Shameless - Guilty

I was given the chance to review this band by my good friend Mainy and I am glad that he asked me to review it or otherwise I would have never heard of these guys 
I was almost put off by them saying on their Facebook page that one of their main influences is Skrewdriver but it sounds more like Blitz than anything else.

The album consists of 10 tracks (2 extra tracks are available on the CD) and are 10 raw blasts of Punk/Oi! The title track "Guilty" sounds like a cross between Sham 69 and Evil Conduct with the main riff being taken straight from "Borstal Breakout" but hey, we can forgive them as they deliver a hard punching Oi! album.

"30 Years Tomorrow" is my favourite from the album though probably because it sounds a lot like Blitz. The topics of the songs are the usual meat and potatoes Oi! lyrics about sticking together and fighting political shit but there is something about Shameless that makes them different to a lot of new Punk and Oi! bands.

"Oi! For My Nation" could easliy be mistaken for The Business with the "Harry May" style guitar and "Friday Night Losers" could easily fit on Blitz's "Voice Of A Generation". An all round stomper of an Oi! album. If you like your Oi! in the vein of Sham 69, Blitz, Evil Conduct then I would suggest you go and get their album and see them as soon as you can. "

-Matt A.

In conversation with The Ballachulish Hellhounds

Is it a source of pride that very rarely anyone manages to spell the bands name correctly? Is there any weird and wonderful versions that you read and wonder how they could get it so wrong?

Ah, the name.

Its a double edged sword sometimes.

On the one hand we're not too precious about folk getting it right, particularly if they've made the effort to come and see us play.

It's a memorable name, if a little hard to pronounce for some people.

I do get a wee bit annoyed when someone’s booked us and they cant be arsed spelling it right on a poster or promo. We live in a world of 'copy and paste' so there's no excuse really.

On the other hand we got booked to play the Grand Ole Opry in Glasgow a couple of years ago and the promoter had us down as The BallaHELLISH HOLEhounds. That tickled us, even thought about changing it permanently, for about ten seconds...

I hear you received an interview request due to the band being young and up and coming. Do you want to share with us when you actually formed?

Yeah, that was funny and a bit sad really. Symptomatic of the lazy amateurs running about today’s music scene, but that’s another conversation altogether.

We actually played our first gig in 1989 as a psychedelic blues rock band, complete with a harmonica playing army deserter as our front man (seriously!) and a drum machine.

We played like that for a couple of years, then life got in the way.

Myself and Zander met up in Glasgow 7-8 years ago and started jamming again, played a few gigs as a duo and discovered that folk seemed to like what we were about. The turning point was getting booking for The Wickerman Festival in 2007, things seemed to take off after that.

Since then, we played the length and breadth of the UK, put out 2 well received albums and an EP and amassed over 300 gigs and counting.

So it's been a rapid ascendency in popularity for you all?

You could say we're an overnight success, if a night lasted 25 years...

To be serious though you guys have been pushing a hard bluegrass sound for a while now.

Do you feel that sometimes the americana/folk scene can be accused of being a bit clean and your sound could be described as a tad more authentic, as apart from it having a frayed blue collar there's a great deal of dirt under its nails?

We're kinda outsiders on the scene, but that’s ok with us, we like it that way.

It can be too 'clean' as you suggest, our roots are in noisy rock and punk, so I think that comes across in our live shows. Sometimes I think you can give roots music too much respect, we like to mix it up and play it with a bit of edge, particularly at our live shows.

We have more of an 'up and at em' approach, which isn’t really how a lot of UK Americana bands do it.

We're the real deal though, anyone that comes to see the Hellhounds will know they've been to see a band that’s honest about what they do, hopefully they'll think we can play a bit as well and come back for more.

Where we come from in the Highlands, Kinlochleven and Glencoe, used to have an Aluminium factory right smack in the middle of the mountains, so we grew up in a curiously odd place. Heavy industry and everything that comes with that, set to a back drop of mountains and a small village lifestyle.

I worked for ten years there stacking Aluminium ingots and working shifts, my collars are still frayed and blue and I can still remember the dirt and the grime from working there, Zander was the same. I think has given us a good work ethic along with a bit of a fuck you to the man attitude. Nothing worse than some middle class boy or girl singing about 'working on the rail-road' 'drinking moonshine' or how bad it is in jail.

I usually find it pretty crass and think to myself “if that fella/lady ever seen a hard days work, then My name is Johnny Cash....”

What do you think about the rise in popularity of roots music over the last few years? Pros and cons?

Personally, I think its great.

As with any genre, if you stick to playing well and honestly, you last the course. We play what we like and if folk like it, that's grand. We've been doing it for a few years now and it comes and goes. The first wave in recent years was when the soundtracks for O Brother Where Art Thou and Brokeback Mountain came out.

That piqued some interest.

If I'm being honest, I don’t really see any cons, anything that can get folk listening to some music they might not have discovered otherwise is fine with me.

Any genre specific music always attracts scensters, Americana music isn’t any different.

If it means they buy a tickets to see us and maybe even a CD, that's cool. Although, I’m a wee bit pissed off about the amount of checked shirts on the go these days,

I used to wear them because they were cheap, now every fuckers got one...

You are a self released band. Is that through choice or necessity?

Its a bit of both really. There's another band on our label called Dixie Fried, I've played in bands and been friends with their drummer John Murphy for years. Both of us have been working in and around music for a while running gigs and helping our other bands. We decided that the best way to go was to set up our own wee label called Big Rock Candy Records and self release our own music.

Its been a good learning experience, but very worthwhile.

There's 4 acts on the label now and we wont have any more than that on it. The best thing is that we have complete control over what we do. Everyone involved in the label does a proper shift when they have to, its a pretty good collective of like minded people. It goes back to the work ethos I spoke about earlier, there's far too many really talented folk that aren’t prepared to put in the extra work to get themselves to the next stage.

We have the label at a level we're comfortable with, playing music is our priority, but running our own label makes us to push ourselves a bit more.

And apart from anything else, being in control of our own destiny has made us find out more about the pond we swim in. I’m sure you won't be surprised about the amount of musicians that don’t actually have a clue how the business works.

We're no experts, but we have a bit of a clue...

You played recently as part of the No Mean City festival in Glasgow. It was a far reaching run of dates and you played the opening night. How did that go?

That was a great gig for us, although I’ve played there in a couple of other bands, this was the first time The Hellhounds had played the ABC and to be playing as part of No Mean City was great.

We got a cracking reception, always nice to be invited to these sort of things.

We played King Tuts for the first time this year as well, never too old and all that...

While some acts seem to be rooted to one geographical location you appear to do as many gigs in the north of Scotland as you do on the west coast if not more. Are the audiences quite different as I have this idea in my head that the further north we go the more they would get what you guys are all about. Is that a fair view?

That's true to a certain extent. When we play up north folk seem to be right up for the night out and usually get right on board with the craic.

That’s not to say we don't enjoy playing in our home town (Glasgow), there are just far more opportunities for a band like us to actually get paid and looked after by travelling to far flung places outside our comfort zone.

Definitely sharpens your tools by hitting the road, that's for sure.

We're a bit old school in our approach, we sell most of our CD's at gigs, so it makes good sense to play in as many different places as we can.

I get bored really quickly playing the same venues in Glasgow, in fact over the last 2-3 years, we've only played 2 or 3 gigs a year in Glasgow.

Festivals. Of course I was there at Eden this year and I had a ball, as you all obviously did to, as we bumped into each other often enough in ongoing degrees of intoxication. Was that one of your favourites and what others did you play and how did they measure up to it?

Eden was great! That was our 3rd year in a row there, top festival and always a grand gig for us. Proper party people.

This year we also played Belladrum amongst others, headlining The Potting Shed Stage for the 2nd time, that’s a right home gig for us and always a good weekend.

The crowds there are mental, in a good way.

Probably, playing festivals is when we really thrive. We can play a 45-60min set and really go for it. Not forgetting we're usually playing to a crowd that in the most part, haven't heard us before.

That's a challenge we like, bringing a bit of mayhem to the uninitiated, always fun.

And finally what's next for the band. Have you more recording plans, live dates, supports?

Well. We've just finished a run a dates from April-September which included a pile of festivals, King Tuts, No Mean City and a whole heap of places in between including our first gig in Mull, which was a lot of fun.

At the moment we have a couple of gigs in November and that's us for the live stuff for the year, unless we get a decent offer for something good.

In 2014 we're celebrating 25 years of The Ballachulish Hellhounds, so we're making plans for that.

I can say, there will be an album simply called The Ballachulish Hellhounds with all original songs. Along with a big party in Glasgow and one in the Highlands.

I cant say much more than that at the minute, but if you follow us on Facebook, that's the place to watch. We also have our website www.thehellhounds.co.uk where you can keep up to speed with any news and stream all our music to.

http://theballachulishhellhounds.bandcamp.com/

The Mystery Girls – Radioactive

We should be eternally grateful to The Stooges for one simple reason.

That reason being that they were the catalyst that has brought us so many ramshackle punk bands stumbling out of the garage with slack jawed attitude and a handful of fuzzy chords to slap us with.

The Mystery Girls are yet another one to add to the ever growing list of those who have no fear of existing in the shadows bereft of the success that may have been available to them if they had chosen a more fashionable way to exercise their artistic talents.

No one sits at home and gravitates towards playing garage punk about being into rubber love if they give a toss about a full time career in music, and that's not a bad attitude to have.

It strips bare all the bullshit, and while the music is dirty it's also got a purity to it as it is played for all the right reasons.

Take songs like 'I'm so tired of you' and 'Signs

It's the Ramones, and some may well ask 'but why write a song in the style of the Ramones/'

The Mystery Girls would probably turn that on its head and ask why not write a song in the style of The Ramones, and there's some sense to that.

If they want to do it then who has a good enough reason to dissuade them?

There's a reason why music like this never dies.

Why it always exists on the margins.

You can't quantify it, but you can feel it has some fucked up worth.

www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mystery-Girls/181815895171746?fref=ts

Happy Birthday Lisa Vermin

This was supposed to be a review of the Distorted Truth gig in Pivo Pivo, but my evening didn't really go as planned.

So instead if I was to keep a diary then I suppose this is what I would have filled it with.

Some days you have to look at the flow of humanity and question where we are going.

Underneath Central Stations Guinness record breaking glass ceiling you could be forgiven for thinking that in the vast expanse of space it would hold a microcosm of the whole world.

All of the weird and wonderful could press shoulders with the everyday and the mundane.

Yet when I arrive all I can see is predominately three different groups of people.

There's the nine to fivers looking worn down and killing time till they can get home and shut the world out.

Wage slaves of which I am one.

Then there's the people who have fallen through the cracks of society and are looking to find something to get them through the night into the next day.

It could be fifty pence for a cup of tea, or a couple of pounds that they can put towards whatever their chosen oblivion provider is.

Hanging about, and adding sizeably to the throng, are the tribal kids.

Look at us! We are all so different in our uniformity.

There's nothing wrong with their naivety.

They're just filling time between the innocence of youth and the reality of adulthood.

Is this really it though?

Between birth and death is this really all we can be?

Of all the sparks of electricity firing inside our heads and carrying ideas and dreams from one place to another is this the sum of our efforts?

Thank fuck FOPP was still open and its array of what is the end product of creativity could distract me for a while and lift me from the edge of the pit of despair that I sometimes hover over.

The box set of War Child seven inch singles I picked up was the perfect dark cloud buster.

Fifteen singles featuring artists covering a classic with the original version being on the b-side.

Now that what I call a result.

Kelly set her sights on the limited edition metal box set of AC/DCs Black Ice album and quickly secured one.

A nice purchase that if I was flush with cash I would have grabbed myself.

I'm sure that some would ask why a man of my age would want a CD that comes in a metal tin with some stickers, a plectrum and a large flag?

I would ask why a man of my age wouldn't want one?

Wetherspoons provided a cheap meal for us in the gap between the shops closing and the gig starting.

It really is the poor man's version of dining out.

My southern fried chicken wrap with chips is as exotic as my finances stretch it seems.

The gig wasn't really a normal gig at all and instead was doubling up as a surprise twenty first birthday party for Glasgow punk Lisa Vermin.

I'd like to say I know her, but I have only ever spoken to her maybe twice in passing.

Lovely girl though, and it was heart warming to see that people care enough for someone to make the effort to arrange a whole gig just for them.

No one does that unless the person is rather special.

Lovely really, and a good example of what the punk scene should be, but often isn't.

Met a young guy at the gig.

He had the punk uniform of tartan bondage trousers, sleeveless band shirt et al, but I was pleasantly surprised when we started chatting and he revealed himself to be open minded in general about music and life itself.

It was refreshing to meet someone of such tender years who fundamentally got what punk is.

He could learn some old dogs some new tricks.

He works down south on yachts because it's the job he wants and feels passionate about.

I suspect no one will steam roller him into fitting a tidy box to suit their expectation.

Buzzbomb were as good as I expected them to be.

Between the three guys in the band they can vocally cover anything you want. From melodic pop punk in the style of The Ramones to some bone crunching rock.

It's all down with a great deal of energy and the covers of Sonic Reducer and Halloween were given a bit of a slap and delivered at 100mph.

My enjoyment of them was impacted on a bit by a growling stomach pain that was becoming increasingly distracting as they played.

When they finished I made a bee line for the toilets and lets just say that is anyone has the number for the Chernobyl clean up crew then can they pass it on to Pivo Pivo.

It's entirely possible that my anus looks like a gunshot wound.

I could have left the gig at this juncture, but big Kyle Thunder of Filthy Little Secret and The Bucky Rage had told me I really need to see Alkotron so many times that I felt obligated to hang about.

I'm glad I did.

Starting off with an instrumental in the vein of the Shadows, albeit a Shadows without Cliff and featuring a thumping bass line.

After that it was a case of all bets were off.

Sometimes it sounded like JJ Burnell on bass and David Gilmour on guitar.

On a couple of songs I was taken back to the leafy glades of Glastonbury where out of my face on Gorbachovs I'd dance to extended dub reggae jams bathed in strobe lights.

Mental stuff.

There's really no point in trying to pigeon hole the band as that's not what they are about.

Their whole set just screams an appreciation of music.

It's an aural magical mystery tour of excellence.

Highly recommended to the open minded.

Then my guts started to issue a four minute warning again and after another major evacuation I decided that leaving was a better idea that ruining Lisa's party.

I have no doubt that Splinter and Distorted Truth would have continued the evening in fine style.

Do you feel lucky punk?

Well Rebellion, the much loved and equally loathed punk festival is over, and while the blood is still running hot I would think some of my Scottish brethren who were at it will be looking for something to keep the party going.

Meanwhile others who missed it will be wanting to start their own punk party, and there's a couple of good options coming up this week that they should be aware of.

First is Social Distortion supported by Chris Devotion and the Expectations playing in the ABC on Wednesday night.(22nd)

The only chance of a ticket for this is from the touts on the night or a private sale as it's been sold out for a while now.

It's a gig that I'll definitely be trying to be front and centre for.

However if anyone seen them at Rebellion and can't justify splashing the cash to see them again so soon, or if SD aint your thing then this Friday (24^th) Phoenix Promotions are at Pivo Pivo in Glasgow with the crackin' line up of Distorted Truth, Splinter, Buzzbomb and Alkotron & Haggis.

It's a mere fiver on the door and starts at 7pm.

Last time Distorted Truth were in town a mates band was having their album launch and I tossed a coin to decide where I would go and they lost lost out on the pleasure of my company.

So I'm looking forward to this chance to take a second bite at them.

Another mate has fried my brain by repeatedly telling me how good Alkotron are so this is going to be my opportunity to either agree or disagree with him instead of just telling him he talks shit without having any real evidence to back that up.

It's also going to be my first chance to see Buzzbomb since they released their latest album.

So bring on Wednesday and Friday as I'm ready.

Jon Snodgrass/Cory Branan/Roscoe Vacant and the Gantin Screichs - 08/06/12 - The Bay (Glasgow)

With the Olympic torch passing close by the streets are heavy with police motorbikes and riot vans.

The pavements are less busy with spectators.

It's getting late, and for many people all they are thinking about is getting home from work.

It's very obvious that the auspicious honour of bearing the torch doesn't have the same attraction when it slips down streets that aren't media hot spots.

There's no kids chasing the torch bearer, no pavements full of cheering supporters gurning and waving at the cameras, and instead there's just small pockets of what I presume are family and friends looking on.

No one seems to care that much about it at all.

Meanwhile mere yards away Roscoe Vacant, with three of his four Gantin' Scriechs, took to the stage in The Bay.

The setting isn't strange, but I'm feeling a bit discombobulated as the band are playing in front of windows where the days fading light is their backdrop.

This throws me a little as I'm used to seeing them perform in bars late at nights and in subterranean clubs that have never seen natural light.

Yet in some way it felt that the setting was adding a little frisson to proceedings.

Maybe a bit of Dylan Thomas as Roscoe and his band were unwittingly standing up to 'Rage, rage against the dying of the light'.

A modern day poet in his lyrical stance, Roscoe Vacant, is the sharp edge to social commentary, a folk punk with a a fistful of passionate songs to sing in a take no prisoners manner.

He's a mix of Robert Burns, the two Woody's, Strummer and Guthrie, and the product of a straight talking mining community that has shaped his views on everything that you could care to mention.

If you want a rant about the sectarian divide that blights the west coast of Scotland then he's the man to give you it.

Similarly if you want to address the failings of the unions over the last twenty odd years then he will also happily ring a song out about that to.

Some have claimed him to be an acquired taste, but with a bit of effort the rewards to listening to him are untold.

With his last album it could comfortably sit between the Pixies and the Pogues and you can't say that about many people.

Within the confines of the Bay it was refreshing to see the crowd watch the band with an open mind, and to go on and willingly show their appreciation of what they are doing.

After the set I was speaking to Roscoe who said that he felt happy with the performance, and from an artist is hyper self critical that was saying something.

I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of a run of gigs where he finds an audience who can tune into what he is doing.

The majority of people there were however attending the show to see Jon Snodgrass, and if I was to hazard a guess as to why then I'd lay money on it being down to the split 10”/Download that he did with Frank Turner.

The amount of Turner t-shirts and the regularity that his name trips from peoples lips make it a tad obvious.

Regardless of their reasons for making the effort to show up for the gig they were keen to be entertained as when both Jon and Cory wandered through the crowd to take their places behind the microphones the buzz was palpable.

I'd previously heard both while trawling the internet, and kicking about somewhere is a few Drag the River albums, but until now I had seen neither live.

My ignorance to what they do on stage actually extended to the point that I was under the impression that they were going to play separate sets, and maybe at some point of the night perform some songs together from their split release from 2009.

Instead they simply hung about on stage shoulder to shoulder and comfortably eased into songs as the mood took them.

It's a communal performance with each of them accompanying the other as required.

Jon would add some vocals and guitar to one of Cory's songs and likewise Cory would do the same for Jon.

It's an approach that could lend itself to being disjointed and problematic, but in this case it flowed rather naturally, and I presume that ease is rooted in the artistic relationship that the two men have.

For myself I was more impressed when Cory Branan took the lead, but that's not to say that Jon Snodgrass is a lesser talent, but more so an expression of my own personal tastes.

Both are of course exceptionally talented individuals.

It's just that the gruff tones of Cory's voice ticks more of the boxes for me.

Musically Jon is an extension of Drag the River minus the vocals of Chad Price.

There's no great leap in a different direction, and instead he's still meandering down the path without any distractions from forks in the road that are there.

Fans of the band would not be disappointed with the performance, and anyone being introduced to what Jon does should have been suitably impressed.

However for me it was Cory who stole the show.

He's the raconteur of the two and comes across like an amalgamation of every blue collar troubadour you could care to name.

It's entirely possible that I'm holding the minority view in my preference for Cory over Jon because as said the crowd was in the main there to see Jon play, but in all honestly there's a small voice whispering away in my ear that this was only down to the 'Turner' influence, and if Jon hadn't released that split with him then there would have been far fewer people willing to dip their toe in and sample what was on offer.

Regardless of that I sincerely hope that they liked what they seen in its totality, and will now use the experience as a catalyst for action and begin to keep an ear out for artists of a similar ilk.

Full kudos has to go to promoter 'Punk Rock Rammy' for making this gig a reality.

Well played.

Keep up to date with Punk Rock Rammy gigs here.

The Vox Dolomites

The sound of ska influenced punk never dies.
Instead it does the hokey cokey as a musical sub genre.
One minute it's in, then the next it's out, but it always shakes it all about.
The reason that it will not die is because bands like The Vox Dolomites resolutely keep breathing some hot and exciting life into it.
On the three tracks that they are giving away free to promote their forthcoming album on STP Records you can literally hear the sound of punk and ska clashing.
This isn't the sounds of Jamaica or the dance halls.
It's the sound of the streets.
Streets full of every hue of skin, full of people who are all flashing large grins and stamping their feet to the beat.
It's a party. A working class party with more attitude than you could shake a stick at.
Class stuff and you can grab it here.
http://thevoxdolomites.bandcamp.com/

The Bucky Rage interview

Eld - How you doing Alan? I suppose to kick things off we should accept that out with the West Coast of Scotland the The Bucky Rage will be largely unknown. So do you want to fill us in on how the band started?
What was the catalyst for you guys getting together and the story behind the masks?

Handsome Al - The band started 6 years ago, I'd bought a guitar and started teaching myself a couple of chords, a couple of weeks later I realised it would be more fun making a racket with some other people and so roped in 3 mates and we started from there.
To balance out my inabilities we decided to have the other guys play instruments that they didn't usually play, our drummer/singer wasn't a drummer, our bass player was a guitarist and the other guitarist was a keyboard and sax player!
Leading up to that I had been running quite a lot of gig nights with another mate, and I'd come to the realisation it would be much more fun to be on the stage than off it.
There was loads of bands that I liked bits of. Some had great tunes, but no presence, others were great to watch but sounded terrible. So essentially I wanted the band to be the sort of band that I would want to see on stage.
Simple raw rock n roll presented in an interesting way.
As for the masks? Well that started as a way for the other band members who were playing in much more sensible, and some would say credible, bands to hide their identities, and as I'm a massive wrestling fan I was more than happy to get a mask on and rip it up!

Eld - How were you initially received though? Four guys playing garage punk in luchagor masks in the corner of a Scottish bar I'd presume would jar the senses of some.
Did it take a while for audiences to get what you were doing?

Handsome Al - The very first show, half the audience left by the end of the first song, the other half got totally into it. Halfway through the set the security tried to throw us off stage, but was strongly persuaded that we would be finishing our set!
Folk seem to love it or hate it, and that suits us just fine.

Eld - This 'take it or leave it' attitude seems to be something that could be construed negatively, but it's an approach that seems to be shared by all the bands who are playing in and around Glasgow who could be described as the most entertaining.
CJ Monk of Tragic City Thieves once said that he would rather get a reaction, good or bad, than no reaction at all.
For me that attitude, along with the talent to back it up, has created a very loose grouping of bands that while they couldn't be described as belonging to a scene with a specific sound, could all be grouped together due to sharing this attitude.
The bands I mean are Tragic City Thieves, Filthy Little Secret, Jackie Onassis, Eddy and the T-Bolts and yourselves to name just a few.
Do you feel any sense of kinship with these bands, or is my take on it an outsiders view?

Handsome Al - I think the take it or leave it attitude is a positive thing. Having that belief in what your doing and not changing it to suit more people shows conviction. CJ is spot on, its better to get any reaction than no reaction.
Obviously it's much more fun getting a positive reaction, but there's a real thrill in winning over an audience when you are up against it.
All the bands you mention are actually friends of ours through gigging. We've played with them all, and we share a like minded DIY approach in how we operate as bands.
Individually we've all run club/gig nights, booked bands we like and want to play with/see live, and we all record and release our own own material.
There also is a great deal of diversity in sound amongst us from band to band, but it would be boring if it was otherwise.
If pushed to comment I can personally see similarities with the early CBGB's NY punk scene.
All those different bands that were grouped together under the banner of punk rock,. They shared an attitude more than setting a template for a sound.
Punk is an odd thing though, or the perception of it.
To my mind there is nothing punk about recycling tracks from a handful of '77 English bands, it's far more rooted in an attitude to doing it yourself and having fun.
The kinship with these other bands comes from sharing that attitude, and from playing gigs together.
It's then that you realise that you all like a lot of the same stuff, like playing loud music and listening to the same good shit.
What's most interesting to me is the different ways all of these bands have taken what they like, same stuff we like, yet we all sound quite different. All branches of the one tree tree really.

Eld - How has the Bucky Rage developed over the years. I sort of see you as two separate bands. There's the live one that plays garage psych punk at 100 mph, and then there's the studio band who are far more shaded and cover more ground musically?

Handsome Al - We've developed in various ways. Technically we're a bit better, though thankfully not too much! I even managed to learn a 4th chord last year.
Seriously though we work hard at rehearsals and at gigs. We're constantly trying to improve what we do and keep it interesting to ourselves and the audience.
The live show is quite different from the recorded stuff because you get one shot at playing it live on any given night. It's a real pleasure and we just dive straight into it.
In the studio, because we record ourselves, we have plenty of time to redo stuff and add ideas that make the tracks better, stuff we can't do when playing them live.
I don't have a problem with the difference between live and studio. I love t working at bringing the studio material over to the live side. As long as the tunes are good it should always work.
You can see some big bands, like the Pixies and they sound identical to their records and I just think great, you can stay home and listen to the record. I want to see something different every time I see them, and by extension I want an audience to be given something different every time they see us.

Eld - You guys have already released a handful of ep's and compiled them into an album release, but you're currently working on your first full length stand alone release just now. How's that coming along?

Handsome Al - It's going well, we've decided to do another EP with half of the tracks on Eruption Records and are looking to doing either another EP or an album later in the year on Kovorox Sounds with the remaining tracks and some other stuff we have yet to record.
The tracks for the first one are finished, and sounding great. We got our mate and one of our many ex-bass players to assist with the recordings, which freed us up to concentrate more on the playing than the recording, and we're really happy with the results. It'll be great having something out on vinyl this time rather than CD, something we always wanted to do.
The second EP we have kept it a lot closer to the live sound of the band, all tracks recorded live playing together in our dungeon, we got a bit of work still to do on the mixing of them and a couple of additional tracks to record, but its all coming along well.

Eld - So are you planning on touring more of the UK once the releases are available, and are there going to be any mainland European dates to look out for?

Handsome Al - We've got plans to get out of Scotland a bit more, with dates in Newcastle, Leeds and Liverpool on the cards.
We are also in talks about arranging some mainland European dates too.
We love playing in Scotland though, we've made some great mates in loads of places here and the only time we catch up is when we're destroying their local venues!

Eld - How far in advance are you trying to plan ahead or is it more just a case of keep pushing and see what transpires?

Handsome Al - Gig wise, we try and make sure we are playing at least a couple of times a month, and have stuff organised for a few months ahead. setting up tours is difficult just now, 2 of us have new babies and 1 of us has a young son, so it's a bit tricky organising being away for more than an overnight.
We are at the stage that we've got some good contacts around the country, and can call on any of them to put us on and they will.
We have a play anywhere policy, as long as our costs are covered and we get a good night out we're open to offers, the more ridiculous the better!
With the releases, you got to do it all months in advance.
Everything takes twice as long as you think.
How many album launches have you been to where the albums are not actually there?
As a band, we genuinely love what we are doing and will keep doing it as long as it stays fun.
I don't expect that Lady Gaga is sitting at home worrying about our next move, or vice versa!


Contact info - https://www.facebook.com/thebuckyrage

René Berg - The Leather, The Loneliness...and your Dark Eyes

Bit of a lost gem this one.
Rene Berg was a musician who promised so much and yet ultimately, and sadly, failed to make it to the finish line and reap the rewards of his undoubted talents as a singer, musician and songwriter.
For a while in the eighties he seemed to crop up here, there and everywhere. I'd find myself waiting patiently for one of his projects to bear fruit only for them to crash and burn leaving nothing but high praise for unreleased demos.
To be honest it was a real pain in the arse.
Then it finally all fell into place and we got this, his one and only solo album.
A nice blend of gutter styled, glam tinged, rock and roll that didn't disappoint.
Band - Rene Berg (Guitar and vocals)
Bernie Torme (Guitar)
Paul Gray (Bass)
Rat Scabies (Drums)
http://rapidshare.com/files/342503821/Rene_Berg.rar