The formula for this release is simple, Yorkshire labels Brew and Dance to the Radio have teamed up for a limited edition Record Store Day release. Four of their most exciting and upcoming acts Dolphins, Blacklisters, Castrovalva and Hawk Eyes have contributed a track each to create ten explosive minutes of rock.
The pulsating Escape by Dolphins kick-starts procedures with a short sharp dose of chunky riffing. Then comes Club Foot by Kasabian from the hair-raising Blacklisters, advice being don’t spend the whole song working out whether it’s a Kasabian Cover or a quirky song title, that’s unimportant. What’s important is the sheer velocity of the vocals and the word ‘noise’.
The pick of the bunch is third song Senorita by Castrovalva. It has a brash childish thrill that sucks you in and spits you out at the other end. The vocal delivery is electrifying and its robotic feel adds another element to its general haphazardness. It finishes up with Hawk Eyes, who may be more familiar to you as Chickenhawk, pre name change. Their success has been spiralling into the mainstream and with tracks like Yes, Have Some with its hectic fretwork and perplexing guitar licks, you can see why.
This is a startling example of the talent that the city of Leeds is currently throwing up and another jewel in the crown of Record Store Day. Consisting of the finest and noisiest sounds around, it’s a big slap in the face, a pleasant slap in the face if such things exist.
Random Hand
‘Seething Is Believing’
(Bomber Music/Our Records)
If the term ‘ska/punk’ instantly makes you think of bands in Hawaiian shirts doing wacky covers of popular 80s tunes, then please cast aside those preconceptions for 40-odd minutes. Yorkshire quartet Random Hand have created possibly the most aptly-titled record (their third) of the year, and the musical fury and socially aware lyrics within share more common ground with the Subhumans and Capdown than with the likes of Reel Big Fish. It’s a very well-produced effort, in the sense that it sounds beefy rather than polished, and there’s plenty of British grittiness in the mix.
None of this would count for much if the overall result wasn’t any fun to listen to; but as the raging guitars and air-raid-siren horns of ‘Tales Of Intervention’ come ripping through the speakers, you’d have to be dead (or possibly a Paramore fan) not to feel at least a slight adrenaline rush.‘Not A Number’ and ‘Due To Circumstance’ should deservedly strike a chord with anyone who’s feeling the pinch of the government’s financial cuts, and first single ‘Bones’ is a ‘carpe diem’ anthem up there with the best of them. But perhaps the most impressive cut on offer is ‘Floating Ghosts’ which segues seamlessly from a raucous start, through islands of reggae-esque calm, to a metallic riff-driven finale; a fine indicator of the band’s versatility.
‘Seething Is Believing’ may well suggest that the quality of UK ska/punk has not declined with its popularity, but ultimately Random Hand shouldn’t be labelled as part of a particular musical scene. They’re a smart, hard-rocking band that kick serious arse live – and they’re probably playing near you soon.
Flavor Flav will not have his name attached for a Fried Chicken restaurant any more.
In a move which will no doubt break hearts of millions around the world, the Public Enemy hype man will now not be lending his name to the Iowan Flav’s Fried Chicken, which opened four months ago. Reports of unpaid staff meant the restaurant was under the microscope from the off, though Nick Cimino, the co-founder, claimed it was due to a “credit card glitch”.
Flav won’t be out of the food game for long though as he plans to open Flavor Flav’s House Of Flavor in Vegas, saying that Cimino wasn’t running the business currently, though Cimino said “I’m just glad I’m free of somebody like Flavor Flav”.
At least Flav won’t have trouble getting to work on time, right?
Whilst it’s far-fetched, some whisperings are saying the Doggfather might join the London Chamber Orchestra at Friday’s wedding, after his outrageous claim of attendance last year.
The LCO conductor has refused to confirm or deny anything so we’re just going to go ahead and imagine how awesome it would be for Snoop to be up there giving his all in a diamond-encrusted Adidas sweatsuit. Awesome.
Do we care about the Royal Wedding? No. Do we care about it if Snoop is there? Hmmmmm maybe, yeah. Imagine if he dropped this one for Prince Willy…
Noisiamake the heaviest beats around, bar none and the Dutch production masters have just dropped a video for their track Shellshock.
Featuring Foreign Beggars on vocals, it shows their crack team of commandos come up against a huge and powerful beast which not even bullets can displace. Or is it something else? You’ll have to watch the video below to find out, but make sure turn the volume right up or else you’re missing out.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Noisia boys are giving away the track as a free download here so you’ve got no excuse not to pick it up.
Damian Marley and Nasty Nas have dropped new visuals from their Distant Relatives album.
Nah Mean sees the duo walking through the streets delivering their verses. Pretty simple really, but the tune’s a biggun. All that’s left is for Nas to buy a belt to save holding his trousers up through the whole thing. Silly Nas.
Gallows are an excellent live band in any scenario. However, if you’re going to pick any setting to see them in, the small ones are where they thrive. Notting Hill Arts Club didn’t know what had hit it as Gallows unleashed their unique punk carnage for their management company Raw Power’s second monthly club night. Reeling off masterful versions of tracks from Orchestra of Wolves and Grey Britain, Gallows became one with the crowd with Frank and Steph even popping round the corner of the venue to instigate a sort of circle pit which inevitably involved a flurry of bodies colliding.
It was hot and sweaty. The band were in jovial spirits. And the amassed crowd lapped it up. The venue was so full that there was a stack of people peering round from the other part of the room with barely a few of Frank’s ginger noggin. A rendition of London Is The Reason, re-named Raw Power Is The Reason and traditional closer Orchestra of Wolves had everyone shouting along. A typically rowdy Gallows set in just the sort of place this band are made to command. It’s just as well this band aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. More please.
This post has been edited due to updated information.
Following last night’s bizarre show at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London, the Descendents have decided to pull their second night after much speculation today online.
Bass player Stephen Eggerton tweeted last night that the show must go on but that has now changed.Sorry to all the people who had traveled miles to see them. No doubt they will be back for Reading and Leeds with a fun packed show. Read the full review of last night here and watch a video of Silly Girl where poor Milo’s voice breaks in two here. Get well soon, we still love you.
The news of Descendents returning to the UK after 15 years was so exciting that we bought tickets as soon as the show was announced and then sat on them awaiting their return. But nobody could have prepared for what they were about to see tonight at the Shepherds Bush Empire in West London as this was the gig that should never have happened.
The band traveled through Europe playing the Groezrock Festival in Belgium and the Monster Bash in Berlin, both shows with glowing feedback on the web making the anticipation for this to be an absolute classic, but one thing they didn’t prepare for was Milo Aukerman‘s voice blowing out after these 2 shows and the band turning up to London knowing that they had to wing it.
The support bands did their warm up sets, the lights went down and the four piece walked on stage to a rapturous applause that unfortunately turned to boos within 5 songs. Kicking off with the classic track Descendents, Milo’s voicebox unfortunately sounded like he was singing in a black metal band. He woofed his way through the track clearly uncomfortable with the situation and it only took 2 more songs of pain (Hope and Silly Girl) until Aukerman smashed his mic on the stage in a fit of rage with the remains of the broken metal spraying the remains across Stephen Egerton’s face. The crowd’s energy levels and anticipation was now going through a major change as anxiety and confusion replaced the high of seeing their fave band and the atmosphere became very awkward. Knowing they had big problems, the band walked of stage to discuss what to do next and instead of pulling the show there and then they decided to improvise the set they had planned and continued with others sharing mic duty. This inevitably made this show an instant car crash which is rare to see even in punk rock these days.
A blonde haired singer from either one of the support bands or a crew member filled in to take care of vocal duties for Sour Grapes and I Don’t Wanna Grow Up but this brought boo’s from the now baying crowd who had now realised that the night was about to turn into a karaoke session instead of a Descendents gig. Everything sux tonight for many but what else could the band do other than to leave the stage? They had made their decision to play so now they had to try and get away with salvaging a nightmare. Nobody was going to win from this decision, some may say it was brave but others would say it would have been a costly mistake to pull the show. Despite all of these thoughts that were hushed in the crowd the band rolled on and you have to give them huge credit for trying.
Milo was not bowing out though, he came back and took care of vocals (sounding like a foghorn) for Bear, Coffee Mug and I Like Food before rolling out a grimacing version of All-o-gistics and Enjoy before another punk rock huddle of decision making brought 3 Black Flag covers into the set with Milo now playing Bass, Bill Stevenson absolutely thrashin’ on guitar and Karl Alvarez did a grand job on the vocals as he threw himself on top of the front row playing Rollins.
Thankfully, the boo’s turned to sighs. Booing bands at any gig is not exactly welcome, the same as when people boo their own team at a football match. It’s not as if these entertainers come out to deliver a bad job; everyone has their ‘off days’ but there were noticeable boo’s from a section of the 2000 crowd who had paid their money to see the Descendents and were now being treated to a cover of the classic Bloodstains by Agent Orange and a Zeke track. Out of all the guests who filled in on vocals tonight Eric Melvin from NOFX got the best reception after singing Bikeage and backed up on Coolidge. There were big smiles all round when he turned up with a mic in his hand. The show ended with Milo going through the pain barriers to sing Myage before the curtains came down to close a disastrous show for a very confused and emotional crowd.
Realistically the Descendents made the wrong decision to play the show tonight and should have gracefully accepted that it was going to be a big ask to pull off playing in front of a packed London crowd who were ecstatic about seeing them play after all these years. Due to Milo’s work commitments I guess rescheduling would not have been an option but still, the golden rule is, if you are going to come back and recapture hearts and minds that have waited that long for a show, then at least turn up and do it knowing you have a fair chance of pulling it off rather than gambling on the fact that the crowd that had paid £20 a ticket could feel Sour Grapes. But if your glass was half full at this show then you would know that tonight the Descendents were definitely, “the proud, the few” for the effort, and certainly not “rockin’ alone tonight”.
So it’s that time of the year again as you will probably know, Crossfire have been invited back to this year’s Gaymers Camden Crawl as one of the 20 curators. This year’s Crawl taking place on the Bank Holiday weekend of April 30th-May 1st is set to be one of the best ever with some great artists playing in North London’s most creative spot for music. Watch the video of the good times at last year’s Camden Crawl here and reminisce on last year’s carnage before being introduced to what’s coming up.
We are back at The Barfly on Sunday May 1st and will kick the night off from 6pm downstairs with the CROSSFIRE SOUND SYSTEM packed with a mix of punk rock, hip hop, psych-garage, classic indie and rock tracks. We will also see guest DJ sets from our female guests this year kicking off with SWEET DREAMS (pic below) who will bring a bag full of filthy hip hop and for the grand finale we welcome West London’s Dub Step slayer RITA MAIA.
Rita (pictured below) is a founder of Badmood, a collective championing new bass-driven music in Portugal. Based in London she hosts the Saturday night electronic music show, ‘Sine of the Times’, on the critically-renowned Resonance FM, playing bass-heavy music from all around. So expect hammers until close at 2am.
We will be announcing our venue line up in the next week so look out for the news of who has been picked to play this year from the list of acts confirmed below. You will not be disappointed though as our headline act will be exploding in your faces at 10.30pm as you would expect. For those who know us well, you will be aware that we love skateboarding and hardcore so there’s only band on this list that actually fits the bill. Work it out from this list below and look out for the announcement in our news section. There will also be an amazing post-punk band, a well known hip hop set from a Ninjatune act and an indie band playing on the night. All to be revealed next week.
Until then, check out this year’s line up across the Crawl, enjoy Tom Halliday’s shots from last year’s party at Crossfire and get your tickets now before they all sell out from here.
THE LEMONHEADS / BRITISH SEA POWER / KILLING JOKE / TINCHY STRYDER / RAZORLIGHT / GRAHAM COXON SAINT ETIENNE / GUILLEMOTS / SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO ODD FUTURE WOLF GANG KILL THEM ALL / THE VIEW.
BENJAMIN FRANCIS LEFTWICH * BO NINGEN * CATE LE BON * COCKNBULLKID DANANANANAYKROYD * DINOSAUR PILE UP * FRANKIE & THE HEARTSTRINGS GHOSTPOET * GIGGS * HADOUKEN! * HUDSON MOHAWKE * THE KING BLUES KONG * LETHAL BIZZLE * LITTLE COMETS * MILES KANE * MNDR THE PHANTOM BAND * PVT * THE QEMISTS * SBTRKT * SLOW CLUBTHOSE DANCING DAYS * TODDLA T * ULTRASOUND VILLAGERS TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS * WOLF GANG * YASMIN * 2:54 * THE AGITATOR * ALICE GOLD * ARCANE ROOTS * BANJO OR FREAKOUT * BEAR’S DEN * BEAR DRIVER * BECOMING REAL * BEN HOWARD * BETH JEANS HOUGHTON * BIG DEAL * BONES * BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT * CEREBRAL BALLZY * THE CHAPMAN FAMILY * CIVIL CIVIC * CLOUD CONTROL * COMANECHI * THE COMPUTERS * CREEP * CROWNS * D/R/U/G/S * DAM MANTLE * DELS * DIVORCE * DRY THE RIVER * EAGULLS * ENGINE EARZ EXPERIMENT * FEVER FEVER * FICTION * FILMS OF COLOUR * FLATS * FOREIGN OFFICE * GABLE * GALLOPS * THE GOOD NATURED * HAWK EYES * HEDONIACS * HIGH RANKIN * THE HISTORY OF APPLE PIE * HOLY STATE * HOUSSE DE RACKET * JAPANESE VOYEURS * JOHN & JEHN * JOHNNY FOREIGNER * JONQUIL * KING CHARLES * LET’S BUY HAPPINESS * THE LINES * LU LU & THE LAMPSHADES * MARA CARLYLE * MARQUES TOLIVER * MARTYNA BAKER * MAVERICK SABRE * MAZES * MERCEDES * MIRRORS * MOSS * THE MOUNTAINS AND THE TREES * MUMS OF DEATH * MZ BRATT * P MONEY * PARIS SUIT YOURSELF * PEGGY SUE * PINEY GIR * POLARBEAR * RAINBOW ARABIA * RANDOM IMPULSE * RD * RISE TO REMAIN * ROMANCE * THE RUSSIAN FUTURISTS * S.C.U.M. * SARABETH TUCEK * SICK OF SARAH * SISSY & THE BLISTERS * SOUND OF RUM * SPECTRALS * STAR SLINGER * THE STAVES * TEAM GHOST * TEK-ONE * TEETH * TOM WILLIAMS AND THE BOAT * TRANSFER * TREETOP FLYERS * TURBOGEIST * TURBOWOLF * TWO WOUNDED BIRDS * VARIOUS CRUELTIES * VAULTS * VERONICA FALLS * VISIONS OF TREES * WARRIOR ONE * WE ARE ANIMAL * WILD PALMS * YOUNG DREAMS * YOUNG LEGIONNAIRE.
The formula for this release is simple, Yorkshire labels Brew and Dance to the Radio have teamed up for a limited edition Record Store Day release. Four of their most exciting and upcoming acts Dolphins, Blacklisters, Castrovalva and Hawk Eyes have contributed a track each to create ten explosive minutes of rock.
