Popes of Chilitown: UK tour 2012
Posted by jamie on Mar 29, 2012
Our bonkers mates the Popes of Chillitown hit the road for Kidderminster on 30th March, and they’re going to stay on tour until April. You should go and watch them and have fun at the same time.
Full dates here:
Popes of Chillitown, the Snare, My Third Leg: IOE, London
Posted by jamie on Feb 26, 2012
Popes of Chillitown, the Snare, My Third Leg
IOE, London
24th February, 2012
Jamie
As Popes of Chillitown took tonight by the scruff of its neck, there was one brief moment where Austen Cruickshank paused for reflection, and informed us:
“You know, IOE, I wasn’t sure how this gig was going to go, but right now, I’m very fucking impressed”.
Impressed is the word, but, to put that remark in to context, this wasn’t exactly your ordinary gig. The University of London’s Institute of Education, or the IOE, is a postgraduate campus for student teachers, where many of the students are international.
It’s a pretty positive and welcoming place once you’ve navigated your way down to the Union (I’m pretty sure I came in the wrong way), but, tucked away in a corner between the bar and the patio, this show quickly outgrew its boundaries, meaning a few confused non-skankers had to pick their way through, often with big ring binders and other assorted classroom paraphernalia.
It’s not what any of us are used to, but, thanks to that positive and open-minded atmosphere, it just works. For a while I scribbled down notes next to a middle-aged Spanish man sleeping inside the Evening Standard, but by the end he was the only one not taking part, and had, at least, woken up.
We’d stumbled on the “You are here” sign in the street a few minutes too late, and got lost again inside the building: perhaps for the best, the bar seemed to be the only place that wasn’t signposted. It meant that we missed all but the very end of My Third Leg’s customarily high-speed, ratatat-tat ska-punk set. They seem to go down well, despite a few issues with the drums: “I had to re-write most of the drum lines”, Paul admitted afterwards, “during the songs”.
They’d certainly made a few friends, all the same, though, and had got the night off to a good start.
The Snare, on next, are a first-time-see for me. They’re a boisterously energetic, horn-powered, seven-piece two-tone band. Visually, as well as musically, they’re almost a caricature of what a ska band might be like as imagined by The Beano, or a Punch and Judy show, and I mean that in a very good way: theirs is a tried and tested brand of party-starting brass-heavy two-tone ska.
They waste no time getting started: from the word go, they’re straight in to their stride – bouncing up and down in time on stage, their singers taking every opportunity to step down in to the crowd where there’s more room to swing their legs around in a springy, gangly sort of skank: I’ve seen some moves in my time but sometimes these guys’ legs seem to have minds of their own.
It all goes down a storm: an initially nervous crowd quickly get the hang of it, start to shuffle, and soon there are smiles and sing-alongs all around.
In to all of this, then, step the Popes of Chillitown. It’s still new territory, of course, but, if anything, this just seems to spur them on: opener Blame Game is well received, and then, as that becomes the theme from Hawaii 5.0, the place goes absolutely nuts.
From here on, the floor just gets crazier, with all manner of moves coming out: the floor gets fuller and fuller, and, all of a sudden, you wouldn’t notice that the sliding doors out to the patio are open right behind the stage: it’s actually muggy in here – not baking hot, but the air is heavy with sweat. Matt’s lost his shirt and Austen is actually dripping a bit – his new white Popes t-shirt, the dog one, grey with that sweat and smeared with snakebite and not, as we had worried, his or someone’s blood.
As is usually the case with this lot, the night gets more surreal as it goes on, Austen and Matt eventually having a little argument as to whether or not we on the dancefloor should be leaving through those back doors to drag the smokers and shirkers in for a dance. In the end a few of them go, as the band move in to Tooting Ska Moon, and Austen’s actually behind the stage, as far as his mic cable will let him, ushering bewildered punters in while the band are actually playing.
Odd as it seems, though, it all just works: just like the night as a whole, it’s not something many of us would ever have imagined, but it goes down a treat. The band play Brave, and then Lazy Sunday and Dalking Man, and everyone, dragged in or not, is having a cheeky skank. Unless they’re actually dancing salsa, or breakdance, or some crazy foxtrot stuff that had a circle cleared around it at some point. This lot can dance, and, if they haven’t been to a punk show before, they just dance however they feel they want to. We’re all just doing our own thing down here, and it sort of just goes together. It’s surreal, and definitely totally unique, but it fits together perfectly.
Badman is last, before a mock encore (the band couldn’t actually leave the stage, but we all agreed we’d pretend) of the Outhere Brothers’ Boom Boom Boom.
I don’t know how they did it, but our international collection of teaching students found another level: gleefully racing through whatever moves they could find as the Popes cheekily dismantle the song, rebuilding it as they go along in to a high-speed ragga/punk riot that growls where it used to rap and runs around until it’s pushed just to breathe.
The response is rapturous. Everybody wants more, but the show is sadly finished. At IOE, the students vote as to whether each band is allowed back. This strange coming together will surely be cheered back on this evidence.
Popes of Chillitown: new album! New shows!
Posted by jamie on Jan 7, 2012
Big news from our homes in Popes of Chillitown:
First up - we have started recording our debut album! We’re about two thirds of the way through - bass, drums, guitars and some vocals are done with just the sax and the rest of the vocals to go.
We have been recording part of it at Resident Studios in Willesden in London and the rest at our various houses cos we’re punk like that. Our drummer Jack and our producer Paul have been at the helm of recording.
We’re hoping to get it finished ASAP and released in the first half of 2012 so watch this space.
Exciting, eh? The Popes are booking shows at the moment. Here’s where you can watch them so far:
10 Feb - Steamboat Tavern, Ipswich (Ultrazang)
25 March - Concorde 2, Brighton (supporting The Selecter)
25 April - The Maze, Nottingham (supporting Jimmy The Squirrel & New Town Kings)
13 July - Birmingham Free Festival TBC
14 July - Swansea Ska Festival
M3L, Truebeat, Popes: Gravesend, 20th May
Posted by jamie on May 18, 2011
Good-time Gravesend ska-punkers My Third Leg have joined Truebeat and the Popes of Chillitown on the Krakatoa show at Gravesend’s Red Lion on Friday.
See it on facebook here.
True Beat, Popes, My Third Leg, Chapter 11: Nambucca
Posted by jamie on Apr 27, 2011
True Beat, Popes of Chillitown, My Third Leg, Chapter Eleven
Nambucca, Holloway Road (London)
16th April, 2011
Jamie
First things first, lest I forget later on: thank you to I Heart Promotions for the pictures tonight, and apologies to Love Spuds for not having hung around to see them.
Nambucca is a sleek looking indie bar in an otherwise unremarkable stretch of Holloway Road in North London. Despite having street-mapped it, the nondescript nature of this part of road meant that before I’d walked anywhere near far enough down a straight road I was already starting to question my map reading skills. Thankfully I used to win awards in the Scouts, and my belly found its own gravitational pull to a little cafe where openers Chapter Eleven were grabbing last minute burgers and hips. They looked really good, actually.
Once at the door, there’s a bit of confusion as to when the gig starts. Chapter Eleven were getting antsy before the show as they’d been telling all their friends that doors were at 8pm, only to arrive and find out they were playing at 8. Cue a flurry of text messages and a minor panic. As soon as we all got inside, it turned out that they were in fact due to play at 8.30 after all. There was no float to take admission costs, so it’s a good job nobody missed the start waiting for their stamp, and that all those folk arrived for doors after 8pm.
Whether it was the confusion or the change in stage time that was caused by the promoter apparently being upstairs watching the highlights of Manchester City getting lucky in the FA Cup semi-final we’ll probably never know, but it all turned out to the good: almost everybody arrived on time, and, at exactly 8.30 in the evening, we were welcomed to “the biggest show Chapter Eleven had ever played”. Yup, all twenty of us.
As a relatively late addition to the bill, it’s unsurprising that the place is just starting to fill up as the first band start their set. Slightly more surprising is the repeated use of a venue’s smoke machine during a candid and strikingly sincere acoustic set. It’s probably a bit out of place, but it did give Hassan something to chatter about. Just in case there was any need. It’s a short opening set of just seven songs, but what for those few minutes it’s a wonderfully moving set of beautifully crafted acoustic folk/reggae songs that win the growing crowd over with their perfectly arranged twin vocals, thought-provoking lyrics and the heartfelt sincerity of their performance. This is one of their very first live performances, but in the main it’s an assured, confident performance interrupted only by indecision over the setlist and Hassan’s intermittent arguments with the fog machine. One short song is a rare moment of comedy in a setlist that’s otherwise more focused on social commentary and cathartic release of frustration for its songwriters, but it’s all enjoyable nonetheless, and those of us early enough to join the double horseshoe of hushed folk around the front have been treated to something of rare beauty.
The mood changes dramatically when, after a brief pause, My Third Leg take the stage. They’re a fun bunch of lads and are understandably in good spirits after playing a barnstorming set in support of evergreen scene-stalwarts [spunge] just down the road during the week. Before they put the room through its paces, their drummer Paul had to come and apologise to me: “we wanted to give you a CD to review, but we’ve sold out completely. Twice. We pressed a load of extras for the [spunge] show but that was an amazing show so we got rid of all of them as well”. So I don’t know how good the CD is, but, perhaps inevitably in the circumstances, there’s an album on the way and we’ll surely get our hands on that eventually. Watch this space for that.
In the mean time, My Third Leg step up to take control of this sleepy pocket of North London and put it through its paces. They’re a four-piece, with two guitars and all bar Paul on sticks joining in on vocals to give a ballsy, bigger-than-usual take on the conventional ska-punk thing, unsurprisingly driven mainly by those dual guitars. There’s plenty of upstrokes for skanking, and plenty of legs obediently skank to them like as many yo-yos running on momentum, yet still at the whim of some sort of omnipotent master-being, in this case four lads from Gravesend.
One lad called Ben is having his birthday here and gets his share of wishes from the band during their set, which is a lively affair powered by short, spiky songs and notable for a high-speed cover of Sublime’s Date Rape.
A few minutes’ peace are spectacularly shattered when The Popes of Chillitown take the stage in a room that’s filled up as the sun started to go don outside. Instantly, they get the party started (again) : that little semicircle opens up in front of the stage between bands proves convenient, and, rather than bringing us all two steps forward a la My Third Leg, Austen just steps over the monitors and jumps right in to it on his own. During the first song. Blame Game kicks the set off with a bang, and there’s precious little time (or even room) to look back after that: pretty soon in to Dalking Man, up next, that space is gone, and, as it gets more and more hectic down here, Austen’s forced to retreat back on to the stage. Probably safer.
The Popes play the ska/punk thing with a lot more going on in it: they’re a six-piece, with Liz the only horn player here. Newcomers to the level of depth and variety in their music could perhaps be forgiven for being a little taken aback at what they’re witnessing: it’s pretty eclectic, and a little bit bonkers. At the same time, though, it’s instinctively engaging and catchy, and tonight the songs are performed so insistently that all the evidence suggests it’s impossible not to throw yourself right in. Buy One, Get One Free and Tooting-Ska-Moon, as ever, are particular highlights, but this is a live show that fits together pretty seamlessly, gliding quickly up through the gears and then racing through the songs as well. It’s bedlam by the end of it: Howl is a riot, and first one and then two Popes join us on the dancefloor for Holding Out for More and finally Badman. These guys have got the moves as well.
Our last train leaves early, so I didn’t get to watch the final act, Love Spuds. In effect, then, for a clutch of us, True Beat were acting as headliners. They’re ideal for the role, actually, as well: again they’re a four-piece with two guitars and no horns, but their sound’s a lot closer to the poppier end of two-tone than, for example, My Third Leg. True Beat have a lot of write catchy, skankable pop songs and pack them full of hooks: they know what buttons to push to make you have a good time, and they push them well and a lot.
A lot of their material tonight comes from last year’s album Back to Square One, but there’s room for a joyous romp through 54-46 and to finish with new single Shanty Town. In between they romp through their own peppy, catchy little songs with grins and an infectious kinetic energy that makes songs like I’ve Just Got Paid and Cherry Lips frankly irresistible.
If you’ve not seen these guys in concert before, it’s something of a surprise that the material from Back to Square One, for example, is performed with a rougher, punkier edge to it that makes good songs in to great fun. Maybe it’s personal taste, but I really enjoyed that and preferred it to the way they’ve recorded the same songs on what was already a very decent album.
It’s a polished, efficient set that goes down well with a delighted crowd, who, by now, are drunk on the first signs of summer as much the plastic pots of Strongbow, and True Beat are obviously having a good time as well.
That was it for me, and for a few of us who were here now, and a steady flow of folk made for the exits after Shanty Town. My apologies to Love Spuds and anyone who came here hoping to read about them: hopefully we’ll hook up another time.
Popes / Truebeat: UK tour
Posted by jamie on Apr 14, 2011
Our mates the Popes of Chillitown and True Beat are off on tour together, starting in London this Saturday (16th April). Artwork and all the dates to follow.
Have a look at this from our inbox:
Hey guys, Austen from Popes of Chillitown here!
Celebs. They’re great, aren’t they?
Here are those dates if you need to copy and paste them anywhere:
April
16 - Nambucca, London
20 - Edge of the Wedge, Portsmouth
22 - Duke of Cambridge, Hounslow
23 - Redhouse, Sheffield
24th - The Sailing Club, Llanfairfechan
May
19th - Hobgoblin, Staines
20th - Leo’s Red Lion, Gravesend
21st - Folkestone, The Chambers (Skabour Warmup)
Popes of Chillitown: UK tour
Posted by chips on Jul 23, 2010
The Popes of Chillitown have sent us this new poster for next week’s UK jaunt. They’ve even put a new music video up here. Catch this tour if you at all can.
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.
