Killing Joke Join Billy Idols Roadside Tour

Killing Joke Join Billy Idols Roadside Tour

Billy Idol is bringing his The Roadside Tour 2022, to the UK from 13th October. Killing Joke are delighted to be announced as special guests for the tour, after Television were forced to make a late withdrawal, alongside Billy’s other tour guest Toyah. 

Television are disappointed to announce: “Unfortunately due to illness, we have to cancel the forthcoming UK tour with Billy Idol. We send our deepest apologies to any fans who have bought tickets.“     

Billy will be heading out with some new music and a stack of timeless classics for his first appearances in the UK since 2018 and will play 6 Arena dates. Tickets are available from www.aegpresents.co.uk/billy-idol. 

“Just when you think it’s all over, I’d been missing my brothers in Killing Joke and then this opportunity came up. Looking forward to seeing everyone next week, 1 days rehearsal and a secret gig somewhere in the U.K. Lets get stuck in” Jaz Coleman, October 22” 

The ever-popular Toyah will bring an extra sense of fun to the tour. Alongside a flourishing acting career, Toyah carved out a successful musical career with three top ten UK hit singles in the 1980s and the Gold-selling album Anthem.  

“We’re looking forward to having Killing Joke and Toyah join us in the UK,” said Billy. “This is going to be an epic show!” 

 “I am thrilled to be opening for Billy Idol on The Roadside Tour,” an excited Toyah commented. “Billy is an icon whose music has thrilled millions worldwide and continues to do so. Billy has created a style of rock that has gone on to inspire generation after generation. ‘Rebel Yell, ‘White Wedding’ and ‘Mony Mony’ are up there with the all-time greats.  

Billy’s touring band features his long-time guitarist and collaborator Steve Stevens along with Stephen McGrath (bass, backing vocals), Billy Morrison (guitar, backing vocals), Paul Trudeau (keyboards, backing vocals) and drummer Erik Eldenius. 

Billy Idol The Roadside Tour 2022 dates: 

Thursday 13 October Manchester AO Arena 

Monday 17 October Cardiff Motorpoint Arena  

Wednesday 19 October London The SSE Arena, Wembley 

Friday 21 October Glasgow The SSE Hydro  

Sunday 23 October Birmingham Resorts World Arena 

Tuesday 25 October Leeds First Direct Arena 

Tickets for The Roadside Tour 2022 can be purchased from www.aegpresents.co.uk/billy-idol. All existing tickets are valid for the revised dates. 

Social Media –

Facebook – BillyIdol / Instagram – @billyidol 

Facebook – Killing Joke: Official  / Twitter – @Killingjokeband / Instagram – @killingjokeband 

Facebook + @toyahofficial  / Twitter – @toyahofficial / Instagram – toyahofficial Twitter 

Killing Joke/Imbeciles- Cardiff Tram shed 28/3/22

Killing Joke/Imbeciles- Cardiff Tram shed 28/3/22

As we move further into the new normal and as restrictions drop away and we begin the learning process of living in a “post pandemic world” as things move towards becoming endemic, live music has a huge part to play in the healing process, and re-invigorate our thoughts, attitudes and ability to function in a Tory led new world order. Thinking about new world order takes my thought straight to killing joke a band that have constantly pushed against the barriers of genre, attitude and predictability.

 I mean as scribes we constantly bounce our thoughts around look for influences get hooks to our writing and try and introduce the reader to band’s they might like based on their current listening, now ask yourself two questions

  1. Who are the influences that have helped build the Killing Joke sound?
  2. Who do Killing Joke sound like?

The answer to the first is there aren’t any, Killing Joke are constantly shifting the boundaries of music, they draw their power and intensity from fantastic musicians exploring the scope of their instruments with a frontman looking both inwards and  outwards from an almost visionary perspective pulling the threads together.

The answer to the second? No-One !! Killing Joke stand out on their own an enigma pulled together by an enigmatic frontman, present post punk/post modernist future reaching music, moving ever outwards and dictating where music can go rather than following the masses.

Pulling things back there is a support tonight Brooklyn based anglo-American ‘The Imbeciles’

The Imbeciles are: Butch Dante (guitar and backing vocals), Ben Rice (guitars, lap steel, backing vocals), John Kent (lead vocals, bass guitar, backing vocals, drums, percussion), Joshua Lattanzi (guitars and backing vocals), Charlie Culbert (drums).

Youth played bass guitar and co-write the songs on their new album ‘Imbelica’.

Now I have to hold my hands up I didn’t dive in and research them prior through choice, sometimes its worth making your mind up raw without prior influence in the live setting and myself alongside the crowd  really took to the band again not really a band you could pin down to a specific genre, at times hinting at REM, at times drawing on the grunge attitude Nirvana in particular, but staying in the Seattle sound with the Meat puppets and Soundgarden again coming through and all underpinned with almost a classic rock sound. The new LP will be well worth exploring and I would urge people to check them out live.

In all the times I’ve seen Killing Joke alongside the H Bomb’s experiences who provided tonight’s photos well into double figures between us ‘Love like Blood’ has only been  experienced once and never by yours truly and they only opened with it tonight!!! Fair play and then to follow it with ‘Wardance‘ and ‘The Fall Of Because’ I was a happy man, in fact the whole gig was both intense and relentless, presided over by a frontman on top form, engaging and driven, the intensity just continued to ramp up as the band locked in and by the time we’d gone through ‘Money is Not Our God’ and ‘This World Hell’ we were on fire and then ‘Bloodsport’ just tore the roof off. There were so many highlights until we got to the end of the main set with ‘The Wait’ and ‘Pssyche’.

Time to take a breath and we’re back with Requiem dedicated to Taylor Hawkins, ‘I am the Virus’ and ‘Pandemonium’.

So returning to my initial thoughts Killing Joke are still bang on point as relevant today as they were in the beginning moving and dictating what music should sound like tearing their own path Brutal, intense, challenging and forward thinking as all music should be standing alone an Enigma but one that needs to be experienced by one and all.  

Author: Nev Brooks pics Johnny Hayward

The Imbeciles release video from new album ahead of tour with Killing Joke

The Imbeciles release video from new album ahead of tour with Killing Joke

THE IMBECILES ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM ‘IMBECILICA’ RECORDED AND CREATED WITH LEGENDARY PRODUCER YOUTH

OUT MAY 20th VIA CADIZ MUSIC

PRE-ORDER HERE:

 Taken from their forthcoming album which is released on Cadiz Music and is a collaboration with Youth from Killing Joke who produced the album and played bass on it, and they’re touring with Killing Joke in March/April.

The Anglo-American Imbeciles are enigmatic writer/guitarist Butch Dante’s creation, with a history of being vividly reborn. In chrysalis form they were a conventional punk band, Wartoad, till a Californian tour finished at an ex-biker roadhouse, whose former denizens were still inclined to dig up guns and bury bodies in the surrounding desert. Improvising with extreme freedom at what felt like the end of the world, The Imbeciles were born here.

2019’s The Imbeciles debut album was taped in eight deranged days, in a haunted studio on the Texan-Mexican frontier, a record of abrupt razor-edits and spectral moods. This was followed by an unhinged gig at London’s Heavenly Social where the band crashed and burned, with Dante pulling only singer John Kent from the wreckage with him.

As lockdown hit in 2020, the Dissolution Sessions EP was the first sign of renewed life, with a rebuilt line-up and sound. “I said, ‘I want to do pub-rock,’” Dante says, “and it went over really well.” It outsold the original album, with Crystal Palace fan Dante’s art-punk football anthem “Sunday Leaguer” being played on Match Of The Day. Youth (aka Martin Glover), loved it, and invited them to his Andalusian studio to properly begin Phase 2.

Colonel Kurtz and Hunter Thompson had seemed guiding spirits during the first album’s stoned madness. Youth’s El Mirador studio was equally extreme in its way, rewarding the Imbeciles who’d survived Texas’s purifying flame with a hippieish, bohemian Shangri-La. Waking up in Peter Murphy’s bed (the Bauhaus singer is a regular guest), Dante had to pinch himself at this ascension into post-punk heaven. “It’s on a mountain on Spain’s southern coast,” he recalls, “where Youth has built a big compound with Moroccan-style minarets. It’s quite chaotic, with incredibly esoteric furniture, art and books. You climb up a ladder to a sorcerer’s library in a tower dedicated to music. It’s got a huge, sunken sitting room with a big fire, and a pool. When we got there, it was just me, John Kent and Youth. For three days we just ate food and talked, listened to music and watched Kubrick movies – and Final Destination! – and decided what we were going to do. The rest of the band turned up and plugged in, and things started happening.” Youth’s musical partner Michael Rendall played keyboards, with Youth playing bass and co-writing throughout.

photo Tom Sheehan

The first fruits of the sessions for new album ‘Imbecilica’ can be heard today in new single ‘Tiny Blue People’, a high-energy attack that explodes with vitality and melody. The Tiny Blue People in the video live an invisible existence at the bottom of swimming pools in the suburbs United States, cunningly camouflaged by their blue skin. At night they emerge to cause mischief and mayhem – and, sometimes, gory murder – before retreating back to their chlorinated and aquatic world.

“The song is about the duality of American middle-class society,” reveals Butch Dante. “At one level everything looks perfect, idyllic – but in reality, those perfect lawns and crystal blue pools conceal the vilest perfidy, a world ruled by egotism and base cruelty.”

Killing Joke announce Honour The Fire UK Tour 2022

Killing Joke announce Honour The Fire UK Tour 2022
Tickets available from www.myticket.co.uk on Friday 25th June at 10am.
Gatherers of the World, Killing Joke are delighted to announce their first UK tour in over three years, 2022’s Honour The Fire tour.
‘The fire is that which brings us all together. And after this dreadful pandemic this tour will be like no other.
One great mosh pit!“ -promises Jaz Coleman
“The fire in our hearts that has sustained and protected us for over 40 years, never goes out.
It is our privilege to Honour The Fire and celebrate the white heat purification by sound. Join with us in a fearless leap through the sacred flames, into the unknown….let’s create the future we all desire, by sonically destroying the one we don’t” – Youth
Killing Joke’s 10 date tour will start at the Tramshed in Cardiff on Monday, 28th March, before concluding in London at Eventim Apollo Hammersmith on Saturday 9th April.
Very much music as ritual – raw, uncompromising and precisely-targeted lyrically; Jaz Coleman, Geordie, Youth & Big Paul, the original Killing Joke personnel show no signs of mellowing.
With collective nostrils flared and righteous anger carried torch-high, Killing Joke continue to take their music of resistance to fresh levels…
The full list of ‘Honour The Fire’ UK 2022 shows.
March 2022
28th Mon Cardiff Tramshed
29th Tue Nottingham Rock City
31st Thu Bristol O2 Academy
April 2022
1st Fri Liverpool O2 Academy
2nd Sat Birmingham O2 Institute
4th Mon Manchester Albert Hall
5th Tue Newcastle Boiler Shop
6th Wed Glasgow Barrowland
8th Fri Leeds O2 Academy
9th Sat Lodon Eventim Apollo Hammersmith
Tickets available from www.myticket.co.uk on Friday 25th June at 10am.

The Imbeciles release brand new video and EP

The Imbeciles release brand new video and EP

THE IMBECILES ‘DISSOLUTION SESSIONS’ NEW EP 

ORDER THE EP HERE:

Mysterious art/punk rockers The Imbeciles have a new 6-track EP ‘Dissolution Sessions’ out today and to mark this occasion they’ve released a video for ‘Yes I Am’ from the EP taken from their recent gig in Brooklyn, New York this month where they played a gig in frontman Butch Dante’s garage to about 30 live music starved fans. The perfect setting for the bands raw, primal sound!

Following their eponymously named debut album in 2019, art punks The Imbeciles return today with a new self-released six-track EP titled ‘Dissolution Sessions’, that features a new band line up – and a different sound. “We’ve slimmed down from a meandering, vegan, six-member prog rock combo, to a tight-knit, guitar-led, steak-eating 5-piece,” says lead Imbecile, Butch Dante. “The guitar sound is fuzzy punk beast-master AF, and we like it.”

 

The band had originally gone into the studio earlier this year to record a radio session for BBC R6. That ended up being cancelled because of the pandemic crisis. “We were there anyway so we started riffing on some new songs and everything came together real fast,” says Butch.

 

In early 2021 the band are set to begin recording a new album with hugely respected producer and Killing Joke founder, Youth.

 

“Having Youth involved as producer and co-writer is the most dope thing that has ever happened to the band,” says lead singer and bass player Kip Larson. “Everyone is in a super positive, hyper creative place right now and we can’t wait to see what we come up with.”

 

Find The Imbeciles online at: 

Website / Merch / Facebook / Instagram /  Twitter / Youtube

 

THE RETURN OF THE FUTURAMA FESTIVAL – EASTER 2021

THE RETURN OF THE FUTURAMA FESTIVAL – EASTER 2021

  A UTOPIAN FESTIVAL FOR DYSTOPIAN TIMES

THE LEGENDARY 2-DAY POST-PUNK FESTIVAL RETURNS TO LIVERPOOL APRIL 3-4, 2021

PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT CONFIRMED TO PERFORM JOY DIVISION’S SET FROM FUTURAMA 1979!

TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM SEE TICKETS HERE:

Website

Futurama, the legendary post-punk festival is back after 40 years and takes place at the Invisible Wind factory / Make Arts Centre and Ten Streets Social in Liverpool over two days, 3rd and 4th of April 2021.

The Futuramas were a series of ground-breaking and innovative post punk and electronic music festivals in the late 70’s and early 80’s. They were the brainchild of one-man, John Keenan, a legendary Leeds promoter who has put thousands of bands on over 40 years at his famous F Club. In 1979, he decided to do a 2-day festival at the Queens Hall in Leeds and put on all of his favourite up and coming bands and curated the first alternative indoor festival in Britain. Nearly all of Britain’s most important and influential independent bands played these festivals and many of them went onto considerable success in Britain, Europe, and the US. The roll call reads like the greatest who’s who of alternative music and they include Joy Division and New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, PiL, Killing Joke, Teardrop Explodes, Bauhaus, The Fall, The Smiths, Gang of Four, Sisters of Mercy, Theatre Of Hate, The Psychedelic Furs & even a fledgling U2. The Futurama festivals caught the zeitgeist perfectly and not only put on many female fronted bands, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, Young Marble Giants, Bow Wow Wow & Altered Images, but also many of the new wave of electronic & synthesizer acts including Soft Cell, Cabaret Voltaire, OMD, Simple Minds, Clock DVA & Vice Versa who later became ABC.

The post-punk era still casts an enormous influential shadow over contemporary music, making the timing perfect for the festival to return, combining both legendary acts from the festival’s history with the absolute best in up-and-coming talent.

pic by William Ellis – www.william-ellis.com

Bringing Futurama full circle, Peter Hook & The Light are confirmed to perform Joy Division’s set from Futurama 1979 in full, promising to be an absolute thrill for fans of the iconic band.

“Futurama was one the first festival experiences I ever had,” remembers bassist Peter Hook. “John Keenan the promoter became a lifelong friend. He was one of the first legends. The gig was the first time I’d ever seen caravans used as dressing rooms indoors, but it had a great atmosphere. It really put Joy Division on the map and the groups on the bill were very well matched to the audience. There weren’t many indoor festivals prior to Futurama so it was quite ground-breaking for the genre in the north. Funnily enough it gets talked about a lot even now. John became a legend and, in many ways, so has the festival. Let’s hope we can capture that wonderful atmosphere again.”

Also linking the festival’s history are Kirk Brandon’s Theatre Of Hate who will be celebrating their 40th anniversary of playing Futurama 3 in 1981, returning in 2021.

With a headliner still to be announced, these iconic acts join a host of bands from the many different strains and spectrums of alternative music, with respected website Louder Than War hosting the main stage on one day, and the world’s biggest rock ‘n’ roll and punk magazine Vive Le Rock the other day, whilst The AF Gang (the IDLES legendary fan club) host the up and coming stage.

There are 4 stages at the Futurama.

Invisible Wind Factory Main Stage: Headline acts and supports

Substation Downstairs in IWF: Electronic, synth and experimental noise

Make Arts Centre: Some of the best new and vintage post punk bands on the circuit

Ten Street Social: The AF Gang hosts the up and coming stage plus DJ sets

Other acts confirmed to appear include Warmduscher, The Chameleons, The Blinders, The Lovely Eggs, Spizz Energi, Imperial Wax, Just Mustard, Membranes, Evil Blizzard, Sink Ya Teeth, John, Heavy Lungs, We Are Not Devo, DSM IV, Bob Vylan, Billy NoMates, Witch Fever, Tokky Horror, Pozi, Crows, St Agnes, LibraLibra, Courting, Crawlers and Joe & Shitboys, with many more to be announced.

Tickets are Early Bird £80 for the weekend from See Tickets HERE:

£20 deposit scheme and four payments scheme in place

For more info head to: futuramafestival.com

Jaz Coleman/Ondrej Smeykal New project Black & Red ‘On The Day The Earth Went Mad.’

Jaz Coleman/Ondrej Smeykal New project Black & Red ‘On The Day The Earth Went Mad.’
Jaz Coleman proudly announces his new project Black & Red, a collaboration with Ondrej Smeykal. Listen to Black & Red’s debut single ‘On The Day The Earth Went Mad’ across all digital platforms here: https://jazcoleman.com/on-the-day-the-earth-went-mad-store/ and the single is also available as a limited edition numbered red vinyl 10” via Cadiz Music.
“The Black and Red project was born in Australia in 2010 when I set out to find the greatest virtuoso of the didgeridoo only to find the maestro of the instrument resided in Prague where I lived. Upon my return to Czech Rep, I was introduced to Ondrej Smeykal 
We ended up not just developing an ancient instrument * but recording the Black and Red project (adding only Indian Harmonium) and an explosive duo was formed which could recreate the recording live perfectly. The funny thing is  Black and Red only made sense after lockdown”  explains the prophetic Jaz Coleman.

Jaz Coleman began this project with a single challenge, “to create and develop a new therapeutic musical system whose primary function was healing. The project was called the Dodecahedron as a dual tribute to the Russian scientists Morasov and Makarow who began to examine the globe to see if any pattern should emerge linking significant places in history…..” To read Jaz Coleman’s explanation in full go to: https://jazcoleman.com/
To order the new 10” vinyl single alongside exclusive merchandise go to Jaz Coleman’s new official website: https://jazcoleman.com/
Who’s Mad Now ! certainly not the maverick genius Jaz Coleman.

Killing Joke 40th anniversary UK Tour

Killing Joke 40th anniversary UK Tour
Gatherers of the World, Killing Joke are delighted to announce their 40th anniversary World tour, Laugh At Your Peril.
‘Forty years ago this summer I met Big Paul, one year later we released our first EP. Our fortieth anniversary celebrations will therefore be stretched over 2 years and begins with a world tour, parties and talks by Youth and myself, a new magnum opus by KJ, who is ,after all this time, recognised as one of the most innovative and influential bands of all time. Love is the law let the festivities begin!!! “ Jaz.
“Forty years in the wilderness …Thought that was supposed to be 40 days.
As Jaz reminds me “Survival is success” and although the band have never been fiscally fat commercially, it has allowed us to have incredible lives, both individually and collectively and we have created a very rich wealth of uncompromising music. It’s a  legacy, that spans 4 decades ….40 years of spine tingling, uncompromising beautiful noise.
The band continue to inspire and bludgeon down the bullshit in the world into a white hot, blast furnace Dub of unrelenting passion, a rollercoaster, white knuckle punch in the face of beautiful agony/reality and timeless cosmic joy and soul. 
To commit to the creative beauty and vision you have as an artist, is an almost perverse way to live a life and the cost and consequences are immense…yet this is how we inform ourselves as a society,  of what is real and important In a world of fake news and fake emotions …Like Shiva dancing the world into existence,  we are all simultaneously destroying and creating every moment of our reality . It is not though politics that the world is changed but through Art. Art alone can tell us who we really are, emotionally, intellectually and physically, far better than anything else. That is why we have committed so much, for so long to this one idea …Killing Joke 
Thanks to all the fans and gatherers that have supported and joined us in this endless quest.” Youth.
Killing Joke the tour started in the United States at the Studio Seven in Seattle on Saturday, 1st September before heading into mainland Europe. This run of 45 shows concludes at the Roundhouse in London on Saturday, 17th November.
 
Very much music as ritual – raw, uncompromising and precisely-targeted lyrically; Jaz Coleman, Geordie, Youth & Big Paul, the original Killing Joke personnel, are currently delivering the best and most relevant material of their career, with no mellowing or softening of the edges getting in the way.
With collective nostrils flared and righteous anger carried torch-high, Killing Joke continue to take their music of resistance to fresh levels, both in the studio and out on the road…