DOCUMENTARY : SUMMER 2019

TheZineUK June/July 2019 documentary. Photography by Lorna Cort, Brian Robinson Photography, Elly Bailey, Trust A Fox and James Corrin. Cast includes; Sisteray, Tiger Mimic, Hawxx, Musicians Against Homelessness, Madame Fairy, The Dirty Blonds, Live Circuit, Benumu, SONS, The Novus, Head Above The Clouds, Little Nans Bar, Bang Bang Romeo, The Velvet Hands, deux furieuses, Cold Water Swimmers, Joyzine, Smiley & The Underclass, Dutch Mustard, Dead Naked Hippies, The C33s, Cavalcade, Why Generation?, Sahera Walker, MOSES, Radio X Ruby Blue, Sh!tsick and it’s a bit of a Kick Out The Jams x Rotor Videos special. Diary/amateur snaps: Caffy St Luce.

Photography by Lorna Cort, Elly Bailey, Brian Robinson, James Corrin + diary of The Velvet Hands, Smiley & The Underclass, ShitSick, Bang Bang Romeo, MOSES, Wayne Thomas of Trampolene and the Kick Out The Jams extending collective. Snapshots by Caffy St Luce.

Words: Caffy St Luce

SARA – LOVABLE MAYBE - INTERVIEW

SARA graces 2020 with a spectacularly special slice of alternative pop – ‘Lovable Maybe’ – and a conversation with Kelly Munro for TheZineUK.

Kelly: Tell us how long you’ve been making music…

Sara : “I think I wrote my first (albeit terrible) song when I was twelve – so I guess it’s been eleven years now!”

What’s been some of your highlights so far on your musical journey?

“The first thing that springs to mind is last May when I had my first experience of recording in an actual studio. It really hit home that I could have big ideas and didn’t have to limit myself, and it was just nice to feel confident. Another highlight is playing my first London show and hearing my manager say we had really smashed it. To know you’ve done a good job at any gig is just the best feeling.”

Your latest single is called ‘Lovable Maybe’, what, apart from music, do you love to do?

“Whenever I have time to myself, I’m pretty much either reading or playing video games. Me and Toby (the keyboard player) play Minecraft religiously, and we also have a long list of films we’re currently working through.”

Tell us more about the single. Is there a meaning behind the song, or a story attached to it?

Listen to Lovable Maybe on Spotify. Sara · Single · 2020 · 1 songs.

“It’s a coming of age song about growing up believing you’re straight only to realise you’re not. 

A lot of my upbringing was very religious, and I don’t think I even knew gay people existed until my mid-teens. And by that point, a lot of people called me a lesbian in a way that made it very clear that wasn’t something you wanted to be. I tried to dress more feminine and take more of an interest in boys, and for a while I genuinely believed that’s who I was. At university I saw two girls on TV as a couple and this part of me that I’d silenced for so long just simply said “I want that”.

“In ‘Lovable Maybe’, I talk about meeting the girl who became my girlfriend and how our relationship is affected by my constant battle with OCD. Even though it was written a year ago it feels relevant to me every day, because in truth OCD can’t be completely cured. All in all, the song is pretty much a big warning label that reads: “are you sure you want to take all of this on?”.

Q. We hear you once lived in Mozambique. Whats your memories of there?

“I have so many really lovely memories of this really free childhood. Running around barefoot outside until it was dark and getting up to all kinds of mischief with my brother. We would also sing a lot together, practicing harmonies until they were perfect before performing them to our very patient parents. It was a very wholesome childhood in many ways, and I’m so grateful for it.

The most prominent memory of all was sadly the day when the arms depot explosions happened. It was a really hot afternoon and a lot of missiles and weapons started going off five minutes from where we lived. Around 100 people died in the end, and it was a horrific six hours or so of fully accepting we were all going to die as some of the missiles landed extremely near to us. Every day after that I would get home from school and check for smoke in the distance – and that’s when the OCD ironically started.”

What albums do you never get tired of listening to?

“It’s hard to narrow down but definitely ‘Carrie and Lowell’ by Sufjan Stevens, ‘Blonde’ by Frank Ocean, ‘iridescence’ by Brockhampton, ‘I Love you, Honeybear’ by Father John Misty and ‘In Rainbows’ by Radiohead. All of those albums are just so consistently strong and endlessly relevant.”

What can we expect from you this year?

“I have another single planned in May, and I’d love to get back in the studio at some point because there is so much I want to create, my mind is bursting with ideas. I really want to nail the performance side of things too. My confidence still holds me back a lot, and I’m aiming to kick my inner saboteurs butt by the end of this year. So, I guess you can expect a showdown between me and myself, and hopefully a lot more songs.”

Songs like this? Yes please, Sara!

https://www.facebook.com/saramusicuk

https://www.instagram.com/saramusicuk/

Words: Kelly Munro

FALSE HEADS – IT’S ALL THERE!

False Heads step up a chapter with their debut album, the roughly hewn and smoothly executed ‘It’s All There But You’re Dreaming’.

This three-headed East End gang have built momentum towards this LP, while turning the heads of key entertainment biz shakers with classic ROCK that is very English and International simultaneously. “Even though it’s aggressive, it’s delicate which is exactly what we wanted.” (False Heads)

A dozen soul worms from a band of our times. 

Ah, our times… The last few years have relegated the “GB” of Great Britain to Gammon Brexitannia. 

The Resistance, apocalypse punx, soundtrack our slow motion descent into second world farce and bogroll battles. We are through the fucking rabbit hole. Luckily, so are our bands!

'Rabbit Hole' is available on all digital platforms - cdbaby.lnk.to/FalseHeadsRabbitHole It's the second single off our debut album. You can order our debut ...

False Heads have worked hard to reach the Friday the 13th of their lives. By Spring 2017, we documented that that they were “a band who would go on to do so much more“.

They’re already scorching festivals at all levels and consistently touring the UK and Europe. Throbbing vein passion in performance at QOTSA, Frank Turner and Libertines supports. False Heads have been tipped by Kerrang!, the Independent Newspaper and played across key radio. Arriving via insane gigs, in one piece at 2020, ready to spring this Spring.

This long player begins like the opening scene of a coronation, gently drawing back dark velvet curtains to bright sound, emphatically gliding to home grown grunge groove and grit. 

If we can manage to have any fucking bands still left standing after a decade of “austerity” (heist), we should be gobsmacked into listening, respecting and appreciating our musicians.

“It’s All There, But You’re Dreaming’ is the culmination of the last four years of our lives together and the last ten of lives individually – since we all picked up instruments in our early teens.”

The world is bleak and social media makes it bleaker. We get our information from our own echo chamber and we are our own tabloids. The album is trying to find a way internally of processing the external and that has themes of depression, misery and addiction but also slight bursts of optimist and individual joy.” (False Heads)

Over the time that ‘It’s All There But You’re Dreaming’ has been simmering itself together, a surge of British Irish post punk povvo spunk has ignited with inciteful insight to gift home grown heritage our own heroes. 

A culture where, paradoxically, talent has blossomed despite extreme music education and venue culling.

On the outside looking out means that bands as unlike each other as False Heads, Big Joanie, Idles, Bang Bang Romeo, Fontaines D.C., Bugeye, MOSES, Nova Twins, The Blinders, Calva Louise and more vanguard names – can make guitar orchestrations of myriad inspirations and creations into a classic albums era.

GB now stands for Grime Britain/Guitar Britain. We are compelled to document this uniqulture (a word I invented that the thesaurus has no comparison for. That’s how different our “Fertile Environment” is). 

We can go to a great gig, next thing you know, you’re there again! (Or even crew – there are music fans, Alan Wells and Jane Pirate, on the rising rock circuits). The music industrious of DIY grass roots is something else. Inventive, inviting, involving. 

For False Heads, it’s been (literally) blood, sweat and tears propelling them towards an album, what would have been their first USA dates – including SXSW – and a UK tour (dates below). 

Reflections of good lucks and head fucks are mirrored in their raw but sculptured sound. Time to start recognising another golden age when Lizzo is spiritual medicine and False Heads are giving Foo Fighters a run for their money with this racing raging release.

“We didn’t consciously think too hard about what we wanted musically, as it’s a perfect summation of the last four years of us being in a band together.
We did want to create something that is interesting and versatile which we think we did. It’s not the same song twelve times”. (False Heads)

Described as “one of the best bands in the world” by ex-Ramones manager Danny Fields, they’ve also received huge support from Iggy Pop on his BBC 6Music radio show. He says “they are young, talented and going places, if they came to my town I’d show up for that.”

Photo by Neil McCarty

For the story we’re telling. it’s just as important that False Heads mean a lot to the small venue stars cast of our tapestry. The world’s turned upside down, but there are thousands of music fans who have sparked the newer wave. Imaginative and creative audiences as allies – connected on land and on line. Grassroots shows are where we step into reality and civilisation.

Spaces where we can be shy, clumsy and still totally at ease (my life is great, I gig). Harmless pleasure freaks unite.

So, False Heads have had radio plays by the iconic Rodney Bingenheimer on USA’s Sirius XM and Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music, but they were also championed by Some Might Say zine, early days front cover. 

Fast forward and the editor, Sahera Walker, is now steering Werkhaus, London’s fastest rising “IT” venue. From viralling on the internet to 2020 Virus World where the venue hosts a fund raiser night for SXSW cancellation stricken bands this weekend as I write this. False Heads will call in there on their UK album tour:

March

26 Castle & Falcon – Birmingham
27 Record Junkee – Sheffield
28 Off The Square – Manchester
29 EBGBS – Liverpool

April

01 The Garage Attic Bar – Glasgow, UK
03 Heartbreakers – Southampton, UK
05 Latest Music Bar – Brighton, UK
06 Louisiana – Bristol, UK
16 Werkhaus – London, UK 

We’re living through uncertain times, but 100% sure of our TUNES. False Heads sounding like a head banging headline set on this LP. That tour’s gonna flame. We need this.

Here we everyday music fans are – skint, scared and screwed – but getting to see those above mentioned bands up close and under £20 live, or are transported by imagination to where their songs take our minds.

Heck, the interdependent promoters in the small venues have even launched their own music festivals over the last few years. We’re gate crashing scenes and glass ceilings armed with classics of the new and NOW while augmenting independent and mainstream industry futures.

A case in point, there’s a hard rocking circus going on in this collection of songs. Rock is, by definition, alternative. Here the genre is applied loosely, with a broad brush of tender pop tendencies, fury venting instrumentation and even psych tangent candypunk moments through an array of energised solo arrangements around harmonic layers.

In short, ‘It’s All There But You’re Dreaming’ is a winning seed. Plant False Heads in your true heart. It sometimes feels like we’re characters in a dystopian movie but at least the soundtrack is our real life: You’re not dreaming, it’s all there.

http://falseheads.com

Words: Caffy St luce

BOLLOX

“Guitars bands are over”. “Rocking at festival’s can’t be diverse”. “It’s impossible to be competitive AND collaborative”. “Career worthy bands are NOT found in small venues these days”. 

(Also, a belief that fascism’s global sociopathic ingreeding is “government” and we should divide because war = business). 

To all of the above, I say Utter Fucking Bollocks.

Manchester, #YANAfest street art

2014 “guitars are dead” said couch critics. Small venue gig lovers started Music Venue Trust, Independent Venue Week and TheZineUK documentary. 

All genres keep buzzing – i.e. Clit Rock – throughout austerity. Not many working-class/all the genitals were buzzing on festivals bills around then, though.

It’s 2020. Art Power Movements! 

This Feeling have given SO many opportunities last few years, fresh forces like Modern Age Music (now with added Americana), Kick Out The Jams (musical fams) and the gender-balanced diversity ofCroCroLand. In the background, Rocklands (Events Dept) is working-class POC femme punx having a laff.

https://www.thisfeeling.co.uk/rewired

Easter Weekend 2020 showcases a rising with Rocklands Party, ReWired (above) and SOMA Festival(below) 10th-11th April.

https://www.fatsoma.com/modern-age-music/tz0ho9g5/soma-festival-2020

These line ups cross over the interdependent music scenes. Nowadays there is often a multiple choice of guitar goodness gigging of an evening…

OUT NOW FROSTY + bonus track DARKNESS SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/albuMhttps://open.spotify.com/album/3YTdCeWMurkglkJHTUeDsY?si=CRZ7ahUOTCS0L7pdflujgw R...

TheZineUK follows these “Future Picks” as they organically develop: No expectations in Entertainment’s life, but we believe that they are worth recommending. Luckily in many cases, there are well deserved achievements which seem almost unbelievable in our Dystopia. But it’s HAPPENING!

Currently unknown artists are becoming heritage acts right here, right now. Enriching Arts culture at all levels. Salutations to the sponsors that enable their Fertile Environment. 

May marvellousness…

https://facebook.com/events/702601483541282/

Discover for your escapism; Rock n roll seems almost banned from prime time TV, but promise you there’s always something different and positive twisting and shouting under the radar. 

“There’s no good new music”, some Groundhog Day folks feel. Each to their own, but I disagree and sayBOLLOCKS.

Disco-punks Bugeye are teasing their indie debut album with the release of new single Don't Stop, via independent label Reckless Yes on 28 February 2020. 'a ...

(Sweary) Words: Caffy St Luce

GOOD DAYS TALK ‘VIOLET’

“We truly believe that love is the stuff that miracles are made of.” (Good Days)

Kelly Munro recently interviewed Good Days for TheZineUK, leading with…

…Tell us how long you’ve been making music together.

Good Days: “We (Eric Ronick and Michael Cannova) met in 2015 in New York’s Lower East Side. “

“Around the end of 2016 we started hanging out in the studio. By the beginning of 2017 we had finished our first song together and after that summer we had finished five songs and had an EP in our hand. All we needed now was a name.

We talked a lot about wanting to put some good out into the world. Something that might encourage, inspire and even make someone feel loved. We wanted the world to have more good days so we decided that would be our name. Being our first entrance together into the worlds Good Days, we titled the EP simply ‘Hello’ which was released December 7th, 2017.”

Z : What’s been some of your highlights so far on your musical journey?

GD : “First and foremost the greatest highlight is having people listen to something we created and that move them or made their day even just a tad bit better. Every once in awhile we’ll get a message from someone that they heard one of our songs it had a positive affect on them. That’s honestly the best.

Another highlight was a pretty ambitious project we started in 2018 and just finished with our latest release Violet. We called the project ROYGBIV, which was a colourful collection of singles that play off the feels and narratives of each colour. 

We used the colour to influence the music style, instrument choice and even tempo. Lyrically we leaned heavily into the psychology of each colour. Finding subject matter and emotions within the full spectrum.

Each track took the name of its respective colour. The results of ROYGBIV are just one interpretation that’s personal to us. It was a way for us to share with others what we see, hear and feel in this vast and colourful world.”

Your latest single is called ‘Violet’, is that your favourite colour?

“Hmm…depends on the day. Our favourite shifts quite often. We use colour lights in our studio to set a mood for each track. We do love Violet. It’s definitely in the rotation.”

Tell us more about the single. Is there a meaning behind the song? Story attached to it?.

“Violet is the final song in our ROYGBIV project. As each previous colour conveyed something unique, Violet for us was all about compassion. We truly believe that love is the stuff that miracles are made of. So no surprise we say “love” about a hundred times.“

Listen to Violet on Spotify. Good Days · Single · 2020 · 1 songs.

“We wanted the song to feel like a warm hug from the universe. Something that might fill your heart to possibly overflow into the world. And as much as compassion is important to others we must all remember to have compassion towards ourselves. Be your best friend and take it easy on yourself. You’ll then start taking it easy on everyone else and the love comes full circle. We really hope that when people listen to Violet they feel the love.”

Tell us about your home.

“We currently live in Los Angeles. We both moved out here from NYC over the past year and half. It’s a huge change from New York but a change we needed. The 365 days of sunshine. The beautiful beaches and mountains. It’s not far from paradise. It’s definitely having a good affect on us. The spirit of California has always had a presence in our music so it’s wonderful to finally be here.”

What albums do you never get tired of listening to?

“I think the one album that probably gets the most repeats when we’re hanging together would have to be #1 Record by Big Star. It’s an amazing album.”

What can we expect from you this year?   

“Now that ROYGBIV is wrapped we are shifting from color to California. Living here we’ve been inundated with all kinds of wonderful west coast culture and we’re big fans. So now we’re working on a new EP that will be like love letters to California. It’s had a positive impact on us and we hope that we can capture that and share it with people all around the world.”

facebook.com/gooddaysband | instagram.com/gooddaysband 

Words: Kelly Munro