Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Shame

One Liner: Post-punk London rock that rules.
Wikipedia Genre: Post-punk, indie rock
Home: London

Poster Position: 19

Day: Sunday at 12:15
Weekend One Only.

Thoughts: Weird, cool combination of the Clash, old Arctic Monkeys, old Black Flag or Fugazi, new wave guitar music from the 80's, and tuneful new brit shoegaze-sounding tunes.  And sometimes the singing evokes old Blur.  I need to know more about these cats, because this is mostly very fun music that mashes together a handful of things that I like.  I swear someone at C3 hates me, because literally every interesting band is only playing freaking weekend one.

Reading some of their origin story is interesting, they were almost complete amateurs three years ago, with only one of them having any formal training (bassist).  “We basically started this band because our drummer Charlie’s dad was best mates with the landlord of the Queen’s Head [a once- notoriously seedy Brixton pub which birthed, among others, Fat White Family],” explains [lead singer] Steen. "And this guy said, ‘If Charlie wants to do any drumming or whatever, he can come down.’ And we were 17, at a massive party in Streatham after our last AS [high school exams in England], and we were all fucked. And we were like, ‘Well why don’t we just go down to this pub and do it?’""  Some of the dudes are still not even old enough to drink in the US.  Another interesting tidbit is that they had a good crowd in NYC, but then played Philly to 20 people.  How freaking fun would that be, one of only 20 people to see a band like this?

Their top track is called "One Rizla," and it has 1.4 million streams.  A "Rizla" is a rolling paper for cigarettes/joints.  And the opening of it is great, just the singer dogging on himself - his voice, his looks, his clothes - but I never did catch the part where he sings about only having one rolling paper to use.  Why is he worried about the one Rizla if he's too ugly to hang out with anyway?  Smoke it up, buddy.  All yours.
The tune is top notch - very much enjoy the grungy underside with the chiming guitars.  As is alluded to by the guy at the end, "Songs of Praise," which is the name of the band's one album (from 2018), is also the name of a BBC show on Sunday afternoons that shows church choirs singing hymns.  Funny tweak in that name.

The second-most listened-to track is "Concrete," which goes even more into the yelling vocal style I'm referencing when I say Black Flag/Fugazi is referenced here.  984k streams.
And once again, that underling music is freaking great.  Not entirely sure about the yelling, but I can go along with it in favor of the rest of the tune.  The two missteps in my opinion are the boring political tune "Visa Vulture" and the garbage electronic remix of "Tasteless."  Otherwise, I want to keep hearing these tunes.

Go give this one a shot.  If you are like me and like some rock and roll, and are excited about the chance to see some hungry new rock guys tearing things up, then we should all meet together and jam this show.

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