Hysteria - Ceremony UK tour 2012

Hooked up with Ceremony for their UK tour last month, it was great to see them play every night, and even greater to see how well audience after audience received the new Zoo material. The show at XOYO in London was savage, the equipment gave out three quarters of the way through. Manchester was too good, it was a blast to show the guys round my home city. The final show of the tour, in Leeds, was ridiculous. The venue looked like a bar / restaurant or something and descended into complete chaos. Kudos to the dude who broke his shoulder from going at it so hard.

Thanks to Jake, Anthony, Andy, Ross, Ben, the Eagulls boys, Robbie, Stuart and Natalie from Matador, as well as the Rohnert Park crew who came over. Here are some photos..

Lewis

Sgt Pepper's & Zoo

Caught in the headlights

Vs Wagamama

Rough Trade

Moho / Manchester

Afflecks

Sinclair's Oyster Bar

We visited Morrissey's old house

Adam & Nathan

- Josh

Dark Times

 
Dark Times are a Scandinavian punk group playing out of Oslo. The sound of their self titled cassette jumps and jitters around a select group of 80's and onwards hard hitting punk bellwethers. They manage to avoid stringing themselves to one cohesive sonic vision - which, admittedly, isn't always the best path for a band to take, as less indoctrinated listeners often like togetherness and relatability. It works charmingly for this group though.

Dark Times swing through heavy Big Black stratums, cruising angularly into squeals of Jesus Lizard riffing and on into well-hewn Grrl-style territories. The female lead singer bleats and blasts along almost independently - as if cleaved from the maelstrom behind her. Everything sounds quintessentially lo-fi except for her sweet vocal ringing that acts almost like a crown of light against the rough and tumble of half broken guitars fighting it out with half broken amplifiers.

 Her voice is also interesting in another respect; in that she sings almost pitch perfectly similar to the lead vocalist of Sweden's Burning Kitchen. If it turns out to be the same woman, well, I wouldn't be surprised. If anyone can shed light on this, please feel free to.

There is a strong noise factor to Dark Times, that's constantly in battle with the less demanding essential qualities of Bikini Kill or a battery acid version of Plastiscines. You can hear the two strains collide on the second track "Talk Too Much". A peppy riff somehow manages to keep itself in formation to produce perhaps the lightest minutes of the cassette, when all the while it feels as if you're only a tuning or so away from a total freeform pig-fuck. Parts of the record lumbers along in that half-drag Flipper state, if Flipper didn't view the art of simpler song writing as tantamount to treason.

Give this a listen, I'm almost as excited about this group as I am about what Shoppers are doing right now. Download

 - Josh

An interview with RUNNY

Runny are a mercurial group of Brooklynites playing dramatic, sexually deviant punk rock straight out of the Dwarves / Poison Idea archive, all the while channeling a Gibby Haynes lust for naked mayhem. I can't help but love them. I want to bus their drinks and drugs around the practice room while they wail about all things cheap and mind altering.

How we managed to get this interview is beyond me. You can download their latest record 'We've Come For Your Women (And Some Of Your Men) for free from their site. Get it here

What were the beginnings of Runny like? Have you all played in bands before?

Lemon Cookie: Runny started in 1993 and has been through a million changes... we've always been a punk rock mess, but it's manifested itself in a number of different ways: It's been a DJ / Guitar act, an acoustic & wig-based mess, a CD-player performance art thing (that sucked), and its current version. Everyone has played in a ton of other bands - right now, Colonel Cream & Cracker Dap playing in The Whores and Cupcake plays in the Pioneers of Seduction.

Colonel Cream: In 2008 Cracker Dap and I were kidnapped, drugged, and put through a Runny re-education program. When we came to we discovered we were the rhythm section of Runny. It's been downhill since. Won't someone please help us?!

LC: Easy there, Colonel. Help is on the way.


Kidnapping and re-education programs aside, you all seem rather connected on a personal level, what with the sweet tooth nicknames and the shared sense of humour.. is that an important part of the band's ethos?

LC: The only ethos we have is to have fun together. We're only in this for good times, bad drugs, groupies & groupers. The names are just to protect our real identities!

CC: It's true. We're only in this for fun and cheap sex. In all seriousness though, I love my 'mates so much. This is just our excuse for getting together several nights a week, drinking, and shredding our vocal chords on lyrics like 'I JUST WANNA FUCK'. It's quite satisfying.


Is it important to you to be identified as a New York band?

CC: Actually, I'm not sure New York would like to be associated with us. We recently received a cease and desist letter from the NYC District Attorney ordering us to remove any mention of this fine town from any band promotional materials. This interview doesn't count because it appears in the UK, right?

LC: Yeah fuck those guys… That's why we don't want to be identified as a New York band, even though we're all from Brooklyn and its tough not to be influenced by all the amazing bands we get to be around. Hey Colonel, how's my grammar been lately?

CC: Terrible as usual.

LC: I blame that on New York.


Yeah, well, I am the UK arm of this blog, the other half is ran from Los Angeles. The New York scene is considered by many cognoscenti to be one of the strongest scenes going right now, particularly the hot mess of sounds coming out of Brooklyn, so despite your rejection (or NYC's rejection of you) do you not feel an affiliation with say, The Men, Crazy Spirit, and the others?

LC: Actualy, Bob Johnson from Scenic just played me The Men the other... it's good stuff. But we're more in JD Samson's band MEN.

CC: There are some mind blowing bands out here right now. "Don't" is one of my new favorites. Also love Bugs in the Dark and of course our cousins, the Naked Heroes. Yeah… New York City is like no place on earth. It's still magic to me.


I can't imagine what the recording sessions must have been like. Is it all fun and games or is there a definite overriding sense of seriousness?

LC: George was insistent that we go into the studio fully rehearsed so we can bang out the tracks. So the first day was fairly professional. The day of the mix I got so drunk that I could barely stand up. That wasn't so professional.

CC: George and Alap were just amazing, total pros. It was the best experience I've had recording so far. I can't say I ever felt too serious though...hard to when you're banging like hell on the drums and screaming about sucking on the wrong dick.


Sexual deviancy aside, what are the root influences for this project?

LC: Sexual deviancy really is 90% of it. Also, social anxiety & a complete disdain for actually knowing how to play our instruments. Bands wise, though - we worship a ton of different stuff: Swans, Melvins, The Dwarves, Future of the Left... And, like, we just played with this band Agitator who were fucking amazing.

CC: If you listen close, you'll hear the influence of Mahler and Debussy in my drumming. Poor guys are spinning in their graves.


'We've come for your women..' is a total slab of punk rock, but with a glossy, well produced veneer. Is this something you were conscious about when recording?

LC: Nope! Our good friends George Michael Jackson from the Naked Heroes produced it and Alap Momin from Dalek engineered it. Both those guys know what they are doing and what they wanted it to sound like and we trusted them. We recorded and mixed in two days and came out with that fury.

CC: Recording that album was one of the most intensely pleasurable experiences I've ever had. I found new levels of scream and have George Michael and Lemon Cookie to thank for that. It was quite a three-way. Please don't tell George's wife. Looking forward to our next trip back to the studio...


What are you all listening to right now? Give us a rundown of what's had most turntable time for you guys.

LC: I've been on a grind kick lately... Baptists, All Pigs Must Die, Nails. But I dig that new Ceremony record and then mellow shit like Dntel or Gil Scott-Heron. And I love that Kendrick Lamar record from last year.

CC: I am obsessed with Harvey Milk, Chokebore, and again, Future of the Left. If their drummer is reading this...I have plans for you.


Ceremony are friends of ours so I'll pass on the compliments. Do you ever see yourselves moving away from the sound you've honed now? Or is it all about perfecting the racket and doubling up on the sexual innuendo?

LC: We're gonna go where we are gonna go. There is no destination. And all the shit that's being written now is slow and dark. Less party, more hangover... Hey Colonel, that could be a new album title!

CC: That idea sucks, dude. But to your question, Josh, every once in a while a weird & mournful groove comes out. We've even been known to make a jazz noise.

LC: Yes and it's usually when I hold the mic to my ass and fart real loud.


Do you ever see yourself taking this show on the road? I'm sure Europe would welcome you guys with open arms

LC: All I want to do is get back on the road. We were in Spain in September and it was the best fucking time ever. Anyone who wants to bring us over, feel free to holler.

CC: DYING to go back to Europe on tour. Spain was incredible. And we want to come to the UK! I've been tested and my doctor says I'm now cleared. Get ready, because we really are coming for your women. And some of your men.


Haha, the UK would be down for Runny. I'm curious as to what kind of bill you guys feel comfortable playing on.. is it a case of curbing the mosh on the more hardcore flavoured line-ups or do you get the chance to play with more like-minded late 70's orientated punk rockers?

LC: Weirdly enough, our best shows are with bands that don't share our sound. Our best shows have been with metal bands or hiphop acts or jazz quintets, or with the aforementioned Naked Heroes. Strange how that works.

CC: So true! But our favorite crowds are the ones that are comfortable getting naked and piling up on the floor in front of the stage.

LC: And preferably on drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.

- Josh

Ceremony - Zoo

How does a band begin to tackle the stigma of signing to a larger label after years of honing their craft and treading water at a celebrated house of hardcore? The options are limited - and the risk of alienation runs high. Assuming you play a special strain of guitar music with a semblance of originality at it's core, and you're protective of that, you only really have a choice of two paths.

You can follow the guiding light of the pioneering Hüsker Dü who, after their ascension to Warner Bros, refused to use the platform to write hook-heavy pop songs for 50's throwback America, and instead ploughed headlong into recording an album that smacked of early Dü flavours and a lack of compromise. Alternatively, you could stick two fingers up to the boardroom with one hand, use the other to seat a producer of Albini type rawness, and lay to wax a record more jarring, bolshy and inward than what came before it - à la 'In Utero.'

Whilst the transition from Bridge 9 records to Matador is by no means an SST to Capitol sized pole vault, for North California's greatest punk export of the last half a decade - Ceremony, it should be viewed in much the same manner. Matador records is of sorts the prom king at the independent ball, married to big billing acts such as Pavement, Sonic Youth, Guided by Voices, Interpol and others. For a label that concerns itself with the screeds of alternative sounding rock and squirming post-hardcore, Matador's coupling with Ceremony births notions of either a bigger label trying to euthanize a pure punk band's violent nature, or perhaps a label with deep rooted hardcore affiliations wanting to reinvest in the root reason why we're all here in the first place; punk rock. Sub Pop wielded a similar tactic by adding the noisy Pissed Jeans of Pennsylvania to their No Age / Fleet Foxes tasting roster.

Ross Farrar - Ceremony's unhinged Jack Kelly type frontman - once stated his intent to write a record "that's like the Pixies or something," which seemed like more of a reality this time round now that the dust has settled on the quantum jump from Still Nothing Moves You to 2010's Rohnert Park, where Black Flag bred with Infest noise gave way spectacularly to quasi-garage meanderings and burst of 'Punk Rock 101.'

Zoo uncoils with the first single 'Hysteria', a two and a half minute early Saccharine Trust style romp that unfurls to the sounds of Farrar's customary poetic wondering (How will we survive / we continue to ask / no one ever does / no one ever does). It's anti-anthemic by way of it's driven guitar and driven Social Distortion vocal hook, clever enough to know that it's not revolutionary, confident enough to swing it's dick anyway.

In the wake of Ryan 'Toast' Mattos' departure, the approach to guitar has undergone an overhaul. New Draftee Andy Nelson plays strong / weak element to the tested talents of Anthony Anzaldo, together they create a strong British via Wire and Gang of Four vibe apparent on say 'Repeating The Circle' or 'Ordinary People.' The band's partiality for Wire stretches further than their Covers EP recording of Pink Flag, as Zoo plays around with sped up 'Feeling Called Love' reminiscent guitar lines throughout. Zoo's wild ambition and sure of itself nature rarely holds up proceedings, yet the four minute diatribe of 'Brace Yourself' suffers under it's 240 seconds of tethered energy, with the final freak out not sounding built up enough to truly raise an apex around the album's spine.

The shortest track Zoo has to offer would have been one of the longest had it been featured on Violence Violence - clocking in at a hasty 1:37 - 'World Blue' crunches into life with a Bob Mould-like stop start guitar line as Farrar leaves behind his instantly identifiable caterwaul of albums past to channel the influence of Panic demo era Keith Morris. World Blue's urgency is the closest thing to a Rohnert Park relic you're likely to find on Zoo, signalling the band's intent for a clean break into ambivalent post punk and beyond.

Ceremony are still playing off a quarter-century of music history, yet Zoo finds them gradating away from the cheap guitars and broken noses of This Is Boston, Not L.A. into territories better associated with The Fall or Magazine. To assume the band have laid to rest thoughts of writing more tracks of Living Hell, Nail ilk would be half right, but the overriding thought should not be of heaviness lost, but of re-inventiveness gained. The weighty coffin nail of 'Nosebleed,' with it's sparse, harsher-than-Pixies rumble and thoughtful bassline, acts as a giant sleeper cloistered between the peppy to-and-fro of Ordinary People / Community Service - working in much the same way as The Doldrums or Into The Wayside pt II did for Rohnert Park.

As a band, Ceremony refuse to carry any creative dead weight, shedding skin after every touring cycle to colour themselves anew. After five years of chewing on those Greg Ginn licks and throwing vocal hysterics of Danny Spira proportions, the constant evolution has led them to where they are now - refined, concentrated, matured. Zoo is not a heavier album, that's agiven, neither is it an insistence on playing how they've always played. Ceremony went neither Candy Apple Grey nor In Utero, opting rather to remove themselves from the fork in the road and to swan-dive into murkier, untested waters. The results are substantially interesting.

Matador Records

- Josh

Video interview with Eagulls

Eagulls are a 5 piece Dinosaur Jr / Wipers flavoured punk rock group form the cold north of England. Their sound is equally split between the straight-forwardness of 70's British punk and the myriad sounds of 80's guitar dominant post hardcore. I caught up with them last night at Camden Barfly where they played as main support to The History of Apple Pie. Inbetween drinking neat vodka and hastily smoking cigarettes out of a bathroom window I managed to coax an interview out of these likely lads. On camera you'll see drummer Henry, guitarist Liam and the half feral Lydon-esque frontman George.



- Josh

Weird TV

Located somewhat equidistant from the neon dirge of Seattle and the coastal logging town of Aberdeen, Washington - the hometown of one Kurt Cobain - lies the verdent, arty metropolis of Olympia. The city itself sits at the end of the Budd Inlet, one of the last stops on the many tenticled Puget Sound, a locality which has over the years proved to be a fertile breeding ground for noisy, unabashed and rebellious strains of rock and roll.

Olympia has been the launchpad for a number of well known bands and labels, notably Beat Happening's iconic originator of twee, Calvin Johnson, who grew a steady following of fans for his K Records venture. And Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill, a woman of formidable musical knowledge and prowess who is reverred from scene to scene for her unshakable comittment to music and art in general.

There are more than just a handful of bands playing out of Olympia right now that deserve attention. The sheer volume of interesting sounds ranging from unspoilt hardcore aggression through to politically fueled straight punk rock, scorching noise punk and impressive grunge revival is staggering. Sometime in the near future we will be writing an indepth article about every Olympia band we can unearth, but for the purposes of brevity I will be writing about just one band this time round. Weird TV.

 The bio for Weird TV on last.fm reads ‘Punkest band in Olympia,’ which should be taken with a snow shovel sized pinch of salt because quite frankly the concoction of Bikini Kill bite and clamour fermented with drips and drabs of Wipers influence makes for something slightly more noise obsessed than clear-cut punk obsessed. It has been said that all Pacific Northwest / Washington state bands can have their sound traced back to either Wipers, Melvins, Hendrix, Beat Happening, The Beatles or Nirvana. This band ignore the rancour of Melvins, the quaint delights of Beat Happening, the precision of Hendrix and the accessibility of The Beatles to form a femme led contortion of messy rock and roll.

Their five track demo comes complete with a hastily scribbled cover that any fan of the artwork for Beat Happening's 1988 effort 'Jamboree' will be moist over. Alas, one should never judge a record by it's cover. The inner operations of Weird TV's first release are frantic and their sound is played with an apparent seriousness which can only have been instilled within their grain by Vail and Hanna's throttling of chords with Bikini Kill. The recording is basic, but the four-track-in-the-basement approach actually serves to clarify their sound as the dirty riff laden, groove riding, Stooges flavoured punk rock that it is. If the two minutes and fifty five seconds of third track 'Sex' had been recorded on anything other than a rusty Tascam then the opening screams wouldn't have sounded half as unnerving. Just as some ambience peddling musicians obsessed with minimal compression might want to record their craft within the hull of the salvaged Mary Rose or deep inside the bowels of The Cave Without A Name, Weird TV's tone, likewise it seems, benefits from certain characteristics of production.

Both 'Canalla' and 'Sufrir' fry a mixture of scrap-heap 90's punk chops with impassioned deliveries and cues taken from the likes of Nirvana and Bratmobile. The first few bars of 'Sufrir' had me double checking whether I'd unknowingly played Bikini Kill's 'I Like Fucking' instead. However, the comparisons should not be allowed to overcrowd what this demo offers. The juice thats been knotted into every second of this sixteen minute display of feral disobedience is remarkable. I guess there isn't a whole host of revolutionary ideas to get excited about, but perhaps the way by which the cuts of late 80's / early 90's Grrrl style have been allowed to recongeal in the 21st Century is to some extent an indication that sounds and noises can become nascent all over again decades later. As if by some divine natural cycle the spirit never quite died and the body managed to refresh itself.

Download - Weird TV Demo

- Josh

Omegas - Sonic Order

Absolutely besotted with this record right now. I loved ‘Psycho Dives..,’ but this is just a complete step up in terms of song writing efficiency. First track ‘Street Meat’ reminds me of a whole cornucopia of punk influences. Take your rudimentary Minor Threat attitude and mutate it by way of contemporaries such as Men’s Interest - only a less fuzzed out Men’s Interest - and blur the seams even further with a layer of Negative FX edginess and clout. There is also a fat vein of Negative FX boisterousness flowing right down the spine of this band.

Not one of the four tracks on Sonic Order get to see what the other side of the two minute mark looks like, and hopefully this should go someway to indicate how urgent this EP sounds. Swagger and punch relay into groove and shock as 'Ravage of Ape' burns through it's forty-eight second window. The guitar presence is pronounced but not overly hefty, certainly more garagey than anything you'd expect from a band who share their name with half of a Cro Mags album title.

Download Sonic Order (link from icoulddietomorrow)

- Josh

Milk Music

Milk Music

Beyond Living 

Self Released

2010

I haven't stopped listening to "Beyond Living" by Milk Music since I found out about them. Upon first  listen I have been completely hooked-in. Sounding like the bastard children of Greg Sage or J. Mascis, Milk Music have an uncanny ability to blend completely ragged and fuzzed out guitar lines with raw and passionately delivered vocal melodies that stick and won't let go.  Songs that sound like they were written and recorded in the same day. Leaving everything real and unhinged on display in beautiful abandon.  It's hard to not compare them to late 80's Boston bands like Buffalo Tom, Dinosaur Jr., or the earliest and reckless days of The Lemonheads. All the while tapping into the lineage and history of early 90's northwest bands like Crackerbash, Thirty Ought Six, Pond or lesser known Sub Pop gems of the era like Rein Sanction or Elevator To Hell. Yes, Milk Music are that good. Indeed they are compulsory listening to anyone with such an inclination to the sound of any of the bands here mentioned. 

Favorite Tracks:  Beyond Living. Out Of My World.

- Sam

Pagan Punx

This is Sam James Velde of LA's Cold Sweat Records, Power of The Riff, Night Horse and others, as well as Josh Turner who writes at youngsoulsbreakmoulds . Pagan Punx will be an explosion of record reviews, interviews, exclusive video material and general punk rock appreciation. We are fervently writing material, expect a slew of posts to kick everything off within the next few days.

Currently playing this, last years demo from Neon Piss. Check out their blog over at www.neonpiss.blogspot.com. Expect swathes of Punk 'n Roll nodding to west coast flagbearers of old such as Wipers. Perhaps one of the most considered, solid demos of 2010, yet despite how rooted and well executed it sounds, it manages somehow to avoid neat genre classification. If the weight of my recommendation isn't enough, check out what Terminal Escape wrote about this release & follow his download link.

- Josh