Doom - Police Bastard

The cover you've seen on every crusties backpatch, and with good reason. A fucking great EP too. Seminal crust/grind punk EP.

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Some punk I've been listening to recently

I downloaded a motherload of anarcho, crust and grind recently, here's some of the stuff I've been listening to.

The Varukers - "All Systems Fail"

Doom - "Police Bastard"

Fleas and Lice - "The War Will Never End"

Dirt - "Power Greed Glory"

Conflict - "A Piss in the Ocean"

Amebix - "The Church is For Sinners"

Antisect - "In Darkness There Is No Choice"

Discharge - "Ain't No Feeble Bastard"

Nausea - "Clutches"

Police Bastard - "Blasphemy Squad"

Some Records

OFF! - Four EPs

I picked this up at Rebellion Fest in Blackpool after they played (they were fucking ace). Unfortunately, when I actually opened it and took it out of the packaging there were duplicate EPs. I've been trying to get a hold of someone to sort out a replacement for about a month now, frustrating.

Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood

Found this at a market stall in my city centre for £5 I think. I really love the dreamy psychedelic qualities of the Nancy/Lee songs and they sound all the better on vinyl.

Fugazi - Fugazi EP

Picked this up at the same stall for £8. It's one of my favourite punk EPs of all time (along with the Nervous Breakdown EP, Discharge's first, Multi Death Corporations etc.) and what an iconic cover. Pretty sure it's an original, no idea how many made it over the pond.

Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones (green vinyl)

This is Frank's latest album. It came with a CD too, rather than just a download slip which was nice. I've been a big fan of his for a few years, caught him live 5 times now (recommended, his shows are some of the best I've ever seen).

Ben Marwood @ The Louisiana, Bristol 07/10/2011

MUST REMEMBER TO TAKE OWN PHOTOS IN FUTURE

This Friday held a night of singer/songwriters at the Louisiana. First up was Suzy Condrad who layered soundscapes out of loops with a cacophony of different instruments from her guitar to an autoharp. Her sound reminded me of PJ Harvey, Beach House and KT Tunstall. When she got into her stride the songs spoke for themselves, she's well worth looking up, but a mix of setting up issues and the time it takes to layer the songs mar the whole experience slightly, though her charm kept the crowd interested. She might do well to recruit a full band for performing live, even if this would remove the one-woman-band aspect of her performance, but I think her songs could hold up without any gimmicks.

Next was Jay Newton whose sound was a little more akin to Ben's than the other two supports. He played some good songs, the second of which I particularly liked, though most of which were quite downbeat, which I find is a very easy hole for the singer/songwriter to fall into. He shows promise and he seems to be able to write more upbeat or at least whimsical songs (Ben later played a song by his former band which was about H.P. Lovecraft's zombie creating re-animator Herbert West).

Penultimate act was Bristol's own Barry Dolan A.K.A. Oxygen Thief. Barry peddles a muscular, riff-based acoustic offering reminiscent of a stripped down Helmet, more owing to 90's alt-metal than Bob Dylan. He opened with an instrumental, ostensibly to warm up the headbanging muscles of both himself and veritable gig-barometer Big Jeff. He played tracks from his recent album, single "Mestle and Porter" and my personal highlight "Disasterplan", and also some fun covers of "Gold" by Spandau Ballet and "Party Hard" by Andrew WK. Barry always strikes up a rapport with the crowd and there was definitely drunken shouting along to his songs.

Ben made his way through the crowd to come onstage, as ever an unassuming figure in his suit jacket and t-shirt, his frank and modest brand of acoustic folk/rock with an ability to poke fun at himself drags his songs above those of a sea of miserable blokes with guitars. It began well but unfortunately a instrument failure meant he had to swap guitars before the second song, so he performed the rest of his set with Barry's kindly lent guitar. He played a solid set, spanning most of his releases along with his now iconic cover of The Postal Service's "The District Sleeps Alone". Particular highlights were the ironic "Singalong" (everyone did) and "Tell Avril Lavigne I Never Wanted To Be Her Stupid Boyfriend Anyway" which featured some ad-libbing from the titular female's "Sk8r Boi". He engaged with the crowd by telling some of the backstories of his songs he played and of the strange feeling of staring at a poster of yourself while urinating. He finished the night well but didn't quite manage to recreate the atmosphere of the last time he played the Louisiana, which was particularly electric. It was still a good performance overall however and Ben is going from strength to strength.

Best Coast @ The Thekla, Bristol, UK 01/05/2011

Openers Parrington Jackson's brand of Fugazi meets Bloc Party post-punk (with a side order of post-rock) is received well by a thawing audience. Their 30 minute set is just enough to whet the appetite of the crowd, and didn't suffer too badly from support band bar syndrome. They sounded professional, just polished enough to sound tight, but not too much as to sound over-rehearsed and had a good presence onstage, with all members looking useful and fronted well. However, their music didn't really fit in with the dreamy surf pop of the headliners, but it seems they were a fill in for the touring support who had been left in London to play the famous Camden Crawl.

Parrington Jackson

Bristol's seafaring venue du jour for the hippest of the hip unsurprisingly finds lo-fi surf pop upstarts Best Coast serenading its packed hull. The band split opinion - some find the their brand of bubblegum pop too saccharine, while others revel in the breath of fresh air offered by the sun drenched tunes. When frontwoman/guitarist Beth Consentino, lead guitarist Bobb Bruno and drummer (and former Vivian Girl) Ali Koehler take to the stage however, the charm on offer is enough to melt hearts of the most cynical of listeners.

Best Coast: Beth Consentino, Bobb Bruno & Ali Koehler

While Consentino is naturally the focus of attention with her pin-up looks and unashamedly simple romantic lyrics, but the whole band is solid. Koehler's drumming provides a heavy set backbone and Bruno's surfy solos sound great in a live setting. On some songs however, Consentino struggles to transfer the vocals found in the studio versions of songs when playing live (a fate notably befalling Death From Above 1979), but this doesn't really detract from the show. The band obviously enjoy being onstage, cracking jokes (the frontwoman remarks about her fear of boats and ad libs 80's pop songs) and jamming on a few tracks. The band play their way through the entirety of "Crazy For You" (with Pitchfork approved single "Boyfriend" in early on, perhaps before the band hit their stride), a selection of older tracks (including the irrepressible "When I'm With You") and throw in a few promising sounding new songs.

Best Coast: In a boat.

The band's sugary repertoire lends them to the hour set afforded to them by the Sunday curfew in place, the old adage of having too much of a good thing holds sway. Whilst splitting the last few songs into a short encore may have been recommended, the crowd leave satisfied. On an uncharacteristically balmy early May evening, Best Coast are the perfect soundtrack.

The Thekla in green

Words/photos (c) Daniel Cove 2011

Pixies

Pixies are a hard band to catagorise. They played pop songs about biblical stories with surf guitars, grunge dynamics and interspersed Spanish lyrics. The result is frequently astounding, and always interesting. They lend themselves very easily to being the cult band they've become. Here's some reasons why...

Cocteau Twins - Garlands

Cocteau Twins' "Garlands" was released in 1982 on 4AD. It's a dreamy post-punk journey through the ethereal world of Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie and Will Heggie. Eschewing a drummer, the rhythms are entirely drum machine creations, giving the tracks a dispassionate backbone on which swathes of reverb drenched guitars and Fraser's wails are placed. The artwork is quite representative of the sound of the album, a fever dream in industrial architecture with a ghostly atmosphere.

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Independent Record Store Day 2011

This year's record store day saw a load of tasty releases from great bands, and brought well-received punters into our independent shops. I managed to pick up a Rekords Rekords 10" with one track each from Queens of the Stone Age, Alain Johannes, Desert Sessions 7&8 and Mini Mansions. I considered buying Kings of Leon's reissue of the Holy Roller Novocaine EP, but £19 seemed a little too much to spend on vinyl in one day.

OFF! - First Four EPs

Holy shit, are you in for something fucking good. The legendary Keith Morris, originally the singer in Black Flag and later of the Circle Jerks put together this amazing band with the drummer from Rocket From The Crypt, Dmitri Coats of Burning Brides and Redd Kross bassist Steven Shane McDonalds. It's old school hardcore, think early Black Flag, Career Suicide, Cloak/Dagger, that kind of stuff, but because it's Morris' it's also got original hardcore credentials. The whole thing's over in like 25 minutes and that's all it needs to smash your fucking face off. The artwork's by Black Flag co-conspirator Raymond Pettibon.

Black Thoughts & Darkness (Live)

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Kyuss Lives! @ Bristol O2 Academy 06/04/2011

The stage is thick with dry ice fog, and behind there are surely several joints being lit in the crowd (much to the chagrin of the bouncers) filling the venue with the acrid smell of burning marijuana, fittingly for a band whose music owes such a huge debt to THC. Stoner rock as a genre pretty much began with Kyuss, drawing from psychadelic influences of the late sixties like Hendrix and the early seventies reefer-influenced proto-metal exemplified by Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf" and it's been over 20 years since they got the ball rolling in the Palm Desert, California (leading to the alternative genre title of desert rock).