Duncan Reid & the Big Heads - 13th Note - 18/01/14 (Glasgow)

A matinee show you say.

Oh why not. In for a penny, in for a pound, and with that itsaxxxxthings first gig of 2014 was booked.

So not long after lunch time on a Saturday - while others were adding to the rising stock shares of Primark - here we all were in the 13^th Note sheltering from the reality of the outside world and looking to indulge in the fantasy of rock and roll for a few hours.

Monsterpop – the solo alter ego of Jimmy Devlin – opened the day with an unsurprisingly accomplished set of power pop originals. (Unsurprisingly accomplished as he’s been around the block a few times and has an excellent ear for a hook.) Anyone who had pulled themselves away from the upstairs bar early doors was certainly provided with an aural treat.

With just his voice and an electric guitar he’s able to run rings around some full bands.

Usually the idea of one man doing power pop raises a few eyebrows as it is a sound that lends itself to a full band, yet five minutes into a set and any preconceived concerns are very easily brushed off as the material and delivery speaks for itself.

As is the norm when an original artist is looking to draw some appreciation from a cold audience they throw in a couple of familiar songs, and both the Sex Pistols and Welsh rockers Badfinger were given the Monsterpop treatment to great effect.

With the future plans for the project including some full band shows it would be fair to say that those who are already impressed with the solo outings so far are going to have a great deal of awesome to wrap their heads around soon.

Party Asylum are a band growing up in public, and with that those who have witnessed them a few times are seeing an incrementally improvement with every gig.

There’s a bit of the Runaways in the sound, but it’s still comfortable residing in the garage, and then without missing a beat the band can step up close to the punk grunge of L7 while maintaining an eye on some bubblegum pop.

It can sound a bit schizophrenic, but pretty much all of it is working, and the bits that are maybe falling a bit short are reaching for the prize so it’s all good.

Songs seem to be getting dropped from their set while newer ones are being added at a rapid pace with this highlighting that artistically they are going through a growth spurt.

Given the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time Party Asylum could surprise a few people and break out from the local scene in the way The Amazing Snakeheads have.

Keep an eye out for their name under the ‘ones to watch’ headlines.

There aren’t that many bands who can blaze their way through twenty odd minutes of music and in doing so draw the reaction of one promoter and a record label to them, but that’s what Party Asylum did.

It’s with no hint of embarrassment that I can lay claim to publicly shouting from a few rooftops that the Media Whores released one of the best albums of the year in late 2013, and as it is still bedding in with people it’s continuing to garner one rave review after another with each positive word lending credence to my early ravings.

I’m personally very pleased to see a band that I placed some faith in consistently proving me right.

Forget mainstream success, and just simply consider artistic credibility and the band are there.

One of the reasons that the band are doing so well is very obviously down to them being able to walk the walk though.

If you deliver in the studio you have to add a dimension to the songs live that gets an audiences blood pumping and the boys are doing exactly that with every show they play

With every gig that they tuck under their belts they are killing it.

Their ability to use punk rock as a springboard to leap from into a melting pot of influences is a joy to experience.

The day was always going to belong to Duncan Reid though.

I could be wrong - it is known to happen – but I think the last time he graced Glasgow with his presence was when his band The Boys opened for the Ramones in the legendary Apollo.

Since then he’s hit every corner of the globe wielding his bass and scissor kicking his way across stages large and small.

However the sidekick role has now been firmly set aside, and with his band ‘The Big Heads’ he has set out to grab some of the spotlight for himself.

It only took thirty five years of writing, but with his debut he has the material, and the band, to make more than just a credible effort at keeping it shining on him.

What he is doing is far less than the busmans holiday that some may think. Instead it’s a clear move to lay the foundations for a career move that couldn’t be described as one that simply wants to tread water.

I will hazard a guess that during the process of writing and recording, and now playing live, the thought at the forefront of Duncans mind was/is how he could take an attitude and sound that some already think of as perfect and take it to the next stage, or ultimately that the project wasn’t worth doing at all.

If I am right then he can rest easy at night knowing that he, and his band, have achieved just that.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding though, and on a dreacht* Saturday afternoon he shook the foundations of the 13^th Note and garnered fistfuls of younger fans who until that day probably didn’t have much knowledge of his past endeavors, while keeping the faith of those a bit longer in the tooth.

A more difficult balancing trick than some may think.

It is this ability to take original music out there and secure peoples attentions from cold that can’t really be stressed enough though.

Past efforts meant little and everything they played was judged in the here and now and was found not to fall short in any way.

With a blistering set that had confidence in the material from his debut they took those who were there by the hand and led them on a merry dance.

The Boys tracks were of course a welcome addition, but refreshingly there was no move to hang the rest of the set off them as if they were a nostalgic coat hook.

If there was ever a gig that deserves to reside in the ‘you should have been there’ conversations then this was it.

First gig of the year for me and the benchmark is already set ridiculously high.

Outstanding.

* Scottish word for an overcast, dull and wet day.

Photographs by Gobo Photography. More form the show and Hi Res versions can be found here

Duncan Reid Website

CBGB

CBGBs.

The name conjures up a thousand dreams.

It doesn't really matter if you never played there, failed to see a band there, or even missed out on making the pilgrimage to its hallowed doors to pay your respects to the venue that birthed so many monsters.

None of that matters as its legend cannot be diminished as every single punk fan still owes a huge debt of gratitude to Hilly for opening the doors of his bar to the bands, and fans, who took music off in a direction that few could have imagined would shake the world.

So with a biopic now available we should all be lining up to bask in the cinematic homage to the venue we all know and love, as let's be honest here and say out right that no one could fuck up a CBGBs biopic.

The place is steeped in so many stories that could jump to the screen that it's a sure fire hit, and who cares if it wasn't to be entirely one hundred percent accurate as long as its heart is in the right place.

Oh, but wait.

I just watched it and it is a pile of shit.

There's probably more shit shoveled into its 101 minutes run time than Hilly's dog ever left on the floor.

And on the subject of his dog.
I sincerely hope that the fleas it carried on its back are now being relocated to the pubic area of the director Randall Miller.

You could ask me what is wrong with it, but it would be easier to list what is right with it.

The soundtrack is great.

That's it.

I'm not even going to comment on the official soundtrack release that doesn't feature The Ramones as that's another story, but simply put you are best enjoying this film with your ears open rather than your eyelids.

No one looks like anyone we know, the dialogue is reflective of the venues toilets, and it is like an over long advert for some kids television show.

To paraphrase a comment that the front man of a band - who shall at this point remain anonymous - said to me about another act 'You know it's shit, but it wrapped up in layers of cream to disguise that. It looks good, but dig away at it and it's still shit at the center.'

Now I like Harry Potter. I'm not ashamed to admit it, but Ron Weasly as Cheetah Chrome is just too much of a leap of faith for me, and I have a sneaky suspicion that Rupert Grint knows it to.

The Debbie-alike? Bollocks.

Stiv-alike? More bollocks.

How can you fuck up the Ramones. 

There are cartoons that capture them better than this motley crew of guys in bad wigs and leather jackets.

Television, Talking Heads.....oh give me a break.

I could throw a stone out of my window and hit someone that would be more appropriate to portray these people.

Taylor Hawkins.....Get back to your drum stool and behave yourself.

Do you know how bad this is?

It hovers just below that point where a bad film manages to shake off the shackles of being really really bad and steps up to being so bad that in a perverse way it's good.

It's just at that pinnacle of simply being bad, and fails to smash the glass ceiling of badness that would bring it to cult level bad.

Right now someone is having a bowel movement that is providing them with more pleasure than this would.

In fact a proctologist is probably wrist deep in someone somewhere and as they groan in discomfort is is saying 'shut up or I will put on the CBGBs film and you will know what real pain is.'

I would tell people to avoid it at all costs, but I expect that similar to myself you will be saying that it can't be as bad as people say and you will have to learn from your own mistakes.

Do you know the worst thing about it to?

I might still buy this fuckin' waste of celluloid as there's a bit of the anally retentive punk in me that would feel that I need to get it.

I bloody don't, but the completest urge is strong.

I know I'm going to hate myself in the morning if I do.

It really is an atrocity.

A pox on everyone involved.

You pissed on my dreams.

New Found Glory - Mania

I love the Ramones.

Always have done.

From the very first time that I heard them I was bowled over, and their music has been a constant companion throughout the vast majority of my life.

I am such a fan that I even have the legend 'gabba gabba hey!' tattooed around my right ankle.

So if there's ever a body needing identified on crimewatch, and all they have is a right foot and a bit of an ankle and that's what is written around it, then you can safely pick up the phone and say that there's a good chance it's me.

I also like New Found Glory, but not to the extent that I would bother getting anything to do with them tattooed on me.

So as I love The Ramones and like new Found Glory there's a good chance that if you pair them then I'll get along fine with whatever the outcome is.

Well that's what I thought, but 'Mania' is just a straight take on the bands classics, and each time I listen to it the tracks beg the question why I'm not just listening to the originals.

New Found Glory to great versions of the songs, but so what?

It's all a bit pointless really.

If they were to encore a live set with this collection of Ramones tunes I would drag my carcass to the front of the crowd and even at this late age I might even indulge in some crowd surfing, but without the live environment and the excitement that is embodied in a band going for it with big shit eating grins I'm not really seeing the worth in this.

Choking Susan - I was a teenage tranny

Choking Susan with their evocatively titled 'I was a teenage tranny' release are without a doubt worshipping at the alter of 'Da Brudders'.

There's no way around not mentioning it.

Every track could have been spawned from the pen of Dee Dee, but only after he's spent a night on the town with Jayne County and fried his brain with amyl nitrate.

It sounds like a filthy audio travel guide to the sex clubs of the Bowery. And that's a good thing.

Can you imagine Joey singing 'Oprah's Sweet Tampon'?

No, neither can I. So that's where Colleen Caffeine fearlessly comes in and kicks the shit out of the song.

In parts it's like the Lunachicks with balls.

In other parts it's just like a dirt bomb going off in a strippers closet.

This is actually what I want from my punk rock.

A fistful of real songs with a sense of humour that I can bounce about punching the air in time with.

Fuck all that testosterone fuelled heavy metal bollocks that masquerades as punk rock.

This is far more anti authoritarian as it pushes its outsiders status with it's tongue firmly in its cheek.

It's a debauched classic that stinks of the morning after the night before.

A glorious celebration of pushing the envelope of good taste, whatever that may be.

Somewhere the moral majority can feel their bowels loosening in fear at the thought of Choking Susan coming to town, and that pleases me.

Choking Susan.   STP RECORDS.

Joey Ramone - Ya Know

New York, New York. So good they named it twice, and today the blog features two New York Legends.

First it was the New York Dolls with their live Bowery album and now it's the turn of another Bowery legend.

The uncrowned, but in my head king of CBGBs, it's Joey Ramone, with the posthumous 'Ya Know'.

I'm an unashamed Ramones nut so this floating to the surface is akin to seeing a shining and life saving oasis in the desert.

It's been so long since I've heard anything new that he has sung that I'm pretty much delirious when I'm listening to this.

It's not all unheard material, but there's plenty to get your teeth into, and not one single track could be described as filler.

It's ten whole years since 'Don't Worry About Me' came out. Ten long barren years that have now come to a close.

There's been some talk about Joey's brother Mickey cashing in on the memory of Joey.

What a disrespectful pile of crap.

So what do the fans want?

A lovingly compiled album that members of Joeys family will profit from, and that will also serve to keep the legend alive, or some label profiting from cobbling together some crap demos and demeaning the legend that was Joey.

I know whose side I'm on.

Anyway, back to the album.

For it to have been created from disparate sessions it has a perfect groove going on.

The songs all flow naturally into each other and it doesn't sound like a collection of tracks, but instead an album proper.

It could have been written in the one sitting and recorded in one exhausting session.

No one, and I mean no one, will feel short changed when they slip this on.

For me Joey was always 'The Ramones'.

That's not to downplay the work of the other band members, but Joey's voice is what dragged me in and wouldn't let go.

Now here I am with the album playing and my head is filled with memories because Joey and the songs he sang were the soundtrack to my life, and now I have some more to get me through the present.

I'm in heaven here.

From the first listen, and then repeating the experience again and again, I've reverted back to being a pathetic fan boy.

I just fuckin' love this.

Forget this being a review.

It's my outpouring of love and respect for the man.

To think that these songs have been lying about waiting to be polished and released is sort of mind blowing to me.

While the mainstream magazines will dissect it, and in my opinion miss the point by failing to see the wood for the trees, I can just on a very basic level say that for a Ramones fan hearing this it is like having all your birthdays and Christmases rolled into one.

The smile on my face is hurting me, but in a good way.

PS - Someone please buy me the deluxe release.

Buy it direct.

Shonen Knife - Osaka Ramones

Da Brudders were the influence worn on Shonen Knife's leather clad sleeves since the day they picked up guitars so it was only a matter of time before they got down to releasing a whole album of their idols classics.
The only surprise is that it has taken so long.
Is it any good though?
Aw c'mon. It's Shonen Knife playing Ramones tunes.
It does exactly what it says it does on the tin.
So if diminutive Japanese ladies wrapping their tonsils around English language punk rock is your thing then you're not going to be disappointed.
Personally I would have maybe liked the speed to have been turned up a notch, but as a homage to 'the greatest rock and roll band in the world' goes I'm not going to complain.