New York-based Balkan, ska, punk mashup Bad Buka have just released a new single. “Somewhere Between” is available to stream below. “Somewhere Between” is the first new music from the group since their 2017 16-track concept album, both titled and lamenting the Hero’s Journey.
New York-based Balkan, ska, punk mashup Bad Buka have just released a new single. “Somewhere Between” is available to stream below.
“Somewhere Between” is the first new music from the group since their 2017 16-track concept album, both titled and lamenting the Hero’s Journey.
The Take, who feature Will Shepler, (Agnostic Front, Madball) Scott Roberts, (Biohazard, Spudmonsters) and Carlos Congate (45 Adapters, Urban Noise, Legion 76), have released a video for “Revolution Now”. The track is taken from their eponymously titled debut album, out now on Demons Run Amok Entertainment. Have a watch below.
The Take, who feature Will Shepler, (Agnostic Front, Madball) Scott Roberts, (Biohazard, Spudmonsters) and Carlos Congate (45 Adapters, Urban Noise, Legion 76), have released a video for “Revolution Now”. The track is taken from their eponymously titled debut album, out now on Demons Run Amok Entertainment.
Have a watch below.
Scottish folk punk Billy Liar has released his new album, Some Legacy, which came out via Red Scare. The Scottish folk punk mainstay has got together a band for this one and it’s available to order on vinyl or CD. You can have a taste of the record below.
Scottish folk punk Billy Liar has released his new album, Some Legacy, which came out via Red Scare. The Scottish folk punk mainstay has got together a band for this one and it’s available to order on vinyl or CD.
You can have a taste of the record below.
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NY Hardcore legends Cro-Mags have released their first new music since 2000’s Revenge. The 3 song “Don’t Give In” EP is available for pre-order now from Victory. You can have a listen on the EP microsite. The band are touring both sides of the atlantic this year – full list of dates below.
NY Hardcore legends Cro-Mags have released their first new music since 2000’s Revenge. The 3 song “Don’t Give In” EP is available for pre-order now from Victory. You can have a listen on the EP microsite.
The band are touring both sides of the atlantic this year – full list of dates below.
A Fistful of Vinyl recently filmed Laura Jane Grace and The Devouring Mothers performing live at the Troubadour in LA and have uploaded a performance of “The Apology Song” on their YouTube channel. More footage of the band is to follow. Have a watch below.
A Fistful of Vinyl recently filmed Laura Jane Grace and The Devouring Mothers performing live at the Troubadour in LA and have uploaded a performance of “The Apology Song” on their YouTube channel. More footage of the band is to follow.
Have a watch below.
Dutch skate punk quartet Question Mark released their new album last week (June 29th). The record is the band’s first full length, following their demo which came out last year. They’re offering the album for just 1euro on Bandcamp. Have a listen below.
Dutch skate punk quartet Question Mark released their new album last week (June 29th). The record is the band’s first full length, following their demo which came out last year. They’re offering the album for just 1euro on Bandcamp.
Have a listen below.
For the first time since the release of last year’s Into The Agony, the Smoking Popes made their way to Boston – well, Somerville really – last Monday night, setting up shop at the unique, 300-capacity former function hall that is Once Ballroom for the evening. With support from the run of shows coming from […]
For the first time since the release of last year’s Into The Agony, the Smoking Popes made their way to Boston – well, Somerville really – last Monday night, setting up shop at the unique, 300-capacity former function hall that is Once Ballroom for the evening. With support from the run of shows coming from The Ataris and with locals Donaher getting the early-arriving crowd engaged, it was an evening that evoked all the best of the power-pop glory days of an earlier decade.
Hailing from the great State of New Hampshire – yours truly’s birthplace – Donaher are a four piece band that sadly I’d not seen before. They might be on the newer side – the band’s debut album, I Swear My Love Is True, was released in late 2017 on Dodgeball Records – but their sound is classic: catchy, melodic power-pop songs of love and heartbreak. It’s like if This Year’s Model-era Elvis Costello and Road To Ruin-era Ramones had a kid, and that kid grew up on a steady diet of the Lemonheads and Mr. T Experience. Is that specific enough a reference? We think so; check out their sound for yourself right here.
The Ataris, who’re essentially the Kris Roe Travelling All-Stars at this point, were up next, assuming the primary support role on the duration of this run. The benefit of that approach is that Roe can assemble a dynamite backing lineup, which at this time consists of Mike Doherty on guitar, Montreal music scene vet Danny LaFlamme on bass and Dustin Phillips on drums. The band powered through all the hits, with Roe taking on a few tracks solo in the process. His guitar playing has often gone underrated, and trends toward being more ethereal and experimental than his pop-punk pedigree would imply, although his near-constant switching on and off of various loops and pedals was a tad mind-numbing at times. The crowd, while not quite at capacity, was still noticeably vocal and engaged throughout The Ataris’ set (prompting Popes’ frontman Josh Caterer to remark with a smile during his own band’s set that “I know you’re all here to see The Ataris, but thanks for sticking around”). Also, they played under a static red LED light, which is waaaaay over the head of yours truly’s photo taking and editing skills, thus the relative few shots in the gallery below.
Still touring in support of their seventh studio album, last year’s phenomenal Into The Agony, Chicago’s Smoking Popes plowed through a seventy-five-ish minute headline set that spanned the course of their two decade career. Into The Agony, as most of you should know, marked the return of drummer Mike Felumlee to the fold for the first time since 1997’s Destination Failure, and his presence behind the kit has been a noteworthy shot in the arm. The Popes’ lineup was a little altered on this run – Felumlee’s The Bigger Empty bandmate Reuben Baird is filling in for Mike Caterer on bass – but seeing and hearing Felumlee manning the kit behind the remaining brothers Caterer just seems right. I’ve seen the Popes a handful of times over the last couple of years, and this might have been the tightest, most energetic set yet. Whether it was on newer favorites like “Summer Down” or “Amanda My Love,” or classic staples like “Rubella” and “I Know You Love Me,” the band sound as fresh and vital as ever. Josh Caterer’s dulcet crooning has probably been the most well-known individual instrument over the course of the Popes’ career, but make no mistake about it: Josh and Eli Caterer are dual guitar heavyweights. As a wannabe guitar dork, it fills me with great joy to watch the two trade licks on the former’s gorgeous Fender Coronado and the latter’s even more gorgeous Strack Woodworking Jazzmaster clone.
Head below to see the full photo gallery from this night.
Deals, Deals, Deals is probably my favorite surprise of the year. I’d seen Ramona before, I’d even liked them before, but their Red Scare debut is something special. They have the songs, they have the hooks, and they have the words to make it more than just a party. I’ve been struggling a lot lately […]
Deals, Deals, Deals is probably my favorite surprise of the year. I’d seen Ramona before, I’d even liked them before, but their Red Scare debut is something special. They have the songs, they have the hooks, and they have the words to make it more than just a party. I’ve been struggling a lot lately with what I actually I want from punk music. So much of it is trying to be something else—either a clone of a clone or a knowing throwback to when clones ruled the indies. Ramona is different. Ramona feels like a natural intersection of a group of close creatives; Deals, Deals, Deals is defined by songwriting before genre, and where the songs go, the sound rightly follows.
Which isn’t to say that Ramona is making music outside the confines of genre. This is melodic punk, or maybe indie punk. It’s bouncy and catchy and plaintive when it needs to be. The power chords are thick and chuggy and they form the blocky backing track to the band’s dueling vocalists. But, the fact that Ramona is a three-piece makes their music feel all the more intimate, listening to Deals, Deals, Deals, I couldn’t forget that these songs, as personal as they are, were forged from the fires of three close people. It goes a long way to capturing a certain tone, of raw conversations and comfortable clashes.
The album opens with “Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Hearts,” which features some slice-of-life relationship storytelling delivered with emotional gusto and supported by some meaty hooks. Where a lot of pop punkish bands lose their way is with their arrangements, but Ramona dodges this common misstep with thoughtful changes in their playing, specifically their drumming. I don’t often notice drumming in a song, because I’m a rhythmless philistine, but they use it here to great effect to control the song’s dynamic. “Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Hearts” becomes a full-throated, danceable singalong with a positively insistent energy.
On “Not Your Token,” we get to hear a really cool lyrical perspective as well as some Lawrence Arms-style duet singing between the two vocalists (who I wish I could name, but all the information I’ve found is the first names of the three members, and not what they do). The throat shredding call of, “I’m not your token, I’m a fucking person,” is the kind of punk rock line I live for. It boils down the sentiment to a single statement, direct and in your face. More structurally, the song is a grail of hooks, where the entire run time feels like a big singalong chorus. “We’ll make a difference, we’ll make it better, with or without you,” might just be punk’s logline for years to come.
“Is This Emo?” is one of the other highlights of the album for me. It’s an incredibly frank, personal song about self-perception and it reminded me of that uncomfortable frisson I first felt from bands like AJJ and Against Me! It was that sort of confrontation via talk therapy that initially pulled me deeper into the genre, and it’s bands like Ramona, with their fearless navel-gazing, that keeps me there. Deals, Deals, Deals! is filled with these trauma-narrative-cum-pop-songs, and it makes it for an involving, resonant listen.
The album ultimately has a message of hope, as “Mambo 69” concludes: “you can build your own family, be the person that you wanna be.” Deals, Deals, Deals! uses punk rock as a vehicle for self-improvement, as a means to stare the bullshit in the eye and see it for what it is. It’s about acknowledging the worst and then striving for the best. Ramona accomplishes their goals with the finesse of scene veterans, and they do it with some of the best music I’ve heard all year.
Lace up your boots and roll up your jeans, gang…the latest video from The Old Firm Casuals is finally upon us! It’s for the track “Casual Rock-N-Roll” from the band’s latest effort, Holger Danske, which was released back in March on Pirates Press Records. The title is a reference to the way the band’s frontman, […]
Lace up your boots and roll up your jeans, gang…the latest video from The Old Firm Casuals is finally upon us!
It’s for the track “Casual Rock-N-Roll” from the band’s latest effort, Holger Danske, which was released back in March on Pirates Press Records. The title is a reference to the way the band’s frontman, Lars Frederiksen, characterizes their sound; as he told us when we chatted a few months ago, “At the end of the day, yeah we’re a punk band, yeah we’re a street punk band, yeah we’re an Oi! band, but basically what we are and always have been … is a “casual rock and roll band!”
Check out the video for “Casual Rock-N-Roll” below, and head here to find out where you can catch Lars and the fellas live this summer!
Leo Tolstoy was a punk rocker! Ok perhaps not. Tolstoy widely considered one of the greatest writers in history is the author of such works as “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, and the first Tolstoy (ok only Tolstoy) I have yet to read, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Tolstoy is the inspiration for for the […]
Leo Tolstoy was a punk rocker! Ok perhaps not. Tolstoy widely considered one of the greatest writers in history is the author of such works as “War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, and the first Tolstoy (ok only Tolstoy) I have yet to read, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Tolstoy is the inspiration for for the band name The Kreutzer Sonata and its leader singer Adam Kreutzer’s stage surname.
Kreutzer explains, “I have read the novel [The Kreutzer Sonata by Tolstoy]/listened to the musical composition. Tolstoy’s novellas have inspired me for a while as a huge passion of mine is literature. There is a lot of literary inspiration/references in our music and Tolstoy’s ability to take dramatic and tragic events and write them into something moving and beautiful is a strategy that we’ve tried to use in the story telling of our songs.”
Kreutzer further describes to me how the musical composition and its creation mirrors his early life as a musician:
“On top of that the musical piece The Kreutzer Sonata, another beautiful piece of art was made in dedication to a prestigious violinist with the last name Kreutzer. He rejected the Sonata as garbage. And that’s something I can really relate too. I remember showing my music teacher my music in high school and he pulled me aside and told me what a waste of time my band was and how it wasn’t real music. A similar thing happened with my father after the first time I ever recorded a demo where he gave me the ultimatum between punk rock and Jesus Christ. For years TKS played to nobody but the sound guy and sometimes our girlfriends haha. We know rejection all too well, and sometimes still feel like we’re on the outside looking in.”
Nowadays. The Kreutzer Sonata draws far larger crowds and its schedule will be hectic for the next few months:
Per Kreutzer: “Right now we are in the process of releasing a new album “The Rosehill Gates” out June 28th. We’ve already dropped a few music videos for it, with more to come. This summer and Fall we have some pretty solid shows lined up and we have been talking about doing a decent sized tour early next year. Also, this October/November we will be in the studio at Million Yen in Chicago to record something we will be trying to shop around to labels.”
Kreutzer may be the only remaining original band member, but The Kreutzer Sonata is no solo act.
“We are all a bunch of jagoffs. We all take the band seriously but what makes that easier is how much we goof around with each other. Jack [Kreutzer] our bassist is a full-time truck driver. Patrick [Goray]. our guitarist works in a sign shop and Logan [Hoover] our drummer is a pet caretaker/walker. I work in the service industry. We all are pretty easy-going guys with a mutual love for music and they are a blast to play with.”
As for Kreutzer’s musical origins, he first played that first instrument so many of us played: “The first time I performed musically was probably playing the recorder in elementary school or singing (if you can call it that) in a school musical/graduation/even church.”
However, he first truly discovered music just after he hits his teens. Per Kreutzer, “I would say around 13 years old is when I started really getting into music. I will be 30 this October. Before that I only really knew what was on TV. Bands like Green Day and Blink-182 were as crazy as it got for me until about that age. I remember hearing “Rise Above” by Black Flag on a mix Cd my brother made and being really intrigued by it. Around that same time, I discovered The Unseen, and remember seeing Rancid videos on MTV as well. Me and an old friend also found Kurt Cobain’s top 100 records in Rolling Stone and took turns downloading different albums off that list off Napster or LimeWire or whatever people were using at the time.”
This was also when he realized music was his calling. “Before I got into music, I was big into sports and was very athletic. I remember my brother had this crappy guitar that he would never let me play. But when he was out of the house I would sneak into his room and play as much as I could.”
He continues, “once I got good enough to get a band together the high of playing live meant more to me than sports. The jock kids were all my bullies anyway. I started going to shows, setting up shows, playing as much as possible. People didn’t believe me at the time, but I had decided at that point that music was my life.”
Kreutzer describes how his musical career started, “With a band I first performed in this church basement that I would set up and run local shows in.”
Soon things got serious. Says Kreutzer, “shortly after that I played my first legitimate show opening up for The Unseen and The Ghouls. That was more of a punk/ rock band. We did some covers and had some softer songs on top of some faster ones.”
His long-held motto/mission statement as a musician has been “Carpe Diem.” The phrase, translated from Latin as “Seize the Day,” originates from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace’s work Odes (23 BC).
However, Kreutzer discovered it in a far more recent piece of art: Dead Poet’s Society, the 1989 acclaimed film in which a boarding school English teacher named John Keating (played Robin Williams) urges his students to “make their lives extraordinary.” It’s actually the motto Kreutzer, who will celebrate his 30th birthday this year, has held most of his life.
He explains, “I have had the luck and privilege to be able to tour playing music and continue playing music into my thirties. Granted I work my ass off. But the point is I’m thankful for every day I wake up and to me the best part of life is the opportunity at times to take control of your story, of your identity and follow your heart. The older I get the more I am dead set in doing whatever it is I feel I need to do to be happy. It’s the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done.”
I asked Kreutzer to memorable event in his career thus far.
“Touring Canada was fun. We witnessed a bar fight turn into a mini-riot in Montreal and the police were pepper spraying everyone. Then we drove through the night puking down the highway to the US border. That’s not really anything to do with music. But those wacky events wouldn’t have happened without music. We’ve gotten to open up for some cool bands and I’m very grateful for that. It’s always a highlight starting to see more and more people sing-along to the words at shows.”
The Kreutzer Sonata has played many different venues. As for particular venues, bandmembers find particularly great in which to perform, Adam Kreutzer offers up: “I love Liar’s Club, but I do also work there. The Fallout in Pilsen is fun as well as Reggie’s on State Street.”
As he notes above Kreutzer is in the employ of Liar’s Club. “I work as a door guy, bar back/bartender.”
Turning briefly to a subject that punk music has a rich history of addressing: Politics.
Kreutzer’s take: “I think on some level the current political climate resonates into all our daily lives. I also think a part of the storytelling of lyrics in music should be used almost like a personal history book to tell the stories of the times through your own perspective.”
The musician continues: “In that case I think it’s important for artists to speak out for what they think is right politically in this day and age. And there are a lot of bands doing it. Our President and many other leaders use misinformation and hysteria/phobias/hate to keep people ignorant and divided. If you can enlighten people with truth and knowledge you can give power to the common people which is exactly what politicians don’t want.”
Returning to Tolstoy, in a way. Literature has always provided inspiration as a human and as a musician. Among the works and writers, he considers most influential to him:
“ “A Season in Hell” by Arthur Rimbaud, “The Explorer” by Rudyard Kipling, “My Little War” by Louis Paul Boon, “My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy” by Robert Bly, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, most books by New Directions Publishing and Dalkey Archive Press as well as the works of Flann O’Brien, and Louis Ferdinand Celine are a lot of my major influences.
Also, the book, “From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet” by Patrick Michael Finn, and other books by Black Lawrence Press. “
“As far as films, anything by Guy Maddin [from the director’s Internet Movie Database page: Maddin’s films often feature autobiographical elements, especially his “Me Trilogy” (of Cowards Bend the Knee, Brand Upon the Brain!, and My Winnipeg) of three films that feature a protagonist named “Guy Maddin”.)] or with Isabella Rossellini is alright with me. Also, Rumblefish.”
Of course, when it comes to punk rock, Adam Kreutzer has some recommendations for bands everybody should check out. “Brix n Mortar from Salem, Mass. Secret Spirit from Manchester, NH. Mickey Rickshaw from Boston. The Abductors from CT. Death of Self, Sawbuck, Shitizen, Butchered, Mystery Actions from Chicago. Radio Hate and The DUIs from Wisconsin and Stacked Deck from Detroit.”
When not performing or working, Kreutzer likes to stay busy.” I also go to Chicago Fire [Major League Soccer] Soccer Games with the Arson City Ultras. I’m a huge record collector and book collector. Also, a big drinker. You can find me around the city. I like to get out of the house haha.”
I ask Kreutzer if he has words of inspiration for Dying Scene readers about, well, anything? “Don’t let anyone tell you how to live your life or find happiness. I’ve learned that the hard way too many times. Also, some of the best inspiration for punk songs and lyrics has come from other genres and forms of media outside of punk for me. Don’t be afraid to keep an open mind to new things.”
Kreutzer final words for DS readers is both cheeky, tinged with truth as to readers of any and all publications for any genre of written word: “Pat yourself on the back if you made it to the end of this interview. Not many people read full articles hahaha.”