How many punks does it take to change a lightbulb?

 

Photo: Jamie Greig

It doesn’t matter, punk never changed anything…

a manifesto – scrawled by nips

It must be about 6am, maybe a little later. My phone has run out of batteries and there are no clocks in the room. My only way of gauging the time is from the fresh sunlight that’s highlighting the window frame. The curtains are still drawn from the night before, although I could guess they were probably drawn long before that.

The room isn’t empty. It’s quite small, but full of enough guitars, records and general shit to fill a space twice the size. There are about ten people sitting around, some on the bed, most crammed on the floor. They’re all trying to get comfortable, while dealing with the impracticalities of their mohawks and studs.  Some are engaged in listless conversation, others are just keeping to themselves. Either tired or completely wired, they probably mulling over some problem waiting for them in the outside world. For now though, it’s distant and separate. We’re all off the clock here.

If someone was looking in, casting their eye through those little gaps at the sides of the curtain, they would probably think it was a sorry sight. The night before has left an air of defeat hanging around the room. Sure enough, there’s laughter and jokes circulating, but there’s nothing really going on. This is a group of kids that align themselves with radicalism and protest, yet here they’re sitting doing nothing. Time is being spent and minds are switched off. To the man at the window, there’s nothing happening. There’s certainly no revolution going on.

The Grit in Edinburgh

Photo: www.myspace.com/thegrit

Green and pink Mohawks dance above the heads of the crowd as a sweaty, dirty guy jumps on stand-up bass and slaps out a thundering bass line. The PA quivers and the air is damp with condensation, part sweat and part booze. The Grit are playing at the Three Tuns, a cellar bar in Edinburgh.

People sit in groups around unfeasibly small tables, drinking, talking and shouting. The band hasn’t started yet but no one has realized that there has been a delay. A girl does a circuit around the room, bellowing insults to her friends on the way to the bar. The gig is busy, but not completely full.

An hour after the scheduled start, two boys begin to hassle the girl on the door. Soon the rough chugging noise of a badly tuned guitar silences them and they bounce excitedly towards the front. A girl joins them, and they remain at the front of the crowd for the entire gig, dancing and laughing.

Running Riot are first to perform. Although young, they play a fast and hard set, barely pausing to breathe between songs. While most of the crowd hangs back, the three at the front wave their fists in the air and jump up and down, their spiked up hair bobbing up and down.

The frontman of Running Riot growls the last note of their set and they quickly pack up their things. The girl at the front leaves her spot and saunters over to the band. She speaks a few words of congratulation. The members of the band nod their heads in acceptance and she leaves to order a drink.

 The Grit start to set up and the crowd slowly begins to surge forward. The lead singer’s English accent burrs over the PA.

“All right? Good…”

The second guitarist finishes tuning up and with a nod the set begins. Dressed all in black, one with an impossibly high flat-top, another with a pink and black Mohawk, they fill the stage. After a few songs, the stand-up bass player spills out onto the dance floor. The air is moist and the girl at the front wipes sweat from under her eyes, smearing black makeup.

The crowd press forward onto the three people dancing, and the girl continues to dance with a full pint perfectly balanced in her hand. Only a few drops spill when a bondage-trouser clad boy smacks into her.

Again the crowd surges forward and those in front must press back against them to avoid crashing into the PA on the floor in front of the band. The bass player leaps onto his oversize bass and begins to strum the bass while standing on it. The girl at the front smudges the words ‘wash me’ onto the bass player’s dirty back with her finger.

The lead singer spews spittle and sweat into the air. The drummer, barely visible, crows to begin the last song. Most people join those at the front dancing, and their feet slip on the drink-sodden stone floor.

The sudden quiet is deafening, and almost sore. Friends shout to each other, not realizing their raised voices. The bartender calls last orders.

the exploited are looking for exploited tattoos

word on the streets is the exploited are considering doing an inner sleeve on their next album of exploited tattoos. the new album should be out in three months, according to my edinburgh punk rock homing pigeon communication system.

 so if you’ve got exploited ink, send yer tattoo pix to poopshootmonkey@hotmail.co.uk

 HEADS UP:

benefit show in dunfermline at pj’s sunday june 1st. 12am to 12pm. overspill, 4 past midnight, down to kill, threats and more. £3 in, which is literally as cheap as chips… and a smoked sausage. let’s be realistic here. in support of fife stop the war coalition.

free 13th birthday show at carlton studios saturday 14th june. the exploited are headlining, with a couple of other bands playing. i totally saw the flyer on friday night but cannae mind who the others are. dunno when it starts either. i’m rubbish.

DELIBERATION OF THE DAY:

the carceral network does not cast the unassimilable into a confused hell; there is no outside. it takes back with one hand what it seems to exclude with the other. it saves everything, including what it punishes. it is unwilling to waste even what it has decided to disqualify. – michel foucault

TURN IT UP AND TUNE OUT:

my mate nips and i have been swopping music collections recently and he’s got a few gems nestled in between his propensity for rancid and the briefs (excuse me while i quietly puke on my boots). necros – iq32 ep is one of them. hailing from the breadbasket of the us, this is stripped down, badly-produced, intense ’80s hardcore. we’re talking songs about wanting to stay at home in your room, peer pressure, hating school and being a reject. get yer vans on, grab yer skateboard and tell yer mom to go screw herself. MIDWEST FUCK YOU!

unity and strength: free comps and bands needed

this guy named martyn from hamilton, scotland, is looking for anarchist/anti-facist/metal bands for a free comp he is doing.

he has already put out two other free comps recently that are available to download as a zip file: ‘unity and strength’ and ‘in all your decadence people die’.  i have just downloaded them so haven’t had a chance to blast them through my headphones, but the download includes a booklet for each comp with the lyrics for each song (original language and translations for those who don’t know swedish, spanish, italian and german) plus artwork and pictures.

the comps have been released on unity and strength records, from a cassette label and zine he used to do in the ’80s. according to his myspace, he put out some comps in the ’80s with bands like the subhumans. seems to be a right-on kinda guy.

shit hot sums it up.

HEADS UP:

benefit show in dunfermline at pj’s sunday june 1st. 12am to 12pm. overspill, 4 past midnight, down to kill, threats and more. £3 in, which is literally as cheap as chips… and a smoked sausage. let’s be realistic here. in support of fife stop the war coalition.

free 13th birthday show at carlton studios saturday 14th june. the exploited are headlining, with a couple of other bands playing. i totally saw the flyer on friday night but cannae mind who the others are. dunno when it starts either. i’m rubbish.

DELIBERATION OF THE DAY:

during the middle decades of the 20th century, virtues appropriate to the development of the machine – productive order, efficiency, control, forward-looking dynamism – became prevailing social vitures as well. – kevin robins and frank webster

I’M NOT A MACHINE! I’M NOT A MACHINE! I’M NOT A MACHINE! WON’T WORK FOR YOU, I’M NOT A MACHINE! – black flag

TURN IT UP AND TUNE OUT:

subhumans – from the cradle to the grave. an ex of mine bought me a cracking pair of sennheiser headphones (the upside of going out with a non-punker is the amount of money they’re willing to splash on presents) and i’ve had the pleasure of listening to my favorite records through them, and it’s like discovering them all over again. the basslines thud through you, you find yourself doing air guitar and air drum AT THE SAME TIME and you hear all the nuances you miss through shitty ear bud headphones. anyways, the reason why i’m telling you this is that subhumans are really good for putting little, barely-audible bits in their songs and the only way to truly hear them is with a pair of hd-25s. but for those of ya without £120 to burn, just slap this record on.

dead kennedys… i heard they sucked live

before you ask, yes my dj set was great.

actually teaze was pretty good, there were a lot of different burlesque dancers. although it was no club noir, there was a chick that blew fire. but not for very long, which kinda sucked. they also kicked me off early to get the techno on, but loads of people came up to me and said that i should have been on longer and that i should get the last song. i completely agreed with both statements, but the higher powers seemed to be more into drum & bass than drum and bass and vocals and guitar.

i’m not sure how i feel about burlesque these days. ages ago i was going to get a pin-up girl tattooed on my arm, rather than sharkie the shark that i have now, but i changed my mind after reading andrea dworkin’s book pornography. bearing in mind it was written in the ’80s and porno then totally sucked, she points out how much violence against women is depicted in pornography. even when it’s girl-on-girl, there is always an element of submission. while the girls were shaking their shit on stage this friday, i couldn’t help thinking, ‘who are you doing this for? yourself or some guy?’ someone was like ‘well, maybe it makes them feel sexy.’ it just reminds me of meat, really.

however, i digress. i didn’t go to the dead kennedys, but i spoke to a couple people that did and they said it was really lame. apparently it was kinda out of time, and there was no energy. that is exactly what i expected, so i’m glad i avoided having the mental video of what they would be like, pieced together from live albums and footage of old shows, ruined.

the band’s myspace has a review of the show. according to the reviewer, the show was good, but it’s not very enthusiatically written, leading me to think that he’s either lying or being nice.

also spoke to a mate about the cute lepers gig. he said they were alright and not too poppy, but he really likes oxymoron, so sometimes his opinion is not to be trusted. don’t tell him i said that though.

HEADS UP:

benefit show in dunfermline at pj’s sunday june 1st. 12am to 12pm. overspill, 4 past midnight, down to kill, threats and more. £3 in, which is literally as cheap as chips… and a smoked sausage. let’s be realistic here. in support of fife stop the war coalition.

free 13th birthday show at carlton studios saturday 14th june. the exploited are headlining, with a couple of other bands playing. i totally saw the flyer on friday night but cannae mind who the others are. dunno when it starts either. i’m rubbish.

DELIBERATION OF THE DAY:

you have to realize that someday you will die. until you know that, you are useless. it is only after you have lost everything that you are free to anything. – crimethinc

TURN IT UP AND TUNE OUT:

the meteors – wrecking crew. jesus christ, i have had this cd stuck in my head for like a week. you know how you get a song stuck in your head? not one song, the whole cd. it has affected me so much i am quiffing my mohawk this weekend when i go out. that much. the opening song insane will get you running for your creepers and shaving in a flat top, i guarantee ya.

ACTHUNG! oi polloi need a place to crash in stockholm

kansalaistottelemattomuus (swedish anarchopunk band with a few oi polloi members) have just found out their show in stockholm on thursday has been cancelled, so they don’t have a place to kip. apparently they’re stranded on their own, stranded so far from home…

so yea get in touch with the swedish band (their name is like a bad monty python joke, huh?) or oi polloi themselves if you or any of your swedish mates need some more anarchopunk points.

don’t teaze me please: punk rawk dj set @ burlesque night

ladies and gentlemen! the best-dressed, beautifully-tressed ebola nights punk rawk dj is performing tomorrow night at teaze burlesque night at carlton studios.

it’s a fiver in, and all proceeds go toward f.r.e.a.k., free reactive edinburgh art kollective. the burlesque starts at 9/9:30ish and the punk rock mayhem will be directly after the performance, in between 11:30 and 12.

i’ll be spinning all your favorites, plus some you didn’t realize were your favorites until you heard me blasting them through a big p.a.

there will be ’80s hardcore, ‘77 punk, anarcho, skacore, rawk n roll, psychobilly, thrash, oi, street… no overplayed ramones songs, and definitely no sex pistols or the clash.

i’m sure i heard you clamouring for a chance to see an old ebola nights flyers…

 well, squeeze me tight through-out the night and get the fuck out to the studios.

man made power, man made pain: remember chernobyl myspace up

the chick who runs the remember chernobyl gigs in glasgow has set up a seperate myspace for the event. go check it out and add it to your friends! here’s a little history lesson for ya taken from the site:

“Remember Chernobyl Punk Gigs began in 2006 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster – My hubby and I are directly involved with our local ‘Ayrshire’ link of CCLL and have had the pleasure of hosting 6 kids over the past couple of years.

The 20th anniversary gig was initially meant to be a one off ‘mad idea’ but given the success, support and interest surrounding the gig(s) which has now seen its 3rd year, it was decided to carry on the tradition and continue to mark the anniversary(s) each Mayday Bank Holiday weekend – the whole point of the gigs is to have a damn good day with some top live punk bands & lashings of lovely beer in the company of good mates, whilst raising funds for a very worthy cause!

the charity’s main aim is to help bring children from Belarus, the worst affected country in the wake of the nuclear disaster, to the UK for 4 weeks respite holidays. These short breaks are said to add 2 years onto their expected life-spans thus riding them of all the radiation that has built up in their system and lessening the chances of them going onto develop cancers and other radioactive related illnesses and diseases.

If you haven’t already been to one of the gigs make sure you mark next year’s event in your diary!

 Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd MAY 2009 @ The Attic, Glasgow.”

since starting in 2006, they have raised £3,694.58 for chernobyl children lifeline.

the blog includes an extensive list of links to sits about chernobyl, chernobyl charities and nuclear power and its effects. plus, active slaughter have released a new song from their demo exclusively to the remember chernobyl site. so check it the fuck out!

HEADS UP:

teaze – alternative burlesque shenanigans. friday 23rd may. doors 9pm, first burlesque performance 10 pm, djs until 3 am. £5 in. it’s a fundraiser for f.r.e.a.k., an event which aims to create a temporary autonomous art space in a disused location. so not only will it be a good night, you can tick it off as your good deed for the day and proceed to knock down grannies with a bag of dead cats.

show at bannermans friday 23rd may. doors 9 pm. cute lepers (starring ex-briefs members steve e nix and stevie kicks [if ya dig that pop-punk shite, it makes my teeth hurt it's so sweet]), the begrudgers and the dirty pickups. fiver in.

dead kennedys at the liquid rooms 23rd may. £16.50 in. doesn’t say who’s supporting them or what time. i would body-swerve this one. if you are interested in my reasoning, check out my post below.

DELIBERATION OF THE DAY:

the military’s responsibility is to protect and preserve the capitalist system and its market ethos. it must serve and protect a world system of economic organization, directed by and of benefit to powerful private aggregations of power. – larry cata backer

TURN IT UP AND TUNE OUT:

i was just sowing a choking victim patch onto my sweatshirt so decided to slap choking victim – no gods, no managers on. this album totally reminds me of being 15. while skacore isn’t for us all, i like ska and i like punk and this is proper ska-punk, none of your less than jake pish with like 15 trumpets and matching ties. if you have more than six members in your band you can get tae fuck. i had to prowl the internet for days to find a copy of this record. suicide (a better way) is a cracking tune, and if you’re planning a shopping spree sans cash, five finger discount is the theme tune for you.

rare rkl 7″ on ebay

get your plastic at the ready and poise that mouse-clicking finger… a copy of rkl’s it’s a beautiful feeling is for sale on ebay.

i sense a bidding frenzy.

arrg: auld reekie roller girls might have found a roller disco!

dude… so auld reekie roller girls have just posted this bulletin:

“Hey guys,
we might have found a roller disco already on in Edinburgh! Well, I did a google search and on The Skinny Mag’s website there’s a roller disco listed for Lulu – the nightclub underneath Tigerlily on George Street! Says free before 11pm, £5 after, every Wednesday night (well 21st and 28th May) Doesn’t say anything about a dress code but it looks quite swanky but hey, I scrub up quite well and I’m sure you all do too! And it’d be nice to skate without looking all red and sweaty!

I’ve emailed them as I can’t get through to either Lulu or Tigerlily on the phone and waiting their reply with baited breath, One of the COOLEST things is they have a light-up dancefloor (think like in that Pulp video).
Was also thinking that maybe we could strike a deal with them and promote the night…?

Oh, and apparently the music is retro breaks and beats or summat…

I hope this IS on and not some awful internet mistake!

Love
Scarface”

i went to one of the practice, but you have to provide yer own roller skates and right now i’m so skint i’ve been going down to whistle binkies on weekend nights and picking up all the coins that drunk people drop near the bar. for some reason, there are always loads of pound coins at whistle binkies. anyways, i’m not complaining.

so check their myspace out and send them a message if you’re interested in getting involved. they practice monday nights and sunday afternoons last time i went.

and although only girls can compete, boys are welcome to come along and help out, or just provide moral support in the form of ’jeerleaders’.

roller derbys are intense! people get smashed up and it’s pretty cool to see some chick covered in tats totally in the zone throwing ‘bows. i’ll have to settle for the cheaper option of getting bloody noses in the pit. i could always try to incorporate roller skates.

HEADS UP:

teaze – alternative burlesque shenanigans. friday 23rd may. doors 9pm, first burlesque performance 10 pm, djs until 3 am. £5 in. it’s a fundraiser for f.r.e.a.k., an event which aims to create a temporary autonomous art space in a disused location. so not only will it be a good night, you can tick it off as your good deed for the day and proceed to knock down grannies with a bag of dead cats.

show at bannermans friday 23rd may. doors 9 pm. cute lepers (starring ex-briefs members steve e nix and stevie kicks [if ya dig that pop-punk shite, it makes my teeth hurt it's so sweet]), the begrudgers and the dirty pickups. fiver in.

dead kennedys at the liquid rooms 23rd may. £16.50 in. doesn’t say who’s supporting them or what time. i would body-swerve this one. if you are interested in my reasoning, check out my post below.

DELIBERATION OF THE DAY:

i knew the law. i broke the law. i was arrested and fined. i would do it again. – rosa parks

TURN IT UP AND TUNE OUT:

i’m feeling pretty mellow today so i’ve been rocking the minutemen – introducing the minutemen. for ages i couldn’t figure out where i had heard the song corona in an out-of-cd-context. took me like four months to realize that jackass used it as their theme tune. as my flatmate says, “oh that little ditty.”