All posts tagged punk

  • August 7, 2012

    Rolling Stone album review: Die! Die! Die! – ‘Harmony’, August 2012

    An album review for Rolling Stone, published in the September 2012 issue.

    Die! Die! Die! – Harmony 
    (Inertia)

    Kiwis hone their brand of noise-punk to a sharp edge

    Since forming in 2003, this Dunedin noise-punk trio has gone from strength to strength. Their last album, Form – released in 2010 on Flying Nun Records – was a muscular mix of rock aggression and pop smarts. Die! Die! Die!’s fourth LP, Harmony, is another leap forward, and their finest work yet. The formula is simple – guitar, bass, drums and vocals – yet these three continue to make thrilling new breakthroughs. Their career represents an ongoing tug-of-war between noise and melody, and on Harmony they excel once again: a pair of slower, melancholy tracks contrasts well against the gripping flurry and bluster of the remaining eight songs. Highly recommended.

    Key tracks: “Erase Waves”, “Seasons Revenge”

    ++

    Elsewhere: an interview with Die! Die! Die! singer/guitarist Andrew Wilson for The Vine in 2010

    Elsewhere: a review of Die! Die! Die!’s 2010 album, Form, for The Vine 

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  • December 23, 2010

    The Vine interview: James Williamson of The Stooges, December 2010

    An interview with The Stooges‘ guitarist James Williamson for The Vine. Excerpt below.

    Interview – The Stooges

    Fact: The Stooges are one of the most influential rock bands of all time.

    Fact: Raw Power is one of the most influential rock albums of all time.

    Released in 1973 to sparse acclaim and an underwhelming commercial performance – Raw Power peaked at #182 on the Billboard charts – the album eventually spread like a virus throughout the next generation of rock musicians, many of whom would introduce their own fans to The Stooges. Among them: Kurt Cobain, who named Raw Power his all-time favourite; Johnny Marr of The Smiths (and, more recently, Modest Mouse and The Cribs); Henry Rollins (who has the words ‘Search And Destroy’ tattooed across his shoulder blades); and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, who says he learned to play guitar by taking speed and playing along to Raw Power.

    Of the album’s guitarist, James Williamson (main pic, far left – 1972), Johnny Marr said: “I’m his biggest fan. He has the technical ability of Jimmy Page without being as studious, and the swagger of Keith Richards without being sloppy. He’s both demonic and intellectual, almost how you would imagine Darth Vader to sound if he was in a band.” Williamson first joined The Stooges in 1971 as second guitarist, but the band was dissolving before his eyes. Only a recording offer from David Bowie to Williamson and vocalist Iggy Pop got them back together for one last stab at rock stardom as The Stooges. With the Asheton brothers in tow – Scott (drums) and Ron (bass at the time, but he’d later play guitar during more recent incarnations of the band, up until his death in 2009) – Williamson co-wrote Raw Power with Iggy and played all of the guitar parts. Despite Bowie’s involvement, though, the record didn’t perform commercially, and the band again split. Williamson went on to collaborate with Iggy as a writer and producer for a couple of Pop’s solo ventures (1977’s Kill City and 1979’s New Values), but after falling out with the singer over Soldier’s recording methods, the pair remained estranged for 16 years.

    What happened next is one of rock music’s strangest tales: James Williamson gave up on music entirely, graduated from California State Polytechnic University with a degree in electrical engineering, and went on to work for Sony Electronics for 25 years. Most of his colleagues had no idea of Williamson’s involvement with The Stooges, despite Iggy Pop doggedly working himself into a position of international notoriety as one of rock’s most outlandish performers. The Raw Power guitarist wanted nothing to do with it. It took a university essay written by Williamson’s son, entitled ‘Coffins In The Corner’ – in reference to his father’s guitar cases sitting up against the wall, unopened all throughout his childhood and adolescence – to provoke the guitarist to finally accept Iggy’s offer to reform the band in the wake of Ron Asheton’s death last year. It also helped that Sony offered him a generous early retirement package from his role as Vice President of Technology Standards. Now Williamson, aged 61, is touring the world, playing The Stooges’ celebrated catalogue to a new generation. The Vine connected with the guitarist ahead of the band’s appearance on the Big Day Out tour in January and February 2011.

    —

    Andrew, how are you doing?

    I’m very well, thanks. It’s 7 a.m.

    7a.m.? [laughs] I’m sorry to put you through that, but I guess we could find the time we could both do it.

    Absolutely. It’s an honour, mate. I found your website while I was researching for this interview. I was intrigued by a couple of things. First, what’s the origin of your nickname?

    Oh, Straight James? After The Stooges had split up, Iggy came out with an album called The Idiot, and he had a song on there called ‘The Dum Dum Boys’ (link). In that song he talks about “Ron did this,” and “Scott, he did that”, and then “What about James? He’s gone straight”. So after that, I tongue-in-cheek named my publishing company ‘Straight James Music’ and it kinda stuck from there. I’ve had it ever since.

    For the full interview, visit The Vine.

    For more of The Stooges, visit your local record store / online outlet and immediately buy/download their three albums: The Stooges, Fun House, and Raw Power. Thank me later.

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  • December 22, 2010

    Mess+Noise EP review: Bleeding Knees Club – ‘Virginity’, December 2010

    An EP review for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.

    Bleeding Knees Club – Virginity

    The approach for Gold Coast duo Bleeding Knees Club is disarmingly simple, and on Virginity, their first release – five tracks, and barely 11 minutes in total – they sound simultaneously loose and confident. It works so well purely because there’s nothing else to get in the way of Alex Wall thrashing away at a shitty old drumkit while singing about his offsider being 20, him being 21, them both being drunk, and about how guitarist Jordan Malane “found my cigarettes” and “took three”. Throw in an incessantly-shaken tambourine and a harmonised vocal melody and you’ve got everything you could possibly want from a simple, dumb, awesome indie-punk tune.

    There’s a killer middle-eight in ‘Truth Or Dare’ that sounds like the wheels are about to fall off. This same sense of barely-contained enthusiasm propels Virginity along like Wall and Malane have nothing to lose.

    For the full review, visit Mess+Noise, where you can also stream the track ‘Bad Guys’. For more Bleeding Knees Club, visit their Myspace. Live footage of their song ‘Camp Out‘ is embedded below.

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  • December 2, 2010

    triple j mag story: ‘Friendly Fires in the studio’, December 2010

    A story for the November 2010 issue of triple j mag. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    Garage Days

    A lack of recording venues gave Friendly Fires licence to get creative

    “I don’t think I’ve had a day off in the last two years,” says Ed Macfarlane of the British dance-punk trio Friendly Fires. That’s no complaint, though: since the release of their self-titled debut album in 2008, the vocalist and his bandmates (Jack Savidge, drums; Edd Gibson, guitar) have been in demand, making a 2009 appearance at Splendour In The Grass. Though they’ve been writing and recording on and off since January, the band only recently set aside time to work in earnest on their follow-up LP: in the same garage as the first album, no less.

    “It feels really informal,” says the singer. “We’re not a band who’ll just set up the drums and guitar, and write and record in a day. We like to spend a lot of time really getting into the production, and trying to create weird and interesting sounds. I’m probably the band’s biggest perfectionist; I produced the first record and I’ve produced most of this one, too.” Ed admits that sometimes he needs Jack and Edd to slap him around the head and say “‘stop messing about with the hi-hat sound – the song is the important thing, let’s focus on that!'”

    The decision to self-produce was born of necessity: the natives of St Albans, Hertfordshire, weren’t keen to record in their hometown’s sole recording studio. It was a blessing in disguise: you’re entirely responsible for the output when you do everything yourself. Almost everything, that is; their debut’s opening track, ‘Jump in the Pool‘, was produced and co-written by famed producer Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Florence and the Machine), and Paul’s working on three new songs. ” Maybe that will affect the sound of the record, but I’m still pretty sure it’s gonna sound like us, not a producer,” Ed says.

    When it came to writing for the album, due out in February, Ed spent a productive month in a cottage in Nomandy, France. “I can’t speak French, and I don’t have any friends in Normandy, so it was just me on my own, trying to be creative. I got cabin fever about three weeks into it. There was definitely a point where I was questioning what I was doing.”

    Ed’s dance moves feature in live shows, and he confesses to indulging sometimes while recording. “It’s also particularly embarrassing if I’m working on a track alone, then my Mum or Dad opens up the garage and see me dancing to my own music!”

    For more Friendly Fires, visit their MySpace. The music video for their song ‘Kiss Of Life‘ is embedded below.

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  • August 12, 2010

    The Vine album review: Die! Die! Die! – ‘Form’, August 2010

    An album review for The Vine.

    Die! Die! Die! - Form album coverDie! Die! Die! – Form

    By now, Die! Die! Die! have assured their allegiance to a idiosyncratic punk-rock aesthetic: gritty, bottom-heavy, and consistently confronting. Like the New Zealand trio’s previous releases, Form contains a sound most unlike many other bands on the planet. Their hyperactive rhythms inspire vivid imagery of movement, of change, of progress. Form – their third full-length, and their first under the banner of legendary Kiwi indie Flying Nun Records – marks an evolution in the band’s songwriting, most notably in frontman Andrew Wilson’s guitar parts. He regularly alternates between a clean, jangly tone – usually during the verses – and punches one or more overdriven effects during the chorus. His playing isn’t formulaic, though, nor predictable; instead, his vocal and six-string contributions form the melodic basis amid the rhythmic bedrock laid down by bassist Lachlan Anderson and drummer Michael Prain.

    Musically, Die! Die! Die! describe a man-made wasteland built upon deceit, treachery and wasted potential. Their soundtrack is drums, bass, guitar and vocals. The images they conjure are frequently alienating, yet curiously, this music is addictive. Its disembodied, abrasive nature still manages to communicate a human warmth.

    Full review at The Vine.

    More Die! Die! Die! on Facebook. This album is brilliant. Video for the Form track ‘HowYe‘ embedded below.

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  • April 17, 2010

    The Vine interview: Die! Die! Die!

    Technically, this is my first video interview for The Vine. You wouldn’t know this if I hadn’t told you; although it took place via a Skype video call, it’s still published in plain text.

    New Zealand indie punk band Die! Die! Die!Andrew Wilson of Die! Die! Die!

    Indie punk band Die! Die! Die! burst forth from Dunedin, New Zealand in 2005 with a hard-edged debut album that favoured abrasive noise over melody or song longevity. Their second release, 2007’s Promises, Promises doubled that album’s duration to 40 minutes, and saw the band exploring a more restrained style of songwriting without losing their characteristic urgency and impact.

    Three years later, their third full-length is due. To whet our appetites, they’ve released a new video [for ‘We Built Our Own Oppressors’, see below] and are touring Australia throughout April. The Vine’s Andrew McMillen video called Die! Die! Die! singer/guitarist Andrew Wilson [pictured left in the above image] in Auckland, to discuss outsider perceptions of New Zealand, supporting Marilyn Manson, history’s great Kiwi bands, and turning down European tours with Brian Jonestown Massacre.

    Full interview over at The Vine.

    Skype video calls are a wonderful interview tool, though my connection did drop out midway through. We hastily reconnected and pretended that nothing happened. How marvelous that we can speak to one another from our respective bedrooms in Brisbane and Auckland. I should have taken a screenshot. Next time…

    Die! Die! Die! are an excellent band and you should give them a try. Thanks to Joe Segreto @ IMC for hooking this up.

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