Foo Fighters – Concrete And Gold

For the past two decades Foo Fighters have been gradually transforming from pop-grunge pioneers to stadium rock titans.

While their last album, the geographically conceptual Sonic Highways (that came with an accompanying series of documentary films about the cities where each track was recorded) had some interesting moments, its hard to argue that the band have slipped comfortably into fairly middle of the road territory of late, with their reputation relying on the big songs from their first four or five albums.

So, onto new release Concrete And Gold and, unfortunately, it doesn’t really buck this trend.

While its hard to find any major standout moments, even several listens in, there’s still a lot to like here as Dave Grohl and co seemingly go on a journey through their influences, all with their own flavour added in.

Across the record things switch from Led Zeppelin aping to Fleetwood Mac like passages through The Beatles, Queen, Pink Floyd and no doubt more.

While it still sounds like a Foo Fighters record, with various parts harking back to their post-grunge heyday, its hard to escape the fact that all those other bands do their thing better than the Foos do – though I’ve no doubt it will all sound immense in a live environment.

Foo Fighters

As well as the proud influence displaying, this is the first time I can remember Foo Fighters (and by definition, Grohl) being so obviously political.

La Dee Da is the most obvious example, but it does permeate the record as a whole, giving it a slightly odd place in the Foo’s cannon but fitting in perfectly with the current zeitgeist of American (and wider western) society that is hugely politically charged – though I want to make it clear this is nothing compared to the likes of the recent release from Prophets of Rage.

The album also sees Foo Fighters move away from producer Butch Vig who across their last couple of records had come across as almost an extra member of the band. Here though production duties go to Greg Kurstin and, whether its down to production or not I can’t entirely say, the final product sounds far more muddled than the band’s past output.

Foo Fighters live

In the end then, Concrete And Gold sees Foo Fighters continuing on their path to span the gap between genuine credibility and out-and-out pop, and they once again do an admirable job and will no doubt sell out arenas and stadiums the world over.

However, I doubt that in 15 or 20 years anyone will be talking about any of these songs the way they do today about My Hero, Everlong, Breakout, All My Life or Times Like These.

Granite Wolf and SugarSlam – The Vault – 13/10/17

Granite Wolf

Following Brunt at The Golden Lion a couple of weeks ago and WaterColour Matchbox at The Vault last weekend the loud, heavy end of Guernsey’s music scene continued to be represented in St Peter Port on Friday 13th October 2017 as hardcore riff machine Granite Wolf and hard power pop quartet SugarSlam rocked the venue on the seafront.

After a bit of time away Granite Wolf launched into their set in tight, punchy and intense form with their brand of hardcore with hints of heavy metal making a refreshing blast to the senses.

While its hard to pin down visually quite why, the five-piece presented a united, gang like, front on stage and this was infectious with the audience at the front feeling like part of the process of the energy flowing through the room.

Granite Wolf

With riffs and beatdowns aplenty they did get a couple of modest mosh pits going but it seemed many in the crowd were more worried about spilling their pints than really letting go on the dancefloor, but nonetheless they got into the heavy sounds.

With a good mix of fast, speed metal, heavy head banging stuff and powerful hardcore, Granite Wolf once again set out their stall as one of the bands to watch in the island – I just hope they get to gigging a little more regularly now they seem to be back to their more solid, original, line up.

After something of a protracted break to set up and sound check, SugarSlam hit the stage in slightly heavier mode than usual, no doubt to try to match the earlier band, however, less than two songs in they ran into trouble with a blown amplifier.

SugarSlam

With that hastily fixed they were back on form and racing through a set mixing covers and originals new and old, but by this time the audience had sadly diminished to quite a degree.

Undeterred the band blasted on and those who remained clearly had a great time with songs by Nirvana and Queens of the Stone Age going down just as well as the band’s own – Jackals being a particular, immense sounding, highlight that isn’t heard as much these days.

Given the time and an under the weather drummer the band cut their set short, wrapping up with their take on Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Rockin’ In The Free World, before the audience convinced them back for a super speed blast of Ace Of Spades to close the night on sweaty and exhausted high.

You can see a full gallery of my photos from the show on the BBC Introducing Guernsey Facebook page

Pride of Guernsey awards – 07/10/17

Last night I attended my second Pride of Guernsey awards ceremony after being nominated, for the second year in a row, for the Moonpig Arts Contribution Of The Year Award.

For some context the awards are run by The Guernsey Press to celebrate people in the local community in a range of categories from Overcoming Adversity to Parish Champion to Young Achiever.

Following my nomination last year by Andy from Lifejacket and this year by Dan from Jawbone I was announced as a finalist, alongside Martin Cordall and Glenn Drake – longstanding musical director the Guernsey Youth Theatre (amongst other things) and charity choir leader respectively – following a public vote.

Then, in a moment of complete surprise, I was announced as winner of the award for 2017 at the ceremony at the Guernsey Press offices.

Anyway, that’s the back story and it comes at the end of a pretty big week for what I do through BBC Introducing as it’s marked nine years of the BBC Introducing Guernsey radio show and ten years of BBC Introducing nationally.

I can’t remember exactly what I said by way of an acceptance speech but this is a rough summary of what I can (and what I wanted to say), and really I just want to thank anyone who voted for me and all the great bands and musicians working over here without whom I wouldn’t have anything to talk about, write about or otherwise promote.

“First of all thanks to Dan from Jawbone for nominating me this year and if you want to see some great punk rock go check them out, they’re the best doing it over here right now.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me but really what this is all about, and what what I do is all about, is promoting the unsigned, undiscovered, under the radar (that’s the slogan) music being made in the islands and obviously I couldn’t do that without the bands, musicians and artists making it.

Guernsey’s always had more than its share of great live music, since The Roberts Brothers back in the 60s through Ponders End, The Risk, The Pulse, Crunchy Frog, Hobo Sounds, Mechanical Lobster to Buffalo Huddleston, The Recks, Mura Masa and so many more, there’s so much great music being made that deserves to be heard, and there’s loads of gigs on tonight and every weekend so go out there and experience it – when we’re done here, go to a show!

Thanks!”

If you want to check out what BBC Introducing Guernsey is all about the best place to go is the Facebook page by clicking here

Brunt, Buff Hudd and Tim Bishop – The Golden Lion – 30/09/17

Brunt

On the 30th September 2017, for the first time in years, loud and heavy rock music returned to the downstairs bar at The Golden Lion as Brunt took to the small stage alongside acoustic acts Buff Hudd and Tim Bishop.

The event was organised as a fundraiser for Action Aid and presented one of the most varied line ups seen at a show like this in a while.

My review was published in The Guernsey Press on Saturday 7th October 2017 and you can see more of my photos of the show on the BBC Introducing Guernsey Facebook page.

BBC Introducing Day 2017

For the past ten years BBC Introducing has been championing new music around the UK, and at BBC Introducing Guernsey, I’ve been a part of that, officially for the last nine years.

While BBC Introducing Guernsey marked nine years last weekend (you can find out more about that here), we got involved with the 10th birthday celebrations by featuring a selection of tracks from bands and artists we’ve supported and championed, and those who’ve gone on to make their mark on a wider stage, across BBC Radio Guernsey‘s day time output.

You can listen back to all the tracks on the BBC iPlayer by visiting the BBC Radio Guernsey homepage and listening to all the shows, but here’s the list tracks featured and on which show:

Oscar Pearson
Buffalo Huddleston – Sunrise
Robyn Sherwell – Islander
The Recks – Low Life

Jenny Kendall-Tobias
Le Quesne – He’s An Idiot
James Dumbelton – College Boy
Buff Hudd & Flexagon – Drifting (Into The Light)
Of Empires – See You With The Angels Kid

John Randall (presented by Ollie Guillou)
Static Alice – SOS (live)
Robert J. Hunter – Bigger Things
Tantale – Wash Her In Wasps
Thee Jenerators – Guaranteed High

Islands at 5
The Space Pirates of Rocquaine – Edge of the World
mura masa – Lovesick

If you’re making music and want to upload it to BBC Introducing or just find out more and explore some of the great music being championed around the country than click here to visit the BBC Introducing main website

Prophets of Rage – Self-Titled

Twenty five years ago Rage Against The Machine blasted into the world with an incendiary hybrid of heavy metal and rap fuelled by perceived injustices and inequalities in life in the USA.

Since then the band have come and gone a couple of times with varying levels of success, and each have pursued their own careers outside the band, but the trio of Tom Morello (guitars), Tim Commerford (Bass) and Brad Wilk (drums), following a few stints with the late Chris Cornell as Audioslave, have now reconvened, joined by hip hop pioneers Chuck D and DJ Lord of Public Enemy and B-Real of Cypress Hill, under the name Prophets of Rage.

Given the political outlook of all six men it’s probably unsurprising that they should be so re-energised now and across their self-titled debut there is a newly found power that was missing from Rage Against The Machine’s resurrection when I saw them at Reading Festival in 2008.

Here, from the opening strains of Radical Eyes onwards, Prophets of Rage mix everything you’d expect them to in a great balance that brings the hard rock groove of Audioslave into the metallic edge of Rage Against The Machine, with the biting MCing of Chuck D and the more varied but no less pointed vocal stylings of B-Real, all with DJ Lord being a constant presence along with the band.

Prophets of Rage

It’s hard to not compare this to Rage as, sonically, there are a lot of similarities but, compared to that band’s work this is, unsurprisingly, more mature. Certainly it is packed with political motive, titles like Unfuck The World, Hail To The Chief and Who Owns Who, make that obvious before you even listen, but rather than the largely polemic ranting of Zack De La Rocha, Chuck D and B-Real add something more to it making it much more digestible and more personal feeling.

The supergroup is always a worrying concept and Prophets of Rage certainly fall into that category but, unlike some examples, they don’t feel like several other acts rammed together but do feel like a new band in their own right, just fuelled by the same things as their past projects.

Added to all of this is the fact that songs are hugely catchy and great to listen to.

Prophets of Rage live

It’s not often a record can sit in the CD player in my car for a week and just loop, but this one does and each listen reveals new things, from the interplay between Morello’s guitars and Lord’s decks to how well Chuck D and B-Real’s voices work together to make a bigger sound that I can envisage and really want to experience live just from listening.

The album has no real weak points but its opening trio of tracks (Radical Eyes, Unfuck The World and Legalize Me) are a solid highlight as are Hail To The Chief and Take Me Higher and I can only imagine (and hope) that with the continuing political upheavals taking place Prophets of Rage will have fuel for plenty more great music to come.

BBC Introducing Guernsey: September 2017 – Of Empires and Sark Roots Festival

Of Empires and Roz & Lazlo from Sark Roots

Click here to listen to the show

As BBC Introducing prepares to celebrate its 10th birthday, BBC Introducing in Guernsey marked nine years on the air while wrapping the 2017 summer festival season for its September show.

I spoke to Jack Fletcher from Of Empires about their summer which has seen the slick rock ‘n’ roll four piece make their first foray into the UK’s mainstream festival scene with appearances at both Isle of Wight and Reading festivals thanks to promoters of all things guitar music based, This Feeling.

I also caught up with Sark Roots Festival organiser Roz following their second successful event celebrating not just the great music of the Channel Islands but all things environmental as well.

On top of that I had a brief look back at the 2017 Vale Earth Fair and, in marking the show’s birthday, a few of the tracks that have made a mark over the past decade or so.

You can listen to the show by clicking here

Tracklist

• Static Alice – Orange Is The New Black
• Flexagon – The Far Side
• James Dumbelton – Robert, Taylor & Tar
• The Recks – Lovers In The Night
• Robert J. Hunter – Running Gun
• Buff Hudd – Shinpai Senaide
• Of Empires – Soho
• The Pirates – Player
• Lord Vapour – Through The Doors of Kukundu
• Clameur de Haro – Devil’s Hole
• WaterColour Matchbox – The Wall
• Of Empires – Lungs
• The Surfin’ Birds – Surf The Psychedelic
• The Space Pirates of Rocquaine – Folies D’Amour
• Mid Carson Coalition – Bleeding In Black And White
• Teaspoonriverneck – Blonde Witch
• BLAKALASKA – Machine
• Thee Jenerators – Inside Outside
• Asylum Seekas – Intrepid Levels

You can read my look back at Guernsey’s 2017 summer festival season here

Guernsey’s Summer Festival Season 2017

Jupiter and Okwess on the Castle Stage at Vale Earth Fair

With the autumnal weather setting in and music events moving back into the island’s indoor venues, I think its safe to say as we move into October that Guernsey’s ever-growing summer festival season has come to an end.

As with every year it seems more and more events are labelling themselves as festivals or have that feeling of big, outdoor, events that typifies the British and European style of music festival; from the long running likes of the Vale Earth Fair to the House On Herm events or the food and drink ‘festivals’ that often feature live musical entertainment.

This year’s festival season began, as it is prone to, with Liberation Day on 9th May.

The Recks

While the Vale Earth Fair were part of the now customary street party in St Andrews, the ‘official’ side of the celebrations in St Peter Port came in the form of LibRock 2017 on the Albert Pier.

Like last year this event showcased not just big names like The Devotees, The Recks and Clameur De Haro, but also gave a chance to some of the island’s younger bands to appear in front of a bigger crowd, namely Unclassified and Problematic.

Read my review of LibRock

The Guernsey Literary Festival was next on the list and that featured a night of live music and poetry at The Fermain Tavern before Guernsey Arts Commission‘s Arts Sunday took over the St Peter Port Seafront.

Tantale

As it has every year Arts Sunday featured about as much live music as it was possible to fit in from the young performers of The School of Popular Music and the Thirst Music School, to a selection of established performers staged by The Vault, to the BBC Introducing Guernsey Stage that was curated to showcase some of the artists featured and championed by BBC Introducing in the islands including Blue Mountains, Buff Hudd, The Recks, Tantale and Thee Jenerators.

Read my review of BBC Introducing Guernsey at Arts Sunday

The first of the big, fully fledged music festivals of the year came at the end of June with the 13th happening of the Chaos Weekend (generally these days shortened to simply, Chaos).

Heave

After a few up and down years this year’s felt very much back to its past prime with a few visiting headliners such as Graveyard Johnnys and Johnny Cage & The Voodoogroove, sharing the stage with the best rock bands Guernsey has to offer like Heave, Static Alice and SugarSlam, while The Peace Tent showcased everything from New Zealand folk duo Great North to the doom rock of Brunt to Flexagon‘s brand of psytrance.

Read my review of Chaos Voodoo 13

While I skipped this year’s Sark Folk Festival in favour of the British Summer Time event in Hyde Park featuring Green Day, Rancid, The Living End and more, the big live music events continued throughout July with the Sound Guernsey School’s Out Party, the School Of Popular Music Summer Showcase and a Vale Earth Fair Fundraiser before the main event itself.

Honest Crooks

This year the Vale Earth Fair was marking 41 years and did so with one of the most stacked line ups in some time. The main stage was headlined by Chali 2Na & Krafty Kuts, Jupiter & Okwess and Jah Wobble & The Invaders of the Heart with the local side represented by The Recks, Robert J. Hunter, SugarSlam and more. Meanwhile outside the Vale Castel The Honest Crooks headlined with Lifejacket, Near Bliss and more.

Read my review of the Vale Earth Fair

In past years the festival season has really come to an end with the Vale Earth Fair but last year and this its extended well into September, not only is there Smaashfest but the Sark Roots Festival has quickly grown into something that feels like an established event.

The Surfin’ Birds

This year the event grew from last year’s first to feature a mix of bands from Guernsey and Jersey along with visiting acts from the UK and even New Zealand highlighted by Buffalo Huddleston, The Honest Crooks and The Surfin’ Birds.

Read my review of Sark Roots Festival

With plenty more going on besides, from The Rocquaine Regatta to the North Show and more, its fair to say summer in the islands is about as packed as it can be with events with a strong musical presence that serve to highlight quite how spoilt we are for new music in the islands.

Guernsey Gigs Jam Night #2 – The Fermain Tavern – 22/09/17

Who Would Dare Give Me The Raspberry

Back in March Guernsey Gigs put on an event that was a bit of an experiment, based on the idea of some of the open mic nights that take place but formalising it with randomly drawn selections of musicians being given 20 minutes to ‘jam’ and see what happens.

Given that the first was a success for both musicians and the curious audience, there was a bit of buzz around this second version of the event with a broader scope of musicians putting their names in the buckets to play.

While people were arriving and the first of the jam bands were getting things together the Ten Toe Hobo hopped up on stage to play a short impromptu set that found the feeling of the night very well in the way only he can.

Ten Toe Hobo (slightly in the dark)

When it comes to a night like this of course it’s a little different to a normal gig as none of the bands are bands and none of the songs are songs and just getting up on stage takes more confidence than certainly I have, whatever the outcome.

The first band, dubbed I think accidentally Not Yet by the evening’s compere Graham ‘G-Dog’ Duerden, were slightly more prepared than most of the night’s combos and delivered a set of funky, jazzy instrumentals led by the saxophone of Boondoggle‘s Dennis Allen.

One thing about a jam night like this which is always something of a worry is that each group will just fall back into a kind of standard bluesy groove, so it was encouraging that even between the first two groups neither came close to doing that.

Deliberate Mistake

Deliberate Mistake, as they called themselves, threw together elements of psyche and indie with hip hop. With Silas The Assyrian Assassin on vocals, the backing provided a more relaxed groove for his insistent, Beastie Boys like punk rock-rap style delivery but for the most part it worked.

With Christiaan Mariess of Brunt on drums it was no surprise that The Dangles had a heavy groove going throughout nicely balanced by some more of Dennis’ saxophone and his Boondoggle comrade Carrie’s vocals.

While the next couple of bands didn’t quite gel as well they still led to some nice moments. Sexual Content featured some Doors like hints from The Recks‘ Richey Powers before he switched to guitar in Quintessentially Human and showed some fine power blues stylings as they neared their climax, showing off something we don’t get to see normally.

Key Change

Possibly the most unexpected grouping of the night saw City Limits‘ lead guitar whiz, Glenn Holmes, teaming up with Ukuladeez (all counting as one vocalist). While they found a few nice jams amongst their bizarre mixture, I think their highlight moment was when Ellie added some percussion in the form of tap dancing. 

And then it was Murray Brown… Named for the Burning At Both a Ends guitarist whose name had been drawn several times across the night despite the fact he wasn’t actually there and combining the forces of Lord Vapour, Mechanical Lobster and Citizen-X, amongst others to create something like a deranged version Hawkwind but with more extreme vocals drenched in reverb and delay creating a highlight of the night.

As the night neared its end things went off the rails somewhat as last group, Who Would Dare Give Me The Raspberry, filled the stage with performers who played with a great fluidity considering the situation.

Murray Brown

With Rentoclean‘s Kieran Smale scratching on the decks (following drumming duties earlier) adding yet another new sound and Gregory Harrison delivering a kind of scat vocals with beat boxing and rap thrown in, they ended the night in a way that showed exactly the best of what this night could do, getting different groups of musicians together and creating something new that, at the start of the night, no one thought they’d be playing.

You can see more of my photos from the show on the BBC Introducing Guernsey Facebook page

Greenman Chaos Night – KGV – 23/09/06

As the BBC website has started to remove a lot of older content (including a lot of mine) I may, from time to time, resurrect older pieces on here – this is one of those – originally posted as part of Guernsey Unsigned (the forerunner to BBC Introducing Guernsey) in September 2006.

All names are left as credited at the time and the only edits are for tidying up and corrections.

Spit Shine Blues Band

As lightning flashed in the sky outside the KGV bar welcomed an eclectic night of music from some of Guernsey’s best new bands.

Heading up the stairs from the entrance to the bar of the KGV I could hear the sounds of some good old rock ‘n’ roll in the form of Johnny B. Goode being played live by the Spit Shine Blues Band.

Featuring J.J. Corbin on lead guitar and vocals, the band rocked through a set of blues and rock ‘n’ roll covers which sounded like they came from the soul of a young Eric Clapton. Corbin in particular stood out as a fantastic young guitarist with a great voice which could grow to become a real gravely blues drawl should he want it to.

Though he was not the only stand out as the band’s drummer showed his stuff as well and the saxophone and bass held it all together to present a great sound, especially for a band who I believe don’t play together on a regular basis.

After the Spit Shine Blues Band treated us to a full on ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll ending’ to their set things took a turn for the mellower as semi-acoustic trio Said in Silver took to the stage.

Guitarist/vocalist Diggi started the set by asking “how do you follow Joe Corbin’s band?” and it seemed that Said in Silver had the answer.

Said In Silver

Playing a collection of original tunes and covers the three piece worked through their nerves to sound great with Diggi acting as a hugely charismatic and witty frontman and Astrid vocals sounding great and fitting the songs perfectly.

Their stand out tracks were undoubtedly their rendition of Alanis Morissette’s Ironic and their own song My Saturday Afternoon in London, but all of the songs sounded great and they showed definite promise with such good original material, if they can overcome their nerves.

Next up the chaos promised in the events name almost came to fruition in the form of Spat. Blasting out a style of pure punk not seen in a long while they too combined original material and covers to brain scrambling effect.

Spat

The band’s tuning up set the stage for what was to come with shambolic shouts of “We can’t hear the ****ing guitars” and this chaotic sound continued throughout the set displaying their punk credentials well with covers of the Anti-Nowhere Leagues So What and Ramones Now I Want To Sniff Some Glue all presented through Jack Sunderland’s barking screams, bringing to mind any number of the great British punk bands of the late 1970’s and 80’s.

Being the only band to really get the crowd going we were treated at one point to the sight of a full on three-man circle pit as well as a slightly larger standard mosh. The band ended up with some true class as Lee Burton smashed his guitar to pieces before Jack slammed his mic stand into its remains to create an ear splitting wall of noise.

Sadly falling victim to the fact that a majority of the audience had cleared off by the time they came on Bald Justice still played their blues rock and old school metal with true style, making the floor shake to the sounds of some Black Sabbath classics as well as other covers and some of their own songs.

Bald Justice

Stand outs were their own tune Sweet Ophelia which they pulled out early in the set and their covers of Sabbath’s The Wizard and N.I.B. which closed things off.

Showing the ability and the class to carry on playing with such a depleted audience the band’s energy only seemed to wane slightly at one point towards the middle of the set before building itself up again by the end and they definitely deserved more people to hear them play, though as the band’s bassist Mutley said afterwards “I haven’t had to follow a proper punk band in 15 years” and following a band like that must be a challenge, especially when the crowd were so clearly behind Spat.

When it was all said and done the night clearly belonged to Spat, although all four bands put on great performances, and it just goes to say many happy returns to Lloyd and Boon and that’s a hell of a way to have a birthday bash.