Reviews
Joey Terrifying – The First Demo
Joey Terrifying’s imaginatively titled first demo is all I’ve ever heard of the band, and, if they’re new to you, would be a great introduction to a really exciting new band.
The three songs on this disc are at once catchy, chant along, love-them-on-my-stereo rock songs and savage, pit-devastating punk rock beasts. Fittingly, guitar upstrokes and catchy, danceable bass-riffs both hint at a ska influence at times, yet shift seamlessly back a grimy, dirty punk rock, and then toying with hurling itself full on into the fray before pausing for reflection and stepping back to its rhythmic, crunchy riffage. Deeker’s vocal is similar – a quickfire machine-gun spitting furious lyrics in rhythm, and the next instant growling, snarling and soaring into fist-in-the-air choruses, and back again. These songs change direction quickly, a lot like The Scrub, but they’re always there on your shoulder, making you want to move your body in whatever the appropriate way might be, or just in any way you can. I’ve been kicking and stomping pretty hard while the disc has been on repeat four times behind me. Typing isn’t always easy, y’know.
Shouty and chant-a-long-friendly, National Insecurities in particular, teases from the speakers that this is a band who need to be heard live (a quick peek at their website suggests the same: fists and bodies flying through the air). Troubled times is great: its verses brilliantly highlighted with backing vocals embellishing the tune and turning bleak, almost nihilist lyrics into shout-along hooks like the Buzzcocks might have done had they been chain-smokers.
The tone here is edgy, angry, and pretty raw, but the songs stand up well to the treatment and, as well as being a great listen on its own, there’s a real sense here that there’s a lot more to come from thee guys. Fans of the Scrub, as I’ve mentioned, or of hilarious Moscow street-punks Distemper will surely adore this three-track release as much as lovers of more old-school punk rock stuff. It’s a treat, and it’s available on Make That A Take Recordings.
See the band’s myspace for more.
Sonic Boom Six, the Flaming Tsunamis & Grown at Home
Islington Bar Academy, 2nd December 2007
I found out in the afternoon that no-one wanted to come to this gig, and, though aghast at their freshly revealed status as official lamewads, decided I’d meet up with my stay-at-home friends all the same. For one reason or another, it had been a massive night in Berko, but I’m benefiting from having been laid low by a flu of tropical-sized super powers that is probably the fault of my stalkerish obsession with Fandangle shows from two weeks ago. For this stalker and flu reason, I’m also missing their Northampton gig with Chase Long Beach tonight, but that’s another story. I was up for this, and no-one else was, so had to battle in to London on my own.
I abandoned the lamewads on T-Man’s living-room floor with the Tottenham score at 0-1 and aimed for the big city. The world became a brighter place when I caught the last minutes of All Ages and saved money on my gig ticket and got to talk SB6 with the girl in there. The shops are still waiting for their copies of Arcade Perfect, and I’ve had mine for two, no three, glorious weeks. It’s immense, and, world, if you haven’t heard it, you don’t know what you’re missing. A bomb is about to drop in to your musical life and shatter everything you thought you knew. So that made me smile. The downside was that the monkey-burger guy in the Camden food court also shuts at six, and I’d missed him for the day. On the tube I met two Spurs fans who informed me we’d gone down 3-2 thanks to a dodgy sending off. Thanks, refs, another week, another mugging. I thought you’d have been happy with yourselves after the West Ham fiasco.
Still, to the show, and stumbling across Luton Alex, who I always see at SB6 shows, in the queue. He told me Luton had been fairly empty on this tour, and, all in all, it sounds like we were better off in Camden at Fandangle last weekend. I’d have been gutted to miss either show, but the all-dayer was explosive, and I’m still so glad I went.
Grown At Home entered and picked the room, now comfortably full after we’d come in to find it empty and with the lights still on, up by and start to move it in their first song, and a dancefloor has appeared by the time the air is full of fists pumping out the “who did it? Somebody else did!” in One Up, their second track. Nick explains the Grown at Home are from up North, and explains that when he says “Stoke” we say “ON TRENT!” - a few practices and the guys tear in to Get Ready. Grown At Home are, tonight, rawer and with the punk rock in their sound more prominent than usual, but it works well. All except Cookie dressed fully in black, and all of them a blur, bouncing, reaching for the ceiling, slamming back down on to the ground and running, flying around. Sam starts a “wall of hugs”, helpfully explained as “like a Wall of Death, but with Hugs”, and then demonstrate it with a smacker of a buddy-hug for Chris in the middle of a tune.
New tune Take It is well received, plenty of shouts in the chorus, “take it, take it, take it”, etc, before PG-13 is rolled out even though the shout-contest between “jumping and dancing like you’re 16 years old” and rocking out was clearly won by the rock song, and probably the highlight of the set, backed up by the brilliant “Don’t Be a Menace to King Kong While Drinking Banana Juice In The Congo” is greeted with squeals of delight as soon as Nick explains “this next song’s about a monkey..”. I think everybody loves this song, but everybody also just knows it as “the monkey song”, or something. It makes me hungry a bit for that monkey burger, but seeing Grown At Home play it live is still an absolute joy. Scotty from the Flaming Tsunamis joins the guys on sax for this tune and gets a bit of a shout for his troubles. A shout for drinking, a rousing Kick In the Beer Can and Grown At Home are done, leaving a pile of grinning, dripping bodies waiting for the Flaming Tsunamis and sparking a rush to the bar.
The Flaming Tsunamis send the Academy reeling, launching into a blistering hybrid of industrial hardcore, punk rock and some sweet, cleverly worked jazz/soul combos off bass, sax and keyboards. If I’m honest, these buts are the only bits I really liked, I’m not one for hardcore and the vocals are a bit nu-metal for me, but there’s no disguising that they’re very good at what they do and are devoured here by a riot-hungry crowd. If You Really Love Me is the second tune, and already people are on the stage, stealing the microphone and stage-diving.
Bomb The Whitehouse is dedicated to the other bands playing tonight and delivered with us all joining for a big “fuck America” shout, and we’re invited to burn copies of their new record for all of our mates before they play the title track, Fear Everything. Another tune is, perhaps ironically back announced as a cover of Billy Joel’s West Coast “in case you lost the melody” and backed by the proper wall of death. Actually, I’m sitting right at one side now, and the wall of death in the middle reached us. This must mean it took up the whole room. I’ve also spotted the naked guy who got on stage at the Fandangle all dayer, mercifully now sober and with shorts and a blue Freefall Felix t-shirt, in the melee. That was funny. I decided not to tell him I’ve seen him naked. It just felt weird. Another song is “for a band called Beat The Red Light” from High Wycombe, which gets a scream, I guess from some locals, and another is called Dead Girlfriends Can’t Break Up With You, during which Cookie from Grown At Home reappears to trap various Tsunami members with gaffa tape and attempt various forms of destruction to general hilarity. One more song and it’s done. The Flaming Tsunamis have laid total waste to the Islington Bar Academy, and should be afforded much respect for their efforts. The place is ransacked and all are deliriously happy. An awesome effort considering how often they’re inLondon, etc.
This would be enough for most nights, but we still have a headline set from theSonic Boom Six, now one of the UK
Barney and Ben C take their time tuning up and sound-checking. I’ve started to really enjoy just watching this, through sheer anticipation of what always follows. For some reason, Barney always has his hood up for this bit, but it’s no secret who he is. Laila bounds on during opener Arcade Perfect, and it’s straight in to Bigger Than Punk Rock and then Meanwhile, Back in the Real World, both featuring the Grown at Home horn guys.
Barney gives Tell Me Something That I Don’t Know to Steven Morrissey shooting his mouth off, the first time the guys have dropped the guitars for the Beastie-Boys style rapping action, and then it’s back on for a giddily skanked out Sound of a Revolution that crashes in to Apathy Begins at Home and While You Were Sleeping as tracks from the last two records mash together, each one another reminder just how many very top quality tunes Sonic Boom Six have in their locker these days, and gleefully devoured by a heaving, writhing pit that has by now turned the whole venue into one big sweat box. Laila can’t stop telling ‘London‘ how great we are. There are shouts to Grown At Home and the Flaming Tsunamis, and Laila’s praise for the crowd, “no one does it like London”, gets dissed by Barney: “we don’t need to suck up to the capital, we got the Smiths, we got the Joy Division, we got the Buzzcocks”, and it’s Northern Skies and straight in to Marching Round in Circles.
Barney bigs up “peace and love and unity and all that good stuff noone talks about any more”, and the guys roll out The Strange Tale of Sid the Strangler, the first time I’ve seen it live, and Flower.
“I’ve got one request, no, two, no, THREE!” hollers Laila after the gentle reggae number, Flower. “One is that you come a bit closer, two is that you give it up for Jonny from the Flaming Tsunamis, and three is that you wake THE-FUCK-UP, because this one is called Piggy in the Middle”.
After this we get to hold on for some old songs. A 30 second song from punktastic comp: an Ode to DIY Promoters, “and then you’ll know what the next song is” teases Barney. It’s Blood for Oil, which we’re told played instead of September to May, which is called for afterwards. Barney points out that they played Blood For Oil instead, because a girl in the front has asked for some old tunes because she doesn’t have Arcade Perfect yet. There’s a treat in store for you.
“But”, chats Laila, “if you wanted September to May, we’re playing in February with a band called REEL BIG FISH..” squeals all around, and Barney mentions “who do music with trumpets or something”, I’m not sure he’s a fan: I’ve heard this before, I think, “and the Streetlight Manifesto”! More shouts of glee, and a call for Monkey See, Monkey Do which is next up, with the Flaming Tsunamis’ keyboard guy now playing with the gaffa tape and Barney managing to escape it before finally, breathless, baked, and grinning like so many chimps, we’re finished off with Devil Made Me Do It, which I’d just told Luton Alex was the first song I ever saw them play, back in the day. With Ben C’s guitar in for Ben Hameen’s sax part, it’s a totally different animal, but differently, strangely, superb.
Sonic Boom Six return and, as Laila’s “head a vicious rumour that the singer of King Prawn is in the house” we get a cover of King Prawn’s “Day In, Day Out”. The rumours remain unconfirmed, but the night is complete. Gleefully happy, soaking wet bodies are stacked all over the place, at times all over the ceiling and all over the stage. Anyone skiving tonight has missed out on one of THE gigs of 2007. Supreme.
