This weeks news September 14
Now that was a good week for gigs – Jello with Guantanamo School of Medicine on a bill with Sissy and Paranoid Visions last Wednesday in the Button Factory. And then two days later the Ex in Whelans. Something else. Spolied for choice again this week with Danko Jones, Sissy + Exploding Eyes, Sleaford Mods, XSLF + Hooligan and Disguise all on over the next 7 days
Some good music being released too
UK diy trio Grubs have just released ‘It Must Be Grubs’, a short-spanning but instantly charming first work. Spanning eleven tracks, ‘It Must Be Grubs’ blitzes through ramshackle, energised garage rock without ever looking back. Like hitching on a bike, riding downhill and realising the brakes don’t work, it’s a chaotic journey into the unknown, more rough-edged and free-spirited with every song. ‘Windwaker’ shakes off mid-week blues, while ‘Good Timez’ ends things on an all-smiles moment of rejoice.
There’s always a happy ending with this record. The band consists of Joanna Gruesome members Owen Williams and Roxy Brennan (also in Two White Cranes and Towel) and former
DIY scribe / champion of fashion Jake May. ‘It Must Be Grubs’ officially out came out on Friday 11th September on Reeks of Effort.
One of the best podcasts I’ve listened to is turned out a punk . It features a conversatio with someone sho was influneced by punk rock and is a great document of our movement. One of the more interesting ones is a conversation with Danko Jones. Whilst the music of Danko Jones was too steeped in metal for my ears I never realised how much Danko identified with punk and hardcore. They are in Whelans on September 18
With the September 18 release of their forthcoming second LP Sun Coming Down fast approaching, Ought have now shared a full stream of their new album one week prior to release. Including the smouldering yet introspective fan-favourite “Beautiful Blue Sky” and thrilling album-opener “Men For Miles”, these are two gems in this album of many…
OUGHT’S NEW ALBUM SUN COMING DOWN out now on Constellation Sun Coming Down maintains the band’s tight, twitchy and economical sound, with the unfussy, understated rhythm section of drummer
Tim Keen and bassist Ben Stidworthy anchoring Tim Darcy’s electric guitar and Matt May’s fuzzed-out keys (sounding, as often as not, like a second guitar). Ought pursue an artistically apposite austerity in committing these new songs to tape, referencing the arid and unvarnished production of no-wave and early indie rock while balancing carved-out angularity against an evolving comfort with textural coalescences and measured pacing. It makes for an album that’s consistently, insistently propulsive but also feels unhurried and pleasantly unhyped. Songs like ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’ (already a fan favourite from live shows) and ‘Never Better’ unfold with gradual and deliberate ebb and flow, where scratchy guitars play like dappled shards of light on gently roiling waves of bass and organ; ‘The Combo’ and ‘Celebration’ keep things crisp and concise. Darcy’s voice and lyrics continue to distinguish and define the personality of the band: his blend of ironic detachment, declarative insistence, fragmentary stammering poetics, and the occasional direct aside to the listener, finds various ways to weave within or drive through the mixes. Sun Coming Down confirms the distinctive vitality and purposive naturalism of this band; Ought resists facile primitivism and
overhyped dynamics in equal measure, keeping things hermetic but never airless, ascetic but never dispassionate, literate but never prolix. The band’s steady and subtle charms don’t make them the cool kids or the iconoclastic freaks – just a satisfyingly unrefined and substantive rock band that eschews indulgence or aesthetic bandwagoneering to seek a humble, thoughtful corner from which to articulate a position within and contribute meaningfully to a 40-year continuum of indie, punk and DIY tradition.
Forthcoming Gigs
danko Jones + The Amorettes – Whelans – September 18
Sissy + Exploding Eyes + Shrug Life – Sweeneys – September 19
Sleaford Mods – Hangar – September 19
XSLF + Hooligan – Fibber Magees – September 19
La Misma + Disguise + Overbite + Surge – Tenterhooks – September 20
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Whelans – September 26
The Winter Passing + Chewing on tinfoil + Kates party + Driveaway – Grand Social September 26
Wheatus – Whelans – September 28
B Dolan – Wormkans Club – September 29
We Shall Overcome – Dublin – October 2-4
Hard Working Class Heroes – Dublin – October 2+3
Juan Wauters + No Monster Club – Whelans – October 4
The Lemonheads – Academy – October 5
Hey Rosetta – Workmans Club – October 9
Giveamanakick – Whelans – October 10
Nothing Clean – Tenterhooks – October 10
Cockney Rejects – Grand Social – October 10
Inner Terrestials + Dubtones + Suckin Diesel + Jobseekers + Kluster-Fux – Fibber Magees – October 16
English Dogs – Fibber Magees – October 23
dAVID kITT – wHELANS – oCTOBER 24
Litovsk – Dublin – October 25
US Girls – Whelans – October 25
Liturgy – Whelans – October 26
Dragster + Angry Itch + Stop start Again + Black Pitts + Jobseekers – Fibbers – October 30
Deer hunter button factory – November 1
Slaves – The Academy – November 5
Girl Band – Button Factory – November 7
Stiff Little Fingers – The Academy – November 13
Coitus + Paranoid Visions + Coldwar + Liberty – Fibbers – November 14
Mercury Rev – Button Factory November 22
Chelsea Wolfe – Button Factory November 25
Peter Hook and the Light – The Academy – November 27
OM – Button Factory – November 28
Therapy – Button Factory December 11
The Selecter – The Academy – December 11
Bad Manners – The Academy – december 28
