Friday 28 December 2012

Broccoli - first demo

 Back in late 1992 I was at uni here in Dundee doing electronic engineering, or at least tying to, damn mathematics, just when you think you've got it licked it ramps up the difficulty again. Any way, one day my new friend in class, Stu, asked me if I wanted to go see a friend's band at the union. What are they like I asked. "A bit like Green day" he replied. Hey! This was 1992, that was a compliment back then! Sounds cool, what are they called? "I don't know, I don't think they do either." So, a local band trying to sound like an American band and haven't even managed to come up with a name yet, my hopes aren't set high so let's go.
The union was quite a big hall and sparsely populated when we got there, the poster at the entrance gave two band names: Broccoli and Captain Trips, well I'm not overly fond of broccoli the vegetable so Stu which one do reckon they are or are they maybe not even listed as they don't have a name? Shrug. Still none the wiser we got some drinks and joined a table of folk that Stu knew (I knew no-one really as I was fairly new in town) and got down to the serious business of talking bollocks.
This was interrupted by Captain Trips taking to the stage and boring us silly with some rock music. The kind of rock music that is very technically proficient but just lacked any sort of spark to make it interesting. They don't sound like Green Day Stu. "That's not them." Ok your punk cred is still intact for now then my friend. After about an hour of thinking maybe this was the right time to start drinking the musos finally left the stage to resounding indifference and we could at least get back to talking crap again.
"This is them!" Stu announced as three scruffy guys started plugging in. They really didn't look like much but to be honest I don't know what I was really expecting. 
"Er, hi were Broccoli and it's a shit name sorry" one of them mumbled into the mic followed by a bit of silence, looking at each other and the floor. I dialed my expectations lower, do they know they're up there to play music? They seem lost, do they even know each other? Have they practiced or written any songs? Oh no, maybe they're like my old band! If I leave now will I have to wait long for the bus home? I could walk I suppose.
Luckily I didn't slink out and watched pensively as the guitarist lined plectrum up with strings and struck the first notes. Da na-na naa, da na-na naa, hey sounds alright. Then the whole band kicked in and my jaw hit the floor, Whoah Ya Fucker! These guys sound amazing. Speedy tunes, great hooks, gravelly vocals, thrashing about and big jumps, holy cow this is awesome. Yeah they sound a bit like Green Day but more a mix of Senseless Things, Snuff and Leatherface. Bad Religion cover too? Sweet. Then they stopped playing and I was left empty and wanting more. The band then came over and joined our group, our group? Their group, this was a table of their mates not mine after all but you know what I mean. Now they were up close I recognised the bassist (Paul or Zoff) as the first punk i met in Dundee about two years previously in Grouchos record shop, back then he had told me to come back through for a gig a few days later which I did (even though it meant a long bus ride from Anstruther and an uncertain trip back home after the gig relying on the thumb) and got to see Brain Damage, Exalt and a couple of other punk bands as a reward for trusting his advice. So I got talking to him again and also the guitarist Grant. I wanted to know if they had anything recorded which they didn't but were about too so I had to wait for their next gig before I could hear them again and they were even better second time around (and third and fourth and...) and they had the demo done as well. 
That demo tape stayed in my walkman for about a year, everywhere I went I had it playing full volume, it made a two hour walk seem like minutes and these tunes are associated with a period in my life that was just full of great times. Abject poverty, but great times. Going up to Aberdeen in the back of Paul's van in the middle of winter, a group of us huddled in the back with the amps and drums with only each others body heat stopping us from perishing. Well that and a lot of alcohol. Making up gig posters and Grant offering to buy me a drink as thanks as i wouldn't take any payment, I really had to go so said just the one but it turned out to be happy hour in Chevys, so I ended up with two pints of cider which just snowballed from there, we nearly ended up on a train bound for London with £400 of Grant's wages to drink through. Thankfully we had missed the last train but it seemed like a great plan at the time. We ended up in a night club and I woke up in the morning wrapped round a lamp post at the bottom of the Hiltown feeling like I had been turned inside out. There was a lot of making new friends, going to gigs and hanging out with guys and girls into the same stuff as me which was liberating for me coming from a village where no one was punk. It was sad when they left Dundee for London around '96 or so, left a gap for sure, I miss those days but I suppose we all grow and change with the years.
So yeah, this demo means a lot to me in those terms but probably means fuck all to you in that sense, however take my word that the tunes here are well worth a listen for anyone.
















The quality of the mp3s might be a little wobbly in places but this is from a very old very well played tape so live with it. Crackle Records are doing a Broccoli discography soon which will have a better quality version of this demo on it so pick it up when it comes out folks.

Friday 25 May 2012

And the third one...

And here is The Best Punk Rock In England My Friend compilation...

http://www.4shared.com/rar/0Xc5z6Zq/various_artists_-_the_best_pun.html

The Best Punk Rock In England (well the UK to be correct...)

 I got the first of these comps after putting Goober Patrol on in '94 as they were on it and played it to me and I promptly sent off for a copy. They offer a great snapshot of the mid 90's UK pop/melodic punk scene and are all round awesome comps. Enjoy!

The Best Punk Rock In England, Son
1. China Drum -
 Cloud 9
2. Chopper -
 My New Name
3. Couch Potatoes -
 User Friendly
4. Cowboy Killers -
 Deeply Dippy
5. Doctor Bison -
 A Place For Us
6. Exit Condition -
 Throwing Sticks For The Underdogs
7. Funbug -
 (Sunshine) Ate My Brain
8. Goober Patrol -
 Waiting
9. Guns N' Wankers -
 Gillette
10. Hooton 3 Car -
 Sound Of The Day
11. Horace Goes Skiing -
 Dream
12. Midway Still -
 I Want You
13. Pope -
 Alone
14. Reverse -
 Clawfoot
15. Rugrat -
 Find Me A Way
16. Scarfo -
 Skinny
17. Shutdown -
 Rebound
18. Skimmer -
 All The Time In The World
19. The Strookas -
 It Makes Me
20. Travis Cut -
 Permanent Grin
21. Venus Beads -
 Within These Walls
22. Wact -
 Burnout
23. Wat Tyler -
 Not Superstitious
24. Your Mum -
 Live And Learn

 the best punk rock in england my son

The Best Punk Rock In England, Man
1. Snuff -
 Flake
2. Toast -
 I'm A Reject
3. Gan -
 Blink
4. Suffer -
 Off The Lip
5. Crocodile God -
 Monopoly
6. Ex Cathedra -
 Rwanda
7. Annalise -
 Everyday Killer
8. The Shreds -
 Tell Me
9. Jessie -
 Indestructable
10. Baby Silverskins -
 Triviali
11. Lovejunk -
 All We Have To Do Is Stay Together
12. Gink -
 Upside Down
13. Swine Flu -
 Process Of Elimination
14. Pinto -
 Please Don't Go
15. Bradworthy -
 Superficial
16. Erase Today -
 Less Than Zero
17. Elmerhassel -
 Listen Up
18. Chocolate -
 Sticky Melt
19. Another Fine Mess -
 Fab 66
20. Broccoli -
 Sown
21. Worm -
 Fuck
22. Sofahead -
 Sleeping Satellite
23. Bulltaco -
 Don't Look Back
24. Dog Piss -
 Polythene

the best punk rock in england man

Tuesday 22 May 2012

The Panics - demo

Dundee punk rock from early 90s, influenced by Screeching Weasel, members went on to be in bands such as The Eddies, Beauty School Dropout, The Ritalins and even Screeching Weasel.
I got this taped by Andy the drummer after they broke up and he joined BSD. The Panics were one of those local bands that I just kept missing but figured I would catch at some point.
Sadly not.

the panics - demo

Monday 21 May 2012

Inextremis - Flight of the Soul Hungry demo 1992

I got an invite to go up to Elgin in 1992 from Donny, who I met at gigs in Edinburgh and we would be on the same train going home so got chatting, he said there was a death metal gig on and I should come up. So I did. There were a few bands on but I can't remember who they all were, I think Korpse might have played and these guys Inextremis from Aberdeen definitely did as I bought or got given their demo. All i remember of the gig was that it was a lot of fun. Everyone was there for a good time and smiled a lot. And had funny accents...





























So here is some northern death metal for you:
inextremis - flight of the soul hungry

Thursday 12 April 2012

The Great Escape

Some stills I took from Tayside house CCTV when I worked there of a cow escaping from the abattoir in Dundee and dashing to freedom over the Tay bridge through oncoming traffic. This happened on 07th July 2000 about 10:30am, ignore the time and date on the stills, it was always wrong on the system.
The cow got out of the abattoir, negotiated the dock street traffic then made it's way onto the bridge, bashed the bonnet of a car that tried to block it halfway across the mile and a half long bridge and then broke through a chain of cops at the Fife side to get away from being slaughtered. It then got to live on a sanctuary afterwards. A great escape indeed.
Happily the abattoir is no more...







Monday 9 April 2012

Conflict - To A Nation Of Animal Lovers 7"


This 7" was originally released in 1983 but I first got this through tape trading in about late '86 early '87, tagged onto the end of some album to fill that side of the tape up. Initially as a 13-14 year old kid living in a wee village I got a thrill from the song title Berkshire Cunt as I was reading through the track list of the tape I had been sent, y'know it was like the worst of the bad words, how edgy eh? These guys were punk! Then when the tape trundled through the last of whatever thrash metal album was on the tape and Conflict kicked in, "YOUR BLOOD, THEIR BLOOD, SERVES THE SAME!" it was a shot to the head and heart to say the least, my eyes were opened and connections were made that I had never even given a second thought to. Why did I eat meat? Because everyone else did, I never really connected the animal to the meal even though I knew that steak was a cow, I had never thought of what happened to a cow for it to end up on my plate. I had just accepted that food was food. I loved animals and would never kill one so why was I allowing myself to be complicit in murder on such a horrific scale?
Even things like cosmetics weren't free from animal abuse, why did scientists torture animals in the name of research? Why? How could they? I was only a kid but I knew it was wrong.
Now I was fucking angry about it. And so were Conflict. They were really fucking angry, I'd never heard a record sound so fucking angry in fact.
This was one of the records responsible for opening my mind and setting me on the course to becoming a vegetarian. I still remember when I told my mum about becoming veggie and she was incredulous "So what are you going to eat? You don't like vegetables!" My reply? "Veggie burgers and pizza!" it seemed like a good plan to me...
I have listened to this record thousands of time since then, and it has always remained the best animal rights record to me, the anger and passion that Conflict spat out was absolute and they didn't just talk the talk either. Inspirational stuff.








Conflict - To A Nation Of Animal Lovers 7"

Bye Bye Ronny - UK punk and hardcore compilation


This is a great comp of UK hardcore and punk bands from '89. Some more well known bands such as Deviated Instinct, Instigators, Hellbastard, Concrete Sox, Paradise Lost plus some more obscure ones like Anorexia, Insurrection, Hedgehogs etc. It is admittedly pretty patchy production wise as tracks were probably just taped from other tapes (which in turn came from yet other tapes...) but that just added to the charm of the entire UK scene for me at that time, it was completely DIY. There was also an A5 zine/booklet that came with this but I can only presume that is still up in the loft someplace. It gave info on the bands and the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign that the tape was a benefit for, all printed in gloriously shoddy but completely punk Bobprint!


Enjoy:
Bye Bye Ronny

Sink - Fashionably Unpopular


Favourite band alert!
In '88 I bought the first Sink 7" from the Full Circle distro because after the record title it had this: "(ex-stupids)". It was indeed ex-stupids, Ed Shred on guitar but it was a lot different to the Stupids, not as fast, not as hardcore, more melancholy I suppose, but I loved it. When their first album, Another Love Triangle, came out the next year I picked it up immediately and they had moved even further from the straight up punk with a liberal dose of post hardcore ala Fugazi to blues and country influences, my mind was truly blown and I played that record continually as it had a bit of everything to it. The mini LP, Old Man Snake And His Fat Black Pig, came in 1990 and continued the development and contained one of my favourite Sink songs, Won't Sell My Guitar, the only thing I didn't like about this record was the length, I needed more.
I got to see Sink live that year and met Ed, it was Sunday night, the Moshpit at the Venue in Edinburgh, thrash and death metal night and I went through every Sunday not knowing who I was going to see most weeks, we got off the train about two in the afternoon and nipped down the back stairs to see if there was any mention of who was playing that night on the blackboard of the Venue and there wasn't so we went on our usual trawl round the record shops and pick up pizza and pepsi before the gig, we just came out the West Nicholson Avalanche shop when I spotted a poster for the Venue with Sink listed and, to say the least, I was excited to know that Sink would be playing soon, then when I saw it was actually that night they were playing I literally exploded with joy, the two mates I was with had no idea who they were and dealt with me being hyper pretty well. They also dealt with the news that it wasn't a thrash or death metal band we were seeing that night admirably well also. I literally ran back to the Venue and waited for the band to turn up and then helped them load their stuff in and hung out and chatted for a while before the gig started.
The usual Sunday night thrash crowd turned up and when Sink came on in multi coloured tie dye apparel with acoustics and tambourines they stood in a large semicircle wide eyed and slack jawed throughout the set. Me and my mates danced non stop like complete loons for the whole thing, was such a great gig.





Sink released a comp of their first two 7"s plus two unreleased songs, Mama Sink, The First 18 Years (1963-1989) that year (which has a great cover of the Replacements song If Only You Were Lonely, which I actually like better than the original...) as well before the final album Vega-Tables was released in 1991. Slower in general but still with the Dischord feel in places. They changed name after that and became Big Ray and continued with the slower more gentle stuff but still great songs throughout.
Anyway for your listening pleasure I give you a bundle of Another Love Triangle, Old Man Snake And His Fat Black Pig, Mama Sink The First 18 Years, Vega-Tables, Don't Burn The Hook 7" and the first Big Ray album, Naked.
I hope you enjoy it all as much as I do.

Sink

Thursday 23 February 2012

Dead To Me, The Human Project, Uniforms - Kage, Dundee, 22/02/2012

OK, so I may have gone slightly overboard on the photos here but what the hell. Dead To Me played in Dundee so I went down for a skek. I'd never heard them before either, even managed to not look them up on the web beforehand as well, and I'm glad I went, they were really good. Fast tuneful and rowdy and a bit of a Clash like swagger going on to.
















































The Human Project were out on tour with them and this Leeds band would probably be classed as tech punk, think Propaghandi but with some classic mid 80s Maiden leads thrown in too.

















Local support was from Maxwell's Dead (who I missed) and Uniforms who played a good un even with Jamie suffering a broken string near the end







Here's a vid of Uniforms too: