Category: Live Reviews

Destruction Unit / Puce Mary
The Old Blue Last
23rd October 2013

After what feels like forever, Puce Mary unfolds half an hour of noisy gadget ambience. Armed with a staggering collection of synths and effects she undertakes a self-assault, manipulating her own vocal into deep, dark layers of sound. The atmospheric sounds Puce Mary creates recall of the more left field work of Aphex Twin. Bottomless bass drones underneath her distorted, broken speech create a devastating soundtrack. And if one aural assault wasn’t enough, fear not. A gang of the most villainous guitar slingers and freaks of feedback are approaching.

As Destruction Unit take to the stage there’s a call for darkness, ridding the glare that dazzles the stage with a mere flick of the hand recreating the dingy basement atmosphere these guys clearly prefer. There’s no clear beginning to the set tonight, but it would be disgustingly crass if Destruction Unit did ‘introductions’. Rather than a conventional tune up, an adjusting of feedback occurs. Each member toys with their own frequencies until they’ve merged into the zone before erupting into album opener ‘The World on Drugs’.

From here on in, this set is an all-out psychedelic attack. The songs played tonight from ‘Deep Trip’ morph into one another via extended wah pedal abuse and ear-splitting feedback. Destruction Unit are not just punk as fuck, hard and fast, ferocious noise makers though. Well, they are. But they conduct their noise in a manner that fully entrances you rather than inducing a frenzied rage. ‘Night Loner’ has its moments of both chaos and order, easing into a (relatively) laid back mid-section that rides out for what feels like half an hour.

It’s from this point in the set that I really lose clarity of where one song ends and another begins. But this is definitely how Destruction Unit want you to feel. They want to induce that exciting discomfort, disposing of convention; it’s an initiation to the Deep Trip.

When you think it couldn’t get more chaotic the whirlwind of noise builds into a full on psych-out close. The rhythm section hold it down while singer Ryan Rosseau and guitarist Nick lose their shit, scaling the rigging of the Old Blue and balancing atop their amplifiers in search for god knows what, but it’s fucking exciting to watch. During this intensified rhythmic activity I realise how Destruction Unit is the perfect name for this band. The five members work together as a small army, dependent on each other to morph into the next cue and ready for whatever impromptu freak-outs occur on stage.

Although Deep, this trip is a short one. Playing for just over half an hour, I feel like I could’ve ridden it out for longer. But one thing’s for sure, this band is driving a big, silver, mind-expanding machine that can only get faster. I can’t wait to watch them play live again.

Dave Palmer

NoMeansNo
The Lexington, London
May 31st 2013

Ph/Video: Steve Cotton

Only last October Canadian oddball punk trio NoMeansNo headlined The Underworld in Camden to a sweat-drenched, heaving crowd of rabid fans hanging onto every note and word. Fast forward seven months and the band are back in the capitol, doing it all over again for yet another (mainly repeat custom) crowd, crammed into the smaller confines of The Lexington, waiting to be barraged yet again with two-hours of the jarring, inventive high-energy punk rock that the band have made their own. And it is for this reason that NoMeansNo continue to pull crowds across the world well over thirty years since they formed with almost no help or awareness from the mainstream media. NoMeansNo are far too original and forward thinking to fit in the tidy, neat easy-to-understand boxes that the mainstream media like their artists to fit in.

Once again, NoMeansNo don’t disappoint, thrilling with a set that cherry picks from their whole back catalogue – peaking with ‘The Tower’ and ‘Oh No Bruno’ from what is wildly regarded as their finest work, the 1989 album ‘Wrong’. Sometimes they are unhinged and freeform (“It’s not polite to wank in public,” shouts bassist Rob Wright to his drummer and brother John Wright when he goes one step too far with his jazz drumming! “I learn’t the hard way,” he laughs.)

And then, at a complete polar opposite, they end the set with a trio of stripped down, high-energy Ramones covers!

Musicians of this calibre can do anything, and that’s what NoMeansNo do. After all of these years they are still as inventive, humorous, sarcastic, awkward, energetic and punk rock as they were when they started in 1979. Not bad for a trio of grey old men!

James Sherry

Wayne Kramer
w/ The Good The Bad
The Blues Kitchen,
Camden London
June 28th 2013

It started at SXSW earlier this year. The legend that is Brother Wayne Kramer, guitarist with the notorious, most righteous, most radical motherfucking rock n’roll group of all time – THE MC5 – was in Texas to play shows with Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello. Also there to promote his Jail Guitar Doors charity, he happened upon Danish psych-surf mongers The Good The Bad and joined them onstage for an impromptu and incendiary version of ‘Kick Out The Jams’. “Thelonious Monk is alive and well with an electric guitar in The Good The Bad,” stated Wayne. “They’re my idea of a cool band and one of the most original I’ve seen in the last decade.”

Obviously keen to repeat the experience, Kramer was invited to play Glastonbury for the first time at the invitation of Billy Bragg and tonight’s gathering at The Blues Kitchen in Camden is a warm up for that set.

The evening starts with an acoustic set from Kramer. He starts by announcing that tonight is the 20th anniversary of legendary ‘poop rocker’ GG Allin’s death before kicking into a wonderful version of the MC5 classic ‘High School’, which has the whole crowd singing along with the infectious chorus and raising the roof!

Next up, Wayne plays a cover of The Clash B-side track ‘Jail Guitar Doors’ – a song that was written about him by Mick Jones back when Wayne was incarcerated for drug dealing back in the seventies and is now of course also the name of Kramer’s charity. The rousing track works perfectly striped down to acoustics and once again, the motley collection of old punks and rockers sing along to every word.

Danish surf punks The Good The Bad are up next and crash through a short set of high-octane instrumental rock that keeps the energy levels high as guitars blast back and forth but it’s when Wayne takes the stage that proceedings really kick up a gear – leading the band through a spine-tingling version of the first MC5 single ‘Looking At You’ and ending with the band’s call to arms ‘Kick Out The Jams’. If there’s a better, more life-affirming song than this in rock n’roll I’m yet to hear it. When the song explodes into life, it damn near takes the roof off. Sure, they can’t resist the temptation to drag the song out a little to long but those first few minutes are rock n’roll perfection. And it’s not every night you can see a genuine rock legend play a pub in Camden.

Brother Wayne Kramer, the last remaining MC5 guitarist – we salute you. Keep on fighting.

James Sherry

Negative Approach
The Underworld, London
June 29th 2013

John Brannon has the most devastatingly powerful voice in hardcore, period. Hunched over, dripping with sweat, bulldog face distorted and screwed up, his vocal bellows crackle with distortion and harsh noise. It’s a voice that never fails to impress and punch you in the guts and is a large part of what makes Negative Approach still so compelling in 2013. There’s not many classic early eighties hardcore bands that can still deliver this much hate, bile and punch in 2013. Hardcore bands don’t tend to age well, it’s a youth explosion, a teenager’s rage – but Negative Approach have something else entirely and their basic brute force thug punk rock has aged none.

Sadly, attendance isn’t that great tonight. The band were last here only six months ago and that combined with a pretty dire supporting bill (actually quite hilarious sports hardcore wife-beater vest wearing beatdown boys!) has made for a pretty sparse attendance. None of this, however, weakens Negative Approach’s delivery in any way. Right off the bat, they peel of song after song of classic, stripped down hardcore rage. To younger ears, many of their tunes might sound simplistic and basic in a modern world of cross-genre pollination but the beauty of Negative Approach’s music is its simplicity and utterly brutal delivery and speed. Songs like ‘Nothing’ and ‘Dead Stop’, with their creep-crawly bass intros and guttural vocal belches and grinding guitar, just feel so damn good and make you wanna break stuff. In truth, Negative Approach are probably the beginning of what became god awful ‘tough guy’ hardcore, but the difference here is NA came from a world before the influence of metal and their sound is purely rooted in punk and their brother’s in Detroit rock n’roll – they are an amped-up, fast and brutal Stooges or MC5. And their roots in punk are clear by their choice of cover versions tonight – we get classics by 4-Skins, Blitz and Sham 69 – which explains exactly how NA got their sound. They are that perfect mix of UK bootboy OI! punk and US hardcore speed.

For once, a legendary band who are not pissing on their legacy and still deliver the goods. Long may they continue.

James Sherry

Iggy And The Stooges
w/Savages
Royal Festival Hall
Thursday 20th June

Savages are boring. Po-faced, miserable, dull, trying so hard to be cool, icy stares. I don’t believe them. It’s not real. They are the exact polar opposite of the screaming into your face intensity and joyous life-affirming rock n’roll of The Stooges. Savages are too intent on posing. Their songs tease and build but never really explode or detonate. Savages mean nothing to me, but then I never really liked Joy Division either.

Iggy And The Stooges are everything that is important and essential about rock n’roll. Let’s forget about the last two studio albums that misfired dramatically. Men of their age (Black Sabbath included) should not be expected to, or even attempt, to try and recreate the magic ‘moments in time’ of music created from friendship bonds over youth, drugs, life, sex of their early years and it never works. Live, however, ever since they first got back into the saddle, The Stooges have always slayed. It started with those early tender steps in 2002 when brothers Scott and Ron Asheton started touring with J Mascis and Matt Watt performing those two essential first albums. It was only a matter of time before Iggy got back in on the action and when he did IT WENT OFF. Some of the best rock n’roll shows you could ever hope to see occurred and The Stooges proved they are the godfathers of fucking everything. And then in 2009 Ron Asheton went and died quite rightly everyone believed that was it. One last glorious run for The Stooges, a light put out by the tragic death of Ron.

No one could have predicted, however, that legendary Raw Power-era guitarist James Williamson would be waiting in the wings. Having been working for Sony since the Stooges originally imploded, the time was right for him to strap it back on and thank fuck he did. Tonight, James Williamson’s guitar playing and sound is utterly face-melting. Subdued and effortlessly cool, he leans back and peels off riff after riff, solo after solo of some of the most blistering guitar noise you could ever hope to hear and feel. And boy do you feel it. Every inch of your body vibrates and the sound in the Royal Festival Hall is incredible. It’s a seated venue but the whole crowd is on their feet, jolted into life by the glorious rush of noise crashing around the walls.

And then there’s Iggy. He really is an astounding man. Having seen him many times of the years, in some ways it’s sad watching him tonight. He is starting to creak around the edges. His hips are fucked, he limps and his body has taken a battering from years of hurling himself about but he still throws every inch of energy into his performance. He holds nothing back. It’s joyous to watch. He’s having a good time. Having obviously taken a knock from the critical mauling that the new album received, he’s mood is lifted by the enthusiastic reaction that a couple of the new songs received tonight.

That said, it’s the classics that detonate the best. ‘You’re Pretty Face Is Going To Hell’, ‘Johanna’, ‘Search And Destroy’, ‘No Fun’, ‘Cock In My Pocket’, ‘Gimmie Danger’, and an explosive run through ‘Open Up And Bleed’ make this one of the finest times I have ever seen The Stooges. How long Iggy can continue punishing his aging frame remains to be seen, but for now The Stooges are still GOD and God bless the Stooges.

James Sherry

There’s nothing like that feeling of waiting for a gig to start knowing that you’ve heard something special and the band’s debut London show is about to start. Nobody knew if Radkey would be the real deal or not. Hyped from across the pond as ones to watch from SXSW, the three Radke brothers had a lot to prove tonight. The music industry were present in droves, the band though, didn’t give a toss and just opened their set in typical unfazed teenager style, and kicked out the jams with aplomb.

These Kansas city rockers do not just have energy, the musicianship from these three boys is way advanced. Dee may look small once you can see his smiling face through his dreads, but he has a voice like Danzig on steroids! His guitar thrashing is also second to none. Smashing out three chorder’s may be simple, but it’s the melodies that make these songs set themselves alight. Eldest brother Isaiah delivers more strength to the vocal onslaught harmonising perfectly with his sibling. Youngest brother Soloman watches all of this from the back like a don. Despite him only being 15, he can hold a tight rhythm that will only get heavier as he develops. The connection this trio have live is something else.

They steamed through through tracks unknown to most in the venue alongside the five from their ‘Cat & Mouse’ EP. The packed crowd assisted with the singalong, helping these nippas turn their first London gig into a success. It’s a positive display filled with a combination of raging punk rock and driving rock and roll with a look back to the good old days of US hardcore. Lazy journalists will compare them to Bad Brains due to their ethnicity, but those in the know will be mentioning Misfits, Supersuckers, TSOL and Dwarves. Mash the meats from these classics in a blender and you will end up with Radkey’s punk rock pâté.

Between songs they discussed the fact that fish and chips and cider enlightened their stay, the latter being a highlight due to legal drinking age here being lower than in the US which must have been a treat, but it was in this gap, before the band ended the set with a sick Ramones cover of ‘Bonzo Goes To Bitburg’, that I realised that Dee actually had an open packet of Haribo’s in his pedal box. A reminder that the kids are united, as ever by sweets, regardless how punk rock you think you are.

The future for Radkey looks seriously bright. All they have to do now is avoid the sad music industry vultures who claim to be ‘in it for the right reasons’, do their own thing, and they will all probably live happily ever.

Enjoy a couple of tracks from the phone and look out for this lot in your local record shop and find them on FB.