The violent death of rock music by Ben Myers
A friend reckons the Fat Whites are "definitely a bunch of cun-s" and he hasn’t felt this threatened at a gig in a long time. Who wouldn’t want to see a band described this way?»
Articles
CaptainBen has written the following articles:
A Day In The Life Of A Music Journalist
Ben Myers talks us through a typical day in his life.»
To think, I could have got a proper job...
From a financial perspective, freelance music journalism is a terrible profession. Rates are no higher than when I first got paid for a review back in 1996 (though I was writing for fanzines before that). And that's if you get paid at all.»
Twisted Charm, Chik Budo, James Chance & The Contortions at Camden Barfly, Camden Town, Tue 01 May
James Chance is to the saxophone what Jerry Lee Lewis is to the piano. In fact, with his loosened neck-tie, lurching, flopping duck’s arse quiff, electrified moves and evangelical preacher’s approach to wooing a crowd, he could be Jerry Lee’s scummier Lower East Side-dwelling kid brother...»
Slayer, Lamb of God, In Flames, Children Of Bodom, Thine Eyes Bleed at Brixton Academy, Lambeth, Sun 19 Nov
There’s really no point in getting bogged down in the finer details of Slayer’s considerable oeuvre. To fully appreciate them you must first disengage yourself from everything you know. Forget you’ve ever heard about music. Forget everything you know about heavy metal and the many exponents of it that you have already seen...»
Rancid at London Brixton Academy, Thu 16 Nov
With a combined age of 742 and not looking a day younger, Rancid’s continued appeal surely lies in their durability, their sense of survival and the fact they take all their sartorial inspiration from a postcard of Carnaby Street punks they found on the floor of Gilman Street circa 1985. Probably...»
Akira The Don - When We Were Young
There are many things you should know about Akira The Don, aka AK Donovan aka Adam Alphabet aka Adam Narkiewicz. But given that his debut record is a strange and colourful autobiographical English rap romp around the deepest recesses of his ideas-packed cranium, this possibly isn’t the place...»
Lovebox Weekender at London Victoria Park, Sat 22 Jul
This summer I had planned on staging my own festival. I was going to find the remotest corner of these isles – Orkney perhaps, or a quiet corner of the Lakes, or Bono’s soul – set up a tent and a half-mile perimeter fence, give it some name lame (preferable ending in Fest) and charge people £150 per day to enter. Welcome to Cuntfest 2006, I’d say, the festival that replicates the solitary nature of camping in the British countryside away from all those fucking festivals...»
Artrocker at London Buffalo Bar, Tue 18 Jul
Mike Title is one of the UK’s most under-rated hellraising frontmen. At the turn of the millennium, as Michael Frankel, he fronted Sona Fariq, whose legacy is some of the most frenzied venue-levelling rock shows in living memory and a Warners-released album of hedonistic funk-flecked punk rock mash-up that still awaits discovery from the world at large...»