Please note the items you are about to read consist largely of scurrilous gossip, vicious back-stabbing and idle speculation. As Jon Stewart might say, its stories are not fact checked. Its informants are not journalists. And its opinions are not fully thought through.
June 21. Here listen, we’re closing down for a month but Gal’s radio shows will continue every Tuesday, with brand new episodes of Rancid Sounds, Sounds Of Glory, and Highway To Hell. The first Highway, or as we prefer to call it, Lost In The Echo Chamber, is running again right now on Spreaker. Hear it here.
While we’re away various folk associated with this blog will be up to no good. Effete El will be in Eire with the Irish equivalents of the Jolly Pranksters, the Sligo Scamps... emissaries from John King’s Punks For Brexit will be meeting like-minded rebels in Greece and Portugal... and Clyde Ward will be “pretty tied up” with the punk panto auditions... more news in July old beans. Cheerio!
June 20. Exciting news! Clyde Ward is working on an x-rated Gonads Xmas pantomime. Here are two of the hopefuls at today’s exhausting audition session. We’re hoping the panto will be called Punkerella but Clyde seems to have his heart set on Piss In Boots...
The 2-Tone Forever Festival takes place at Garon Park, Southend-on-Sea on Saturday 21st July with the Selecter, The Beat, the great Neville Staple and the Skatalites. Tickets cost 30sovs + booking fee.
Fat Col was spotted in Charlton Village today wearing a pair of bicycle clips on his strides. The oaf told Effete El: “I can’t be ‘up-trousered’ in a pair of steel ankle bands, can I?!?” Now the Plumstead Pussy Posse are on his tail, it seems that Col is taking no chances. El tells us that he is also wearing “a high security Carrera chastity belt so if they do get his strides off they’ll need the key to get their money shot”. Being pursued by feisty women is entirely new to him “and not entirely un-arousing,” said El, who added: “Col told me he was avoiding the posse by drinking all day in the White Swan and the Newbridge... and not to let anyone know, except for the blog, and the women.”
Our racing correspondent Paul “Stalin” Hallam sends this winning slip from Epsom Downs. He placed his bet as ever with Honest Alan Bushell “a name you can trust”. Quite right too!
June 19. Oh dear. Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner) has “smashed the granny” out of our new blog hot-line after just one day. He tells us “As soon as that poxy number went live, people started leaving abusive messages. Poor Fit-Bird was in a terrible two-and-eight. I just weren’t ’aving it.” Apparently the first five calls were from angry women who described themselves as the “Plumstead Pussy Posse” and left a tirade of insults and colourful invective aimed at Fat Col. One message included a threat to kidnap him, dress him up in Scottish garb and “up-kilt” him in revenge for his crimes against Wattsie. “It would have been a horrendous sight,” said Sporrell. “Like a cocktail sausage resting on two crab apples. Who wants to see that?” The sixth call was anonymous. It started “You idiots!” (So it could have been anyone – Ed). The furious male caller went on to chastise the blog for praising Dirty Rob and Dan Dan the Market Man for their stand-up performances at the last Pranksters weekender. “They were the side-show,” the man stormed. “The real star was the magician Muthutung, an Indian fakir who learnt his trade at the feet of the great Sorcar. As well as the rope trick, Muthutung levitated the PM six feet into the air and then chewed hot coals like bread.” Angrily the mystery complainant concluded: “He was incredible but you dolts will never see him because you will never be admitted into the ranks of our brotherhood all the while I am Senior Warden... oops, what a give-away...” (The JP Senior Warden is believed to be code-named ‘Vauxhall Cross’ because of his senior rank in a certain organisation based on the Albert Embankment. We have said too much already).
June 18. This is exciting. Lord Waistrel has just installed a blog hot-line. You can ring 07516 844447 and leave your news or views to be instantly uploaded onto these pages. “It’s the future,” said Martin Sporrell (aggressive gooner). “Give us a bell an’ tell us what you think. Like Colin Morgan, we’re all ears.” This has gone down well with Fit-Bird who praised the move saying: “FFS! More bleedin’ work for me! Ain’t I suffered enough?”
Rebellion have released the full line up for each day of the Blackpool festival, including stages and stage times. Bands include Buzzcocks, The Macc Lads, SLF, The Professionals, Public Image Ltd, the Anti-Nowhere League, The Queers, Chaos 8, Dirt Box Disco, The Exploited, Slaughter, Discharge, Hands Off Gretel, Jaya The Cat, Lagwagon, Peter Hook & The Light, Ramonas, Ruts DC (No kidding – Ed), Svetlanas, Discharge, UK Subs and The Vandals.
Out now: One Man's Madness - a feature length ‘mocku-rocku-documentary’ telling the story of Madness sax player Lee 'Kix' Thompson as told by Lee, his band mates, family, friends & musicologists (who strangely all look a little like him...)
June 17. Fat Col comes on the phone, all remorseful. Naturally it’s an act. “I feel guilty about the Wattsie up-skirt pic,” he says. “And I promise never to do it again. But I just wondered if you could let me know if this picture I took in Blackpool counts as an ‘up-skirt’ as it’s very clearly side on.” Damn pervert. Conned us again!
RIP Nick Knox, the Cramps drummer died Friday aged 60. Nick, real name Nicholas Stephanoff, played in the Electric Eels before joining the psychobilly legends in 1977. Cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Exciting! Hollywood film-maker Mars Roberge is currently editing the teaser for Get Your Gonads USA. Miles, who directed Scumbag, tells us “It’s great stuff, cool tunes! But where’s Wattsie?” Shush! Sore point.
In other news, Madball have posted a vid for new song ‘The Fog’ which features Tim Armstrong from Rancid. It’s from their new album For The Cause.
It’s Oi the Scooter! This superb customised beauty was seen at yesterday’s scooter fest in Blackpool.
Hundreds of scooterists descended for a custom show, live bands and traders. There was one known arrest as we go to press. A Mr C. Gannon of Plumstead was nicked after asking a passing hen party if they wanted to “ride the Big One”. He has been charged with false advertising.
June 16. Why did obnoxious Tory MP Christopher Chope block a bill which would have made “upskirt” pictures a criminal offence? Word is he is an associate of Fat Col who doesn’t want to be nicked for this filthy betrayal of Shona Wattsie Watts... which revolts us so much we re-publish here to condemn the oaf in the eyes of all right-thinking people.
We have received the following missive from John King regarding the Guinness/fish-gut controversy. Apparently this only applies to canned Guinness. He writes: ‘Dear Editor, I only drink draught Guinness, which is vegan. Please clarify for your reader. Thank you. JK Herbert Esq’. So up yours Col, he doesn’t add.
OUT now: Tim Armstrong’s A Poet’s Life is available again on vinyl with a gatefold cover from Hellcat Records... The Filaments’ new Look To The Skies LP has been released by Pirates Press on colour vinyl... And after notching up 10million YouTube views Booze & Glory’s ‘London Skinhead Crew’ has been re-issued as a claret and blue 12inch. In future noos. three more Saxon classic albums will be re-released next month: Innocence Is No Excuse, Rock The Nations and Destiny.
Film director Sally ‘Champagne’ Clack wants Gal and Wattsie Watts to star in her next film. Effete El whispers: “It seems she feels her Gatwick Gangsters has not completely killed off their acting careers and she clearly wants to drive the stake in further.” Meanwhile in fantasy news Fat Col has said he will also be on for a part but only on condition that he has “a bedroom scene with Wattsie which starts with her in a cat-suit and ends with her without it”. In other words he won’t be in the film.
June 15. Pukka news today. It looks like Gal will be shooting two TV pilots this summer, one in Las Vegas and one in south London. A tight-lipped Fit Bird tells us: “We have definite interest in a UK revival of Gal’s Bushell On The Box TV show.” The first two series topped the ITV night network in 1996 and featured an array of guests including Barbara Windsor, Penn & Teller, The Blood, Lenny McLean, TV’s Gladiators, Vic & Bob, Roy “Pretty Boy” Shaw and Ray Winstone. In addition, Gal is currently working on the next TWO Harry Tyler novels. If GBX get a support slot with Chas & Dave or Mickey Flanagan our year will be complete.
June 14. This week’s inaugural Punk Rock Comedy Club night was the biggest wash-out since we hosed down the Yeti. John King (PPGB) called it on, but turned up late and then refused to leave the East London boozer in time for the 7.30pm kick-off. “It won’t start until 8.30,” JK insisted as he knocked back pint after gut-bloating pint of Guinness. As a consequence the assembled punk and Oi stalwarts missed the entire first half. The second half then served up two of the worst comics we’ve ever endured. Seriously. They were so crap even the BBC wouldn’t book them. Only headliner Geoff Norcott saved the evening from being a total disaster. Think we’ll stick to Cockney comedy legend Micky Pugh in future.. .PS. Serious question from carnivore activist Fat Col: “Does vegan John know that Guinness contains fish-guts? Just asking...”
It was all a long way downhill from the Jolly Pranksters May Bank Holiday weekender when well-received stand-up comedy was performed by Dirty Rob and Dan, Dan The Market Man. Effete El describes them as “proper blue collar gag-telling comics with lots of jokes and relentless attack”. In fact the weekend’s only drawback was the motorcycle display team demonstration by the so-called Marylebone Moped Muggers, an act put together by Fat Col which senior brethren condemned as being “beyond bad taste.”
Garry Johnson will have a part in the movie Serial Killer based on his novel of the same name. The film is in pre-production in Hollywood right now under the firm whip of dictatorial director S****e W**t. Gal tells us actress Sarah Lynn Dawson is brilliant in the trailer and serious investors are on board. He describes his own performance as “My impersonation of Ray Winstone impersonating Danny Dyer.”
Talking flicks, we still haven’t seen Gatwick Gangsters (‘worst film ever made’ – the Surrey Mirror). We’ve asked for a DVD but the producers have said they’ll send us “an MP4 via wetransfer instead and you can download it onto your laptop and then connect a HDMI cable to your laptop and put the other end into your normal television, on your television handset put it to ‘avi’ this will usually let you play off your portable hard drive and HDMI cable product...” Yeah, yeah. We’ll come back to this when we’ve got a month off.
The most anticipated date in the Modernist calendar is August Bank Holiday, and this year the Mod scene will return to its spiritual home of Brighton (it says here – we say its spiritual home was London which was where Mod started). Anyhow, the weekend starts on the Thursday night with a one-off live performance from Brit Pop legends THE RIFLES. All events take place at Brighton’s best venue the fabulous Komedia Theatre in the buzzin’ lanes area. The venue boasts two rooms and features New Untouchables DJ’s and special guest club nights and DJ’s from all over Europe on Friday, Sat and Sunday which are 18+. The daytime events are FREE and family friendly at the Volks Tavern 200 yards east of Brighton Pier (where the scooters arrive in the iconic film Quadrophenia). The venue has two well stocked bars and serves food all day complete with outside terrace and plenty of parking for the scooters. Live bands on Saturday include French Mod-Pop sensation FRENCH BOUTIK + British beat from London with THE JACK CADES. Sunday is the eagerly anticipated Scooter competition held outside the Volks at 14.00 followed by the scooter run. DJ sessions and vintage market on both afternoons selling records, memorabilia and clothes. For program and tickets go here.
June 13. John King’s Punks For Brexit steering committee met in secret yesterday and agreed unanimously to release a “mighty, pro-Brexit punk rock anthem”. We’ll keep you informed of further developments. Some observers claim to have detected an undercurrent of frustration at the meeting however. Fat Col, a man whose shoulders are not unburdened by chips (or dandruff), tells us: “We know that many street-punk musicians are pro-Brexit but they just won’t commit, so in our view they aren’t punk at all – just plastic rebels, hypocritical phonies mouthing slogans and refusing to stand up for what they believe. Well, it won’t do. It’s time to rock the boat. Poop or get off the potty, punks... and herberts... and skins.”
PS Will the unity of the fledgling PFB campaign be threatened by Col’s latest scheme? We hear that Gannon is planning to revive the militant pro-carnivore Meat Means Dinner anti-veggie tendency from the early 1980s. This is certain to alienate the vegan-punk wing led by stern-faced John King...
Record Noos: The new Mad Caddies album, Punk Rocksteady is out on Friday via Fat Wreck Chords... The ProblemAddictsfl have released new ep Derailed... NOFX’s live re-take of their Ribbed album comes out on 3rd August.
R.I.P. Former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Danny Kirwan who died Friday aged 68. Danny was 18 when Mick Fleetwood recruited him to the band. Mick posted a tribute of Facebook saying: ‘Today was greeted by the sad news of the passing of Danny Kirwan in London, England. Danny was a huge force in our early years. His love for the Blues led him to being asked to join Fleetwood Mac in 1968, where he made his musical home for many years. Danny's true legacy, in my mind, will forever live on in the music he wrote and played so beautifully as a part of the foundation of Fleetwood Mac, that has now endured for over fifty years. Thank you, Danny Kirwan. You will forever be missed!’ Danny first played on the band’s Number One single ‘Albatross’ and then on five FM albums before they sacked him for excessive boozing.
June 12. We’re a bit tied up with pressing matters this week, largely thanks to Madame Joanna and her ironing board, but we hope to be back at the weekend with some updates on Gal’s books, Prankster matters, the meaning of life, the price of mince, and John King’s fledgling Punks For Brexit campaign. Remember: to exist is to resist. Stay free.
June 11. Our roving reporter Chelsea Dom has taken his time filing his review of the Rebellion weekend in Amsterdam but we’re pleased to say that it finally came through this morning. Staff at this blog gathered excitedly around the corpulent frame of Fat Col to hear him read it out aloud. “They were as keen as a newly sharpened blade freshly spread with mustard,” Effete El tells us. “Bright-eyed young interns determined to hang on every word and soak up each and every drop of nuance in Dom’s magnificent, Hunter S Thompson style prose.” Indeed. So here it is, in full: ‘It was a great weekend, really good atmosphere.’ Yeah, thanks for that mate.
Random noos: Mad Ball’s new album For The Cause is out this Friday via Nuclear Blast... Eat Defeat release their ten-track album I Think We’ll Be OK on 3rd August via Bearded Punk Records... Canadian herberts the Real Sickies have just released their new LP Get Well Soon (This Is Pop Records)... and there’s a benefit gig for striking Hackney Picturehouse workers, consisting according to Wattsie of “socialist poetry and Marxist magic” (Perhaps John and Jezza will unveil their magic money tree – Cynical Fat Col). BECTU members at the Hackney Picturehouse Cinema are campaigning for all staff to earn “at LEAST the London Living Wage”. The gig is on 20th June at Brewer’s Bar, Shacklewell Lane, Dalston, London E8 2EB; entrance is “pay what you can afford”, and all proceeds go to the workers.
STOP PRESS. Issue 18 of Street Sounds came out just a few weeks ago but has already sold out – a triumph for Paul Hallam’s new marketing techniques. Hallam, AKA “the Stalin of Style” took ads for the mag at selected bus stops all over the London suburbs. It’s free enterprise at its finest, but what would Uncle Joe say?
June 10. French punk legend Gilles Bertin, former singer with Camera Silens, went on trial in Toulouse last week, accused of armed robbery. This has come as a huge shock, not least to the many people who thought he was dead... In the 80s, Camera Silens had a heavy following, especially among anarchist youth, but fucked themselves up with smack. HIV positive from sharing needles and believing their days were numbered, some band members decided to go out with a bang and carry out a major armed robbery. They duly pulled off a spectacular heist nicking nearly £12million from a Brinks deposit in Toulouse. Just to rub it in, they then called the local paper and bragged about it. The French Old Bill (Le Vieux William? – multilingual Ed) rounded up the blaggers pretty quickly. All of them were collared within a year, except for Gilles who was given a ten year sentence in his absence. The cops never recovered the loot. And nobody ever heard from Gilles... not friends, not family, not even the mother of his son. Eventually everyone assumed the worst and the authorities declared Bertin brown bread. Then, in November, veteran defence lawyer Christian Etelin received a phone call out of the blue. It was Gilles. It turned out that after the bank job he’d hightailed it to Portugal with bags stuffed with cash and opened a record shop. Ten years later he moved on to Spain with his Spanish girlfriend and worked in her parents’ bar. They had a child and everything was rosy until last year when he nearly died from hepatitis and was saved by the staff of a hospital in Barcelona. It was then, after 28 years on his toes, that he decided to come clean. Gilles crossed back into France, met Etelin and turned himself in. Now facing a possible 20 stretch, he told the BBC he hopes to convince the court he’s a changed man. He said: “Back in the late 70s and early 80s I was an angry young man, a nihilist, an anarchist on a destructive path and in revolt against society... I made mistakes but I am not that same person now. At 57, I am more mature and have nothing to do with that period in my life.” Fingers crossed he’ll walk. But what a story! If nothing else it’ll make a helluva film.
The phone rings at Nads HQ. It’s Psychic Shona, Wattsie’s twin sister. “Woe, woe and thrice woe,” she says, her voice a-trembling with emotion. “The spirits have told me you must not play Guildford!”. Why ever not, we ask? “It’s cursed!” she says all fiery like. How so? “Ian Dury played Guildford and died,” she says. “Heavy Drapes played Guildford and Garry Borland died... Viola Beach were heading to Guildford when they perished in a tragic accident on a lift bridge in Sweden... play Guildford and the Gonads are doomed.” Ridiculous we say, hundreds of bands play Guildford every year without dying – the gig stays on. “On your own heads be it,” she says grimly, adding brightly after a slightly pause: “Okay then, put us on the guest list with a plus one.” And the phone goes dead.
STOP PRESS. R.I.P. Anthony Bourdain who has committed suicide in France. The punk-loving New York celebrity chef was found hanging in his hotel bathroom at 9.10am. on Friday in Kaysersberg. There will be an obituary on Gal’s blog shortly.
June 9. The first chapter of Tim “Teething” Wells’s new skinhead werewolf novel Moonstomp has been published on the Creases Like Knives website, with an introduction by John King (PPGB & bar). You can find it here.
Record Noos: The Filaments’ new album Look To The Skies is released next Thursday by those buccaneering boyos at Pirates Press Records... The Filthy Tongues album Back To Hell is out now on Neon Tetra/Blokshok Records (the Tongues also co-wrote four tracks on the latest Skids LP)... and Swedish Garage Punk band The Scrags have released new album Anything on the Canadian label Grizzlar Coffee & Records.
June 8. Working Class Question Time was launched last night at the Windsor pub in London’s Old Kent Road. It sounds like a much-needed alternative to BBC One’s dull and timid middle class Question Time. Here’s the link. Get John King on!
June 7. Okay pub week is cancelled – and it’s all your fault. Your pictures were unprintable, your stories were mentally disturbed... wading through them was like being trapped inside Colin Gannon’s head.
In record noos, Rat Scabies has released his first solo album, P.H.D. (PRISON, HOSPITAL, DEBT). The 12 track blues and rock offering is available via Cleopatra Records... The Adolescents bring out their new album Cropduster on 20th July via Concrete Jungle... and in gig news, the reformed Distillers have just announced more US dates; nothing is planned for the UK yet but Brody Dalle is supporting Queens Of The Stone Age in Finsbury Park on 30th June along with Iggy Pop, The Hives, Run The Jewels and more.
STOP PRESS. Sad to report Garry Borland, singer with Edinburgh’s Heavy Drapes, has died unexpectedly. There will be a Memorial For Garry concert on the 15th September at The New Cross Inn.
June 6. Here is the link for Gal’s latest Rancid Sounds show.
New punk rock movie An American In Paris opens in the States this month and here in October with music by Zander Schloss from the Circle Jerks. Jello Biafra is in the film playing the local mayor. Synopsis: An angry, crackling and defiantly disordered underclass of nowheresville punk rock kids see their band Surgeon General’s Warning as their ticket out of small town Texas, as 1990 comes to a close. The band drops acid, plays gigs and carries out calculated acts of vandalism around town to the television soundtrack of 24-hour newscasts about Operation Desert Storm and devotion to country at any cost. Faced with the reality of a dead end job at the plastic plant, a life in the oil field, or fighting a war that has no meaning to them, the group's chaos and imminent adulthood leaves them completely vulnerable for what ensues. The film has been described as: ‘an absolute adrenaline rush of a movie that captured something pure... Ferocious and unrelenting... One of the best indie films of the year’ by Chris Olsen. While Indiewire’s Steve Dollar writes: Alhough set in 1990, An American in Texas feels strangely relevant to the nation’s current, never- more-polarized moment. The film’s energy and ambition surges like a heart-on-sleeve anthem, amps cranked to 11 in a hymn of righteous malcontent and surprising grace’. Directed by Anthony Pedone, the flick opens with the president announcing the official start of the Gulf War and a flurry of masked teens destroying a house with bats, hammers, and other tools... The music used for band in the film was written and recorded by Zander Schloss & the Circle Jerks rhythm section with Schloss on vocals. It was a demo for a new Circle Jerks album that never came to fruition. More info here.
*PLEASE NOTE: when we asked for photographs of pub staff we did not mean topless barmaids, Colin.
June 5. Thanks for all your pub recommendations. You’ve mentioned several live music boozers in London, the most popular being the Pelton Arms in Greenwich, the Shacklewell Arms in Dalston and the Camden Assembly. Then there’s the Dublin Castle, Dingwalls, the New Cross Inn and the Amersham Arms. The Anchor & Hope in Charlton is well liked too.
A couple of people have reminded us of London’s scariest ever music venue – the Tidal Basin Tavern, a proper toilet of a boozer which made The Rock in I.D. seem genteel. Bands were lucky to get out of there with their instruments, let alone their teeth.
But our favourite pubs in the world right now are in reverse order: 3) Oi The Pub in Genoa, Italy 2) The Trooper Arms, England (which exists in a different reality). And of course 1) the legendary Arkwright’s Bar (members & invited guests only) in Rainham, Essex. (Bubbling under is the 1805 Club’s Sunday local, but we’re trying to keep that quiet.) Gentle reminder: barmaid pictures would help!
We haven’t seen the Gatwick Gangsters movie but according the Surrey Mirror: “You must see this film...” Good start, yes? Fantastic stuff. Unfortunately they go on: ‘It’s so bad it’s amazing!’ Why are we not surprised? It was Stief A’Billy who got us involved in this cinematic disaster, so no wonder he’s fucked off to Geordie Land. In it, Gal plays a slippery character called East End George, a self-made millionaire who elopes with his PA Lucy Linfield played by Wattsie Watts (“A sick fantasy!” – Fat Col). The film, also starring Bobby George and Willie Thorne, was made four years ago and is expected to go straight to landfill.
June 4. It’s pub week on the blog! Cheers! Public houses have been the life-blood of our story since the beginning. The Gonads fermented in the White Swan, the Bugle Horn, the Lord Northbrook and The Fox Under The Hill. Our first ever gigs erupted chaotically in the Lads Of The Village. Similarly, Oi was forged in the boozers of London – the Bridgehouse, Canning Town, the Ancient Brit, Bow, the White Lion, Covent Garden, the Deuragon Arms, Homerton... all of these wonderful rub-a-dubs were important to us and to the whole streetpunk movement. So here’s an idea. If you have a pub in your area that’s proper, one with great beer, good staff and top quality music – especially if it’s part of the local scene – then send us pictures of it and the bar staff and we will immortalise them on Britain’s best-loved blog. Support your local! Drink till you’re skint! Tomorrow: our favourite pubs right now!
Random news: The Guitar Gangsters play the Black Mass Club, Wakefield on 23rd June... The brilliant Interrupters have UK shows this December: 1/12: Academy2 Manchester 2/12 The Fleece Bristol 3/12 Concorde2 Brighton, UK 4/12 Electric Ballroom, London, 7/12 Newcastle Uni 8/12 Garage Glasgow 9/12 Key Club, Leeds... and here are the mighty Rose Tattoo’s UK tour dates: 6th September: O2 ABC Glasgow 7/9: Limelight 2, Belfast 10/9: O2 Academy Newcastle (only a few tickets left Tuesday), 11/9: O2 Academy Birmingham (very few tickets left), 13/9 O2 Academy Islington, London.
June 3. So Wattsie Watts rings Nads HQ late last night and says two words: “Anal Cunt”. What, we say, all this time we’ve known you and now you decide to talk dirty? “No,” she says. “The band! Their guitarist Josh Martin has died. He fell off an escalator in Rhode Island.” Blimey. This is not a sick joke. It happened in a mall in Providence a few days ago. Our condolences to his friends and family. Fat Col claims there will be a benefit gig by Ruptured Rectum and Oozing Sphincter but he’s not always to be believed. We’re just sitting around clicking our heels waiting for Wattsie to ring up and whisper the words “Take Me I’m Yours”, as she’s a big Squeeze fan, followed by “Oral Sex”... as a prelude to a chat about the 1985 NWBHM classic album of course. Your minds! You disgust us.
On the 7th of July the mighty Soitainly Records will release three masterpieces: 1) Our own Dirty Metal LP 2) Leah McCaffrey’s long-awaited three track debut e.p. East End Girl and 3) The Jeniera & The Blades three-song debut e.p. Spirit Of England. Every one a gem! New Prole songs are also in the pipeline but what, you ask, of The Orgasm Guerrillas? According to The Beast – yes, that’s right, he’s back – our eighties side-project are in talks about recording a live double album. “Which SONG will be on it?” snipes Fat Col as the Guerrillas, nicknamed ‘Punk Floyd’ back in the day, did tend to bang on a bit. We don’t know, Col, but hopefully ‘Frankie Goes To Pot’. Keep it on a chummy one...
Bruce Springsteen has said that his classic Darkness On The Edge of Town album was influenced by British punk. “I was after a leaner sound, a little bit of an angrier sound," Springsteen says. “I wanted to toughen up the songs. I wanted the record to have a very relentless feeling.” He also said: “I went out and I got all the records – all the early punk records – and I bought ‘Anarchy In The U.K.’ and ‘God Save The Queen’... They were brave and they challenged you, and they made you brave. And a lot of that energy seeped its way into the subtext of Darkness. Darkness was written in 1977, and all of that music was out there, and if you had ears you could not ignore it. I had peers that did. And they were mistaken. You could not ignore that challenge, you know?” Bruce, a fan of the Dropkick Murphys, is also known to have listened to the Clash, the Jam, the third Oi album and even Prole. Country was also an influence. In a speech the Boss said: “In country music I found the adult blues, the working men’s and women’s stories I’d been searching for, the grim recognition of the chips that were laid down against you... it was Working Man's Blues – stoic recognition of everyday reality and the small and big things that allow you to put a foot in front of the other and get you through. Country’s fatalism attracted me. It was reflective. It was funny. It was soulful. But it was quite fatalistic. Tomorrow looked pretty dark.”
June 2. Shock news! Lee Wilson bought Mandy Crow a drink today. Here’s the photographic evidence.
And here’s another new song from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones
June 1st. NOFX have apologised for the spectacularly misjudged bad taste gags they made about the Vegas shootings at Punk Rock Bowling last Sunday. Guitarist Eric Melvin told the audience: “I guess you only get shot in Vegas if you’re in a country band.” Fat Mike responded: “At least they were country fans and not punk rock fans.” The incident last October left 58 people dead. Even Roseanne Barr is believed to have said “For fuck’s sake, really?” Stone Brewing Co.— the San Diego Brewery behind NOFX’s Punk in Drublic festival — dropped the band like a stone, saying: “We at Stone Brewing are aware of NOFX’s insensitive and indefensible statements this past weekend. As a result, we are severing all our ties with NOFX, including festival sponsorship and the production of our collaboration beer.” The brewery also said it would donate profits from NOFX’s beer to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation which provides trauma counselling for cops and first responders. NOFX have now apologised, posting: “I can’t sleep, no one in my band can. What we said in Vegas was shitty and insensitive and we are all embarrassed by our remarks. So we decided we will all get together to discuss and write an in depth, sincere, and honest apology because that’s what the people we offended and hurt deserve.”
