I waited for a long time to watch this documentary since it came out, but I finally did it and I was not disappointed.
Fat Wreck Chords is one of my all time favourite, if not the favourite record label in the world. Founded in 1991.by Nofx bassist/singer Fat Mike and his now ex wife Erin, this label continues to be an epitome what melodic punk hardcore is all about. The movie describes the begginings with early bands signed, like Lagwagon, No Use For A Name, Propagandhi, Strung Out…and continues until these days with third or fourth generation of Fat bands like The Bombpops, Bad Cop/Bad Cop for example. Through the stories narrated by the band members, Fat Mike, Erin we now know how the Fat sound started to become reality. I loved the Tony Sly part and the interesting part about Propagandhi pissing off Fat Mike when they targeted him in their lyrics because of the disappointment with Fat Mike´s involvement in Punkvoters.com, I won´t say movement, rather initiative when they tried to vote the lesser of two evils to become the next U.S.president. But, what is most important throughout all these 25 years of Fat, the music continues its legacy and every year new and new legions of punk kids discover the beauty of punk scene through Fat Wreck Chords bands that were there and that they are here now. I also owe a great much of my punk upbringings to Fat Mike and Erin and their vision and I will be forever greatfull to them for discovering through their label some of the bands and records that became my all time favourites. Get and watch this one!
Ratbreed is the band from Finland and their new record is coming out via Inverse Records so I was able to listen to it and review it for this webzine.
Finland is the land of metal as everybody knows, this relatively small European country holds a great number of excellent bands be it melodic like Stratovarius, Nightwish, Sonata Arctica or Impaled Nazarene, Finntroll, Children of Bodom, to name only a few more known bands. Ratbreed comes from melodic approach to heavy metal playing a combination between classic pumping heavy metal and fast power metal. This record contains 8 songs plus one cover song by Warlock. The songs sometimes remind of the 80-ies classics for example Helloween or Gamma Ray and early Hammerfall in the second half of the 90-ies. Vocalist Jasmin is convincing with her voice and not trying to sound like anyone´s copy so, that is another plus for this band. Musically, the band is incredibly tight and the production of the record sounds great like a metal record of this kind should sound like. My personal favorites of the record are “Blaze from Below” and “Through the flames”. This is nothing new or special or revolutionary but it is a decent metal album.
Toronto indie-punk powerhouse Talk Show Host releases the first video from their critically acclaimed third EP, Not Here To Make Friends. The song’s title, “I Hate Men (I Hate All Men)”, is not meant to be taken sarcastically: the song skewers male entitlement, with verses delivered by an oblivious narrator who represents the worst of male privilege. One Redditor declared that the lyrics were “the most cuck” he had ever heard, so the band considers that a success.
The trio enlisted French director Judith Florent-Lapara to visually capture the essence of the song. The video features a crew of energetic teenage girls ready to laugh at the ongoing presence of the patriarchy in the music scene. “I was inspired by women’s groups that have marked the history of feminist music — like the Runaways, the Riot Grrl movement or even the Spice Girls — and I wanted to form a group of badass girls; the teenage aesthetic and the ’90s are completely part of my universe,” says Florent-Lapara. “I chose Noémie to play the leader of the group because not only she is an actress, but also a confirmed feminist activist. I was also inspired by the personality and style of the actresses, so everything was natural and the girls had fun while we were shooting. And it was really nice to work with 14- or 15-year-old girls who are motivated and full of energy.
She also notes that she wanted the video to have an upbeat tone: “I think that sometimes you need to include humour in activist projects. It’s important for the public to see that being engaged in politics and activism is not always violent and serious, but sometimes you can also have a good laugh at misogyny.”
Talk Show Host is an indie punk trio from Toronto, Canada, with three EPs under their belt. Their 2016 release, Perfectly Competent, drew comparisons to Green Day, Against Me! and Bob Mould. 2017 was a busy year for the band: a successful co-headlining European tour; the release of a Tragically Hip cover to raise money for the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research; high-profile shows with Direct Hit!, Pet Symmetry and Planes Mistaken For Stars; and the first single from Not Here to Make Friends, “Dead Meat”, landed on Spotify’s “Punk Unleashed” playlist alongside punk-rock essentials such as Frank Turner, Quicksand and The Bronx.
Premijerno izdanje Zmajeva, novog open-air festivala craft piva i muzike, održat će se u subotu, 7. srpnja u „zmajevom gnijezdu“. Na pivskom lineupu naći će se više od 25 vrsti piva, od kojih su neka po prvi put u Hrvatskoj, a veliki tulum na otvorenom uz free upad obećavaju i potvrđeni nastupi punokrvnih punk rock bendova s ovih prostora.
Dnevni program od 15 sati otvorit će energičan i svestran DJ Kuna koji hip hop, funk, disco i srodnim ljetnim zvucima gradi savršenu, opuštenu atmosferu za stavljanje brojnih točionika u pogon. Marljiva ekipa iz akcije Plavi bor organizirat će zanimljive radionice za djecu, dok će se stariji moći okušati u nagradnom pivskom kvizu i igrama. U popodnevnim satima Zmajska će otvoriti vrata svog pogona te će posjetitelji u organiziranim turama moći iz prve ruke doznati i vidjeti kako nastaje vrhunsko craft pivo.
Večernji program od 21h donosi probrana pobjednička imena regionalne punk rock delegacije. Na velikoj pozornici pod vedrim nebom nastupit će punk rock bendovi prve klase, himnični Mašinko i legendarni SIX PACK, a prethodit će im uzbudljiva imena nove generacije, sve prisutniji kajkavski punk rockeri Ogenj te beskompromisni alternativci Pičke vrište.
After the release of the first video/single “Please Kill Yourself Now”feat. Marcella Spaggiari (End Of A Season, Gufonero), hardcore/metal act Keep The Promise has revealed a new lyric video for “Storm Of Cursing”, second track taken from the new album “Ghosts Of Revenge”, who will be available on June 29th via Bleeding Nose Records.
“Ghosts Of Revenge” artwork and track listing
01 Storm Of Cursing
02 Please Kill Yourself Now (feat. Marcella Spaggiari, End Of Season)
03 Your Race Doesn’t Exist (feat. Dome Diego, Face Your Enemy)
04 Corrosion Of A Rotten Soul (feat. Alex, Damn City)
05 Ghost Animal
06 Hell Bedroom
07 The Stench Of Evil
08 A Dying Planet
09 The Abyss Of Innocents
Folk Metal Jacket are hailing from mighty Italian underground scene, the area of the town called Modena. When I first heard the music that they play I immediately fell in love with their art. So, it was about time to interview them for this webzine.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE FOLK METAL JACKET TO THE READERS OF THIS ZINE THAT DID NOT HEAR YOU GUYS YET?
Folk Metal has been all about the past for too many years, we need bands to research the sound of future folk. That’s what FMJ does.
THE NEW MATERIAL IS OUT. IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE OR SOMETHING THAT YOU TRIED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEW SONGS COMPARED TO THE OLD MATERIAL?
First of all we conceded ourselves more record time, which allows for more variations. These variations include more clean vocals and choir and a more atmospheric music overall. The result might sound less extreme, but it is definitely more inspiring.
WHERE DO YOU DRAW YOUR INSPIRATION FROM FOR YOUR SONGS? DESCRIBE A PROCESS OF THE SONGWRITING FROM THE IDEA TO THE FINISHED SONG?
Inspiration comes in a wide variety of ways, sometimes you just sit down and decide what kind of song you want, sometimes music just explodes from within. Once the early-alpha version of a song is shared by the author, we have a lot of talks and write different versions then decide which one works best.
HOW IS LIFE IN MODENA AND IN ITALY IN GENERAL? DO YOU HAVE A SCENE IN YOUR HOMETOWN, CONCERT VENUES, BANDS, PEOPLE WHO ORGANISE GIGS ETC?
Modena is a very industrial city, it doesn’t have any private venues and most of live music is played in pubs or restaurants. Since you don’t want a loud metal band in these contexts, we almost never play in our hometown. It’s great for jazz and acoustic pop, but definitely not metal-friendly.
HOW DID YOU COME IN CONTACT WITH THE UNDERGROUND SCENE? WHO WERE YOUR FIRST BANDS THAT YOU LISTENED TO, YOUR FIRST GIGS THAT YOU SAW ETC?
The first reason for starting the band was to play with our friends in pubs, we had a
couple places to go and all the bands in this “crew” had 3-4 concerts per year in every pub.
Then our demo was recorded by the guitarist of an awesome death metal band called Ever-Frost, we are still big fans of them. Another band we had a lot of gigs with are Kalevala HMS, their performances have been a great source of inspiration.
We have never been huge fans of the underground scene, but we really enjoyed some less known bands like Metsatöll, Tracedawn, Dornenreich…
WHAT HAS UNTIL NOW BEEN THE BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT FOR FOLK METAL JACKET?
We had some very cool gigs, but the biggest achievement is the family feeling you get after playing together for almost 10 years. The memories and the feeling of being home when you go on stage are the best achievement a musician will ever need.
DO YOU HAVE A LABEL OR DO YOU WORK EVERYTHING TOTALY DIY?
We had a label in the past but with digital distribution a band can find good deals without sharing the incomes with anyone else.
TELL US SOME FUNNY ANEGDOTE FROM YOUR GIGS, OR SOMETHING THAT MADE YOU ANGRY, SAD AND IT HAPPENED DURING YOUR GIG OR TOUR?
In 2014 we played at the Pollege Fest in Carrara, it’s a huge fest with lots of different bands and one of our fans was working there so he had us scheduled to play.
We were told to arrive at 3pm, but since the service was late we didn’t get to soundcheck. We spent 8 hours on the beach or in the backstage, then we got to play 3 songs before they cut the volumes off and told us to leave because the show was too late.
Our singer had to say goodbye to the fans without the mic.
After, we got drunk with our fans and “slept” in sleeping bags on the beach.
The morning after, a garbage collector tried to throw our drummer in the bin because he thought he was a trash bag!
TYPICAL FANZINE QUESTION:NAME THE FIVE ALBUMS THAT YOU WOULD TAKE WITH YOU ON A DESERTED ISLAND?
We have very different tastes, but the whole band would agree on:
Voice of Wilderness by Korpiklaani;
Iron by Ensiferum;
Are you Kidding me? No by Destrage;
Fragile by Yes;
Selling England by the Pound by Genesis.
THIS IS FINAL QUESTION. THANKS FOR THE INTERVIEW-NOW, DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY AND I DID NOT ASK?
Thank you Davor for your clever questions, webzines are a fundamental way to let everyone know the real perspective of a band.
Plus, if an interviewer manages entertaining questions it’s guaranteed fun to read. We have definitely become your fans as well, keep up the good work!
A Second Plan are hailing from Venice, California and this is their new record out on Tichiboy. I am glad that I had the chance to review this one.
Many bands are just plain copycats today and they only tried to copy paste their favourite bands and albums. That is not the case with A Second Plan. There are 13 songs on this album and the music this band plays is a mixture of nostalgic ride along the 90-ies skatepunk road. I totally managed to feel the bond to all the bands that I listened when I was a kid in the 90-ies. On the other hand, A Second Plan manages to sound modern with excellent guitar work and melodic hardcore song structures. There are also some almost metal, Propagandhi-esque influences that I could hear while listening to this album. But, it still manages to maintain the melodrama, happiness, energy, warmth, love and everything else that´s reason why skatepunk is besides horrorpunk the best music in the world! Top songs:”Sirens”, “Vultures” and “Heads you win, tails I lose”.
