LTW newsletter 109

Hail Warriors!

I’m back after a week's sojourn in Germany, where I was touring the German version of my ‘The Art Of Darkness - the History of Goth’ book, which has been translated into German and even given a new title - ‘Goth - Die dunkle Seite des Punk’. 

The book has been a bit of a hit in Germany, which meant the tour was sold out and it was great to return to cities like Hamburg and Berlin, where for decades I've played gigs or hung out and been to many, many times. On this tour there were also places like Russelsheim and Chemnitz which I have frequented a lot less but have their own outsider charm. 

As ever on these intense sojourns into the heartland, I met so many great people on the tour, and it was good to see the German scene in such rude health. It’s always interesting that bands that are considered cult or fringe in the UK can be so popular in Germany in a country where punk is mainstream music with big punk bands like Die Artze or Die Toten Hosen playing in stadiums and many punkier brethren having top ten albums and punk bars all over the bigger cities - it’s like visiting a parallel universe and a reminder of how the UK creates so much pop culture and then ditches it really quickly and ends up with small scenes whilst the rest of the world gets on with the party!

Whilst I was out there we announced the first raft of bands for next years up and coming Louder Than War Live festival. Headlined by Sea Power we have now added another six bands like Evil Blizzard and more with all ticket and band info in the link below. It would be good to see everybody there and hopefully this will become an annual event!

Long-term LTW fave Peter Perrett has just announced a UK tour that sees the veteran survivor of the Only Ones who was once a well-documented drug addict clean up and become an unlikely later life renaissance man and returned to songwriting. Smart and eloquent Peter is an inspiration and these will be great shows!

The new album from Birmingham’s Solar Eyes is our album of the week that takes the long term LTW faves onto a whole new level of twisted freakbeat with a bold and dizzying album which should see them climbing into the next level.

Paul Weller will probably never write his own memoirs, but this new book from Dan Jennings is perhaps as close as you can get to the core of his being. Interviewing as many of the surviving inner circle as possible it paints a picture of the former Jam man. If you’re a Weller fan, this is as close to a complete history of Paul Weller as you are going to get. If it’s not already on your bookshelf or on your Christmas list, it should be.

The debut album by Punk/Post-Punk band Your Hetrosexual Violence took some time! The band who formed in the 1980’s have finally got their shit together thanks to the inspirational Jemma Freeman (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and it’s a remarkably fresh, funny, strange, sonically & lyrically brilliant album, as good as, if not better than anything by much younger current bands… says Ged Babey.

Andy Blade and his 21st Century line-up of Eater release an album of 1976/77 cover versions and it is an utterly brilliant encapsulation of everything Punk Rock was about in the mind of a teenage boy in ’77. AI could never replicate this, as it has no concept of the joy of cheap speed and blow-jobs, says Ged Babey.    

Lancaster University’s Great Hall is the stuff of teenage memories for all locals like me! Growing up in Blackpool in the late seventies this was our go to venue for punk shows as none of the bands played our seaside town. Finally reopened after decades it saw local Lancaster breakout band, Massive Wagons playing the ultimate homecoming gig at the iconic venue for its first rock gig in 40 years.  

Nell Davies, the Penzance based singer-songwriter who inspired by Viv Albertine’s classic book released her first record at 60 is set to release new single The End of the World or Whatever. Iain Key listens for LTW, premieres the video and chats to the artist…