16-10-2013

Czechit

I'm not gonna do full reviews but I wanna put the spotlight on some really good recent releases and records I've been listening to a lot lately.

Direct Hit! - Brainless God (Red Scare Records, 2013)
Besides a terrifyingly cool title, Direct Hit! managed to put out a collection of songs worthy of the top 10 lists. It's actually not so much a collection as it is an entirety. Brainless God is a concept album (are punk bands even allowed to do that?) and it's damn well cool one. The world's about to end and there's some shit that still needs to be taken care of. With this apocalyptic theme of crisis desperation and a consistent fuck you/get pumped attitude, Brainless God feels like something really special, and it probably is.

The Murderburgers - These Are Only Problems (Asian Man Records, 2013)
I thought How To Ruin Your Life was their magnum opus, but they out-opussed themselves with These Are Only Problems. The things Fraser sings about ar only problems, but fuck, some of his problems are fucking heavy. Sometimes scarily accurate and identifiable, sometimes even more scarily unimaginable. It's generally a slower, more serious record and I really really really dig it.

Lipstick Homicide - Out Utero (Bloated Kat Records, 2013)
The latest offering from this ferocious  pop punk band. They've been everyone's favourite band for a few years now, and this record confirms that. Faster, louder, more wazzed off and lots of fun. The catchy hooks, snarly vocals and ripping riffs put thius band on the map even more. Really stoked on this.

Mean Jeans - On Mars (Dirtnap Records, 2012)
I'm a bit late to this party (literally), but the Mean Jeans got it figured out. Ramonespunk done right. No frills, no fills, just riffs. Catchy stuff, incredible vocals. Meant to party. There is no way you can't party to this. I've tried, it's impossible.

Welp.

15-10-2013

KNALSELDER

Last Sunday I finally saw my bud Vinger perform with his band Knalselder. It's a dutch rock band. They're amazing.

I had to laugh the entire time. Their lyrics are just incredibly witty or plain tongue-in-cheek funny, or embarrassingly recognisable. Musically really fun as well. Just a great band, without pretention but with a lot of potential.

Just really cool.
Check 'em.

FESTMIX

I'm going to the Fest 12. Whut? Yeah. Who knew that was ever gonna happen? Not me.

I made a mix off some bands I'm really really looking forward to seeing. Of course there's a ton more, but these are the essentials:

1. Jabber - 200 Days
2. F.Y.P - Belittle My Brain
3. Weekend Dads - Forget It
4. The Fake Boys - Active Reactive
5. High Dive - Square One
6. Lipstick Homicide - Isn't It Glorious?
7. Mixtapes - Like Glass
8. Hold Tight! - Tell Your Crush How You Feel
9. Dillinger Four - The Father, The Son And The Homosexual/Single Parent
10. The Dopamines - Business Papers
11. Crusades - Dreamers
12. Unfun - Caroline
13. Tenement - Earwig
14. Like Bats - The Last Catholic In America
15. Masked Intruder - Wish You Were Mine

Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/?9j81bqk404neh0a

No artwork cause I'm lazy. Download, put in right order, listen, be super jealous.

13-10-2013

the fuck is a football?

57 North, Friday night, a Begijnhof on the left of me and punk shows at my right.

Let's keep it quick and just say Barney's Ego, Lifeless and We'rewolves all failed to entertain me. It might have been the fact I was really tired from partying the night before, being lovesick from the night before and getting to sleep at 5:30 am the night before, waking up at 11 am for coffee with a friend and going to class til 6pm, meanwhile being anxious about fucking everything. Might have something to do with that, also could have been that those bands just really weren't that good. Up to you, babe.

Coma Commander. I can't remember how I stumbled upon this band. Oh wait, I do, it was the Wellingtons show last year. Now they've released a beautiful EP full of singalong socially conscient drunkpunk songs. They're real good, yo. Also, never stop covering Dear Landlord. Free cara and a destructive mindset from listening to Business Papers on the way to the venue made for some great prerequisites that made me go nuts once in a while. Good show, I didn't buy the EP in favour of beers, but I'm p. sure I'll see them again sometime, and I'll buy it then. Def.
Oh yeah, and Jordi did a "Karelmove" on me. Dang!

Off The Charts headlined. They wore soccer shirts. Cool//gay. Can't decide. The Belgian team is going to Brazil next year. I couldn't give a fuck, but I'm happy for the people who give a fuck. Anyway, the Charts were good, same old same old. Little mosh, little emotion. You could say I was emoshional. Oh snap! Fuck off.

I'm very thankful to the OTC-dudes who were so kind to drop me off on the way home. Goods. The small afterparty (which appeared to have lasted quite a bit) was cool. I remember talking to someone and then hearing Direct Hit! coming up, quit conversation instantly, searching Jordi and getting wild. I also danced around with a large pot of leftover chinese food on my head. That was fun. And we put on F.Y.P.'s Die Young, that was fun.

Jordi Ostir. I love him.

El Vía

Wednesday I went to a punkrock show in Club Kamikaze. I had to play myself as well. Whoo!

After arriving, meeting with frendz, setting up merch and giving away pancakes, Off The Charts started doing their thang. Their thang is a gruffy slow-paced 90s emopunk // '10s TitleFightcore fusion that I've seen far too many times but still gets me going. Getting better every time.

Elway killed it. I'm not convinced on record, and sure, they're a Red City Radio doppelganger, but they put on such a solid live show I couldn't help but be excited, dance around and sing along to words I didn't know. Solid tunes, solid dudes, solid show. I bought their 2 rekerds, both great, but definitely better on stage. Seeing them again at Fest, stoked!

Then I played the afterparty. It was my best show up til now, but that doesn't say much. I dropped my pants to plat "PANTS ARE JUST PANTS", my anti-pants song, and left them of for the rest of the set. I played Parry Gripp covers, Tigers Jaw, and gave Mean Jeans and Nerf Herder a shot but couldn't get past the intros. I sometimes got stuck after the intros for my own songs as well. I bet I could deliver a decent performance if I didn't get drunk, but who wants to see a decent MC Karel performance? That's not the deal.

So I sucked, but it was a lot of fun. Some guys apparently wanted to punch me in the face. Made me feel achieved.
Sold some shirts, very few records & zines, but got rid of all of my pancakes! I'm gonna make pancakes for punkshows more often! It's fun. I'm gonna start a catering business, called PANCAKES FOR PUNKSHOWS. Contact me if you want free pancakes at your punkshow.

Thanks a bunch to Kenny for asking me to play and co-setting up the show. "The only person I both can and can't stand."

07-10-2013

Summer In October part II: AMAI GIJ STINKT b/w GIJ OOK

Okay, Saturday, serious bizniz. Breakfast at Break Point, witnessed a threeway car collision, laughed a good deal and had a good foccacia sandwich.
Elias organised a punk rock quiz, which was really fun, and me and Elias basically have the same taste in music so obviously we won the quiz. Whaddup.

Hangouts at Kroenkel. Met some Scottish dudes, real cool dudes. Ate rum&raisin ice cream. Watched the police being assholes. But let's talk punx.

The Depressants are not really my cup of tea. Sorry dudes. They're all real cool and the songs are okay and all but yeah... I watched a couple songs, then proceeded to drink beer while the organisation was hanging up sheets because the cops said they had to.

The Kimberly Steaks were pretty cool, equally snotty as every Scottish pop punk band ever. Fun show. They have some really good tunes. Nothing out of the ordinary, but you know. It's pop punk or something.

Silver & Gold replaced Buddy Zombie and His Planecrash, which made me both really sad and really happy. I was really curious to see Buddy Zombie and a Summer In October without Kevin Aper is just odd. But I love Silver & Gold and they played a short but good set. Really stoked on the new tunes/record that should come out sometime. Undertones cover as per usual. Best dudes.

I was also really curious to see The Goodluck Party play. I can't remember if I saw their full set or not. It's weird how this Saturday is so blurry. Was it the beers or the fact that so many bands played? Maybe I spent too much time outside. Anyway, this Goodluck Party sounded really good. And they had funny clothes. Hawaiian shirts and such. Because it's Summer. In October. Y'know.

Big Eyes was awesome. Such a good band. They didn't look too enthusiastic, but they played a rad set, so I'll take it. They're definitely something different than all the pop punx and 3-chord madness, but it was impressive and Kate is an amazing singer and songwriter. They have a record called Almost Famous, which is really good and also the title of Pie's favourite movie. He told me to see it, so I'm gonna do that this week.

I saw one Richie Dagger song and thought "wow, this is really cool" and then I went outside. What the fuck, brain? Have you gone insane? That was pretty lame! I'm all outta rhymes now.

I skipped Reproach because I didn't feel like seeing Reproach and I was getting dating advice from the dudes in Direct Hit! It was hilarious. And I kinda wanted to save some energy forp the sequence PDS-Direct Hit-Yum Yums, which was bound to kill me. Reproach was probably really good. They hate you.

Priceduifkes apparently started out with a Hives cover, which I forgot about already. The rest of their set was amazing, as expected World War III broke out again and the place got destroyed. There is no way I can describe what happens during these PDS shows. It's kinda of like magical. Magicool. Even live videos don't really capture the vibe. They played 2 new songs I think, both of which sounded really promising. It's alright so. Also Brutal Knights, Frogball and D4 covers. Everything kapot. Fuck.
My kids will hear about this stuff.

The sound didn't go over well for Direct Hit!, but their energy and the quality of their songs did! Fuck you, get pumped, and all that. I got pumped alright! Their drummer is insana and their new bass player was inches away from doing a full splits. That was rad. The new songs rule, the old songs rule, the new record in amazing. Both musically as conceptually I am kinda blown away by it. So, solid show, lots of fun, lots of shouting. They closed with We're Fucked, and well, we were fucked. Awesome.

The Yum Yums were the last band on the schedule. I only know their Singles 'n' Stuff record, but that's really good so let's dance, right? Right! They played a lot of songs, and I ended up knowing half of them so that's cool. They also covered Chewy Chewy, Bird Dance Beat and Walking Out Of Love, next to playing gems like Be With Me and Girls Like That. Whoo! I danced my butt off. If I was a native American, my name would be Dances With Babes, cause that's what I do. Babes of both sexes, obvi. That's all I wanna do in life. Just dance with babes. It's cool.
Anyway, The Yum Yums were great, I was really stoked on seeing them. Thanks.

Afterparty started out with Banana Brain and ended up with Gainesville. Everything in between were awesome singalong punk and hardcore tunes that made for an awesome party. Piekpries rules. I tried to fancy-dance but failed miserably. I don't even know how to follow. I'm a mess. But I like dancing. I really like it. That's probably why I was exhausted by 3 am and went to sleep instead of partying at The Swing. Punk rock taking its toll.

I woke up and lots of body parts hurt. I cleaned up the dorm room a bit cause it was a beercan covered mess and tried to flush the toilet but that didn't work out cause there was no water left. Yikes.
Went home, noticed someone couldn't help drawing a swastika in my neck and felt a profound post-SIO blues. Listened to Be With Me by The Yum Yums on the train and got home sad and happy.

I love your faces. Don't judge me.


Summer In October part I: WIE ZIJDE GIJ EN WAAR KOMDE GIJ VANDAAN?

First things first: I want to apologize for everyone who I have hindered or annoyed the past weekend. I didn't mean to. Maybe I did, who knows. I hope you're a minority though. I'd like to paraphrase my friend Siebens who said I'm probably an intelligent dude but I ruin that by drinking and acting like an idiot. He's probably right. I like acting like an idiot just as much as I like being kinda sensical.
Second things second: I, for one, had the best weekend since a whole god darn while. Thanks Lenny, This Shittown, JH Kroenkel, Skintight recs, PDS, and everyone who helped them out. I love your faces.

Anyway, I told Lenny I was going to write a good review, so let's go. Jelle Gommers told me it should be fairly easy and I should just write "biejestig", but maybe people want to read some more? (A: no, they don't.)
So Friday the festivities started. Got off the train, met up with some buds, went to withdraw money and eat a burger and a cervela, finally arrived at the Kroenkel to drink beer and get ready to see The Dutch Rudders.

I love The Dutch Rudders. I love their music, and I love their faces. They were one guitarist short cause he had a soccer match. Lame, of course. Their set was sloppy. But I like their songs, so I didn't really mind. I absolutely love the Black Holes EP, so obviously sang along to most of those songs about drinking too much and liking girls and such. They played LJD which is the best song ever (One Direction even made a song about it) and that hardcore-y tune which is pretty wild. They finished off with Falling Apart, upon which I thought they probably deserve more response, but it was still 8 pm and everybody was still on the sober end of things. Good band though. bought a shirt, it looks like an Amenra shirt and has the words "life just disappoints" on it, which is the reason I bought it.

No Bones played next. One of the few bands I had never heard before. Apparently they're from Canada and are touring Europe to promote their debut EP Belongings. That's dope, they're like "whatever, we only have one 7" but why shouldn't we fucking tour Europe now?" The 7" is really good, by the way, I ended up really liking their band, sounded like Polar Bear Club and Shook Ones mayhaps. They played a Jawbreaker cover, which is obviously a really good thing to do. The song was Do You Still Hate Me? and lotsa peepz sang along to it. In short, they put on a more than decent show. Nice dudes as well.

The Lemonaids from Scotland also missed a guitar player, maybe he was a the same soccer match? I don't know. Anyway, Lemonaids rule, they're the band with the most attractive Murderburger. Also they're guitar player who was present was a total Mambo look-a-like, that was funny. The Lemonaids stand for fun, summery and light-hearted tunes, so when they started out with I Wanna Luau (With You-au), the tone was set for a set of surf punk goodness. Dances were done, songs were sang along, high fives were exchanged and a good time was had. They played a Captain Kate cover (Easy Come, Easy Go). Cool shiznit.

Then it was the time for The Bat Bites to conquer the world. They came up wearing bat costumes. They played tunes. They're the best band in the world and I wanna marry all of them, especially Florian. Amazing set, including their own hits, new songs, and covers of Masked Intruder and other bands (I don't remember, don't judge me). I assume I had a really nice time and that's important, right. Devon from Direct Hit! told me the next day that the bass player apparently got lost for a good minute at the start of some song and just stood there like a champ figuring out how to play the song. I don't remember it happening but I love anecdotes like that.

The Rawönes closed up the night. They're a Ramones cover band. One of the best. Obviously this was a major success at a festival where a lot of Ramones-inspired bands play. Initially I wasn't even stoked to see them, but as soon as they started the crowd, including me, just started to go go with the pogo and it was so much fun. The stelist was like an actual Ramones show, and the encore seemed to last as long as the actual set did. They did a perfect reenactment of the perfect band, my all-time favourite band. Dangg.

Siebens spinned records at the afterparty and I loved that because I love him. I did spend a lot of time hanging out outside though, It's nice to have these kinds of weekenders, where you see all your friends again and meet so many new people. I love that. I love all your faces. I love hanging, laughing, discussing, hugging and kissing friends. But that's just me.
Went for a late night kebab which was the best thing ever at the time. Back at the dorm room there was this girl Isabel, and no one knew who she was, where she came from and what the hell she was doing there, but she saw Jordi's balls and offered nothing in return. Super weird. I was drunk so we joked around with her and a couple minutes later she left. Weird.


SUMMER IN OCTOBER

biejestig