Senseless Things - London ULU 15/2/91

Here's another of James' Senseless Things live tapes, this time from the University of London Union

Senseless Things - London ULU 15/2/91

Senseless Things - Live in Manchester 1989

Senseless Things were one of the first tuneful punk bands I got into (as opposed to hardcore, grind or anarcho stuff) and I still play their stuff regularly to this day.
I saw them everytime they played Edinburgh from 89 onward and also caught them in Aberdeen. I did tape them live in Edinburgh but I loaned the tape to a friend before I made a copy and never saw it again (so if any one gets a hold of that hit me up please!).
Anyway, James Sherry had a bunch of live tapes by the Things but no way to convert them so I volunteered to convert these 20+ year old tapes to a string of ones and zeros so all who wanted to, could get a copy.
Here's the first of (not) too many...

Senseless Things - Manchester 24/11/89

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

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.

This Is Scotland Not LA

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

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

Back in '94 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

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

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

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

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

Atomgevitter - Edinburgh Subway 03/June/07

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