MY REBELLION 2018 TIMETABLE

This was supposed to be the only thing close to ‘useful’ on my entire blog, but alas, it wasn’t to be. Instead of publishing the bands I want to see at Rebellion a few weeks in advance, so as to inspire anyone going, I’m posting it hours before I leave for Blackpool, because I was too busy going to the pub to write this in good time. What a bastard! At the very least though to those who aren’t going to Rebellion, here’s a list of ace bands who are likely to be touring about right now, along with a description of their sound and one or two of my favourite tracks/albums. After dividing the Rebellion 2018 ticket price by the potential of 25 bands in this list, it works out that I’m paying £6.80 to see each band. If only I wasn’t going to be spending double that at each band on beer!

THURSDAY:

* RIOT SQUAD

Although I saw Riot Squad a few weeks ago, I’d like to try one of their gigs again but this time, without being so humiliatingly drunk. Described by my dad as “skinheads but alright”, Riot Squad is a solid band with some hard, almost metallic riffs and rough vocals. When I saw them they did a cover of Wasted (Circle Jerks’ version I think) and the combination of being intoxicated, right next to the speaker and it being a fucking 30 second song left me in the dark for about 24 seconds before I thought ‘shit! I love this song!’. I looked like a right poser to this girl, who saw me last in a Black Flag t-shirt. Anyway, they played Society’s Fodder first when I was the least drunk and it was ace, so looking forward to hearing it again.

THE DRONES

Knowledge runs thin here for me, but their track Lookalikes feels to me like an Undertones/Sex Pistols hybrid so I’m not gonna miss out on that. Main reason I’ve added The Drones to my timetable though is to give me a nice bit of 70s punk so I can relax my neck a bit, because the next couple days of Italian/Serbian thrash isn’t going to be kind to me. Still, The Drones seem cool and their guitarist is/was called Gus Gangrene, which is always an added bonus.

* T.S.O.L.

What a fucking cool band man. They seem to have a bit of everything: the Damned, Misfits, Ramones and the Sex Pistols, while sounding original as fuck. Their horror-punk, deathrock tracks Code Blue and The Triangle have been haunting me for over a week but unfortunately for me, Code Blue, amongst the Captain Sensible riffs and Dee Dee Ramone bassline, contains lyrics you can’t really sing out loud in your family home. But you bet your fucking ass I’m looking forward to hearing it live, and shouting about necrophilia in a room full of 50 year olds!

Me from the future here: the singer Jack Grisham apparently is a massively perverted prick – to say the least, judging by the claims made against him. I won’t be paying to see them again.

** BUZZCOCKS

Why why why why why have I not seen the Buzzcocks yet? Their songs are legendary, John Maher is my drumming icon and I spent about three weeks and all my braincells laying down my love for them when I reviewed their debut a few weeks ago. I’d love to hear anything from their Spiral Scratch EP, but I don’t know how well my other favourites Strange Thing and Autonomy would translate live but I really hope to find out. Either way, I know it’s gonna be a night of me singing really loudly and abysmally, while trying to pogo on no more fuel than a few pints of cheap cider and a bag of crisps.

FRIDAY:

* SICK ON THE BUS

Although I keep hearing about this band and I’ve even been sick on a bus myself, I never got around to listening to them until now. From what I can tell, they’re still releasing albums and they still sound pretty good (they remind me of Chaos U.K.’s recent albums), and even though the band’s on abominably early in the day (a decision to start drinking at 3pm is undoubtedly going to bite me in the ass later), I’m looking forward to some good, UK hardcore punk with some great, stupidly crude lyrics.

* VICIOUS CIRCLE

Well, this is a bit of a confusing one. There’s three bands named Vicious Circle and while I’ve ruled out the drum and bass group, I initially thought I’d be seeing the death metal/thrash band Vicious Circle, who is solid as fuck and I think (unless I’m getting really confused) associated with T.S.O.L.. But then I realised there’s another band called Vicious Circle and they’re Australian hardcore punks! So fuck knows who’s playing but I actually like both bands equally, so it doesn’t matter to me. The Australian Vicious Circle are more punk, but a tad more on the melodic side (perhaps prompting one YouTube user to comment “how is this hippie shit “hardcore”?), but their absolutely disgustingly distorted electric guitar really saves the day for me. Looking forward to being deafened either way.

DEATH METAL THRASH:

AUSTRALIAN HARDCORE PUNK:

** SUBHUMANS

A no brainer!! Subhumans was brilliant when I saw them last year and I can’t wait to see them in a big crowd (attendance, for whatever reason, wasn’t fantastic in Birmingham). No is one of those tracks you already know every word to and although they played No and the classic Religious Wars last time, I really want to hear a new favourite of mine Reason For Existence and its huge, electric, chortling bassline and manic drumming. I Don’t Wanna Die is still one of the strongest Subhumans tracks (and one I constantly fail to drum along to), so hearing those two will make my fucking night.

* THE BOYS

Another nice bit of 70s punk to give me a bit of a breather. Their self-titled 1977 album is giving me a lot of The Damned’s Damned Damned Damned (1976) and Music For Pleasure (1977) – fairly neat and steady with a lot of energy – and their first track Sick On You (good start!!) is very Ramones-esque. So, two great bands in one! The Boys also wrote First Time, which Special Duties (the Special Duties who did Colchester Council (full of shit) you ask? Yes the very same) covered hilariously – Steve Arrogant’s vocals really spice it up a bit so I don’t think I could hear that track without laughing – but The Boys sound like a decent band. I hope their energy is still coming across forty years later.

** GBH

GBH was probably one of my favourite gigs back in 2016 and there were a few things that made it memorable: one was that I was really hungover after drinking round my mates house until 4am the night before, then only just realising when I got back home at 5am that I had to get to college for 11am for a drama rehearsal (after two years of my Drama A-level I realised that I hate 90% of all plays and 90% of all actors), which I managed to get to (somehow) in one piece. It was just after Christmas, I had £15 to my name and I was so dehydrated and hungry that I was either going to vomit or die on the spot (or both), so I did what any respectable person would do, and buy a 10-pack of fags and keep the rest for entry to GBH later that night. I remember walking into the gig and I was fucking terrified! Everyone was at the front with their mohicans and boots dragging each other to the ground and I’d brought my two mates with me who aren’t into punk (and one of them was wearing fucking flannel which didn’t make me feel better), but of course no one gave a shit and everyone was sound. I got up to the front and stayed there, even when GBH played what felt like a half-hour encore and even I was completely knackered, though I was by far one of the youngest in the room. There was a nice big open space to the side of the stage by the wall and I wondered why no-one was standing there, but still had a rest for a bit there anyway. Turns out an 8-foot tall speaker isn’t the best place to have a breather and my ears rang for 3 weeks straight, but I loved that night and remember it as if it was yesterday: GBH have a lot to live up to.

* A-HEADS

Jesus, this has driven me around the bend! As it turns out, there’s two punk bands named A-Heads: one’s an anarcho-punk band from Warminster, UK, and the other (the band I’ve been listening to) is from Germany, though their tracks and lyrics are in English, which is bloody confusing. The German band has a subtly melancholic and gloomy sound, and when I had a listen to their album AHEADS on Spotify, I ended up liking every song I heard, especially Looking At Me, Object and Who, which are pretty dingy and rough, but still neatly played with a lot of energy. Hardly any of their songs are on YouTube but some absolute beauty has uploaded a load of their demos, including my favourite tracks, and pretty much every song is as good as the other. Now, you should take into account that when I wrote all of this, I didn’t know that the another A-Heads existed and also that it’s probably 8000% more likely that the English band is going to be playing over the German one. Funnily enough though, both bands don’t sound massively different to each other, excepting that the English band has a female singer, Mel. Though this band are slightly more melodic in Dying Man, Mel’s vocals carry a solemn edge and a few of their other tracks like Forgotten Hero are quite grey with a measured tempo. I’ll link the German band because they’re a great listen, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be hearing more from Warminster than anywhere else.

GERMAN A-HEADS:

UK A-HEADS:

** THE EXPLOITED

The Exploited are legendary for their seriously hard (and later verging on thrash) tracks, Wattie’s bright red mohican, and the fact they don’t like Margaret Thatcher very much. I was supposed to see them last year but Wattie was too ill to play, so I’ve been waiting a long time for The Exploited and I know they won’t disappoint. I was listening to Fuck The USA (subtle I know) the other day and man, just the first few seconds really got my adrenaline going, and not a lot of bands have that gift. Although when my dad told me about this song I thought he was joking, Maggie (you cunt) is my favourite because its riff is raw and tight as fuck (not just because of its lyrics), and I’d love to hear it live. (Fuck The USA is age-restricted on YouTube (Maggie you fucking cunt has slipped through the net luckily) so not useful as a link, sorry kids, but it’s worth looking up yourself.)

* RED ALERT

My Thursday and Friday so far has been lacking in the Oi! department so if hepatitis of the liver doesn’t force an early end to the night (saying that, it’ll be half one in the morning at this point), I’ll be paying Red Alert a visit. Their big, loutish sound’ll keep me awake and hopefully there’ll be a good fight going on somewhere too.

SATURDAY:

** VOX POPULI

I saw Vox Populi on the line-up, and thought I may as well give them a listen. That’s when I realised that Jesus must be real, because this band is fucking untouchable and I’m looking forward to seeing them the most out of everyone, even if it just for thirty minutes, at the ungodly hour of two in the afternoon. Even though their album Ne Mozes Svima Udovoljiti (yep, that’s not English) came out in the early 2000s, it’s just as tight, distorted, disgusting and outrageous as anything that came out for the first time forty years ago, and even though the genre ‘hardcore’ has been twisted and tainted over the decades, Vox Populi is living proof that pure, hardcore punk is alive in the 21^st century… even if it is in Serbia.

** RAW POWER

The Europeans are killing it on this fine Saturday afternoon, because this Italian hardcore punk band blew my fucking head off when I first heard them. Their albums Screams From The Gutter and After Your Brain rip from start to finish: their Mayhem-style metallic guitar hooks send the tracks Joe’s The Best and the classic State Oppression into a lethally quick, electrifying frenzy, so I just know this gig is going to be pretty fatal. My dad had Screams From The Gutter on vinyl and when I asked him where the hell it is, he said that 30 years ago he probably wanted some money for some chips so sold it to a girl for three quid. Devastating.

** THE STUPIDS

My dad described The Stupids to me as a “stupidly fast band” and it didn’t take much more persuading from there: they carry the same, quite tunefully-hardcore-but-still-a-bit-thrash sound as Raw Power, and I’m looking forward to seeing them just as much. I’ve probably broken my neck by this point, and it’s only 7pm.

** UK SUBS

Probably every punk in the world has gone to a UK Subs gig and there’s a good reason why. Their tracks are fresh, timeless, addictive and full of energy, even at their gigs now, in spite of singer Charlie Harper’s ripe age of 74. UK Subs was my first punk gig and I remember venturing my way to the front when they played my favourite tracks Teenage and I Live In A Car, and pogoing on top of this kid I saw that I fancied, and then saying “oh sorry” to him as a fool-proof way of getting his attention. It sort of worked I suppose, but he left the gig early and I haven’t seen him since. I’m just gonna have to go to every UK Subs gig they play and if I see him, I have to hope my pick-up lines have slightly improved since two years ago.

* COCKNEY REJECTS

The kings of Oi! themselves, the Cockney Rejects’ tracks The Greatest Cockney Rip Off and the self-explanatory Oi! Oi! Oi! are quite good (in kind of a more funny way than anything) and I know their gig will be a laugh. Any band that makes the live audience at Top of the Pops squirm in fear definitely has my respect. Oi! from my kitchen table!

** DISCHARGE

I saw Discharge last year and I’m gonna go ahead and say it was the best gig of my life. The place was fucking heaving, Antisect supported and they were ace, I lost my dad for about twenty minutes and then found him again, when we both simultaneously barged our way to the front as Fight Back began. Discharge is such an immensely powerful band, it’s no wonder they’re sounding just as strong forty years on. No stories of romance this time round except for this kid I liked at the front, but I wasn’t drunk enough to talk to him. Probably for the best because about a month later at Abrasive Wheels, I saw him in daylight and realised that he was about 43.

** STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

I really haven’t been giving SLF the love they deserve up until recently. Obviously I knew Alternative Ulster and Suspect Device but I didn’t realise that Stiff Little Fingers is the best of 70s punk: neat, arranged, quick and really well written, with still enough bile, distortion and energy. At this moment in time I have no idea why Bloody Sunday isn’t widely renown as the best song in the universe (and although I always welcome people calling Bono a cunt, the mass of YouTube comments on SLF’s Bloody Sunday has got me worrying that U2 has done a shite cover of it), and hearing it live would be fucking priceless.

SUNDAY:

** MDC

Once upon a time before I’d heard MDC, I thought Minor Threat was the fastest thing in history. Millions of Dead Cops are about as subtle and forgiving to listen to as their name, and their releases Millions of Dead Cops, Multi-Death Corporations and Millions of Dead Children are lethally fast, adrenaline-fuelled riots, from beginning to end. No war, no KKK no fascist USA!!!!!

* ADOLESCENTS

Technically, the Adolescents is actually the second punk band I ever heard, when – amongst my one and a half years of listening literally just to the Ramones in my room every day – my neighbour suggested the Adolescents instead. I liked them, then completely forgot about them for whatever reason, then last week bought their debut on CD and it’s actually very good. My favourites I Hate Children and Self Destruct surprised me with its nice, crude bassline (which I kinda associated with UK hardcore punk over American), but I have to say that I don’t really like their most famous/played track Amoeba (sorry not sorry). Most of the album is really good and when I had a look at their later album Brats in Batallion and I liked that too, so the gig seems promising.

* D.R.I.

A nice bit of crossover thrash to seal the deal, if all my major organs are still intact by this point. All the most viewed Dirty Rotten Imbeciles tracks verge closer to metal, but my dad showed me their track I Don’t Need Society which is from their debut and much more my kinda thing. I won’t be able to describe it better than YouTube commenter Edward, who writes: How the Hell did they pack that much thrash into less than 2:00? This shit is KILLER!

* PUBLIC IMAGE LTD

Well, we’ve reached the headline slot for Sunday, and I’m in three minds at the moment. Yes, I really like their song Public Image and yes, the lead singer is Johnny Rotten, but PiL’s other stuff is a bit… laid back for my liking. Then again, I am just a dumb punk.

* THE ADICTS

I don’t know too much about The Adicts, but they’ve cropped up a lot in a few punk documentaries I’ve watched and it seems like they one of the first punk bands out there, and that they were really influential. I really like their 70s, “simple but good” (I’m never going to be as good at reviewing as the YouTube commenters) sound, and Monkey’s vocals and iconic joker look really add a spooky edge to their music. I reckon they’re definitely worth a look.

* THE VARUKERS

Being completely honest: if I hadn’t already seen The Varukers, they would take priority over PiL and The Adicts. The Varukers fall under the same category as Conflict and Discharge and their tracks are seriously quick and powerful: pretty much the opposite in hue to the other two headliners. Their track Another Religion Another War is massively underrated and Tell Us What We Wanna Hear (typo’d as Tell Us What We Wanna Wear on my (dad’s) Deadly Games 12”) is one of my favourite punk songs of all time, though they didn’t play it last time I saw them. Fuck knows which of these bands I’ll be seeing on Sunday night, but I won’t be mad either way.

In reality, I’m going to be much too drunk, ill and tired to see all of these bands, even though this is a shortened list. There’s a few bands I won’t be able to see due to unfortunate clashes, so I want to give them credit here:

PETER & THE TEST TUBE BABIES
CRISIS
MAU MAUS UK
HAGAR THE WOMB

It’s brilliant that there’s something like Rebellion going on in 2018, where I can see a shit ton of really good bands in one place. Remember kids: fuck teachers, fuck the police and fuck the Tories, because punk’s not fucking dead!!!!!!!!