011
Wonderful news: the Slackers return to the UK this month celebrating two whole decades as a band. To mark the occasion. they’ll have Stash Box, a strictly limited CD compilation of 21 ‘fan favourites and feature tracks culled from the Special Potato and Epitaph archives’. Stash Box will only be available from the merch table at shows.
Those shows are:
27/05 – London, O2 Academy, Islington
28/05 – Leicester, Donkey Bar
29/05 – Belfast, Empire
30/05 – Newcastle, Trillians
31/05 – Manchester, Moho Live
01/06 – Derby, Old Bell
Support comes from the Exposed and Dirty Revolution on selected dates.
The tracklisting for Stash Box is:
1. Pedophila
2. Run Away
3. Keep It Simple
4. This Is The Night
5. Married Girl
6. Everyday Is Sunday
7. Nurse
8. Yes It’s True
9. What Went Wrong
10. Peculiar
11. Old Dog
12. Wasted Days
13. I Still Love You
14. Close My Eyes
15. Keep Him Away
16. Watch This
17. Have The Time
18. Rude + Reckless
19. Sarah
20. Feed My Girl
21. Pedophilia*
*’Pedophilia’ appears on the tracklisting twice, possibly a typo. Punktastic are speculating that ”chances are one of these is Propaganda”. I’m just going to leave it.
Do the Dog: a million tour dates
Posted by jamie on Oct 28, 2010
Pretty much everyone on Do the Dog Music appears to be on tour right now. For new dates from Robb Blake, Dirty Revolution, Liam O’Kane, Jimmy the Squirrel, the Skints, the Skints, the Steady Boys, Rasta4eyes, Rebelation, Resolution 242 nd the New Town Kings (phew!) have a look here.
Rock Against Racism
Posted by jamie on Aug 26, 2010
Rock Against Racism hits Lincoln on 14th November. See it on facebook here.
Dirty Revolution and the Living Daylights are among the gazillions of bands you can see.
Dirty Revolution: Before the Fire
Posted by jamie on Aug 17, 2010
Dirty Revolution
Before the Fire: Rebel Alliance, 2010
7th August 2010
Jamie
This is late. I know, and I’m sorry. We’ve had a lot to do, and there’s still a million CDs in the pile. Dirty Revolution released Before the Fire on Rebel Alliance back in spring. To give you an idea of just how long it’s taken me to get around to this, Dirty Rev were announced as the latest addition to the Alliance as the label’s other bands (except the Sonic Boom Six) prepared to set off on the first ever Rebel Alliance tour.
When I reviewed the SB6 on their next tour: after the Rebel Alliance tour, after Ben had left, and after Dirty Rev had released and toured Before the Fire pretty extensively, Laila suggested I reviewed it. Being a nice lad, I confessed I owned it already and ended up I apologising to her for not having it written up yet - and even that happened four months ago. Thank heavens, then, that the football season [it now has. agh] hasn’t started, that I’ve not been allowed the holiday to go to Rebellion, and that I’ve been left alone with my laptop and Before the Fire too keep me busy. And still I procrastinate: I’ve just spent an hour bitching with my flatmate about the wedding of some people I’ll never meet. They do sound rubbish, in fairness. Reb, lads: it doesn’t usually take this long. Sorry.
*This far in to writing, I actually stopped to watch a Sherlock Holmes.
Dirty Rev’s arrival on Rebel Alliance was big news back then, of course, and, in hindsight, it was a watershed moment in career: at the very least, it’s been an enormous boost to their profile and richly deserved reward for a talented and hard working band, who just happen to be some of the most down to earth, approachable people going.
On closer inspection, though, another listen to Before the Fire suggests that Dirty Revolution have always had it in them to produce a record of this quality. They’re a fourpiece with two guitars in which Reb, who sings lead, also plays a melodica (not at the same time, obviously). It’s a tried and trusted format in which everything is done well, and the same could be said of their songs: it’s melodic, guitar-led punk/ska that doesn’t set out to do something that no one’s ever done but instead just to do it better.
As a debut album, this is superb, and really does show just how far the band have come. That promise that’s always been there has been given the treatment by Peter Miles and Dirty Rev have, in one step, fulfilled that promise and become the real deal: Before the Fire is darker, in places, than the bands earlier EPs, but bigger and more powerful throughout.
Two songs: I Love Reggae and 50p remain from It’s Gonna Get Dirty, the band’s 2007 release on Do the Dog, and they’re the best example of the progress that’s been made since then. The guitar sound is bigger and richer, the basslines are rootsier and the backing vocals are new, different parts: they come in at different places, just highlinghting Reb’s lead vocal. At its “he had a nazi salute” refrain, I Love Reggae is embellished nicely with an organ part. If you loved the songs anyway, it’s a real joy seeing them done up like this, and they really do sound great now they’ve got the works.
The newer material, especially early on, takes darker, more ominous tone straight from the off. Opener Where Are the Police? begins with a minute-long intro where Reb’s melodica plays above a heavy, sinister guitar riff. Imagine a Ghost Town-esque intro meticulously arranged by a More Specials era that at once kicks into the Sonic Boom Six’s Danger, Danger! The SB6 comparison is based more around the song’s subject matter, but there’s also a comparable level of angst, and an a sharp, edgy tone to the vocal which is cynically clear in its message and bitter to the extent that its almost spat in a way that was more common in classic punk. It’s unsettlingly effective, and gets the record off to a flyer. I Love Reggae is next, before Sometimes You’re Too Rude returns to that edgier, angstier* tone. This time, though, it’s a quicker, more danceable little tune with peppy little upstrokes and harmonies and gang shouts in the backing vocals. The bassline, this time, is made for skanking feet, but Reb’s gone back to her original, urgent, vocal as on Where Are the Police?. 50p follows, keeping the quicker pace, but lifting the mood a little. Failure to Communicate sees Stu sing lead for the first time, with Reb this time joining him on backing vocals. It starts and ends with an eerie line on the melodica, but the song itself is grittier, angrier, and Stu’s voice lends itself well to the song.
Firing Line is the record’s only slower tune: a thoughtful, gentler, more reggae effort. This is a great little tune: impeccable vocal harmonies, and plenty of percussion: I’m not a drummer, but I think it’s hi-hat. Whatever it is, it’s beautiful – a tiny bit sad, but a really nice, simple song, and again it’s been executed perfectly.
Church, next, grabs you by the feet and drags you quickly back to earth with a bump: it’s got all the sneering anger and ominously dirty guitar riffs that we saw earlier on the album, but such is Reb’s clearly visceral anger that her voice becomes a growl, even when it drops to a whisper. Why Should I Care?, again, snaps back, as we’ve seen before, to a noticeably more up-beat tone, with an almost sing-song tone in the top notes, the a catchy little guitar hook and the upstrokes again. The backing vocals have come straight from vintage pop songwriting, like they were the Monkees or something, and there’s even a breakdown for synchronised handclapping. It’s enjoyable, and it’ll obviously be great fun live, but on record, after Church, it sounds implausibly like the clappy bits out of this (we don’t condone bullying) or even this or this. Well, not really. But I mean that in a good way, anyway.
On Years and Years we back to that Ghost-Town-style, Sublime doing eerie dub thing, again remarkably well executed: the concept, arrangement and production are incredible, all spooky, echoey menace. And then, when you think it’s done, it kicks in and gets angry again and carries on until the five-minute mark.
System is similar to some of the edgier stuff earlier on the album but better: angrier when it gets angry and building to a crescendo at its finish. The layered dual-vocal is a really nice touch. Empty Houses is similarly impassioned and, in places, aggressive, but drifts in and out of that eerie dub thing before all at once becoming a giant, dirty punk rock beast, and then disappearing all at once. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know these guys could rock this hard until I sat down with this album. Childs Play closes the record in a similar direction: dirty great big riffs and a good, old fashioned rock out to finish the record. There’s a cheesy little secret track for good measure, but this, to all intents and purposes, is where Before the Fire finally stops.
I’m really keen on Before the Fire: it starts well and gets better and better as it goes on. alternates between angry and angry - you’ll have picked up on that by now, I’m guessing, and shows a startling range of musical talents too: there’s real depth and feeling to the songs and genuine variety and innovation to the music that I’ve somehow managed to overlook until spending serious time with this record and paying it the attention that it deserves and that it took me to get all of this down. There’s real substance here, and so much going on on Before the Fire that it’s surely worth checking out again even if you do already have it and have heard it a million times. Treat yourself.
Stand Out Tracks:
50p
Firing Line
Why Should I Care?
Years and Years
Empty Houses
*My spellcheck says that “angstier” isn’t a word, but I claim it here.
Mouthwash / King Blues on tour
Posted by jamie on Mar 26, 2010
It’s official: Mouthwash have just been confirmed as main support on the King Blues’ new tour. The guys will be join on some of the later dates by new Rebel Alliance label-mates Dirty Revolution.
Sat 10 Apr 2010
Brighton Komedia - Mouthwash
Sun 11 Apr 2010
Norwich The Waterfront - Mouthwash
Mon 12 Apr 2010
Manchester Academy - Mouthwash
Tue 13 Apr 2010
Newcastle Academy 2 - Mouthwash
Thurs 15 Apr 2010
Glasgow Garage - Mouthwash
Sun 25 Apr 2010
Birmingham Academy 2 - Mouthwash
Mon 26 Apr 2010
Exeter Phoenix - Mouthwash
Tue 27 Apr 2010
London Shepherd’s Bush Empire - Mouthwash
Sat 01 May 2010
Nottingham Rock City – Mouthwash and Dirty Rev
Tue 04 May 2010
Colchester Arts Centre - Mouthwash and Dirty Rev
Wed 05 May 2010
Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms - Mouthwash and Dirty Rev
