Young punk band Outl4w, who got known on the back of XFM exposure, are to release their own live DVD.
The film, entitled It’s Only Rock n Roll, was filmed early in 2006 with 30 cameras, is 30 minutes long and will set you back only £5.99.
If you wanna check out what they’re all about beforehand, then mosey on over to their site to see a video of one song. The website is also the place to buy your copy of the DVD.
Big Dada signings Spank Rock are coming to Europe to tour with their unique style of electro-carnage and will be playing a number of UK dates. MC Spank Rock, Devlin, Ronnie Darko and XXXchange will be playing cuts from their debut album Yoyoyoyoyo which got a belting review over in the Mix.
Make sure you shake your booty down to one of the dates if you’re wanting some fun!
May
10th – Amsterdam, Netherlands
11th – Paris, France
12th – Paris, France
13th – Bern, Switzerland
14th – Cologne, Germany
15th – Munich, Germany
16th – Berlin, Germany
19th – Fabric, London
22th – Club NME @ The Plug, Sheffield
23rd – Barfly, London
24th – King Tuts, Glasgow
25th – Hi Fi Club, Leeds
26th – Roadhouse, Manchester
27th – Digital, Newcastle
28th – Dot To Dot Festival @ Stealth, Nottingham
June
1st – Copenhagen, Denmark
2nd – Oslo, Norway
3rd – Stockholm, Sweden
4th – Garden Party, Dublin
Check out any of the following for fun and frolics: www.spankrock.net, www.aircockthrust.com and www.bigdada.com
The Charalatans gig in Wolverhampton was overshadowed when a fan fell from the balcony and landed 20 feet below. Police have said that the man was dancing on the balcony and fell over the safety barrier.
Witnesses were said to have described how the man fell “like a stone” but an Ambulance Service spokesman has said that despite being in a lot of pain, the man wasn’t seriously injured.
The band have said they’re really upset and have wished the fan all the best in his recovery.
Courtney Love has joined forces with former 4 Non Blondes singer Linda Perry to write her new album, after having successfully gotten through her rehab.
Perry, who has worked with various artists as a co-song writer, has said she wants to get the former Hole frontwoman away from her last album, which Perry described as “crap-ass”.
Watch this space to see what evolves…
Public Enemy front man Chuck D is branching out into the communications market and bringing out a new company called Chuck D Mobile.
He aims to bring music and videos to phones wirelessly and launched his company at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Wireless Show in Las Vegas.
The mobile service will provide voice tones, ring tones, some full length songs as well as music and video clips and aims to allow artists to get their music out to a big audience quicker.
Sweden’s very own Backyard Babies have been flying the flag for dirty, punked-up rock n’ roll for over a decade now. Over the years, they’ve released four full-length albums, notched up support slots with the likes of AC/DC and Velvet Revolver, and developed a fearsome live reputation.
Alex Gosman caught up with Nicke Borg (vocals/guitar) and Dregen (guitar/backing vocals) just before their last show at London’s Islington Academy.
So, how’s the tour going?
Dregen: It’s been great, we’ve been touring with Social Distortion since their London show [in early August], and we’ve also done three or four dates of our own in Switzerland and Belgium, when they had days off. So yeah, we’ve been busy! We’re pretty much done touring for now – because we did an American tour with Social Distortion, and then they asked us if we wanted to do the European tour too, so these three UK shows are the last ones before we go home and start writing the new album.
Do you have fond memories of playing in the UK? Have our crowds been good to you?
D: Yeah, always…but the sad thing is that back in 2000, we signed a worldwide deal with RCA Records, and they were complete c**ts over here…they didn’t release or promote our records properly, so for us it’s kinda like a restart in the UK, cos we pretty much haven’t been here for about 3 or 4 years, besides the shows we did with Velvet Revolver and Social Distortion. But now we’ve signed a new record deal with Century Media, who are releasing a compilation album called ‘Tinnitus‘…but most of our hardcore fans will already have all the songs, so we threw in a live CD too, of a show we did in Paris last spring, so it’s a good deal.
You first made a name for yourselves in the UK with ‘Total 13’, back in 1998. How do you feel you’ve changed as a band since then?
Nicke: Well, ‘Total 13′ was more like an angry, frustrated scream, and now we kinda control the anger better…the coolest thing about being in this band is that we’ve never felt trapped in a corner, having to play the same kind of music to keep the fans happy. I’m not saying we’ll go and record a country album, but in a way we could, because it would still sound like Backyard Babies. We’re hoping to branch out even more on the next record!
These days, you see the phrase ‘rock n’ roll’ mentioned a lot in the press, but it’s usually in relation to bands like the Strokes and the Libertines. Do you feel that these bands capture the spirit of rock n’ roll, or is it all just hype and no substance?
D: Well, I don’t think anyone will remember the Strokes in 50 years’ time, but they will remember Guns N’ Roses, you know? They called Nirvana a grunge band, but I would say Nirvana was way more rock n’ roll than the Strokes are.
N: The sad thing is, though, that bands like the Libertines are more rock n’ roll than Good Charlotte or Blink 182, the mainstream ‘punk’ bands…a bunch of sissies who are controlled by their record company. So in comparison to them, the Libertines and Strokes are rock n’ roll, but there’s a lot of better bands that people are missing out on, because of how fucked-up the media is.
D: But I’ve got a good feeling right now, because I think everyone’s waiting for something new…record companies aren’t looking for the new Strokes, that’s pretty much over. Maybe it’ll be time for us!
N: Again! [laughter]
You guys have toured almost non-stop over the past few years; would you say Backyard Babies are more of a live band than a studio band?
D: Yeah…I think this is the ninth tour we’ve done for this album, so it’ll be good to get home and start writing a new record…but I have to say we do get bored pretty fast in the studio. For us, records are a necessary evil, so we can go out and start touring again! You can’t be a rock n’ roll band without rolling, you gotta tour, you know?
N: I think for any rock n’ roll band, the live show is important. I hate bands who put out, like, 2 records a year, with maybe 2 or 3 good songs and the rest is all crap…we’ll never be one of those bands!
Do you ever get bored of playing your older songs live, or does the audience reaction make it worthwhile?
D: Yeah, it does…I mean, for us there’s no difference between playing [recent single] ‘Minus Celsius’ or [old favourite] ‘Highlights‘ live, but to be honest, in the rehearsal studio it does get boring sometimes!
N: Like you said, the audience makes it worth it…but I guess it would get boring if we only got a reaction for the old songs. The ideal thing would be to be like AC/DC, where almost every song you play is a hit!
An over-asked question, but what’s your opinion on mp3 downloading? If someone told you that they discovered Backyard Babies via downloading some of your tracks for free, how would you feel?
D: It doesn’t really bother me…ok, on the one hand, it would be good if people bought the records, because we need record sales to live off and to make more records…but on the other hand, I don’t really give a fuck, cos I love bootlegs, I’ve bought a lot of them. Thing is, I buy a lot of vinyl…not because I think it looks or sounds better, but because I like the whole packaging of a record, which is usually bigger and better with vinyl.
N: For me, it would be so boring just to sit there and download songs…it’s just not the same as putting on a CD, or vinyl, or whatever. Fair enough if you’re broke, but it pisses me off when I hear kids say “Oh, you’re all about the money these days” – it’s like, would you want to work in McDonalds, and not get paid?
D: I think it happened naturally, like a punk rock movement – people started to download, because record companies have been fucking their customers over for too long, first through re-releasing vinyl records on CD…and now I think they’ve fucked themselves. But it doesn’t affect us too bad, as we make most of our money from touring, and I think that only the good live bands can survive in that way.
Cool…and finally, what are your plans for the near future, after this tour ends?
[Dregen yawns and briefly pretends to fall asleep]
N: [laughing] We’re gonna go home, take about two weeks off for holiday, then go back down into the basement to start writing the new record…hopefully we should be recording by January, and the record should be out before next summer.
C: We’ve also got a DVD, ‘Jetlag’, which will be released on Century Media…it’s a kind of documentary about the band – 15 years of us on one DVD! – with a load of interviews and videos.
Backyard Babies’ most recent album ‘People Like People Like People Like Us’ is out now.. Check www.backyardbabies.com for more info
Hip hop fashion entrepreneur Mark Ecko has filed a lawsuit against the Mayor and City of New York on behalf of seven graffiti artists. All seven are under 21 and have been found guilty under the new law in the City whereby it is a criminal offence to possess spray paint or broad tipped markers, regardless of whether you have them for an art class or for your job. This ridiculous ruling is something which Ecko vehemently protests, as is the law that under 21s legally can’t buy spray paint. In a statement he said:
“I have chosen to dedicated my time and resources to calling attention to the absurdity of laws and ensuring the rights of these individuals aren’t being preemptively censored.”
The writers are claiming that the laws make it impossible to express their artistic freedom. Ecko has already beaten the city of New York and Major Bloomberg in 2005 when he successfully appealed the Mayor and Councilman Vallone’s revokation of a street permit for his graffiti block party.
British rockers Muse will be back with a bang on June 19th, as they release the first single from their upcoming album. The single, entitled Supermassive Black Hole will be followed by the album on July 3rd.
Frontman Matt Bellamy said that he got the inspiration for the sound going out dancing in New York, allowing him to mix guitars with a dance type beat. Interesting…
Belle And Sebastian will play a free show in Trafalgar Squar as part of the Love Music Hate Racism campaign against the BNP ahead of the upcoming local elections.
Lining up alongside them will be Boy Kill Boy, Jerry Dammers [of The Specials] and grime acts Roll Deep and Lethal Bizzle. The show will take place between 2 and 7pm on April 29th and will also feature a series of speakers.
For more information see www.lovemusichateracism.com
Vains Of Jenna
The Underworld, London
19.04.06
Don’t you just love it when everything get’s kind of fucked up and the things you were expecting of an evening don’t turn out the way you were expecting them at all? Some Girls feature members from a huge list of respected and far cooler than you hardcore bands (some of which include The Locust, Swing Kids, Give Up The Ghost and many more) and the last type of band you would expect to see support them would be a bedraggled bunch of Swedish Guns N’ Roses obsessives hell-bent on recreating Axl and Slash’s finest moves. But that’s what we get tonight in living rock n’roll clichés the Vains Of Jenna. Apparently Some Girls met the band on the ferry over to the UK and quickly befriended them. The largely tussle-haired bleach-blonde members of the band had just thrown everything they had into a van and were intent on heading to the UK to find their fame and fortune. They had nowhere to stay, no gigs booked and knew virtually no one in London. They were just going to do it.
Some Girls fell in love with this almost fairy tale like story and couldn’t believe it when, halfway through their tour, they ran into the band in Camden and found them still living out of their van having not showered for days and poor but still utterly determined, kept going by their self-belief. Some Girls offered them a slot on tonight’s gig and here they are. And fuck me gently with a chainsaw, they’re unbelievably ace, spinning through a short but ludicrously high-energy set that combines all of the best elements of trashy rock n’roll like Aerosmith, Hanoi Rocks and of course, Guns N’Roses played with complete conviction and not a hint of irony. Soon to be legends, mark my words!
And then it just gets stranger. Anyone whose been to a lot of gigs will at some point have been hit by some kind of projectile missile thrown by a member of the audience at one point. I got hit by an entire bottle of piss at the Reading Festival once, and myself and Zac once spent an entire Marilyn Manson set at the same festival trying to hit him with buttered rolls but I have never, not ever, been walloped around the back of the head with a banana whilst watching a band. Ten minutes into Some Girls set., having successfully fired off a succession of jarring white-noise hardcore violence, some lunatic who has smuggled a horde of fresh bananas into the gig starts a full-scale fruit war and the whole place explodes as yellow fruit boomerangs spin through the air and explode on contact as the band let loose barbs of razor-tight spazz-core precision like ‘Hot Piss’ and ‘Dead In A Web’ never missing a note or a beat as they dodge the bananas. Could someone please explain what the hell is going on?