On the fourteenth-of-December 1979 The Clash reached the pinnacle of their creativity with a release which still echoes not only in music but in society, a sprawling double-album which is still relevant as the band crossover the divide between Rock and Punk.
Joe Strummer channels the chaos of the apocalypse directly into the snarling opener, his venomous-vocal line, with a solid belief in every phrase he spits out;
“London calling, now don't look to us
Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust”.
This is the perfect opener, the mindset and mood is laid out from the start, Strummer uses an almost clairvoyant warning to us of the decay that is coming;
“The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in,
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growin' thin”.
Following this with the psycho-billy rampage of “Brand New Cadillac”, a cover of the Vince Taylor classic and used here as a two-minute bolt of energy.
The new-found reggae and dub sound The Clash started to experiment with found its way onto the album in “Rudie Can’t Fail”, whereas “Spanish Bombs” takes the bombing of hotels in the Costa Brava combined with echoes of the Spanish Civil War and in Strummers hands it becomes the setting for an all out rocker.
A very varying scope on society appears throughout the record, themes of consumerism and over-commercialism is attached on “Lost In The Supermarket”, the divide in social standings all come under appraisal, alienation and the effect on the human psyche. Similar to this is “Clampdown”, the effects of economic-capitalist ideas on the youth, The Clash never lost their punk-spirit, their ideals, all was very much intact even if the music became more refined:
“We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers”.
Even the Paul Simonon composed and sung “The Guns Of Brixton” is a classic, the reggae-fused song pre-dated the Brixton Riots but already took its story from the movie ‘The Harder They Come’ which dealt with the Brixton-born son of Jamaican immigrants who gets gunned down by police.
There is a cut at the older generation of rock-stars in the incendiary “Death Or Glory”, those rockers who swore they’d rather die than get old, whereas the rock-steady based “Revolution Rock”, which was originally the albums closer is an exuberant number of pure adrenaline;
“Everybody smash up your seats
And rock to this brand new beat
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation”.
The closing album-track “Train In Vain” after release as a single became the first Clsh song to break the U.S top-thirty, the Mick Jones sung track with a title which is slightly obscure, more to do with the rhythm sounding like a train, although it got the added on (Stand by me) title on that American single.
Across the ‘London Calling’ album there are nineteen-tracks of killer without filler, an accomplishment for an album of its length, with the instantly recognizable cover it became an instant success which still reverberates thirty-nine years later.
Tracklist
London Calling
Brand New Cadillac
Jimmy Jazz
Hateful
Rudie Can't Fail
Spanish Bombs
The Right Profile
Lost In The Supermarket
Clampdown
The Guns Of Brixton
Wrong 'Em Boyo
Death Or Glory
Koka Kola
The Card Cheat
Lover's Rock
Four Horsemen
I'm Not Down
Revolution Rock
Train In Vain
“Jesus died for somebody’s sins,
But not mine..”
This day forty-three years ago, Patti Smith released her groundbreaking debut album “Horses”, and music thankfully was never the same since,
The album went on to become the most influential and important release of the Punk-Rock movement, in fact it is quoted as not just being the album held on the punk-pedestal but one of the true artistic statements in twentieth-century music.
What separates “Horses” from other releases of the day is down to the intelligence in the songs of Smith, a deeper meaning not usually associated with punk, poetry set to the sound of rage and delivered with a snarling-venomous voice and three chords played exceptionally loud.
New York and in particular CBGB’s quickly became her battlefield and the birthplace of a legend, “Horses” was born out of the frustration and the pain Smith felt in the loss of the dominant, otherworldly rock stars such as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
“All I ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful”.
The album opens with a quiet moment of self-realization, that slowly gathers tempo, “Gloria” a track recorded originally recorded by Them and then The Doors and it is Morrison’s version she claims here, a slice of power and angst as producer John Cale steered the runaway train from leaving the tracks.
Across the albums eight-tracks all avenues are explored in full, from gender to violence, the influence “Horses” cast is heard in the music of Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Smith’s, R.E.M, The Slits and PJ Harvey who all owe a debt to the electric troubadour.
But her arrival on the music scene was exactly what Punk needed, with inspired lyrics similar to the folk-rock crossover that erupted ten years before when Dylan turned electric she blended aggression with intuitive words that rang in the ears of the listeners making nobody feel alone.
“In the sheets
There was a man
Dancing around
To the simple
Rock & roll
Song”
Original 1975 Track Listing;
Gloria
Redondo Beach
Birdland
Free Money
Kimberly
Break It Up
Land: Horses/Land Of A Thousand Dances/La Mer (De)
Elegie
Kevin Burke Dec 2018
This weekend, BIMFEST 2018 kicks off with Covenant, Leaether Strip, Light Asylum, Clock Dva & Agent Side Grinder amongst others!
BIMFEST XVII
14 + 15.12.2018 - De Casino - St-Niklaas - B
(THE Belgian Independent Music Festival since 2002)
This weekend the 17th edition of the renowned Belgian Independent Music Festival 2018 or for short, BIMFEST, will take place. Like every year, BodyBeats Productions have managed to compile a very varied, appealing and interesting line-up in the best 'BIMFEST tradition! BIMFEST is not a festival that focuses on mass tourisme with only big and popular names but rather tries to focus on the real alternative and underground music lovers.
Let us briefly introcuce the line-up, in alphabetical order:
AGENT SIDE GRINDER (SE)
Agent Side Grinder is an electronic band from Stockholm, Sweden, which was formed in 2005. The band has made four albums and toured extensively throughout Europe. Their first two albums, Agent Side Grinder (2008) and Irish Recording Tape (2009) were rooted in post-punk, industrial and dark electro. The band quickly gained an underground following throughout Europe. Agent Side Grinder has a reputation of being a powerful and mighty live band and have recently released the long awaited new and stunning videos/singles "Doppelgänger" & Stripdown
AMNISTIA (D)
AMNISTIA is a German electro/EBM duo who call the music they create BodyWave. The band was founded in Leipzig by Stefan Schötz and Tino Claus. The latter is also know from EBM act MRDTC and his solo project TC75. The name AMNISTIA is both the program and a philosophy. In many languages it means amnesty.
A new album is in the pipline!
CLOCK DVA (UK)
Clock DVA returns to BIMFEST as the headliner for the Friday night, 14th of December. CLOCK DVA have played BIMFEST once before in 2011, stunning our BIMFEST audience with their mesmerizing multimedia performance! This time these electronic music pioneers, since 1978, will be performing an exclusive Belgian show with tracks from their legendary albums Buried Dreams, Man-Amplified, some new stuff and much more!
The Hacker (Video)
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COVENANT (SE)
Covenant's 9th studio album, 'The Blinding Dark', was released in November 2016 and showed a remarkable development in style, something that Covenant definitely wanted to do with this album - not least because of the subject that they dealt with on this album. With this release, this Swedish / German outfit has probably released their most artistically ambitious album so far. As many music lovers and critics agreed, this album was perhaps also their most obscure and moody album since their first two albums Dreams Of A Cryotank (1994) and Sequencer (1996).
Therefore it was a more than logical consequence that BodyBeats, after their successful The Blinding Dark Tour’ passage in 2017, asked Covenant if they could be up for to the idea of presenting some gems from their first two albums to the BIMFEST audience. Being great admirers and supporters of BIMFEST, frontman Eskil Simonsson and his companions immediately agreed and started working. Of course, besides these lovely vintage songs, they will also play some of their most famous clubsongs to please their fans!
Call Ships To port (Video)
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FIRST AID 4 SOULS (HU)
First Aid 4 Souls is one of the electronic music projects founded by Hungarian musician Istvan Gazdag. With this project he mixes the brutality of noise music with the psychedelic pulsation of trance/acid, the rich melodies of new-wave / synth-wave and the strict grinding of electro industrial / EBM. Recently he fired-up a brand new project called Stalgeist which has a more straightforward EBM sound. Together with Tamás Bank (Munkás/Worker) they summon the classic EBM sounds with harsh precision and commitment. At BIMFEST they will present the best of both worlds to us as opener on Friday 14th December.
GERTRUD STEIN (CH/UK)
Is the visual art & electro music project of the London based Swiss artist Gertrud Stein who drew our attention with her contribution to the Daft Records compilation 'Deep' and her subsequent successful, stunning and enchanting performance at the Daft Festival in Antwerp (2017). Getrud Stein's live shows with her virtual live bandmembers Mike Line, Tom Delay and Diana D.I. are not to be missed!
LEÆTHER STRIP (DK)
It has been 30 years since the Dane Claus Larsen started his Leaether Strip project and released his debut on the now defunct Zoth Ommog label shortly afterwards. In addition to having more than a handful of side projects, this man has released already as many studio albums (30) under the Leaether Strip moniker. No wonder he can't be ignored by dark music festivals and clubs from all over the world. He already played BIMFEST 2009 and the BodyBeats Festival 2011. And this year he is returning to BIMFEST 2018 to celebrate Leaether Strip's 30th birthday with a special and exclusive birthday and career overview show!
LIEBKNECHT (D)
LIEBKNECHT is an alter ego of Daniel Myer, also known as head and voice from German 90s cultband HAUJOBB. LIEBKNECHT is Techno, Dance-floor Elements mixed with Dark Textures, Cryptic Messages, Eclectic Experimental Sounds and Straight Forward Beats, always on the edge between Old-school Electro and Club Culture. After some successful DIY teaser releases through Bandcamp the band has now signed to Lenny Dee's label Hard Electronic from NYC for the release of their debut album 'Produkt', due to be released on January 9th, 2019!
LIGHT ASYLUM (USA)
Light Asylum is a NYC/Brooklyn-based electronic music project founded by Shannon Funchess. The band released their first EP 'In Tension' in 2010. The self-titled début album Light Asylum has been released in May 2012 and received positive reviews all over the world. Shannon collaborated with many artists such as: The Knife, Douglas McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb) and ADULT. Light Asylum's music incorporates elements of dark-wave, synth-pop and post-punk and is heavily influenced by bands like Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb and Nine Inch Nails. In 2012 Light Asylum played the renowned Belgian Pukkelpop Festival, now it's time for BIMFEST !!!
NZ (A)
NZ is THE Austrian EBM revelation of the last years and is a band that doesn't seem to make any efforts to cover up who influenced them the most. Even their own band name can be taken as a clear reference to one of the biggest names in EBM music history Nitzer Ebb. With their pounding beats, cutting sequencers and slogan-like vocals they will set every EBM fanatic in motion in no time. After their first DIY EP release 'Your Pure Heart,' the German Emmo.biz label signed them almost immediately, releasing another three very strong EPs. In 2015, these EPs were bundled in a 3 CD collector box, so now we are looking forward to their new and first full album!
STAHLR (NL)
With only one EP to her name so far, this female Dutch electronic artist can already be called the discovery from the low lands. Stahlr is about contrasts and opposing, overwhelming futuristic forms of Brutalist architecture, masculinity, concrete versus wavy lines, subtle expressions and femininity. Stahlr sounds like Cocteau Twins playing a musical version of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein in a concrete parking garage.
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Tickets & more info on: www.bimfest.be
Long have we had to wait for the first band to be announced but now the 3 days line-up is getting filled-in quite quickly. Out Of Line already paid gratitude to all those who already obtained their weekend ticket as they apperently gifted the organisation the best Early Bird Sale since the begining of this festival. Not so obvious as the Out Of Line Weekender is not putting their line-up together the easy way but also relies on open-minded music fans who dare to listen out of the box.
From today on you can buy separate day tickets, so it is time for announcing who plays when: Thursday will rise under the sign of electronic music, that means beats and melodies till the dance shoe is burning. On Friday there will be the Crazy World Of Out Of Line with all its facets and a lot of our young and wild will have a good chance to see their future favourite for the first time. And on Saturday the stage will be ruled by heavy electric guitars that will arrange raspy voices and tortured necks. So you get a good amount of variety in a program that you can only get from the Out Of Line Weekender. Still a few bands are to be announced soon!
The Weekend Tickets are available for 64,90 €, the Day Tickets cost 32,90€.
Thu, 04/APR/2019 Fri, 05/APR/2019 Sat, 06/APR/2019
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Kirlian Camera A Split-Second Chrom Priest The Juggernauts Any Second Motor!k |
Eskimo Callboy Hocico Erdling Blind Channel Fear of Domination Rave The Reqviem tba |
Dark Tranquillity Die Apokalyptischen Reiter Evergrey Bloodred Hourglass Frosttide Xenoblight tba |
British enfant terrible Raymond Watts / PIG releases his BLACK MASS EP, covering WHAM!, Elvis Presley and John Lennon!
Enter <PIG>... covering WHAM! ("Last Christmas"), Elvis Presley ("Blue Christmas") and John Lennon ("Happy Xmas (War Is Over)") on this new holiday EP BLACK MASS.
You might know mastermind Raymond Watts from his own project which recently released a much-ballyhoo'ed cover of KC & the Sunshine Band's "That's the Way (I Like It)" with adult actress/author/personality Sasha Gray... or his many albums before that... or perhaps in his stint in KMFDM... or you might have seen him in your rivethead days on tour with Killing Joke, KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails, or Einstürzende Neubauten. Or perhaps you were introduced to him via the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen who hired him to create the soundscape for his fashion shows.
Even though this EP is released for FREE on Bandcamp, the artist is donating all proceeds to anyone giving any size of donation to Rescue.org.
Bandcamp
