Tag: Q Awards

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Amyl and The Sniffers Perform “Gacked on Anger” at The Croxton

Formed back in 2016, the acclaimed Melbourne, Australia-based punk act Amyl and The Sniffers — Amy Taylor (vocals), Gus Romer (bass), Bryce Wilson (drums) and Declan Martens (guitar) — wrote and self-recored their debut EP Giddy Up. The following year, they released the Big Attractions EP, which was packaged as a double 12 inch EP with  Giddy Up through Homeless Records in Australia and Damaged Goods in the UK.

The band made their international touring debut with an appearance at The Great Escape Festival, a series of sold out London area shows and a Stateside tour opening for JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. They ended a busy year with triumphant return tours to the UK and the US before signing to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Flightless Records for distribution across Australia and New Zealand and Rough Trade for the rest of the world. They ended that massive year with a Q Awards nomination for Best New Act and won the $30,000 Levis Prize.

Building upon a growing international profile, the Aussie punk rock outfit took SXSW by storm — and they promptly followed that up with their self-titled, full-length debut, which was released to critical applause globally for their feral take on ’77 era punk rock. Adding to a breakthrough year, the band won an ARIA Award for Best Rock Album. 

The acclaimed Melbourne-based punk act released the follow-up to their critically applauded debut with a live 7 inch vinyl, Live At The Croxton, which features dynamic live version of three of their most crowd-pleasing tracks — “Control,” “Gacked On Anger” and “Shake Ya” recorded at the band’s favorite club, The Croxton. Now, as you may recall, earlier this year, I wrote about Live at the Croxton’s first single, the Highway to Hell-era AC/DC meets Headbanger’s Ball-like “Control.” The EP’s latest single is the explosive and gritty mosh pit anthem “Gacked on Anger,”  tells an all-too familiar tale of a Working Jane, who is working her ass off on minimum wage, and  recognizes that everything in the world is s a fucking scam. It’s fittingly captures the frustration and unease of working people everywhere, who realize that they can’t make ends meet because of some greedy fat cat. 

The video is comprised of live footage of the Melbourne-based punk rock act performing the song live at the Croxton — and while the band plays with a muscular insistence, watch for Taylor’s anarchic and feral energy on stage. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Aussie Punk Rockers Amyl and The Sniffers Perform “Control” at The Croxton

Acclaimed Melbourne, Australia-based punk act Amyl and The Sniffers — Amy Taylor (vocals), Gus Romer (bass), Bryce Wilson (drums) and Declan Martens (guitar) — formed back in 2016. During that first year together, they wrote and self-recorded their debut EP Giddy EP. The Aussie quartet then released 2017’s Big Attractions EP, which they released as a double 12 inch EP with Giddy Up through Homeless Records in Australia and Damaged Goods in the UK.

Amyl and The Sniffers made their international touring debut with an appearance at The Great Escape Festival, a series of sold out London area shows and  a Stateside tour opening for JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. The ended a busy 2017-2018 with triumphant return tours to the UK and US — and signing with  Flightless Records for distribution across Australia and New Zealand and Rough Trade for the rest of the world. They also received a Q Awards nomination for Best New Act and won the $30,000 Levis Prize. 

Building upon a growing international profile, the Aussie punk rock outfit took SXSW by storm and released their critically applauded, self-titled, full-length debut, which established their frenetic and feral take on ’77 era punk and won an ARIA Award for Best  Rock Album. Slated for a May 1, 2020 release, the Melbourne-based punk act will be releasing a live 7 inch, Live At The Croxton, which features dynamic live version of three of their most crowd-pleasing tracks — “Control,” “Gacked On Anger” and “Shake Ya” recorded at the band’s favorite club, in their hometown. 

Live At The Croxton’s first single is a live version “Control” which manages to recall Highway to Hell-era AC/DC, compete with a feral and booze-fueled intensity, centered by Taylor’s howling and some explosive, Headbanger’s Ball-like riffage. The recently released video is centered around live footage of the band performing the song — and it should serve as prefect example of what to expect from their live show: Taylor howling and stomping about the stage while the band rips and roars. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout this site’s nine-plus year history, I’ve written about and championed a number of acts from across Northern Africa — in particular, Mali. During that same period of time,  Mali has been split apart by a bloody civil war between several different factions. In 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azaward (MNLA) took control of Northern Mail; but shortly after, they were pushed out of the region by Ansar Dine, a jihadist group, which quickly imposed sharia law: cigarettes, alcohol and music were banned across the region. And as a result a large number of the country’s acclaimed musicians including Songhoy Blues’ founding trio Garba Toure, Aliou Toure and Oumar Toure (no relation, but all Songhoy people) were forced to relocate south to Bamako, the country’s capital.

As the members of Songhoy Blues have said, the band was formed “. . . to recreate that lost ambience of the North, and make all the refugees relive those Northern songs.”  The band recruited Nathanael Dembélé to compete their lineup, and began playing shows across the Bamako club circuit, attracting both Songhoy and Tuareg fans.  Interestingly, by September 2013, Africa Express, a collective of American and European musicians and producers led by Damon Albarn traveled to Bamako to collaborate with local musicians. The members of Songhoy Blues successfully auditioned and were introduced to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Nick Zinner, who produced and recorded “Soubour” (which translates into English as “patience”), which appeared on that year’s African Express compilation Maison Des Jeunes. 

Following the success of “Soubour,” the band returned to the studio with Zinner and co-producer Marc-Antoine Moreau to record their 2015 full-length debut Music in Exile, which was a commercial and critical success, receiving praise from The Guardian, NME and others, and as a result the band received nominations for “Best New Act” at the Q Awards and “Independent Breakthrough Act” at the AIM Awards.  The quartet has opened for Alabama Shakes, Julian Casablancas and Damon Albarn, and have played sets at Glastonbury Festival, Bonnaroo Festival, Latitude Festival, Roskilde Festival, Green Man Festival, Byron Bay Bluesfest, WOMADelaide and The Great Escape Festival.

Building upon a growing international profile, the band’s sophomore album, 2017’s Resistance was released to critical praise, with Rolling Stone naming it one of the best albums of that year. Since then, the act has been busy touring, including a stop at Union Pool‘s Summer Thunder last year — and the writing and recording of their forthcoming EP Meet Me in the City, which is slated for an October 18, 2019 release.

The effort finds the acclaimed Malian act collaborating with Will Oldham, Matt Sweeney, Junior Kimbrough and Femi Kuti. Interestingly, the EP’s first single, the Will Oldham, Matt Sweeney and Songhoy Blues co-written “Time To Go Home” may be the most electronic-leaning they’ve released to date, it still retains some dexterous and trippy guitar work and the hypnotic grooves of the Desert Blues. And interestingly enough, it finds the band ambitiously desiring to pass the messages at the heart of their material to a much larger, international audience. (There are two different version of the track. One mixed by Grammy-nominated producer Blake Mills and one mixed by David Ferguson.)

Songhoy Blues says, “We’re really happy to introduce this new EP and our English-language debut on the song ‘Time To Go Home.’ Please enjoy it and get ready for a heavy new album coming up very soon.”

Matt Sweeney adds, “I think it’s safe to say that the brave poets of Songhoy Blues have a different idea what a ‘bad day’ is than pretty much all other rock bands. Their music and singing are powerful beyond words. Making a new song with them was a humbling honor and an unforgettable joy.”

On PBS’ American Masters, Will Oldham spoke of working with Songhoy Blyes, saying, “They are a Malian band that’s really trying to make sense of what they’ve been witnessing, what they’ve been experiencing, and create or transmit a message to people about what they’re seeing and how they’re trying to understand it and make change…And to think, well I want them to know that I’m trying to listen and trying to understand, and if I can give voice to some of what they’re experiencing, that they might be emboldened by this musical connection.”

Songhoy Blues will be embarking on a month long Stateside tour that includes two NYC area dates — September 22, 2019 at The Great Green Wall at The United Nations and October 24, 2019 at Baby’s All Right. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

 

Tour Dates

09.21 – Franklin, TN – Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival 2019
09.22 – New York, NY – United Nations | Great Green Wall
09.23 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
09.24 – Birmingham, AL – Saturn
09.26 – Oxford, MS – Proud Larry’s
09.27 – New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks
09.28 – Austin, TX – Antone’s
10.01 – El Prado, NM – Taos Mesa Brewing
10.04 – Los Angeles, CA – Moroccan Lounge
10.05 – Berkeley, CA – Cornerstone Berkeley
10.06 – Petaluma, CA – Mystic Theatre
10.09 – Eugene, OR – WOW Hall
10.10 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
10.11 – Seattle, WA – Columbia City Theater
10.12 – Vancouver, BC, Canada – Rickshaw Theatre
10.15 – Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre
10.17 – St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
10.19 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
10.22 – Toronto, ON, Canada – Great Hall
10.24 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right
10.25 – Easthampton, MA – New City Brewery
10.26 – Portland, ME – Port City Music Hall
10.27 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno Releases a Club Friendly Bop

Currently comprised of founding trio Tom Meighan (vocals), Serge Pizzorno (guitar, vocals) and Chris Edwards (bass) along with Ian Matthews (drums) the Leicester, UK-based act Kasabian derive their name from Linda Kasabian, a member of the infamous Charles Manson cult. As the band’s Chris Edwards explained in an interview with Ukula, their former guitarist Chris Karloff had been reading up on Charles Manson, and the name Kasabian just stuck with him. “He thought the word was cool, it literally took about a minute after the rest of us head it . . . so it was decided.” And since their formation, the act has become one of the more commercially successful acts in British music history: the last five consecutive of their six full-length albums have hit the #1 spot on the UK Albums Charts, a feat accomplished by only a handful of artists. Adding to their accolades they’ve been nominated for nine BRIT Awards, winning Best British Group in 2010; they’ve been nominated for 13 Q Awards winning four including 2009 Best Album for West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, 2014 Best Live Act and Best Act in the World Today and 2017 Best Track for “You’re In Love with a Psycho.” 

Perhaps best known as Kasabian’s creative mastermind during their enviable and unprecedented run, the band’s Serge Pizzorno has gone the solo route with his new recording project The S.L.P.  Slated for an August 30, 2019 release through The Orchard, Pizzorno’s solo debut, The S.L.P. reportedly draws from hip-hop, psych funk, New Wave, EDM and electro pop and others — and finds Pizzorno collaborating with an eclectic array of artists including the acclaimed London-based rapper Little Simz. “Moving forward, I’d like to collaborate more and open that door more,” Pizzorno says of his new project. “The S.L.P. project will become this sort of place I can go and just do whatever. It’s so important to have that.” Continuing he says “My life in the band and my boys, that’s part of me that will be there forever, but then there’s something else I have to get that out or I won’t be able to move forward.” 

The S.L.P.’s third and latest single “The Youngest Gary” initially seems like an extension of Pizzorno’s work with Kasabian — distorted guitar riffs, a motorik groove, boom bap drum programming, a sinuous bass line and Pizzorno’s imitable vocals —  and while the stadium rock bombast is turned down quite a bit, the track manages to be a hook-driven club friendly bop. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Acclaimed Melbourne-based Punk Act Amyl and The Sniffers Release Campy Visuals for Anthemic “I Got You”

Featuring Amy Taylor (vocals), Gus Romer (bass), Bryce Wilson (drums) and Declan Martens (guitar), the Melbourne, Australia-based punk act Amyl and The Sniffers formed in early 2016 — and during that year, they wrote, self-recorded their debut EP Giddy Up. The Aussie quartet followed up with 2017’s Big Attractions EP, which they re-released as a double 12 inch EP with Giddy Up through Homeless Records in Australia and Damaged Goods in the UK.

The band made their international touring debut with an appearance at The Great Escape Festival and series of sold out London area shows, which they followed up by joining JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for a 22 date Stateside tour. They made triumphant returns to the UK and the US that included packed houses and rave festival reviews. They ended the year by signing with Flightless Records for distribution across Australia and New Zealand and Rough Trade for the rest of the world — and they were also nominated for a Best New Act at the Q Awards and won the $30,000 Levis Prize.

The Aussie punk quartet took this year’s SXSW by storm, receiving gushing praise from the likes of Rolling Stone, Austin Chronicle, NME, Austin-American Statesman, BrooklynVegan, DIY and others. Building upon a buzz worthy and growing profile, the members of Amyl and The Sniffers will be releasing their highly-anticipated self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a May 24, 2019 through Flightless Records and Rough Trade Records — and the album’s latest single, “Got You” is a completely unhinged and explosive take on ’77 era punk, complete with a rousingly anthemic hook, enormous power chords paired with Taylor’s snottily delivered vocals. “‘Got You’ is about that feeling you get when you first start seeing someone and you’re excited to see them, no matter what shit they got,” the band’s Amy Taylor explains. “You just see them at the pub and it feels like the most exciting thing in the world, like you’re so lucky they’re even there. It’s definitely one of the ‘sweetest’ songs on the album and less punky. It was kind of inspired by Split Enz.”

Directed by Melbourne-based director Triana Hernandez, the recently released video for “Got You” features the members of the band in a dysfunctional and possessive relationship. The band’s Taylor adds “We worked with Melbourne director Triana Hernandez for the video and we decided to make it less like a love song and more cheeky. We wanted to play with the power dynamics a bit and turn ‘I got you’ into ‘I literally own you’, just to make it a bit more dark. It’s obviously not a healthy relationship but that kind of thing is easy to slip into, too.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Watch Game of Thrones’ Lena Headley Party with King Richard III in Hilarious Visuals for Kasabian’s Swaggering New Single Ill Ray (The King)”

Currently comprised of founding members Tom Meighan (vocals), Sergio Pizzorno (guitar, vocals), and Chris Edwards (bass) with Ian Matthews (drums), the Leicester, UK-based indie rock/dance punk act Kasabian initially formed under the name Saracuse and  derive their name from Linda Kasabian, a member of the infamous Charles Manson cult. As the band’s Chris Edwards explained in an interview with Ukula, their former guitarist Chris Karloff had been reading up on Charles Manson, and the name Kasabian just stuck with him. “He thought the word was cool, it literally took about a minute after the rest of us head it . . . so it was decided.”  And although the band has gone through several lineup changes — at one point being a quintet before settling on its current lineup, the band can trace its origins to when its founding trio met while attending Countesthorpe Community College. 
The founding trio along with a rotating cast of studio drummers recorded their Scott Gilbert-produced demo EP,  which was finished in December 1998 and featured three songs “What’s Going On,” “Life of Luxury” and “Shine On.” After making their first live appearance to celebrate Edwards’ 18th birthday, the band was signed to BMG by London-based DJ and producer Sam Young, who took over managerial duties for a period of time before both sides had a massive falling out. Since then the band has released six studio albums — 2004’s self-titled debut, 2006’s Empire, 2009’s Pauper Lunatic Asylum, 2011’s Velociraptor!, 2014’s 48:13 and For Crying Out Loud, which was released earlier this year — all of which have further cemented the Leicester-based act’s reputation for crafting a sound that’s been described as a mix between The Stone Roses, Primal Scream and Oasis and for a critically applauded live show. Along with that, the band has managed to be commercially successful in the UK as they received a Brit Award for Best British Group in 2010, won two Q Awards for Best Act in the World Today in 2010 and 2014, as well as one Best British Band at 2007’s NME Awards. 

Produced by the band’s Sergio Pizzorno and recorded at his Leicester-based studio the Sergery, For Crying Out Loud has proven to be commercially successful, as it’s the band’s fifth #1 album on the UK Album Charts, thanks to the success of its first two singles “You’re In Love With A Psycho” and “Bless This Acid House,” both of which continue the band’s reputation for crafting swaggering, arena-friendly rock with shout worthy, crowd rousing hooks. Interestingly, album opening track and latest single “Ill Ray (The King)” is full of hip-hop inspired swaggering braggadocio paired with club-banging beats, buzzing guitars, rousing shout and stomp friendly hooks with a surprisingly disco/psychedelic house-inspired bridge — and as a result, it possesses a riotous “we’ll stomp the shit of you” vibe, reminiscent of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” 

The recently released video was written and conceived by the band’s Sergio Pizzorno and features three-time Emmy Award-nominated actor Lena Headley, who’s best known for playing Queen Cersei in Game of Thrones. The video follows Lena’s character as she meddles with the occult in a weird ploy to bring King Richard III, who was buried in Leicester, back from the dead. And in case you ever wondered what it might be like to drink way too much with a British royal, who has been dead for over 500 years, this video may be your primer.