BITCHIN' BREW #007 WITH KATE COULSON (ABOVE THE WAVES PROMOTIONS / THE JOINERS) IS OUT NOW

The long-awaited seventh episode of BITCHIN' BREW featuring your friend and mine, KATE COULSON of ABOVE THE WAVES PROMOTIONS (as well as the in-house promotions team at THE JOINERS in Southampton, the Best Venue In The World ©) is FINALLY here.

You can now listen to it on SOUNDCLOUD by clicking HERE or streaming it below, or you can listen on iTUNES and ACAST.

Thanks to everyone - especially Kate - who was so patient on this one. As you may well know, we decided to do an AMA portion on this podcast, where we answered your questions on Buckfast, crisps, David Beckham hairstyles and the Argentinian debt crisis of 2001. We also had more on-topic chats about our respective entrances to the Southampton punk rock scene and how we met backstage at a Frank Iero show and at one of Kate's legendary house shows, so don't worry, it's not just an hour and 20 minutes of us talking a bunch of tangential bollocks.

ALSO ON BITCHIN' BREW #007: Kate and I talk about her upcoming festival, SO PUNK FEST 3, which is happening across Southampton on February 3-5, and boasts a badass lineup full of UK punk and emo bands which she handpicked along with those dudes at FAILURE BY DESIGN RECORDS.

Friday night at SPF3 is being headlined by MUSKETS, Saturday night's bill is topped by APOLOGIES, I HAVE NONE, and then things will be capped off on Sunday with a solo performance from Dan of DUCKING PUNCHES. It's going to be all the great vibes, so make sure that you grab your weekend/individual tickets now over on the ATW BIGCARTEL PAGE.

You'd be a bit of a knob to ignore that lineup...

Danny

BITCHIN' BREW EPISODE #003 WITH ROSS DRUMMOND (CHEAP MEAT / 1990s PROBLEMS) IS HERE!

From the day I first dreamt up the idea of BITCHIN' BREW, I knew that there was one man who could help me hone the craft of podcasting like no other. His name is ROSS DRUMMOND, and I was lucky enough to have him as my guest on Episode #003 of Bitchin' Brew, which is available to stream and download for FREE now on iTunes and Soundcloud!

For those of you who don't know Ross, he is a man of many talents: he plays guitar and sings in an awesome new alt-rock band called CHEAP MEAT, he co-hosts the 1990s PROBLEMS podcast (as well as his new podcast, AIN'T TALKING 'BOUT VAN HALEN: THE VAN HALEN PODCAST), and most importantly, he can hold a damn good conversation about Mexican food.

Suffice to say, Ross and I go off on several tangents in this episode, delving into topics such as stand-up comedy and how podcasts can save the generation of short attention span-holders, how not to use a flask, and badly chopped lettuce at certain fast food establishments (as part of this episode's lengthy culinary section).

It goes without saying, but recording this episode of Bitchin' Brew was incredibly fun - I'm definitely settling down into this strange medium, because this was just the start of a hectic week where I recorded  not one, but TWO more episodes. Episode #004 will be with the guys and gal in MILK TEETH, a band who need no introduction as one of the hottest UK punk bands right now. That will go live on 17TH JUNE, before Episode #005 with FAILURE BY DESIGN RECORDS co-founder CONNOR P LAWS arrive a couple of weeks after that (Date TBA).

BITCHIN' BREW EPISODE #003 IS NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM AND DOWNLOAD FOR FREE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES OR LISTEN VIA SOUNDCLOUD BELOW:

As ever, thanks for being fucking awesome.

Danny

GIG REVIEW: HECK / RAKETKANON @ THE JOINERS, SOUTHAMPTON

Photo by Captain Metal Photography

FUCK EVERYTHING THAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT BABY GODZILLA HECK.

Trust me, I was in that camp once. That first time I saw four men swinging their barely-intact guitars around like over-enthusiastic Belarusian olympic hammer-throwers, screaming blue murder into their microphones and hanging off pretty much anything that could hold their weight; whether it was the many staircases at Bristol's o2 Academy (where I first saw them opening for The Wildhearts back in 2013), or the several oblivious audience members that bothered turning up early for their set.

Photo by Captain Metal 
Photography

From the moment the words 'Baby Godzilla' popped up on the bill for the Kerrang! Tour in 2014, they were on the cusp of being forever doomed as that band where people go 'ooh, they're nutters, shame they haven't got any songs!'. It could have been one of the most transient fads before people got too hung up on the fact that they were barely delivering the ballsy punk n' roll anthems that they seriously have the potential to push to their red-raw limits.

Well, you know what? HECK (formally Baby Godzilla) have those anthems now. They've probably had them stashed away all along (I'd argue that 'Powerboat Disaster' remains one of their biggest and best tracks) but nobody's given them the time of day apart from wazzing off about how mental they are live. They've been through the ringer with being derided as a farce, and they've come out the other end with a handful of fucking furious, riff-heavy bangers. I can't help but doff my metaphorical cap to HECK for dealing with it in the way that they have.

Before you even read this review, go and listen to their debut album, INSTRUCTIONS, and I dare you to say after listening to it that they don't have songs, especially after the three-part 16-minute epic at the end of the record, 'I: See The Old Lady Decently / II: Buried Although / III: Amongst Those Left Are You' *and breathe*...

A really good photo of RAKETKANON by yours truly
(Definitely not taken on an iPhone)

If you think that HECK's insurance providers have a bit of a field day dealing with their responsibilities, try being the band that opens for them. Luckily, RAKETKANON face the challenge with enough batshit enthusiasm to make HECK look like a fucking skiffle band.

What's even more respectable about these Belgian nutcases and their display of grimy, pulsing noise is the fact that they do it without perhaps their most crucial member: lead singer Pieter-Paul Devos is allegedly fighting illness during their set (although guitarist Jef Verbeeck tries to pin his absence on "not being able to snort cocaine on stage in the UK"), but HECK guitarist Jonny Hall is on hand to fill the void. 

Not that there is actually much of a void to be filled, what with keyboardist Lode Vlaeminck headbutting his keyboard and drummer Pieter de Wilde spending more time in the middle of the crowd than behind his kit. Somehow, they still manage to harness those chaotic energies into churning out often-industrial, always-intense art-rock.

Photo by Captain Metal Photography

You think you may know the score with a HECK show, but you'd be an idiot to disregard just how unpredictable this band can be. Sure, they'll be dangling from the rafters and death-staring audience members with a slight pathological intensity (this does happen on numerous occasions tonight), but the order in which they'll be pulling these mad tricks out of the bag seems a mystery to the band themselves.

Just because HECK have started to finally channel some energy into crafting massive hooks and stomping rock n' roll choruses on Instructions, they're far from losing that momentum that thrives in dingy atmospheres like the one at The Joiners. The room may be half-full, but that might be for the best considering the amount of space cleared by the loose cannon of a frontman that is Matt Reynolds. With the same anarchic chemistry of Omar and Cedric from At The Drive-In, or Sid and Clown from Slipknot, Reynolds and Hall quite literally bounce off the walls... and the stage... and the amps... and the crowd. 

Photo by Captain
Metal Photography

Even in amongst the discordance and pandemonium of this feedback-drenched evening, the technical brilliance of HECK's rhythm section is never down-played. Paul Shelley hammers the shit of his bass, gurning like a bulldog chewing a wasp in the process (a hard-as-fuck bulldog at that), while drummer Tom Marsh reaches his enraged peak by nearly punching a hole in his toms. If it weren't for the choppy time signatures that they miraculously uphold, tracks like 'Good As Dead' and 'A Great Idea Bastardised' wouldn't be nearly as chaotic or captivating.

By the time 'Powerboat Disaster' swaggers in, Reynolds has surrendered his mic almost entirely to the crowd who are (myself included) more than willing to join in for the hearty yo-ho-ing that carries on long after the song crashes to a halt. It's glorious moments like this where you're actually grateful that HECK didn't stick around in the Academy-sized venues, in the same way you'd rather see Trash Talk at The Fighting Cocks in Kingston, or letlive. at The Old Blue Last in London. 

Where's the fun in not fearing for your life anyway? One misstep at this show and I could've ended up being strangled with a mic lead, or had a guitar head slammed into my temple, or being flattened by a flying monitor.

Would I have it any other way at a HECK show? 

HECK NO.

Photos by Captain Metal Photography

Big thanks to Captain Metal Photography for letting me use some of his shots. You can check out more of his stuff over on his Facebook page. You can also check out some wicked footage from the show below, courtesy of the kid who stuck his GoPro on one of the amps. You can probably see me at some point trying to lob a mic stand at someone.

Yo-ho, yo-ho...

Danny

EP REVIEW: CREEPER - 'THE STRANGER'

A lot of you saw probably saw this review coming, seeing as I think I've done pretty well in not spaffing all over this blog about how much I fucking love Creeper. Not only have they written some of the best punk rock songs of our generation, but they are on the cusp of something explosive, stratospheric even.

I get the same vibe from Creeper as I did when My Chemical Romance breached the mainstream with Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge: it feels more accessible musically than a lot of the music of the scene that they stemmed from, but at the same time they still stood proud on behalf of the freaks and outsiders, uncompromising and otherworldly. MCR may have become more of a corporate machine in their later days, but in that moment, between Three Cheers... and The Black Parade, it was a bold and brilliant time for 'alternative' music. With Creeper, I feel that excitement again as the cult-like fanbase around them continues to grow. With the Callous Heart patch proudly sewn onto my denim jacket, I have undoubtedly succumbed to the Creeper Cult. 

What initially seemed to be a bunch of punk misfits with a dark delight for the macabre is now a troupe of punk craftsmen (and craftswoman) with a dark delight for the macabre. Everything from the iconography to the two-part fairytale that concludes with The Stranger has been created meticulously, but never in a contrived manner, especially not on this, their most personal release to date.

Their last EP, The Callous Heart, set an alluring precedent that saw bigger, more mainstream audiences flocking to see them on support slots and in small club gigs: it was fast, it was fun, but above all, it was profound. The Stranger's role in Creeper's grandiose production, as frontman Will Gould explains in a recent behind-the-scenes vid, is to embody "time and the things we fear". It's with that concept in mind that I think this EP represents Creeper going 'right, we can write great punk rock choruses, but what else can we blow people's minds with?', and out came this fucking massive-sounding rock record.

On first listen, the sheer craft, pace and majesty of The Stranger is startling and almost seems like a bit of a curveball, and perhaps that would be the case if it was a stand-alone release. However, when it's lined up in succession to The Callous Heart, it's a natural element of Creeper's sound and this is the glorious moment where it comes to fruition. Do yourself a favour and listening to both records back-to-back; that's where you will learn to truly appreciate the craft of this record. 

They still have those fist-in-the-air anthems like 'Black Mass', which throws around influences from Alkaline Trio to Elvis like it's nobody's business, and is probably one of the best songs that Creeper will ever write. But then there's also songs like the opening track, 'The Secret Society': a swelling build-up into a somewhat Bat Out Of Hell-esque eruption with all the pomp of a rock opera, before giving way to 'Valentine''s uncannily Three Cheers...-era verses and huge swaying choruses.

With 'Novena' and 'Henley's Ghost' now , one thing that often gets overlooked with Creeper is their ability to write heart-wrenching balladry. 'Misery' is hardly the token ballad in this EP of frank admissions and cathartic lyricism, but it will have fans singing "Misery never goes out of style" in their arena-sized masses, and you can take that to the bank: Creeper will one day be playing arenas, and it's thanks to songs like 'Misery'.

Now, to any punk rock purists out there: you can calm their tits if you think that this is the sound of Creeper selling out so early in the game. They are not slowing down, they are not taming. They are just sonically expanding to justify those grand concepts and narratives - not that they had anything to prove in the first place. The songs were always there, as was the concept, but finally it feels like they are mutually thriving off of one another.

Around the release of their debut EP, I would have classed Creeper as 'promising'. With The Callous Heart, they became exciting. Now, at the end of this wonderful saga, Creeper are important, and as they look ahead to the next chronicle that they have beautifully set the stage for, it feels like their most enchanting moment is yet to come.

TOP TRACKS: 'Black Mass'; 'Misery'; 'The Secret Society'

 RR RATING:

The Stranger is out February 19th on Roadrunner Records. Click here to stream the EP before its release via the band's website.

Beware the Callous Heart...

Danny