Who Killed Nancy Johnson? - Petrolhead

  

  Is it just me or are Reading post-punk quartet Who Killed Nancy Johnson? (https://www.facebook.com/WhoKilledNancyJohnson) (https://www.wknancyj.com/about) somewhat under appreciated? They've featured on here on numerous occasions and every time they release new music, it never fails to impress. But I honestly believe they don't get the widespread acclaim they merit. Sure, those that do write about the band are fulsome in their praise but they deserve to find a wider audience. 

  Lining up with Mark Wren (drums), Pete Moulton (guitar), Sarah Moulton (bass) & Stefan Ball (vocals), they're a band that combine powerful, atmospheric music with well thought out lyrics that if I'm honest I don't always understand but which make me think. Case in point is their new single which I think is excellent but I've no idea what it's about. It's like being back at school studying English Literature and you've a book open in front of you with a page of prose which you know is very good indeed but you haven't yet worked out the meaning. You keep going back to it looking for clues that will fill in the puzzle. This is punk music with a little more depth than might on occasion be associated with the genre.

  The single is designed to tide us over until the release of the band's new album. Officially available on September 23rd, it's on Bandcamp early as a free download :  https://wknancyj.bandcamp.com/track/petrolhead

  Feel free to decipher the full meaning for me, I'm just getting flashes of light glinting through the darkness. I'm not even sure if it's literal or allegorical. To me it seems to be a collision of past and present? Maybe it's telling us even being a member of the ruling classes won't stop you feeling the oncoming heat? 

  I'm just sure it's worthy of sharing with you. This is Petrolhead... 

An ordinary start: a guard on the gate calls
Says people are coming to talk to him
He hides the gold plate in a drawer, discreetly
Rehearsing another angle
90 degrees from reality
Not touching the basic fact
Spinning up a fantasy
From bogus research done to distract

They made him stop - he backs away for days

Now a smell of petrol in the hall
Unstop a plastic can from Exxon out of Mobil
What Texaco has done cannot be undone
All of the south is burning
Charred hands coming to spread the love
Set flame to the lords above
Hammer home what the world’s become
Tear down the winners so nobody won

Nobody won

Overturn the sideboard
Smash the trophy cabinet into matchwood
Rip the files into pieces
And spread the paper over the carpet
Make a pile of the wood and cloth
The expensive suits and handmade guitars
Tear the paintings off the wall they’re also oil oil oil

And one final cigarette
The rattle of a matchbox
They’re walking backwards out the door
Pouring petrol on the floor

Who Killed Nancy Johnson? - Trash

  Forming in 2015, Reading post-punks Who Killed Nancy Johnson? (https://www.facebook.com/WhoKilledNancyJohnson/) are a band I've featured on here several times and I usually mention that they're getting better with every release and so I was always going to be interested in hearing how their debut album turned out. Yesterday that album was released and after a couple of plays I think it's safe to say that all expectations have been met. They drip fed us 3 songs so we knew more or less what we were getting but I'm happy to report that the unheard 7 tracks are the equal of what's come previously.

  A quick catch up if you're unfamiliar with the band. The line up is Stefan Ball (Vocals), Pete Moulton (Guitar/Vocals), Mark Wren (Drums/Vocals) and Dawid Bychowski (Bass). They've previously released several eps & singles which you should check out. Their music is atmospheric and reminds me a little of early Killing Joke.

  I see Six is tagged on Bandcamp as Dystopian so it's no surprise that the title is riffing on a scene in George Orwell's 1984 when Winston Smith is punished for believing his own eyes rather that The Party's version of reality. Sadly Orwell's prediction of the future is all to close to home in the way that our leaders tell us one thing despite it being pretty obvious (in the words of the song I'm featuring today) they're talking trash ("the words and the pictures clash"). Another slogan favoured by Big Brother was "Ignorance Is Strength" and that seems to be very much a mantra shared by those currently in power.

  On album opener Not Lizards, the band tell us not to believe the conspiracy theories about the economic elite being lizards or aliens but that we should see them for what they really are, a cancerous part of the human race. This theme continues with City as we're told how the wealthy elite have always walked among us and on Communist, the band wonder why people are considered childish if they want things to be fair and want people to be more considerate both towards each other and to the world we all inhabit. Album closer Notre Dame compares the famous Paris cathedral with the seemingly impregnable power wielded by the ruling classes and suggests that like the medieval monument maybe the elite will one day fall.... "Let it burn" being the album's closing sentence. It's an album very relevant to the world we live in today and possibly the world as it's always been.

  It's available on cd and digitally : https://wknancyj.bandcamp.com/album/i-see-six
 
  It seems pretty obvious who this song is about and it's a good summation of the album's themes of misinformation and the smoke and mirrors ethos of those in power. It's called Trash...

Roguish twinkle in your eye you must have been a naughty boy at school Bluff and candid when it suits a charming disregard for every rule It’s hard to shake the feeling your attempt to act appealing’s aimed at fools You’re talking trash The words and pictures clash You’re talking trash Well I’m waiting hoping some day truth might break And we’ll believe we’ll have to say it every day: We made a big mistake Listening to your trash Rhetoric instead of fact And it was all a load of crap Everything you say, everything you write, every manifesto you create, every number you make up, every story you cobble together, every principle you pretend you have, is trash Shut up

Who Killed Nancy Johnson? - City

 

  It's always great when you hitch your wagon to a new band that you think has potential and then go on to feature them over the years as every release improves upon the last. When I featured Reading dystopian post punkers Who Killed Nancy Johnson? (https://www.facebook.com/WhoKilledNancyJohnson/) last year I said that the chatroom folk on the latest Just Some Punk Songs show were commenting that Pretending To Like People was their best song yet. I'm expecting similar comments when I play a brand new track from their upcoming album later today (feel free to come join us and listen to an hour of great new punk music (https://www.facebook.com/events/679743719494244/).

  The album is their debut, it's titled I See Six and it'll be released on June 26th. There's 2 tracks already streaming and they sound much better than a diy recording in a village hall in Oxfordshire has any right to. It's going to be a vicious political assault on a myriad of worthy targets backed by a frantically pounding back beat. The opening track is spot on. Our leaders aren't "lizards, not alien super creeps, not that bug-eyed conspiracy theory crap..." They're snake oil salesmen, they'll convince you that you can trust them, they'll promise you the world as they pick your pocket. A revolving fresh face with a handful of shiny baubles but in reality a cancer on society.

  Track 2, the one you'll find below, deals with City folk. Not me and you and the majority of city folk who work hard to eek out a living but the ones who've been around since the onset of society, grasping, greedy and always hungry for greater wealth. Other song titles will include Communist, Rothmans and Notre Dame and I'm really looking forward to hearing them.

  You can pre order the album (cd and digital versions) here :   https://wknancyj.bandcamp.com/album/i-see-six

  This is City...

Born AD43
A Roman legacy
Of trade empiracy
Always raiding
Entire history
From Saxon royalty
To slaves in Chancery
Power and money

Shitty
City
Shitty

The rich all ran away
In time of fire and plague
But now they’re back to stay
Bet your money
Law con and banking cock
Wash cash and launder stock
In high-rise haven blocks
Dirty greedy - shitty

City
Shitty
City

Dirty, so dirty, so dirty, dirty greedy
Shitty
City
Shitty
City

Who Killed Nancy Johnson? - Punish the Poor

  Not only is the new single by Reading based post-punks Who Killed Nancy Johnson my favourite release by them thus far, it's also a very timely comment on "the poverty-fostering self-servatives."

https://www.facebook.com/WhoKilledNancyJohnson/

  Influenced by the likes of Wire, Magazine, Gang Of Four, Killing Joke and Idles as well as across the pond cousins such as Black Flag, Fugazi, The Adolescents and No Problem the band formed in 2016 and have been building up a reputation as an incendiary live act. Release wise they've been pretty damn impressive too with a number of very good eps under their belt. As I mentioned earlier though, they may well have just unleashed the best of the lot. Featuring a line up of Mark Wren (drums), Pete Moulton (guitars), Dawid Bychowski (bass) and Stefan Ball (vocals) the single boasts "two slices of scorn."  Punish The Poor blasts the Tory government and their hardship causing austerity measures. The accompanying video reels off some pretty shameful statistics such as 8 million people in working households live in poverty and that cuts to public health services have led to 130,000 preventable deaths since 2012. It's powerful stuff and the music is bloody powerful too (nice production job guys). The flip side is "aimed at the cow-killing chicken-mincers from Chicago" better known to you and me as McDonalds and paints a picture of a corporate clown awash in a sea of meat, skin, bone and blood.

  Two songs, two winners. Available on a two coloured cassette and as a digital download. Go check them out... https://wknancyj.bandcamp.com/album/punish-the-poor-clown

  This is Punish The Poor...

Punish, punish the poor
No hope left, we understand
Bleeding beggar on the fat of the land
On your bike, go get a job, no excuses
You can’t find work? - your character’s wrong
Your bad choices one by one
Mean you’re worth what you’re worth just like me
This is a meritocracy
Punish, punish the poor
No mistake, there is an issue
The working class are the cause of the trouble
What you lot need is a short sharp shock
We’ll find a way to deepen the hole
Make it impossible to live on the dole
Down in the gutter, freezing on the street
That’ll soon teach you to find your feet
Punish, punish the poor
And we’re working for money not you
While you’re painting all the boroughs blue
We’ll make life so hard, for your disgusting underclass
Cut off the honey, slash - burn - save my money
Making life hard for your disgusting underclass

Who Killed Nancy Johnson? - Pretending to Like People

  "It's their best song yet..." was just one of a number of positive comments from the chatroom folk when I played today's song on last week's Just Some Punk Songs show. The song is from the They Reap Sessions ep, it's by Reading band Who Killed Nancy Johnson? (https://www.facebook.com/WhoKilledNancyJohnson/)  and yeah, it's damn good.

You can find the ep, along with previous releases, on their bandcamp page :  https://wknancyj.bandcamp.com/album/they-reap-sessions

  A 4 piece made up of Stefan Ball (vocals), Pete Moulton (guitar/vocals) Mark Wren (drums/vocals) and new recruit Dawid Bychowski (bass) their music is an impressive post punk barrage of jittery guitar and frantic drumming. Influences include The Stooges, The Ruts, Wire, Magazine etc, song structures are ambitious and lyrically they impress. They've been honing their skills since 2015 (when they were reborn from the ashes of punk/pop band Nancy Johnson) and have built up an impressive live following.

  Their best song yet? I'll let you decide for yourselves. This is Pretending To Like People....

How are you hung?
Are you from round here, or somewhere far-flung?
Are you my age or older - are you quite young?
Pierced in your eyebrow, belly, is it your tongue?
How many scars do you bear?

Pretending to like people
Social success

Do you think my hair is all right?
Do you like men about my height?
Are you drunk? Would you like a light?
Do you come here every Friday night?

Pretending to like people
Social success

Give me your name
Eye glazed at the window stand in the rain
Bite on my hand give me a DNA stain
Tattoo my face on your shoulder welcome the pain
I’ll give you a thousand yard stare

Pretending to like people
Social success
Pretending to like people
Not to excess

What are your dreams?
Do you believe in god and his oddball schemes?
Are all of us equal - or is that just in memes?
Shatter a glass with a scream - dear heart
How can I tell everybody apart?

Pretending to like people
Social success
Pretending to like people
Not to excess
Social success
A will to impress….
How are you hung?

Who Killed Nancy Johnson? - Dark Horse

 

  Who Killed Nancy Johnson? are an energetic "kind of punk, kind of post-punk" 4 piece from Reading and Wallingford who were called Nancy Johnson in a previous incarnation and who's line up features Stefan Ball (vocals), Pete Moulton (guitar/vocals), Julien Bruinaud (bass) and Mark Wren (drums/vocals). Influenced by the likes of The Stooges, Ruts, Wire, Magazine, Black Flag etc they formed in 2015 and have been building up a reputation as an exciting and incendiary live act (comments include "jaw-droppingly good...more hooks than a deep sea fishing line").

  They released their debut ep, Cops And Robbers a year ago and you can find it here : https://wknancyj.bandcamp.com/releases

  Tomorrow they'll be releasing a new single titled Dark Horse, it'll be available on all major streaming and download platforms and it's a teaser for their Flat Earth Theory ep which follows in a few weeks. There's a number of gigs lined up in support of the ep and details can be found on Facebook :  https://www.facebook.com/WhoKilledNancyJohnson/ 

  Here's what vocalist Stefan had to say about the new single.....

  "Our approach to song-writing has changed a fair bit since the material for our previous Cops and Robbers EP was written. Then, the songs were mainly written by Paul Anthony and me, and the writing was all done away from the rehearsal room. But since Pete Moulton joined on guitar we've become a band that jams things out.

"Dark Horse is typical of how it tends to work now. The song started with a riff Pete played in rehearsal. He plays a lot of riffs - guitarists never stop making noise! - and every so often one takes off, as this one did. Mark Wren joined in on drums and Paul on bass - me singing random words to find a melody line that worked - and everyone chipped in ideas for dyanmics, where the riff could go next and so on. Quite early on the 'I believe' line was fixed, and with that in place I wrote a set of words around it that didn't work and then a second set that stuck. The song probably took five rehearsals or so to settle down to its finished form. We'd work on it 20 minutes one week, an hour the next, 30 minutes, whatever.

"The Flat Earth Theory EP was recorded live initially, with Pete, Paul and Mark playing the song just as they would live. After a couple of weeks living with the raw recordings I went back in to do the main vocal. That was day two. Day three was going to be mixing - but then Paul left the band and said he didn't want his bass lines used on the recording.

"That threw us a bit because it meant we'd have to overdub the bass. Pete could have done it and so could I, sort of, but neither of us had played bass in anger in years. Fortunately a friend of a friend came to the rescue and did it for us. I'd love to tell you the name of the mystery bassist! - but we were asked not to say as the person concerned is involved in another band and was kind of moonlighting. Anyway, it got us out of a hole and meant we could move on to redo the backing vocals and get the songs mixed and mastered straight away.

"We always planned to issue a single before the full EP, and for a long time we had another track in mind. But everyone we talked to said we should release Dark Horse, and we had people coming up to us at gigs saying they liked the 'I believe' song in particular, so it had to be Dark Horse in the end.

"As for the Dark Horse video, that's based on an animation by Daniel Hallam that Pete found on YouTube. Pete contacted Daniel and got permission to recut it to fit the song, sticking in a little bit of band footage at the right moments. The original film and the song are kind of on parallel tracks, dealing with different angles of the same basic preoccupation, which is a tension between inner life and what's outside in the world. Added together I feel they both gain a layer of meaning from each other - the song means more and so does the film. Does that sound poncey and pretentious? Fuck it, too late, I said it and it's true."

This is Dark Horse.....

Outside I’m the same

I say the same things people say

I play their simple games like naming faces, facing names

I turn the other way when fires start I’m not to blame

I throw the match away my fingers itching from the flame

I believe a dark horse is inside of me

The sense I make, the sense I make is make believe

A different kind of fantasy is burning me inside

Takes me for a ride

Image is the key

A way to hide a history

It sets my darkness free and keeps the past a mystery

Look and you will find symmetry in every line

Patterns in your mind forming gods and ghosts and signs

I believe a dark horse is inside of me

The sense I make, the sense I make is make believe

A different kind of fantasy is burning me inside

Takes me for a ride

And tells me to go

Get on with the show