The Sux Pastels - General Chaos EP.

When punk rock first reared its ugly head in the late seventies its flag bearers instinctively knew that the short sharp message had to maintain some appeal.

Go back and listen to them and there are hooks a plenty.

Crudely formed some of the material may be, but that was part of the attraction, and as long as the pioneers kept sight of the structure of the song being listenable then all was fine and dandy.

That is until the eighties started to bite in and the shouty shouty brigade took the baton and ran down a cul-de-sac with it screaming anarchy at no one in particular.

Unfortunately their influence cast a shadow over what most perceived punk rock to be and when the name is uttered in the present day a sizeable amount of people paint a picture in their heads of Mohican sporting cider swilling dog on a string individuals acting antisocially.

And while that stereotype certainly does exist it’s only a small part painted into a corner of a very large canvas.

A small part that very often has little to do with majority of musicians who shelter under the punk umbrella.

Bands like The Sux Pastels who originate from East Kilbride in Scotland.

With a credible amount of years under their belts, and participation in more projects than they would probably care to admit to, the four piece have banded together to share their cumulative experiences and see what they can rustle up, and what they managed to rustled up is a rather grand overview of punk rock and roll in its entirety.

With nods to SLF, Buzzcocks and many others who carved a trail the guys have created a solid skeleton to flesh out with their own talents.

From the opening chords to the last guitar string being plucked the whole ep is punk rock ear candy.

The cover of Adam Antz Christian D’Or is supremely well delivered, but it is to the bands credit that this well established, and much loved, fan favourite doesn't manage to overshadow their self penned material.

Instead it’s more the icing on an already impressive slice of punk rock and roll.

The EP is due for release within the next few weeks and pre-orders can be taken on their facebook page.

It will be a limited run for physical copies so consider the pre-order tip your chance to secure a copy. 

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A Hard Rain at Sunshine Corner - Jon Zip featuring Mescaleros Pablo and Smiley.

The future is certainly unwritten.

Jon Zip can attest to that as I doubt in 2002 when the word came in of Strummers demise that he would have considered that all these years later he would be releasing an ep with the support of a couple of Mescaleros.

Or that in many ways he would be carrying the torch for those who gravitated towards the Guthrie-esque ‘this guitar kills fascists’ angle that uncle Joe was so fond of.

And yet here he is doing both, and with suitable agit-folk aplomb.

In hindsight some may claim they could have second guessed that this was on the cards after the Zips collaborated with the Strummerville charity to release the critically acclaimed ‘Road to Strummerville’ but hindsight claims are often easy to drop into the present with the ring of faux veracity applied.

So I call bullshit on them, but thankfully that’s the only hint of bullshit that is lurking around the arrival of this release.

With ‘Left Of Your Rights’ Jon, with Pablo and Smiley, starts of strong with a soft busking delivery of a song with a strong message.

In many ways it is a timely reminder that the establishment never sleeps when it comes to the erosion of civil liberties and we shouldn't just be vigilant, but proactive in protecting them.

Just when people in some quarters were considering that there is nothing musical out there with a message attached to it, and the protest singer was riding off into the sunset, Jon Zip softly slaps this one about your face in the nicest way possible.

He appears to instinctively understand that sometimes the voice of protest doesn't have to be a roar, and that a thought provoking lyric can do the job just as well as a rousing call to arms.

‘Kill Your Darlings’ is the quintessential mature punks response to the lacklustre nothing to say tired old template that modern pop music has become.

The autotuned era of vacuous and repetitive drivel that the mainstream has been pushing must die.

It’s been shovelled at us for so long now that it has become nothing more than an indistinguishable background of aural wallpaper that we barely register hearing.

A sound that has a sell by date that is long expired and no one got the memo.

We can’t kill our idols any more as the current crop of stars fall short of being able to carry the weight of being one, but turning our backs on the media darlings is probably a good call.

With ‘Wrong Door Raid’ the ghost of Bo Diddley is given a nudge as the guys have a bit of a laugh with mistaken identity issues.

It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see this as a future live favourite with a bit of rollicking audience accompaniment added.

The piece de resistance is however left to last with the inclusion of ‘1919 (Battle of George Square).

I wouldn't be surprised if the song draws some misguided criticism as some may want to claim it to be rooted in some sort of nationalistic fervour.

A hangover from the Scottish referendum perhaps?

More fool them as this is no more and no less an anti war song and its power cannot be denied.

Here were men returning from the trenches to abject poverty rather than a welcome fit for heroes.

No jobs, rents artificially inflated, and then as a response to the Red Clydesiders strikes Churchill puts the tanks on the streets and machine gun posts on the roofs.

This was their reward.

The payment for daring to survive what must have felt like Armageddon.

A betrayal, and one that is rarely mentioned in the history books.

We will fight them on the beaches and our own people on George Square if it comes to that.

It is simply in my opinion the best song that Jon Zip has penned and he should be rightly proud of how it is constructed, the message that it carries and the eloquence of its intent.

The pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

A hard Rain At Sunshine Corner is available from NHC Music.

Jon Zip will be playing an instore set at the New Hellfire Club on the 3rd of May at 5pm.

The Zips on Facebook.

Has anyone seen John Lydon and Katie Hopkins in the same room at the same time?

It would be very easy to take umbrage at the things that John Lydon says here.
Especially if you are a fan of both The Clash and The Ramones.
However Lydon is the self styled king of outrage and this is his stock in trade.
A mature consideration of what he has spouted can only lead to the conclusion that it is done with the intent to bate, and he clings to the delusion that this carries some worth to it.
Here he is gaining some media traction as his nonsense partially goes viral while simultaneously being unaware that people are laughing at him and not with him.

His comments are ludicrously ill thought out, and to a degree disrespectful, but through repetition of this sort of vapid missive there is literally is no shock value any more.

Who cares what he says.

It's Lydon.

Instead of being offended most now see him as akin to an aged relative with an incontinence problem.

The first time he shits himself everyone screams in horror, and then it is a talking point for some weeks, but a few years down the line when the odour that heralds yet another evacuation of his bowels reaches you there is no shock or horror.
All you do is lift a weary eyebrow and shout to his carer that he's filled his continence pad again before moving on to continue doing what you were doing in the first place.
It's really just become another day in the life of ol' shitty pants and no one is surprised or shocked any more.

And that's really all this is.
Lydon opening his mouth and once again releasing some words that have the value of the contents of an incontinence pad.

It could be funny if he shook it all up a bit, but he is lost in inhabiting the persona of the cartoon stereotype that he designed for himself.

It's actually a rather sad and pointless rut he has managed to create for himself to languish in.

PS - For those who reside any place other than the UK I should explain that Katie Hopkins is a talent void mouthpiece who the media trundle out to boost ratings of daytime televisions shows as she is hardwired to open her mouth and spout similar bollocks to Lydon.

The Machines - The Machines

There's a few of them kicking about.

Punk bands from the late seventies that is.

A rule of thumb for most people is that if they didn't make it big then it would maybe be good idea to leave the lone demo tape and press cutting in the memory box and keep the stories of the glory days for sharing over a pint with mates.

However there's always those little diamonds in the rough that shine as the exception to the rule, and that's where The Machines come in.

Formed in 1977 they lasted for about a year and did a hit and run on all the legendary clubs, and managed to get an ep out that Record Collector has in it's top 100 rare discs to grab if you can.

Not a bad innings really, but the story didn't end there, as late in the noughties the reformed and managing to neatly avoid going down the UK82 punk dead end street and released a fresh ten track album that highlighted that there was life in the old dog yet.

Quite a lot of life in fact.

Now both the ep and the album, along with four unreleased demo tracks from the seventies, has surfaced on a one stop for the lot CD simply entitled The Machines, and there's very little on it that the band would need to hang their heads in collective shame about.

You really don't have to consider the songs in the context of their time to wring out any enjoyment from them as they sound as good as anything that the young retro whipper-snappers are releasing just now.

This is punk rock from when it was still taking rock and roll and giving it a bit of a boot up the arse. There's no post punk meanderings, or the nonsensible smash the system roar that was to come, just good honest rockin' with a snarling street level slap to it that the world needed at the time.

That stuff never grows old really.

Buy it here.

Jimmy Cliff - Sacred Fire

Tim Armstrong could be to reggae music what Rick Rubin is to country.
The man who could give it a real shot in the arm by reviving the careers of yesterdays heroes.
That's not to say that Jimmy Cliff needed that shot in the arm, or that he is even one of yesterdays heroes, but the collaboration between Tim as producer and Cliff as artists does serve to bring him to a new audience in a rather grand style and could open the doors for others to follow.
Across the breadth of the ep it's got a solid punk vibe that Jimmy Cliff manages to comfortably wrap his trademarked tones around .
Guns of Brixton is reverentially treated and will warm the cockles of any Clash fans heart and the cheeky inclusion of Tim's very own Ruby Soho sits very nicely next to it.
The only original song, 'Ship is Sailing' occupies the central ground and offers a hint that the forthcoming full length album could well be the must have grab of 2012.
The inclusion of Dylan's 'Hard rain's a-gonna fall' might seem to be the odd one out when considered without hearing it, but once the beat gets going the flow continues with nary a ripple.
Closing with a reprise of Guns of Brixton done in a dub stylee could attract accusations of it being used a as bit of filler. But it's nothing of the sort and as a stand alone track is as strong as anything else already heard.
In fact it might not be a bad idea to add a full length dub version of the album to the album proper when it comes out and call it a special edition.
I doubt anyone is going to be disappointed with this.

Big Audio Dynamite - ABC - 30/3/11 (Glasgow)

In hindsight it's easy to see that Big Audio Dynamite were a band out of time, but they always would have been regardless of when they were formed.
They drew so many influences from the past, the present, and what they foreseen as the future, that they were musically rootless.
Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that they tore their influences out by the roots and took them on a very different journey into the future than was to be expected.
A definite precursor to a bands like the Gorillaz or Primal Scream who in my opinion can be found to be hanging from a branch of the same family tree.
This is why they sound as relevant now as they did in the mid eighties.
I'm not sure if that relevance has transferred into the here and now though as the crowd in the ABC is made up of the same sort of people who will jump on tickets for their stars of yesteryear regardless of how well the music has aged, and then there are the young Clash fans who all look like extras from a Rancid video.
I'm hopeful that they all take something positive from the performance.
The older fans a sense of the timeless quality that will urge them forward to discovering new aural joys, and the young Clash fans a nudge to work backwards to when BAD formed and then forward from that point listening to everything from Sly and the Family Stone to Ennio Morricone. Maybe with the expansion of their tastes giving them a deeper understanding of how inclusive punk should be.
Medicine Show as an icebreaker for the night works wonders, with Mick Jones looking relaxed and happy to be back in Glasgow. A city that has always warmly embraced him throughout his career.
He's got his shades on to hide a black eye, but apart from that minor injury he's looking well and up for enjoying himself. Pretty much indefatigable throughout.
Don Letts is the vampire dread of course. The man doesn't age and when he takes the mic there's not a creak to the old bones to be heard. He must be feasting on ganja sodden virgins to keep the ageing process at bay.
Leo Williams looks every inch the elder statesman of the bass with his dreads whipping the air as he lays down the heavy “riddums”, while Dan Donovan looks more relaxed than I had expected behind the keyboards. I'm not sure why, but I have this impression in my head that he has done nothing since BAD - although that may well not be the case - and he has been thrown back into the limelight with little warning.
For all I know he has continued playing week in and week out with everyone and anybody for years, but I quite like to think of him as someone comfortably coming out of retirement and showing the young guns how it should be done.
Greg Roberts, apart from being a founder member of BAD is also the guy who kick started Dreadzone. So he was as rock solid as to be expected. Offering a fine beat that everyone else in the band can rally around.
Everything fell into place as expected.
Some may point to little bits where the band were a little ramshackle, but has there ever been a gig anywhere that no one has missed a beat, hadn't had a tech issue or played a bum note?
I doubt it and to expect BAD to deliver at that level when very few others are expected to seems to miss the point a bit.
This is live music in all it's glory.
A little into the set and the country influenced Battle of all Saints Road reminds us why BAD refused to be pigeon holed then and still perversely manage to be the square peg in a round hole.
C'mon every beatbox sounds charged. Full of spitting and spluttering electricity,
Just play music encourages people who wouldn't normally run for a bus to break out some moves and try out some aerobic action that would shame a drunk uncle at a wedding.
It's all good fun though.
By the time the first encore rolls around of E=MC2 and The Bottom Line some people must be wondering if indulging in a second wind would be too hazardous for their health before thinking fuck it, at least if I die it will be with a smile on my face and going for the burn.
The finale encore was a surprise to me as I didn't even think that “Rush” would be a track that the band would have had a stab at due to it not being a song that the original line up had much to do with.
I'm glad they did though as it's one of my favourite BAD II songs.
It also went a long way to showing people that there's a lack of ego involved in the band.
Money aside this is a band of mates getting together to play the songs they have a tie to.
For me the perfect ending to the night.

Ranting with The Rotten Hill Gang (Big Audio Dynamite - Glasgow)

Part way through the Rotten Hill Gang's set and it's obvious that very few people are interested.
The talent that they display, and the patronage of Mick Jones, has no relevance to the majority of gig goers who have a season ticket for the nostalgia train.
Most are probably bemoaning the fact that they mistimed leaving the local bar and are having to shout over the noise of some ruffians on stage to chat with their mates.
If they had their way then the support would either be a less talented, but familiar to them, band from the era that Big Audio Dynamite enjoyed their initial success, or if not that, then no one at all.
It's a problem as old as time itself and it pisses me off for a number of reasons.
One being that for all those who consider themselves missing in - bar room – action know, they could be passing on the best band they are ever likely to see for a pint of watered down lager.
Every single act that goes on to either success, or critical acclaim, has to start somewhere, and this is where it is.
All of them, without exception, will at some point slog up and down the country in a support slot playing to disinterested music fans.
The disinterest being purely down to the band not having made a name for themselves at that point in time and no reflection on their talents.
Some people seem to need an act or artist to have a seal of approval before they will lend them an ear.
A mainstream magazine cover story will do, or a Jools Holland appearance at a push, but if the band haven't ticked those boxes then they will float under most peoples radar.
It doesn't make any real sense does it?
It also defies logic.
I've actually had a woman question why I go and see bands in clubs, sometimes bands that I've never heard before, because to quote her “I just wait until they are famous”.
My response was that she was lucky that others, like myself, do go and see bands and artists prior to the stadiums beckoning them.
As without us they would have never reached the level of popularity that she keys into.
Although her tastes tend to lean towards the chart toppers that I certainly didn't assist on the road to stardom.
I could actually realistically presume that she considers bands form on a Monday, release a single on the Tuesday, an album on the Wednesday, and then play two nights in the local shed to a sold out and ecstatic group of fans before heading back into the studio on the weekend to record the latest six songs that have been written for them.........and the obligatory four covers.
That's her thing.
Snowball and hell comes to mind when I pair this woman with The Rotten Hill Gang.
It's just never going to happen, but enough about her.

Another thing is the level of disrespect shown by not giving the band at the very least five minutes to try and impress.
A band like the Rotten Hill Gang didn't just magic their songs up out of the ether.
They crafted them.
Formed melodies, jammed with each other, added vocals, went back and tinkered with what they had come up with and then maybe added a bit here and took a bit out there.
This process doesn't happen the once either, but for each song they write.
Then there's the cost to what they do.
Rehearsal rooms, upkeep of instruments, getting to and from gigs. Arranging things around shitty jobs. All of this has a cost. Financially and emotionally.
There will be more to it than that, but that's a sort of overview, and what do they get in return?
Very fuckin' little at this point it would seem.
Mainly they want to entertain you, so does no one consider that based on a little respect for the process that they should maybe go and actually see them?
Well of course some people do, as behind me there was a few woman whooping it up as the Rotten Hill Gang do their hip hop thing.
If they were a street gang then these ladies would be called “the small mercies”.
The band themselves have a real melting pot of styles being stirred.
A heady brew of funk, soul, hip hop and street poetry drawn together with a punk attitude.
The guitar is sharp, funky, and I'm not even sure if it works all the time juxtaposed with what the rest of the band are doing, but that's not to say that it sounds wrong.
Just that maybe it's still a bit different sounding to my virgin ears and I'll have to wrap my head around it at my leisure.
The soulful backing vocals from the two ladies, who also lend their individually unique voices in taking the lead are impressive, and work well weaving in and out between the rhymes that Red is laying down.
I'm not going to say that I was swept away with what the band were playing, but the lack of response from the crowd is taking a good bit away from their performance.
There's a whole different vibe shared with a room full of people that are into what a band are doing and a quarter empty hall of people that could care less.
The band have very little to feed off of and regardless of how much effort they are putting into the performance, or how professional they are in providing the best level of entertainment they can, it's without a doubt an uphill struggle for them.
They remind me of “Do me bad things”. Not so much in the sound of the band or direction they are taking, but in the ability to tear up preconceived ideas of what should be brought to the table for people to hear.
It's got a superficial degree of familiarity to it all, but lurking somewhere underneath is a more challenging and interesting concept.
To sum it up it would be fair to say that the Rotten Hill gang didn't let Glasgow down, but Glasgow certainly let them down.
I hope in the future I can see them in a time and place that is more appreciative of what they are doing.