RIP Tony Sly

By now, you'll all of heard the tragic news that Tony Sly, frontman of legendary punk rockers No Use For a Name passed away on July 31st. I've been desperately trying to find time to write something about this as it is, quite frankly, a fucking tragedy.

No Use For A Name were one of my gateway bands into the skate punk world. I can't pretend I was with them since day one but back in 1997, I bought Fat Wreck Vol III: Physical fatness back in 1997 and was blown away by On The Outside. The drums were fast (and terrible in places), the guitars were heavy but it was Sly's vocals and awesome lyrics that made the song.

My long time bezzie Mearz (who has featured in these pages before) proceeded to get the entire NUFAN back catalogue and whilst the early work didn't quite resonate with our teenage mentality, Leche Con Carne was an absolute belter.

No Use For A Name often showed a much more serious side to their music, with Justified Black Eye moving away from the archetypal willies and bums vibe that made the likes of Diesel Boy and genre stalwarts NOFX so popular. Whilst never reaching the anti-political levels of Propagandhi and Rise Against, NUFAN were still a band with a message.

With nine studio albums and countless collaborations, EPs and compilations under their belt, No Use For A Name are a massively important band not only to me, but to a load of my good friends. Sly's death is a huge loss to the punk world and he will be sadly missed.

Now play this shit loud and proud.

M
\m/

I've arrived!

I got told I sucked yesterday. Some young chap took exception to my slightly derogatory review of the new Fleshwrought album, Dementia/Dyslexia and wrote on MetalasFuck's Facebook page that I suck.

I have to be honest, the pang of pride I felt was extraordinary. I've written something that has genuinely pissed someone off. I'd have preferred a bit more embellishment as to exactly why I suck but it's always nice when people have emotive responses to stuff I write... I can only hope that one day I too reach the level of Ian Winwood

I have enormous amounts of beef at the moment though. Lagwagon and No Use For A Name are touring Europe and not coming to the sodding UK, which is frankly devastating. I haven't seen these boys live for over a decade and when I heard a tour was planned, I immediately messaged Big Mearz and dusted of my wallet chain in preparation. How can you tour Europe and not play the UK?? Bastards!

As you can see this has cut me deep...Still, with a Whitechapel with Annotations Of An Autopsy and Trigger The Bloodshed tour, plus Devildriver and 36 Crazyfists all planned for the arse end of this year there's plenty to look forward too. It's been a fair while (in MADman terms) until I've been to see anyone live due to everything that's been going on at home so I'm getting jittery. Unless I'm in the pit getting sweated on by a selection of robust gentlemen in the next few weeks I might turn peculiar.

On the subject of gigs, Sonisphere takes place this weekend so for all you lucky, lucky fuckers who are trucking to Knebworth, have a truly amazing time. It's going to be difficult not to with Alice Cooper, Rammstein, Slayer, Anthrax, and some mob called Iron Maiden? It's a spectacular lineup and if money were no object I'd be all over it like a fat kid on a Mars bar.

I'm off to buy tickets for Cancer Bats so with the sun shining and last night's Chinese pushing uncomfortably on my lower intestine, see youz lot later.

Peace,
M
\m/

Ah, memories...

You know what sucks? Not being a teenager anymore. Me and Si-KO were talking at work the other day about the simpler, happier times. I know this is Metal Harmony but allow me this brief digression into the world of 90's punkness...

During my spotty, bumfluffed years there was a massive group of us who used to hang around our country market town with our skateboards, smoking roll-up cigarettes and generally looking immensely badass. I'd like to point out early doors that, despite having a skateboard, I was without exception the shittest skater ever to grace the earth. I think I successfully jumped, or "ollied" (fuck I'm a loser) a kerb on one occasion in about two years. I also fell off once after hitting a leaf. Yes, a leaf.

The bare essentials to be in our righteous cartel were:

Spiky hair (my mum wouldn't let me dye it green)
Skateboard
Wallet on at least one chain
Some kind of bracelet
A 12.5g packet of Amber Leaf/Cutters Choice/whatever tobacco came with free papers
A 16th of solid cannabis resin, normally full of plastic

And then we get to the music. A million people will have a million opinions about what's classified as skate punk so please feel free to leave a bitching and whining comment but for us, it was all about NOFX, Lagwagon, Ten Foot Pole, No Use For A Name, Propagandhi, Strung Out, Millencolin, and some more old school stuff like The Misfits, Black Flag, and so on. For me, I've got to say that The Offspring's S.M.A.S.H has to be up there as Self-Esteem is one of my favourite tunes of all time

Me and Big Mearz used to spend all our hard borrowed cash on everything Fat Wreck Chords had to offer - he got some absolute shitters but most of the time, the music was exactly what we wanted; full of energy, always catchy, often retarded (please see Diesel Boy's Titty Twister) and absolutely fucking awesome. We even made the long arduous journey from the East Anglian countryside to London aged 14(ish) to catch a Lagwagon/N.U.F.A.N double-header which was one of the best gigs ever.

So what's the point of this post? Why the arse-suckling fuck should you give a rat's vulva about my youth? In a nutshell, you probably shouldn't. But listening to these songs for the first time in years reminded me of a fucking ace time in my life. Metal is clearly my passion, and nothing gets my bumps goosed quite like a bit of serious thrash and double-kick mayhem. However, if I listen to Lagwagon's Violins or Undeclinable Ambuscade's 7 Years I can help but get a wee skip to my step.

Now I'm gonna jump on my deck, go spend £10 on weed and sit in the park drinking cider.

All in favour, say "I".