Capdown
Live in M.K.

I first started delving into the UK’s punk scene in the summer of 2001, when I was 15. The amount of quality bands I found in the next couple of years could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but one of those that made me wanna stick around for those several months at least was Capdown. Along with the likes of Lightyear, Five Knuckle and Mouthwash they helped build a pretty wide scene that went, and still does go, almost completely ignored by the mainstream music press.

They tried, apparently, a good few times to follow old touring buddies Hundred Reasons into the bright white lights of the national media, but have thus far failed; which considering HR’s recent plight is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it has meant a 4 year long wait for a new studio album proper, meaning that since the first time I laid my hands on a copy of ‘Civil Disobedients’, no new album has been released, (follow-up ‘Pound for the Sound’ had already hit the shelves by then).

‘Live in MK’ showcases the relative merits and demerits of this delay. What is obviously clear is that the band have honed their particular sound to near-perfection, and stand alone as being a band that can make the marrying of rumbling dub-drunk basslines to the raucous energy of punka-rocka-propa’ sound like a good British idea. The obvious counterpoint to this though is that given the admirably gargantuan amount of time they spend in the van, playing the same songs for the last five years is bound to result in such a honing.

In April the Milton Keynes boys went back into the studio to record album number three, which will hopefully bring them the attention they deserve. If new track ‘Strictly Business’ is anything to go by, then it’ll showcase a progression into a more acute, melodic sound that retains all the rampaging energy of their past. This CD marks the end of part one in the Capdown story, and if they can evade the clutches of the puritanically PC Household Name records, then the future could be every bit as bright as skacore classics ‘Kained but Able’ and ‘Ska Wars’, which help make this retrospective live recording both a great introduction to any Johnny-come-lately’s and a great au revoir to those that have been there from the start. "Laaaaavely Job!"