Heathen Skateboards rider Daryl Nobbs has some footage in Thrasher’s latest web clip filmed on a mission in Denmark and Paris alongside Peabody, Sean Gutierrez, TNT and many more.
Click for rawness and look out for Daryl’s concrete skatepark builds on your travels. Find Eastbound online.
London Shepherd’s Bush Empire,
7/7/11
For British Social Distortion fans, the band’s shows are like hot summers – we’re lucky if we get one every few years. Three UK dates (all in London) in the last decade is hardly an impressive track record, but it does lend tonight’s show a sense of occasion, with all manner of punks, greasers and rockabilly types lining the street and pubs outside the Empire. Young or old, they’re a devoted bunch; a fact underlined when Social D frontman Mike Ness invites a couple of kids onstage during the band’s encore. They’ve travelled from Glasgow and Manchester, and like the rest of us, they look pretty damn stoked to be here.
Crazy Arm sound huge for a bunch of skinny guys from Devon. Like the headliners, they’re blessed with the ability to craft songs that are anthemic without being overblown, and the likes of ‘Still To Keep’ and ‘Broken By The Wheel’ are infused with a frenetic folk-punk energy that betrays their rural roots. The applause gets louder with every song, and it’s well deserved, especially from such a partisan crowd.
Cynical folks among us may argue that what we witness tonight is really The Mike Ness Band, but with all due respect to past and present members, Ness has always been the driving force (and main songwriter) behind Social Distortion. It’s doubtful that the Empire will see a louder sing-along in 2011 than that which greets third song ‘Story Of My Life’, and rightly so; for these songs are indeed soundtracks to the frontman’s life of struggle, tragedy and eventual redemption. There’s no bullshit with these guys, and not much in the way of pointless banter; they just rock out with the energy and conviction of a band half their ages, with Ness and guitarist Jonny ‘2 Bags’ Wickersham frequently soloing away down the front into the faces of a sweat-drenched, sold out crowd.
Given the sheer number of classics in their canon, it’s debatable as to whether a perfect Social Distortion set-list could ever exist, but tonight they get pretty close. Renditions of ‘Dear Lover’ (from 1996’s underrated ‘White Light, White Heat, White Trash’) and ‘So Far Away’ are both very welcome surprises, as is the sound of the crowd singing the opening guitar line to ‘Don’t Drag Me Down’. Old standards like ‘Mommy’s Little Monster’ and ‘1945’ are still shot through with anti-authoritarian vigour, whilst at the other end of the timeline, a couple of female backing singers are brought on to add a soulful edge to ‘California (Hustle And Flow)’.
These old road-dogs have come a long way since their fury-fuelled 1980s heyday, but they’ve got no end of stories to tell, and a damn fine way of telling them. Here’s hoping for their swift return to these shores.
Alex Gosman
If you are 18 years old reading this then the Stupids probably will not ring any bells, but they were an awesome, fun hardcore band who loved shredding curbs.
These days, singer/drummer Tommy Stupid likes to be known as Klute and has racked up a mix of US hardcore on soundcloud for you to stream today. Get in there for Descendents and much more.
You will find him smashing it at every event, at every street spot, and any session that is going on out there. His name is Craig Smedley and that name has now moonwalked its way onto a Nise Skateboards deck after leaving Unabomber in the last couple of months.
Have a gander at Craig’s pro deck that has been released this week, it’s a UK classic. Congrats Craig, simply brilliant – I certainly want one of these on first view.
Scroll down past the advert to watch a recent edit of the Nise team filmed in Barcelona by Elliott Tebbs.
Paul Regan has been kickboxing and busy teaching skateboarding over the last year successfully, spreading the goodness to the next generation. He has also made time for another pop filled video edit for DVS for you to watch today. View it below and if you want more from Paul click here for his interview and look out for another edit with more new footage dropping from the Fabric crew that is scheduled for August.
Ph: Rob Salmon
Vans designer and general top geezer Jasper Jones came a cropper whilst skating in Austria a while back and suffered some quite serious head injuries. We sent him a get well package this week and got this back today:
“THANKS a million for the get well soon packs from you and Crossfire! Honestly stoked that’s so kind and much appreciated. Sabbath have helped me through many dark moments in the past so very fitting and the book looks awesome and looking forward to working through the other cd’s to the wife’s misery. ;) Seriously man many many thanks, really made my day!”
We wish him all th best in his recovery, it could not have happened to a nicer bloke. Wear a helmet out there if you are skating big bowls people.
The Extreme Connexions skatepark that is undergoing surgery right now for launch this summer in Hemel Hempstead is shaping up nicely. We sneaked in to give you some updated shots this weekend so have a gander at what is to be revealed very soon as it’s looking very impressive.
To find out more about this project, click here for a full feature of who is behind it and how the UK’s only indoor concrete skatepark design was put together.
Late Love
Prosphetic Records
Even though they are barely over a year old, Norway’s Wolves Like Us show maturity far beyond their years in their debut release Late Love; a feat perhaps owing to the members’ previous experience in notable Norwegian acts such as Amulet and JR Ewing. There is undoubtedly high quality of song writing throughout and the album is very concise, playing out at just the right tempo throughout and never outstaying its welcome.
Purpose driven drums and utterly relentless riffs give the perfect backdrop to vocalist Lars Kristensen’s empowered baritone, from album opener (and one of the biggest highlights) ‘Burns Like A Paper Rose’ all the way through to haunting closing track ‘To Whore With Foreign Gods’. This is certainly an album that justifies the opportunities that this relatively new band have been handed, for example, touring with bands such as Klavertak and Gallows.
It isn’t just typical hardcore conventions on show here though either; this is a band that know their instruments well and the aforementioned brutality is often accompanied by delicately intricate lead lines and atmospheric arpeggios, most notably on ‘Secret Handshakes’ and ‘Deathless’.
There isn’t a dull moment to be had, especially with some great variation displayed from full on pit inducing bridges to some excellent melodic sections (‘Sin after Sin’ being one of the best examples of this) and an extremely solid rhythm section throughout. It’s an overused cliché, perhaps, but this album truly is all killer, no filler.
Late Love has been released on Prosthetic Records who have also put out the similarly remarkable Darker Handcraft by Trap Them this year. You can be sure that this won’t be the last you hear of Wolves Like Us with two European tours upcoming in 2011 (one of these with US legends Swing Kids, no less) and a main stage appearance at Norway’s OYA festival. Wolves Like Us are without doubt a band to keep an eye (and ear) out for in future.
Ryan De Freitas
Check out first single Deathless below:
‘New Brigade’
Escho
While Denmark might not be known as a goldmine for producing great punk bands, if you’ve been reading the music press in recent months the chances are you may have come across Iceage. Rumblings of this Copenhagen band’s debut record reached the UK at the beginning of the year, as its initial release was picked up by a number of tastemaking blogs and championed in Noel Gardener’s superb punk column over at The Quietus. In his column, Gardener describes the record as ‘basically, perfect’ and ‘one of the best punk rock records released in recent years’, and I would be hard pushed to disagree.
Given that the history of punk has been mined so many times, it’s difficult to make a record that sounds like nothing else around it. Look around at contemporary punk music and you’ll find variations of Black Flag, variations of Fugazi and variations of Wire, but every once in a while something will be released that sounds completely pure. Not that the album doesn’t draw heavily from post punk influences, but everything is so right about this recording, from the songs to the production, that it manages to distinguish itself among any number of copyist acts. It’ll be interesting to see whether this album is a one-off fluke, but New Brigade captures the essence of what makes punk so damn exciting in the first place.
It’s scrappy, energetic production makes it easy to imagine in a live setting, barely held together on record you can only imagine things intensifying at shows. The guitars clatter against each other, almost lost in the muddle of noise, before being dragged out by some hook that comes out of nowhere. While this doesn’t sound like a record made for anyone other than the band themselves, there are standout tracks (‘White Rune’, ‘New Brigade’, ‘Broken Bone’) with choruses that will bounce around your head for days. Albeit sung in singer Elias Rønnenfelt’s signature sluggish drawl. While the band certainly aren’t scared to thrash out a minute long punk jam, their perhaps at their best when these bursts of near-melody jump out completely unexpectedly.
The early excitement Iceage picked up has quickly multiplied in recent months. With a US release for New Brigade on Dais, at the time of writing the band is currently embarking on a full tour of the states. Whether or not they can maintain the often fleeting attention of the modern indie press remains to be seen, but for now we’re just glad to see this record being noticed. A proper punk record from an exciting new talent.
Sleekly Lion.
Video – New Brigade
Landscape Skateboards released offcuts from their 2009 DVD release Horizons last night featuring the team back then that consisted of Snowy, Soy Panday, Joleon Pressey, Rory Milanes, Jin Shimizu, Nick Stansfield and Joel Curtis.
Landscape’s line up has now changed slightly, so if you missed their new arrival, click here for Ash Hall’s welcome edit and look out for more Landscape goodness as they film for their upcoming release.