25-02-2013

Birds in Slow-Mo

Saturday show! Phew! That's like, 4 shows in a row. Pretty rad!
Sometimes I wish going to shows could be my profession. Like, someone would pay me to get drunk, watch bands, hang out with friends and dance like an idiot. That would be great. Interested companies can contact me at 0123 45 67 89! Call me (maybe)!

I biked all the way to Sint-Antonius Zoersel (which is not really that far away, I've just never been there before), and passed the venue (JH Joeniz) like 3 times unknowingly cause it's pretty hidden away from the street and the only indication is a road sign 500 meters away. But when I saw a light and what I thought could be a young dude into hardcore, I stopped and went to JH Joeniz. It's only the second show there, but it's cool that these guys are outting up shows. It's a nice little venue, rectangular, nicely sized, no stage, and beers for 1 euro (hellz yeah!). My favourite type of venue.

4 bands for the night, great line-up.
First band was GTTRS. Ever since I noticed you can pronounce it als GATETERS (butt eaters) I can't think of anything else, but it's supposed to be pronounce Gutters I think. Or just say g'tt'rs with glottal stops or something. Enough pronounciation issues, let's get into the music. Dark hardcore, somewhere between overdone melodic hardcore and Tragedy-esque hardcore punk. (And don't get me wrong, I fucking love overdone melodic hardcore.) I really enjoyed them, bought the tape, met the vocalist (whose name I can't remember, or maybe didn't ask) and he seemed like a nice guy, en plus his throat was amazing. I mean, what came out of his throat. That was also the first thing Nico from Ashes said after the show, and I whole-heartedly agreed.
I'm pretty excited about this band, they play Antwerp with Wolf Down and This Routine Is Hell in a few weeks so that'll be pretty cool.

Ashes continued the night. Probably the most 'hardcore' band of the line-up (in a stylistic sense). They got some people moshing even! Aw yeah! I did a two-step but if you've ever seen me two-step you can guess how ridiculous that looked. Anyway, Ashes is one of the coolest recent hardcore bands in Belgium, really catchy but really heavy hardcore with the most astonishing and terrifying vocals around. They're the nicest dudes and yet, when I watch them on stage (or on the floor in this case) they're all angry and pissed and stuff and I love that. That's the case with most hardcore bands, I guess. Anyway, Ashes killed it again, best set I've seen them play, they just get better every fucking time. Shit was way tight, drums were spot-on, bass was brilliant, guitar was awesome, vocals were amazing. That's 4 adjectives to say they sounded really well together. Sometimes I'm so redundant. That's something you can't say of Ashes. Ashes' repertoire has a 'no redundancy' policy. (That's polite language for 'no nonsense'/'no bullshit'.) Jealous Souls is my fucking jammmmmmmm. We trade the brightest days for the blackest nights.

On with the show with the Midnight Souls. It's been a while since I've seen them, I think since Ieperfest? So it was nice seeing them again. I didn't go apeshit because of reasons (I don't know why) but lots of kids did and that was cool. Their set was mixed up a bit, that was nice. They're still at the top of their game, a game full of desperation, anxiety and hopelessness. One of the coolest current live acts, they really put everything into their live performances and it shows. It's a simple equation, band's energy = audience's energy. (That's an idealized equation, but it worked on Saturday.) It's infectious. People sing along, people mosh along, suddenly Bert is playing bass on top of the bar, suddenly Donny is on the other end of the room, suddenly they're all where they weren't before, suddenly the music stops and everyone is like 'oh wow'. Closing with Malaise was definitely a good one, as well, and Donny crammed in a Touché Amoré line, which was pretty funny and I thought it was a cool thing to do. I was not born with a strong voice/It's never been one to boom/But I'll be damned to go out quiet/If it's to only trhing I lose. Pretty hard-hitting.
OH YEAH GREAT BAND OH YEAH WAKE UP YEAH

Birds In Row are from France and this was the second-to-last day on their tour. Couple of preliminary notions: the vocalist has lost a lot of his voice due to extensive and intense touring, and they're small people. The first notion alludes to the vocals not being awfully great, but it's hardcore, so whatevz. The second notion amounted to me being in the back and just seeing a head swing back and fro for a second once in a while, and a drum stick moving at full speed (which, because there was a red light spot right on that stick, looked like a laser sword, which was cool). Other than that I didn't see the band perform, but I did witness them. I was not familiar with any material outside of a few listens to the Collected LP (which is their first 2 LPs), but they were radical. They're one of the most interesting bands in hardcore I've heard in a while. And if you're an actual interesting hardcore band these days, that's quite a big deal! Lots of tempo changes, experimenting riffs, weird shit going on. They just don't give a damn about 4/4 measure, key of G, or any of the standard mess. They wanna freak the fuck out with their instruments, play hardcore and be really good at it. That's what they did. Props to you, Birds In Row. You're doing God's work.
The last song was A Kid Called Dreamer and it was amazing. They played a short set (probably due to notion #1), but it was an amazing set.

Then, High Hats afterparty = best kind of afterparty!
Matthieu suggested for me to do an MC Karel song for the afterparty but I wasn't sure that would've been appreciated by more than 4 people (if even), and how the fuck can I interrupt a High Hats afterparty? I don't have permission to interrupt a High Hats party!
I did sell a few MC Karel tapes, so that's pretty whack. Robby told me it has a high Atom & His Package vibe. That's really nice to say, and maybe it is similar, but it's just way worse than Atom & His Package.

24-02-2013

oi oi oi

Hardcore punk night at den Eglantier, Berchem. I'm stoked.

We arrived on time, lots of people already showed up and by the end of the night the place was pretty stacked so that was really nice to see.

The first band was Bite Down, power violence from around Antwerp. They'd been away for a while but now they're back, so that's good I guess. Fast shit. Fast shit all night.

VVOVNDS was next, in my opinion the coolest band of the night. Kinda reminded me of Hessian, and the fact I wanna see Hessian sometime again. VVOVNDS is a really good band, they have good riffs and good songs and the whole 'cult'-thing going on. Exciting stuff, definitely wanna see them again.

It was my first time seeing Cheap Drugs as well, and they were real good. Post-Vogue band, fast hardcore punk. Really cool. They played some cover songs at the end, can't remember which ones. I think some oi songs? Possibly.

Toxic Shock closed the night. Crossover music, new song sounded promising. Crazy dudes. Cool band.
Their bassist lost his glasses on the floor during Cheap Drugs and he gave me a beer because I found them. He's a rad guy.

We had to go during their set in order to catch a train home, too bad.

Another night, another show.

Also, check out Quiet Days.

23-02-2013

Carta, forbice, sasso!

Last Thursday, Jare did his birthday show. It featured punk rock of a really high plank and hangouts of a plank with a similar height. I had temporary tattoos of Jare's face made so at the end of the night a dozen of people had a Jare-face "tattooed" on their bods. It was great.
I still have mine, as well, it looks rad.

But what matters is the music! (As I've heard.)
Black Sheep opened the night and they were really great! I really like them! I didn't buy shit cause they were gone when i decided I should do that, but hopefully I'll see them again sometime soon! Punk rock/hardcore alla Dangers, A Wilhelm Scream and Daggermouth of something. Fun! They're from Wallonia I think, and I generally don't hear much about Wallonian hardcore/punk but I'm glad other people do and put them on shows I go to.

Second up was Progress! Back in full force after a break of a couple of years. They played well! Not so into their stuff, it's alright but it's too "all-over-the-place" for me. IMHO*. But I do remember dancing a bit, so maybe they played some groooooovy tunes that thoroughly I enjoyed as well. Needless to say it was my intention to get mad D that night, so I don't remember exactly how everything went. (D is for drunk, by the way, you sick bastard.)

Also, Jare gave away a keg of beer, so (a lot of) free beer for the punx! Great way to spend the night! One of the reasons I love Jare so much. Although he's so fucking fat these days. It's ridiculous. Fucking disgusting. Blergh.

1000 Degrees were Italians that played really technical skate-punk. Like, really technical. It was cool I guess. They were super funny. They made their stereotypes themselves, so we didn't have to (Mario-references etc.). Also after the show for some reason I started playing rock-paper-scissors with those guys, which is carta-forbice-sasso in Italian. It was super fun, they were super fun. Oh, yeah, and the show was fun too! Music! Yeah!

After the Rock Café afterparty we went to party in Café Allee, which was fun. We danced and made jokes and laughed and everything was really cool and Jare even came in again for like one minute.
But after a while I guess I went into my "fuck I'm drunk I need to go home NOW"-mood and I went home.
I then made a pizza and dropped it top-side on the floor. I scraped the toppings of the floor and ate it anyway. Pizza punx.


*You know how I don't like to say that a band "isn't good" (like, as a fact). Here's a comic that illustrates why:
Go to feelafraid.com and spend your nights there, please.

21-02-2013

F.Ontario.D.

So, I had nothing to do yesterday evening. You know what I do when I have nothing to do?
I go to the punk rock show.
(Or sometimes I watch a movie or something.)

Yesterday F.O.D., my Favourite Old Dudes in punk rock, did a try-out show for their new songs from their new album. (They're not really that old, by the way, I'm just a young punk and I like to joke about that.) In the months leading up to the release they've made me quite stoked on the record, so obviously I wanted to check out if the fuzz lived up to the real deal. Also I wanted to buy a CD and I can't make it to the release show etc.

They were the only band on the bill, but there was an okay crowd. The venue (café Boesjkammeree) was a pretty odd place for a show but I guess it worked. Sound/vocals sucked but that seems to be a classic for the Kamikaze Roadshows (kidding, although it was the case with the 15MPN show as well). Anyway, these Kamikaze dudes are doing pretty cool shows, so check them out or something!

Other than that, they played alright. It was a try-out show and I was tired so I didn't mind any mistakes they played. Usually they'd play a song, then laugh about how someone screwed up and I stood there (first row! of course) like "uh, really? oh okay.". Well, maybe, if was to determine to buy the record based on just this show, I might've not done it, because it wasn't as tight as they are other times, and the sound wasn't up to scratch. But I know they're good, talented people with a sense of humour and a great sense of songwriting, so I bought the cd.
ALSO I'M IN THE "THANK YOU" LIST THAT'S JUST THE COOLEST THING. I think I've made it into 3 "thank you" lists already because of my stupid zine/blog (Tantras, Adjectives, F.O.D.). And the Direct Hit! one, but that was because I bought their tapes, not because I'm a rad guy or something. Anyway, it makes me feel special, like I'm doing something good. And then I'm here, saying how much their show sucked. How's that for 'thanks'? I'm an asshole.

Their show didn't suck. Of course. It was really enjoyable, and it was nice to hear the new songs, some old songs in between and some covers. In fact, I'm listening to the new record right fucking now and it's great! Here's a quick rundown:

F.O.D. - Ontario (2013, Thanks But No Thanks Records)

1. Racket Rating
2. 20 Second Song
3. Passing Teralfene
4. 36
5. Heroes
6. Joke
7. Like Them
8. Ontario
9. Counting Numbers
10. Frenzal Records
11. Song For Baby, Hoping To Get Laid
12. Because You're The One I Love So Dearly
13. Carry On
14. Wasted
15. Starchild
16. Decade

First remark: They've definitely taken a different approach to this record in comparison with Dance To This. The artwork is 20 times cooler and the songs are more focused. Musically, not much difference, but that's good. It's just better.
Most songs are about the band, playing shows, being a dad/husband, being old and socio-politics. 20 Second Song is actaully a 40 second song, it's a joke, a rather finely executed joke, I must say. Passing Teralfene sounds like a drug-dealing song but really it's a suburb of Affligem. Joke is a really, really good song, with some nice hooks. Like Them is obviously their attempt at being Bad Religion, and actually being pretty good at it. It's almost ridiculous. Ontario is a rad song, it has the best oooooh's on the record, together with 20 Second Song. Counting Numbers is a silly song and I think it's kinda superfluous to the record, but yeah. Frenzal Records is a hit tune. Then there are some emotional songs that are emotional and all. Carry On is a single, was also on the EP and it has a videoclip. The last song, Decade, has the Jare on it, playing bass, that's awesome. Although Peter is a great bass player as well, I really like his style. They're all great musicians. And Hans is a really good songwriter.

So yeah, lovely record. If you were born in 1980 or something this is definitely a record for you! Just kidding, fans of mid-paced nineties-influenced punk rock reminiscent of Lagwagon, Green Day and Bad Religion (seriously, listen to Like Them) should take notice! A nice balance of critical, humourous and emotional lyrics. A nice variety of riffs. A general disregard for solos, which I support. I'm not really a solo-lovin' guy.

Fuck Off, Dicks.

20-02-2013

Windmill mosh

You guys know I listen to hardcore, right? I'm all about hardcore. Hardcore is my life. Hardcore 24/7. Fuck all the rest.

Kidding, I just really like hardcore, that's it. Just like a normal person. I like hardcore in a normal way. I have buds in the hardcore scenery and some of them put out records. For example, I really like Perspective Records. Really hard-working label and they are so fucking dedicated to what they do it's crazy.
So yeah, check them out, releases by A Strength Within, Ashes, 18 Miles. More coming up! Also check out Perspective Fest!

Anyway, what I really really really wanna talk about is their newest release, Darker Times by 18 Miles. It's a Dutch hardcore band whose members used to live 18 miles awat from one another. Band names are silly sometimes, but that's okay! 18 Miles is a good name. I think.
Their album is called Darker Times because... well, I don't know why, really. I'm guessing dark songs with dark lyrics about dark times, but everything is in the comparative form. It's darker than before. That's hella dark.
Also, it's hella free for download.
It's their sophomore release, after their EP Lessons.
Also, the cover is the most Dutch thing ever, I don't know if it's supposed to make me mlaugh but I think it's pretty funny. Other than that the design's really cool and beautiful. But yeah, it's a fucking windmill.

18 Miles - Darker Times (2013, Perspective Records)

1. No Guts
2. Hollow
3. Die Strong
4. Pirates
5. Broken Homes
6. Pushing Forward
7. Moving On
8. For Better For Worse
9. Counterwise
10. Boundaries
11. Darker Times


"You think you have it all but you suck." is, after the get-punched-in-the-face/no-bullshit intro, the first thing that grabs my attention. They don't take a paper before their mouth (dutchism). They're from The Netherlands, where everybody (stereotypically) just says everything they want and this attitude is a great premise for a hardcoreband. Anger gets vented, both musically as vocally/lyrically. "Your life was a fucking mistake." I'm only at track 2 yet and already I'm stoked. I like hardcore mostly because it's angry music. It's vital to the genre because anger translates into energy and creativity and wanting to destroy shit. Instead of destroying shit, they create fast, heavy riffs backed by pounding rhythms and a throat that's both capable of the shouting and 'hardcore-grunting'. It's a pleasant voice, by the way. Just, nice to listen to. This guy can sing me a serenade anytime.
Die Strong, I think, is one of the early highlights of the album. Very fast, very angry, it has a pretty standard breakdown but it's hard as nails and it has some metalcore influences (the drumming, the guitar solos and the deep vocals (especially at the end) remind me of said genre a lot).

Speaking of genres, I'm not sure how to classify 18 Miles cause my knowledge of hardcore is limited. It's the kind of hardcore that makes kids mosh. I guess I could best just refer to their fellow Dutchies No Turning Back, or Belgium's The Setup in terms of sound and approach to the genre. Straight-forward, trying to blast ears and with a hint of epicicity (I made that word up, I mean it has an 'epic' quality). Also, early Parkway Drive and early The Carrier are pretty okay references, I think. They cite Stick To Your Guns and The Ghost Inside but I've never listened to those bands so I don't know. I guess they know what they're talking about.
I'm just writing this review so you know you can check this out. I don't really think my opinion matters, but I like exclaiming my opinion so I'm gonna go ahead. But yeah, just download/buy the damn record already, it's good. I know it's good because I've listened to it and I'm good at listening to things, but I also know it's good because I've been told so.

Anyway, on with the record. I'm listening to For Better For Worse and it's really groovy, but not really my favourite track on the record, if I may say that. The record just keep Pushing Forward and Moving On (pun intended) as if there are no Boundaries (taking the pun too far, intended). Over the course of the entire album, the songs never really fall apart or stand out but they're all on a semi-equal level of quality. It's a consistent record.
A good album always has a good opener, and as we've heard, 18 Miles fucking opened the hell out of this album. But it also needs a good closing track. Right now I'm listening to the last track, the title track, and it's more hardcore goodness.  It has a kinda positive message. A memorable message. The last line you hear before your ears blow apart are "This wave of setbacks ends here." and it ends and you've just had a really good listening experience and now you're deaf for the rest of your life.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

(Oh wait, I didn't warn you.)

18-02-2013

IAHTTC6HTTNG

Lots of abbreviated band names. Lotsa music. Not so much singing.

If Anything Happens To The Cat was the opener yesterday at Rock Café. Indie post-rock. It was alright. Some really cool parts. Some boring parts. I don't know.

Next was Six Hands. The bass was a bit too loud or the guitar a bit too quiet, but it came out okay. Cool, short, punchy songs. No atmospheric bullshit, just funky instrumental music things. Yay.

Headliner This Town Needs Guns was pretty cool.They had a lot more singing going on and twinkly guitar parts. Yay. Also an acoustic encore which was pretty cool + weird.

 It was also Jare's birthday so that was cool. Beers and such.

14-02-2013

ik hou ni van metal

Tuesday night was a Rock Café night. It was a hardcore night.

It started like every night. With a beer. It ended like every night. Kinda drunk.

Upon arriving, it was pretty cool to see lotsa people were already there! And with lots, I mean like 10, but it was 7pm, so that was pretty cool!

First band was Two Minutes Hate, and despite their horrible choice for a band name, they were actually pretty good! Kinda standard hardcore, I think maybe NYHC kinda stuff? Not sure. Chugging riffs with some groove. Makes your head move. Mid-paced stuff with some fast parts. Vocals were tremendous. Really cool, really surprising and pretty much spot-on! Socio-political lyrics, I remember something like "a policy like yours we've seen before, I believe back then it was called World War".  Some cool instrumental parts, not really anything overwhelming but it was definitely aight. Just good songs, y'all. Oh, and they played an Blacklisted cover, which is definitely super cool! Also another cover that I was supposed to know, but I didn't. I guessed Sick of It All

Second band was The Redundancy Department. They started out all heavy and tough and that's when I knew I wasn't gonna be into this. And I wasn't. They had some cool parts but the "ehhhhh"-parts overruled the "ohhhhh"-parts. Pretty heavy stuff. Outtacontrol moshing, not my cupotea

Then the touring band played, they were called Life As War, from Switzerland. They were pretty rad, if I remember correctly. Their singer looked a bit like Marc Gärtner. They had some really cool songs that were really enjoyable so I enjoyed them. That's what people do with songs. They enjoy them.

Last band was Resurrection. I don't know if I really watched them, really. Really. I must've watched a couple of songs, but yeah. They play metalcore. perhaps it was cool. Perhaps it was not. I don't know.

Who am I to decide if something's good or not? I'm just a dude who likes the punx and the hardcorez. And I like to write stuff about it. My opinion is about as valid as Lance Armstrong's tour wins.

11-02-2013

REBUILDREBUILDREBUILD

REBUILDREBUILDREBUILDREBUILDREBUILDREBUILDREBUILDREBUILDREBUILD

REBUILD

I have to write a report on the last Rebuild show, because of reasons. One reason is that I do that stuff, because I like doing that stuff. Another reason is that the show was really good.
Another reason is to make sure people have something to read at their work tomorrow (attn Armin).

So, weird night, basically. A night full of twists and shouts.
Let me tell you the story of how I got to freaking Houthalen in the first place. Originally I would hitch a ride with Bram from Leuven, cause that've been rad. But, it was foretold it would snow that night, and Bram only has his license since 2 weeks or so, so he wasn't allowed to drive his parents' car. understandable, but a major bummer of course.
Luckily I have the bestest of friends in all the bestest of places. I asked Dimi, Ruben en Karel if they could pick us up and they totally could and they totally did. So that was super rad. We got on our way, drinking Karlsquell in the car, listening to anything from Darkraver to Bon Jovi to whatever else. Rad. Bestest of times.

So we arrived, we joked around at the parking spot, we rap-battled like idiots (literally, we can't rap for shit, especially me) but it was really funny actually. You should've been there. After a smoke and stuff we headed for the youth house Jezabel where Trapped Inside was kinda finishing off their set. They're a rad band. I like them. We caught like 4 songs I think, it was good. Yeah. I got us some beers and half of them were moshed over partially before they were consumed, which made us sad but ok. No problem, it's a hardcore show. I just wish they'd stop their silly dances and get to dance like normal people. Yeah, sure, aggression is fun, but isn't it weird that you're aggressive for like 5 seconds because there's a breakdown going on or something? That's weird aggression, dudes. You should get you aggression stats checked.

What I'm saying is you should be angry all of the time.

Be angry all of the time.
Is what I'm saying.

Next up were more beers, getting hugged to death by Jordi and being reunited with my favouritest folks in the world: the Dilbeek folks. Lotsa other cool peepz too, from all over. Yay. Elemental show.

Conviction played. Not mah thang, I guess. I don't really know? I think I skipped half their set to hang out in the freezing cold outside and pee in the snow. Sorry dudes. They're quitting too, I heard? Not entirely sure. Anyway, they have a cool groove and all but I'm just too punx for "hardcore" hardcore.

Blindside was way out of my league. They're pretty popular I guess, played shows with Cold World and all.* They're probably really good but I'm an idiot and I couldn't really focus my attention. I did some silly hardcore walks which possibly pissed off a lot of people, which was the result I hoped for. Lighten up, errbody.

More beers, hangouts, chillouts and starting bands with random peeps. I was in my element.

Then Rebuild played their last show 3V4R. Sadly, I don't really remember a lot of it. I remember they played Losing Love, Forgive Me, Rope, but I have vague memory of what else happened and what else was played (probably almost every song, I'd guess?). According to the photos I saw today, there were a lot of guest vocals and lotsa bodes flying around. Someone even filmed a part of their set so people can reminisce and remember what it was all about.
For some reason I really like Rebuild, and they're all amazing people and I'm sad I won't be able to see them again and they had the bestest of songs, written by the bestest of dudes, in the bestest of times.
Rebuild 2009-2013.
I don't have a lot to say about that anymore. I'm kinda sad now.

Anyway, on the bright side, the afterparty was wack, Jordi was spinning records like a monsterous beast and I remember dancing a lot, repeatedly jumping off of a table, kissing dudes, doing wack stuff and having a blast.
I was supposed to go back to Leuven with the West-Vlaanderen crew but I was convinced/forced to stay & Wim, the best person in the world, obligingly offered me a place to sleep, so I could participate in being a pig and fucking shit up at the afterparty, until they began sweeping the loads of confetti that were lying around and we were basically forced to leave.
Bacon and eggs in the morning, courtesy of Wim.

I think Armin said it best on the way home when he said "too bad it wasn't a punk rock show last night" or something along those lines. Cause yeah, that was the only thing missing, basically.

Sometimes I love life.
(Other times I hate life.)







*This reminded me: Cold World has this album called Dedicated To Babies Who Came Feet First. It's funny cause I was born feet first (well, probably more like 'butt first', but whatevz) but I don't really care about that album. Thanks for the dedication though!

06-02-2013

Live Review: Joyce Manor - Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired

This is a new feature I'd like to try out. It's me talking about a record in real time, while the record is playing.
Maybe it's fun or cool or interesting, I don't know. I can't imagine a lot of people would listen but it's fun to do anyway.
The advantage is that you hear the record and the opinion of a highly skilled journalistic genius (me) at the same time. The disadvantage is that I annoyingly speak over the tracks and the sound quality isn't real good.



This is the first one, it's about Joyce Manor's Of All Thing I Will Soon Grow Tired (Asian Man/Big Scary Monsters, 2012).

Tell me what you think!

04-02-2013

The silence before the storm

Aalst/Oilsjt is in full preparation of the only thing they take pride in: acting like nutjobs and partying for a week for Carnaval. I went to take a look yesterday and everything was quiet. Everyone was saving their efforts for just another week.

Place of Sunday's festivities was Cirque Mystic, a "fuifzaal" turned to a decent venue. Apparently it used to be used for electro/techno/whatevz parties and now, the new owner's want to have shows there too. Rock'n'Load booked this one, great guys.

First uppety-up were The Adjectives. I've never seen this band play a seamless set. When I see themn they always seem to bust their strings or have technical trouble. But other than that, I really like what these guys are doing. They played a lot of songs from their debut record BAM!, and a couple other songs, like Building Utopia, a new song that I think is better than the entire mentioned record (and that they dedicated to me, golly!), a cover of Blink's Dammit and a cover of the Copyrights' Worn Out Passport, which was good, but, you know, it's kinda hard to copy the Copyrights (no pun intended). Fun show, their on-stage banter balances between funny shit and unintentionally funny shit. Cool songs. They were pretty tight. Vocals aren't the best but they're okay, and I like the dual vocals. Sander pretty much just yells most of the time and gets away with it. Props to that!

THIS AIN'T NOISE INTERMEZZO:
I know you want to get the crowd going. I know you want people to dance and sing. I know every punk show should be a party. And I sure as hell know that an easy route to that point is by playing a cover. But, man, most of them get old so fast. And sometimes it gets annoying when there's two bands playing the same worn out cover at the same show. So I present you the following:
non-exhaustive but exemplary list of covers I'm tired of hearing at punk shows
- True Believers by The Bouncing Souls
- Blitzkrieg Bop by Ramones
- Dammit by Blink-182
- Hybrid Moments by Misfits
- Linoleum by NOFX
- ...
Doesn't mean I'm not gonna enjoy those covers, but yeah. Change it up, maybe...

Anyway, Off The Charts played a good set full of really good songs, Lotsa new shabizzle and those sounded really good, so I'm rightfully excited for them to record an album. Nicolas' en Kim's vocals were pretty  much spot-on, and they played really tight. Headbang-worthy. Great as usual, don't know what to say more...

Sweet Empire played a solid show, it was their last on their tour. Dutch guys with a punk rock schwung, who had a lot of energy for a Sunday night and played a great show! As an encore they covered Fugazi's Waiting Room. They sounded really fun, melodic, and just plain nice.

Sleeping Lessons/Black Art

I just found out about these 2 bands. One is called Sleeping Lessons and the other is Black Art. They're from the UK. The United Kingdom. Amazing country,

Anyway, they're coming on tour in Europe this summer, so that's really cool!
But they need some dates filled, so I'm gonna try and help out by helping them get dates. (I don't mean "get dates" as in "romantic dates", cause I hope they can handle their lady-biz themselves!)
You can listen to Sleeping Lessons brand new EP here: Cellar Door EP
Great hardcore/screamo not unlike Brand New or La Dispute! It's melodic, it's got integrity, it's experimental in a way and you'll be sorry if you sleep on it!
Black Art's EP is also on the web, right here: Dashed Hopes And Broken Fingers
They got a groovy The Bronx-ish kinda sound, really punk and really cool! Check it.

They tour together  from the 9th of August 2013 until the 17th of August 2013 in mainland Europe, so if you're like "yeah, these guys are the beez neez and I so wanna book them", now's your chance! I've heard all dates are pretty much open to anywhere, except the 14th, which is booked, and the 9th, which is preferred in the North-East region.
Get in touch with takecarebooking@live.com for more details on the package!

Sleeping Lessons

Black Art