Mash Attack / Capdown: Southampton show
Posted by jamie on Jun 27, 2011
Southampton ska-punk nutters Mash Attack are playing with Capdown at Southampton’s Talking Heads.
See it on facebook here. Remember that Mouthwash have now split, though, so don’t go there expecting to see them. But still go, because it looks ace.
Mash Attack: UK tour July 2011
Posted by jamie on Jun 23, 2011
Bonkers Southampton ska-punkers Mash Attack hit the road in July.
Full UK dates:
JULY 2011
9 - The Birds Nest - LONDON
10 - Drift Bar - SOUTHSEA
11 - The Office - SWANSEA
12 - The Beer Cart - CANTERBURY
13 - West Coast Bar - MARGATE
14 - The Hobgoblin - STAINES
15 - The Cellar Bar - CARDIGAN
16 - Guava Bar - SOTON
17 - The Maze - NOTTINGHAM
30 - Onion Festival - PETERSFIELD
Mash Attack: new single
Posted by jamie on Feb 27, 2011
Bonkers Southampton ska/punk outfit Mash Attack have put new single Dysfunctional on their bandcamp page for $1. Get it here.
Mash Attack: latest
Posted by jamie on Sep 8, 2010
Latest on Mash Attack:
“We’re spending the next few months working towards a new EP and a full re-launch with the new members”. Just a few dates planned for the moment:
23rd October: White Horse, Bognor Regis.
27th November: Joiners, Southampton - with [spunge].
Mash Attack
Posted by jamie on Aug 12, 2010
Southampton ska/punk nutters Mash Attack have a new myspace and new bits on their youtube channel. Their tour-diary’s also on its way “over the next few days”.
Mash Attack: on tour
Posted by jamie on Jul 24, 2010
Southampton ska-punk nutters Mash Attack are on tour again. Dates here.
Mash Attack: the Dublin Castle
Posted by jamie on Jun 23, 2010
Popes of Chillitown
Justice Force Five
Mash Attack
The Second Line
The Dublin Castle, London
19th June, 2010
The first that Bananatown heard of Mash Attack was a polite yet excited email via our contact page. I’d written up the Kids Can’t Fly EP Strength in Numbers, and, also based in Southampton and playing a similarly energetic take on the ska-punk thing, the guys thought we might want to come and watch them. They were right: instantly, we were desperate to see them play. Sadly, though, their show, headlined by [spunge], was right in the middle of my holiday.
When, at long last, the guys arrived in London, then, we were so set. Tip-toeing through train-loads of Wembley-bound Green Day fans, I was still sure we’d picked the right show. It was a big call, though, and the last wander through a balmy North London summer evening towards the Dublin Castle was made with just a hint of trepidation. This had better be good. Bug Bear hold their gigs in the back room, so the first step inside was like a lot of pubs right now: not a spare seat in the room, but eerily silent and with all eyes on the screens showing Denmark’s 2-1 victory over Cameroon.
It must have been a relatively last-minute thing, but one other band had been added to the bill. I owe them an apology, but, not having known, we missed their set and I didn’t even catch their name. In the darkness, a muscleman in a checked shirt and see-through earplugs (I know) pointed to the wall and signed that we were about to watch The Second Line. In a lot of circumstances, this lot wouldn’t really be my thing: they play a nice enough branch of the sort of indie that seems to be everywhere right now, but hold the attention of a still sparse early crowd by performing with palpable sincerity: they’re clearly very good musicians, and, though clearly a little bit shy, they deliver a good set of songs well, picking out some stunning harmonies along the way. It’s never actually mushy, but they play at quite a sedate pace. That they remain so earnest throughout is what really holds the attention here, and they’re very engaging to watch.
On the hunt for more cider, I opted not to disturb a bartender deeply engrossed in a book, her bright red hair covering her face as she pored over a paperback on the bartop. Easier to go to the main bar – and, of course, you get to check the score. 2-1 still.
Lining up confidently across the stage, Mash Attack are a different proposition, and, though they haven’t played in Camden since that giant fire a few years ago, are obviously happy to make themselves at home. It’s amusing when, telling that story about the fire, Simon on bass shouts out “it was me!” that started the fire. He’s quickly hushed up, but there are more amusing stories: for some reason I’m sure they said something about badgers masturbating, but I couldn’t say why. I wouldn’t make that up, though. Presumably it’s because one song is about fox hunting. As it’s against hunting, it gets a massive cheer.
Mash Attack are excellent, and sound huge for a fourpiece. It’s a short set, they’re third on the bill, but it’s packed with hooks and their songs run off in unexpected directions in a way I’ve not seen since we first discovered the Scrub. It’s very exciting, and quickly gathers a small knot of skankers that grows and grows over the course of a frenetic set. There are some huge basslines in there and they’re not shy of rocking out either. It all holds together very well: they’re proficient and confident performers and happily sprint through a spiky set of punk/ska songs that I’m all set to fall in love with. Kept out of the skank pit by a leg injury, I was at the front of the queue for the band’s new EP Learn and Evolve. It will, of course, be reviewed here soon.
What happens next is a complete surprise, and one of those lucky moments that helps you to realise all over again just how much you actually do love music. We had unwittingly seen The Justice Force Five’s Captain Courageous out to set up his band’s kit in a way that I’m used to seeing Barney Boom out doing stuff with wires and mics and that. At that stage we were all pretty confused that he had a red mask painted on to his face. Later, though, it all became so very clear, as did the fact that I’d spotted what I thought was Skeletor next to me at the urinal.
As the rush through a crowded dancefloor and bound on to the stage, it all fits in to place. If you’ve never seen them before, and I hadn’t, you absolutely must. I beg you. The Justice Force Five call themselves “your friendly local superhero rock band” – and, if you can picture that, do exactly what it says on the tin. I won’t spoil the story, but all of the superhero stuff is there: the spandex, the capes and the complete backstory. There’s even a duet with their arch-nemesis (the Skeletor guy) in which he ends up dying, his face covered in blood, in glorious rock-opera fashion. This shouldn’t work, but it does, and it leaves you gasping. For this to work, let’s face it, they had to pull it off completely, but they do that with aplomb and it’s simply fantastic, they completely steal the show for that short time. Musically they’re excellent, a sort of epic rock thing with a keyboard player (the timetravelling scientist Doctor Amazing) and two guitars. They also have a sixth member, a man/cow hybrid called General Bovine, who, it turns out, is lactose intolerant. Hilarious.
In their own words, once again, the Justice Force Five “kick ass like Van Damme and rock like Van Halen”. That sums it up pretty well: this could easily have gone wrong and come across as vaguely kitsch, but they pull the stunt off incredibly well, and really are superheroes for forty five minutes. And they’re a very great band, as well. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t watch six guys in spandex rock out badly. It’s brilliant, incredibly good rock theatre, and executed perfectly. The whole performance races past a room drunk on adrenaline. Some, of course, were prepared for what they were about to witness, but are as carried away with it as the rest of us innocent bystanders. It’s simply an incredible show.
The Popes of Chillitown take the stage in an effort to restore some sort of normality to proceedings, and cope admirably with the nightmare task of headlining after the JF5. It’s their crowd, and, if possible, it’s even more packed now, shoulder to shoulder throughout so that anyone after the bar or toilets has to climb along the benches at the back. The band step on to the stage, the only empty floor in the room, and set about turning the whole place in to a frenetic, bobbing, squashed up, skanking heap of bodies. This is a first for me, but they’ve brought a big crowd and get a rapturous response. One downside is a technical hitch of some kind that prevents them from premiering their new music video during the set, but they play the song anyway, and it’s well received. Another new song, the amusingly named Tooting Ska Moon that does sound Egyptian and is about the moon when seen from Tooting, apparently, is also an instant hit. Exhausted, any number of cheeky wisecracks from the Popes of Chillitown all managed to escape me. Quite how they managed to squeeze in any chat at all is remarkable, as the night, as I remember it, was a non-stop dash through choppy, feet-skanking, dancefloor-mashing ska style hits. This lot are a six-piece, with two guitars and a sax player, whose parts are enjoyable and a welcome addition to an already impressive set of songs and a thoroughly enjoyable show. This was a totally blind date for us with these guys – we actually knew nothing abut them, but our whole crew are completely converted. There are two encores, and in them the Popes of Chillitown finish off first with a cover of the Selecter’s On My Radio and then finally with the Outhere Brothers’ Boom Boom Boom. Wonderfully surreal, but performed well and lapped up by a delirious pit, it’s a perfect end to an excellent night out. Delighted, we eventually leave after being forcibly hugged by a man who smelled of farts. That aside, though, it’s been a treat from start to finish, one of those dream shows that make you want to write something cheesy like “a good time was had by all”. Change that to great and you’ve pretty much nailed it.
