Dave Smalley + The Real Danger and more - October 24th - Tilburg

Still somewhat tired from the Bane show the night before, my wife and I decided to go and support Shield Recordings by attending the show they'd set up in Little Devil.

Because of dinner we missed Ravens but were right in time for Swiss punkrockers Hateful Monday who played a very nice set of uptempo punkrock.

Gert and Fieke of Shield Recordings had been on tour for two weeks with The Fake Boys and this was their homecoming show. Though I like The Fake Boys on record, their live shows are a bit too boring for me. I do have to confess that I've spend much of the time behind the Shield distro selling records.

The Real Danger were up next and ripped through a set of their best songs. It's always a pleasure to see this band. Uplifting, energetic, catchy punkrock.

As a last minute headliner of the show, Dave Smalley of DYS, Dag Nasty and Down By Law fame took the stage, for an acoustic set. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was good. Dave played songs from Dag Nasty as well as Down By Law, shared lots of anecdotes on his past and played some covers by bands that inspired him. In the end I ended up doing his merch at the show. Which is always a good way to spend a night.

Antillectual - Start From Scratch! - cd/lp

Antillectual has been spamming punksites for the past couple of months, streaming one track of their new record once a week. To be honest based on those streams I expected a record that I would enjoy less than 'Testimony' their previous full length. Well I guess I am an old fashioned 'album guy' because hearing all the songs together has made me change my thoughts.

If you don't know who Antillectual are, they're Face To Face with the political mindset of Propaghandi and borrowing the acoustic guitar from Tom Against Me! once in a while. Or you could say they're a bunch of Dutch leftwing punks who listen to nineties skatepunk, contemporary emo and sometimes grow a beard to appeal to the recent orgcore crowd.

Today the Obama government has lost a lot of votes to teadrinking, conservative, crazy Republican candidates. You kind of wish everyone of those voters who made this happen received 'Start From Scratch!'. Antillectual seems to cover part of the election topics being the crisis ('Every Crisis Is A Moral Crisis') and the fact that the US is not longer the superpower it used to be ('Chinese Takeover').

I do doubt if conservative Americans would like to hear a catcy song about America as a negative role model ('America's Worst Role Model') and that eating meat isn't all that good ('Some Of My Best Friends Are Meat Eaters'). Well I guess the band would be missing their reason to exist if they didn't fuel the left wing fire here and there.

'Start From Scratch!' is the most melodic Antillectual record to date. The band tended to get lost in their own music on previous releases thus making their songs less catchy than they could have been. This time however the band has succeeded in writing a record that balances their political views with enjoyable punksongs. The additions of guestvocalist like Chris Hannah from Propaghandi doesn't add that much to the song ('Out The Ground From Under Our Feet') but it's cool for any band to have a person they are inspired by cooperate on a track. Then again the extra vocals from the lesser known Heleen from Midnight Menace ('Buyer's Remorse' and 'So Much More') do add that extra flavour.

This record is a new highlight for the Dutch punkscene and together with The Real Danger they are the leading force not only in The Netherlands but in the whole of Europe. Both bands are as good as any of the bigger US bands.

'Start From Scratch' can be downloaded from music.antillectual.com but I suggest you head over to the Shield store because the artwork is amazing enough to get the 'real' thing.

Ceremony - October 13th - Eindhoven

Unfortunately I wasn't able to go to the This Is Europe fest. So when the opportunity came along to go and see Ceremony a few days later I jumped in the Reflections van and went for it.

The Dynamo youth centre is a great place for hardcore shows. But you never know how the Dutch audience will respond to a band. Will it be 'let's stand and see' or 'let's have fun together'?

Midnight Souls opened up the night. Despite my review and interview the Dutch haven't warmed up to this band so far. Which is a shame if you aks me. Besides the bad sound and a bit of an apathetic crowd reception Midnight Souls played a pretty solid set.

Next up were Sabretooth Zombie. By far the worst band I've seen this year, though other people seemed to think differently. The riffs and weird song structures just aren't my thing.

So Ceremony. I actually only like their latest record a lot and was a bit sceptical about tonight's perfomance. Which soon dissapeared after the band pressed go and went for a highly energetic, entertaining set. A lot of younger kids went wild on the band. Massive pile-ons, weird stagedives and even weirder dances were introduced this night. All around mayhem. With suprisingly Get The Most/ Devotion drummer Aaron behind the Ceremony drumkit.

A nice way to spend a wednesday evening.







All pics are by Anne Kohler. See more here.

Up next: Bane this saturday in Gent and The Real Danger, The Fake Boys and Dave Smalley in Tilburg this sunday! Good times!

BoemTikFest - October 8th - Goes

Often the shows you expect nothing from, turn out to be the best. Namur, Belgium with Cracks In The Wall was such a show and our set at the BoemTikFest may be added to that hall of fame as well.

Take two small bars next to eachother, set up a show with some of the best punkbands around in The Netherlands (The Real Danger and Antillectual), make sure lots of local people drop by and you have one hell of an evening.

Due to circumstances I only saw Hard Rain perform. I like their swing at traditional hardcore.

And as for State Of Affairs, we had fun, we had bruises, we have hoarse throats.





All pics by Nous. See way more here.

Good times ahead

So you went to This Is Hardcore fest and saw Kid Dynamite and Hands Tied or enjoyed the mayhem at React! Fest? Big deal. Tonight and tomorrow Europe will have the best fests and I'm going.

The Real Danger

The Real Danger shouldn't need an introduction.Dutch melodic punk band THE REAL DANGER are DESCENDENTS and LIFETIME enthusiasts, and the styles of those two bands propel just about everything this band does. is what Pastepunk say in their review of The Real Danger's excellent new full length 'Making Enemies'. If there is one record worth the title Summer Record of 2010 it is 'Making Enemies'. Enough flattery let's talk with frontman Michiel Walrave.

It seems during the shorter period that the band exists as The Real Danger you’ve gained more recognition than when you guys were doing Uppercut. Don’t you ever feel you should have done The Real Danger sooner?

Not really. We did already start The Real Danger when we were still performing as Uppercut. As far as I can remember we did a couple of The Real Danger songs as an encore at one of our last Uppercut shows. We already knew that we were done with Uppercut at the time. Still I think we couldn’t have started The Real Danger at a better moment than we did.

The main difference between Uppercut and The Real Danger, besides the style of music, is the addition of guitarplayer Sharkee. Why did you get him in the band?

Sharkee played in Uppercut for a while when our guitarplayer Robin accidently tried to saw of his hand. Me and Sharkee go back a long time. We were in bands together when we were 15 years old. He’s also been in bands with Robin. I don’t know anyone who is better in playing guitar so it wasn’t a hard decision to ask him to join The Real Danger.

‘Making Enemies’ the new record receives awesome reviews. Wouldn’t your rather be in a band that is able to tour for months in a row, thus really being able to promote the record.

To be honest I don’t. Playing every weekend and short tours are perfect to me. There’s nothing I like better than playing shows, yet my job is as important and as much fun. Besides we knew when we started this band we wouldn’t be a fulltime touringmonster. We play in Belgium and Germany every now and then and we’re able to play in Austria, Italy, Spain and French on two tour. We do have plans for more.

There’s one coversong on ‘Making Enemies’. Why that song?

That song ‘Skip Steps 1&3’ by Superchunk is a personal favorite of both Sharkee and me. I found out about the band in the early nineties through Alternative Nation on MTV and loved them for the start. My sister bought the record ‘No pocky for kitty’ and at the time it was the only thing I would play. To make a long story short, it’s nostalgia and a really great song to do.

You’ve done artwork for many bands like Mental, No Turning Back as well as venues. Still the artwork for The Real Danger is done by other artists.

I did design some Real Danger shirts. When it comes to the artwork for our records I think it’s more fun to ask someone that I think is a great artist to design it. I have a pretty good idea how I want to visualize The Real Danger and try and find the right artist who fit my ideas. In the end I’m still in control of the art direction.

Has Fat Mike already got in touch?

Some American labels did contact us, but Fat Wreck wasn’t one of them. So far we have released three records on Shield Recordings and the good thing about it is that we know them well. Even more important is that it are great people, they work hard on the label and releases many great bands. The communication with the label is very good. Gert and Fieke just went on tour with us and I don’t think we could have a better deal.

Did you make enemies on the latest tour?

We only made friends. The bassplayer of The Fake Boys, whom we were on tour with, did throw out some moron out of a venue in Innsbruck. But that guy tried to put something in someone’s drink. As for us we behaved like the good boys we are.. I think.

Watch the tourvideo/clip for 'Cutting Ties' here

Easter 2010: Three shows in four days

Ten years ago it wouldn't be special going to multiple shows in a week. At this stage of my life however it is special enough to write about it.

After cleaning the house and the car on friday I drove to Merksplas, Belgium for a show together with A Strength Within and This Routine Is Hell. The drive there was really nice. Because Merksplas is right across the border I was able to avoid the dull highway and drove through small villages and stuff.

The show was well organised and a good amount of people came up to see us play one of our worst shows so far. Probably because bassplayer Marijn thought it a good idea to get tattooed on his elbow just hours before the show. And that might be the reason he didn't hit all the right chords. Despite all that people seemed to be into our set. Which left me pretty exhausted to be honest. Since things were already behind schedule I decided to skip the other bands and head home cause with kids you just knew that it will be an early morning. I heard This Routine Is Hell brought the house down. And I can't wait to see them play on May 7.

Saturday: no show

And then it was sundayevening. Time to get off the couch and head to the Little Devil venue. Gert and Fieke of Shield Recordings had been on the road with The Fake Boys and The Real Danger the past weeks and it was nice hearing about the tour which came to an end in Tilburg.

The Fake Boys played a decent set, somehow reminding me of Serpico. And I wish I could tell you more about The Real Danger (other than that their new record kicks ass and I bought a shirt) but I can't since I left before they started to play. (Don't blame me but a bunch of Americans who heard there was a coffeeshop close to the venue so they got back late).

However there is footage of the show wherein The Real Danger does a Misfits cover:

Frank Turner had the honour to close the list of shows on monday. And he did a great job. The band was having fun on stage. They interacted with the crowd. Turner said some funny and some serious things. He played all the 'hits'. He's just one of the newer bands I really like. It's great that his liveshows are even better than his records. Because where his records have their dull moments, live there is enough going on to keep your attention. I also picked up his 'First three years' record.

Bruises everywhere: Paint It Black redux

Paint It Black, ZXZW, 20-9-08
Originally uploaded by xroldx

If one thing this weekend has made it once again clear that nothing gives me more energy than good music. I prefer a great show over all the energy drinks out there.
The weekend kicked off with State Of Affairs playing a show on this two day mainstream festival in a big park in Breda. Though circumstances were very different and I felt akward on stage we did pretty well. Some punks came to me afterwards and tell me how much they liked it. It's always weird playing hardcore for a crowd that doesn't know about Minor Threat or Youth of Today, but I think we got the message across anyhow.

Than it was back in the train to Tilburg to see Paint It Black, with Dan on vocals. The band also played as part of this big underground festival (ZXZW) with over 275 bands, so I was uncertain of the crowdreaction. After taking some pics on my mobile I went upfront and quickly things got going a bit with Frankie Deny (from Heartfelt and Cracks In The Wall) doing weird moves and runs, some stagedives and lots of singalongs. My throat is still sore and I've bruises everywhere. The show was one rush, at least for me.

I didn't plan to go and do much on sunday. That was until Sjarm 13 (formerly Modern Life Is War) dropped by to see our new girl. He was going to see The Real Danger at ZXZW. Since the weather was good I put my son Jelle in the buggy and walked together with Sjarm and his girl to the venue. On arrival more and more people showed up and Jelle had a great time running in and out of the venue. Climbing on benches and whatnot. So I stayed till The Real Danger started. I guess Jelle likes punkrock cause he didn't want to leave. He was crying for a while on the way home.


That night when the kids were asleep I went into the centre one last time. C'mon it's not everyday you have the opportunity to watch a legendary punkband for free in your own city. So I went out to see Wire. Though I find some of their records pretty boring, their liveset was great. It's always inspirational to see really oldschool punks still making music and still playing tight. They didn't play 12xu but the other songs didn't disappoint me.

Next year I'm going to try and see more of the ZXZW fest. This time I missed out on Trash Talk, Blacklisted, Vogue, Sick Mormons and more.


Click here for more pictures of Wire, Paint It Black and State Of Affairs.

It just doesn't add up

Let's say you're in a band thats known for being kind of leftwing maybe even anarchistic in its lyrics. A band that started in squats and gutters. Flashforward to 2007, a new record on a major label and appearances in big tvshows. What should change?
Well Against Me! thought it was time that they let bad german bands pay for their big van and order the tourmanager to make sure that no local bands open up the shows.
It sounds strange but it happened in Arnhem. The Real Danger (the best punkband right now, with the singer of Nothing Done and a full length out on Shield Recordings) was supposed to play with Against Me!
Being pickey as I am nowadays with going to shows, this one seemed to be worthwhile the trip. Two good bands playing in Arnhem, cause don't get me wrong I love Against Me's searching for a former clarity.
So I decided to go. Not being on the internet for a couple of days made me miss the news that The Real Danger were forbidden to play. Damn was I pissed and dissapointed.
Against Me! played a pretty alright show though I could have done without the lack of interaction with the crowd, the lack of rockstar acting and the lack of The Real Danger.
I guess some bands still manage to sell out.