christmas

from the top
my gift to ben (designed by this dude, bought from here)
ben's gift to me (ultra eatin book and los angeles by X on slash)
ruby on her skateboard
some curacao (i dont have a clue what that is made from) and apple juice, approximation of a candlelabra

happy new year suckas.

i don't care about christmas in the bloody slightest, but i just bought my neice her first skateboard (she's four) and it made me pretty happy.

i did

another Big Takeover. almost two hundred punx (as if there were that many in London) came out for these bands:


and incredibly we managed to not get shut down even though the police station was four doors down from the (sadly now evicted) disused office squat.

i made a proper website for it: www.bigtakeover.co.uk

i wanna go back to portland

wondershowzen:

Unscenely reports (london in 09)

Layla had me do a scene report for Maximum Rock and Roll, which despite its age is still a publication in the ascendant as far as i'm concerned, get it if you give even remotely a shit about current music and real people doing real things.

Here's how it came out:

DIY in LONDON UK by BRYONY BEYNON

This is less of a scene report, more of a snapshot of lots of disparate stuff that's happening across the city and just outside, brought together, temporarily I fear, under my contradictory and happily subjective umbrella of personal taste. Come on, humour me, at least it's dry under here. The cohesion and dare I say it unity required for all these bands to exist in one single scene isn't present in London, UK, and there are many and varied reasons for that. The principle one is that sky-high expectations about any kind of subversive cultural production in this nation's capital persist over thirty years after Johnny 'Countrylife*' Rotten did a rude word on telly.

This means that a merciless spotlight is angled constantly and full beam on the youth, and I can let you imagine what the kinds of bands that run towards that spotlight sound like. Invariably, they end up singed (if not signed) wilted and smelling like plastic. It can be hard to pick the wheat from the chaff, the amps are on but there's nobody home, you see, there is no shortage of 'bands' in London just like there is no shortage of 'actors' in LA. If you catch my drift. So watch out for that nasty smell, its the primary editing mechanism I used for the list. Some nights it might seem like this complacence has filtered its way down to the punks, the hardcore kids, and the artists. But there's always something happening in someone's flat that's a little less overlooked, a little more potent.

I present to you what I believe to be the full gamut of exciting DIY things happening in and around (I've limited the definition of 'around' strictly to a twenty minute train ride beyond the major stations!) London as far as I am concerned, and all strictly without the aid of an ad campaign. We're running rings around those journo chumps and they don't even know it.

(*Countrylife is the brand of butter than the mole-faced public image is currently promoting in full page ads in all the National newspapers in the UK. Don't turn over too quickly in disgust, Iggy pop's mangled caramel torso has found a new trade in car insurance on the next page. No really. Media Blitz.)

I'm going to start with Paco, whose opinions have featured in this here zine and who is one of the city’s most prolific punk ‘doers’. He has run LA VIDA ES UN MUS from his Hackney, East London homestead or wherever he happens to be, helping out friends and his label's bands when they pass through Europe with shows under the name XEROX MUSIK (this is also a Mus sub-label that puts out weirdo noise like BILLY BAO 7”.) The shows usually happen at The Grosvenor, a pub in Stockwell that would be a lot closer to legendary with a calmer landlord. Most recently those have been: CRIMINAL DAMAGE, LIMP WRIST and GOVERNMENT WARNING. He is also booking the SEX/VID tour here in the Autumn and helping out SURRENDER with shows. So basically much of the good punk rock that is available in London is thanks to this man. The Label is probably one of the more high profile beyond our borders, cuz of its international scope. Most recent releases are:

MUS28 LIMP WRIST – Incluye Want Us Dead LP
MUS30 SURRENDER – There Is No War" EP 7”
MUS32 DESTINO FINAL – Atrapados 12”
MUS33 GOVERNMENT WARNING – Paranoid mess LP
MUS31 THE SHITTY LIMITS – Beware the Limits LP

Paco works at Rough Trade records with Sean from HARD SKIN, whose London centric comedy Oi should surely be in your collection. These two brilliants run another label called DEMO TAPES RECORDS along with Clint, but he's gone away. Next releases:

TAPE005 BLYTH POWER – A little touch of Harry in the night Demo LP
TAPE006 PASSION KILLERS – Lion Studios 20/9/83 Demo LP

The only one of these bands who could at a push fit into London scene reportage is THE SHITTY LIMITS. They're actually based in Reading, High-Wycombe and the leafier surrounds a little west and north west of the capital, but with a frenzied motown punk style that is kinda ANGRY SAMOANS fronted by Johnathan Richman, they've got that hipshaking garage thing with hardcore fury that stops it being in any way trite. Probably the most prolific punk band du jour in the UK. Contact Paco for that record won't you – www.lavidaesunmus.com. Next up, and I stuff my hands into my own mouth with this guilty segue, but mentioning THE SCEPTRES in the same breath because that's two limits plus Ralph and me and I do at least actually live in London. I have a shrill voice and Ralph has very well-strung guitar, people say TYRADES meets WIPERS. Out of that comes DIRE RECORDS is our small 7” label venture – with a focus on the mono (chrome and phonic) we just put out a split 7” THE SCEPTRES/FACEL VEGA (from Wales, not even I can pretend that's London) and repressed the first 7” of the now-quasi legendary HYGIENE.

With a deeply “English”-oriented proposition, despite their singer being a nasal Canadian by the name of Mr. Weiner, HYGIENE play a stripped down, cool and evocative post-punk-with-big-choruses that crosses the naivety of TELEVISION PERSONALITIES with something altogether darker, CRISIS meets CRIME. The best description I've read of them is 'Bingo Master's Breakout"-era FALL, and COCKNEY REJECTS. Music for when you're fighting in the streets of Southwark with the psycho mafia outside the town hall you never wanted anyway.” (http://www.myspace.com/hygieneldn) That prosaic summation came from Luke Younger, a noise dude with lovely hair and a love of punk that means he gets in the door without anyone spitting on his snakeskin noise-dude brogues, plus we all wanna see his band SPIN SPIN THE DOGS. Stringing post-punk guitars with melodic fuzz and a wild-eyed unpredictability that is genuinely unsettling, they're honestly a thing all of their own – LP out on Gringo Records from Nottingham.

Gig-wise, Hygiene have thus far sat on the boundary between the straight-up punk and the merky but sometimes very rewarding territory wherein you'll find the more garagey/psych/breakout/fuzz pop feedback set of bands. These bands are breeding rapidly, but awesome projects like SHABEEN SCENE TAPES help to sort the shit from the 'holy shit!' as does Eric who does funtime dancing opportunity CORN ROCKET CLUB. The most recent output of SHABEEN SCENE TAPES is a split between BLACK MAMBA BEAT! and WORK THAT SKIRT. This is the ribald, meat and potatoes garage section by the way. I'll mention BLACK TIME here, on IN THE RED RECORDS in the US and overlooked by London comparatively. I'll also mention KING SALAMI AND THE CUMBERLAND 3, THE CHINESE LUNGS and THEE VICARS (DIRE RECORDS alumni.)

Bands like COREY ORBISON, ROSEANNE BARR (drum/bass thrashy punk) and HUSBANDS (keyboardy queercore) fit here too, kinda covering the whole gambit of a more frenetic messtheticsesque sound, these bands are outsider punx to the nth degree. HUSBANDS have a split 7" with DRUNK GRANNY on local kid, a forthcoming split with HUMOUSEXUAL on IRRK and full length LP on LOCAL KID and self released cd-r's and tapes on homo-tones.co.uk. I'm going to mention METHODIST CENTRE here even though thus far I've not seen them live, jangly and highly Oinergy camp power queer vibes from East London on Invisible Spies records.

Many of these bands are put on by DIY tour-booking artist/music behemoth UPSET THE RHYTHM. A loosely formed collective with Chris and Claire at the helm, they are incredibly prolific with fingers in more pies than even I would care to eat. UTR began with booking THE EX and a then little known band called DEERHOOF to play in the UK in 2003, and has since then expanded into a wonderful carousel of shows and records that keep strictly DIY principles whilst having the bandwidth to actually be able to afford stuff, allowing all kinds of wild an crazy freakout genre-benders to play in places and with people they wouldn't otherwise, both through consistently dreamy ambitious two day fests in abandoned car showrooms (this kind of thing NEVER happens in the UK – It was called YES WAY and it ruled) and through things like co-promotions with Frieze (a big UK Arts organisation) and David Shrigley (doodle-monger) always self-funded and refreshingly egoless. It’s become a kind of scene it itself, innovative, open, with a refreshingly high ratio of lady musicians too. They’ve put on quite literally hundreds of great bands, I want to mention PLUG (two piece lady delta 5ness) TRASH KIT (London raucous girlpunk) Next releases are GENTLE FRIENDLY, TRASH KIT (London lady rabble punk) and FOOT VILLAGE from LA. Http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk

Continuing with the theme of people who've taken DIY principles learnt in hardcore and put them to use in other contexts, REAL GOLD is the umbrella name for an initiative by Deano Jo to produce “things with a bit of permanence and weight to them – whether its records, books, magazines, putting extra thought and effort in to make that object special.” REAL GOLD is synonymous for many with ridiculous warehouse parties that attract off-duty hipperati, but we still go when they happen because people like to fraternise, plus nights like that which aren't sponsored by corporate youth marketing schemes are few and far between. As well as the continued success of a (colour!) zine called FUN, REAL GOLD has put out records by THE TRAIN CHRONICLES (Boozy Banjo-driven hyperspeed Blues.) http://www.wearerealgold.com

RICOCHET! RICOCHET! Is Patrick from HUSBANDS and Colette's awesome zine distro, stocking a plethora of xerox propaganda from these very fringes, and showing up everywhere. (http://www.myspace.com/ricochetricochet) They're also involved in the zine archive at 56a Infoshop (56a.org.uk) which is a diy social centre with zine archive, bike workshop and food collective. Zinewise, London is comparatively rich in self-publishing, and those guys have their own channels, including several symposiums and socials and what nots, so as far as straight up music zines go I just want to mention NICHE HOMO (two isssues out) which is poisonously sardonic and has a nice clarity in its tone of voice that is sort of like being sat on someones knee and read to, such is the level of muso knowledge mixed with lighthearted shitter chatter (the zine's tagline is 'Superior Toilet Literature'- http://nichehomo.blogspot.com) Then there's QUALITY CONTROL is a straight-edge fanzine out of West London with interesting theorising on hardcore. MODERN HATE VIBE three zlso is out now with interviews from the Stupids, Brian Walsby (Double Negative) and Chris Bickel (in/Humanity.) Next Issue has interviews with Gang of Four and Citizen's Arrest, and will include the source material I got sent for this report, so if you want to know more about all this stuff you could pick that up! (bryony.beynon@gmail.com)

To throw a curveball in right here and shimmy over to stylistically to about as far away from queer power pop as I could possibly go right now...here's the bit where I talk about RUCKTION RECORDS! The kickboxing elephant in the room has been unleashed. Seriously though, this longtime label has been self-sufficient for ten years, the age of their longest standing (and now on hiatus as I understand it) group – KNUCKLEDUST. With a core of almost disconcertingly dedicated show-goers, RUCKTION singlehandedly kept London Hardcore alive when it was deeply unfashionable. Over the years that has meant some deeply questionable output, from my corner, but now that every bar hopping socialite has an integrity tshirt, these bands and this label are more important than ever. I'd check out NINEBAR, a very weighty proposition blending SHEER TERROR with later era NYHC like RAW DEAL or BREAKDOWN, pulling this off with a cheeky London-centric aplomb that is loveable and moshy as all hell. (http://www.rucktion.com)

The pretty awfully named HELLBENT DIEHARD are actually super and a bit mind expanding - technical hardcore played with gusto. RUCKTION recently released the CD version of Leeds, Yorkshire's DEAL WITH IT's full length 'End Time Prophecies' – a fully realised paean to LEEWAY and the guitar solo as a higher plain of consciousness. They're not from London, emphatically, but are worth catching for the punkest delivery of what comes very close to a full on metal band. Another band in this whole subsection, although they've kind of taken it next level and play what seems like weekly sold out shows in Europe (recently toured the US with TRAPPED UNDER ICE) is the inimitable DIRTY MONEY. Not much of a progression musically from NO WARNING but with a Liverpudlian accent, and good lyrics about real dare-I-say-it 'issues' which are directly engaged with on stage, which in what's generally a politically sendentary scene is a real standout. They put out records with DEAD AND GONE RECORDS from Sheffield, an institution in itself.

The guitarist from NINEBAR also puts on London's only regular fixed date hardcore show, a first Saturday of the month type deal at the 12Bar in Soho, with increasingly mixed bills and always something interesting to see. On that note, the demise of her (and others) annual London hardcore fest known as NinjaFest and latterly RunningRiot has not stopped May from steadfastly putting on shows. Check www.londoncalling.cjb.net if you're in town.

Straight edge as any kind of governing force has long been dead in London, a city with over 7000 pubs, and I mourn this as it makes hardcore just that little bit more 'normal.' So I was surprised but invigorated to see a small group of kids flying that flag and what ho, doing it really very tastefully. ABOLITION are a politically charged 90s style metallic hardcore group that sounds and kind of feels like STRUGGLE and CHOKEHOLD's Instilled 7”. CANT RELATE share members and say they're influenced byYD-I and NA and formed out of boredom and a desire to rage against all rubbish things like racism and working in your local chain cinema (“Stale popcorn and skin on the cheese - Your life is boring, like these movies”) It is genuine hardcore punk played by angry boys and girls and thus is really fucking exciting. http://www.myspace.com/xcantrelatex

All on NEVER HEALED RECORDS are HANG THE BASTARD who do sludgy INTEGRITY style moshism, and share a label with some more bastards - HELLO BASTARDS, South American, Polish, German and Israel ex-pat punx crusting up London, and DEATHSKULLS who sound like an extremely English “Slow-Mags” if you will. One of their members now plays in SPECTRAHAWK with Bloody Kev from such UK greats as HARD TO SWALLOW and DEAD INSIDE on vocal duty. A bit like EHG, all reverby and chaotic and not averse to a breakdown. Its all the above bands you might be the most likely to witness at any number of squat-based shows, but they are few and far between as due to draconian squatting laws here are not exactly wise from an inhabitants position, oh and houses here categorically do not have basements so that's out too.

Perfectly segueing into husband and wife winning team Sam and Derek, who run a label, promote shows and do a and distro called PARADE OF SPECTRES (http://www.myspace.com/paradeofspectres) that puts out international heavy screamo and punk product, including BURNING TIMES, KADDISH and FURNACE. They also play in BATTLE OF WOLF 359 who have made it over to European punk fest Cry Me a River a couple of times and are great in a Sci-Fi loving UNION OF URANUSy way. On the same label are ME AND GOLIATH for more crushing emo business.

And there we have it, for now. Focussing on our city (the vast majority of DIY doers here are passing through, so 'ours' is as loose as it should be) was difficult because lots of the gigs I've enjoyed the most in the last few months has been bands from out of town, only a few hours to the north or east. I'm sad to have to exclude those bands for geographical reasons, so check out IRONCLAD and MOB RULES, and go to THE COWLEY CLUB in Brighton and THE 1 IN 12 in Bradford. Do venue names even get MRRSHOUTINGCAPStreatment? Who knows, but those two definitely deserve it and a space like that is one thing London really needs.

Ya may have thought of something I totally should have covered/boycotted, but hey, opinions are like arseholes, if you don't have one, chances are you're full of shit.

For more info on any of this stuff please get in touch, I didn’t want to flood it with URLS so you can use a search engine or email – bryony.beynon@gmail.com

two wheels, no meals. i came back to britain for unemployment with a view to discarding all bile for steely action and the 'do do do.' america blew my brains out. it was delicious. shitty logic for life

THE PAPER THAT ITS PRINTED ON.

About two years ago i was on the dole (job seekers allowance.) it was probably the most creative couple of months of my life. i'd just finished a course learning to teach english as a foreign language and was feeling pretty pleased with myself / like i deserved a rest after zero educational breaks between age 3 and age 21. my housemate ralph and i would subsist on a diet of free tofurkey schnitzels and purdy's multivitamin juice from the holland and barrett down the road (when company policy is don't lock eyes they might be dangerous, then every one is a delicious winner) i had a gigantic room, staying up until 8.30am was totally legit, and you could see the sea from my bedroom. what came out of these months, otherwise lost to binbags full of empty cans, was modern hate vibe.

ISSUE ONE - Completed the first week of december, 2007



this is what i said about it at the time (i used to write in an annoyingly slangy way, i've tried to curb that)

"shit is getting ragged. its freezing outside, shoes are soaked, no amount of gravy can heal this. xerox salvation is on its way, modern hate vibe issue one, a fanzine in the fine tradition, high contrast black white and nasty. expect nice design and rude talk. i’m starting off local(ish), interviews with shitty limits and cold ones, some insight on the overrated/venerated/oughta-be-cremated holy trinity of opinion forming, an informative how-to of hardcore tiers, diggin in the crates for the record nerdarious, and samples of the kinds of aimlessly bilious rants that are an everyday feature in our house"

there are none left. i'm a bit embarrased by it, but it's out there. may reprint at some point.

After that, I moved to London.

ISSUE TWO - MHV 'Chronicles of Gnarlier' (Completed last week of July 2008)

I tried a bit harder with the interviews in this.

- Mob Rules
- DFJ (Mind Eraser)
- Ironclad

‘Columns’ if you will include amongst others:

- Review of the last Lintfabriek gig
- Panic on the streets of Brixton: South Wales to South London
- Five things I learnt from the Wu Tang Manual
- Why you should listen to Poison Idea
- Rinko Kikuchi, Lil Wayne and Chloe Sevigny
- Five things I learnt from the Anti-Matter Anthology
- Citalopram is the new Cocaine: Batshit Grans & The Flatline Generation
- A (Drunk) Treatise on 'Saving' Hardcore

I caught a reasonable amount of shit for some of the opinions in this, and generally felt a bit weirded out by its 'reception.' nothing that controversial, by most people's standards. despite the fact that everyones got a messageboard opinion, i guess these zine starved times (in southern UK at least) meant that a lot of people took it to mean that if i'd bothered to 'publish' something, i thought my word was absolute truth. There are some left, I think.

ISSUE THREE MHV - Triceraflops/Fluxine (finished May 2009)

Interviews with:

Brian Walsby - Double Negative
Tommy Stupid - The Stupids
Chris Bickel - In/Humanity

I got into buying weird books about fluxus happenings, june paik, site specific art and all kinds of stuff i was trying to challenge my (by then half flayed from the below employment) brain into processing. didn't write about it, mind, i'm not a total idiot. I got really gripey about referential hipperati, resulting in an article entitled 'No renaissance: cutting through fuzz pop's shit caked underbelly.' Mediation on Immigration, Belgium as a state of mind (basically a shitty/sceptres tour report but hopefully less boring) lessons learnt from Crucifix.

I have just reprinted this one.

Including all fees and postage, paypal this address:

Including all fees and postage, paypal this address:
£1.50 in the UK
£1.80 in the EU
£2.20 to the US
£2.40 to CAN
£3.00 to AUS

ish. or buy it at shows, i always have some on me, they might be a bit dogeared. get in touch for everything else. i love trades. comment here.

JUDGE/KIERAN/SMOKE THAT BUTT

kieran (above) is moving to australia. i fully endorse that my attempt at a pisstake when referring to punks from 'mega'buckinghamshire (more backyard pools per capita than any other county in the UK, maybe less than surrey, i don't know?) has been fully coopted into icing maxims. i've written extensively in previous printed output about Judge, they will always remind me of the above man for his ability to punch a steering wheel to 'whilst maintaining complete cruise control of his hatchback down the M1. I've no doubt the sensation felt having eaten that entire cake would be akin to owning that disgusting looking LP discog someone put out recently, all shiny and orange splatter vinyl (yuck) or realising you're Mike Judge, you look like a little pug, and you wrote those Old Smoke songs. Barf.

Still, judge wise i reserve the right to love those overegged bassline and the total absurdity of 'a joint like a gun at your head' and that i just went to check up that i'd got that right, and saw someone had transcribed the lyrics to fed up as 'smoke on that butt, it makes you mature.' very well done all round.

DISCONNECTING

full circle;; back story: spent too much teenage time on the internet, got good at it, whatever in god's name 'it' is meant to be, then somewhere between a degree in reading stuff and the dole queue (they don't make you queue) i realised there was money in it. sunk my freakishly small, blunt teeth into that, spent eighteen months of my young adult life reading and writing about 'digital and social media engagement' (amongst many other ever so slightly less vacuous, more detailed things) for one of "london's top firms." i went to events, dutifully, drank free booze, bizarrely engaged with this realisation that people were making careers out of what, for most people, is idle distraction at best, observation, i stood on the sidelines of a whole new weird subculture of blogger meetups and smiled at the men and women there: mostly loose, desperate, functioning alcoholics. started to believe it, present it, put an amiable face to the blind panicked fear of one thousand greasy execs turned pale as they realised this might be one hurdle too far. trained fifty people how to use fucking fucking fucking twitter, gripping hard at their employability as not-so-empty threats management about new requirements to be a 'digital native' began to take hold.

more recently i started to reach capacity. resentment bubbled over as i heard my own mouth spout about 'viralising' and 'seeding' with a second nature stumble - dribbling out this heinous future semen, smeared all over everything that is ostensibly useful about the internet, giving it that predictable echo chamber glisten. dried up and full of dead ideas. i thought having a "career" and a life/label/band/whatever would be the neatest jugglers act, but only dropped balls ensued, and there are some things not up for sacrifice.

this blog is how it is for a reason. be assured (why would you be) that i could bells and whistle the shit out of it if necessary, but all that shit loses its lustre when you have to deliver fifty deck power point slides on what some dipshit blogger who can't fucking spell said about adidas. or hamleys. or business process management software. i'm not kidding. i'm on the run. digitally. and i hate how that sounds too. knowing how SEO works (aka the ability to terminally scupper myself by having an unusual real life name) only makes me more determined. still, even under duress, you try saying the anonymous onandonandonanist. viralise that, fuckheads.

anyway, you don't like your life you can change it. did i hate every second? no, but i'm tormented by how lucky i am every day anyway (so should you be), so i'll add my ability to piss bile about choices i made for myself as another middle class privilege. i guess.

the upshot? i dipped out graciously on the premise of going to do an MA (i got on, but its five grand i don't have) and joining friends on their US tour (tell me you wouldn't do the same) and the clear desk policy puts paid to grandiose 'shit on it and run' notions) but as i dutifully work out my notice these next few weeks, i'm resolutely leaving this particular breed of suckers in their rancid (gold) dust.