Sunday 27 January 2013

'Speedowax' 2012 Releases Vinyl Pack


Speedowax 2012 releases vinyl bundle...

Rich at Birmingham-based DIY hardcore / punk label 'Speedowax' is offering every release that they put out in 2012 in a bundle for £20; that's a pretty awesome deal! If you're into hardcore on wax, definitely check this out...

You can currently order the bundle from here:


or find Speedowax on Facebook at:


xox

Friday 25 January 2013

'Ghost Mice'...in Birmingham!?


'Ghost Mice' - The Hare & Hounds / Kings Heath, Birmingham / 22nd June

I can't find a bigger image than this one, but basically 'Ghost Mice' will apparently be coming over from the States this year, and will be playing the ATTA Girl clubnight in Birmingham in June... that's pretty incredible news. 'GM' are easily one of the greatest, most inspiring folk-punk bands I've ever had the pleasure of discovering, so I'm pretty darn excited about this; if you're in or around Brum in June, whether folk punk is or isn't your bag (as there'll be DJs and a bunch of other rad stuff going on too), you should DEFO try to make this...
ATTA Girl, the collective organising this can be found here:

and the Facebook page for the event can be found here:


Awesome stuff! :D
xox

Friday 18 January 2013

Gabriel Kuhn - 'Sober Living for the Revolution' review



Gabriel Kuhn - 'Sober Living for the Revolution' - PM Press
300 pages

I've never been too fussed about reading up on Straight Edge as a scene or movement; I've always just lived that way because it's what worked for me on a very personal level, however I thought I'd give this a blast, mostly out of curiosity. So what we have here is a collection of interviews and writing from a number of figures with varying degress of involvement with SxE over the years, including the 'founder' himself, Ian MacKaye. There were a couple of traps that 'Edge: The Movie' fell into that I'm glad weren't present here, these being a.) very North-American oriented coverage, and b.) largely male-oriented coverage. In contrast, this book is very heavy on the European side (including ManLiftingBanner, and Dennis from Refused), and features a number of women doing positive things (xSisterhoodx and Emancypunx Records) in what, along with hardcore in general, can often be seen or regarded as quite a masculine scene, so that was awesome to see. Admittedly I must agree with the review I saw of this in Maximum RockNRoll 336, in that the pieces by Nick Riotfag, one on queer culture within Straight Edge, and the piece 'Towards a Less Fucked-Up World' were two of the most interesting reads in the whole book. The interview with MacKaye was actually one of my favourite bits too, if only because it's always funny to hear him discuss how disproportionate the Edge scene became with regards to his initial, personal contribution. On the whole though, aside from a couple of rare exceptions (Point of No Return's 'Bending to Stay Straight' I found incredibly and unnecessarily long-winded), this is a pretty concise and informative collection of Straight Edge history, equally of use to those unfamiliar and educated alike. It's also printed on a nice off-white paper... (Lee)