| SNOTTINESS... Punk Rock Classic - World Contender - Worth A Listen - Average - Plastic - No Future |
| BLOODY SODS 'Hate Of Mind' 45 1999. First I've heard of these angry punksters from Georgia, USA, and I must say they have a lot of energy on tap. For the five tracks on show we get duel guitars and duel psychotic vocals, which make for an energetic hardcore package. First up on the 'Intimidation' side are 3 blasts of growing up a punk and it's daily trials and tribulations. Bumming punks and getting the sack from the job you hate on 'Hate Of Mind' was pretty good! But the most impressive track on this side was 'Win Or Lose', which boasted a good chorus and smart rampaging guitars. On a downer they suffer like so many punks do these days with a 'speed is of the essence' clause stapled into their punk contract. And yeah by all means get some speed into the songs, but without the power or tunes it don't always work that way. The verses to the songs were machine gunned out but lost their impact in the blur. Side 2, the 'Instigation' side opens up with 'Stoic Enemy' which is probably this EP's best track. It's a song about the indifference in society...conveyed in a very pissed off manner. I like their guitar sounds, especially near the end with some 'Big John' riffs thrown in. But again I didn't see the point in the identical sounding duel vocals? Duel vocals ain't needed in a band unless they differ significantly in style or in tone or gender. Maybe they needed a slot for one of their mates? They finish off with a good version of the Exploited's finer moments, 'Dead Cities' . I'd say early Exploited were a big influence on their sound musically, but with a more modern political message! Shows promise. Comes in a gatefold lyric sleeve plus sticker. There's a new album by these due out in July 2000 and they are touring Europe in November. WORTH A LISTEN Available from Mad Skull Records |
| THE GEE STRINGS 'Alternative Losers' (HSI 18) CD 1999. The German Avengers come at us with 10 power driven tracks here and have improved no end from their patchy debut in 1996. The storming 'Wanna Buy A Boyfriend' kicks in and the velocity don't let up once over the 22 minutes plus of tracks. The Gee Strings storm in with both guitars blazing. These rockers don't know the meaning of brakes and that's what's good about em coz they keep the momentum going with thick, chunky but cleanly produced guitar riffs supplied by the personality crisis hit Bernadette. His guitars and Ingi, their auburn haired tomboy singer make this a standout. You do only get ten tracks which leaves you wanting more but that's probably the way they planned it...hit and run! If you like your punk fast and powerful these are worth checking out. They even do a cover of 'Second To None' by The Avengers to confirm where they are coming from plus the Runaways 'Cherry Bomb' follows close behind. Their own tracks are just as good, take 'Stereotyped' which nicks a 'Pretty Vacant' intro and then steams into a trashy rock n roll riff. They shrewdly left out their lyrics this time around coz the broken English vocals sound great but read like a dyslexic nursery rhyme! Another big plus about this CD is when it comes out your speakers it's seems to reach far louder emissions than yer average album in comparison which has gotta pull the volume addicts in their droves. I'd love to catch these live. Well WORTH A LISTEN High Society Records of Hamburg Germany now defunct. |
| THE ADULESCENTS UK 'Mucus' Tape (Dragnet) 1999 The first time I'd heard anything by this Doncaster 3-piece and probably the last! This 20-tracker begins in fine form with a guitar based instrumental 'Titan Ambition'. But then the singing starts which is your average sounding Joe Bloggs and blows it all apart. From then on most of this was fucking torture to sit through! And another thing that really pisses me off about this tape is the live/studio alternate tracks. They couldn't have picked a more stupid way of introducing themselves. Some of the studio stuff was bearable but most of the live tracks were as rough as the lager in Wolverhampton's Caesars! And that's fucking rough, I tell ya! 'Mucus' is a really low-fi production and I'm ashamed this was put together by a fellow Wolves fan!!! C'mon Benny you cheapskate, get your fucking act together! It's great your releasing stuff by unknown punk bands and doing it on a shoe string budget but c'mon this was taking the piss! There was however a glimmer of hope and that came with the energetic 'Rip Me To Pieces' which was easily the Adulescents UK's best track, followed by their previous single and best known number... 'Death Wish'. Which I'm afraid were the only highlights of Side 1. Side 2 had a nice little riff on 'Killer' but that was it! The rest was a stodgy mess. So 4 tracks out of 20 ain't up to much in today's standards. Maybe I'm ignorant or just a cunt but this was painfully PLASTIC Dragnet label now defunt. |
| INTER 'International Paranoia' Promo CD 45 1999. Indie rock here that's played well with good arrangements but I just can't get my head around that well practiced vocal. And the choirboy backing vocals plus the sickly clean smell of it! It's like those baggy trousered gangs of cunts who had that hit with "oh sit down, oh sit down, sit down next to me." Coz that's who this reminds me of. This is a professional package you can't fault em for that, and very well put together. But if more honesty was put towards a real sound instead of a studio one, then this is gonna lose every time. It's so main-stream and clean it will fail big time in the punk domain. 'National Paranoia' has a good sound and is catchy but it's just...I dunno too fucking posh for me. The second track 'Gift horse' gallops off with a good riff but the over produced vocals are too independent for my liking. I can smell em a mile off and it grates! There's some good keyboards sniffing around on here, but they are left with not enough input. Best bit was the slowdown ending on the last track. I think these made a big mistake sending this to me coz this needs to be petted, stroked and filed away in some NME office not in the scruffy confines of the Wolf's Lair. PLASTIC Lost the address as well!!! |
| PIGFISH DemoTape 1999. Hey a local band here from near the Wolfs Lair. I'd never heard em before, and these have been together 18 months! Pigfish play quick, snappy addictive punk in a Buzzcocks/ Ramones fashion. That claim is born out especially on the 'Bring back my Ramones LP's' track. Which is probably their best song on this 3-track sampler. Maybe the vocals could do with a little more attack. Coz it's like he's got a permanent cold. And they seem to be aiming at a crossover market far too much to be a real threat. But with good reviews in metal mags like Kerrang! and Metal Hammer (wow fucking wee!), this don't mean fuck all to some deranged punk with an ounce of suss. It can only mean the kiss of death! (tee hee) They have however got together a pretty impressive biography for themselves but...(now ain't there always a but?) in Pigfish's case maybe they could use a bit more originality in their restrained style. They seem to be retaining a bit of pent-up aggression that should be unleashed with no regrets instead of treading water like a load of other wannabe's seem to prefer. And for fucks sake lose that name fast!!! It conjures up visions of student bars with wallet chains, stupid fucking haircuts and baggy jeaned beatniks carrying portfolio's around like headless chickens! Their best vice is their duel guitar sound that is half the battle! All they need now is a more insulting vocal and they could be on their way! WORTH A LISTEN warthog@pigpen93.swinternet.co.uk |
| LAGER LADS 'The Good And The Bad' (beg14cd) CD 1999 I heard a bit about these proud Canadian skinheads in the street-punk press and was expecting to hear some good sounds, considering they are supposedly one of Canada's best and oldest exports in the Skinhead scene. But this 28-track collection of all the Lager Lads recorded output was a fucking very predictable, basic and boring compilation indeed! Clumsy, amateurish odes from a band who were very lucky on this showing to have got a record deal in the first place! They own as much rhythm and coordination as a pissed up sumo wrestler walking the thin white line in high heels! I didn't like the thin guitar that dogged their sound much either, and their cumbersome attempts at a couple of Ska tracks like on 'Moy Street Blues' was pretty pathetic. God this is like listening to a gang of unrangutans let loose in a studio. They sing (if you can call it singing) about drinking, fighting and being Lager lads (yawn!!!). You knew exactly what stale lyric was gonna follow next with- out looking at the lyric sheet. And life for these Windsor skins must be very fucking mundane if their lyrics are anything to go by. Real alcoholics wouldn't have the motivation to form a band...but then again I could be wrong!!! They also dump in a few tunes about the local 'Rose City Slags'. They blatantly rip off the riff straight from the Pistols 'Great Rock Roll Swindle' on 'Finest Hour' which documents another career of sneers and beers. Miracles do happen though coz they get slightly better musically as they reach the end of their 7-year drone which sees their best stuff in the shape of 'Rose City Rocknroll' and 'Drinking My life away'. They had also by now got rid off the weak guitar and added a more rougher sounding riff. But that wasn't gonna save us from the Rocky Bilbao type of vocals. I think the singer must've been more interested in coming over all hard and imposing than in getting his message across coz his style made him out to be just another thick skinned cunt. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if they had the means to inject some humour but surprise, surprise they don't!! They do own up in the sleeve notes to being just a 'piss-head' band so if that's your thing you might get more satisfaction from this than I did. But on the whole this was a fucking chore to listen to. Worse news is they plan on new recordings for a future date aarrggghhhh!!!! PLASTIC Blind Beggar Records |
| ROADRAGE 'Painless Suicide' (Weird16) 45 1999 Castle Donnington punks RoadRage give us 4 more blasts, on yet another record label! It's as you'd expect from these fuckers lately. With a quartet of fast in your face but pretty poor attacks on life. Similar to their last outing. What I wanna know is what's happened to the diversity lads? You had it on the 'British Invasion' comp. and your acclaimed debut LP, so where's it gone?..down the sucker I bet???! RoadRage going through the motions ain't much fun I can tell ya. For highlights we had to wait for the B-side and 'What's In It For Me'. Which had that familiar yobboesque spiel rearing it's ugly head, but it was short-lived. Last track 'Chelsea Hotel' was the RoadRage version of events on dear old Sidernee and Nancy's demise. And that was as they say...it! There was a local radio interview sandwiched between the tracks that seemed a whole lot more interesting than the music on show. I dunno about painless suicide? This was pretty excruciating, especially the production! PLASTIC £2/$5 postpaid from Weird Records, from Newark Notts (not the New York label) also defunct. |
| WATERSHED 'Demo Tape' 1999 Fucking hell not more of that sickly fucking bad excuse at being punk.... 'alterna-grunge-punk!' Jezussss!!! yet another group of young Scots who need a dose of salts shoving up their ring piece far more than I need this! As soon as I read in their accompanying letter how they described their unique sound, I feared the worse and got it!!! The first basic riffy track showed a teensy weensy bit of hope but then they displayed their true colours with a major Kurt Cobain genuflection sliding in on the vocals and song structures. It just got so fucking boring! Thank god there are only 3 tracks. Watershed have NO FUTURE in a punk rock scene if this pathetic attempt at diversity is anything to go by. Come back when you've discovered apeing your betters ain't all it's cracked out to be! NEXT!!!! Contact em if your really desperate like Runnin' Feart must've been at 72 Cairnscadden Rd, Craigens, Cumnock, Ayshire, Scotland KI8 3BA. |
| SPECIAL DUTIES 'I Wish It Could Be 77' (data010) 45 1999. Alluring vinyl that comes in a nice shade of blue for all the Colchester fans out there, complete with a shiny new safety-pin on the label! And the title 'I wish It could be 77' (All over again) is typical Special Duties terrain with a good dampened down riff to set the scene. The song is basically a name drop of all the UK punk bands from the day and although I'm a big fan of 1977 Punk Rock I couldn't help feeling this was a halfhearted salute in the way it's put over! And can see this being a red rag to the bulls of modern punk critique, who will most likely rip the piss out of Steve Arrogant's misty eyed nostalgia trip. And it's a trip that seems to be getting more and more frequent on Special Duties releases these days! If Mr Arrogant could've some how retained his earlier Jack Russell snarl in the vocal department then maybe he would've silenced the critics but this is bleated instead of belted out in his new Larry the Lamb style which is far too weak to be serious. The two covers on the B-side confirm our fears with one pale attempt at the Adverts classic 'Gary Gilmore's Eyes' and one very fucking bland track 'Johnny Won't Go To Heaven' by the Killjoys which was shit when the Killjoys done it, so I dunno why this was ever resurrected when they had a magnitude of classics to deform!!! PLASTIC DATA RECORDS 28 Silksby Street, Coventry, CV3 5FX, UK |
| THE MAD CHIHUAHUAS Live Tape 1999 This got sent in late last year (1998) and is the first new stuff I've heard by these infamous Harrogate paraffin lamps, since their 'Punk Az Fuck' Demo back in early '98. And I must say this is as rough as the gusset in Roseanne Barrs underwear! But still shows signs that there's still an unkempt tune, still a slice of real life and still some offensive material in these piss artists of the UK to rattle more than a few cages. The 'Die Di Dodi' track is pretty old news now, so is purely a novelty dig, but I like the way they incorporated that Arabic sounding guitar which is similar to that world famous Offspring riff. Second track 'Death Of A Claiment Advisor' is as you'd expect, a tale of revenge for all the hounded drunks, punks and other lowlife that seem to make up the unemployed register these days. Like true doley's they retain that 3rd on the bill down the old Roxy snotty attitude in this live taster. But as with all their stuff they suffer from really badly produced outings that are a chore to listen to. What these mutts need is a good studio and a degree of sobriety to unleash their real in your face punk rock to the masses, instead of just causing a stink in the local job centre! AVERAGE. 2 Westmoreland Street, Flat #3 Harrogate, HG1 SAT, England |
| THE RABID GRANNIES 'Millennium Buggered' Tape Sept./Oct. 1999 Easily the funniest band in the land and definitely cult punk listening that seems to be slowly taking off in cult circles around the UK. The Rabid Grannies introduce another 8-tracks of insane punk pathetique observations from the bedroom of Grannyville. They kick off with an hilarious, rib-tickling indie piss take, that sends up the indie genre of doom 'n' gloom in the best possible way. As always they cover a wide range of wacky subjects, like getting battered on New Years Eve for probably taking the piss out of some local yokel (snigger). The Rabid Grannies theme tune is spat out to a Monkees hit and uses a great Monty Python sketch in the intro. Also they give us their fascination with vampires and zombies. As always the packaging is spot on via a slash 'n' epoxy madness and comes in shiny, glossy collage fold out poster with the lyrics. Oh yeah before I forget thanx to Spikey Tim (guitarist and sound engineer) for the cover snap of Linda Blair from The Suffragette #11. Strangely no mention of 'the infamous 'Frosty Jacks' (The Rabid Grannies favourite cider) on this release, but you can bet your grannys arse it was an inspiration behind the scenes. They end with a Postman Pat recital by piano, amid cheers of "Encore and Bravo!" ...Bravo! Definitely WORTH A LISTEN. £1.50 from 17 Cornford Close, Osbaston, Monmouth, Monmouthshire, South Wales, NP23 3NT, (UK). |
| CHARLIE HARPER 'The Best Of Charlie Harper & The Urban Dogs (ahoycd108) 1999 For 25 years Charlie Harper has led the UK Subs through numerous lineups, global tours and literally an alphabet of albums are safety pinned to his studded belt, as well as getting 7 top 75 British hit singles. He's punks elder statesman and still touring today. You'd think with a career like that it would be enough for any punk to handle? But no Mr Harper ain't any old punk and the speed must've been very good in Tooting back in the early 80's coz Chaz made time. In-between busy subversive activity he managed to get his solo songs out under the Urban Dogs banner. He was accompanied along the way by Knox of the Vibrators on guitar (another punk veteran), Alvin Gibbs UK Subs bass player and Mathew Best Psychic TV on drums for most of the tracks. This CD sums up the best songs released under the Urban Dogs 3 year existence between 1980-83. And some of these tracks proved to be UK Subs live anthems. Take for example the never used opening track 'New Barbarians' that comes marauding out your speakers from the bands debut 45. It's followed by the rumbling torture of 'Limo Life' that is a study of fame and it's claustrophobic pitfalls. Charlie also concentrates more on world issues with a distinct antiwar message in a lot of these tracks. And some of these more political views are aired like on the pounding 'Wanna World'... "wanna world where - we can swim without pollution, wanna world where - the bomb is not the final solution, wanna world where - the seas and trees are special to people, wanna world where - life is sacred and not a church steeple". And the acoustic 'War Babies' that builds up into a great antiwar track. Plus of course a Dogs version of the Subs classic 'Warhead' is always great to hear. There's also light relief in songs like 'Barmy London Army' giving a nod to the faces of the time, and Charlie's favourite substance 'Speed Kills'. More nocturnal habits are covered on 'Sex Kick' which is the old Vibrators song 'Into The Future' and they also do a version of 'I need A Slave' from the Vibrators 'Pure Mania' LP and 'Dragnet' from a 1982 45. There a few more predictable covers towards the end like 'Pills' by the Dolls and 'I wanna be your dog' by Iggy but they all get the South London Charlie Harper drawl which gives em an individual feel. 18 tracks of Charlie's best Urban hits here is a good insight into one of punks mainstay's so check it out coz it's well WORTH A LISTEN. Captain Oi! Records |
