Rootin’ and tootin’ round the town with Colin Clark from Colin’s Punk Rock World
We cover a variety of captivating topics, such as “unexpected aisles in Sainsbury’s” and “what I have for Christmas dinner”. Plus I discover my new favourite game – putting Colin on the spot!
We are all trapped inside again due to Lockdown 2.0. However, just before we went back into it, I got to do some fell running up Pendle Hill. Thanks to some inspiration from TNS Andy, I decided to set it to a soundtrack of some 2000s rock, and some 2020s ska punk.
After half a decade as an absolute stalwart of UK Ska Punk, Millie Manders and The Shutup have finally put an album together.
Now, it’s always a challenge reviewing something by someone you are totally in awe of. Not only is Millie utterly ferocious in performance – whilst managing to be friendly and generous in person – she also lives with a cut-me-in-half-and-I-bleed-truth integrity. Whether its her youth musician development tutoring, or her unceasing championing of the under-funded and under-loved Norfolk Arts scene, she’s there. Plus she drew a unicorn mermaid that my 6 year old daughter thought was amazing. She’s slightly intimidating really, but that’s fine, because truly awesome people are meant to be.
Getting down with The JB Conspiracy!
We interview Bob, Rikk and Lank from The JB Conspiracy. Discover exciting stuff like…
This review is not one of my normal ones. I usually listen to an album 20 plus times, really get to know it, so I can give you my honest balanced opinion.
Pook from Pookout Records joins Chris for our first ever Podcast!
Featuring tracks from a range of cool bands, with a weirdly high number of them based in Japan for some reason…
I missed 3dBs Down the first time round. Again. (I also missed The Skints – catch our Skints & Bedouin Soundclash review here). They still sound pretty fresh, despite my decades-long lack of observation. There’s a definite late 90s twinge going on – I’d bet good money they enjoyed the odd Spunge & Goldfinger albums back in the day – but it’s a long way from cookie cutter third wave. Its relaxed – for punk anyway – but it still has an edge
The first takeaway from your listening experience will be the great stacked vocals littered throughout. There’s dual harmonies on basically every chorus coupled with solid shout interjections in songs like “At Your Signal“, multilined vocals at the end of “Moussaka“, etc. Matt’s vocals actually remind me a bit of those of (long dead) band Bingo Tonight, especially on “Idiot Ignorant Evil“. There’s a definite a poppy hook on a lot of the singing, although it’s juxtaposed with some decently heavy riffs.
I’m not really sure why I am writing this review.
Perhaps its just the nature of obsessing about nothing during Lockdown. Sometimes, in our ephemeral hobby of being ‘into’ music, a particular record just grabs you. In this instance Toodles and the Hectic Pity absolutely grabbed me.
So it’s not often that I get an unexpected vinyl through the door. I mean, I say that. I regularly get music through the door and I’m like “Oh Right! I forgot I ordered this…”
But in this situation, it was an album I’d never heard of, from a band I’d never heard of. It turns out that Smooth Lee are a ska band from fair Belgium. I asked them why they so foolishly sent their music 500 miles out of their way to the grim wastelands of the North West…
