Missed the Gig is a group column. Consisting of photos of gig flyers from around the world, its purpose is to highlight the role that concert flyers play in our lives. Contributors include Souciant staff and friends.
An Israeli gig poster may have changed my life. Back in 1992, backpacking round Israel as a student, I kept seeing posters advertising a gig by Benediction, the British death metal band. And every time I saw one I wondered ‘A metal scene? Here?’ (More…)
There is a kind of literalism that permeates metal culture when it comes to the word ‘metal.’ Metal is hard, unyielding, unbreakable, weaponised, destructive etc etc. Metal is a metaphor that is applied to the music and to its culture; it represents an ideal as much as a description. (More…)
Drummer David Ruffy and bassist John “Segs” Jennings peer out of the poster announcing a German tour this past weekend for their legendary punk-reggae band Ruts DC as members of a unique club within the first-wave punk generation. Theirs is one of the few bands that has endured the slings of mortality during both their salad days and in their later revival years. (More…)
October saw the American dub-reggae-based sound-system scene get its profile raised with the launch party for Dub-Stuy Records, the Brooklyn label launched by Quoc “Q-Mastah” Pham’s Sound Liberation Front crew. But as Vice tech-site Motherboard notes, the party was really centered around the debut of the deluxe 15,000-watt sound system that SLF has spent the past year building and tweaking. (More…)
Jamaican dancehall began rushing Germany’s charts in the early ‘90s, at around the same time that Berlin’s Basic Channel label starting releasing its uniquely stark brand of dub-influenced techno that’s influenced countless artists in the city and around the globe. (More…)
Alongside the Olympics, London is currently bursting with activity celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence. The all-star mega-big Respect Jamaica 50th Festival enters its second week at the nearby Indigo2, sporting a roster that includes everyone from Jimmy Cliff and U-Roy to Maxi Priest and Shaggy. (More…)
I’ve spent years trying to convince the world of metal’s radical potential. I’ve followed the obscure byways of obscure extreme metal genres in search of the avant-grade potential of this most degraded form. My heart has swelled with satisfaction as – finally – The Wire, The Quietus and other bastions of elite musical opinion have begun to embrace the metallic dark side. (More…)
“70s Rock Must Die.” Released at the tail end of the grunge era, you couldn’t help but snicker. Arriving too late to discredit the next-wave power ballad revival led by bands like Nickleback, Lard’s AC/DC parody was a welcome reminder of a forgotten punk value: anti-nostalgia. (More…)
“James Taylor, Marked For Death.” The title of a 1971 essay by the late rock critic Lester Bangs was a watershed moment in American music criticism. Denouncing the smarmy folk rocker for, among other things, nurturing his own cult of personality, some critics contend that Bangs’ attack on Taylor was one of the first instances of punk music journalism. (More…)
If the Arab Spring has a soundtrack, it’s hip hop. Chalk it up to an online meme that went viral during the protests leading up to the Libyan War. Credit US public broadcaster National Public Radio with helping acquaint American audiences with it via the voices of Libya’s boisterous MCs, many of whom have not been heard from since. (More…)
In most contexts, it’s an insult. That is, if you’re under forty, into urban music, and uncomfortable around older persons who make a habit out of fetishizing ‘indigenous’ cultures. To an increasing number of persons, popular music from Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East has become so ubiquitous that it’s become impossible to view such idioms as being unique, or exotic. (More…)