No Aims, No Desires

Uniforms - Demo

2011-12-13T12:48:00.004Z

Usually I’m a bit late to the show with any band Deeker has been in (only caught Joey T by their 2^{nd or 3rd} last Dundee gig for example) however I’d like to think I was in the know on Uniforms before most, seeing as they were discussing getting the band together in my car when we went to see Iron Chic in weegieland back in May. To be honest though I have to admit to being a bit sceptical that a bunch of drunken eedjits from the east coast of Scotland could do anything that would come close to the likes of Red City Radio, Iron Chic, or any other American fest band, etc. And I was right. Well by right I mean wrong but that’s an entirely predictable set up isn’t it. It all seemed to come together quite fast too. They formed, recorded a demo and went over to Gainsville and played a pre-fest gig before even playing a hometown show. The demo is only three tracks but they’re all crackers, it kicks off with Schoolboy Errors which is a great sing along anthem, well anti anthem really if you listen to the words. Really reminiscent of RCR, the vocals are really raw and gravelled and it’s liberally sprinkled with wee widdly leads. I witnessed them play it at Book Yer Ane Fest recently and it was one of the best things I heard that day, barring Colorado Joe and Not Superstitious by Leatherface. I was stood at the side of the stage just thinking wow! Yeah, that was about all my brain would articulate at the time, wished I’d bloody filmed them now. Next song up on the demo is Photographs which seems to have a slower vibe to it, but that’s a purely relative statement as it still sprints a long at a fair old whack, this is punk rock, ken? The song is all about looking backwards, the futility of regrets and living your life now, and gets all shouty and noisy by the end, great stuff. I Won’t Forget You brings up the rear, originally a Tragical History Tour (Deeker’s acoustic alter ego) song, and on first run through of the demo this one was the song that really stood out for me, starts off with a bit of stuttered guitar and laid back vocal and then picks up the pace and explodes into a huge sing along of a song. If you’re in any way into the ‘gruff’ punk thing or just like good melodic songs you should check them out. I reckon they fill the empty spot for new local heroes quite nicely.

Get it here: http://makethatatakerecords.bandcamp.com/album/demo

Photos from BYAF5 in Dundee, Kage, 03/12/2011.

Dunderfunk - Brick Cat E.P.

2011-09-17T22:52:00.003+01:00

From 1989 through to '95 The Venue on Carlton Road in Edinburgh, a darkened hole of a club with strange slime on the walls down the stairs to the unintentionally unisex toilets, a place that perpetually smelt of stale beer, nicotine, sweat, and unwashed hair was my destination every Sunday. Sunday night was the Moshpit which generally meant thrash or death metal bands would be playing host to our lemming like tendencies as we threw ourselves into oblivion, swung round The Pillar or hung from the ceiling like the headbanging little monkeys we were.
It was here in around 1990 that an Edinburgh thrash band upon hearing the slap of a bass guitar metamorphosed into best funkthrashparty band ever. Dunderfunk. Sunday nights at the Moshpit were never the same. Well they were, but we just danced worse than before and got covered in donuts and silly string and foam and used surfboards indoors, wore our hair in bunches and did kazoo solos, but apart from that...
Anyway, I was going to post the two demo tapes and the live set as the Australian Dunderfunk, oh yeah, that was another thing, didgeridoos, they did that too, but I'm going to have to redo the tapes as lost the files, so in the meantime here is their one and only vinyl release The Brick Cat E.P.
Dunderfunk -The Brick Cat E.P.

Ah yes, I remember them well, those schizophrenic party days...

Spanish Gamble and Sunset Squad - Live in Muckys, Perth, 23/04/2011

2011-04-24T03:28:00.007+01:00

Good night out all round, took most shots in B+W as were coming out better that way.

Sunset Squad:

Spanish Gamble:

Postmortem - rehearsal or demo...

2010-11-13T20:44:00.004Z

This was on the other side of the Acid Reign live tape and was just labeled as Postmortem and the song titles so I'm not sure if it was a demo or a rehearsal but judging on the sound and the fact that all the songs run into each other i'm going for rehearsal. Putting it up on here as it may be of interest to some people. Postmortem were an early death metal band from Boston USA that started out as a punk band in the early eighties. I think this tape is from about '84 or '85 and you can hear quite a bit of the old punkiness to it, it's rough as fuck but that was part of the excitement of this stuff back then, it really sounded underground...

Postmortem - Rehearsal

Track list:
Just A Thought/Organised Crime/Run Amok/Armies of the Dead/Ready to Die

Acid Reign - Live in Leicester 1988

2010-11-10T22:01:00.004Z

Ok here's another live tape of Acid Reign. Recorded in Leicester at some point in 1988. I wasn't at this gig so couldn't tell you if the set did actually end abruptly with the need for a shit or if I just never got given the full set. I got this tape trading in late 88/ early 89 and the tape has survived in great quality despite living in the loft, no wobbles or owt.

Set List:
1. Magic Roundabout
2. Godess
3. Two Minded Takeover
4. Chaos
5. Insane Ecstasy
6. Bully Boy
7. Sabbath Mix

Acid Reign - Live in Leicester 1988

Slaving For The Great Dictator

2010-10-23T21:06:00.003+01:00

This compilation tape came out in '89 when the Tories were well into putting the boot into the working class, the welfare system and the public sector. Aren't we all glad times have changed...
This was an anti poll tax benefit put out by Darren of Myopic Dwarf fanzine in Bristol and along with the tape there was an A5 booklet with more info about the bands and the cause. I presume that bit is in a box in the loft with all my old fanzines.
At the time I was fairly narrow minded in the music I was listening to, so I found some of this quite eclectic but thoroughly enjoyed it apart from the Prostitutes track which is pretty bad. There's straight up punk from the likes of 4Q, Shock Treatment and Oi Polloi, some Big Black inspired stuff from Slowjam and Playground, goth punk from Every New Dead Ghost, Joy Division worship from the synth driven Dance Naked and Venus Fly Trap and the jangly ska punk of Culture Shock (which kinda blew my mind as I loved the Subhumans... but i totally got into CS off the back of this comp too) so there's no getting bored of a certain sound.

Enjoy: Slaving For The Great Dictator

Dagobah - If Music Be The Food Of Love... demo

2010-07-23T23:24:00.003+01:00

Nick the drummer from Dagobah sent me this demo not long after they recorded it asking me if I could review it in ENZK. Which I did. I loved it. They were from Grantham in England which I actually drove through once, on a long shortcut from Nottingham to Dundee. I still don't really know where it is though as we went all over the shop on that drive but I did think 'Hey this is where Dagobah come from' when passing the town sign 'Wonder if they know the way to Scotland?'. Dagobah ended up releasing some great 7"s on Crackle Records toured the U.S. and split up and reformed and slit up again. Twice I think.

It's a very old tape that looked a bit worse for wear, there was a bit of wobble and a lot of hiss so I've digitally remastered it (run noise removal on free software off the net) for you to help out a bit. Anyway this was an old favourite of mine by a band that came across as very ramshackle and fun, which is why I loved them. So download and enjoy seven energetic and slightly rough and ready tunes from a galaxy far far away...

Dagobah - If Music Be The Food Of Love... demo

Acid Reign - The Venue, Edinburgh, 17th December 1989

2010-07-01T21:08:00.007+01:00

Well this is the tape of the Acid Reign gig I mentioned in this post. It's a little bit wobbly at the start but hey, the tape is 21 years old so I think we can give it some slack, anyway it's only a few seconds and there's over 80 minutes.

Acid Reign were one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Every time I saw them, they were a bundle of energy, speed and silly banter, as were the crowd at the Venue. The tape is from their December gig in 89 but the photos are from 1990 or maybe 1991 and are really shit quality I know but it's no great surprise as they were taken with one of those 110 cartridge cameras that weren't designed for use indoors, in the dark or of moving subjects...

Set list:
1 - Reflection Of Truths
2 - All I See
3 - Godess
4 - Suspended Sentence
5 - Humanoia
6 - Bully Boy
7 - Chaos
8 - The Fear
9 - Insane Ecstasy
10 -Blind Aggresion
11 - Motherley Love
12 - Life In Forms
13 - Warriors Of Ghengis Khan
14 - For Whom The Bell Tolls
15 - Whiplash
16 - Big White Teeth

Acid Reign - live at The Venue, Edinburgh, 17th December 1989

Circle Again - XXX demo tape

2010-06-28T21:38:00.004+01:00

Came across this lonely photo of Circle Again in my files and it triggered a memory of seeing them in Drouthies in Dundee with Engage in about '99 -'00 (where I took the photo...) and that I really enjoyed them. Also Engage were down to a 3 peice at that show with Zoff doing guitar and vocals for the set but he egged Tadhg the vocalist into singing for their cover of Filler.

I liked them so much I bought the demo, which is here for your enjoyment. I never heard from them again so don't know if they released anything else or if they went on to be in other bands or anything. The only thing I did know was they were a straight edge band and that two of them were from Northern Ireland and two from Scotland. I think the drummer might have played in Engage and also Ensign as well at one point or that might have been someone else entirely...

Circle Again - XXX tape

Final Joey Terrifying gig in Dundee - 18th June 2010

2010-06-19T12:18:00.025+01:00

Joey Terrifying are calling it quits so this was the last time they were going to play in Dundee and it was a pretty good way to go...

First on were Sheilds Up from Edinburgh. Fast hardcore with chuggy bits in the vein of Champion and the like. Pretty good stuff.

Next on were Broken Few from someplace in England, melodic kinda No Idea type of thing.

Third on the bill was Sunset Squad who I haven't seen for ages, seemed less techy than before and more chunky grooves ridden in their hardcore mix.

And lastly Joey Terrifying, high energy punk/hardcore/ska partying music, lots of energy and banter, great to see lots of folk dancing and enjoying themselves. Just such a pity that this was the end...

Identity - Where's Everybody 7" EP

2010-06-04T22:46:00.005+01:00

This purchase was a happy accident for me back in about 89 or 90. I loved the UK pop punk band Identity (who later became Funbug) and whilst browsing the latest distro list from Full Circle (UK distro ran by Andy from the Instigators) I saw this listed. Now the Full Circle distro list was a wee A5 booklet with thousands of records in it, no illustrations, just band name, record title, record label (in tiny text as well). There was no internet to look up info on either so you were sometimes flying blind on purchases. Anyway this was listed as being on Loony Tunes records which was a UK label and I knew of no other band called Identity, so ordered this on the presumption that it was Redditch's Descendents obsessed finest. A couple weeks later my package arrived back from Andy with this record in with a bunch of other 7"s and I was a tad dissapointed to find this wasn't the Identity I knew but some Swedes that went by the same moniker so listened to the other stuff I bought first and think it was a couple of weeks later that I decided that I may as well give this a spin. Now, with them being Swedish I was expecting it to sound a certain way, you know what I mean?
So i put the first song on "Where's Everybody?" and fuck me if I didn't think this was one of the best 7"s I bought, after about 30 seconds. To me it sounded like it was a slightly more melodic Swedish Minor Threat! The next song, "Turn Around", slowed it down but continued with the DC influence coming on more Dag Nasty. The third track on the first side "Looking For An Answer" is a live one and again treads the same ground as Minor Threat if maybe a bit slower.
Flip the disc and you get 2 tracks, "You Can Feel Alright" and "The Place". The first is a more melodic affair with a measured pace and echoey guitars the last is a more frantic and noisy number and also the shortest. I loved this EP at the time and I still do, it is awesome stuff, I never found anything else by them back then but I see on Swedish Punk there was an album and another EP and a split. If anyone has any of them and can upload them it'd be much appreciated. I have the Really Fast volume 5 on mp3 but only the track names not the bands, so that's cool I can update that from SP.
Sorry I didn't photo the sleeve when i ripped the vinyl. Now its in the bloody loft and I can't find a pic of it anywhere on the net so next time I'm up there I'll try and remember to fish it out and post it on here.
Anyway here's the music for you to hear:
Identity - Where's Everybody? 7"

Enjoy!

Sabbat - Blood For The Blood God flexi

2010-05-25T17:30:00.001+01:00

Yeah, I was a major Warhammer geek when i was younger, played it from when it first came out around 83/84 and I was getting right into thrash metal from around 85-86 as well. I bought White Dwarf every month so when this issue arrived in 1987 it melded two of my favourite things in one package so I was well chuffed.
It's just a one song flexi but what a track it is! A paean to one of the gods of chaos of the warhammer mythos and Blood For The Blood God truely embodies chaos, nearly seven minutes of psychotic twisting schizoid thrash metal topped with vocals that growl and scream like demented beasts. It's fucking great and I still love it to this day.

Sabbat - Blood For The Blood God flexi

Incest Brothers - Ugly But Proud demo (again!)

2010-05-24T21:01:00.004+01:00

Found old mp3 back up files on some DVDs from 2007 so haven't lost all my stuff as previously thought so here we have the Incest Brothers demo again. Changed the file title so the hosting service doesn't think its dodgy porn this time and ban it again, so here you go:

Incest Brothers - Ugly But Proud demo

if anyone knows the track titles please let me know cheers.

Dear Landlord and Murderburgers - Bannermans, Edinburgh 9th May 2010

2010-05-13T01:13:00.001+01:00

Some more vids of Dear Landlord and Glasgows pop punkers the Murderburgers...

Dear Landlord - Bannermans, Edinburgh 9th May 2010

2010-05-10T09:05:00.004+01:00

Vid of them doing Lake Ontario:

The Bomb - Bannermans, Edinburgh, 15th April 2010

2010-04-16T19:18:00.006+01:00

vid of the last song.
photos coming shortly...

The Bomb - Bannermans, Edinburgh, 15th April 2010

Incest Brothers - Ugly But Proud demo 89

2010-04-10T17:49:00.007+01:00

This is for the Wizard at the excellent Terminal Escape blog.
Back in my way too prolific tape trading days i had between 10 and 20 tapes arrive each day, each 90 minute tape packed to bursting with new and exciting punk, hardcore and thrash music. However as the average song length was about a minute and a half and we never used tape boxes when posting so all the track listings were written out in the letters sent with the tapes, a lot of which never got written out onto inlay cards or folded up and put inside a box with the tape. Also regretably for storage reasons I gave away hundreds of tapes (2 bin liners full!) a good few years ago but that's another matter... Anyway, i used to have all my letters from all my penpals and tape traders stored away in a box which possibly got thrown out when we moved house or on the other hand could be somewhere in the loft. Which basically amounts to the same outcome, i'm never going to see them again! All of which is a long winded way of saying I don't have a track listing for this demo.
What do I know about the Incest Brothers? They were a hardcore band from the North East of England and were more melodic than most of the UKHC bands of the time and that's about it, although they were in Ian Glasper's Trapped In A Scene book but I can't remember much of what was said there...
Hope you enjoy.

Incest Brothers - Ugly But Proud demo 89

unfortunately the file got banned, probably due to the title. worse news is that my HD got dropped and is now fucked beyond extremely expensive data retrieval processes, so i've lost all my files! 0ver 25000 tracks quite a lot of rare stuff ripped from old tapes that i've since given away, and all my gig photos which is over 2500 photos, I am to say the least fucking gutted.

CAN NOT STOP THE MOSH!

2009-07-26T19:06:00.007+01:00

Not even by throwing furniture!
The undisputed heaveyweights Big Gunz Of Mosh destroy Kirkcaldy on 25th July 2009:

Great time, lots of banter, now what was that film called, y'know the one where...

DS-13 - live in Glasgow 2003

2009-07-04T21:33:00.003+01:00

DS-13 live in Glasgow. Not the full set as I had wanted to take photos as well at the time. That and the camcorder started to get really heavy...

New Bruises, Joey Terrifying, The Emos - Drouthy Neebors, Dundee, 08 June 2009

2009-06-10T03:11:00.014+01:00

Some photos from the gig on Monday. All the bands were ace so check them out.

The Emos:

The Emos: myspace

Joey Terrifying:

Joey Terrifying: myspace

New Bruises:

New Bruises : myspace

Goober Patrol - a shoddy live extravaganza

2009-05-09T19:02:00.010+01:00

More live tapes here, this time three, yes three!, gigs from Norwich's best melodic punk purveyors Goober Patrol. Hang on Vanilla Pod are from somewhere in Norfolk an all, wait a second. OK VP are from Kings Lynn, so yeah, Norwich's best melodic yadda yadda yadda...
So I put the Goobers on in Scotland a few times, first off in April 1994, Edinburgh on the 3rd, Dundee on the 4th and Aberdeen on the 5th. You get the Dundee and Aberdeen gigs here, no idea what happened to the Edinburgh one, would have been a good tape as they played most of the set twice after a skinhead came in just as they finished and demanded they play it all again.

The Dundee gig was in the much missed Chevys, this was the last gig there as it lost it's music licence shortly afterwards. The cops actually came and stopped the gig, in a rather polite way, waiting by the side of the stage for the band to finish the song they were playing, this was no Black Flag gig but apparently it was too loud for some of the residents. Stupid residents that had moved to a bunch of buildings that included 2 nightclubs, 5 pubs and a couple of late night takeaways, it was a main hub for late night noise and revelry in the city, what were they thinking? Didn't it cross there mind that there may be noise issues in that area? Or were the Goobers really so much louder than Motorhead? Who knows? Who cares? The photos here are from the Chevys gig apart from the ones at the beach, which were taken at Tentsmure where we took the band to see the seals and have a picnic, they went swimming and got sunburnt.
The Aberdeen gig was at Cafe Drummonds, the PA wasn't as good so the sound distorts a bit but was a fun show anyway, first heard Hey Jealousy by The Gin Blossoms in the van on the way back down to Dundee and kept getting it replayed over and over. They gave me the tape before leaving for home the next day.
We gave them easter eggs and they gave us the term shoddy to use.

The last one is them playing in their hometown at the Arts Centre, i'd travelled down on the train getting wasted on schnapps. It was someone's birthday, possibly one of the Ippo lot as I spent a good portion of the other band's sets drinking with the guys from Lovejunk and Elmerhassel and singing happy birthday, it's a bit of a blur really. I'm also not sure if it was 94 or 95. Yes I was that drunk I had no idea what year it was...

Chevys Dundee 4th April 1994

Cafe Drummond Aberdeen 5th April 1994

Norwich Arts Centre

Enjoy.

Radiohead - live at the Subway, Edinburgh - 26th February 1993

2009-05-04T18:30:00.005+01:00

This was one of the tapes found in the loft, recorded on my walkman at the gig so there's not much in the way of production but it's still pretty good and documents the band just before they broke really big.
The gig was rather good, on the guestlist thanks to my wife meeting them in London, small club and a lot of folk there and they played Creep twice. The first album Pablo Honey had just come out about three or four days before the gig I think. We met up with Thome the next day and went for a drink or two at the Theatre Royal, nice guy.

So here's the mp3 of the entire set, haven't worked out the set list though...

Radiohead - live at the Subway, Edinburgh 26 Feb 1993

Enjoy.

Some vids

2009-04-15T18:27:00.008+01:00

I'm kinda disorganised and don't put labels on things and so stuff often gets lost and forgotten about until I take it into my head to go have a rake about in a box of old CDRs like today.
Some fairly interesting stuff cropped up on one innocuous looking silver disc among a bunch of random mp3 files were these few vid clips from some shows I filmed around 2002-2004 (I would think).

Good Clean Fun - Victory Records Suck. live in Drouthy Neebours in Dundee:

Good Clean Fun - On The Streets Saving The Scene From The Forces Of Evil. live in Drouthy Neebours in Dundee:

One Car Pile-Up - Torn (Yes that Natalie Imbruglia song), live in Leven:

Dillinger 4 - ?, live in Haddington:

can't wait to see what I find on some of these other discs now...

This Is Scotland Not LA

2009-04-11T18:37:00.002+01:00

The last paper issue I did of ENZK was back in 2005 and mainly focused on the Scottish hardcore scene at that time. I put it out with this compilation CD as well so folk could hear the bands not just read about them. My computer crashed in 2006 and I lost all the files for the zine so I can't put that up although I'm sure they are on a CD somewhere...
Anyway here's the compilation enjoy. This Is Scotland Not LA

Nightmare Visions - Prophecy demo

2009-04-04T11:18:00.005+01:00

Got this demo through tape trading with Andy the guitarist/vocalist who was also in the Electro Hippies and Metal Duck, he put some live Metal Duck on a tape for me when I got the Metal Duck demo(I'll get round to putting those up sometime) and popped this on too, so I don't have an actual cover for it. I got it about 89 but I think it was recorded in 87, the band itself started in 83. It's grindy death metal with a really grungey sludgey sound to it. The band is actually still going and have released a few albums now with a cleaner and more epic death metal style these days, though Andy's vocals are still as guttural.

Nightmare Visions - Prophecy demo #2

Nightmare Visions - myspace

Newtown Grunts - Three Second Memory demo

2009-03-28T01:53:00.005Z

Back in '95 we drove down to Kirkcaldy to see Bob Tilton and Fabric and the opening band were The Newtown Grunts from along the road in Glenrothes. We arrived just as the Grunts were about to play (after taking some bizarre meandering route through Fife) and I thought they were going to be awful based on the fact they were wearing bin liners and toy army helmets. I think it was the peely-waly skinny legs on show that really disturbed me. Anyway after a lot of talking pish and joking around they actually started to play and they were totally amazing. Fast, tuneful punk with a wee splash of ska. Two vocalists a big yin (Brian iirc) and a skinny yin (Roddy). Lots of swearing; last song Ballad of a Newtown Grunt was based around the line "ya cunt, ya cunt, ya cunt, i'm a newtown grunt!" repeat until stuck in your head for ever. They also had a song about drinking Buckfast and liberally doled the stuff out during the song. They were really energetic and totally infectous and I fell in love with them and immediately bought the demo off them when they finished. I got two covers as there was originally some kind of a fuck up with the colour cover so they had a temporary one with a starfish on the front. They blame the drummer. I wonder who they blame for missing the last song of the tape? Two Pint Boring Bastard is listed on the cover but fails to materealise on the tape. Was this just my copy? I don't know...
Some time after this point the big singer buggered off to America and was replaced with Norrie and Lynn to make it three singers, they released a couple of albums and some singles and were on numerous compilations. They were the best live band in Scotland (or anywhere else for that matter!) but sadly fizzled out around 2002 leaving memories of great gigs and a slight aftertaste of tonic wine.

The Newtown Grunts - Three Second Memory demo

Baby Aspirin - Affynoweel demo

2009-03-27T15:43:00.005Z

Another tape rescued from the loft.

Baby Aspirin were from Dundee, and started about '94-'95. Demo was released in '95, punk rock with tinges of metal and a general theme of alien contact and conspiracy theory. Saw them play a few times, put them on with Goober Patrol in Monroes as well. Great stuff, great guys.
Think they put out a single before splitting up.

Lee the singer went on to the Eddies and Andy the drummer went onto a few other bands; Beauty School Dropout, Barefoot, The Red Eyes, Resistance, Jackhammers and probably more...

Baby Aspirin - Affynoweel demo

The John Merrick Experience

2009-03-25T12:43:00.004Z

Was up in the loft the other day and came across a box of tapes so picked out a few old demos to revisit. Starting with this:

Back in the late 80s early 90s I used to correspond with Karl from Bolt Thrower and he would always recommend bands to check out, usually grindcore and death metal bands he'd played gigs with and I generally enjoyed them all. (Apart from Nocturnus) In 1990 Karl told me his mate's band had just recorded a demo and I would probably dig it as it was kinda punky and hardcore, so I wrote to his mate Paul who sent back this tape, The Amazing Mr No-legs. I was a bit cautious to tell the truth, full colour cover and a general air of wackiness abounded. I was more into cheap black and white photocopying and stark and serious shit.

Anyway, I pop the tape in and hit play and despite myself really enjoyed it, a mix of hardcore, punk, metal and acid rock.
Even got a few bonus live tracks on the other side of the tape, sweet.
So here it is dredged out of a box in the loft for the curious among you to try 19 years later enjoy...

The John Merrick Experience - The Amazing Mr No-legs demo

Off With Their Heads, Four Letter Word - Bannermans, Edinburgh, 05/March/09

2009-03-08T11:20:00.010Z

Old blokes trip for this, Rodi, Johnny an Scott christening the inaugral intercity jaunt for the new silver machine. Much complaints about the no drinking rule in the new car.
Got to Bannermans later than expected while local punkers Down To Kill were on due to us thinking it was a different pub. Thanks to mobile technology we soon found where we were meant to be going. No thanks to half of Edinburgh being dug up though, it still took us about 20 minutes to go basically just round the corner a bit.
I was surprised Four Letter Word were still on the go actually, this Welsh lot have been around for a fair old while.Gutsy melodic punk rock with a politicized slant.

Four Letter Word - myspace

Off With Their Heads recorded output is a bit hit and miss for me, live however they were awesome, every song they played was a big grizzly power packed punky anthem. Would definetly go see them again.

Off With Their Heads - myspace

Camera was being a pain during this gig, didn't seem to want to focus properly, figured it was just having a problem with the lights especially the blue which was pretty bright, but when I got home the poor thing had died. Gutting as it is an old kodak dx4330 that has a view finder and all cameras these days apart from the big mock SLRs seem to have LCD screens only which I hate, and you can't stick an SLR in your pocket. Anyway the in-laws have nicely given me their old one which is exactly the same, yay!

Grabbed a pizza after the show as well, was pretty yummy, but forgot to pick up a copy of Artcore at the merch table. Damn it.

Abandon Ship, Ben Cozine - O'Henry's Glasgow, 21/Sep/06

2009-02-27T23:37:00.008Z

Weegie trip in the green machine for me, Rodi, Potter and Boab. Banter, tales of insobriety at Reading and tales of sobriety in Cyprus.
The Fight Back also played this gig but I didn't take any shots of them as I already had about 200 photos of them. I remember Mark played a lot of their set with his trousers round his ankles though.
Ben Cozine kicked it off and were pretty good, hardcore with jaggy bits and bobs.

Ben Cozine - myspace

Abandon Ship nearly didn't happen as their van packed in somewhere on the way up. They got picked up or towed or something as they eventually got to the venue and then blew the place apart. Ferociously energetic and extrodinarily happy (although it might of been rising hysteria as that was the tour fucked and they didn't know how they would get back to Brighton), the crowd danced and sang along (check Rodi and Potter duetting on Black Flag) and a jolly good time was had by all. They got coerced into playing about 3 encores of a few songs each time as well with guitarist taking vocal duties for a bit too. Amazing band, sadly now split up.

Abandon Ship - myspace

Trip home banter: discussing vegetarianism in hardcore and punk these days as opposed the 80s. Well when I say discuss it was more berating Potter for being a carnivore and that he should listen to more Conflict and that. Played a lot of Good Clean Fun as well with a lovely sing along in the car as we went through Perth...

Broken Oath, Black Channels, Sunset Squad - Balcony Dundee, 30/May/08

2009-02-27T13:45:00.000Z

I'm sure another band played this but no photos. Possibly Inches From The Mainland.

So we'll start with Sunset Squad, this was the first time I'd actually seen them, I thought they rocked but the bass player had his bass practically up round his chin which was really off putting. Potter was drunk and entertaining, so there were hugs all round...

Sunset Squad - myspace

Black Channels are 3 parts Allergo and 2 parts Mesa Verde, both were/are shit hot bands. Black Channels were stunning. Manic screamo noise, singer Matt is like a mini tornado screaming round the room, climbing and jumping all over the place and the entire set was done in about 15-20 minutes and I was just left feeling slightly concussed by the impact of it all.

Black Channels - myspace

Last on were Broken Oath, metallic heavy hardcore from Glasgow. They were one man down as guitarist Steve had to stay late at school or something. I believe he's a teacher and not been held back a good few years...

They were crushing anyway with Lee non-stop moshing as she screamed her way through the set. F'n great.

Sadly Broken Oath are no more.

Broken Oath - myspace

Justice, Common Cause, The Fight Back, and another lot - 13th Note, Glasgow, 18/Feb/07

2009-02-24T06:59:00.006Z

One of the problems about waiting this long to sort out photos is you forget things, like the name of this band. As far as I know this was the only show they played...

The Fight Back were one of the best hardcore bands in Scotland, this was their second last show but last time I would see them as I couldn't make the last gig. There was certainly an air of tension within the band. Bob was pissed and Mark was pissed off. Didn't stop the crowd going ape for the sing alongs, Keano spent most of the set buried under folk grabbing for the mic.
Sorely miss this band.

The Fight Back - myspace

Common Cause were new to me and totally blew me away, straight up fast hardcore with chuggy mosh bits, lots of energy and short songs, cracking stuff.

Common Cause - myspace

Final band of the night was Justice, I'd heard a few songs by them a couple years earlier and heard good things about them so expectations were running high.

And they were shit.

They had obviously progressed as musicians, which is the hardcore punk term for turning to absolute pretentious cack.

The few old songs they played were good though.

Justice - myspace

check the song light in the dark on their myspace page for what they did sound like and then listen to the rest to see how wrong it went...

Set You Goals, No Trigger, Chaos Days - Tunnels Aberdeen 12/Aug/07

2009-02-23T07:00:00.002Z

Back to 2007 again. Can't really rave about this gig, the trip in the car was more fun than the show, good banter from Rodi, John and Bob. Cautionary tales of viagra misuse made the drive to Aberdeen pass quite quickly.
Chaos Days were good, infectous pop-punkcore with lots of energy. Crowd reaction was less than minimal though...

Chaos Days - myspace

I hadn't heard No Trigger before this so had no expectations, the crowd came forward for them and they put on a pretty good show. Sounded like a poppier Good Riddance to me.

No Trigger - myspace

I was rather looking forward to Set Your Goals, was expecting a lot more energy and fun but they seemed a bit flat. The crowd was quite static as well which probably didn't help, reckon the kids didn't want to mess their hair up...

Set Your Goals - myspace

Chat on the way home was just as good, festivals, drugs and murder.

Intentions, Sunset Squad, Lockdown, Defense - Drouthies Dundee, 21/Feb/09

2009-02-22T08:12:00.017Z

Firt gig of the year, finally! Four bands for 3 quid all knocking out some solid old school hardcore jams.
First on were a fairly new band, Defense from Fife, a short but enjoyable set of chunky riffs and belligerent shouting. Shows a lot of promise, bassist and guitarist need to get a bit more movement going though...

Defense - myspace

Next on were Lockdown from north east of England, it's a pity more people had ventured out to see them...
Really good stuff, fast and raging and very tight.

Lockdown - myspace

Dundee's own Sunset Squad fronted by the ever pissed Potter were up next. They have a more melodic techy feel to their hardcore and every song is about Chris' discontentment with life...

Sunset Squad - myspace

Final set of the night was from Engage, sorry, Intentions. Fronted by Zoff it inevitably sounds like his previous band which is obviously no bad thing, still think, Dag, Turning Point etc with some more newer styling to the music akin to Champion and Comeback Kid.

Intentions - myspace

Best crowd response of the night went to some old drunk guy that looked like Les Dennis, that got given a mic and seranaded us while Intentions got set up. And they call it puppy looooove.....

Municipal Waste + SSS - Glasgow King Tut's 08/August/07

2009-02-19T19:17:00.008Z

Well this was the first thrash gig I'd been to in about 16 years, pity it was in Tut's which used to be such a great place until they put the barrier in but, oh well...
There was another band playing but they were wholly inappropriate to the line up and I'm sure we all elected to sit downstairs and talk shite while they were on.
I was well looking forward to SSS though, since getting their demo when they first started and they were on top form this night, fast bits, chuggy bits, widdly bits, songs about 'taches, the whole shebang, you almost forget they got no hair...

SSS - the answer is never
SSS - thrash with a small moustache

I missed Municipal Waste first time they came to Glasgow due to work or some crap, so glad they came back as they are a blast, total fun, and these guys have got hair so not only did we get some class A thrashage but it was delivered with mucho headbangin' gusto.

Municipal Waste - the art of partying

Municipal Waste - unleash the bastards

Crime In Stereo + Honour Among Theives - Glasgow Barfly 02/July/07

2009-02-18T07:49:00.008Z

Traipsed through to weegieland for this show which was slightly dissapointing as was fairly empty. The local support band were truly awful and played, sorry murdered, a whole set of covers, it was terrible but you just couldn't tear yourself away as it had that car crash spectacle thing going on.
Anyway, Honour Among Theives were fairly good but I wouldn't be able to tell you what they sounded like but they played well. Here's them:

Crime In Stereo put in a good show and were pretty energetic despite the even sparser crowd by the time they came on. They play melodic hardcore along the lines of Good Riddance...

Crime In Stereo - what a strange turn of events

Crime In Stereo - im on the guestlist motherfucker

This amused me no end

2009-02-18T07:31:00.003Z

Atomgevitter - Edinburgh Subway 03/June/07

2009-02-17T02:53:00.007Z

Atomgevitter didn't fail to entertain, fast and manic thrashcore, singer Roddy jumping all over the place like some dreadlocked monkey on speed. Pity the guitarist is from Germany so they don't play too often...

Atomgevitter - Atomgevitter

Atomgevitter - cannae teach it

The Process - Edinburgh Subway 03/June/07

2009-02-17T02:25:00.008Z

Heavy, dark and harsh metallic hardcore gets served up by The Process. Crushing stuff.

The Process - 83 ways

The Process - picking up the pieces

Amok Atak - Edinburgh Subway 03/June/07

2009-02-17T02:18:00.003Z

These guys were the openers at this gig, a Polish band based in Edinburgh consisting of a drummer, a vocalist and two bassists. Crazy blast beating grind.

I ain't got no mp3 of them i'm afraid...

Iron Lung 03/June/07 Edinburgh Subway

2009-02-05T23:56:00.010Z

Time for a stroll down memory lane with some unpublished photos. I used to put all my gig photos up on the ENZK site but my computer died and then it was a pain sorting files out as I lost my editing software and putting everything up using html was time consuming and I just kinda gave up. Still took photos just never did anything with them, so now I'm trawling through the archives and putting them up here.
So starting with the oldest dated folder first...
Third of June 2007 looks like I drove through to Edinburgh with (if I remember rightly) Rodi, Potter and Gav for this show. I'd never heard of Iron Lung but the Process and the mighty Atomgevitter were playing as well as Amok Atak. I'd seen Atomgevitter in a small crowded cellar in Edinburgh previously and was totally blown away so was going just for them, the rest were just icing. However the headliners Iron Lung turned out to be some really tasty icing. Heavy as hell and violently pummeling, fast powerviolence with discordant breaks, dual vocals snarled and shouted back and forth, the noise generated by just two guys was astounding. So here's some of the pics i took:

and here's a couple of their tunes to freak out to:
Iron Lung - Lost Appeal
Iron Lung - Polotics Of Science

More pics from the gig to come...

If This Is Tuesday...

2009-02-03T07:18:00.001Z

It Must Be Walla-Walla!

Indeed.

I wish I could fly...

2009-02-02T12:54:00.021Z

I really do. Not to some far off exotic destination or anything like that. Or to soar above the trees and buildings like a bird. Just a short, self propelled flight off a stage or speaker stack into a packed pit.

Some would say i'm too old to continue such a pursuit, but i reckon you're never too old for anything, unless physically unable of course, I reckon I will always feel that urge when watching a band. It's just a shame that there's never enough folk at gigs these days to be able to dive. Then there is the problem of clubs having barriers now and security getting in the way. These two elements don't just piss me off as it impedes stagediving but it also impedes the other activity i partake in at gigs photography, as well as create a divide between band and audience which I feel in anathema to punk, hardcore and thrash.

Why do I love stagediving so much? It's the thrill I suppose, the flight, the impact, even the occasional crash into the floor all make me feel alive. Even being dived on in the crowd makes me happy. I find it synonymous with the music I love, and it looks frickin awesome unlike the current macho flailing in the middle of an empty dancefloor thing that seems so popular these days.

My first dive was at an Acid Reign gig in 1989 in the Edinburgh Venue, the best place for gigs ever. Getting to gigs back then was a bit hard as I was too young to drive and lived in Anstruther at the time, a village on the east coast of Scotland, just getting to the nearest train station took way over an hour on a bus which made me travel sick and there was no way to get back at the end of the night. Thanks Dad! Anyway I got dragged on stage by the singer somewhere in the first couple of songs and rather than look like a dork and just sidle off I figured it was as good a time as any to try stagediving. I didn't want to do one of those crap flop ones where you don't even go over the guys at the front of the stage, and end up looking like a tit, so, even though I was kinda brickin it, I went back to the amps for a nice run up and launched myself as hard as possible off the top of a monitor. Woooooooooaaaaaah motherfucker, what a perfect launch into oblivion, my heart was hammering faster than the drums as I flew over the crowd then it caught in my throat as i realised I was going to overshoot the whole pit altogether and would inevitable end up as a crumpled heap in the two foot of space between the seething pit and those calmly sipping their pints from plastic glasses. Oh man, I shoulda just been a dork. Luckily on the descent part of the flightplan I managed to grap the shoulder of the last dancer and between him and me, my head first collision into the wooden floor was saved into a passable uninjured landing. Well that was me hooked and for the next hour, grinning like a maniac, I dived my socks off, I actually got to the point of doing crap front row flops because I just couldn't muster anymore propulsion from my legs, my knees had turned to jelly but I still kept dragging myself bodily up onto the stage for just one more shot. One more hit. Please I need it. One more, c'mon play another song guys, I can still bend one knee...

I truly miss that hit, I think the last time I dived was off the top off the speakers the last time Bane played in Dundee which must be getting on for three years ago. That's just too long to remain grounded. OK then, time for a belated new year resolution, I'm going to lose weight so I can fly again.

Without killing anyone :)

2 songs for this post:
Gorilla Biscuits - New Direction
Time Flies - High Fives And Stage Dives

The Ubiquitous First Post

2009-02-01T21:15:00.003Z

So here's another blog, adding needlesly to the semi illiterate opinions of the cavalcade of retards that cakes itself over the exciting potential of the net like a choking scum of idiocy and vileness.

Off to a positive start then...

So, why the name?

Well first off it's the title of an awesome 7" by an old UK band called Filler that specialised in feedback drenched melodic hardcore, and is one of my favourite records ever. It really struck a chord with me as a teenager. See most kids I knew back then had a plan, a direction to go in. Friends at school wanted to be doctors or lawyers or teachers, join the police or the navy or whatever. I didn't. I had no plan, I was rudderless, adrift, no aims, no desires. All I wanted was the guitars turned up to 11 and to stagedive as much as humanly possible. Filler were amazing, some of their songs actually hurt you! Peircing feedback bursts over choppy guitars and droned vocals all underpinned by sublime melodies, I heartily recomend getting hold of some of their stuff.
Here's a taster, not from this 7" but from MYHC ep : Filler - MYHC enjoy!
I still have no plan...
Secondly this blog has no real aims or desires, I'll use it to reminisce or vent on any subject i feel like. Mostly it'll be about punk and hardcore, old records, new bands, photos from gigs etc as that has always been a big part of my life. Other crap will no doubt crop up, video games, animals, stupid humans, whoever pissed me off that day or whatever...