It’s Thursday night, it’s bloody freezing, I’ve driven 78.7
miles to get here (according to AA Route Planner), then driven around Newcastle
for 25 minutes before finally grabbing a parking spot and all I’ve had to eat
is a service station sandwich. Tonight had better be good.
Actually I’m here because I want to be. I know very little
about the bands I’ve come to see but I like my punk rock, like live punk rock
even more and particularly like small venues that work hard to keep places open
for bands to play. And I’ve said I’ll take a few photographs.
Youth Man + Trash Talk. I’m particularly looking forward to
Youth Man but not so much Trash Talk.
I turn up just as the doors are opening, get myself a pint
and am surprised that there’s actually three bands playing not two. And what a
great surprise it turns out to be. First up are Parks. A young three piece band
I’m assuming are local. They’ve been together for a year yet the confidence
they show on stage belies this fact. Tight, noisy, tuneful and always on the
right side of thrashy/shouty (ie not too
..). This old punk likes them immediately. Young people need a band like this.
Attitude, energy and a stage presence. Jamie Slesser on drums and Ben Davidson
on bass hold it all together whilst Sam Grice bounces round his small area of
stage giving it all on guitar and vocals. Slesser beats hell out of his kit
while Davidson fixes a point on the back wall with a hypnotic stare. I’m not
sure if this is intended or whether it’s to avoid eye contact with people he
knows in the crowd. Either way it works.
They do just five songs. ‘You, You, You’ is fast, jump up
and down, punk rock. Proper punk rock. Punk rock that will appeal to the young
and the old traditionalists. Single ‘Breathe’ is darker, heavier, grungier. ‘Pamela’,
‘Just Like .’ and ‘Ice Tea’ make up the rest of the (too) short set list
A quick exchange with them reveals they state Joyce Manor,
Title Fight and Cerebral Ballzy as influences. I can hear others – recent Kevin
Devine album Instigator springs to mind as do older tunes by bands such as
Dinosaur Jr or even Codeine (if they were speeded up a bit). All good stuff and
if you like any of these you’ll like Parks. The influences are there but Parks
do things their way and no one could ever accuse them of copying.
Parks will be bigger soon. They won’t be third on the bill
for many more gigs. They work hard on stage and have songs that, once recorded
and out there, will be picked up by more than your so called hard core
teenagers.
Single ‘Breathe’ can be found on
Soundcloud and
Spotify.
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| Parks |
Youth Man explode with energy from the second they hit the
stage. Opening with ‘Sweet Apples’ from recent release ‘Wax’ it’s a set of non-stop,
hardcore, screeching, gritty punk. Fast, loud, intense, powerful. This is a
band that don’t let go from start to finish. ‘Valley Girls’ and ‘Pigs’ follow
quickly – “Gluttonous. The human species. Every one of us full of lust.” Read
into that what you will but it’s a perfect statement about today’s
materialistic society and general attitude towards life by too many people.
‘Fat Dead Elvis’ –“This is an encore that nobody asked for” –
three and a half minutes of pounding drums, guitar riffs and Kaila Whyte’s
unrelenting screaming vocals. It’s the longest song they play tonight. Bang,
bang, bang – you get into one song then without warning it’s over and your
brain is pummelled with the next one.
‘Joy’ almost slows things down a little. Almost. “I’m
standing in a pool of cold blood”, it’s hardly a song to help you calm down. ‘Look
Wait’ powers through and is over in just 70 seconds.
And so it continues. Whyte screaming her lyrics, owning the
stage, guitar head almost taking out the front few in the crowd as she thrashes
it around like a maniac.
2013 single ‘Heavy Rain’, ‘Statuesque’ (I’ve not heard this
before) and ‘Skin’ from 2015 EP ‘Hill Of Knives’ close the set in a blisteringly
fast wall of noise. It’s raw and it’s honest.
Facebook
here.
Music, merch etc
here.
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And so to Trash Talk. I’ve been going to gigs for the best
part of 40 years. I’ve witnessed moments I just want to put on repeat forever.
I’ve also seen some shite. But I’ve only ever walked out of three gigs because
they were so awful. This was one of them. It would be unfair to say why and I’d
only get a load of abuse because after all I’m just an old punk. Other people
clearly loved this band. That’s all I need to say.
