IRREGULAR ZINE.

Apologies, I Have None - Pharmacie

The UK’s folk punk scene, when folk punk was a really big thing, never felt quite as ambitious as America’s. While the US had Andrew Jackson Jihad and This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb and Defiance, Ohio and Plan-It-X records and all that stuff, the folk punk of the British Isles was mostly dominated by acoustic solo singer-songwriters like Frank Turner, too mellow to still really be considered anything other than punk by association. Josh Mckenzie and Dan Bond’s Apologies, I Have None was different – they were ramshackle and impassioned, trading two sticks and six strings as they hopped between drums and guitar on each song, the chemistry between them undeniable.

Different bands work in different ways. There are some that manage to be so much more than the sum of its parts that just about any member can come and go without it stopping the collective from moving forwards, while others are so tied to its core members that its hard to imagine them moving on once one of them has left. Apologies, I Have None always felt like the latter sort of band. When they expanded out to a four piece they became unstoppable, but only because the new members served to back up that chemistry and their combined songwriting strengths, keeping it as the band’s focus and core dynamic. They were pretty much the best punk band in the UK for a while because of it, before they got swept up in that tour cycle where you’re big enough to earn support slots for all your favourite bands from when you’re a kid and get too busy to ever play at home anymore.

Sometimes life gets on top of you, and few bands have been as good at summing that up at Apologies – but there comes a point where you can’t solve all your problems by turning to punk rock, like their old songs suggested. Bond left the band and their hectic tour schedule behind to have a life with his family, leaving Mckenzie to carry on the momentum that the two had built together on his own, to carry a band built entirely on a partnership on one set of shoulders from now on. A tough task for anyone.

The first try wasn’t bad – Black Everything was a great EP that hinted at a bigger, darker direction for the band on the terrifying Raging Through The Thick And Heavy Darkness Of A Bloodlust, but also at the dangers of having to fill the gaps that another songwriter usually took care of – Two Bombs In A Box remains one of Apologies’ weakest songs because it takes the core concept of a lot of their best efforts, distils it to one simplistic line – “How the fuck did I not see this coming? I should have known.” – and repeats it over and over again until it loses all meaning. The next full-length could have gone either way.

But it’s finally here – a ridiculously long four years after London – and Pharmacie is, for better or worse, a killer. Quite literally taking us out of London, to a pharmacy in Paris, Mckenzie’s Apologies, I Have None goes to darker corners than the band ever found in the familiar streets of their home city. When things went wrong there, safe spaces and friendly faces and second chances were never too far away. Here, cast adrift in Europe with the weight of the world on their shoulders, things feel a little less certain. And it’s not always going to plan.

Why even bother to beat around the bush? “I hate the person I’ve become,” Mckenzie sings on The Clarity Of Morning, reworked from Black Everything to sound even more haunting than before. “The world has got me spinning around, and down, and out.” There are lines throughout that will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s recognised something wrong with themselves but not been able to fix it. It’s a record full of insecurity, doubt, depression and struggle, offering catharsis and dragging you down with it in equal measures.

With a bleak view of what the future holds, Pharmacie spends plenty of time looking backwards for at least some sort of an attempt at solace. Killers calls back to “the beds we shared in London, in the flats that we called home,” while Goodbye, Peace Of Mind feels even more specific. “Turn this one up, man – I haven’t heard it in a long time. As we sit in silence, it reminds us of how we’ve barely spoken in a long time. I don’t know why” – it feels like it could be about listening to 100 Club from Two Sticks and Six Strings, remembering when things were a bit easier, when we were unstoppable.

Crooked Teeth, on the other hand, reads like a sequel to Sat In Vicky Park – sunlit afternoon drinking sessions led to realisations about masculinity that have developed over the years to more serious questions of identity, and the struggle of “trying to find a place within a framework that says teach your sons to be aggressive, daughters to give in, and a real man never backs down, he keeps his fears close to his chest.” It’s easy enough to realise that a man is not his job – it’s harder to deal with the expectations that society places upon men, and women, and the way they deal with their emotions.

Mckenzie has always been good at masking his intent – his most notorious line on London’s The 26 set up a scene of violent assault and then immediately pulled the rug on the boys singing along by explaining just how fucked up it is. This time, he spreads a similar bait and switch over two different songs, setting up a dangerous approach to dealing with your own problems on Everybody Wants To Talk About Mental Health. “Everyone thinks that by talking they can work their problems out,” he sings, voice twisting to a growl. “But I’ve never been one for talking about myself, so if talk is the only way to solve this then I don’t wanna sort it out.” It’s a pretty dark view of where things might end up, but then It’s Never The Words You Say softens the edges just enough, reminding us that “not much ever changes if you don’t let old habits go.” Hope still manages to shine through, here and there.

Apologies wasted no time in shaking free from the folk punk aesthetic when they switched up to a four piece band, swelling to an almighty stadium punk sound on London that always felt as at home on those big festival stages all over Europe as it did in D.I.Y. venues around the UK, but Pharmacie takes things even further. The whole album soars on swirling guitars, crashing in with heavier riffs where you least expect them, constantly raising the stakes on every track. Love & Medication kicks things off in a way that suggests business as normal if you’d missed the lineup changes, heavy EPs and super-aggressive live shows since London, but Wraith quickly casts the record into a nosedive where all bets are off. Mckenzie, long-term drummer Joe Watson, and new guys Simon Small and James Hull have crafted a stunning record of dark, claustrophobic and intense punk quite unlike anything else out there.

The double hitter of closers Killers and A Pharmacy In Paris, is a particularly remarkable achievement, clocking in at fourteen combined minutes of suspense, buildups and crushing crescendos – the closest they’ve ever come to this is their epic cover of ONSIND’s Either He’s Dead Or My Watch Has Stopped on their split a few years back. A post-rock comparison whenever bands write a song over five minutes long feels lazy as fuck but here it’s justified – as Killers powers to a close with one ringing guitar line and Mckenzie’s scream of “it’s been a hard few years” forcing its way through the haze, Apologies sound like a band that have truly outgrown the constraints of punk rock and continue to set their sights on something ever-bigger.

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Formlessness (2016)

Sometimes, planned records just get lost in the shuffle and never get finished. SH Davidson from Tellison never put out his solo album, Grimes had a stylistic followup to Visions in the works before she scrapped hours of work and went poppier for Art Angels. Weezer, Deftones, Green Day – all these bands have infamous lost records that we’ll never get to hear as intended.

One that far fewer people will have heard of was an ill-fated live-ish album from A Silver Mt. Zion called Fuck You Draculas in which the band up in their studio like they did on the stage and played their ever-shifting songs in the way they’d come to be after months, sometimes years on the road. They figured that as their lineup and live sets had changed so much, it would be interesting to document some of that change on tape.

It never came out, which is a shame – that lack of preciousness over their own material and lineup is refreshing. Revisiting old material isn’t always a sign of stagnating – if anything, it can sometimes be the clearest way to show how much you’ve grown. Bands are like the people in them – they don’t always have to stay the same.

Few bands embody this nature of fluid identity, growth, change and just a general unpreciousness as well as The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, who share more than a few similarities to the S Mt. Z. Lots of members, shifting lineup, a not-quite fontperson central figure, strange ways of communicating with the world outside of themselves (which manifests in lofty and bizarre press release screeds for Mt. Zion and dank and bizarre memes for TWIABP), and songs that have been allowed to grow on the road, songs that just seem to resonate on a higher level than those of their peers. Whether they’re the best band in their particular scene or not is pretty fuckin’ irrelevant – they put more of themselves into what they do than everyone else, and that’s what matters.

So it’s cool that, much like Mt. Zion, The World Is… felt a need to go back to their older material now they’re a bit more grown up, and cooler still that they actually got round to doing it. Formlessness, which has been both remastered and completely re-recorded, was the world’s introduction to this strange band with the long band name who mostly got checked out in the free download section of last.fm because of that gosh-darn ridiculous long band name. It was a welcome addition to the burgeoning emo revival of 2010, with its easy-going melodies, multiple vocals trading lines back and forth in group chants and screams, and those buzzy synths, but it wasn’t until later that they’d find their feet.

Now, with new members, a new set of skills, and a new appreciation for taking their time, they’ve had another go, reapplying what they’ve learned to the framework of their first few songs. The remaster is nice enough – it makes the occasionally slightly muddy original pop a little bit more, but it’s the re-recorded version that’s most exciting, and yet another reminder of how this is pretty much one of the best bands going.

So much has changed in the six years since the first recording - most notably, the band has found itself two figureheads in the forms of guitarist/singer Derrick Nicole Shanholtzer-Dvorak, who played drums on the original version of Formelessness, and David F Bello, who’s taken over the bulk of lead vocal duties. Straight away, the guitars sound more layered and textured, the vocal performance is stronger, and the drums are far tighter – this is a lineup that’s been playing and practicing together for a little bit longer, is far more sure of itself.

The original framework of each song is by and large kept intact, though the record as a whole has been expanded. One new/old Blank track, this time #3, leads into Victim Kin Seek Suit, and Walnut Street is prefaced with another. Live performances of Walnut Street have regularly had an extended intro for a long time now, and it’s great to hear one finally recorded in the studio rather than in fuzzy bootlegs. Eyjafjallajokull Dance, the most ambitious track on Formlessness, probably benefits the most from being revisited, sounding a little more fully realised – it wouldn’t sound out of place on any of their full-lengths now, and expanded into a full seven minutes it has even more room to breathe, to build. But every track is given a new lease of life, bursting at the seams that the original arrangements established.

The whole record just feels much more like how the current, 2016 version of The World Is… plays live – slowly building, taking its time to sink in as the band swells behind whoever’s on the mic at that point, taking crowds by surprise when things suddenly change gear. When Victim Kin Seek Suit finally crashes into high speed, it’s genuinely thrilling – so much fuller, so much more urgent, drums crashing down the stairs, guitars ringing like bells. “Where are you,” Bello screams, joined by the rest of the band. “And where have you run to? Where are you, and why don’t you just come home?”

The idea of home was an important rallying cry for the band that wrote these songs – the band’s home at the time was a house called The Handsome Woman, and the lyrics to Gordon Paul in particular paint a picture of that house that means so much – even if they’re steadfast in the belief that they’ll still exist once it’s gone. Formlessness is very tied to a physical place – whether it’s the house, or Walnut Street, or the pavements these people grew up on, the place that they were born.

Crywank - Don’t Piss On Me, I’m Already Dead

Crywank dumped ‘Don’t Piss On Me, I’m Already Dead’ on Bandcamp for a quid in a fit of anxiety on the same weekend that season three of BoJack Horseman premiered on Netflix, which is good news if you connect emotionally with art about mental health problems but also potentially bad news if connecting emotionally with art about mental health problems doesn’t make you feel particularly great about the world around you.

Much like the titular cartoon horse of that particular Netflix series, James Clayton, formerly known as the solo artist Crywank, now known as the main person in the band Crywank, hasn’t had an easy time of it lately. Ever since he stuck his first record (cheerfully titled ‘James Is Going To Die Soon’) on Mediafire for free, he’s been almost dehabilitatingly DIY – terrified of being called a sellout if he dares ask for money from fans dying to give him money, anxiously overthinking every opportunity that comes Crywank’s way, and generally being self-sabotaging in a way that so many great songwriters can be.

This isn’t a betrayal of confidence, revealing this – these thoughts are spilled over the internet with alarming honesty almost daily, and Crywank’s young fans identify as much with these posts as they do with the songs. And those songs have grown from album to album – from raw two-chord messes battered out of a cheap acoustic guitar and roared through a hoarse throat to denser and more delicate fingerpicked riffs and a voice that could actually hold notes by album number three, ‘Tomorrow Is Nearly Yesterday And Everyday Is Stupid’, which fleshed things out just enough by adding Dan from Old Skin on “percussion” (aka basically just hitting a box).

Think about Conor Oberst’s development in the early days of Bright Eyes and you’re not far off, but Clayton somehow manages to be outright sadder than the former poster sadboy of folk. ‘TINYAEIS’ opens with the line “everyone I love is gonna die” and ends with a trio of songs called ‘I Am Shit’, ‘I Am A Cliché’ and ‘Just A Snail’, and ‘Don’t Piss On Me, I’m Already Dead’ feels like one of a select few ways the now three-piece Crywank (they added a bass player for occasional electric live shows, colloquially known as Bandwank) could have doubled down on bleakness.

‘DPOMIAD’ picks up pretty much where the last record left off – a rolling acoustic guitar backed by delicate box tapping, with Clayton’s voice kicking in gently, slowly finding a comfortable middle ground between the rougher tones of those early records and the near-falsetto of the later ones. Thanks to actually recording in a studio rather than in a bedroom this time, everything sounds that tiny bit slicker – just enough for it to be alright.

But from there things quickly start to go off the beaten track – for Crywank at least. ‘Squeezing The Damp Tea Towel To It’s Final Few Drips’ [sic] features an actual full drum kit, and a frantic guitar sound much closer to Clayton’s early recordings – but quite clearly played by someone who knows what they’re doing now. As things continue to flesh out and grow, the anxious folk punk across the record feels a lot like Andrew Jackson Jihad – sorry, AJJ – at its most ramshackle, Elliott Smith at its most maudlin, and very occasionally like Grouper at its most ethereal.

Things do get a bit disjointed, but then Crywank by its very nature has always been disjointed, punctured with new members, stylistic shifts, unpredictable live sets, albums written and recorded then scrapped, Kickstarters never quite kickstarted, physical copies never actually appearing, label attention rejected. There’s a consistent feeling, on both this record and with the band in general, that if they could just figure themselves out and get on with it, then they’d be far better off – but if they could, they wouldn’t be Crywank, and if this record didn’t consistently, actively, try and shock, annoy and surprise it wouldn’t be a Crywank record.

If you’ve been listening to Crywank for a while, you could almost forget you were even listening to them anymore by the time ‘Love’ kicks in about half way through. Multiple layers of electric guitar sound like they’re about to go full-blown Midwest emo before the bass kicks in and drives it in an indie pop direction – it’s Clayton’s attempt to write a pop song, almost as though it’s just to prove that they can. You know, like when Chumbawamba wrote ‘Tubthumping’.

Lyrically, it casts a wider net than many Crywank songs, tackling relationships in much simpler terms than the usual hyper-personal lines, and under a far sunnier vibe than ever before. But things stay bleak, of course, as Clayton considers whether a relationship is actually built on mutual love and compassion for the other person, or if they’re just sticking together “for the sake of my mental health”.

The back half of ‘Don’t Piss On Me…’ swings back and forth through a few different sounds, from a blustery full band to lo-fi solo songs to a borderline ridiculous hardcore closer, but it’s rarely jarring – just a little bit unnerving at times. Although they generally make it work, the flaws are more apparent the louder they get, and fuller-sounding songs like ‘Me Me Me (Boo Hoo)’ do lack the ghostly misery that made ‘Tomorrow Is Nearly Yesterday…’ work quite so well. While they manage the gloomy full band aesthetic a bit better on ‘Hate’, Clayton’s voice struggles a little to be heard above the noise, reverting back to a rawer delivery that feels a little bit like a step back.

It’s not the best Crywank album, even if it does feature some of their finest songs in places. But it is definitely the Crywankiest Crywank album, displaying every side of the band we’ve seen over the years so far, finally getting a lot of stuff down on record for posterity. It suggests that Clayton will continue to grow as a songwriter and never really sit still, but always be able to write songs that can reach out and grab you when you need them most.

One of the most appealing things about Crywank is something that we only get now, in the social media era, and something that we only get when bands are honest with their fans on those social media accounts: we get to watch them grow. Every album is agonised over in status updates, and the band are incredibly up front about the process. This openness allows their music to be a lot of things to a lot of people, whether you appreciate the rawness that’s largely been lost in a folk punk scene that has too many violins and songs about sailors, take the overly-honest misery as an excuse for memes, or see Clayton as a shoulder to cry on and a friend to cry with in a way that more distant musicians (that are really just men who know how to feel, c’mon) don’t want to be.

But at its simplest, much like the writing on BoJack Horseman, Crywank’s music just manages to tap into the basic, mundane bleakness at the core of us all when we let the darkness creep in. When we’re teenagers, we call it angst. When we’re older we call it something more grandiose, like existential despair, until we go to a doctor who calls it depression, and then we have to find a way to cope from there. And this is why so many people relate so extremely, almost violently, to Crywank: because trying to cope is all we can do. On ‘Foghorn Leghorn’, Clayton lays this bare:

“Well look at me now, I am a dullard. Not much to say, not much to ask. Much time has passed and I'm doing the same, Staying indoors playing video games. I'm on a website, I'm watching TV. Dystopian sci-fi live life through a screen. I am numb to the point of no return. I work for this life style with what I earn. One meal a day, one cup of coffee One pack of biscuits, one pouch of bacci. One drink after work, one bag of weed, Two choccy B's, rent, bills, repeat.”

One Song: Ghost Mice - Up The Punks

Ghost Mice always got that little bit overhyped for me – I always liked Debt of the Dead a lot, but there was something about its earnest simplicity, which I originally loved, that eventually put me off it. Compared to Andrew Jackson Jihad or Defiance, Ohio, the two other heavyweights in my triumvirate of favourite folk-punk bands in, like, 2007, they were too straightforward and too preachy to make me want to stick around. They fell off my playlists, but people I knew kept with it, hammered every record to death. I think they inspired a lot of people to pick up instruments and start playing, which is probably a good thing, except I’m not sure how many of those people were all that good.

That’s not to say I ever stopped having time for Chris Clavin. His work with Plan-It-X made him a legend in my eyes, so I was still upset that I missed Ghost Mice the last time they came to the UK, and went out to see him do a solo show a couple years ago.

But my favourite thing he’s ever done was a band called Tooth Soup, which featured Gary from Fashanu, a pop punk band from Durham who broke my heart when they split so he could move to America. The other two members would go on to be in Martha and No Ditching, who are doing pretty well these days, while the Tooth Soup record lives in relative obscurity, a footnote in Chris and Gary’s discographies. But I love it.

So I was tabling at Northwest Zine Fest in Manchester with my partner when this punk dude walks by, looking a little lost, with a Tooth Soup sticker on his water bottle. No matter how cool a community you’re in and no matter how good the event is, zine fairs can still be really fucking awkward occasions, full of anxious people who don’t really know how to talk to each other despite having more shared interests with the people there than they’ll have with their family or co-workers or a lot of their friends, and I can include myself in that group sometimes, so one of the few ways I manage to start a natural conversation is by commenting on band badges or shirts or stickers.

So I say “hey, Tooth Soup! I love that band.”

And Chris Clavin says “oh, thanks, that’s my band.”

I’d half forgotten he was meant to be there, doing a reading, and totally didn’t recognise him either, so I honestly had no idea it was him, but he seemed glad to have found someone who knew who he was, in the grand scheme of the universe, or was at least familiar with the weirder corners of his back catalogue.

Chris was worried. The last zine fair he’d played at, somewhere in Europe, had been terrible, so he was feeling pretty anxious about reading at another one. He’s much more confident with a guitar in his hands than with a book. But he seemed to take heart at the room being packed, full of tables covered in punk zines, with at least one person there who liked his work.

We talked Ghost Mice, the time he played at a park in my home town, even though I couldn’t go. We talked zines, and how the communities are different on each side of the Atlantic. In the UK, everything’s so connected, with everyone going to the same fairs all around the country, and everyone following each other on Instagram. In America, it seems a bit more fragmented, like people who make zines still exist determinedly outside of online spaces.

The last time I saw Chris Clavin play, he’d been alternating between songs and readings from his book, and the readings left me a little cold, wishing he’d played more songs, with a silly story about really sanctimonious punk housing politics that just rubbed me the wrong way, but I would have felt like a dick if I hadn’t gone and watched him. I’m glad I did, because this time was much better, sticking to a great long story about a disastrous tour around America with a band from Leeds called the Dauntless Elite.

I got up and read a piece from one of my zines after him at the open mic, and pretty much shook visibly the entire time – not so much because I was in front of the person who gave Against Me! their first break, more because I’m terrible at reading in front of people compared to speaking in front of people, but it seemed to go okay. I think Chris laughed at an appropriate place.

I gave him a copy of my zine afterwards – I think “I gave Chris Clavin a copy of my zine” is the most tragically DIY sentences I’ve ever said out loud – and he said he hadn’t brought anything with him to read on tour, so he’d check it out. I wonder if he has.

A couple days later I listened to the Tooth Soup album for the first time in a while, and fell in love with its bizarre mesh of Bloomington and Durham energy and spirit, this real ramshackle, lo-fi poppy punk record. But I think, looking back, as much as I grew out of Ghost Mice, and prefer Tooth Soup now, there’s one song in Chris Clavin’s back catalogue that I truly love above all others.

Up The Punks is the first song I heard him sing, and is still one of the truest DIY punk mission statements I’ve ever heard. Ghost Mice’s straightforward honesty works better here than it ever would anywhere else, and the lines “are we making any changes, or just having fun” and “punk rock music saved my life, I can sing it honestly” still ring true every time I listen to it, years later. I truly wish I could see him play it one day, and join in the singalong of “up the punks, up the punks, up the punks!” at the end. But I probably won’t.

Johnny Foreigner - Mono No Aware

What is it about us that roots for the underdog? It feels like a uniquely British trait at times – if someone sticks it out for long enough, paying their dues every step of the way, but never quite makes it, then we’ll get on their side. It’s why so many people have voted for Jeremy Corbyn (and other less savoury political characters), why Leicester captured everyone’s hearts when they won the league, why David Brent is allowed to become a cultural icon.

The underdog is an enduring and compelling musical narrative, too – people only really gave a shit about Jake Bugg for five minutes because of his “just a normal bloke from a council estate” background and/or shtick. Mark E. Smith and The Fall, on the other hand, have worked the dark horses with their backs against the wall angle for 40 years now.

Birmingham is something of an underdog too – its size should make it uncontested as England’s second city, but it consistently seems to lose out to Manchester (home of The Fall, more or less) because Manchester has always just historically been a more likeable and culturally relevant place. And that’s where Johnny Foreigner was born, ten years ago this year.

And Johnny Foreigner have never shied away from embracing their underdog status, of course. This is the band that made the “riding on the coattails of Los Campesinos! since 2007” shirts, who titled their third proper album ‘Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything’ – a battle that no one can really be sure if they ever won. On their last full-length effort, they vowed to do better, vowed to make the most of what was left, but only because they recognised that they were falling apart.

‘Mono No Aware’ is album number five (or six or seven or something, depending on what you count), and they’re as defiant as ever in the face of the odds stacked against them. Alexei Berrow’s voice wavers on the opening lines of ‘Mounts Everest’: “I’ve a confession, it stings to admit. I can’t foresee the day when we buy speedboats from this.” The band bang on about how they don’t make a whole lot of money pretty regularly in blog posts, but this may be the first time they’ve faced it so head on in song. But true to form, they refuse to dwell on the bad stuff for too long.

A brief aside: former Johnny Foreigner tourmates, current labelmates and fellow underdogs Tellison opened their third record last year with a song called ‘Letter To The Team’, in which frontman SH Davidson apologised for the lack of success he’s earned for himself and for his band, tendering his resignation as manager following yet another imperfect season.

It’s hard not to hear the next lines of Mounts Everest as a direct response: “There’s no competition, no squad, no team, so no sports metaphors for losing the dream.” Is it disgust at their friends giving up, or an encouragement to their comrades to carry on? It’s hard to say. But when all around are losing their heads, Johnny Foreigner don’t need to try and keep theirs. They’re already ghosts, with at least another ten years of haunting in them yet. “I just believe you’ve yet to touch,” they sing, “on the best of us.”

And it’s here that ‘Mono No Aware’ gets right down to it, picking back up where ‘You Can Do Better’ left off on ‘Devastator’ with another response, this time to themselves, called ‘Undevastator’. Johnny Foreigner’s records regularly speak to each other – they all live in the same alternate timeline Birmingham after all, where the state of New Street and everyone on it feels in doubt, plagued by ghosts, criminals, sad songs on jukeboxes, and landlocked dreams of being somewhere else, whether it’s festivals, Texas parking lots, or coastlines and oceans. It creates a universe that it’s all too easy to get sucked into – Johnny Foreigner occupy a place that’s endlessly flawed, but still seems more inviting, or at least more romantic, than our own.

Once they’ve undevastated themselves and put everything back together, most of album number five is as classic a Johnny Foreigner record as you’d ever expect. Kinsella riffs disassembled and put back together with a screw or two missing, those high-pitched buzzy keyboards, the slightly off-key vocals, the glitchy chaotic moments thrown in for good measure. They’ve never been a band to reinvent themselves – it’s always been a slight variation on the same theme. ‘Vs. Everything’ was the most they’ve ever changed things up, and ‘Mono No Aware’ continues to push back on that record’s decadence in the same way that ‘You Can Do Better’ did, taking things back even further and shaving even more minutes off the running time.

It’s their shortest full-length record to date, and their tightest – the “typical Johnny Foreigner” vibe sounds sharper and fuller than ever, and after ten years as a band they pretty much know each other’s playing and songwriting inside out, with a maturity here that only comes to such scrappy genres with the benefit of years of doing it really fucking well – but it almost means it’s their most conservative effort too. There’s not enough spreading of the wings at times, not enough variations on the theme. ‘Our Lifestyles Incandescent’ treads similar ground to ‘Riff Glitchard’ on the last record, but misses the mark with some weird vocal effects that drown some of the album’s best lines. The outro to ‘If You Can’t Be Honest, Be Awesome’, on the other hand, swells beautifully with strings and horns, but is it enough? This is a band we’re well within our right to expect a little more from at this point.

The Fall Of Troy - OK#1 & OK#2

Ever since he released ‘The College Dropout’ in 2004, Kanye West has never had a shortage of imitators. Most notable, of course, is the sadboy rapper trend that followed ‘808s & Heartbreak’ and still fuels Drake’s style to this day, but every record has been followed by a stylistic shift in hip hop.

Not so with ‘The Life Of Pablo’, though – Yeezy’s latest didn’t quite offer enough new sounds to rip off. But instead of shifting the genre, it’s done something even more important – it’s shifted the very format of the album.

‘TLOP’ wasn’t finished on release. Kanye’s tinkered with it here and there throughout the course of the year, re-uploading a new version to Tidal fairly regularly. And that’s bold – viewing an album as an ever-shifting work, open to reinterpretation and changing following feedback from listeners, rather than as a thing that’s released and then left alone, feels like where we should be right now. This will be Pablo’s legacy.

Why is this important right now? Because The Fall Of Troy’s first album for seven years (oh yeah, The Fall Of Troy reunited. You knew that, right?) was released for free online as ‘OK’, and then when fans moaned about it being a little bit slick and overproduced, was remixed and re-released for free online as ‘OK#2’ a month later.

Both albums are still free to download, with added instrumental versions of each one now available as ‘OK#3.1’ and ‘OK#3.2’, in a beautifully un-precious display of generosity from a band who don’t really have anything to prove anymore. Hopefully more bands will do this sort of thing.

Reunions, when they’re done right, should be about giving the fans what they want. Sure, it’s nice to make some money or play together again, but such pleasant side effects should be earned by treating the fans with some goddamn decency. With live sets crammed full of their most popular record, and four free versions of a new one to choose from at your leisure, this is exactly what The Fall Of Troy are doing.

So, how is it? Or, rather, how are they? With both versions clocking in at just over half an hour, the first answer is short – but it’s no less crammed full of pretty much everything that ever made the band great in the first place. After the poppier tendencies of ‘Manipulator’, the beautiful sprawling epic of the ‘Phantom On The Horizon’ EP (still arguably the best thing they’ve ever released) and the try-and-please-everyone-and-end-up-pleasing-no-one wonkiness of ‘In The Unlikely Event’, ‘OK’ mostly tries to return to the dense and frantic chaos of ‘Doppelganger’.

Chaos has always been The Fall Of Troy’s best asset. Much of their best work fires straight out of the gate, riffs tangling themselves in knots underneath Erak’s anguished screams, before stumbling into spacier breathing spaces where all involved can get their breath back before starting all over again. ‘Doppelganger’ came across like if the members of Botch had slowly morphed into Minus The Bear, rather than come to a full stop and started afresh, and part of the reason their other full-lengths never quite matched up was because they moved too far away from that formula.

Still, at least they tried, rather than growing stagnant, and both versions of ‘OK’ do feel a little stagnant. The absolutely ridiculous riffs, high-pitched wails, start-stop rhythms like crashing into a wall again and again – it’s all there, but it’s lacking a spark that was there at the beginning. Tragically it may be one they can never get back – a lot of it’s down to the youthful energy that came from still being teenagers when they made their first couple of records.

But that’s not to say it’s a bad listen – if anything, it’s a very welcome start afresh, a blank slate to figure out who The Fall Of Troy even are in 2016. It’s an incredibly self-assured record, solid from start to finish, packing a remarkable amount into it’s tiny timeframe. But that’s also a downer, too – a lot of the songs don’t have enough time to really expand. Spacier passages are too short to get lost in, the best riffs could do with one or two more repetitions to really drill themselves into your skull. They’re being nostalgic, rather than truly pushing themselves, and sometimes it shows.

Still, there are moments that provide incredible reminders of The Fall Of Troy at their best. It’s not quite a return to form, but it’s the first step on a road to finding a different one. If they carry on, and take a little more time with the next one, they’ll soon outstrip every version of ‘OK’, and most of the rest of their discography while they’re at it.

The big question, of course, is if you’re only gonna listen to one, then which do you pick? ‘OK#2’ is probably the better of the two mixes, a little rougher around the edges in all the right ways, and listening to them side by side does show up more of the original version’s shortcomings. ‘OK#1’ does suffer a little from loudness and compression issues – not that you’d really notice them without anything to compare it to. Honestly, it sounds absolutely fine, but ‘OK#2’ does pop a little more. The bass stands out a bit better, and everything has some more room to breathe.

But a different mix doesn’t fix all of the album’s flaws. Pick ‘OK#2’ and you’ve got a fantastic record of wild, angular mathy post-hardcore that apologises for nothing (despite it’s very existence pretty much being an apology) and does everything well. But The Fall Of Troy never sounded this complacent – is a safe bet better than another swing or a miss at this point?

REVIEW: TINY MOVING PARTS - PLEASANT LIVING.

Pleasant Living is fucking infectious – I never expected to listen to it as often as I have, and I really never expected to crave listening to it as much as I do. It's not the greatest record ever made, doesn't do anything new (what really does anymore, anyway?), but oh god it is catchy as shit. Not just catchy, but surprisingly catchy. It wrapped itself round my head after only a couple of listens, and I'm coming back to it a lot more than bands this new to me usually rate. Although it doesn't quite hit the same heights, a record hasn't caught me unawares like this since The Hotelier put out Home, Like No Place Is There at the start of the year. Which is appropriate, as the two bands have a lot in common.

First off, much like when The Hotelier were still The Hotel Year, I really didn't rate the first Tiny Moving Parts record much at all. Yeah it was ok, but a bit too heavy-handed, and I'm not quite sure how to explain it any better than that. A bit too over-the-top and overwrought in places? But like The Hotelier, they've managed to grow up and refine a little bit for album number two. The two bands even sound a lot alike, with Tiny Moving Parts resting incredibly comfortably somewhere between The Hotelier's mature and literate yet still hooky pop punk, and Grown Ups' blustery math punk, fortunately managing to absorb the better qualities of both rather than the more average ones.

Not quite pop punk, or math pop, or emo, but a spot-on blend of all three, with impassioned vocals that readily break loose in to excited screams. They've not quite developed a sound that's their own just yet, but they've synthesized a fucking great example of one that's been half-heartedly driven in to the ground over the past couple of years. It's a safe choice, sure, but who can blame them? It gets in your head. And there's nothing wrong with, man, just feeling safe sometimes. Pleasant Living already feels like an old friend, a welcome presence.

I guess that's a rarer thing than I'm giving them credit for. The pace of the record probably plays a big part in this – it rarely slows down enough to breathe in and reflect, barrelling along with an urgency that'll keep you on your toes and ensures it's always at the forefront of your mind when you're listening to it. It still works for background listening, sure, but you'll be nodding your head at the desk and mouthing the words while you're trying to answer your emails, for fucking sure.

REVIEW: THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE & I AM NO LONGER AFRAID TO DIE - BETWEEN BODIES.

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die could do pretty much anything with their sound and people would still determinedly peg them as an emo band. Sure, they have twinkly guitars and some vocal styles typically identified with the genre (whining, screaming, etc.), but their ever-revolving and growing cast of characters based around a few central figures, their ever-developing sound, and their all-consuming sense of scale, means their peers aren't Dads, Dikembe, and Into It. Over It. so much as they are The Appleseed Cast, Broken Social Scene, or Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Like those latter three bands, TWIABP are something special, ahead of the curve, and will outlast any imitators. They think bigger, create something so much fucking bigger than themselves, and don't deserve any of the pigeonholes they get crammed in to.

Sure, there's elements of emo, and elements of post-rock, but TWIABP transcend these boundaries, transcend most boundaries, to be honest. Not many bands are so bold in doing whatever the fuck they want, and few bands manage to create as deep a meaning as TWIABP do at their most incisive and potent. They can sweep you up completely both on live and on record, if they catch you at the right time. Between Bodies was described by the band (or probably just Derrick while he was high on tumblr) as being nothing like anything else they'd done, and that everyone would hate it, but that feels like ironic or defensive posturing more than anything else, because they clearly believe in it just as much as they believe in everything they do, whether they want to admit it or not.

The controversial aspect which they probably thought everyone would hate was the addition of another collaborative member in to the TWIABP fold – spoken word poet Chris Zizzamia – which is certainly different twist for the band, but really isn't that shocking if you've ever heard Listener, or TWIABP-favourites mewithoutYou before. Musically, it's not too different to what you can find on their previous records, just regularly pushed towards spacier, more ambient ebbs and flows to provide a more appropriate backing for Zizzamia's spoken word pieces. David Bello's vocals still swell in the background, everyone still joins him, the guitars still twinkle, the synths still bubble every now and then. It's got nothing you can't hear elsewhere if you looked hard enough – the drums are 100% Low Level Owl, for example – it just pulls together these elements in ways that no one else has really bothered to try. TWIABP, though, will pretty much try anything that could be conceived as worthwhile. And they'll pretty much make it work.

If there's one criticism that can be levelled at the band, it's that their directness, their heart-on-sleeve honesty, can sometimes come off a little cheesy, and the addition of poetry stuffed with lines about how we are made up as the same stuff as the stars and are all immortal because of it doesn't really help that. But their ability to occasionally be arms-folded cynics balances that out, and the listener that can find a space somewhere in between a naïve romantic and a miserable bastard will take the most from Between Bodies. Drop your guard, but retain some weariness. Recognise that everything is beautiful and terrible all at the same time, and let this record envelop you. Listen to it on the bus to work when the sun's still coming up, listen to it when you're drunk on the train home at 1AM, listen to it in your house with all the lights off, listen to it on a loop at the office when you're having a shitty day. It'll sound good any time or anywhere, sure, but if you give it room to grow, to take up some space, it will pay real rewards.

REVIEW: EMPIRE! EMPIRE! (I WAS A LONELY ESTATE) - YOU WILL EVENTUALLY BE FORGOTTEN.

I saw Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) twice in two days earlier this year. Although technically a two piece husband-and-wife duo, it's truly Keith Latinen's outlet at heart, and he was borrowing members of his tour buddies The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die as his backing band for the UK run. Both nights, on the final song, the World Is helpers would hop off the stage to leave Keith alone, front and centre. He would explain that he was gonna close on the first song off their forthcoming record, and proceed to punch everyone in square in the gut with a song about his now-wife and bandmate nearly dying on their wedding day. Not a dry eye in the house, goddamn it! For the first time, I've been eagerly looking forward to an Empire! Empire! Release – usually they crop up unannounced, without any buzz, and are comfortingly familiar and wonderful – but this time there's been some real anticipation building. Fortunately, so as not to disappoint now people are finally looking, the Latinens and friends have put out what is probably (but not definitely. But still most likely) their best record yet.

So, the backstory. Long band name stuffed full of punctuation, endless releases stuffed full of pop-culture references, heart-on-sleeve lyrics, and twinkly guitars. Yeah, Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) use so many of emo's historical hallmarks and clichés that it borders on parody, but take anything more than a passing glance and it fortunately comes off as a loving tribute. The big murky pool of 90s-worshipping emo bands that has sometimes gradually, sometimes rapidly swelled and re-emerged in to public consciousness since about 2005 is a hard one to make an impression in, and Empire! Empire! are one of the better ones pretty much because they've never really tried to. Not bowing to mathy trends, not succumbing to ironic detachment, not trying to innovate by clouding the genre with outside influences, Empire! Empire! are unabashedly post-emo-indie-rock condensed in to its purest form, and I think people are finally beginning to take note because of that reputation, rather than just checking them out because they've got to know what a band with such a ridiculous name sounds like.

Always understated, always consistent even over 20 plus releases, Keith Latinen has never had anything to prove with his songwriting, instead setting his cryptically encoded diary to leftover Mineral riffs with haunting results - few bands have evoked such a sense of the necessity of the release provided by making the kind of music that the band loves as Empire! Empire!, and You Will Eventually Be Forgotten is probably the truest realisation of this yet – while the events covered on previous records were clouded by metaphor, the songs contained here are straightforward sketches of days past. The whole thing is drenched in memories, in the catharsis of going back over and re-evaluating both the bigger and smaller moments, with the minutiae of life documented in song. The lyric sheet contains goddamn sub-clauses in parentheses, man. That's how specific it gets. While, musically, You Will Eventually Be Forgotten isn't going to change anyone's minds on the form, lyrically it is something else, with a raw sense of honesty usually reserved for a confessional acoustic solo thing.

On their last full-length, Empire! Empire! flirted with, but never truly embraced, a near-post-rock sense of scale at times, although they've taken more direct routes of late. Album number two doesn't build upon the sound of their interim EPs, doesn't even refine it, really, because it was fine already, just provides more of the same, albeit with a new sense of clarity of expression. Not enough bands rip off Mineral, so it's truly refreshing to hear it happen instead of another American Football wannabe. Simpson even gives his blessing by providing a guest verse (along with Bob Nanna), with the whole thing feeling kind of like a torch-passing, and I'd like to think that Latinen had a hand in bringing Mineral out of retirement.

There's been a lot said about 'emo revival' over the last few years, but a lot of the bands who earn the tag don't really sound all too much like the bands who came before them. That can be a good thing, yeah, because it drives innovation and creativity and so on and so forth, but there's a lot to be said for nostalgia too – the twenty-somethings that make up this scene are particularly susceptible to it, especially when it is done this well. Despite only being a few weeks old, this goddamn record recalls memories that outlive it by years. It already feels real, and maybe even timeless – the cultural references in the song titles may date before too long, but the songs here contain a long-lasting truth which will see this record long outlive many of its peers. While their last full-length was a little more dynamic, You Will Eventually Be Forgotten is a bit more slow-burning, but also more solid, and actually manages to be more immediate because of the lyrical directness. Yeah, it's probably their best work so far.

SORT-OF LIVE REVIEWS: ANDREW WK & CONVERGE.

Converge and Andrew WK are kind of as different as you can get whilst still remaining under the same overriding umbrella of punk or metal or whichever is more appropriate. Both are essentially the pinnacle of their chosen craft, but those crafts seem almost diametrically opposed; Converge are a deathly serious technical metalcore band with deceivingly poetic lyrics delivered through a throat shredding scream, whereas Andrew WK is ridiculous party rock hammered out on a piano with an essentially one-track mind. As different in tone and execution as you'd think possible. But then again, no, they're not so different. Not really. In some ways, anyway. Andrew WK can fuckin' play that piano, man – he's as much a virtuoso as Kurt Ballou is on guitar. And both put so much passion in to everything they do, with Jacob Bannon's enthralling stage presence basically the tough guy equivalent of Andrew WK's endlessly stoked smile. They're not on opposite ends of the spectrum, but are instead opposite sides of the same coin, the two heads of Janus, light and darkness, and other such shitty metaphors.

To be honest, I'm basically going in to all these lazy comparisons because I think it's really weird that the last two bands on my “must see before I die” list (until American Football and Mineral reunited), despite being totally different on the surface, released a collaborative I Get Wet/Jane Doe t-shirt about a month and a half before both of them rolled through the cities either side of where I live within eight days of each other. Like, that's a pretty weird coincidence, right? The link between Andrew WK and Converge must run pretty fuckin' deep. Psychically intertwined or something. I'm just glad they didn't tour together, because I don't think I could have handled it.

I've been a fan of both for quite a long time now. Maybe ten years plus? I probably discovered Andrew WK a bit earlier on, but I've listened to Converge a LOT more, because they're obviously the band with a bit more going on, creativity-wise – most (though certainly not all) of Andrew WK's albums sound pretty much the same, whereas Converge have always pushed themselves to sound different, to challenge themselves, to live up to the fucking perfect album they made thirteen years ago. But both have legendary live shows in my mind - I was told very early on that both of them were incredible, essential viewing – and these were mosh pits I've been waiting a decade to get in to.

The similarities kept coming – weeknight shows with the threat of office hangovers the next day, boring support bands I couldn't care less about, venues I'd never have chosen (Wardrobe in Leeds for Andrew WK and Academy 3 in Manchester for Converge) but ended up actually suiting them perfectly, despite their equally weird bar pricing structure. I did manage to persuade more friends to come out for Andrew WK, though – there were seven of us, whereas I hit Converge on my own.

Both were equally punishing, too. The mosh pit at an Andrew WK show is a non-stop party, everyone just jumping all over the place, grabbing each other for excited hugs, just so stoked on life. The mosh pit at a Converge show is an absolute onslaught of rage and outpourings of aggression – you know what hardcore show pits look like, though fortunately there wasn't really too much tough-guy hardcore shit on display. Both crowds mustered one moderately successful human pyramid each, and although Converge had more stagediving thanks to Academy 3's fortunately lacklustre stage security compared to Wardrobe's, the stage invasion during Party Hard was something else. Both acts have been in the game long enough to know how to put a setlist together too – a range of songs, older and newer, with the stuff from the fan-favourite records dropped in at just the right moments to keep the momentum from fading. Andrew WK sprinkled them throughout the set to keep people involved, whereas Converge held back the Jane Doe stuff until we were absolutely desperate for it.

Once it was all over, I came away with both shows with an overwhelming feeling of relief, joy, sweatiness, and aching muscles. A satisfied feeling of finally seeing shows I'd dreamed of seeing – no finer feeling than a post-show buzz, especially one this long in the making. Only came away with a shirt from Converge, though – Andrew WK didn't have a merch table. If only one of them had the collaboration on sale, it would have been perfect.

IRREGULAR INTERVIEW: CHRIS LAFFERTY - WADE / GET IN TO IT RECS.

If you've been around for a while, or I guess even if you're pretty new to the scene, Chris Lafferty should be a fairly familiar presence. The sad-looking and angsty former singer of SundayxLeague, current singer of Wade, and the surprisingly contrasting upbeat and proactive guy behind Get In To It Records, Chris's work is well established and always well received. I don't know him too well - we've only met a couple of times – but I've always had a lot of respect for the stuff he does. It's well documented here that I think the Get In To It single series is pretty goddamn great, and we'll talk about that a bit later, among other things. This interview mostly took place a while ago, but I don't think anything's happened to make it outdated just yet.

I: First question, Get In To It Recs has only been going for about two and a half years as far as I can remember, which isn't that long in the grand scheme of things, but when you look back at that first compilation you put out, things have really changed in that short time. A fair chunk of the bands have split up and the scene you did a great job of documenting at that moment is really different now. Do you ever feel tempted to sort of look back on a 'golden period', or are you a big welcomer of change? I was wondering also if your own reasons for running the label, or maybe the ethos behind it, has changed along with the 'scene'?

C: That's a good question, yeah. I have looked back at that compilation and it's funny, because in that short time, while some of the bands have split up, a good handful of them that are still going are now considered top of their game. It feels like it was a hundred years ago but I guess it actually is quite a short span really. I think the label started with the idea that the comp was based around, and as you surmised - documenting that point in time. So I suppose in that respect, as the label has grown alongside the growth or development of 'the scene', it has changed with it, but I think it's actually changed in general; while we started wanting to document and share that specific thing, I think at this point we have curated a good variety of stuff throughout our catalogue, and I'd like to think we've moved away from being perceived as an 'emo label'. That said, in terms of what we're doing, the ethos is pretty much the same - I still just want to try and represent bands, artists and ideas that I think are worth sharing.

I: I think you're right about the label moving away from being an 'emo label' and it'd be pretty dull if you stuck to releasing increasingly unoriginal versions of the bands on that first comp - your releases are fairly diverse for a small catalogue and I think by and large you're just considered a D.I.Y. label now. Still, you have to get pretty far away to escape the tag or association because, I guess in a similar way to in say 2003 but nowhere near as annoying, the definition of the genre is broadening as the popularity grows again. Nai Harvest is a good example - they're going for the grungy college indie thing but they'll probably never escape the emo tag. What do you reckon to the sudden burst in popularity of the 'revival' that seems to be coming, even as many who were sort of there a few years ago are starting to move away from it?

C: It's definitely been an ongoing thing for a while now - I mean we thought the revival was in full swing back in the early days of the label/when we were just starting my old band, Sunday League, and it's worlds different now even since then. If you had told me in 2011 that D.I.Y. emo bands would be the toast of the NME etc., I'd have laughed it off. It's weird, but I guess it's an inevitable thing when a scene gets bigger or bands start picking up major speed outside of their initial roots. While we are enjoying the idea of distancing ourselves from one particular sound or scene, we are still obviously releasing records that could fall under that emo umbrella, in whatever degree, so I still try to keep my ear to the ground, but to be honest I personally have given up even thinking about genre titles and such, though I will say I think we could be approaching saturation point on the whole twinkly-pizza-anthem schtick. I could live without any more of that, specifically.

I: I could definitely live without any pizzatwinklecore. It's so played out. Obvious and meaningless Simpsons references should possibly disappear too. What about your current band, Wade - how would you class yourselves and who's influencing you at the moment?

C: I completely agree. I wouldn't want to negate or deny anybody's self expression, but you can only hear the same thing so many times.

As far as Wade's place in the whole thing, I wouldn't consider us an 'emo band', but I don't know what I would pin it as. I asked Nate (guitarist in Wade) what he thought and he didn't say much about it either, ha. I guess we exist within that area, but I think more through association than anything else. But that's fine, and there are a lot of bands like that in the UK at the moment, who I would say you couldn't call emo, but also couldn't describe as just straight up 'punk' or 'indie'. That's a good thing in my view. And as I said earlier, I truly don't care about tagging anything under one genre or title. That stuff's good for Bandcamp but they're pretty catch-all and unspecific. Personally I'm being influenced by a lot of stuff I've been reading recently, horror fiction, books about demonology and stuff. I'm trying again to get a bit further through a book about radical scientific theories at the moment, quantum mechanics, alternate realities and such, which is pretty inspiring creatively, but I end up having to research technical terms for a long time after half a chapter. Musically, I've just been listening to loads of old punk bands, Wire, The Wipers, and I'm really into the new Creative Adult album.

I: I listened to the Wade EP today for the first time in a while, and I'd forgotten how good it was, and how much of a step up it was from stuff you've done before. I always forget how Wade emerged out of your last band, Sunday League, so could you fill me in for the benefit of anyone equally clueless?

C: Thanks! I think it's the best thing any of us have been involved with in terms of records, yeah, although I am really excited to move on from that now and record some newer stuff.

We rolled right into it after Sunday League. Basically, Sunday League started with me, Mark (bass in Wade), our friend Joe who now plays in Momentum, and our friend Nathan. Over the course of the first year or so Joe and Mark both left for whatever reasons and were replaced with Steve (drums in Wade) and Nate respectively. So we were all in that band at one point or another. We actually started Wade up while SL was still active, though it was a totally different band at that point (in fact we were trying to do a hardcore side project kind of thing at first). When SL split, Wade took the main focus and we decided to go with what we know and do something a bit lighter, which is when we wrote the two songs from the Healing Powers split, among others. We cut a stupid as fuck Four Year Strong style breakdown out of Hail Chillingham just before we recorded it, thank goodness.

I: I think I would probably have enjoyed it more with the breakdown, but that's just me. Anyway. I think my favourite thing you've done with Get In To It is the single series – all three of those releases have been pretty outstanding. What prompted you to start it under a sort of 'brand' rather than just releasing them as normal? Also, they, like many of your releases, come out on tape and I was wondering what the appeal is of tape releases for you as an independent label?

C: I am pretty happy with how the Singles are going, so thanks! To be honest the idea of putting the singles out in a focused series sort of just happened organically- that's just how I originally imagined it going. I didn't think about it too much, and haven't, until you just asked me, haha. I suppose I just wanted to control the perception of the releases as much as possible - one thing I did consider was, I didn't want them to be seen as just short EPs or whatever. I like the idea of them being their own thing. We have some ideas regarding the Singles Series which should be cool though so I'm really enjoying working on it. I get asked the 'why tapes?' question a lot. From the POV of the label, the advantages are obvious - cheaper than vinyl, but more interesting than CDs. That's about the size of it. There are other factors at play though, namely the fact that I just love tapes. While I've been concentrating on my record collection recently, I probably put more care and effort into my tape collection. We can do a bit more in the way of creative packaging with tapes too, which is cool.

I: Yeah, your packaging is one of the things thats caught people's eyes a lot in the past I think, and you have a lot of label brand merch too - there's a real emphasis on the physical. Is this something you always set out to do?

C: Yeah, it was something I wanted to put emphasis on- the first proper Get Into It release was the Sunday League EP, and that sort of set the precedent for the first year or so in terms of the total hands-on approach to it - hand designed, hand cut and manufactured packaging, etc. I'm still as hands-on as I can be but I do sometimes outsource more tedious aspects for my own sanity, stuff like cutting, scoring, so on and so forth. But yeah, the physical product is really important to me - I just feel, if the end result is something that you couldn't care less about having in your hands, then we may as well just be releasing downloads.

I: Get In To It and Wade are based up in Newcastle, which isn't a town I know a lot else about in terms of music coming out of it - what is the scene like up there at the moment?

C: The scene in Newcastle is touch and go - I've been putting shows on for a few years now and in terms of surface level it's evolved from being very focused on hardcore, to what it's like now, where almost everything is contained - people are always asking about the 'Newcastle emo scene' and it seems like a real thing because we have a handful of really good bands under that umbrella, but it's not it's own scene. We have real punker bands like Pure Graft and Farman but they cross over with alternative indie bands like Cauls, there is some sharing of members with Wade even... heavier bands like End Reign and Tide of Iron... But for the most part we're all playing the same kinda of shows, put on my the same promoters. We are really close to Durham so honourable mentions to ONSIND and Martha et. al, some of my favourite bands/people. It all sounds really thriving, I guess, but it goes up and down. There are times when you can't even guarantee a turnout for a band who would be killing it in any other UK city. But despite that, we do well for gigs; there's a small but dedicated core of promoters and we have some really great bands.

I: From the sound of it, it's a pretty similar narrative to most smaller/"non-major" towns - Huddersfield, York, Bristol, Leicester - they all seem to have similar problems. But I've been feeling for a few years now that the idea of a 'local scene' is becoming less and less relevant and in some ways it's a good thing and in some ways it's a bad thing. When I was younger, if someone moved out of town or whatever, then the band was finished, because the band rarely played out of that town. But the internet has made it easier for bands to stay together, and book tours, and find out of town shows, and now the idea of having a unified "UK scene" seems much more possible than it did when I was a kid. But then maybe I was just exposed to it less. What do you reckon?

C: Honestly I think Newcastle's major issue is the lack of younger blood coming into the scene. There's a bunch of younger people starting bands, but in terms of gig attendees, not so much. But in terms of the internet's contribution, I think you're right in that it has positive and negative effects; the upshot being the ease of networking for bands booking and such, obviously. The main negative repercussion as I see it is that it sometimes feels like a culture of disconnect for a lot of people outside of the bands and such. Anyone can sit at home, stream something on Bandcamp, order a shirt, order a record, and that's it, done. Then that band rolls through on tour and the turnout on the night is less than amazing. But, going back to the original question of 'THE SCENE', I sort of like the idea of local scenes becoming irrelevant, if for no other reason than the fact we live in a small enough country that going out and exploring the extended scene is really easy, which can only be a good thing.

I: I think agree with you on there being a disconnect, though I also get the impression that for a lot of people the important thing is to show off your merch collection online rather than actually show your face at shows - I feel like you see less people get involved, but the ones that do are the ones who are really dedicated and there's some really great people doing some awesome things out there right now. Who would you say are doing good things for 'the scene' at the moment - labels, promoters, venues, etc?

C: I've tried to answer this one a few times now and I keep scrapping my list because I'm basically listing all my friends as my mind moves up the country geographically, haha. There are a ton of great people in these circles, starting to list them would make me uncomfortable in case I forget anyone. Can we ~pass~ on this one?

I: We can definitely pass on that one because I know how it goes, though I'm sure you'd be forgiven for forgetting someone. Final question then, what's in the pipeline for GIIR at the moment? Any plans for the next releases?

C: Lots of stuff! We have releases scheduled from Claw The Thin Ice, Good Terms, Lake Michigan (another split release with the Wolf Town guys), and a few others. It's gonna be a busy year. We have vinyl releases, a couple of cassette EPs and more singles. We are going to start looking into releasing some art and/or zines soon too. We all just want to put out as much cool shit as possible.

IRREGULAR INTERVIEW: JAMES CLAYTON / CRYWANK.

It's funny how things work out. When I started this little music blog, James Clayton, AKA Crywank, was one of the first people I thought about talking to. We started this interview way back on the 25th of April, and I'm writing this on the 31st of July – a lot has happened between these two dates, for both of us. I gave up on doing Irregular about a month ago, and James' desire to not let ten thousand plus words and weeks of effort go to waste was what convinced me to start it up again. And it's back now, I'll be updating this site as much as the name suggests I will, but it's back, and it seems fitting that the conversation James and I had would be the comeback post.

I first met James at what I thought was his first ever show but, as will be revealed later, was actually his second. I was impressed by the rawness of his songs, and the relatively huge reaction he was getting from the crowd for someone so unknown. I can't remember how we made contact after that. I think it was probably through last.fm – he was messaging everyone who had played his first album.

He played in my then- (and still-) ex girlfriend's kitchen soon afterwards. I didn't go, because it would have been awkward, but I remember him sending me a message to say he was sorry I couldn't be there. I liked that. And he's been a familiar and welcome presence at shows and on my iPod ever since. I've been a big supporter of his music as he's got better and better, and will defend him from anyone who's got a bad thing to say about him, because he is genuinely a better guy than most people (and he himself) seem to give him credit for. He also once answered my phone for me when I was in the middle of an intense Pokémon battle after a show. What more can you ask for from a person?

But in the last year or so we've not seen each other so much – I got a full time job, and Crywank has kept him busier and busier, so we've not crossed paths all that often. So I guess this is as much a catching up session as it is an interview between a blogger and a folk punk singer. I hope you get to know both of us a little better.

I: There's so much I want to talk to you about and I'm not sure what to ask that would set us off the best. We'll start out a bit lighter I guess. Crywank has always been a bit of a slow-moving project - not in popularity, because you've always had an impressive amount of people interested in what you do right from the very start - but you're really starting to get moving on a lot of things in recent months. What's brought all this on?

JC: You know I haven't really thought about how much has gone on in the last half of a year. Now you've specifically said that I'm starting to get moving on things, I've only just really noticed that a lot has happened. We released our third album online, did a tour with one of Dan's other bands (Old Skin), we released an EP online, finally got some merch made, started a pretty dumb video series, and I started a Simpsons-themed side project. It sounds like a lot when put together in a list, but to be honest I've been feeling more inactive as a musician than I ever have.

I guess what brought on the productivity was for the first time since starting we had some money to play with, thanks to the Bandcamp sales of Tomorrow Is Nearly Yesterday And Everyday Is Stupid. It did a lot better than I could have hoped (especially considering the pretty poor job I did of promoting it) so the £1 we asked for added up. We had enough to pay for recording again, a tour, and also t-shirts. Now the moneys all gone and we have too much stock of dinosaur dick t-shirts. Hopefully they'll be 'in' next season.

I've got one more tour booked at this point and nothing planned afterwards so I'm feeling pretty directionless. I left my job in Feburary after an anxiety attack/cockroach infestation/electric shock combo and haven't found work since. I told myself I could put all my time into Crywank, but all that's really stemmed into is a downward spiral of self-analysis. It's pretty easy to feel like any sort of creative output your doing is a waste of time when you're unemployed, and that you should be exclusively focused on job hunting.

I get a surprising amount of emails and messages asking me to release my music on record or to tour America or Australia. This used to encourage me to continue and make me believe I could do these things people wanted me to do. Now they just serve as reminders that I haven't done it yet, and I'm starting to believe I never will. I see lesser known bands over and over again achieve this, and I wonder why I haven't managed it. Do they just have more money? Is it my stupid band name ruining it for me? Have they just got 'in' with the right people? Have they all just gotten lucky? I know why it is though. They'll all be more driven. I don't put enough effort in, I don't have enough faith in my music anymore. I'm very lucky in regards to the fanbase I have. Not many artists know they can put work out and people will respond to it. It's shameful that I so often ignore my good fortune in favour of my own jealousy fuelled pity party.

I: I sort of feel like all of this is just intrinsically part of what makes 'Crywank' what it is. It always makes me sad to see you so down on yourself about your music and what you do with it, because I think your achievements are bigger than you realise. You've put out three proper albums, a bunch of EPs and demo collections, and you've had this amazing response to them. I remember seeing you at what I think must have been your first show and people were already singing along! But the thing is, if you were a music industry gameplayer who did all these things, who toured America and had a ton of slick shirt designs, then you probably wouldn't write the songs you do. And that's what people react to, I think they relate to your songs, and also you as a person, because although your songs and experiences are unique to you, they speak pretty universally. You have one of the smallest egos of any musician I know in regards to your own music!

You've improved a lot too, which you should be given some credit for - I feel like your first album is always going to be a 'fan favourite', but both of the ones that have come after it have been big steps up in terms of both the playing and the songwriting, and it's all happened in the space of a few years - plenty of bands have much longer spaces between releases, do a fraction of the shows you do. Plenty of bands can't afford vinyl releases or to tour abroad either.

JC: I guess thats the problem, my failings do in a way define what Crywank is. Through making myself the focus of my music I think all I've managed to do is make myself feel a lot more anxious about the whole thing. I take every negative comment too personally, I fear people who don't know me making judgements on my character based entirely on a song, or an interview, or how I acted one night at a show, and I've grown to resent nearly everything I've written. Sometimes I wish I'd made 'Crywank' a cartoon character and been more private online. Sometimes I wish I'd not even put Crywank online and just focused my efforts on getting a good job. I'm aware of how what I've done with Crywank can be seen as achievements but when I can't pay my rent, buy food or tobacco and end up relying on the people who love me to keep me alive it feels like spending all day trying to write songs and practice guitar is a waste of time and is just disrespectful.

I think people have faith in me when they see the reaction I've had online, how some fans act at shows and some of the lovely messages I've received, but I'm not sure I'm ever going to go anywhere. I'll likely just fizzle out and be forgotten. It sort of terrifies me because for the past five years 'Crywank' as a project has exclusively felt like the only thing I have going for me. It's frustrating that through my own laziness and anxiety I've made so little of the opportunities I've had. A lot of this mindset may have stemmed from my current unemployment. When I've got a job (even if it's crappy), I'm a guy who works the job who has a fun music project on the side. When I'm unemployed, careerwise all I have is the music project and I dwell on how little I've done with it when I compare myself to others.

I: It's interesting to me that you said the response to your newest album has paid for a lot of stuff - why has it taken you this long to start giving people the option to pay for your music?

JC: It took me so long to let people pay for it because I wanted to be a 'free musician' so bad. It made me feel more real, I guess. I imagined how I'd want a musician to be and I wanted to try and be that. I liked the idea of people knowing that it wasn't about the money and that I didn't want anything from them as it was so humbling that they where giving my music their time. I've lost money on shows though, I've paid for later recordings and I couldn't afford to keep making a loss on Crywank. I put my music on Bandcamp, then when the download credits ran out I raised the price to £1. When people give more, especially right now, it's crazy appreciated, but I don't think I do the best job of showing that to them though.

I: That's interesting to me, that you say you wanted to be a free musician, where do you think that has come from? As you're an artist that would be easily classified as folk punk, I can't help but think of Plan-It-X and their ethos of "If It Ain't Cheap, It Ain't Punk" - they never said it had to be free! Quote Unquote have always given the option to donate too, and they're sort of the pioneers of free punk. I think people have an expectation that music should be free and that, in many ways, strips it of value. But giving people the option to give money in exchange for it allows them to place a greater value on it. I can't help but think if you'd had the option to pay for your music from the beginning and people had always paid for it, you might see more personal value in what you're doing, along with a financial one. What do you think to that?

JC: I think it came from a lot of places. Firstly me being anxious and attaching no worth to the project. Secondly me preferring exposure to money, I mean, I just wanted people to hear my songs, I didn't think anybody in the right mind would pay for it. More than anything I think guilt was a major player in this decision. I don't think I've paid for music since I was about thirteen. Occasionally I'll get records or CDs from charity shops if they look good/funny, but I've been downloading music for quite a while (although now I just tend to stream stuff on Youtube). When I started listening to music and buying CDs I was really into Brand New, Modest Mouse, The White Stripes, System of a Down and, embarrassingly, I felt 'so damn alternative'. It wasn't until I started downloading music that I stopped getting my recommendations from big magazines and music videos played on the 'rock channel'. I started listening to other people's opinions, listening to a lot of older music and unsigned bands, and really felt like I'd started to develop my own taste in music. Downloading music allowed me to explore these areas that financially I never could have, and that was a very positive experience for me. I guess as a musician, I wanted to be a positive experience for other people doing the same. I find it funny when you see a well dressed, rich musician claim they're not in it for the money despite overwhelming evidence that money is a major factor in the decisions they made. I guess I just wanted to be seen as someone who genuinely wasn't in it for the money, worked a minimum wage job, would play your house and only ask for the petrol and put everything online for free. When people told me they wanted to help or donate money I'd tell them it'd mean more if they just shared my music with their friends, or posted it somewhere public online. I look back and it seems quite contrived. I think it says more about how I wanted to be perceived rather than what I actually believed. I was treating myself as a concept and not as someone who was also trying to survive.

If people had been able to pay from the start, even just as an option, I think I would have been able to do more with my music. Friends have told me about the money I've probably missed out on for my decisions so I try not to think about it too much. I wish money wasn't as important to me right now. I sometimes wonder if my nineteen year old self would see me now and be proud of me or just disappointed. When I think of value as something monetary rather than subjective I struggle to view myself as anything but a failure.

I: The idea of I guess essentially staying D.I.Y. and giving things away for free being a 'concept' is an interesting one - do you think D.I.Y. in general has a tendency to become... I dunno... almost fetishised as an ideal, with some going to extreme lengths to show off how D.I.Y. they are rather than it just being a natural way of doing things borne out of circumstance? I remember when TWIABP mentioned they were booking their tour through Avocado and everyone went off on one about how they were being stupid and should just let people they'd never met and had no personal references for book their tour for them. Especially odd when they've never really claimed to be a D.I.Y. band and are probably too big to gamble on it anymore. Do you think of yourself/Crywank as being "D.I.Y."?

JC: This probably sounds silly considering I've written all over the internet that we're a D.I.Y. folk band and people have even interviewed me for their Uni dissertations on D.I.Y. ethics, but it's not something I feel like I have the best understanding of. I don't really listen to too many D.I.Y. punk bands anymore and I've never felt too knowledgeable about the history of D.I.Y. punk. People take what they want from the ideas tied into D.I.Y. culture though and some utilise them with more integrity than others; two self proclaimed D.I.Y. bands are often quite different in how they function despite subscribing to the same label. I can be quite the cynic about things though and an awareness of my own pretensions can result in me (sometimes unfairly) projecting that on others. I certainly think I've thoughtlessly made decisions in the past based on how I'll be perceived, and feigning D.I.Y. ethics rather than admitting to shortcomings. For example I've rambled to people in the past about how I don't really want magazines that advertise writing about us. This is true, but it's also true that I'm too lazy to write and send off a press release anyway. Then I question if my 'moral conclusion' is in fact just a contrived excuse for my laziness. A defence mechanism that projects an idea of my music somehow being precious and of my character being moral to disguise my shameful inactivity.

I think of Crywank as a D.I.Y. band. I'm also aware that at the moment D.I.Y. is seen as pretty cool and the unpopular thirteen year old who still lives inside my head would also like to be perceived that way. I don't really see much of a difference between a D.I.Y. band and an unsigned band though, I just enjoy the term D.I.Y. a lot more. I don't like it when a bands status with a record label becomes a defining term for them. It makes bands who aren't signed to a label seem less legitimate and that getting signed would be the expected logical step to take next. D.I.Y. has more of a focus on what has been accomplished already, it's a lot nicer and it is a good step towards a new music terminology being created that isn't defined by industry expectations.

I: With all that in mind I also want to ask how your attitude to Crywank as a project has changed since you began it - what is your goal now as compared to when you started out?

JC: When Crywank started it was just a cathartic exercise. I sort of viewed it as self-abasing due to how embarrassed I felt by some of the songs, but that's likely stemmed from me reading a lot into humiliation and denying the universal embarrassment and fear that comes from sharing creative output publicly in favour of the self-absorbed ownership of these feelings. James Is Going To Die Soon and Narcissist On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown where both written whilst I was reading a lot into self-worth, social anxiety and abasement, and I soon came to realize how these universal aspects for all human beings where also subjective emotions. They are a response to expectations or a lack of understanding of those expectations, and I guess that affected me lyrically in a way where I wanted to focus on what made these emotions universal. I guess that's why both albums don't tell many stories, I read back on my lyrics and the majority is written in a blunt stream of consciousness style. I think people are more likely to listen to a Crywank song and relate in a way which is "I think like that" rather than "I've been through that". My thought processes can beat myself up, and a lot of my creativity is wasted on different ways of wording the mantra of 'you suck' that's been stuck in my head for years. My lyrics are the consequence of me trying to make something productive with my materials being different criticisms I have with myself, I guess.

I think I'm smarter than I am, I talk a lot of crap and maybe I just wrote some twee songs that I have over-analysed after playing them all too much. I wonder what sort of influence I am on people. I am bored of writing about myself but I find it difficult to do much else. I'd like to be a good influence on peoples lives, and write songs that reflect on universal aspects without them all being related back to myself. I go around the country asking for money for people to listen to my creative output which is all about myself, mostly written so I can shroud myself in some illusion of identity. I've analysed my own intentions and output so much that I struggle to enjoy it. Tomorrow Is Nearly Yesterday And Everyday Is Stupid has some songs I like a lot more than my earlier stuff. "Crywank are Posers" and "I am Shit" are two of the songs I still feel proud of, usually by this point I've grown to resent every song I've written and only enjoy newer stuff I've been writing. I want to experiment more, specifically with narrative. I've been slowly working on two concept albums over the past three years, but I've probably spoken about them more than I've done work towards them. I'm thirteen tracks into one album, but a lot more work needs to be done. Me and Dan have been writing some songs for a full band called 'The Shape of Punk Right Now'. I've spent too much time thinking "what the fuck have I done?/am I doing?/am I trying to do?", so I have a lot of muddled and conflicting thoughts. I struggle to pinpoint an intent without then analysing the contrived desire to be perceived in a certain way, thus draining all of the selflessness I thought I was projecting. I'm a silly man who needs to listen to other people more. I: The addition of a percussionist has definitely done pretty great things for both your sound and your live performances, though you have improved a lot both as a singer and guitarist since the first album, so the fact that you've been writing full-band songs is really exciting.

The fact that you get hung up on only writing about yourself seems a bit unfair - although it's a two piece band now, Crywank was originally just a solo project and I think people (me included) saw 'Crywank' as an identity/stage name rather than as a band name, you 'were' Crywank, rather than being 'in' Crywank, so obviously you would be writing about yourself and yourself only - that's obviously to be expected and you're certainly not the only person who does it. But now that's obviously changed (Yoni Wolf/Why? is the better known example that comes to mind) - has it been hard to let someone else in to something so personal and sort of relinquish that identity a little bit?

This also seems as good a place as any to bring up one of your other concept projects, the Landon Alger EP, which contains songs written from the perspective of an incredibly minor Simpsons character - so obviously you can write songs about things other than yourself. Or did you choose that character because you could relate?

JC: I can be pretty unfair to myself. I project standards onto myself that I wouldn't expect of others, and I speak about it to the degree that its probably my most annoying trait. I think the mindset stems from a mixture of arrogance, over-analysis, and a fear of being criticised, and my blabbing on about it is just a poorly thought out defence mechanism essentially saying "hey, in the event you thought of this judgement of me, I just wanted you to know I thought it as well". I think being defined by 'Crywank' is one of the things that made my headspace pretty difficult for a while. All criticism seemed personal, a fear of people making assumptions of me based entirely on a number of songs I wrote which don't really reflect too well on me took it's toll and treating Crywank conceptually as something sad but always in relation to myself has made writing a wholly self-involved experience that relies on me admitting to my misery to continue. I'll want to break out of this and try and reveal a deep-ingrained silliness I feel though my often poor choice of song titles, social media updates or poorly made guitar lessons, but I'll eventually conclude with thoughts that I've just made a fool out of myself publicly regardless of how I put myself across.

I'm glad you say you're excited by the full band prospect. It's something I've considered for a long time but I've always imagined the songs would end up sounding more generic with more instrumentation. I've been jamming recently with my friend Tom and the re-workings of older songs are a lot more interesting than I'd expected. I hope people enjoy them when they get recorded. As well as expanding on the sound as I'm really not too sure how many more acoustic Crywank albums people could tolerate, going full band will hopefully separate me personally from Crywank. Crywank can be a band and I can just be a guy in that band. Although I'm probably optimistic considering I'm the founding member and all I'll likely do is wrongly overshadow far more talented musicians than myself who have foolishly chosen to associate with me. I consider changing the name a lot but I can't imagine that going down well. To answer your question, It's been easy bringing people in. They're all really talented musicians and I'm really excited to write music with them. I'm sure some people would prefer it if everyone I loved died and I wrote an album in tears on a webcam microphone, but I'm tired of sad songs about break-ups I'm pretty embarrassed by, and personal difficulties I've impulsively decided to share with the world. I want to experiment and develop and I think this is the start of that.

Langdon Alger was just a silly gift to my partner. A silly weird gift, It was initially meant to be love songs but eventually I realised it'd be a lot more interesting if Langdon was a stalker. Lyrically nothing is fresh though. Nearly everything is taken from plentiful rewatches of episodes and research into the series. It felt more like doing a nerdy Simpsons mashup to give the idea of a plot rather than songwriting. I have lots of 'concept band' ideas though that I end up speaking too much about. For years I've wanted to do an emo band called 'The Tommy Sherman Memorial Tree' where every song is about an episode of Daria, I've also recently been rambling about a skate punk band based on the Wizard of Oz where the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion all die in accidents relating to their brains, hearts and courage. I wrote loads of lyrics for a self-hating beatdown band who only sung about how bad they were and how much they hated their fans for liking them (my favourite line was "second song, same riff, fuck you"). I was about to go into detail on more ideas but I would end up going on for paragraphs. All I meant to say then was that it was nice to have had a conceptual band idea and for me to actually go ahead and do it. It's really rare I follow through on ideas. Most of my time is spent just having ideas and then criticizing myself (far too vocally and annoyingly) until I've decided I won't be able to achieve it. I: I love stupid concept bands, I'm always coming up with them myself too. Though they're mostly just pun cover band ideas like Queens Of The Drone Age and so on. But yeah, I guess this just means, whether you see it that way yourself or not, that the stuff you actually do release must pass some sort of 'quality control' that goes on in your head - there's obviously a reason why you finish some things and not others. I mean, you've sent me the odd demo in the past and it's never really been as good as the stuff that makes it on to the albums.

You've reminded me of two people in your last answer - Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra, who says on a bootleg recording I have of him that he writes and makes records for his partner every year, and the songs are generally more personal and very few of them become Manchester songs, and Toby Hayes of Shoes and Socks Off, who had to stop doing SASO because it relied on sad songs and he just wasn't sad enough to write them anymore. Although Crywank has gained a lot of momentum it seems like you're worrying a bit too much about moving away from it - I think if you started a new project, or a new band, people would be excited to hear it because it's the new thing from James Clayton. I know I would be.

JC: Most of my concept band ideas that never go somewhere usually start with a dumb name or idea then trying to imagine how that'd sound. I was joking about the genre 'post drone' and what it'd sound like. I imagine a drone band with loads of tiny gaps in between the sound creating a weird throb. I guess 'post drone' could also be called 'ambient gabber', but I've definitely been thinking about it too much for how bad of an idea it is. I'm not too sure about the mental 'quality control', I go ahead with some pretty bad ideas. I think resources and ability comes into it a lot. A lot of my ideas seem above my capacity. My ideal job would be an 'ideas person', as I rarely have the motivation or self-belief to actually follow through with ideas, regardless of how good I consider them to be. I relate to what you've said about Andy Hull, I have some songs that are both too silly or too personal to ever feel comfortable sharing. I think it's also worth mentioning how much of an influence Tobias Hayes has been on my music. "From the muddy banks..." was for a long long time my most played album. I think Crywank would sound very different (or perhaps not even exist) if it wasn't for his influence. I do worry a lot about moving away from Crywank, along with feeling like it's the only thing I've got going for me right now it'd also feel weirdly like a defeat if I did. I don't know why though, I can't explain it.

I: I did wanna change tack a bit unless you've got nothing else to say along those lines. Something that you're getting a reputation for is not being afraid to call people out, particularly if you see examples of the sexism or misogyny that are rife in the UK punk community. The Bangers zine is the most notable one, and it made you fairly unpopular in some corners amongst people who couldn't differentiate between a critique of someone's work, and an attack on the person themselves. I don't want to dwell too much on it because it's been hashed out and rehashed endlessly, but I am interested to know what it was that made you want to start calling people out for shitty behaviour. The glass-shattering moment for me was the Ben Weasel incident, and seeing the reactions to it - I had always been more aware than most, I think, of issues with sexism within the scene, but it was that incident that made me sit up and see just how much it was going on, and that it needed speaking out about. Did you have a similar moment or was it more of a gradual thing? JC: I didn't know I'd gotten such a reputation until the past year, it has caused me loads of anxiety and doubt. If I see something I disagree with that's been unchallenged, I'll end up feeling some sort of obligation to challenge it. I'm pathetic though, I hide behind my keyboard. Real world confrontation makes me panic and I too often keep my mouth shut, that reputation you speak of just furthers my feelings of fakeness because I have to live with my own hypocrisy. The other day I was having a conversation about how it's better to explain to someone how what they've said is intolerant rather than keeping quiet and thus reinforcing to that person that what they've said is acceptable. This was followed shortly by someone saying "racism is retarded" and ashamedly I said nothing to them because I was staying at their house and didn't want to appear rude. I look back with my paranoia goggles and wonder if I was having my authenticity tested, and how miserably I failed. They perhaps thought nothing of it; everyone was drunk, but I ended up thinking about that for days. I feel tainted a lot of the time, like I don't even have the right to call something out because I'm such a hypocrite myself.

If anything I'm trying to be quieter within the UK Punk community. This stems entirely from my own weakness over anything else though. I'm a pretty paranoid person and everyone seeming to know each other within the scene can really exacerbate my anxieties. Since writing my blog post on the Bangers zine I've had people start conversations just to argue with me and start conversations with me just to badmouth Bangers, neither of which I'd really want. There was a period where I was having to discuss this with someone at every show I was going to. I've had people tell me I was a bully and then others tell me I was too 'soft' and forgiving. The whole experience just seemed to reinforce reasons why I should keep my mouth shut, which I'm aware isn't the most progressive of attitudes. In arguments and discussions people have challenged me before saying that I'm only speaking out for 'punk points' or cred. Now, these points make no comment on what I have said being right or wrong, they just dismiss the whole thing as a furthering of how I want to be perceived. This caused a lot of doubt and made me question why and how I speak out. I'm aware it's a tactic that's irrelevant to the main point which is used to play on someones anxieties to silence them, but I can't help but find self-hating strands of truth within it. Perhaps I did just say this for cred. Perhaps I did just do that to impress someone. Perhaps I do this like that to be perceived a certain way. I hope this is a mindset I can eventually get over, but I find it hard not to impulsively analyse every intention of every seemingly worthwhile action I make until it descends in me beating myself up for being contrived. The song "I Am Shit" pretty much stemmed from a lot of thoughts like these. I do try and make my voice heard when I disagree with something, but I'd feel like a phony if I didn't also admit that a lot of the time my anxieties win out.

In regards to your question, it was a gradual thing. I remember being in a sociology class at sixteen and arguing against feminism, and holding pretty questionable ideas about sexuality, gender and race. I guess my interest in music, comics and film is what slowly smashed the glass for me. Feminist film theory, documentaries like 'Beyond Beats and Rhymes', 'The Celluloid Closet' and 'Southern Comfort', comics by Alison Bechdel and Ken Dahl, writing on comics by Trina Robbins, and bands like ONSIND and Sleater-Kinney all had an effect on encouraging me to read further. I really like some of the talks I've seen with Allen G Johnson, he's pretty great at explaining quite complex ideas very simply. He helped me a lot on understanding issues that wouldn't affect me as a white cismale, on understanding privilege and on how to be a better ally.

I: See, in conversations I've had with others about you, I've seen a lot of people defend you for calling people out about stuff and there's definitely people who think your voice is an important one, and I really hope you don't lose the confidence to be able to do these things. You definitely encourage people to think about things, see things in a different light they maybe hadn't considered before. I mean, you have the ear of a fair few people, and quite a lot of younger kids are listening to you - remember that Leeds show with Garrett from Texas Is The Reason and Karl Larrsson? You had the biggest crowd of the night and the kids there were hanging off your every word, man. I'm not trying to say you are, or need to be, a role model or anything, but for people to see someone calling out shitty behaviour, in any small way, is a really positive thing. It's also good to see it from musicians that aren't themselves overtly political musically. So y'know. Good going!

Anyway, to change tack again, you've mentioned a few influences now and I'm just curious to know any others you have that you want to mention?

JC: Challenging intolerant attitudes is important and I'm very flattered some people think my voice is an important one, I just don't want to be portrayed as righteous because of a few public actions when ethically my days are punctuated with weakness and hypocrisy. Sometimes when people speak about ethics, they can in a way which appears like a reflection on the speaker rather than on society (although I think this isn't always intentional). I consciously try not to do this and find that it's more relatable for a reader if people stand by their ethics whilst still being able to admit their own ethical shortcomings. I remember in Roo from Bangers' response to my critique, he made a point about how "we (people) are not always perfect snowflakes, and I think it’s really fucked up to act like we are" and I completely agree, although I don't see how this point related to my critique at all and seemed to misunderstand and twist what I was saying; as if through writing about sexist and homophobic attitudes in his bandmate's zine I was trying to purport that everyone should deny their ethical and personal flaws to give the impression that being ethical is easy? I think it's pretty negative especially within the punk scene when a discussion of the effects of language and words is twisted into an attempt to silence expression through accusations of lazy moralism, but I also think it's a pretty normal defence mechanism for people who feel challenged. I don't want to censor or silence anyone, I just want to discuss. It's easier to call someone the 'punk police' than to consider another point of view. There's evidence that this isn't what I was trying to do within the critique, I did try to explain how intolerant/oppressive language can be used in a satirical, subversive or even a poetic way, I just I didn't believe their zine managed to do that at all and just reinforced a lot of bullshit.

I told myself I wouldn't write loads about Bangers and their zine in this interview as I'm pretty tired of discussing it and it'd be way more productive to speak broadly, but it's something that's affected me a lot and I did just re-read the whole thing recently and it's all pretty fresh in my head, so I hope you don't mind if I use this opportunity to vent. With hindsight I wish I'd put more effort in to separate 'Hamish' as a person with 'Hamish' as a narrator, although I think there is evidence that I did try to do that I don't think I was consistent with this. He seems like a genuinely nice guy from my brief experiences speaking to him (online), and about him with his acquaintances. I hate the idea that I hurt him with what I wrote. Sure, I think he should be embarrassed by the zine, and I stand by what I said, but it makes me resent myself when I think about how it was me who embarrassed him. I don't want to have a negative effect on someone else's life and even though I felt like I'd done and said the right thing, I couldn't shake feelings of guilt. A buddy briefly spoke to me about it and made me feel a lot better in regards to how I should perceive the situation. I was aware of a lot of people who where offended by it, who didn't want to say anything because of the inevitable shitstorm that comes from 'calling out', so I did, and she explained to me that I had given Bangers a platform to apologize to the people they'd offended. Hamish used the platform well, although I sort of think Roo's response twisted a lot of what I'd said and had a fair few contradictions within it. One of the main criticisms I received was for not challenging Roo's response and for just thanking him for just responding to my critique. I sort of wanted to be done with it though, I'd started getting hate mail, read jokes made about me, people kept inviting me on Facebook to say I'd attended all girls schools for some reason, it was all really annoying and also pretty surprising. I don't even think Roo had read what I'd written properly, unless he consciously wanted to skew what I was about. He made the point "I think it’s incredibly isolating to only read books and listen to songs where people are morally correct heroes" as if this in any way reflects on me or has any relevance to what I wrote. I mean within the critique, I recommend Ivan Brunetti one of the most morally incorrect comic writers in the business. I should shut up now, I'll just get pissed off and go on forever if I allow myself to start dissecting his response. I'll change gears and just lay down some sweet influences!

I'd like to think my draw of influences stretches further than just musicians. The comic artist Chris Ware has had a definite influence on my lyricism; the song 18 from James Is Going To Die Soon is about one of his comics. The philosophy writers Julian Bagginni and Alain de Boton have both had a profound influence in regards to how they influenced my approach to both writing and thinking about emotions, the same would probably apply to Roger Ebert who I've gone so far as to quote in one of my songs (Now I'm Sad). Musically it was mostly 'anti-folk' and 'outsider' musicians who influenced me to pick up a guitar. Shoes And Socks Off, Larry Fischer, Paul Baribeau, Daniel Johnston, Hop Along Queen Anslais, Andrew Jackson Jihad, and also a musician who played under the name Talons', who people always mistake for the British post-rock band whenever I speak about it. The Talons' album 'Rustic Bullshit' really soothed me in a time when I was quite frantic and confused. I'm very grateful it exists.

For later releases I must admit Roy Harper's early albums where a big influence, although his song 'The Black Cloud of Islam' makes me very uncomfortable, and I've not been able to listen to him since the child sex allegations. I viewed him as a hero for quite some time so I found the allegations difficult to take, I won't blindly defend him though just because I like his music and especially not after reading the lyrics of 'Forbidden Fruit'. It was pretty awful going on his Facebook page and reading comments excusing paedophilia in the event that he is guilty. I also listened a lot to the Charles Manson album 'LIE' which Dan put me on to, and when I listen back I can definitely see how it influenced our sound, we even did a homage at the end of 'Only Everyone Can Judge Me". Dan has actually put me on to a fair few bands that have had an influence on Crywanks sound since he joined, 'Exuma', 'Incredible String Band' and Manchester's 'Oh Howl'. Recently I've been listening to a lot of early Labi Siffre albums and really enjoying them. He seems like a really nice guy! I can see some of his more peculiar deliveries of vocals having an effect on what I've been writing recently.

I could go on a lot longer simply describing 'stuff I like' and ways in which they could be influence (and I'd probably enjoy that loads), but I'll avoid the temptation to turn this interview into a MySpace interests list.

I: See I wanted to avoid the Bangers thing because I assumed you'd be sick of talking about it. And also because I've written about it in the past as well. And it was ages ago now and I really like Bangers, they're one of my favourite bands going in the UK at the moment. And maybe we're projecting more importance on to the whole incident than is really necessary, but to me it did seem like a really divisive moment in the scene and I saw a few 'true colours' get flashed, if you know what I mean. Although everyone directly involved was fairly cool about the whole thing - I get what you're saying about Roo's response being a little off-point, but he could have said any number of worse things I guess - and managed to discuss it in a fairly mature manner, it definitely showed that the 'scene' isn't as enlightened as a lot of people like to think it is, and will all too willingly give their friends a free pass.

The most important thing I saw, that makes me feel like you did the right thing in kicking the whole thing off, was seeing a female musician say she was pestered by a male friend in to reading this 'brilliant zine', and when she finally did it made her feel really uncomfortable about the idea of her peers seeing her and referring to her in that way, and that her friends didn't pick up on it. We all do shit we regret as we grow up and the important thing is we recognise when it's been something fucked up, and learn from it.

In the grand scheme of things, writing a zine with some sexist language in it is pretty minor so it's hardly going to mark Hamish for life as an awful person that we shouldn't listen to anymore. And, y'know, he did come out and respond to the whole thing really well, so it's pretty safe to say that he's a good dude. People generally deserve second chances and I think people all too readily see critiques as outright condemnations, when they really aren't. Save the ostracism for people who deserve it like, as you mentioned, Roy Harper. And I would argue Charles Manson too, personally - I've always found it a bit creepy when people really love his music when there's no critical thought involved. It's like being really in to Burzum. I just don't get it. On a sort of related note, I was really put off Modest Mouse when I heard Isaac Brock had been accused of rape, but after I read around a bit I saw that all of the charges had been totally withdrawn. I'm still in two minds about Conor Oberst too, though reading around about that sort of puts my mind at ease a bit too in regards to him being innocent. But then I feel guilty about assuming that allegations are false because I want them to be. [Note: since this part of the interview, all of the allegations against Conor Oberst, and the corresponding lawsuit against the accuser, were dropped.] Anyway. I'm glad you mentioned Andrew Jackson Jihad because I wanted to talk about them, and here seems as good a place as any. You played your first show opening for them, is that right? It's definitely the first time I saw you and I've been telling people it was your first show for ages. I think that was one of the best shows I've ever seen, literally in my entire life, because AJJ can be so perfect live. But they're one of those bands where I've had to reconcile their lyrics with my own views. There's some really fucked up stuff in there, and I feel bad for giving them a free pass just because I like them. Though I also feel like it's quite obvious that there's a lot storytelling irony involved and it's just me overanalysing things, like I often do. And although the lyrics to Bad Bad Things are fairly awful in terms of content which I guess could actually be triggering to people, it's hardly gonna make people feel like it's ok to go out and kill people, because of the way it's framed. Kids who listen to Real Friends, or The Story So Far or whatever, on the other hand, are much more likely to internalise shit about treating women with contempt just because they don't let you get away with your entitled bullshit. Sorry, I've gone on for pretty long and there's not really a question here. I guess just respond with your thoughts. Yeah, that'll do.

JC: I should probably keep my trap shut about the whole Bangers thing considering it makes me feel pretty anxious and stupid and I'm probably just foolishly throwing more logs into the fire. I'm often guilty of the same thing of what we're criticizing though, the idea of giving your friends a free pass. It can be hard to dissociate affection for others when confronted with something problematic. On a side note, I actually quite enjoyed Roo's home recordings, they reminded me of The Hold Steady. I was going to go to the Manchester date of the Survival Tour but ended up feeling too awkward about everything that went down. I'd agree that in the grand scheme of things it is pretty minor and I'd echo parts of your sentiment. It really brought me down that people thought of it as an attempt by me to condemn Hamish as in individual, I just thought his zine was pretty horrible. With hindsight I wish I'd written more, and about more, within the post. My critique focused entirely on one zine by one band member, despite the fact that the issues addressed are common within the punk scene, and there are bands getting gigs at the moment who are arguably far worse (The Liabilities or TRC for example). There's also loads of promoters who, show after show, just have bills of straight white males and, although I recognize that sometimes this happens, the repeat offenders make me feel like they don't understand the importance of representation. I think if I'd taken this approach the discussion would have revolved a lot more around the issues raised rather than 'Crywank vs. Bangers'.

In regards to Charles Manson, I don't actually know the greatest detail about his life beyond a quick skim of a Wikipedia page, and I've not listened to any of his material after the first release. I know he was charged with conspiracy for murder, was the leader of the Manson Family and was involved in the writing of some Beach Boys songs but that's about it. It wasn't any sort of mystique around his character that drew me to his music though and his actions after writing those songs don't put me off his music, I was just played his songs and enjoyed them a lot. If a lyricist is found to be a rapist or peadophile, a knowledge of this can really change the dynamic of their songs especially if the songs are lyrically focused on another person. Lines in love songs that previously echoed true quickly become very difficult to listen to and are turned sordid by the context. Even if whatever has transpired in truth holds no relevance to the songs content, as a listener it is hard to turn off these connections. Charles Manson's actions haven't had this effect on how I interpret his music. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've always taken his music to be about perception, and difficulties in understanding the human condition - his actions that followed these songs don't really change any of the songs sentiments for me. I may just be revealing myself as a total hypocrite apologist here though...

This is actually something I'm quite interested in. How the life and intentions of a writer affects how their work is related to. It's interesting to see a change in perception for a piece that has stemmed entirely from the creators actions after the work has been released. Deplorable behaviour from the author of a piece can result in something once much loved now being regarded as sinister. It can also result in art that would previously have been forgotten over the years being cemented into music history, linking back to your mention of Burzum, who although I recognize their relevance within black metal history I believe are far more recognized because of their actions separate to making music. Musicians being remembered as musicians mostly for their actions other than making music. It's all quite bizarre, but I don't want to deny the importance of creative output in shaping how an individual is remembered, just highlight that in regards to recorded music history more of an emphasis is usually put on biography than output. Sometimes I consider how one action would affect different musicians based on how they're currently perceived. It's horrible to recognize that there could be truth in this, but considering the self-depreciating nature of my songs I wonder if me doing something deplorable like a mass killing spree would serve as a catalyst for my music being remembered as relevant, whereas if a currently popular singer songwriter like Ed Sheeran or Paolo Nutini did this I'd imagine it would be responded with a mass boycott. Hopefully that won't set off any alarm bells, I'm not very interested on going on a killing spree, or being part of some biography focused 'music history' alongside Sid Vicious and Pete Townshend.

I relate to your sentiment about feeling guilt for assuming allegations are false because you want them to be. For a period of time I found it pretty hard to accept the concept that Roy Harper may be guilty. I don't know if he is or isn't, but I wouldn't want to defend someone based entirely on my enjoyment of their music. I never really know how to feel when someone is accused of something horrible. I imagine if it was me accused of something I hadn't done and having all of the effort I've put into promoting myself suddenly become me broadening the scale for people to believe something slanderous. Then I imagine how I'd feel being a victim of an attack by someone in the public eye and watching their fans defend my attacker and dismiss my experience as false and a furthering of some manipulative agenda. I see how some high-profile trials are written about and feel very sad, victims who've already been through a lot are often blamed and shamed, and have to deal with their integrity being brought into question publicly.

The show you mentioned was actually my second show, I supported RVIVR in Derby the night before but I don't think I played very well and I couldn't even stay to watch RVIVR due to birthday commitments (although I finally got to see them in Sheffield last year). AJJ was meant to be my first show but I ended up getting a last minute booking that I didn't want to say no to. I remember being super intimidated at both shows. I've never really had much qualms with AJJ's lyrics, a lot of the songs focus on the worst and most desperate parts of the human psyche and I think they approach it in a very honest but tactful way. They're a band I both admire and envy greatly and I look forward to them touring without Frank Turner. On that note I do recognize a lot of bands who have no tact with songwriting and so are left with songs completely lacking in empathy, songs filled with buzzwords and lazy references to authors, bands and drinks, and songs with very unfortunate double meanings. I have similar issues with some of my own lyrics though, when it comes to rerecording some songs in the future there are a few lines I intend on changing that I've grown uncomfortable with. I: I see what you're saying about Manson, and I'm not sure I agree - I seem to remember there being some stuff in his lyrics that is very creepy when viewed in context of his actions and his beliefs, though I'll admit that I haven't listened to his music for years. I guess everyone draws their own lines with problematic content, and the important thing is to be able to view things critically.

Anyway, to move away from all of that stuff, because as you said we'll just be in danger of fuelling a fire if we bang on about it too much - I think I know the exact band you're referring to in regards to lazy references to pop culture stuff in lyrics, and I'm really not a fan of them either. I won't mention their name because it feels tacky but, like, listen to A Praise Chorus by Jimmy Eat World - that's an example of a song about other songs, and what they mean to the writer, being done well. Superficial name drops just make me hate that such shitty songwriters are influenced by bands I love so much, hah. Okay. I will mention their name - it's totally Moose Blood. They're not the only culprits – Real Friends in particular do it well – but they're one who seem to be defined by it sometimes Musically I think they're alright, but lyrically they just make me cringe so hard and think "is this what we've come to?" It feels like the Tumblr-style approach to culture - taking things and displaying them as your own without any thought or comment to construct an identity that is just a collage of other things rather than anything unique - has had a really negative effect on creativity in a lot of ways. I'd also be interested to know which lines you want to change, if you're willing to share that?

JC: I really enjoy songs about how art influences you. I tried to do something along the lines of that with 'Obsessive Muso With No Friends' which is about foolishly using your music taste as a defining personality trait only to feel undeserving when the context of the songs you've been relating to are to an emotional degree you've never experienced. Dan used to be in a band called 'Brown Orange Blue' who sounded about five years ahead of their time and would probably have gotten a lot more attention if they'd been involved in a scene outside of Blackburn, and had formed a year ago. I used to sing the chorus to the opening track to their second album to myself a tonne. When Dan explained to me what the song was about, I was floored. Brown Orange Blue are such a fun band, they sound like summer and yet they'd written songs I'd consider to be sadder and more personal and more thought provoking than anything I felt I'd ever achieved with my own lyrics, me who defines myself as a 'sad songwriter'. It made me feel very fake, and very humbled.

I have similar views on Moose Blood to yourself and their lyricism seems closer to that of bands like Falling In Reverse or Lower Than Atlantis than the influences they've mentioned in their songs, which I find interesting. It's to a degree where I question if Moose Blood are in fact trolls, pushing to see how far people will accept lazy and trope-filled lyrics.

I felt really mean writing that down. I'm really critical of a lot of bands if people ask me, but I tend to keep my mouth shut. I'd rather avoid beef. I notice a lot of tropes within songwriting though, especially within the D.I.Y. scene and my statement wasn't specifically about Moose Blood, I think Moose Blood are just one of the more popular examples of bands doing this. I'd love to see a website like TV Tropes specifically for band lyrics. I'd also love to try and form the most trite band possible just to see how people respond, the songs could have the structure of "lazy sea metaphor - missing friends on tour - still feel like a kid - namedrop band I liked as a kid - hometown was shit - you don't know what this scene means 2 me". If it was UK folk punk or 'gruff' punk I'd be sure to add in a tonne of "woooaaaa-oooaaaa-oooohhh"'s in as well. Then we can print t-shirts before we've even recorded, preferably ones with a current pop-culture reference on it that has nothing to do with the music, like the Game of Thrones cast skateboarding or the Breaking Bad guy smashing a guitar. Then we can spend more time making sure people know we are in a band and networking than actually practicing and writing songs. Don't get me wrong, everything I've mentioned above isn't necessarily ideas that I hate or think can't work, but they are ideas I'm quite tired of after seeing them rehashed in so many ways.

In regards to song lyrics I'm changing they're all pretty minor, and just so I feel a bit more comfortable singing the songs. In 'Care Not For Your Clubnights' "Dollies and Peacocks" has been changed to "Posers and Peacocks". In 'GB Eating GB...', "If you don't want me, well that's just tough luck", has been changed to "If you don't want me, well that's my tough luck". This was probably the most important change for me, I struggle with narrative modes and with everything I write I'll just jump from first to third person all to often. Although nobody has mentioned it to me and I think most people understand the intent, I didn't like how the line could have been interpreted. In 'Welcome to Castle Irwell', "I know that I would always forgive her" is changed to "I know that I can let go and forgive her". None are huge changes, I just fear people mis-reading the intent of a line so I've tried to make them more clear. I don't think it'll bother people that much that I've made a few changes, it's just remembering the changes live that I need to get into the habit of. I: Yeah see I feel bad about trashing Moose Blood too because I think we have friends in common and they're well-regarded by people I like, and they haven't done anything bad per-se, they've just made music that I kinda think is pretty trash, so that isn't me calling people out for their behaviour, it's just me being a dickhead music critic. This is what I get paranoid and anxious about! Writing negative reviews of bands who are really nice but make shit music, I feel so harsh. Or trashing someone's band and then seeing them around at shows - that's something that got me in to a lot of trouble as a teenager when scene kids wanted to start fights because I slated their fashionxcore bands on my MySpace blog. Fortunately everyone's, y'know, more mature now, me included, but do you know what I mean? When I express something negative about a band, especially a band that people I perceive as being 'credible' like or are friends with (I don't feel guilty about trashing Neck Deep for example)... Because I don't make music or put on shows, I feel like I don't contribute and know that the scene would continue just fine without me and people would probably be happier without me around. Feels embarrassing to admit it but the bit in Almost Famous where Lester Bangs tells the kid he's not there to be the band's friend is one of the most important things I've learned as a music writer. And I guess it feels good to know that people will be able to look back in the years to come on the documents of the scene that I've created. But that's my stuff.

Despite everything I just said, though, I agree with everything you're saying about Moose Blood and if you played me them and they had more over-the-top twinkly bits or popcore breakdowns I would legitimately think they were actually a joke band. But yeah. We're being mean, aha. This interview's been going on so long now that I've not only forgotten what we've talked about, but a fair bit has been happening while it's been going on. I saw you talking recently on Facebook about finally getting a Crywank vinyl release out, and were asking people what album they'd like to see. How far is that concept from becoming a reality? And regardless of what other people think, what would you most like to do with it?

JC: I doubt the vinyl will happen soon. I've been encouraged by people to do pre-orders to raise money, but that just makes me feel anxious incase it all falls through and selling something before it even exists makes me feel sleazy. I tried to do an investment thing so that people putting money in could make money through Crywank as well, but some people backed out, and then a friend told me some people where badmouthing the idea online in a private Facebook group and saying how they wouldn't sell anyway, and it was a terrible idea, and I just felt pretty defeated by it to be honest. I should've continued and tried to get more investors as people did seem interested, but I just feel weird and gross asking for money and chasing up money from people. Some of my friends where pretty annoyed at me for just letting it all fall through. I'm not good with money so I struggle to accept it when people offer to help as I just see myself in debt, letting a load of people down. I've messaged a few labels but all are yet to reply. Maybe in ten years some fan will have gotten rich and they'll help me put out a short run of James Is Going To Die Soon for the few people who still care, if there are any.

A lot of this is probably just me having a pretty poor self-defeating attitude, but a part of me feels like I've missed all my opportunities with this now. The American tour fell through, the vinyl just fell through, and I've been getting e-mails about an Australian tour but I'm already telling myself it won't happen. Money is always the issue, I just need to sell everything I own I think and get a job.

We started this e-mail interview on the 25th of April, it's nearly three months later and not much has changed in regards to my situation. No job, no savings, no plans I've been able to execute. When I started Crywank five years ago, I just wanted it to be some rad project where everything was free. If I recorded a song, it'd go online straight away, no thought about 'promotion'. I'd want to speak to everyone who listened to it as well, know what they thought and let them know I appreciated them giving my music their time. Now I feel like I've just let it grow into some shitty monster. I took on board every expectation and didn't meet them. I feel pretty embarrassed to be myself a lot of the time. I feel pretty embarrassed to express myself. I imagine my friends or family or my partner reading this interview, or my old blog, or my lyrics and I just want to cringe from my shame because I'm aware of how pathetic I sound. Sorry if this is all pretty terrible interview material. I've just spent this past month sewing 'Brown Orange Blue' CD cases that my partner did original paintings for, writing and recording an EP, and learning how to put together a website with the plan of starting a label of handmade releases, and it hasn't really gone to plan. The EP hasn't done half as well as any of my other releases so I still can't afford the CDs or Tapes, so I'm just sat here with the packaging and nothing to fill them with, feeling like a failure. I think I expect too much though, I'm either stupidly optimistic or stupidly defeatist. Either way of looking at it, I'm just stupid. In regards to some fantasy future where I do release physical copies on record of my music, and I could do what I wanted with them, I'd want the sleeve to just be a book where the record can slot into the back. I'd want the book to be filled with lyrics, and notes and stories and drawings and every detail I could put in, a rad 12" hardback book. The most I've connected with music was in my teenage years, I'd just sit at the end of my bed with lyric booklets in my hand and read through the whole thing as I listened to the songs and just feel completely absorbed in every line. It wasn't until my late teens that I started getting interested in instrumental music, but prior to this lyrics where everything. I'd want to facilitate that feeling in someone else, have a release someone could be absorbed in. Something someone pedantic would see and be excited to listen to and read alone, and they'd know it had to be listened to alone.

I: I've said it before and I'll say it again man, you're just too hard on yourself when it comes to Crywank. I can understand where you're coming from when you say you feel like you've let it grow in to a monster and it must seem hard to keep control over it all - like, when I first saw you play and heard that first record I thought it was decent but never imagined that people would be so in to it and there'd be so much demand for more and more Crywank - records, shows, tours. It is a little bit wild, though the further you take it the more I feel like you deserve it. But I really think you overthink stuff sometimes! I mean, I can barely read back over stuff I wrote a few years ago either - I think that feeling is pretty universal. It just means you're growing and improving. We are our own worst critics.

The funding for the records is a pretty good example of all this I guess - I saw some of the conversations on Facebook groups you were referring to and, although the rumblings of the various UK ___ groups aren't really worth dissecting at length as we've probably both learned by now, I think the issue mostly was that people just didn't really understand it, didn't understand your motives or your intent. Like, I know you well enough to know that you're not looking to rip anyone off and know your music and the support it has well enough to know that if you managed to put out a run of records they'd eventually all sell, but part of the problem with your music spreading further and further is that it becomes kind of public property, and people who don't know you obviously don't know this stuff, and aren't going to get it. And what you were asking for is a little bit different to what people are used to, and things that are a bit different when it comes to money aren't always welcome in D.I.Y. cliques. Personally I still think you should try a simple Kickstarter - £10-£15 down for a preorder of the record, little bit extra for some handrawn stuff/handwritten lyrics/whatever, and people only have to pay if they want to. You're not forcing anyone to do it, they're doing it because they believe in what you're doing. If you don't reach the goal, they get their money back, no big deal - if RVIVR can get away with doing a Kickstarter then so can you. I guess it's OK to play "the game" sometimes and see how it goes. As for the EP that you couldn't get finished, too, you can get small runs done for not a whole lot of money if you just know where to look. You just need to not give up on it man.

You talk about not meeting people's expectations but I guess at the end of the day, who cares? You're making music that people connect with. That's important, that's valuable, and you shouldn't downplay it! Don't you think?

JC: I was having a rough night when I responded to your last question. I can be a real drama king at points. It's very easy to lose motivation and rationalize reasons why my creative endeavours are a waste of time. My main goal with the investment idea was to allow fans who've supported Crywank to make money back, rather than doing a Kickstarter and getting similar amounts of money in return for overpriced empty gestures (a thank you e-mail £5, your name in the record £50, a Skype gig £250). I'll probably regret saying all this in a years time when a desperate crowdfunding plea emerges. Since all this, I sort of stopped caring about getting a big vinyl release though. What happens happens, but I'm no businessman and I'm just trying to focus on writing songs and making art at the moment. The new solo project (JC and the Nobodies) actually did pretty well a few days after I messaged you last, so it looks like things will start happening now. I'm trying to get some small runs of CDs/tapes for acts I consider to be a lot more interesting than my own with a 'label/art collective' I've started with my friends (PSGSummers, Dan Watson and Tom Connolly). I guess that all reads like me ignoring your Kickstarter advice, but I expect too much all the time and set myself up for falls all too often. I just want to do something fun and creative, having anxiety attacks about private Facebook groups I can't read and worrying about reaching targets with money isn't that.

In regards to your last question I'd say that most musicians shouldn't downplay how valuable or important the connections people have with their music is. I think this because of how important and valuable so much music is to me. At the end of the day I'm Crywank though, my main schtick is downplaying all my achievements whilst picking apart my flaws... and, y'know, you don't want to disappoint the fans!

I: Well in regards to the Kickstarter, the gestures are only overpriced and meaningless if you make them so - I'm sure you'd never allow yourself to do that. But, see, that's great that things are suddenly getting moving and you don't need to worry about it. I guess it goes to show that, like I was saying, you shouldn't give up on it, 'cause it might turn around tomorrow. You've got loads of options, never seems like you're short on ideas, and most importantly, you really seem to care. Like, way more than you should, and completely honestly. Which is something that can be unfortunately absent in "the scene". Case in point: I'd basically given up on running this website part of the way through this interview, but you pushed me to make sure we got this interview done (it's only taken three months, goddamn), and have inspired me to start it back up again. How can I tell you not to give up if I'm giving up myself?

LIVE REVIEW: FUCKED UP IN LEEDS.

Fucked Up's unique take on hardcore and the ridiculous ups and downs of their popularity (seriously still baffled why MTV would book a band they couldn't say the name of and knew would trash everything, twice) doesn't need to be gone over again by yet another shitty blog – much better writers than me have already, and will continue to, chart all of that shit so much better and in far greater detail. But I guess the most relevant thing to mention here is that Fucked Up are seriously just one of the most important goddamn bands going today. They are unrivalled, unparalleled. The only “FFO” comparison that I can come up with is Bad Brains crossed with The Fall – for their aggression, originality, prolific nature, disregard for anything anyone expects them to do, flirtations with being a mainstream band that have thankfully never quite been realised – but that still doesn't come anywhere near close, not least because Fucked Up have been so much more consistently amazing than both of those bands. Fucked Up are just... a fucking force, man. There's nothing else out there like them.

Listening to them constantly in preparation for seeing them live, and then actually seeing them live, makes all other music, hell, all artistic endeavours, feel inherently inferior, and I haven't really listened to much else since. To say that Glass Boys might be their weakest album yet, for example, is essentially meaningless, because it's still fucking amazing. It's rare that I carry on listening to a band so much after burning myself out on them in the lead up to seeing them, but Fucked Up haven't let me go yet. I've been a fan of them for a long time now, first hearing them a fair while after they started blowing up in the punk community and a little while before they were NME cover stars, and I have to admit that they're not a band I've ever listened to, like, a LOT, over the years. But I have kept up with what they've been doing, checked out a fair few of their constant slew of non-album releases, and caught them at a festival a few years back. The last few days, though, have just pushed me over the edge, and now they just feel essential.

I hadn't been to the Belgrave, one of Leeds' newer venues, for a while, and the few shows I'd seen there thus far hadn't really filled the space – the roof terrace is dead nice, but the too-hip-and-too-pricy bar mean it's a real mixed bag of a venue. I don't think Fucked Up was sold out, but it was the fullest I've seen it yet – even openers Lower played to a pretty good crowd. I couldn't decide if they were amazing or fucking terrible, though. Shoegazey jangle pop guitar riffs and a punk rhythm section backing a singer doing a ridiculous Morrissey impression – I think, in retrospect, that they were terrible. But they fit the bill pretty well, I guess, echoing the more melodic indie rock side of Fucked Up's personality, whilst Cerebral Ballzy, the tour support, kept them tied to their hardcore roots. I'd not checked Cerebral Ballzy out before, though I had heard that they were utter shite, so I was pleasantly surprised, actually (always feels weird saying things like 'pleasantly surprised' about hardcore – if heavy music can be 'pleasant', does that mean that it's completely oversaturated? Another issue for another day I guess) with what we got. Solid hardcore in the early Black Flag vein, or maybe even Ceremony, but a lot trashier and more juvenile. Yeah, they were decent. Wouldn't grumble about seeing them again, and might check their album out if I'm in the mood for some new hardcore stuff.

Fucked Up, though, oh man. I don't envy any band that plays on the same bill as them. The room packed out and went off and, finally, the Belgrave's worth as a venue is clear to me. For up-and-comers or obscure niche bands, it does no favours. But for bands big enough to pull an Academy 2 or 3 crowd but are totally unsuited to shows with barriers, it is fucking perfect. The sound's great, the stage isn't too high or too low, and the room's big enough to get everyone in but still small enough to feel intimate and genuine when it's full. Fucked Up suit it perfectly, especially thanks to the raised platforms down the sides of the room, which Pink Eyes can climb up on, and the pit breaks out, and the stagedivers and crowdsurfers start flying, and a few multi-tier pyramids get built, and everyone gets sweaty and comes away with lasting damage to their ears. It's as perfect a hardcore show as you're ever likely to go to – despite the slam dancing, it feels fairly free of the bullshit machismo and showing off that tends to come with the genre. There's not one goddamn incident of floor punching, that's for fucking sure.

Fucked Up's three guitarists and bass player have been surprisingly motionless both times I've seen them – probably partly down to the fact that they're playing more complicated parts than your average stage-thrashing hardcore band members – but it never really matters, because Damian Abraham absolutely fucking carries that band's live performances. His presence both on-and-off stage is a huge part of why Fucked Up have managed to break out of the confines of hardcore and been allowed to dream a little bigger – he is just a step beyond anyone else in the game. He's an imposing figure, but he's not a tough guy – he loves every single person in that goddamn room with genuine honesty, hugging every stage diver, thrusting the mic to people with an eagerness that is all too rare, politely and quietly encouraging the security guards that don't worry, it's cool, let people get up on the stage. He wears the expression of a man who considers himself blessed to be doing what he is doing, and he commands every eye in the room, completely fearless, unstoppable. You will not see a better frontman, in hardcore or otherwise.

They play hard, fast, and loud, tight as hell, and they do. Not. Fucking. Stop – they go over the curfew by at least twenty minutes (prompting my best train-dash time ever), and I'm sure no one would have begrudged them an extra half an hour. Fucked Up are an absolutely flawless live band and I would watch them every fucking night if my body could take it. Perfect.

LIVE REVIEW: GUERRILLA MONSOON IN HUDDERSFIELD.

I live in Huddersfield, which is a medium-sized town nestled between a handful of the UK's biggest cities. I've lived here for almost six years now, which is a fairly shocking thought, and in that time it's never really had the greatest scene. Bands trickle through every now and then, with a couple of venues occasionally brining in a big name, and there's a handful of popular locals, but generally speaking Huddersfield shows tend to be a fairly lacklustre affair. People just go elsewhere – it's not a long train ride to get to much better places – and there's genuinely just not the interest in the town about ninety percent of the time.

It can suck, but it brings its own unique charm at times. When shows really go off, they're amazing, due in part to how unexpected it is, like when Gnarwolves came through and destroyed the place last year. I've seen some of the greatest and most intimate shows of my life here too: Jonah Matranga playing to only about thirty people, but absolutely stoked to be getting such a warm reception on a rainy week night in a town he'd never heard of; The Survival Tour creating that real sense of community that folk punk should have but often lacks; Chrik playing on the floor to old friends and newly converted fans. But mostly? Yeah, it's shit ska or metal bands playing to crowds plagued by embarrassing drunk dancing or, when good but largely unknown acts actually come through town, those awkward shows where a band plays to a room not even a quarter full and hardly anyone really seems to give much of a shit.

So yeah. This felt like it was going to be one of those, despite being put on by Cats? Aye!, one of our better local promoters. Everyone involved in D.I.Y. shows always try so fucking hard, and it's honestly disheartening to see so few people wander in to watch a free gig on a Saturday night - I guess the fact that this was the same night as England's first World Cup game had something to do with a different crowd, less inclined to come to shows, being out and about.

But what else can you do, except keep trying? And what can we do, except keep on coming out? I feel guilty every time I miss a good local show, but I'm glad I caught this one at the Parish, not least for the relatively bizarre spectacle (in H-Field, anyway, where anything that could be perceived as 'arty shit' enjoys a curious relationship with the people who live there) of a spoken word poet opening up a punk show. Zach Roddis seems like a weird dude, sort of like a middle ground between internet alt-lit poets like Steve Roggenbuck, and slightly more 'traditional' but still, y'know, fairly alt poets like Ross Sutherland (who Roddis covers in his set. By which I mean he reads one of his poems). Awkward but funny, once he was warmed up and we knew how to take him, he was fantastic. Very cool to see people open to booking, watching, and performing stuff like this, and its presence in the scene is really welcome.

But still. Odd as shit way to open a punk show. Fortunately, Isaac are as standard a way to continue a punk show as humanly possible. Three piece Lookout!-style pop punk like early Green Day and Crimpshine, fronted by Shankland of, uh, Shankland fame – you've heard it all before, but it's great. I'm gonna have to admit that I wasn't looking forward to them because I could barely get through the opening track of their EP without turning it off, but they actually kill it live, coming off like a passionate homage to those influences rather than a lazy rip. I also got my first preview of the Parish's ridiculous LED strip lights. Yeah, that's a thing now.

See, The Parish is a weird venue. I don't know for sure that it's the biggest in town, but it's definitely the one with the best reputation, that puts on the most shows. I loved it when I first moved up here but have been increasingly disinterested in recent years – part of this is down to them booking stuff I'm not so in to quite as often, but other parts include most of the staff I knew there leaving, and its popularity with students making me feel increasingly old as first years get increasingly younger than me. Y'know, personal stuff. But on a night like this, I feel like its biggest failings are its aspirations – it's a decent venue with a decent reputation in a decent town and, while I know that venue, reputation and town will only expand by dreaming bigger, ridiculous rockstar lights and various other gimmicks only really feel embarrassing when they're blaring in to the eyes of a dozen people, tops. I'd rather they just, y'know, saved it for the metal shows.

IRREGULAR INTERVIEW - JAMIE BIRKETT (DOCTRINES).

Doctrines have gone pretty quickly from being that Replacements ripoff band that did the Replacements cover set at Manchfester 2 to being one of the most exciting and unique bands in the UK punk at the moment. Their weird and ambitious freak-punk is like nothing else out there, and they've been suitably plucked by Alcopop records for their last two releases, and hopefully many more. In many ways, this is kind of like a part two to the interview I did with Jack Pop recently, as I asked Jack about Doctrines and asked Jamie about Alcopop because I thought it would be interesting to hear both sides of the relationship between two of the scene's most creative entities.

This interview actually started in the middle of April, and has been slow going due to the regular problem of real life getting in the way, and part of the inspiration behind it was due to the Doctrines album suddenly being available for free download despite having a label release. So we talked about that, and the band's development, and so on and so forth. Jamie told me the NME once cut an interview they'd done with them in the past because they were too boring. Which is silly, because you only have to scratch the surface of Doctrines a tiny bit to discover endless hidden depths.

I: The first thing I wanted to ask was some boring business stuff. You recently put up ANX for free download because you'd 'paid it off' - could you explain what that means exactly? Is that just studio time, or pressing etc. as well? I was also wondering if you had any idea as to how much of that has come from downloads through Bandcamp and how much has come from physical sales.

J: It basically means we'd sold enough records to pay back Jack (from Alcopop!) all the money he'd put into pressing. The deal is that he puts up the money for pressing and we pay for recording, pretty straightforward. All sales up till that point, on his side and ours, go towards paying that off before we think about any profit, which is then split 50/50.

We hadn't really spent anything because we'd recorded it ourselves at home. We had saved up enough money from shows and merch to pay for mastering and artwork. So we only had to worry about making sure Jack didn't lose any money, and as soon as we knew he was all good I asked if he'd mind us putting it up for free on our bandcamp. He was well up for that and here we are now. I'm still pretty amazed how he's willing to risk his own money on us without any promise of riches in return. He really is the greatest.

As for online vs. physical sales, I don't know how it breaks down for Alcopop, but I'd say its about 70% physical for us. Quite a few people have been paying more for the download now that its free, which is pretty cool. But no one has ordered the vinyl option on there now they can get a free download, which I guess is interesting?

I: That arrangement is interesting to me because in all the classic tales of industry debt it's the recording time that costs all the money. The kickstarters are always to record, never 'cause someone's made an album and needs to release it. Just goes to show that doing things the D.I.Y. way can be the sustainable option I guess?

Obviously though I'm sure it helped with you being a recording engineer/producer yourself, right? Can you share a bit about your background with that? Is there anyone who's particularly influenced the way you record?

J: I should make clear that we were never 'in debt' to Alcopop! There's no contract, no pressure to give money back. It's all done on trust, and to me that means we are somewhat morally 'in debt' to make sure Jack, at the very least, isn't losing any money on us before we start giving our album away. After all, he's the one doing us a favour, and for that we'll be eternally grateful.

But yeah, being a recording engineer definitely makes it much easier for us to release stuff. If you're in a band without anyone who can do that kind of thing then it's far better to get a few hundred quid together for some studio time rather than have a shitty sounding record. I love great sounding records and a shitty recording can often get in the way of me enjoying a new band. I've never been one for lo-fi.

Saying that, I can barely stand listening to the last two Doctrines records. We tried to do it so cheaply, with minimal gear in terrible sounding bedrooms that I just feel It could've sounded so much better if we'd spent more time and money on it.

So over the last year or two I've spent a lot on building up my own gear to a point where I felt comfortable taking on other bands recording projects. It's a totally portable setup so I've recorded in churches, old mills, basements and a few bedrooms still. Just wherever we think will sound good and the band feels most comfortable. It also keeps it real cheap because you're not paying for an actual studio, so it seems to work for a lot of DIY bands with smaller budgets. I just recently made the jump from working an awful job making sandwiches into being able to support myself from working in some university studios and recording other bands. So, to any bands reading, get at me.

As for influences, nothing too 'out there,' but I really like the old classics. Tony Visconti, Brian Eno, and Steve Albini have all made some of my favourite albums. James Murphy knows his stuff too.

I: Oh yeah absolutely, didn't mean to imply that at all, it's just that the cost of recording is usually put across as being the biggest. I think Alcopop are pretty well known and regarded for keeping it fairly D.I.Y. as they've become a bigger and bigger label and I've always loved Jack's enthusiasm for everything he does. Which actually contributes to my feeling that you're being pretty harsh on ZE there, cause I think it's ace and he obviously liked it enough to want to put it out!

It's interesting to see you lump the first two EPs together, separate from the album, in terms of recording quality, because in terms of sound it feels to me like ANX was a natural progression from ZE, which was actually a pretty big leap from that first EP in a lot of ways. I remember listening to ZE and it was pretty surprising, and it's what really made me start to think of Doctrines as a band to seriously keep an eye on because you're doing something really exciting and fresh. I mean, I've always thought you've gone from having a sound that's really strongly rooted in some obvious influences to suddenly not sounding like a lot else that's going on right now. What brought about the change?

J: Well actually, I was lumping ANX and ZE together in recording quality! The first EP was essentially my final project for half of my degree. It was done in a nice studio with some great gear without any limitations, whereas with the latter two I had to try get the best sound possible from a very limited situation. Working with limitations is really fun and creative, but I guess I'm just very emotionally invested in the Doctrines stuff and can't quite remove myself from the recording process completely satisfied.

Musically though, you're definitely right. I don't think anything in particular brought around a change. It wasn't calculated, thats for sure. We'd had more time to play together and figure out what we enjoyed playing as a band. With any band starting out, you've gotta have some songs to get going. So on that first EP a lot of the songs we had just learned from demos I'd made when I was 18/19. We just wanted a demo that we could try and get gigs with. I'm pretty sure Grey Home was the last song we wrote for that EP, and in hindsight I think it gave the biggest indication of where we'd go later. It's the only song we still play live now.

We started working on ZE before we'd even put out the first EP. It started off as a 'trilogy' of songs that just fit together musically, then the fourth one came and it turned into a concept record. Rob was never really into 'punk' as such, he's just a really good drummer who likes to play drums. So my thinking was that some stupid twenty minute song would keep him stimulated enough that he hopefully wouldn't get bored. It's really fun being a songwriter when you get to properly know the people in your band and what they like to play. Then you try to write songs with them in mind and get excited when you think, or hope, that a certain member is gonna love this part or they're gonna bring something great to it. We've kind of had to learn a new dynamic with Olly and Joe joining the band, and I think the new 7" we've just started recording is gonna reflect that.

I: I think ANX sounds great which I guess is why I got mixed up – I think I read 'last two' as 'first two' - I think the important thing is to have a recording style that suits the band and it definitely suits Doctrines - it's sort of simple and direct and a bit raw, but never in a way that's to the record's detriment. Cheap plug of my own work aside here, I've been working all year on an ongoing blog about The Fall, listening to their entire discography in chronological order, and when they started actually getting good and listenable, one of the first bands I thought to compare them to was you guys - weird as fuck post-punk that takes risks, does things a bit differently, and just sounds really fresh and raw. I guess being from Manchester helped as well - do you feel like Doctrines has the identity of a "Manchester band", or do you think it's not so relevant these days?

J: All this talk about ANX made me listen to it the other night and it sounds alright actually, I take it all back!

I think we have an identity as a Manchester band in as far as if someone asked me where we're from, I'd say Manchester. People probably know us as a Manchester band but not in the same way that you'd say Oasis are, where 'Manchester' takes on some kind of genre signifier. We certainly don't feel obliged to carry on any musical traditions. Although we all live here, and I've been here 6 years now, I still feel like an imposter when someone calls us a Manchester band because we're all from different places. I'm from the Lake District which is as much a polar opposite to a big city as you can get.

It's not so relevant now other than to give some kind of context, rather than define the band.

I do feel some kind of identity as a northern band. I feel like there is a difference. Whether that is based on some tangible difference, or just my own xenophobic fear of the south, I don't know.

I: Haha, see, ANX is really good! Often you just need some distance from something before you can appreciate it again. Are you someone who's generally very critical of their own work? Do Doctrines songs come together quickly or are they laboured over to make sure you get them right What's your writing process like as a band and for you as an individual?

J: I dunno, I'm very proud of everything we've done but i'll also quite happily admit when I think something is shit. With songwriting, it's different for every song. But generally I'll have some kind of riff or idea that wont go anywhere for ages until I get the urge to build a song around it. Then I'll make a demo of it with midi drums and stuff before bringing it to the rest of the band. It all changes a bit when the other guys play it their own way and we have chance to arrange it together. Lyrics are usually the last thing to come because I like to know what the whole song sounds like before committing to anything. Up until that point I have incoherent placeholder lyrics for the melody.

Once we have an idea for what format the next release is gonna be it makes it easier to plan out what kind of shape the songs and lyrics will take. I like to think of each release as a whole rather than just a collection of songs. Like with the newest stuff, because it's gonna be on 7", which has a limited side length, we went for some shorter, straight up songs. I still need to write most of the lyrics for that though.

I: I think that's really cool that you write with a format in mind and I definitely think you're versatile enough as a band to do so, but I also like that you sort of mess around with formats a bit as well - you mentioned earlier that ZE is a concept EP, which is something pretty rare - I guess Bastions just did that, but they did two, so the concept was spread across the two (or maybe more to come?) releases rather than just being condensed in to that short space. Concept records tend to be big sprawling things rather than short EPs. Can you explain a bit about the concept behind it?

J: Oh god, I hate explaining this. It gets embarrassing and tedious, and also comes across very pretentious. But here we go...

So, it's set in the year MMLXXXIV, or 2084 to sensible people, but roman numerals rhymes better. Jacob is a young adult human who lives in an unspecified English speaking country. This future society is still in a relatively early stage but has been mostly built upon principles of transhumanism and postgenderism. Everyone is born in an artificial womb. Family and gender roles as we know it today have disappeared, hence the use of ze as a gender pronoun. Love and companionship are gone too. Without the need for a family everyone lives alone, does their job and masturbates a lot.

Jacob works a shit job and is in a lot of debt (the government uses and encourages lending as a way to keep people under their control.) Ze is frustrated and fed up with the life ze has and, like many other people, is angry that the government hasn't been able to keep their promise of eternal life for everyone by curing the 'illness they call death' yet.

With no religion, science is the new god and the transhuman ideals of transforming the human body into a hybrid of flesh and technology, once promised to everyone, is now a preserve of the rich and powerful. Jacob, sick of the limitations of zes own body, meets a character who explains a government military scheme that promises to rid you of any debt and transform your body into a mean lean mechanical fighting machine. So off ze goes to join the army.

The war Jacob has gone to fight in is a war between the current government and a group called the Luvvites (See: Luddites.) The Luvvites united in opposition to the current regime through their rejection of scientific and transhuman ideals and their hope to reinstate the ideals of family, love and community. It's a pretty futile war as the Luvvites are practically fighting human tanks, but during this bloodshed Jacob sees a mother embrace a child trying to protect it from imminent death. Jacob, never having seen this kind of bond between family before, follows the urge to save them and defect to the Luvvite camp.

After learning the ways of the Luvvites, Jacob is amazed by the sense of community and family they have. Having been shown a photograph that shows four generations of one family together he longs for that kind of connection to history and feels like it's what he's been missing all along (Gender specific pronouns are intentional now. Its not just laziness.) Jacob falls in love with one of the boys and goes in for a kiss, but the boy is horrified and immediately pleads god for forgiveness. Jacob learns that the Luvvites are still bound to old religious ideals, meaning same sex relationships are considered sinful and so unholy that they would disqualify someone from entering paradise, etc.

The story pretty much ends with Jake feeling alienated by both sides, caught between two worlds with no place to call home. It doesn't really have an ending, maybe because I intended to carry it on with the next release. Maybe I thought it was cool and like Kafka to end a story half way through, but it just comes across as lazy and stupid instead. Oh Well. Ta Da. The End. Read this along with the lyrics on bandcamp and hopefully it'll all come together!

I: See that's actually ace, and it reminds me a lot of Vonnegut-style science fiction like Harrison Bergeron. One thing I'm still curious about, though, is the recurring character of Ray Kay. Am I right in thinking he gets a mention on ANX as well?

J: I dunno? Does he? I can't think of one right now, but maybe he does! He's not really a character as such, it's just a wicked cool nickname for Raymond Kurzweil. I tried reading his book, 'The Singularity Is Near', loads of times but couldn't get more than a quarter way through because it scares the shit out of me. I got a bit obsessed with all that stuff at the time. So yeah, all of his ideas were the inspiration behind the techy stuff in ZE and the rest of the gender stuff came from The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.

I: Haha, maybe I'm wrong then, I dunno. But yeah, the concept is great and it's a shame that more bands can't pull it off with something worthwhile - I think the more I learn about it, the more ZE is becoming my favourite Doctrines release. I remember around the time it came out I saw you play the whole thing through live, would that be something you'd ever do again?

J: I'm not sure, probably not any time soon. With Oli and Joe joining the band it makes more sense to focus on new stuff. I don't know for sure but I assume they prefer to play songs they've actively been a part of creating. Also, with us generally getting 30 minute slots, and ZE taking up almost 20 minutes of that, it's a tricky one to fit in when there's a load of other songs we wanna play! Maybe when the singularity arrives, we'll do it. I've wanted to release it as a comic book too, so if that ever happens it'd be a good excuse.

I: Comic book? That'd be cool. I bet Alcopop would bloody love it too. Are you an illustrator yourself or would you have to find someone to draw it for you? Anyone you'd have in mind, or anything you'd want it to look like?

J: It's not something I've seriously thought about to be honest. Just a 'what if' kinda thing. It would be pretty cool though! I cant draw so we'd have to find someone who'd want to do it, and I'm sure Jack would go crazy for the idea!

I: Feels to me like we're coming to a close, so one last question - you mentioned a new 7", how is that coming along? And have you been thinking ahead any further than that? What can we expect from Doctrines over the rest of the year?

J: The 7 is coming along nicely. Recorded pretty much everything but vocals so far. It's 4 songs we've written since Oli and Joe joined the band and I really like um. My Dad texted me a review of the instrumental tracks I gave him, which simply said 'Uplifting :-)'. I've never seen my Dad use an emoticon before so I consider that to be a smashing first review. Hopefully once the lyrics are there it will negate any uplifting qualities that might damage our cool cred.

As for the rest of the year, I really dunno! We should probably tour again. Maybe record some more music because why not eh? Joe's moving to manchester which is pretty exciting and makes things easier. Hooray for Joe.

I: Jamie, thank you! I can't wait for more from you guys. I need to stop being lazy and come out and see you again next time I get the chance.

LIVE REVIEW: APOLOGIES, I HAVE NONE IN MANCHESTER.

Proof that Manchester, not Birmingham, is the UK's second city, is pretty well proven by it essentially being the second home of our capital's flagship band. Apologies, I Have None always have great crowds in Manchester, are always welcomed with open arms. They used to be up here pretty regularly, but they've been gone for a long while now. Good to have them back, though, even minus half of their original members/songwriters/frontmen – after getting on board with the Black Everything EP I was really keen to see how they fared live, and I think a lot of Manchester-Apologies-Shows regulars were in the same boat.

The whole thing felt like a proper flashback to a few years ago, too – Moving North show with Apologies, Above Them and Leagues Apart on the bill along with a couple openers – felt good to be getting back to the setup that has made for some of the finest gig experiences I've ever had. Odder Bar was, I think, a new venue for all of us, though, and I can't decide if I liked it or not. It had windows, which meant most of the show took place in daylight, which is something I just really love for no real reason, and big wooden sculptures on the wall, which was weird, though they also suffer from “unfortunate pillar” syndrome, which can be lethal for venues. Still, it was a decent enough place, and I'd definitely go to shows there again.

KK is one of the few promoters who can get away with five band bills, I think, though openers Fair Do's weren't the strongest ever choice. We missed most of their set due to pre-show street beers, but the couple of songs I caught had far too many squealing metal riffs to really make it appealing. Get Human, on the other hand, are ace – Leeds pop punk in the Cost Of Living/Get Serious vein rather than, y'know, shit pop punk. I never really rated their first EP but they've impressed every time I've seen them live so I'm now looking forward to checking out their new one.

Leagues Apart are another one who's new record I need to get round to, because apparently it's actually really good. Which is nuts, because Leagues Apart basically used to be what you'd get if you found Dillinger Four passed out in a bin behind an ALDI. But they've been around forever and have got steadily better every time I've seen them live, and this was definitely the best set I've seen them play yet. Not as trashy as they used to be – they're actually pretty tight now, even if they might still argue otherwise themselves. Above Them, too, have gone from a band that used to really bore me to being one of the scene's long-standing heavyweights – adding a second guitarist and going for a poppier sound than their early days has really helped, and now they come off like Rival Schools crossed with Hundred Reasons, which is a good thing. It's great to see both of these bands just sticking it out and getting better and better.

But it was Apologies that most of us were really there for, and the crowd swelled for them. Surrounded by familiar faces, it felt like old times again, but it wasn't – Apologies minus Dan Bond (but plus another second guitarist) is a very different band, and that is even clearer live than it is on record. Under Josh McKenzine's leadership they are darker, more aggressive, and fucking LOUDER. Josh looks fuckin' scary without hair but with added face tattoos too, and he makes an imposing frontman stood centre stage as they swing further towards hardcore than ever before. Despite opening on The 26, which was always one of the darkest Apologies numbers, they mostly stuck to the new stuff, and actually played a pretty short set overall, which was a bit of a shame, but I guess they're going to be leaving a lot of songs behind. The whole thing was drenched in feedback and noise – not a lot of time, or maybe not a lot of need, for talking – and it was only with the closing singalong of Sat In Vicky Park that the old Apologies shone through like an old friend. They are a completely different beast, now, and beast is the right word – their response to losing a member was to just get mad, and fill his absence with volume. I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't really in the same league as Apologies at their prime, packed with singalongs and good vibes, but still, I'll take it, because they absolutely raged. If this is what they are now, then we have no choice but to accept it, because they're not gonna let anyone stand in their way.

REVIEW: GET IN TO IT RECORDS SINGLES SERIES NO.1-3

Get Into It Records had a 20% off sale recently so I decided to pick up the three Single Series tapes that the Newcastle D.I.Y. label has put out before, because they're all brilliant. I've trashed the idea of the tape revival in the past but, as long as you can get a download to actually listen to them properly, I've really got in to the idea of it more recently. I mean, yeah, if you actually put them in a tape player, which most people don't own anymore, then they generally sound pretty rubbish, but as an item to buy in order to support bands, they're pretty cool. Nice little totems, if you know what I mean? They fit in the palm of your hand and feel nice and tactile and make a pleasing rattling noise when you move them, and you can do nice colours and stuff. Yeah, they're alright. 

So they arrived yesterday, and they look really great, and I already knew they were great singles, so I wanted to put something up about them. I think mostly I just wanted to post up a picture of my cool new tapes, y'know? But I can't just do that, really – I need some hard-hitting critique to go with it. Or at least a few words in an attempt to encourage you to check this brilliant series out for yourself.

Volume one is You Give It Meaning by Claw The Thin Ice, a solo acoustic effort from frontman Ian Breen, and it's probably my favourite thing that's come out under the CTTI name. Proper sadcore style stuff with a sort of shoegaze vibe, all swirly and echoey, but with this underlying hopeful feeling beneath what generally feel like super-sad songs. The cover photo of grey terraces in shitty weather suits perfectly – four songs for late nights, rainy days, snowy walks home. (A)

Volume two is the absolutely superb In A Clean, Well Lighted Place by Manuals, which I've already gone on about at length here, so I won't bore you too much by enthusing over it too much again. But it is seriously rad. Screamy, mathy emo like run,WALK!, Slowdive, Mineral and At The Drive-In all smashed up in to one fuzzy mess. Legitimately one of the most exciting new bands going. I should really get round to seeing them live at some point. (A+)

Volume three, Breathe by Fractions, is a fairly recent release so I've not had a lot of time to spend with it yet. It's totally not what I expected at all from a new band featuring End Reign members, but I'm already loving it. Again, totally different to the last two, it's a full on synthpop masterpiece with amazing dreamy vocals. Comes off like a more upbeat Heavens, or a shoegazey CHVRCHES, and probably wouldn't have sounded out of place on the Drive soundtrack. You know the sort of thing I mean. Initially I was a little disappointed to see two of the three songs were just different remixes of the first, but when listened to in sequence it kind of just feels like different movements of the same long piece, and they all compliment each other really well. Still, it's the longest of the series but the repetitive nature means it has comparatively the least to offer. Can't wait to hear more from Fractions, though. (B+)

So yeah. It's really cool to see a D.I.Y. trying out a single series and completely smashing it by offering really, really great releases by new(-ish) bands that are seriously worth knowing about. All three releases so far have made me pretty desperate for new stuff by each band, and for the next instalment in the series itself – I have absolutely no idea what's coming next, but I know I'm absolutely gonna be picking up the tape and playing the songs to death. Seriously, fucking outstanding work from all involved.