Bandcamp Friday – tips and recommendations

Bandcamp Friday – tips and recommendations

To emphasise further the banality of the current lockdown we’re resurfacing from here in England, it only feels like 10 days or so since I did my November list for Bandcamp Friday. Either way here we are yet again with new music from artists and money potentially burning holes in pockets.

Swan Wash – The Upstairs Museum
 
The latest EP from Indiana’s Swan Wash. A classic Post Punk affair, stark in sound and lyrics with a Goth/Deathrock aura. The tracks hover
somewhere between original Christian Death and the reserved punk approach of Wire.
The Glycereens – Neon City Lights
 
The Brisbane quartet offer up this slab of meat and potatoes Glam Punk. They certainly aren’t reinventing the wheel with this new single but it’s catchy all the same, with a new album set to be dropped early next year hopefully it’s as strong as the previous.
The Paranoyds – Pet Cemetery/Hotel Celebrity
As the titles on the release may suggest, the sounds on the tracks are night and day from each other. The A-side being very organ heavy, gloomy in atmosphere with vocals being equidistant from Kim Gordon and Siouxie Sioux. The B in contrast is a Lo-Fi Pop gem. Think if you can of a ‘valley girl’ Pavement.
Bipolar – Bipolar EP
 
The debut self titled EP from Brooklyn’s Bipolar, a beautifully shambolic mess of heavy guitars and subtle synths sounding not a million miles from exit_international or in the slightly less intense bits, Slaves.
Ohmns – Nightmare Trail
 
Here we have doomy Liverpool noise merchants Ohmns with a stunning offering of blaring proto punk goodness. The track was originally a part of a limited edition cassette release earlier this year which has since sold out but the lads have kindly resurrected the track for you all to download at the generous cost of ‘name your price’.. fill yer boots.
Author: Dan Kasm
We’ve also got plenty more recommendations for you starting with Ben who suggests you good people check out Dangereens. The band hail from Montreal in Canada and they play Rock and Roll.  Their album slipped under our radar earlier this year entitled ‘Tough Luck’ and Bens right on the money and this is a band you should check out if Hanoi Rocks meets some good time Faces style boogie woogie is your thing then you need to hear these.
If that didn’t float your boat how about some sleazy low down dirty punk rock and roll courtesy of Jonas Hillbom & The Wildbeards from Stockholm, Sweden.  With some singles on offer, these rockers kick out the jams and were brought to our attention by the finely tunes ears of Fraser.
How about some Italian garage rock and roll? The strangely named Pre-Cog In The bunker has a sleazy slice of Garage available for all you purists.  It’s straight out of the one-take Cramps school of Rock and Roll.  They have this rather nice 7″ available on Bandcamp for you to take advantage of.  And you get a couple of bonus cuts that are digital-only thrown in for good measure. ‘On The Run’ is straight out of the VU pocket and a rather splendid track to be fair. Hit em up here

Whilst it’s Bandcamp Friday it would be downright wrong of us not to push on you good people some Deathtraps  Lets fall out of love with the world as the clusterfuck that is 2020 can be made a lot smoother with some dirty grubby action rock and roll.  They don’t really want to kill the cool kids (at least we don’t think they do) and they have album number four to finance so chuck em a sheckle or two it’ll be worth it because they’re bloody good and you’ll get some quality choons in return.

45 RPM – its a revolution

45 RPM – its a revolution

 

If it were a six a side knock about I’d be quite pleased these bad boys were on my team some old some young some borrowed and, well, nothing Blue  Check out the last six singles for August and an amazing month for releases…

 

Divine Horsemen – ‘Mystery Writer’ (Self Release)  The first new music in thirty-three years and it’s pretty bloody decent to be fair.  With the duet vocals, it’s a slow-burning Rock and Roller reminding me of when the sisters of mercy rocked it up and some old school Keith inspired Rock n Roll.  As the guitars weave their merry web the melody rolls on.  On the virtual B side is the chunky riff of ‘Mothers Worry’.  A live cut with a bit of guts and plenty of attitude.  A decent offering and great pallet taster for the new music they must be releasing soon.

Buy Here

 

 

 

Jesse Malin – ‘Todd Youth’ (Wicked Cool Records) We jumped the gun a few weeks ago when we covered this Jesse Malin release but it’s here now. With an A-side paying tribute to former bandmate and guitar legend Todd Youth Jesse has penned a pretty upbeat number and not the tear-jerking ballad you might expect and he also gets Bad Brains legend HR to join him on the song. There’s a Motown feel here and a great way to pay tribute to one hell of a player and popular musician from coast to coast and continent to continent Youth touched many and its great he’s remembered here in such a fine way.  The flip side sees a funky ‘Sally Can’t Dance’ that I’m sure even Lou Reid would give a standing ovation to from the horns to the Bv’s and beyond.  Malin nails it again.

Buy Here

 

Pre Cog In The Bunker – ‘Precogs Dream’ (sister Raygun Records) Italian pair churn out a hellish noise of Garage rock goodness in the shape of Precogs dreams and on a wonderfully vivid pink vinyl.  It’s just Rock and Roll in the time-honoured Cramps, 60’s VU style. They hit things & chop out some phat riffs and throw in plenty of howls!  Its pretty much the MO for all three tracks its been done before but it will no doubt be done another million times with varying degrees of quality. This is a decent listen and whilst the songs are all mid-tempo its pretty good.  So the final track is hanging on by a thread before the breakdown which is very VU if I’m honest and there’s nothing wrong with that at all and ‘On The Run’ is my pick of the three tracks on offer here. I certainly wouldn’t object to hearing more of this when I get round to hearing the album they also released earlier this year until then this will do. Buy Here

 

Joe Desglose – ‘Too Much TV’ (Self Release) Joe thought he’d sneak these demo tunes out and people wouldn’t notice or more likely Facebook and their algorithm wouldn’t let it reach too many people but we’ve always liked Joe from his Breakdowns days and through his tenure with DeRellas Joe has a great pedigree and these raw song ideas show he’s lost none of that trashy fury even with just an acoustic guitar and a voice you can see and hear the songs taking shape.  From the uptempo ‘Tattered Star’ through the tribute to Ms. Jett in the shape of the excellent ‘St Joan’.  You have the more laid back ‘Conversations With The Girl’ which has a slightly continental feel and with the Johnny Thunders guitar break we like a lot and when this virus eases to the point where Joe can get into a studio with an electric band this might just get a lot more exciting if this is the quality of songs we can expect. Not a bad one amongst them and ‘Wedding Song’ sounds like a long lost Frankie Miller number Joe is on form and long may it continue. Check them out here

 

The Candy Snatchers – ‘Picture My Face’ (Fandango Records)  Heres the story for these two tracks and how they’re now getting their digital birth some time after the crime so to speak. The Candy Snatchers shouldneed no introductions to be fair I’ve said on numerous occasions how immense Larry Mays vocals are and how intense he makes every record sound and its always better than the last one and this is no exception absolute stone cold classics and this band should have been Fuckin huge no make that HUGE!

“Sometime in late 1997, Matthew Odietus handed Jake Starr a DAT with two new Candy Snatchers songs on it for a split 7” with Adam West on Fandango Records. Jake chose “Picture My Face,” a raucous cover of the Teenage Head classic, and released it as FR-012 limited to 510 copies. The 7″ single sold out nearly overnight and has never been repressed or released digitally… until now. This version of “Treda Douche” is the first take on the song and was originally released on a rare LP compilation on Intensive Scare Records. Both songs have now been remastered and are available for the first time digitally. These two songs also feature Black Market Baby drummer Tommy Carr, who was briefly in the band in between permanent drummers. Fandango is so proud to re-release these songs for your listening pleasure. Enjoy, kids!”  I couldn’t have said it better myself

Buy Here

Chaser – ‘Look Alive’ (Self Release) Its hard not to admire any band who donates 100% of the band’s proceeds from record sales will be donated to Equal Justice Initiative, Educational First Steps, Crisis Aid International, and Surfrider Foundation so here you go fill yer boots with the video of the track taken from the album of the same title.  Right out of the Bad Religion pocket.

Here are some details of where to pick up a physical copy –

The track, now streaming on all digital platforms, appears on the band’s upcoming ‘Look Alive’ 7″/EP out on September 4. Vinyl copies of the 7″ have sold out, but digital copies and merch are available at www.chaserpunkrock.com.

The sold-out ‘Look Alive’ 7″ was limited to 333 copies, and available worldwide in 4 different color variants via Thousand Islands Records (Canada), Sound Speed Records (USA), SBAM Records (Europe) and Pee Records (Australia).