Australian blitzkrieg punks AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS joined hard rock
oldtimers as support act on their shows down under. This footage comes
from the concert in Adelaide a couple of days ago.
The by now legendary Tiny Desk Concerts are organized by NPR Music,
the project of National Public Radio, an American privately and publicly funded
non-profit membership media organization, that launched in November 2007
to present public radio music programming and original editorial content for
music discovery, since 2008.
Small and big musical artists/bands have performed in the
room filled with books and a tiny little desk, ever since.
Last night, DAVID BYRNE was the (famous) guest. He brought a whole group of musicians, with a diverse set of instruments, backing vocalists, and dancers along for the occasion.
4 songs were played. Two tracks (Everybody’s Laughs / Don’t Be Like That) from Byrne’s new album Who Is The Sky? and 2 Talking Heads crackers, (Nothing) But Flowers from 1998 and Life During Wartime from 1979.
It’s mega-enjoyable to watch the fabulous 20-minute gig.
It feels and resonates like an early Xmas holidays party.
Everybody’s dancing, singing, laughing. Pretty contagious
and no psycho killers in sight.
Last Sunday Brighton‘s noizz sensation DITZ landed in my hometown of Ghent, Belgium. The tenth time I witnessed their Dante Inferno exploits.
I’ll give you 5 reasons why DITZ are one of
the best live bands of the past decade.
1. Their live wall-of-trash-and-crash sound breaks every decibels-level law.
It’s beyond aural belief, but also scary, earth-shattering, and balls-and-brain
breaking. Don’t you love it when you can feel music really physically as if your
body gets electrocuted? I do. It makes me feel much livelier than just being
alive.
2. The demonic guitar duo of Anton Mocock and Jack Looker produce
an amount of kick-ass electricity that make roofs/walls of venues tremble.
Their non-stop chainsaw riff are fucking ace.
3. The rhythm section of Sam Evans and Caleb Remnant batters with
a Herculean vehemence. Ideal for an Armageddon battle of bands.
Hallelujah.
4. They’re big fans of Fugazi, At The Drive-In, Metz, Flipper, Black Flag
and other mean noise motherfuckers. All bands I dig too.
5. Last but not least there’s the psychotic vox and venue-filling presence of Cal Francis (they/them). They rant, they stare, they’re charismatic off and on
stage, they are a bugaboo in Kate Moss disguise; and they are the perfect
she-devil to front this devilish band of maniacal misfits.
Mind you, without their mindfucking hullabaloo
it would be probably a whole different story.
At the start of this year they launched their 2nd LP,
titled Never Exhale one of the most baffling records I heard in a long time.
.
And their newest single is a nightmarish anti-AI jam.
An irresistible album because of its fitting simplicity and charming because
of its fervent familiarity. Swerving the expected topics of sex and romance,
the entire album revolves around the ionic bond between the four girls.
New record, new tour.
Last Wednesday, they stopped in Antwerp, Belgium for a blistering punk party.
These Welsh punkettes entertained the mad for it crowd with an hour of robust razzmatazz. And it’s clear that the four Amazons on stage had as much fun as
we did.
Full steam ahead. No brakes, no breaks. Uppercut after uppercut. And with their
comic moves, now and then, they put a big smile on our faces. They came to shake
‘n’ roll. They succeeded with perky panache and explosive dash.
Single ‘Girl Band Started Pack’.
One of the best tracks of 2025,
according to our aching ears.
VLURE are an electro-rock hit team from Scotland who
released their smashing debut LP Escalate last
September.
Imagine this. The techno punk pyrotechnics of The Prodigy and the bombastic disco sledgehammers of woofers Fat Dog. Sounds like an Apocalypse Now rave, right? You
bloody betcha. It earned them a blitzkrieg reputation in their home country of Scotland and by extension the UK.
NME said about their firstborn in a 5-star review : “Because VLURE have spent years honing their sound, the sonic underbelly of ‘Escalate’ feels effortless – and almost subconscious. The togetherness with which dense guitars, electronic mayhem and shifts in pace intertwine enables the messages of ‘Escalate’ to take centre stage. The result is an inspiring, brutally honest album that matches the lofty standards to which VLURE hold themselves. They want it euphoric, and nothing can stand in their way.”
Last night, the mad for it 5-piece landed in Brussels as part of a
short Euro tour playing clubs to introduce that staggering album.
They played in front of about 50/60 curious music junkies (like me) whose appetite
for new exciting stuff is insatiable. I’m quite sure that every one of them (like me)
checked the album beforehand and then decided to go nuts to it in that small historic basement of Le Botanique building in Belgium‘s capital.
Vlure put us all in an ecstatic trance. They didn’t mind how many people were present. They left all they got (a lot!!) on the floor while turning the night into a sauna-like rave explosion of big booming electro bangs, extra fuelled with fierce drumming and fat
bass lines.
In the middle, front-giant-man Hamish Hutcheson rapped his butt off non-stop, vocally
assisted in the end by one of his bandmates, until the last Faithless beat, thanking us
all with a thunderous encore. Ace!!
By the end of the year, approximately 500 Belgians will claim to have been there.
Here’s an idea of their titanic live sound.
Their most recent singles and that boiling debut full-length below.
Pennsylvania‘s musical big shot TODD RUNGREN, aged 77 now,
had a remarkable career, with the mid-60s/70s and the 80s as his
most productive, creative and successful decades.
He excelled in blending prog-rock, jazz, electronica
and psychedelic pop into a rich multi-layered sound.
He was a member of experimental band Nazz between 1967
and 1969, and his own band Utopia from 1973 until 1976.
He had his greatest output as a solo artist, with a total of
27 LPs (so far) with Space Force as the most recent one,
released in 2022.
Last week, he landed in Europe for a handful of gigs. I caught him in Brussels.
It felt both weird and special to see this musical icon (for my first time) in a
small 450-capacity club called Le Botanique.
Nostalgia ruled. Rundgren‘s set was a greatest hits one, mostly solo ones,
but also a couple of Nazz and Utopia rockers. It was quickly clear that the legend
only came to perform and entertain us all with his music, not with interactions
with the public in between or during songs. He didn’t want to lose his firm grip
on his 2 hour+ extravaganza show.
Also he needed his supreme voice all the way through to sing. Yes, his all-around
impressive voice was the indisputable star of the galvanizing night. Prodigious, really
prodigious vocal cords. He rarely took up his guitar, and when he did he didn’t lost
himself in endless solos (which I expected a bit). His 5-man strong seasoned backing
band took care of the songs’ insatiable pop and rock puissance. Wholly solid.
Then again, the most gripping highlight was the a capella rendition of the sailor
shanty-like pearl Home Of Work (from his 1985 LP A Capella, yes, all voice, stupendous record). Along with the bassist and guitarist, Rundgren silenced the audience completely venue, you could hear a needle drop. Astounding tour de force. Astounding concert overall.
SETLIST
I Think You Know
Secret Society Weakness
Stood Up
Lost Horizon
Buffalo Grass
Beloved Infidel
Hit Me Like a Train
Wouldn’t You Like to Know
Sweet
Kindness
Woman’s World
Afterlife
Down With the Ship
Flesh and Blood
Honest Work
Rock Love
God Said
Fascist Christ
Hawking
Worldwide Epiphany
Encore:
I Saw the Light / Can We Still Be Friends / Hello It’s Me The Last Ride
Fade Away / A Dream Goes on Forever
All photos by Turn Up The Volume.
