Mix CD #27 - Strength In Numbers

Hello and Welcome to the current edition of my shitty blog. Prepare your eyes (and ears if you can be arsed) for a feast!

I'd been wanting to use the above photo for a mix for a long time but nothing has really fitted with it. I've been listening to the Ryan Hamilton & The Traitors album a bit lately and the song Strength In Numbers seemed perfect for it as well as being a great song anyway.
 Also, I appreciate the irony in the fact that the old dude actually seems like the one in control of that situation, despite the odds.

As for the other songs on the mix, there's the usual mix of songs I have been enjoying, from the punishing Death Metal of Behemoth to the jaunty Cajun Rockabilly of Johnnie Allan. There are a couple of all-female Punk bands and the usual smattering of both '90's Britrock and Prog Metal as that seems to be all I listen to these days,

As always you can read a scintillating little anecdote about each band and/or song as well as download the mix if you want. Both things are below.

Cheers,
Luke
x

Tracklisting
Ryan Hamilton & The Traitors - Strength In Numbers
The Outcasts - Justa Nother Teenage Rebel
Rachel Stamp - Twisted
Kerbdog - Dead Anyway
Maid Of Ace - Minimum Wage
Poison - (Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice
Blood has Been Shed - Metamorph
Ballboy - You Can't Spend Your Whole Life Hanging Around With Arseholes
April Smith & The Great Picture Show - Drop Dead Gorgeous
The Yo-Yo's - Out Of My Mind
Reuben - Girls On Top
Galactic Cowboys - Ranch On Mars
Sicko - Attention Please
Johnnie Allan - The Promised Land
Iron Maiden - These Colours Don't Run
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Mermaids
Joyrider - It Moved
Nitocris - O.B.I.D
Oceansize - As The Smoke Clears
Behemoth - Blackest Ov The Black
The Mr T Experience - High School Is A Penalty For Transgressions Yet To Be Specified
Ryan Is Fun - Game Over

You can download the mix HERE



Ryan Hamilton & The Traitors - Strength In Numbers
Taken from the 2017 album The Devil's In The Detail

This engaging Power Pop trio are, quite obviously, fronted by Ryan Hamilton, a Texan singer previously involved in Smile Smile, People On Vacation as well as his debut solo album, Hell Of A Day. The Devil's In The Detail is a more focused and Rockier album than Hell Of A Day and it's a definite highlight of the year so far. They're on a UK tour throughout August so try and catch them if they're near you (assuming you're in the UK). 
Since I started writing this blog, Strength In Numbers has been released as a single, sort of. It's understandable as to why as it's instantly memorable and addictive. I love that closing riffy bit too. 

The Outcasts - Justa Nother Teenage Rebel
Taken from the 1979 album Self-Conscious Over You

The Outcasts were a Northern Irish Punk band that started in the late '70's and originally signed to the legendary Punk label, Good Vibrations. The subject matter is pretty self-evident but it's a catchy and passionate, believable song from back when teens actually had something worth rebelling against. I love it and think it's one of the criminally forgotten Punk classics, I particularly like the closing segment with the chant of "No rules for the unruled". It was originally released in 1978 under this title but by the album came along it had been changed to, the more grammatically correct, Just Another Teenage Rebel. I prefer the original stylising.

Rachel Stamp - Twisted
Taken from the 2009 album Now I'm Nailed To Your Bedroom Wall I've Only Got Myself To Blame

Rachel Stamp are a London-based, Alternative Glam-Rock band that have split and reformed a few times. As far as I'm aware they're currently together (Wikipedia says they are anyway) though they haven't released any new material in a while. They're absolutely incendiary live though their studio output, unfortunately, doesn't quite capture that and tends to be a little bit hit and miss. This song is definitely towards the hit end though.

Kerbdog - Dead Anyway
Taken from the 1994 album Kerbdog

This Irish band were one of the first, properly heavy, bands I ever saw live. They were supporting Ex-White Lion vocalist, Mike Tramp's new band Freak Of Nature. Kerbdog (billed as Kerbdogs) were first on and didn't seem to go down to well with most people there. I loved them though! I'd never really experienced sound as an almost physical thing; the way their riffs seemed to slam into me was a revelation. I've since seen much heavier bands than Kerbdog but they were my first real taste I guess. 
They released two albums in the mid-nineties, their first was heavy Grunge, with a sound that was kind of like an amalgamation of Therapy? and Metallica. The second album, On The Turn, was a lot more polished, had actual intelligible lyrics and it almost broke them into the mainstream. Unfortunately, they split before it has a chance to. They've since reformed and play the odd live gig here and there and I've love to see them again. 
This song is one of my favourites from that first album and it's odd in that it's dead catchy but I can only understand half of what he's saying and so just sing along like Vic Reeves' club singer.

Maid Of Ace - Minimum Wage
Taken from the 2016  album Maid In England

This young Punk band from Hastings are comprised of four sisters and I stumbled onto them via YouTube one night. So far they've released two albums of surprisingly aggressive, snarly Punk and I'm enjoying both albums a lot. Their name comes from the fact, they're all female, as you can see, and the fact that all of their initials are A.C. The band is literally made of AC's 
I guess this song is fairly self-explanatory, it's all about being skint. It has a nice little balance statement sample in it too.

Poison - (Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice
Taken from the 1990 album Flesh & Blood

These days Poison are roundly derided both as a band and on the individual merits of vocalist Bret Michaels and guitarist CC Deville. Admittedly, the two of them are no Plant and Page but they're perfectly adequate and Bret is a charismatic enough frontman. I'm not ashamed to say I still listen to the first three albums in a non-ironic way, from time to time. There's plenty of great, feel good songs to be had, just best you don't expect anything too deep. This title track of their third album was always one of my favourites, in fact, most of the album is pretty decent and has aged pretty well. 

Blood has Been Shed - Metamorph
Taken from the 2000 album Novella Of Uriel

And now for something completely not like that... Blood Has Been Shed were the band Howard Jones left to front Killswitch Engage. Ostensibly, they're also a Metalcore band but are both harsher and more progressive than the majority of that scene. They were quite hard to listen to at times but there was always flashes of melody in there too. It's a shame they split once he (and drummer Justin Foley) joined Killswitch cos they were a great band.

Ballboy - You Can't Spend Your Whole Life Hanging Around With Arseholes
Taken from the 2002 album A Guide For The Daylight Hours

I've included a couple of Ballboy songs on mixes in the past but never anything from this album, which is the one that first introduced me to the band, I think it's probably their best. This song has been cropping up a lot of late and I'd forgotten just how much I liked it. It's a tale of a young man infatuated with a young woman who always seems to be going out with men deemed unsuitable. By him.

April Smith & The Great Picture Show - Drop Dead Gorgeous
Taken from the 2010 album Songs For A Sinking Ship

April has only released a couple of albums and pretty much disappeared after the release of this one. I'd like to know where she went.  It's a brilliant album that combined her fantastic voice with her dark and sardonic wit. This song is about a physically perfect person who is, sadly, a bit dim.
If you can track down either of her albums, this or Loveletterbombs, then give them a chance because they deserve it.

The Yo-Yo's - Out Of My Mind
Taken from the 2000 album Uppers & Downers

I lose track of where The Wildhearts were at when Danny McCormack formed this Rock n' Roll influenced Punk band. I dunno if they'd split or it was when he was kicked out of the band and into Rehab. Anyway, they signed a, I think, 4 album deal with Sub Pop and released this magnificent debut. It all went a bit shit after that. members left and after a mediocre mini album (Given Up Giving Up) they split. Danny resurfaced recently in The Main Grains and Tom Spencer has been involved with a few projects though I'm most familiar with, and have previously featured, The Loyalties. Neil Phillips was also in B-Movie Heroes and joined Danny Frye & The Devil Dolls at one point, another band I've featured on past mixes.
Out Of My Mind was their debut single and is the catchiest song you'll ever hear that doesn't really have a chorus as such, As with all of their songs Danny, Tom and Neil all flip back and forth between lead and back vocals, their voices are all quite similar so it's tricky to tell who's singing what at times,

Reuben - Girls On Top
Taken from the 2009 album We Should Have Gone To University

I've recently been poking about online, trying to find a variety of Reuben non-album tracks and B-sides after trying and utterly failing to find the 3 disc album We Should Have Gone To University for anything less than a million fucking quid. This song is apparently a cover of a song by a band called Dreyfuss. A band I can find no information on. I really like Girls On Top though, it reminds me of Bleach-era Nirvana, Love Buzz and all that. Good stuff!

Galactic Cowboys - Ranch On Mars
Taken from the 1993 album Space In Your Face

This Texan band combined Progressive Metal with poppy, multipart harmonies, acoustic guitars, harmonicas and other incongruous instruments. They split, after a handful of albums, in 2000 though they have since reformed and a new album is due this year sometime. I am VERY excited about it. In the meantime though, this is one of the hidden tracks from their second album, the monumental Space In Your Face. Geffen only wanted the 9 tracks but the band wanted more, they ended up with a couple of hidden ones as a compromise. Seems daft to me but whatever. The song itself is a slower one and not one of their more immediate tracks but it does have a big chorus and a few interesting little bits and pieces going on. They had several continuations of this song over their albums, bizarrely Ranch On Mars (Reprise) was on their debut album and this on the second.

Sicko - Attention Please
Taken from the 1997 album You Are Not The Boss Of Me

This is another CD I've revisited after dragging it out of a crate in the attic and I've been listening to a lot this week. Sicko were a fairly standard Pop Punk band from Seattle, they have a sound very much of its time but that's not always a bad thing. There are a load of great songs on this album though I opted for this (the longest on the album at a whopping 02.34 minutes) mainly due to the fact my mate Eddie hosts a radio show called Attention Please too. It's a good song too though!

Johnnie Allan - The Promised Land
Taken from the 1971 single The Promised Land

About 25 years or so ago I had a compilation on cassette that came free with a magazine, remember when the inlay was a page in the magazine and you had to cut it out yourself? it was one of them. Anyway, there was all manner of weird stuff on it, from Metal to RnB and everything in between, the only thing connecting them was they were a bit peculiar. This song was on it and it became my favourite though I had no idea who Johnnie Allan was or anything else he did. 
When I made the transition from cassette to CD, this song was one of the casualties but I've since found it mp3 form and I'm very happy. I've also discovered it's actually a cover of a Chuck Berry song and there's versions knocking around by both Elvis and W.A.S.P. There's an odd little pair for you.

Iron Maiden - These Colours Don't Run
Taken from the 2006 album A Matter Of Life And Death

I can't believe I've never included anything by Iron Maiden before. There's not a whole load to say about the band as I find it hard to imagine there's anyone reading this that isn't even just a little bit familiar with them. They're arguably Britain's biggest contribution to Metal, influencing a full multitude of bands and still managing to create music as great as they were doing 30/35 years ago. You might have seen their T-shirts around...
This song is one of the highlights on one of their latter-day albums, the war themed A Matter Of Life Of Death; It's got a great, anthemic chorus and a strong message about the folly of war but the pride of the soldiers heading off to die.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Mermaids
Taken from the 2013 album Push The Sky Away

Considering that his most famous song is a duet with Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave has never made the most commercial music but his last two albums have been particularly challenging to the casual listener. Skeleton Tree was emotionally raw and painful, being recorded not long after the death of his son. 
Push The Sky Away doesn't have that catharsis and is actually quite a soothing album. there is, however, not a whole lot of obvious singles, no catchy choruses, just a great sense of atmosphere and beauty. This song is the closest thing there is to his more engaging side. It's essentially saying that if you believe in God then you may as well believe in Mermaids or Santa Claus for all the good it will do you.

 Joyrider - It Moved

Taken from the 1995 single It Moved

This Northern Irish quartet were part of the Britrock scene in the mid-nineties, though they resided at the Punkier end of it. They were brash, lively and the one album they released, Be Special, was a classic. I guess they were most well known for their spirited cover of Jane Weidlin's Rush Hour but that shouldn't overshadow their own stuff. This song is taken from one of their EP's they released prior to Be Special, It's a short, energetic track with a great chorus. I dunno what the 'it' that moved is though. 

Nitocris - O.B.I.D
Taken from the 2000 album Nitocris

At the turn of the millennium, I spent a couple of weeks by myself, holidaying in Australia. Obviously, that was before the days of iPods and I wasn't about to drag a suitcase full of CD's halfway around the world so, when I arrived, I bought a portable radio and made do with that. Thankfully the radio in Australia is a lot better than it is over here and I discovered a ton of fantastic bands I'd never heard of before, one of which was Nitocris. As you can tell by the above photo, they're an all-female band that played a Punk/Grunge hybrid, somewhere along the lines of L7 etc. 
O.B.I.D is one of my favourites from their second album and sees a great call and response between Morgana and the rest of the band; if you're the sort that needs to know, the title stands for Our Brains Induce Destruction.
Oh and I DID end up dragging a suitcase full of CD's halfway around the world in the end anyway because a bought a crapload while I was there.

Oceansize - As The Smoke Clears
Taken from the 2004 EP Music For Nurses

I've recently rediscovered this Manchester based band after losing touch for a few years. They split in 2011 for undisclosed 'personal reasons". Frontman, Mike Vennart is currently the second guitarist in Biffy Clyro. They released four great albums and a handful of  EP's, I'd say they were a Progressive Rock band but with healthy doses of Indie Rock and Post Metal thrown in there too. This song highlights both ends of their musical spectrum as it's gentle and atmospheric yet bookended with some crushing guitars. It's marvelous.

Behemoth - Blackest Ov The Black
Taken from the 2002 album Zos Kia Cultus

Speaking of crushing guitars, allow me to introduce Behemoth. This Polish band are, hands down, my favourite Death Metal band, Nergal has a powerful and recognisable roar but also has a knack for songwriting without losing any of the brutality. He also likes to use V's instead of F's a lot.
They originally began as a Black Metal band before beginning a shift into Death Metal, this album is from the transition period and exhibits elements of both.
Nergal released an excellent Folk/Country album this year under the name Me And That Man. I'll be featuring one of their songs at some point too. 

The Mr T Experience - High School Is A Penalty For Transgressions Yet To Be Specified
Taken from the 2017 album King Dork Approximately

I've loved this Pop Punk band for over 20 years now, though they've been quiet for the last few years. Band leader Dr Frank has been busy writing novels (his first, King Dork, has been commissioned for a movie adaptation). As Dr Frank was also releasing solo stuff I assumed MTX had pretty much split. Then, earlier this year, a sequel to King Dork was released, along with an accompanying soundtrack by MTX, hurrah! The album was a little disappointing as half the tracks are rerecordings of his solo stuff but this song stands out by a mile and I love it. It has more in common with Status Quo or Slade than it does with Green Day, being a semi-acoustic boogie that bounces along and should spread a smile upon your face. It's also full of his fantastic lyrical interplays that are a joy to hear.

Ryan Is Fun - Game Over
Taken from the 2007 compilation Ryan Is Fun

I don't know a whole about this band other than they are a ramshackle Indie Punk band from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and they're the most Geordie band I've ever heard. 
Someone once uploaded a load of their songs on an old local music forum I was a member of, I downloaded them and enjoyed quite a few with this, swears heavy ramble being my favourite. It also contains possibly my favourite lyrics ever in "I'm a fan of a man called Dan with a tan from a can". I don't even really know any of their albums, if any, I just compiled the tracks I had into an album myself.