Death Cab For Cutie’s guitarist is to put out a solo album.
Chris Walla will be releasing a solo album this Autumn and reports are saying that he will play every instrument on the album with except the drums which will be taken up by Nathan Good and Jason McGerr from Death Cab.
Kingston Peel
21.01.07
Local hardcore shows can often double as endurance tests, thanks to the presence of a tiny minority of meatheads who hurl themselves around with little regard for their fellow punters’ safety.
That said, Nervous Wreck don’t help the situation tonight; their generic, uninspiring hardcore attack offering little incentive for mass crowd participation. In contrast, Sheffield crew The Legacy are smarter, tighter and sounding more impressive with every show they play; and with the release of their debut full-length ‘Solitude’ imminent, 2007 could well be their year.
Gallows, of course, could probably tell you a thing or two about the weight of expectations; but being dubbed ‘the best UK punk band since 1977′ doesn’t seem to have fazed Frank Carter and co any. “Thanks for coming out to see five scruffy kids from Watford,’ he declares, before the blast of sonic warfare that is ‘In The Belly Of A Shark’ incites utter pandemonium in the crowd.
However, the fact is that Gallows are so much more than just the sum of their parts. On one level, they’re a deeply sinister and unsettling band; evident in Frank’s deranged howl, darkly metaphorical lyrics, and the sheer chaos of the Gallows live experience. On another level, they’re triumphant underdogs; having attained the aforementioned recognition with no major label support, and flying in the face of current musical trends with a truly incendiary hybrid of hardcore fury and dissonant rock n’ roll swagger.
Whichever way you look at it, there’s a sense of danger and unpredictability surrounding this band that has been sorely lacking in punk rock of late. By the time ‘Orchestra Of Wolves’ is brought to its feedback-drenched finale, the front-of-stage area is a tangled mess of cables and flailing bodies, with Frank almost buried under the masses attempting to share his microphone. It’s sonic and physical wreckage united as one, and you get the impression that Gallows wouldn’t have it any other way. Whatever lies ahead for these guys, you’d be well advised to join them for the ride.
Alex Gosman
Photo courtesy of www.jmophoto.co.uk
We are proud to announce that Crossfire have been exclusively invited by Kerrang! Magazine to take over the top room at Koko at the brand new Klub Kerrang! in Camden.
The new night is scheduled for 3rd Saturday of every month and will feature new bands live and rock across the board. Resident Kerrang! DJ’s James Sherry (also from Crossfire) and Kerrang!’s Emma Johnston will provide tunes in the main room whilst Zac Slack and guests will take care of the top room and guest DJ’s from The Bronx and Biffy Clyro in the middle room.
Expect the Crossfire room to have more underground mixes of punk, hardcore, thrash, metal and more very much in line to what you hear on the None More Punk Show and Heavy Shit Radio Shows.
Kerrang! Editor Paul Brannigan said this week, “Klub Kerrang! Is going to be the loudest club the capital has ever seen.” He’s not wrong, because for the opening night on Sat 27th January, the raucous GALLOWS will be playing their hardcore set live alongside former 3 Colours Red, bassist Pete Vuckovics new band- BASSKNIV3S.
We have 10 pairs of tickets to give away every month so click here to enter. We look forward to seeing you down there.
KLUB KERRANG!
GALLOWS
+
BASSKNIVES
+
Resident DJs James Sherry and Emma Johnston
Crossfire Room – DJ Zac Slack and special guests.
Sat 27th January 2007 (then every third Saturday of the month)
Doors open 10.00pm to late
£6 before 11.00pm and £8 after.
Flyers and NUS cards £4 before 11.00pm
Tickets 0870 998 8888 or right now on www.aloud.com
Drinks offers all night shooters £1.50 Fosters Twist £2
Strictly over 18’s only
Address: KOKO 1A CAMDEN HIGH ST LONDON NW1
(Eagle Rock Entertainment)
Ask me who my favourite band is, and I’ll pick the Ramones every time.
They certainly weren’t the first band I loved, but Joey and his bruddas from Queens represent pretty much everything that I love about punk and rock n’ roll. Plus, they’ve influenced most other bands that I like, in one way or another, so forgive me if this review occasionally lapses into unashamed fan worship.
‘We’re Outta Here!’ is effectively a documentary of the band’s last ever show, at the Palace in Los Angeles on the 6th August 1996. The DVD footage will make you wish you’d been there; with a sold-out crowd going nuts as the Ramones tear through all those classics for one last time.
The band also had several of their friends along for the ride; so you’ll get to see Motorhead’s Lemmy joining the band for ‘R.A.M.O.N.E.S.’, Lars and Tim from Rancid helping out on ’53rd and 3rd’, and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder singing backing vocals on the closing ‘Any Way You Want It’.
The live clips are interspersed with various mini-interviews, which give an interesting and often revealing insight into the Ramones -both as a band and as individuals. Former members, producers, members of fellow NYC bands Blondie and Talking Heads, and various other famous fans of the Ramones all take their turn in front of the camera, along with the band themselves. There’s a certain aura of sadness that the band are finished, but also a great sense of pride for what they achieved.
The CD features a full-length recording of the show, with the band ripping through 32 songs in little over an hour. Sure, it’s no ‘It’s Alive!’ (the definitive Ramones live album), but the excellent sound, frenetic pace and Joey’s loveable stage banter are proof enough that this was a good show to bow out on.
If you ever saw the Ramones live, this will bring back fond memories. If – like me – you didn’t, then this is a fine snapshot of the latter-day Ramones live experience. Gabba Gabba Hey!
My Passion is a cross between The Cure and electro pop. Originating from London, this five piece artistic band took the time out to answer some questions that I had prepared for them one chilly evening down at The Student Union in Luton.
Amongst conversations about dodgy tour vans, chicken boxes and eight scattered I-Pods, I could tell this was only the beginning of a very interesting interview.
Here’s what lead singer Lawrence Rene and bass guitar player Simon Rowlands had to say…
Who are your musical influences?
LR: We are all really into different music. At the moment I’m into a lot of dancy sounds, something you can get your groove on to. We like music such as Muse, My Victory who are making a comeback, they’re really cool. John the drummer likes heavier stuff, he listens to AFI and Thrice; those are his two main bands, which we all love anyway. A bit of everything really including older stuff, like Bowie oh and punk, including 80’s cheesy synth pop. A massive range is good fun. We’re all up for it! It definitely shows in our music. When we bring all of the influences together it makes it weird and exciting. A lot of electro stuff shines through.
SR: I love electro! We’re all down for it on the dance floor…something to get your groove on to as well…
If I was to ransack the My Passion tour van, what would I find?
LR: Oh no…you wouldn’t even want to come 10 meters near it! It’s not glamorous, you’d find like coke cans and food wrappers, old chicken boxes. It’s really quite cozy. At the moment we have our mini bus and there are eight of us squashed in there including our sound techs and we’re all covered up keeping warm in it.
SR: We also have a pimpin’ sound system in there as well…
LR: You can’t play any Slipknot on it though, the cd player decided to shoot back a CD in the direction of the rear van, like you’d see in some film nearly taking John’s head off in the process. So basically, lots of junk, maps of places we’ve tried to get to and I-Pods, there’s about eight of them scattered about somewhere in the mini bus.
SR: You’d be very rich if you ransacked our mini bus. You could probably nick the items rather than the bus itself, except for the chicken boxes. (laughs).
What are you most looking forward to on the rest of your tour?
LR: The tour…what have we got left? We’ve gone to loads of cities now; the next stop is over to Andover in Croydon, the gig location is like the ghetto of south London. It’s more of a rock pub where all the kids come out and go crazy. St. Albans again is also on the list. The one we’re most looking forward to is the Star Suicide club night at our local down in Hitchin; we’re having a Nightmare Before Christmas party on the 21st December, so we’re looking forward to that. It’s going to be cool local bands playing with us and loads of great music creating a big party atmosphere. The thought of having an all nighter and not having to travel the next day is quite nice.
Do you think having an internet fan base is important and which fans are the most devoted?
LR: For us especially, the image and the music is quite striking and you can notice it straight away which has a major impact. With the internet and in particular myspace, it has allowed us to meet people we’d never meet unless we were on tour with My Chemical Romance. It’s just a great way to start, we started in January this year and we launched My Passion and we have like coming up to 45,000 friends on there now.
SR: Most of our songs come up to about 1000 plays a day, like advertising more than you could do before.
LR: With this first tour as well we found a lot of the promoters through myspace. It’s like a great benefit in a way, you can’t just do it through myspace you have to get out there and play the shows, do the tours as well, and it’s just a great way to get the band going and see fans have great taste in what they listen to in our music and videos, everything is there for the fans and they’re like wow!
SR: We have like blogs every time we do a show; we also have videos of us messing around on tour. People don’t get to see special bits that you wouldn’t really see at a show so they get that little bit extra so that’s good.
LR: We have fans in Venezuela, we got to play in Barcelona and France as well, which allows you to bring the music to others which you wouldn’t really get in Hitchin, its amazing.
What year did My Passion form together as a group?
LR: My Passion was launched earlier this year and quite a lot has happened since then. We’ve done some demo tracks, which are up on myspace, and then you’ve got the promo singles…
SR: We’re recording our new single at the moment and also in the studio recording as well…
LR: We’re making a new album called Hot in the Dolls House which is going to be out in March 2007. We are also planning to launch our own record label, which we’re setting up, because we want to go it alone and have full control of everything.
SR: We just want to dominate the world! And set ourselves up for life really, we don’t want to do it half-heartedly and blow the world away.
LR: We’ve been playing together, when Simon joined My Passion at the end of last year we started rehearsing and launched it this year, the rest of us played in different bands before that. We all get on really well together its great.
Downloading songs is still illegal, although people do it anyway, if you were to find out that kids were able to download your album, how would you react to that?
LR: I’m still not sure about this one, the whole downloading thing. I think people should all go out and buy and download tracks and pay for them if they have the money. However we have to have a mixed tape in the mini bus.
SR: We can’t go without those…
LR: I definitely want kids to download our stuff and pay for it, so that we can keep going, otherwise if they don’t go out and pay for it we won’t be able to go and play live and all the other stuff that we do.
SR: We played a gig in St. Albans the other day; the kids went wild because they had never seen us play live before then they spent all their pocket money on us.
LR: I think its nice to have CDs as well like you have something in your hand, I know that downloading is taking over everything. Vinyl is making a comeback, I don’t know if people still play them or keep them as a souvenir like a memory.
You can visit the My Passion’s myspace at: www.myspace.com/mypassionmusic
Arcade Fire have taken a stand agains touts for their upcoming dates.
The band have announced they will be making another 50 tickets available for each London date [St John’s Church and Porchester Hall] on the door at 6pm of the night of the gig.
They will be on a purely first come, first serve basis and will be wristbands, to stop people selling them outside the venue.
Snoop has officially pleaded not guilty of weapons charges.
The rapper was found with a collapsible baton in his luggage whilst boarding a plane in Orange County. He was charged with possession a deadly weapon but Snoop claimed it was just a prop.
Doggy Dogg wasn’t in court to deliver his plea, as his lawyers took care of that for him and also requested that the trial be started and finished as quickly as possible.
Cat Power is returning to the UK in April and May with her new Dirty Delta Blues band.
The singer will bring over her new line up, which includes Judah Bauer from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion as she plays some shows in the UK.
They have recently played in Europe, including a show for Chanel and are due to play New York’s Museum Of Modern Art in early February. The new single, The Greatest, is to be released on February 19th.
The two dates in the UK are:
27th April – All Tomorrow’s Parties, Minehead (Curated by The Dirty Three)
1st May – The Forum, London
A DVD tribute to Brian Wilson is due for release in the USA.
The DVD, called MusiCares Presents A Tribute To Brian Wilson, features covers such as the Chili Peppers doing I Get Around, Richie Sambora doing City Blues and Jeff Beck covering Surf’s Up and Surfin’ USA.
The DVD was filmed at a dinner honouring the Beach Boy and will also hold performances from John Legend, Earth, Wind And Fire and a 5 song set from The Brian Wilson Band.
Throwing Muses member brings out single and album.
Kristin Hersh’s single In Shock is in shops right now, and is the first track on the new album Learn To Sing Like A Star. The album is out on January 29th and features Martin and Kim McCarrick. You can check out tracks from the album and see the video for In Shock by clicking here.
Meanwhile, her tour dates are:
March:
1st – Bristol: Thekla
2nd – Leicester: Y Theatre
3rd – Nottingham: Rescue Rooms
4th – Birmingham: Glee Club
6th – Portsmouth: Wedgewood Rooms
7th – London: KOKO
9th – Sheffield: Leadmill
10th – Manchester: Academy 3
11th – Glasgow: Oran Mor