30-09-2013

Buoys

I've been listening to this band for a couple of months, and this past week I really made the click and it's been on really frequent rotation now. I first got to know them through a Facebook status update by this band called Jabber, who said they were going to be on Bloated Kat Records. As Bloated Kat only releases incredible bands, I checked out their demo and well, now I'm writing about it.

Boys - demo (DIY, 2013)

1. Sundae Skool
2. Turn The T.V. Off
3. Long Walk
4. New Car


Boys are not just boys. There's 2 girls and 2 boys in this band. There's Maura and Megan, and Zach and John. But actually it's Zach, Megan, Maura and John. Or Megan, John, Zach and Maura. They're a band. They're p. good.
They released this demo with 4 songs and these 4 songs are so fun and good and nice to listen to. They are songs that would want to listen to with everyone in the world. Well, not everyone, cause most people suck. But with everyone who is cool. Sundae Skool starts with the giddiest of riffs and the intro lyric "I'm tired of being pessimistic". That sounds like a positive message, right? The songs rely on fun, solid pop punk riffs and strong personalilty-induced lyrics. There's this bass part 'round the chorus of New Car which I can't help but find silly (when the bass plays the riff an octave higher), other than that I am totally with this musically and it is definitely an approach to music and songwriting that I would like to do. (I don't know why I find that part silly, cause it's not something out of the ordinary or anything...)
But to illustrate my point, listen to Turn The TV Off and try not to go along with that chorus. It's as infectious as zombie bites. Which is an appropriate comparison, I think. If you wanna sing along, you may have to practice breathing properly. (Weird advice.) Megan's voice is typically kinda snotty and sounds very confident (weird description).
My favourite track on the record is Long Walk, I mean: "I think I understand what it's like/To feel the absence of a friend/You seek solace in a bottle/Speak dramatics through your pen/Maybe tonight you can stay sober/But by morning, you'll forget". That sounds like something I can very much and very much not identify with. Relatable and personable (is that a word?). As if the song didn't start good enough, they end it even better. I know a review isn't worth much if I just say "just listen to it" all of the time, but hey, in the end that's what you gotta do. Just listen to that outro bass riff into the "Watch my mouth slack your jaw/Yeah, I've heard it all before/I am ruthless with intent to leave you crying on your floor"-part and tell me you don't wanna see this live and sing along as loud as you can, dance your ass off and jump in the air of excitement/relief. It's kinda cathartic.
This demo is wack bizniz, peepz. If you're into babely pop punk, listen to Boys (among others, hit me up). If you're into normal pop punk, also do that. If you're into the defending of pop punk, listen to Boys and realise how silly Man Overboard sounds.

Also, I am going to see this band in New York with Lipstick Homicide (more babes) and the Murderburgers (short Scottish dudes). My life is v. awesome.
Falling in love's easy.

29-09-2013

The Story So Sub-Par

I KNOW. I haven't been updating. Whaddayoucare? Do you even read this blog? Do you? Oh, thanks. That's cool.
I met a dude this week whose band I didn't necessarily like and he had read my review on the blog and kind of agreed maybe? Pretty funny. He was a really nice dude.

Anyway, I do stil go to shows and the last one I attended was a sold out (whut?) show for the Seahaven/The Story So Far show. Off The Charts was the support. It was like 11 euros. I had verry little idea of who those two headlining acts were prior to Tuesday. I still don't really.

Off The Charts are on a roll. Playing better shows every time, releasing an album soon, playing songs that are really good. They have it all. Seriously, those new songs sound really good. There are some main contemporary influences such as Basement and Title Fight, spiked with a typically 90s vibe coming from bands like Leatherface. Catchy tunes with interesting song developments. Look out.

I saw the first few Seahaven songs, which were okay, but I got bored so decided to head to the bar and hang/drink beer. Probably not the best decision, but I was fine with it.

I saw The Story So Far from the back, hanging with my West Flanders buds. The Story So Far is one of the, if not the, most popular pop punk bands these days. Wait, I mean "pop punk" bands. They're the kind of pop punk that, in my opinion, shouldn't be called pop punk. For one, it's not really poppy. If anything, these bands look more like a soft hardcore band than anything. Anyway, The Story So Far, or TSSF as the cool kids call 'em, is huge and kinda good, just way too generic in a sub-subgenre I'm not too stoked about. Crowd was insane though. And young, side-note, many young peepz came out on a Tuesday night, which is cool.
Anyway, semi-boring show, I talked to Dimi about how much I want to see Hold Tight! at Fest this year and he whole-heartedly agreed. That's cool.

See you in the pit.

24-09-2013

Hey You Guys

Quick post to tell you I saw Hey You Guys 2 weeks ago and they were fucking incredible.
Jare described it as "de rock 'n roll en kolder van The Hives met de energie van Fights And Fires, gemixt met een beetje Arctic Monkeys en Rage Against the Machine. NEIG!"
He's totes right. Check 'em out. Crazy show as well.

11-09-2013

not

You might remember how I was absolutely in love with this band Not On Tour two years or so ago. I totally was. And then I missed them on their 2nd Euro tour, but they came back for a 3rd time and I caught them again... twice! I hadn't listened to their music in ages, but I totally fell in love again.

First night was in Heist-Op-Den-Berg. I missed Snowbound. Sorry.

Support by Generation 84, who put on a solid show but I think Teun had some vocal issues or something. Anyway, it was alright, not my favourite band but good enough to keep watching their show.

Not On Tour played and as I said, I immediately remembered why I loved them so much. The combination of melody, speed and a to-the-point songwriting results in a catchy symphony of 4 Israelian peepz with a love for Descendents and Black Flag, or something. The new songs sounded equally great, if not better, so naturally I bought the new record, All This Time. The entire set ruled, they played a Bryan Adams cover (guess which one...) and generally played a nice show. Whoo!

Second night in Gent, made possible by Vera who let me crash on her floor, thanks! It rained as fuck so that was a downer but the rest of the night was... an upper?

I caught the last bit of Timmy Hillfire's set and although it sounded kinda sloppy, it was p. interesting and okay-sounding. Might have to check in on this.

Dead Convicts were much better than what I expected from the bandname. Straight, no-frills 80s hardcore punk. They were really great, played a Ramones cover (Havana Affair) and got some ska-influencage going which worked quite okay. Might have to check in on this too.

Retarded Fish came all the way from Slovakia so what the hell, let's just dance and act like nutcases for these dudes. Musically very strong, cool melodic hardcore/skatepunk kinda deal. Show was a lot of fun. Good band, good crowd.

And a second Not On Tour performance, yay! It might preliminarily be noted taht Valer played the entire set in his boxers cause he was the only one not wearing a short (short). Other than that, the guys and gal did good. Another great set, different than the night before, that's cool. More dancing going on, the crowdsurf and mosh and what crazy ideas anyone had. Fun fun fun.

Thanks again Vera for setting up the show and giving me a place to sleep. Slept like shit but whatevz. Said goodbye this morning, hopefully they'll come back next year. Love.

EDIT: Also superthanks to Mathias, who I don't really know but may have met that night (?)  but who obviously is also a supercool dude for setting up the show as well also!

09-09-2013

Bring on the beers.

Have you heard of Ashes? It's a cool band. They released a cool record. I bought it. It's worth the buy. Worth the money. Worth to review it, maybe...
So HERE IT GOES.

Ashes - Cursed (Perspective Records, 2013)

A1. Push
A2. Keep It
A3. Cursed
B1. Final Breath
B2. Wounds
B3. The Swarm





This has been a highly anticipated EP for me. I fucking love Ashes in every way possible. I love the band, I love the music, I love the people and I love their record label. Let's give it up for Perspective Records, who have released some really good hardcore records this year. Good job on this one too. Simple and clear packaging, a downloadcode for the nerds, great artwork (who made this?) and a choice between a pretty white and green splatter 7" vinyl or a nice digipack with a CD with Stijn's face on it. I think i made a wise choice by going for the vinyl, although the inside still has a picture of Stijn's face on it. Dang it.

Enough joking around, as white and green this record may look, it sounds nothing like white an green. Sounds like grey and maybe red, and black, and other dark colours. Ashes is a typically dark band, I think. I mean, they can be, they sometimes are. One thing Stijn once told me and is noticable on this EP, is that his vocals are cleaned up a bit. If you compare the vocal recordings to the demo songs, it's slightly less brutal. Still fierce as fuck though, and you can actually understand the lyrics better, which is cool. To a further extent, p. good job on the recording/mixing/mastering. Every part of the band comes out of his shell quite well and harmoniously.

Now, let's get to the songs, huh? I'm always nagging about stupid stuff when the songs are of course the most important things of the record. Cursed is a very Ashes-like record. I think it's getting to a point where the songs are recognizably theirs. Starting with the slow-paced intro-esque headbanger Push, you get the sense of groovy, gloomy, sincere and hard-hitting hardcore that these dudes do. Getting into Keep It, which was also on the second press of their demo, things get somewhat faster. Ashes heavily rely on riffs and rhythm patterns and I think they're a very 'punk' band to be a hardcore band. There's no typical breakdowns with the intention of live mosh. No, the energy in the songs should be enough to get a crowd going.
Stijn's vocals still get to me, especially on Cursed, where he seemingly releases a lot of negative energy. I'm not all for negativity, but a lot of great music comes from a negative place/state of mind. Cue Cursed, the title track. Equally groovy, with a sick bass riff driving the song and a high-ended outro that's a nice symbiosis of what they're capable of as a band. I'm the son of a cursed one/it took so many fucking years/before I renounced your name. I have no idea what that means, but you can feel it. Feeeeeeeel it.

Side B starts off with my favourite track, I think, on the rekerd. Final Breath. From the intro/verse riff on I'm captured. The contrast of the 2 measures of higher, more melodic chords to the introduction of the drums and bass and the lower, more stereotypically hardcore riffing is really cool. Should get me pumped, or stoked, or psyched at a live show. It should. Vjee's riffs are generally really cool and, as I said, they're proper riffs. The tempo change mid song is fitting, circle pit material. Build ups that pay off into cathartic songs of desperation and anger. At least, that's what I think the dude's singing about. I wouldn't really know for sure, though. He seems quite displeased with the world. Can't blame him, right?
Same theme continues in Wounds, for which they made a promo video. It's a catchy song. Love the drums on this one, they create a cool, dark-ish vibe for the tune. this world ends tonight/there is no hope. Yeah, told ya. Groovy shit. The last song on the recording is another groovy one. That's what I mean with "an Ashes-like record": it's consistent in sound. It has its proper qualities. If you like them, you'll probably like all or most of their songs. If you don't, then you probably won't like 'em at all. Anyway, cool back-and-forth vocals on this track, cool bass loops and a generally cool track to end a record on.
Fade out with feedback and we're clear.

Now give me that beer, love.

Al die willen te kap'ren varen...

Yesterday I went to a show in Den Eglantier in Berchem, as you might now, arguably my favourite venue in Belgium. It was a basement show, so all the better.
Two bands played, early Sunday show, and I was supposed to be there on time but I ran into my brother on accident, who I hadn't seen for a while, so I had to choose between grabbing a beer or checking out Punchline Hunting Season. I'm sorry, Punchline Hunting Season.

So I got to the venue, and I brought a "distro"/box of second hand cds/7"s. Got rid of a few of them, to the guy travelling with I Not Dance, that's cool. I'll put up a list of the rest if anyone's interested.

Then I Not Dance played. They were rad. Loud, bearded, distorted, screamish, growlish, Austrian, really cool. One of those bands that just blow you away with their live shows, y'know? Incredible. Check 'em out if you like Loma Prieta or something.

The basement has been repainted and has some nice Adventure Time grafitti going on, which is awesome. Fav venue +1.

I'm a "musician"

Last Thursday was a big day for me. I was "booked" to "play" a "show". Yes, me, MC Karel, worst rapper in the werld. With PJ Bond, one of the best songwriters in the werld. That's cool.
For those who don't know, I'm a rapper in my free time. It's not necessarily good but it's super fun and some songs are kinda alright I think. mckarel.bandcamp.com

Anyway, I worked til 5pm, then biked the fuck home cause I only had 20 minutes to get home, pick up my stuff and catch my train so I'd be there on time. I caught my train, sweating heavily cause I biked/ran fast and it was like 30 degrees outside. Fuck. But I got on the train.

OBVIOUSLY, because I'm an idiot, I took my train on time but screwed up by making a wrong transfer. So I ended up in Hasselt an hour later than expected, but with my bud Domien to keep me company on the train and walk to the Carpe Diem, bar of the night. No prob, though, cause nothing was set up yet. Ok, whatevz.
Now get this, I arrived and there were actually a lot of people. Sick. Elias, Rak, Jordi, Benji, Seppe, Wim, Laura, Wouter, Werner, fucking Dennis, Joëlle, Jens, and some other peepz. Radical.
I set up merch with help from Domien and sold some stuff, which was v. cool. People were saying I should begin so I talked to the barman who confused me a lot. Anyway, everything got set up, I tried to help moving stuff but the dude yelled at me so I stopped. Whatevz.

After the technical stuff was done I got on stage. Get this, a fucking stage. I wasn't really nervous but not really in my comfort zone either. Anyway, I got over it, introduced myself and started the first verse of Introducing MC Karel (I play only the first verse cause that's the only one that matters). Rest of the set: William Schimdtson, I Am Edgar Allan Poe, Monoamourous, I'm Not A Person Person, Hail Odin, Feel Like Shit/Die Like Shit, Maybe Women have Rights Too and I'm King Crucial.
I played a hundred mistakes, breifly forget my lines 3 times or so and got out of breath/stumbled over my words a couple times too. And I bumped my head into the mic. I got the solo on Feel Like Shit/Die Like Shit kinda right, a solo that made some people crack up apparantly and rightfully so. It was alright I guess, it's not meant to be perfect (or even good, really), but it's supposed to be entertaining and I think I entertained some people. That's cool.

PJ played next and he yet again killed it. I got shivers multiple times. His set was similar to last week's, but not entirely and it's always a pleasure seeing him play his heart's songs. When he sings "are you lonely, love?" I almost lose it. Fucking hell, pure chizz.

Yoink, great night, was nice to see PJ again and to play with him was such an honour. Thanks a bunch Roel for setting it up, you're the bestest.

'ngover

I've spent last week watching iCarly episodes and hangin' around at places. I pressed my latest zine, which you should buy, and officially released my MC karel tape. And that's why this blog has been neglectished.

Anyway, let's scroll back to Monday, quick show at the rockcafé.

First band was Rage Inside. I don't know, I didn't really like it. Two similar vocalists, generic guitar riffs, not enough rage. Maybe next time, babes.

ILLS. Holy mothershit. Solid band. Coming from Finland, they sure had a metal-vibe going on in their brand of the 'core. Solos and some heavy metal-inspired riffage gave the whole band a unique flavour and it worked quite well. Very 'Scandinavian'. Very 'cool'.

Grim was up on the next, and they're also influenced by metal, more on the death metal side of things though (genre Obituary, Death, Morbid Angel). They're cool, very heavy and very 'grim'. Possibly the heaviest band in belgian hardcore right now? Possibly! Kids are into it, I'm kinda into it. I like when they say "THIS WORLD IS GRIIIIIIM" and everyone goes apenuts. New 7" Seeds Of Love out in November or something, new tunes sounded good.

Abyss AD, from Germanee, closed off the night but I think I got my 'klopke' so I couldn't focus or even be damned for shit. They were probably good but I just couldn't bring myself to it. Truth be told, it was all kinda 'safe' to me. But who am I? Apparently an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Then I went home, cause, as I said, I was tired, and as you might have read, I had a rough weekend.

04-09-2013

likt men ballen, Olen

Wowie. You have no idea how my weekend was. Maybe after this post you'll have some idea, but it'll still be vague. In fact, that's exactly how I remember it, a vague succession of things. Was there even a weekend? I don't know. Maybe it never happened.

FRIDAY NIGHT:
Show at the Rockcafé. Dylan's birthday show. I don't really know Dylan, but I sure as fuck celebrated his date of birth.
Drinking beer with the Rak. I saw King's Blood, which was okay I guess. I don't know anymore. Krikke Get Wise's brother is in this band, and he like to jump-mosh. I think it was cool.

Saw some Two Minutes Hate songs. Especially the one where he does that famous line about world war. I met their drummer Arno some time ago and he's a cool dude, also good drummer. Band is okay, reminds me of similar acts like Dead End Sin maybe. What do I know.

Saw a minute of Hawser, don't care. I basically spent the night drinking beer with Rak and other assorted buddies. A friend of mine, as Rak later told me, was pretty buzzed up on something and he was talking a lot. I think that's cool, cause I don't have to say a lot. But it didn't strike me until Rak told me. We met a Greek and Dutch dude (Erasmus students maybe?) who were whack. Whack.

I moshed to Ashes cause I love them. New record is really good, I bought it now and it's seriously really good. Show was cool, drunkmosh and singalongs. Frandz.

Skipped Get Wise in favour of beer. Up the punx. But they're a p. cool band, they're on tour now so you should check 'em out. Maybe.

Lotsa beers. Hung out with Rak and this girl Nele, who was supposed to crash in my couch (as was Berre Ashes, but we lost him, sorry dude!). Me and Rak talked this girl Alicia with who Nele went to school and she was apparently stupid or something so we said something stupid to her. I have no clue what. She wasn't pleased. Whatevz, babes. Careless. Drunk. Other cool things probably happened but fuck if I know. We went home, had chicken nuggets and slept til 12. Slept like shit.

SATURDAY:
I promised Koen Sex Toys to come and see their set at Skatefest, but they already played at 13:30. So when I got up at 12, I actually did my best to catch the bus to Olen. DON'T GET ME STARTED ON OLEN JUST YET. Olen, Skatefest. Bus was right on time, I went to get some cash cause I knew I was gonna spend it.

I managed to catch 3 Sex Toys songs, one on my way to the bar, the next one dedicated to me (their cover of Gay Bar, fuckwads) and the last one, a new one of a year old. Cool.

The next band I wanted to see played at 7pm, although there were a few cool bands before that as well, Like Homer and Get Wise. Anyway, back to the start. Since I had no bands to see and guts to fill with alcohol, I got another beer. I ran into Werner, who I had met the week before, and we hung out. He's old but he's a really nice dude. He's "with it" with punkrock and such and it was really nice talking to him. He also has a blog and writes for rockblog. Naturally, he's my arch rival, but it's okay. We're cool.
Around the same time my best friend in the world also arrived and he had beer in his car so we decided to drink beer, get him cigarettes in Olen (suck) city and we met Jelle and Nicolas OTC there. This would mean the night was gonna be cool. Disastrous, yes, but cool.

Back at the fest-site Two Minutes Hate played, again. We've discussed that. Beer.
I wanted to see Think Ahead cause someone told me they were cool, but for some reason we went back to Olen and kinda missed them. Whatever. I'm only here for the scenepoints. Why should I watch bands? Beer and scenepoints, all I need. Beer and scenepoints, that's my deal.

I saw Get Wise this time, but only half. I spent most of my time hanging with the punx at and around the bar. Same for Generation 84. Probably the same for Homer. I think I ate a vegan thing during Homer. Homer's cool. Same for the Headshots. I must've been pretty flipped up at this point.

WELL YEAH I WAS. I think I even got to my second round of jetonnekes by then. Perfect opportunity to go watch the Setup and mosh the living shit out of... myself? I don't know, I love The Setup so I decided I'd go and show the pitfuckers who's the boss!!!!!! Obviously, I'm not the boss, The Setup is. They played a good set, I was really stoked on the setlist. Full of hits. They did good, as usual. I put on my crucial shoes and did this weird thing where I'm moshing but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. Crowd reaction was underwhelming, but it was fun.

Tech-9 and Pay No Respect are bands. For some fucked up reason.

But I was stoked for The Connection! 60s rock and roll revival with Geoff Useless. I don't necessarily adore the band, but I do adore Geoff Useless and I'll take any excuse to jive to tunes like Stop Talking and Crawling Out The Wreckage Of A Saturday Night. Yes, admittedly, those are the only tunes I recognized. I hope I've danced with babes, but I think I mostly danced with Bram. Which is good enough. Good band, fun show.
Talked to Geoff after the show, he's one of the people I really admire musically (mostly for the work on Let It Go), and I told him that The Guts are/were way better. But he's cool and nice.

After the hardcorekids could stretch their limbs one last time to the tunes of First Blood, it was time for Off With Their Heads to play. Mind you, I was"in pretty rough shape" (as Ryan Fischer would inform me the next day) and I actually don't remember much. But they undoubtedly played a great set of great songs  about bad things. I remember that the set was very long, an hour or so. I kept thinking they were playing their last song, and then they'd play another. Anyway, people danced, swung their fists in the air and sang along to wanting to die, wanting to go home and feeling like this every night. The uge.

Then we went to the bar for more beers. I got behind the bar and got a beer, then other assorted friends found their way behind the bar. I hung out with Matthias, who was a dude volunteering there, he was v. cool. They gave away free coke, which is cool. We tried to get free beer but they proved to be more suspicious than expected. Anyway, great start to a great after-party. After a while of hanging out at the fest-site, a couple of my budz, who were crashing in Olen, decided to head to this loserville and go to a bar.

SATURDAY NIGHT - the following has nothing to do with Skatefest, punk rock or anything, but it's a funny/fucked up story.
(listen to this)
Bar of choice: Muziekcafé 't Oor. Don't go there. Don't ever go there. Narrowminded, racist, chauvenist folks. We didn't know that, so we took a chance in this seemingly cosy and cool bar.
We arrive at the bar and for some reason I find myself in the middle of a conversation with two girls, with no idea why I'm talking to them. Possibly because one of them was wearing an pyjama (although she said it wasn't). See, that's how ridiculous this bar was. People could be wearing PJs and thinking it was fashion. The other girl was really angry/psychotic. But they were probably the funnest people to hang with in the entire bar. Anyway, we ate their food, played nagelke-klop and jerked around and everybody started to dislike us for some reason, the #1 reason being that we we're fucking around and "we were not from there" and we were folks from the punk festival. Whatevz.
Next thing you know, 2 tables (stacked with glass) "fall down", people got more pissed at us, 2 of my buds get kicked out. The owner, who already reprimanded us for no fucking reason whatsoever, got really mad.
N: You have 5 minutes to leave!
J: Oh good, I can take another beer then!
Holy smokes, great reply. The rest of us stayed behind and chatted with inappropriate old dudes, inappropriate young dudes and those girls, who were apparently best friends since that night. That's Olen for you, I guess. The young dudes thought we were annoying those girls and they got jealous and even more pissed. Dude in orange shirt had a bad temper, man.
Then 'one of us' said something he shouldn't have said, and the addressee totally overreacted by headbutting him, causing a pretty nasty gap in his eyebrow. WHAT THE FUCK OLEN? See, I'm not saying we were on our best behaviour, but at least we didn't cause harm to anyone, we didn't intentionally evoked a fight by FUCKING HEADBUTTING SOMEONE. People are whack. And then this orange shirt fatzoid started yelling and violently pushing us outside of the bar. I guess they were tired of our shenanigans? Well, I was tired of your inability to handle situations, your lack of relativization and your chauvenist stance towards us the entire night.
Some dude: I'm gonna kick your teeth out!
Me: What? Don't do that, I need my teeth, man.
Fucking lunatics. There was this one dude, a young guy but a real sweetheart, I think he was also at Skatefest and I danced with him during the Setup (but I could be wrong, could be someone else). And he was the only dude in the entire place who was at least a bit considerate and able to handle shit. Jelle was about to lose shit but I think I sobered up enough to drag him the fuck out of there.
Seriously, fuck them. Again, I'm not saying we did nothing wrong, but they're fucking idiots. Shit was pretty fucked, so we went to the parking lot to find the other guys drinking some bottle of wine they found. Hehe. We discussed the situation and concluded Olen fucking sucks and I hate the place. I'm generalizing because I don't give a fuck.
Went to sleep when the sun started coming up, slept for shit, everything hurt, no regrets.

SUNDAY:
Guess how I felt? Yep, like shit. Woke up in the passanger seat of Jordi's car. The other fellows in the fellowship all left to do shit and I stayed behind with Jordi. We then had hot, vigourous fries in De Nieuwe Wannes, a snackbar conveniently situated next to café 't Oor. Wannessaus, not recommended.
After a while we met up with Domien en Wouter to go to Middelburg, in Zeeland. Off With Their Heads played there with The Real Danger and some other bands. Whoo!

The first band, Bad Temper, wasn't really convincing. So I hung out outside. It was actually pretty chilly.

Pizza.

Missed Scallywags. Didn't see Sweet Empire. The Real Danger played a good set but those Dutchies are weird. And I still didn't feel top notch. Some new songs, some old ones, then some skinheads and some weird dude who threw a beer bottle at an amp and tried to crash the monitors or something? Whut whut.

Off With Their Heads played again, this time I was sober enough to actually enjoy the show. Started off slow and after 3 songs their amp broke down.
After an ironic "Hey, we're professional musicians." they re-started and things got pretty cool after all. Lots of dancing, mostly Belgians actually. Peukie did some acrobatics and everybody seemed to have the best of times to the tunes of the worst of times. They played a really long set again, could've just skipped the "slower" songs actually, but okay. If they want to be a professional band, that's okay. And their catalog is big enough to afford 1-hour sets. Highlights for me were the songs from Hospitals (Your Child Is Dead, god fucking damn), Janie and I Am You. Best songs. Angry songs.

Gonna see them again at Fest, stoked as fuck.

Got home tired as fuck and I felt old and broken. But also happy.
Mom: How was your weekend?
Me: Oh, you know. Cool. Had fun.

03-09-2013

ZINE NINE

I have fully recovered from a keh-razy weekend and have completed This Ain't Noise zine #9

It looks... like this:
It has 28 PAGES.
In BLACK AND WHITE.
On A5 FORMAT.
And it costs 50 CENTS.
There's BIKES on the cover.


It has INTERVIEWS with BILLY RAYGUN (New Hampshire pop punk), DOWSING (Illinois emo) and RYAN WOODS/TOBY FOSTER/THEO HILTON of DEFIANCE, OHIO/HIGH DIVE/NANA GRIZOL (US folk punk/pop punk).
It has a column about PIZZA by yours truly. And one about LADIES by Joëlle Laes.
It has zine and record REVIEWS.
It has a TOUR REPORT of the Outline trip to the UK.
It has A LOT of stuff, you see.

And you can read that stuff, if you get a copy from me!
You can do so through the usual ways:
- in person. just hit me up. whatevz. we're buds.
- on a show, specified below
- through the mail. send me your address. shipping is a euro or something, whatever, I don't care. international order is some more (3 euros?). use http://thisaintnoise.bigcartel.com/ or send address to thisaintnoise@gmail.com. I throw in stickers and perhaps a cd or something.

Upcoming shows:
05/09: PJ Bond (Carpe Diem, Hasselt)
08/09: I Not Dance (Eglantier, Antwerpen-Berchem)
09/09: Not On Tour (Oude Ketel, Heist-Op-Den-Berg)
22/09: Adrenalized (Rockcafé, Leuven)
09/10: Elway (Kamikaze, Mechelen)