Apes Of The State - Punk Rock Shows in Heaven

  

  One sad aspect of doing the Just Some Punk Songs show for pretty much all of the past decade is that there's been a few loyal and regular listeners who have become good friends but who've sadly passed away during that time. When I heard today's song I immediately thought of them so this update is dedicated to Bill, Nan, Stef and any other listener who's no longer with us. 

  Apes Of The State (https://www.facebook.com/apesofthestate) are from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and they play folk punk. It's a genre of punk music that some people seem averse to but I'm not sure why. There's plenty of great folk punk releases out there. 

  Apes Of The State have been around even longer than the Just Some Punk Songs show and they're readying to release a new album titled What's Another Night? It'll be out next week :  https://apesofthestate.bandcamp.com/album/whats-another-night

  This is the song that had me raising a glass to fallen punk rock comrades, it's called Punk Rock Shows In Heaven... 

Are there punk rock shows in heaven
Are you push moshing are you crowd surfing
Are the kids still hooked on heroin
Or have they found a way to cope without that trash
I hope you found a way to right your wrongs
And that you make a cool band and write some songs
And that you overthrow your government
Find a way to make things work without that trash
I wanna know if you’ll ever grow up
Or if you’re 25 forever
With that Bad Brains t-shirt on
That you were wearing the day I met ya
In the rehab parking lot, Central Pennsylvania
Now I wear it when I miss ya
You told me once
It was one of the few things you had left
From when you were just a kid
That you never lost
Now it’s one of the few things I have left
To remember the time we spent
Now that you’re gone
I’m writing letters on your Facebook wall
Some days it’s hard to believe that you’re really gone
The only difference between you and me
Is a breath of air some body heat
But when I play our favorite CDs in the car on repeat
It feels like you’re here with me
So if you hear this song in heaven
If you’re push moshing and you’re crowd surfing
Tell the kids that are hooked on heroin
We found a way down here to cope
And I’m not sure I believe in heaven
But if you’re somewhere and you can hear this
Tell the kids that are hooked on heroin
We found a way down here to cope without that

The Lab Rats - Stop This War

 

How Long Do We Have To Fight?
 

  Now that I'm finally getting on top of the back log of songs I've had to post I can get round to one of my favourite releases of the year so far. The Lab Rats are a folk punk duo based in Manchester featuring Molly Yates (who's also a member of Liverpool ska punk band Bolshy) and Adam Mckeon (who's also a member of Manchester ska punk band Wadeye). I've played them on the Just Some Punk Songs show a couple of times and they've gone down a storm both times. One of the chatroom listeners described their mandolin led sound as being akin to a punky Fairport Convention.

  Forming in 2014 they've honed their sound with plenty of gigging (many of those gigs have seen them sharing a stage with fellow rabble rousers Oi Polloi) and they recently released their debut album, Utopia. You can grab a copy from Pumpkin Records or digitally from Bandcamp :
http://www.pumpkinrecords.co.uk/store/#!/The-Lab-Rats-Utopia-LP/p/101346219/category=19675029

https://ratlife.bandcamp.com/album/utopia

   For more info or news (or just to give them a like, check Facebook :   https://www.facebook.com/TheLabRatsUK/

  From Utopia, and highlighting both their knack of writing great songs and Molly's wonderful voice, this is Stop This War.....
 

The Dreadnoughts - Back Home In Bristol

 "This album is a tribute to all the people who lived through the First World War, and to those who did not."

  I've been meaning to post something by The Dreadnoughts for a week or two but thought it'd be an idea to wait till this weekend with Armistice Day being yesterday and Remembrance Sunday being today.

  They're a folk/punk band from Vancouver who formed a decade ago and have a bunch of releases available from Bandcamp, the latest of which is new album Foreign Skies. Their first release in 7 years, it's a World War 1 themed concept album and it's a must for anyone who loved classics such as The Pogues' The Band Played Waltzing Matilda and The Men They Couldn't Hang's Green Fields Of France etc. You can order the vinyl or cd versions or stream it here : https://thedreadnoughts.bandcamp.com/album/foreign-skies

  Don't expect just your basic folk punk album though, as they say on their site (http://thedreadnoughts.com/) you'll get a sea shanty morphing into a Balkan dance, a Klezmer romp fading into a Queen-esque symphonic ballad and a Viking war chant crescendoing into a German polka. Intrigued? Just check it out for yourselves.

   "During the Great War, all armies on all sides executed their own soldiers for “cowardice” or for “disobeying orders”. They remained criminally unaware of the psychological damage that this new form of warfare was doing to the people they had lined up and shot."  

  This is Back Home In Bristol...


bless me father I have sinned 
bless me if you may 
by the power of jesus christ 
I came to you this day 

I am just a middle farmer's boy 
Jim wilson is my name 
and I've been out hard where devil runs 
I'll never go again 

well yes I know my duty sir 
and I know the god I serve 
I tried to stay out in the eastern line 
I tried to keep my nerve 

but all I could see were lily white arms 
and a gold and silken dress 
and all I could hear was a country dance 
and a calling from the west 

chorus: 
well I wish I were back home in Bristol again 
raising a cider with West Countrymen 
rolling in the arms of the the fair Kitty Wrenne 
back home in Bristol again 
back home in Bristol again 


seventeen days and seventeen nights 
we held up underground 
through misty panes and thick green light 
I saw death raining down 

and when it all was finished 
I just turned away in fear 
bless me father and and hold my hand 
until the dawn is here 


(chorus) 


I hear the party coming down 
to wrest me from my cell 
father don't you pray for me 
or speak to me of hell 

just deliver me a little song 
and a final taste of rum 
and tell the buggers who shoot me down 
just where ol' jimmy's from 

(chorus)

The Devil is Electric - It Sounds Better in the Basement (Reviewed By Mike Patton)

  It's Friday so it's guest review day and today that guest is Vista Blue's Mike Patton. (https://wearevistablue.bandcamp.com/)  Mike's chosen a song by The Devil Is Electric, and the song appeared on the 2001 album, I've Never Trusted A Revolutionary That Was Afraid To Dance.

  Cheers Mike.....

  This song always takes me back to when I lived in New Orleans. Between 2000 and 2005 or so, I was playing a lot of shows with my bands The Robinsons and Sally Stitches, and I was booking another 5-6 shows a month for other bands, at local venues, houses, and even my garage.

It was a great time to be involved with the DIY scene, and there were constantly great bands on tour who just wanted to play. With some of the bands, we'd do NOLA one night, Baton Rouge the next, and try to do something like a kickball game in between.

This song perfectly sums up that time, when it was always about the music, not the money, about friends, and not fame. And to this day, I'd always rather play in a basement than play on "some dumb stage."

Matilda's Scoundrels - Bow To The Powers

 

  The latest Just Some Punk Songs show aired last Sunday evening and I think it's fair to say it went down well with the chatroom regulars. I think it's also fair to say that the most popular song of the evening was by Hastings folk punk outfit Martha's Scoundrels.

  Formed in 2014 they line up with Thomas Quinn (mandolin/vocals), Jason Stirling (acoustic guitar/tin whistle/banjo/vocals), Jens-Peter Jensen (accordion/vocals), Dan Flanagan (guitar), James Baughurst (bass) and Jon Gosling (drums). They released debut ep Beasts In Disguise early in 2015 and have been pretty prolific since with a number of eps, a split with The Barracks and the Crowleys Curse 7" plus new album (out 8th Sept on TNS Records) As The Tide Turns.

  You can check out their earlier releases as well as preview the new album over on Bandcamp : https://matildasscoundrels.bandcamp.com

  They've plenty of gigs lined up throughout the remainder of 2017 and you can get details here : https://www.matildas-scoundrels.com/gigs

  Anyway, back to the song that went down a storm on Sunday's show (you can listen to the show here if you missed it : https://www.mixcloud.com/mick-fletcher/just-some-punk-songs-050917/), this is Bow To The Powers.....

Attila the Stockbroker - Farageland

  "Working folk get conned
  they think ukip are all right
  but nigel and his friends would piss on them
  from a great height"

You'll probably know of Attila The Stockbroker but for those few who haven't had the pleasure, he was born John Baine in 1957, is from Southwick (near Brighton, England) and since the late 70's has been writing and performing his surreal brand of folk and punk inspired poetry.

  In 1994 he formed Barnstormer and regularly tours Europe with them. He still also plays many live solo shows and last year Cherry Red published his autobiography, Arguments Yard (35 Years of Ranting Verse and Thrash Mandola).

  Recently he had one of his songs, Farageland, featured on the 0161 Festival Comp 2016 and you can get it here : http://0161festival.bandcamp.com/track/attila-the-stockbroker-farageland

    "Scapegoating immigrants, divide and rule. No thank you Farage....." This is the live version of Farageland as filmed by Day In The City in 2014.....

Spoonboy - Linus and Me

"it’s about how over the course of your life you connect with people briefly and then often you each move in different directions.  i feel like sometimes there’s an inclination to distance yourself from the people who remind you of your past, either because you’ve changed and don’t want to be reminded of your old self or because you’re not comfortable with the ways that they’ve changed.  either way i think it’s important to remember and treasure the really positive things we take away from our relationships with the people we’ve been close to, whether or not we’re close to them anymore and that’s kind of what the song is about."

  
  Spoonboy (aka David Combs) was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, though is now based in Washington DC and was previously a member of The Max Levine Ensemble. He's released a couple of albums, on Plan-it-X Records as well as numerous demos, splits etc. You can check those releases out here : http://spoonboy.bandcamp.com/

  D.I.Y. heartfelt folk punk songs dealing with personal politics and addressing topics such as feminism and gender have been his stock in trade but after over a decade he's brought the curtain down on the Spoonboy project.

  The song I'm posting, which was released last year on the split 7" with Philadelphia's The Goodbye Party, is called Linus And Me. and features members of justsomepunksongs' favourites Martha. The video, filmed mainly in Durham (north east England), is a joy......


linus and me, we were talking about first loves, 
how they burn out, leave you charred 
and then changed completely. 
i thought about that one summer burning in the suburbs: 
me and caroline making eyes and waiting on the subway. 
she'd sought me out like the stamp that finished her collection, 
like a dying breed in danger of extinction, 
and we fell into each other without the slightest bit of caution, 
until the whole thing fell out from under our feet. 
i see caroline sometimes walking down the street, 
and her head’s all full up with those people she meets. 
i wanna call out and say "hey, thanks for everything, caroline" 
but she don't go by that name no more… 

and if she saw me tonight, she wouldn't look at me twice, 
but you know, don't you know, it's alright… alright... alright. 
me and caroline walked different paths in life, 
but you know, don't you know, it's alright… alright… alright. 

tommy and me, we had committed a crime, 
not a lot to it, just something we did at the time. 
there was war in the air and it troubled my mind. 
there were secrets between us, but i'd been sure 
the things we shared, well they were ours, 
but there was something there i hadn't seen before 
when i saw tommy in his military uniform: 
he'd just been looking for a war. 

and if he saw me tonight he might not look me in the eye, 
but you know, don't you know, it's alright… alright… alright. 
me and tommy we had different wars to fight, 
but you know, don't you know, it's just gotta be alright. 

it took a while thinking about someone new 
before i broke and took down that old picture you drew. 
you know they say moving on is just something you do. 
could be. i don’t know. i think sometimes it just happens to you. 
you find your path and you take that road. 
when you look back, i hope that know 
the things we share and the ways we grow, 
they’re due to all the people we've known. 

and when you saw me tonight i know it didn't feel right, 
but you know, don't you know, it takes time, yeah it takes time. 
me and you, we held a little too tight. 
but you know, don't you know, it's just gotta be alright.