SLICE OF LIFE have released a new official video for new song S.A.D.
Annoucing the news on the Louder than War site, Carole Hodges explained: “S.A.D is a song very close to Steve’s heart. Written with a definite nod towards its Seasonal Affective Disorder namesake, the lyrics plead with the listener for “some kind of love”, always indecisive as to whether such a gesture will be accepted or rejected by the sufferer.”
The black-and-white video was shot at Union Mills in Bolton, and was filmed and produced by RKidMedia.
Slice of Life are currently working on a new album, with a released date penciled in for this summer.
Built around the enduring nucleus of Sid Truelove and Zillah Minx, Rubella Ballet formed in 1979 when Crass invited their audience to use their equipment and finish the gig. The newly formed group took to the road with Crass and the Poison Girls and quickly established a unique niche, standing out from the multitudes in black combat wear with their day-glo visual image and a diverse range of material that encompassed elements drawn from across the sonic spectrum.
Having made an initial impact with their groundbreaking Ballet Bag cassette pack in 1981, Rubella Ballet gigged heavily, presenting a celebratory spectacle of ultraviolet defiance that was driven relentlessly onward by Sid’s mighty rhythms and given context by Zillah’s unmatchable siren-song vocals. After their debut, Ballet Dance EP and subsequent 42f single impacted on the Independent Top Ten, the group continued to release new material intermittently across the decade.
The group returned to the studio in 2014, releasing Planet Punk, their first full length album in almost 25 years. A hit with critics and the group’s faithful following, the album drew upon a lifetime’s opposition to oppression and exploitation, emerging as what many cite as the band’s crowning achievement. The album also saw Sid emerge from behind the drumkit to demonstrate his prowess as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and engineer.
Now, four years on, Rubella Ballet have built upon the edifice of resistance defined within the grooves of Planet Punk, recording their latest studio LP, Danger Of Death, which will be available via Overground Records from late Summer 2018. Heralded by the singles compilation, Day Glo Daze, issued on Last Hour Records, Danger Of Death throws the pure light of reason on a modern world torn asunder by forces that seek to control, obfuscate and exploit. A lambent beacon of pure ultraviolet truth, shining vividly against a backdrop of fake news and government lies, Danger Of Death features material that confront today’s issues with honesty and defiance.
THE CRAVATS begin a three dates mini-tour-ette this evening (5 April), with a gig in Bristol at The Thunderbolt, with gigs in London (6 April) and Brighton (7 April) to follow, playing alongside Folk Devils
Overground Records are now accepting advance orders on the vinyl re-release of The Cravats’ debut single Gordon (backed by Situations Vacant). This repressing, limited to 500 copies comes with a special. insert. This seven-inch of aural loveliness was originally released in July 1978.
INTERROBANG‽ RELEASE THE band’s self-titled debut album today, and kick off the album launch tour with the first date in Todmorden.
Interrobang‽ was formed in 2012 by ex-Chumbawamba members Dunstan Bruce and Harry Hamer and “former enfant terrible in the London louts, Regular Fries” Stephen Griffin. Their album is released in vinyl, digital download and CD formats. All The Mad Men Records sold out of all pre-release copies ahead of the release, but vinyl and CD copies will be available from the band on tour, and from many of the usual (and some unusual) outlets.
The eponymously entitled Interrobang‽ album is vocalist Bruce laid bare, torn open asunder, as he finds himself deep in those 50-something blues. Lyrically the album is an exploration of his determination to never give up the struggle despite his own malaise. He questions and rails against his own demise with song titles such as Curmudgeon, Mad As Hell and Am I Invisible Yet? whilst still full of that anger about the state of the world in songs such as Are You Ready People? and Here Now. He veers from the personal to the political, from the poignant to the pithy, never pulling any punches, always being brutally honest but with an ability to laugh at himself as well.
The music of Griffin and Hamer is short, sharp and urgent. Interrobang‽ pride themselves on their tightness and economy in these rapid-fire assaults and with their crisp, cutting backing vocals the band have created an album that is pointed and precise, exciting and exhilarating. This is an album’s worth of hard hitting songs for hard hit people with Griffin’s guitar technique building layers of scorching sonics which when seen live will astound.
WITH THE RELEASE of What Passing Bells: The War Poems of Wilfred Owen, Penny Rimbaud discusses the project (and life, the universe and everything else) with Noisey’s Jamie Thomson. Of his work on the Wilfred Owen project he says:
I wouldn’t have done it if it was just a horror story. Because certainly, equally, his poetry is more powerful than any I know of describing the horror and the misery in the trenches, but at the same time there’s this sort of strange, deep love of the people who he was there with, which is the very love that he went back. I mean, he was hospitalised and actually could very easily not have gone back, but he did go back. He went back not because he believed in the war, but that he did believe in his men and loved his men.
EARLIER THIS MONTH Antisect released their first album in 34 years: The Rising of the Lights is the follow-up to 1983’s In Darkness, There Is No Choice.
The album is previewed on the Noisey site, and there’s more information on the band’s official web site.
THE DOWNLOAD AND streaming versions of the debut album by Interrobang‽, formed by former Chumbawamba members Dunstan Bruce and Harry Hamer and Stephen Griffin, have now been released, with the CD and vinyl versions now scheduled for March 2018.
NO BULLSHIT DETECTED Interrobang‽ frontman and Chumbawamba co-founder Dunstan Bruce talks at length with Amy Goodman on the US national, daily, independent news program; Democracy Now! – The War and Peace Report. Watch to the end for an impassioned spoken word performance; drawing on writings from Interrobang‽’s album, accompanied by Joey DeFrancesco of Downtown Boys.
Interrobang‽ – the self-titled album is available now via download and streaming platforms and will be released on both Vinyl and CD via All The Madmen Records in Spring 2018, to coincide with a UK tour
...is the online accompaniment to a variety of writing projects on the history, culture, politics and practice of British anarcho-punk, 1977-1984
Most recent work…
Rich Cross. 2018. 'International Anthem - Gee Vaucher [review]', Punk and Post-Punk, 7(3), pp. 453-457. doi:10.1386/punk.7.3.447_5.
And All Around Was Darkness
Rich Cross. 2017. 'Fifteen shades of grey', in Greg Bull and Mike Dines (eds.), And All Around Was Darkness, Itchy Monkey Press, pp.218-227. ISBN 978-1-291-74025-7.
The Aesthetic of Our Anger
Rich Cross. 2016. '"Stop the City showed another possibility": Mobilisation and Movement in Anarcho-Punk', in Matt Worley and Mike Dines (eds.), The Aesthetic of Our Anger: Anarcho-Punk, Politics, Music - 1979-1984, Minor Compositions: Colchester / New York / Port Watson. ISBN 978-1-57027-318-6 [ Free eBook download | Print copy available to buy from Minor Compositions ]
Some of us Scream
Rich Cross. 2016. '"Why do you think that they are laughing?", in Greg Bull and Mike Dines (eds.), 'Some of Us Scream Some of Us Shout': Myths, Folklore and Epic Tales of the Anarcho, (Itchy Monkey Press) [ Buy from Active Distribution or Situation Press ]
AK Thompson’s newest book Premonitions: Selected Essays on the Culture of Revolt is back from the printer and available for purchase. It’s a powerful text, full of useful strategic and analytical insights about how our social movements work…and how they don’t. We had a short conversation with him to get him to share some of [...]
This review of Keywords for Radicals is an excerpt from a longer review recently published in the International Journal of Communication. The full review (by Jack Bratich of Rutgers University) also included another title—you can read the review in its entirety here. And you can find out more about Keywords for Radicals here. This splendidly sprawling tome a […]
This is a guest post from Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today. Shane has the last event of his east coast tour this evening in Washington, DC—see here for details! White nationalism is implicitly violent, it cannot exist without it. The proposition is, by its own merits, steeped in the most expansive and profound sorts [...]
Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It, will be on the east coast for a few days giving talks in three cities on, you guessed it, understanding today’s fascist forces and how to defeat them. Here’s the low-down, along with links to the events on Facebook: . . [...]
The following is an excerpt from the first English-language edition of Peter Kropotkin’s Modern Science and Anarchy—which we’ve just published! A portion of the book is devoted to Kropotkin’s study of the nature and origins of the State. This brief excerpt comes at the end of a lengthy critique of the State-form. You can order [...]
