Playing catch up with QOTSA and The Idol Dead

Queens of the Stone Age - Villains.

Josh Homme is balls deep in the seventies. Maybe it was working with Iggy on Post Pop Depression that gave him the horn, but the new QOTSA album is the glam years getting a solid work out.

The Bolan estate might want to have a word as it’s so blatant, but as an aficionado of all things seventies glam I’m not too bothered about him dancing on the graves of Bowie, Bolan and Reed as he is doing it with an eye on it all being a homage, and we all love a party in a graveyard anyway.

Sex, drugs and death innit? If you are hardwired with a love of rock and roll it’s in your blood. Just admit it.  

In so many ways Villains is just a big glorious love letter to those stars of yesteryear and sometimes there’s nothing wrong with that when it is done well, and it is done well here.

Now that the album has bedded in it’s actually surprising that so many critics and fans are currently sitting on the fence and offering lukewarm opinions about Villains.

You could be forgiven for thinking that it’s an album you could wait to get around to picking up, but if the sound of the halcyon days of the androgynous rock years floats your boat then you should certainly do yourself a favour and ignore all the milquetoast chatter and grab a copy now.

This could be the album of the year for you.

Let’s not beat around the bush. The mash up of QOTSA and glam rock is a match made in heaven.  

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The Idol Dead – Tensions & Release

Justice! If there was any justice in the world The Idol Dead would be rock and roll behemoths. They would be laying waste to stadiums and bringing back the golden years when rock stars roamed the earth as gods, but right now the world is having a passing infatuation with lowest common denominator shit so the guys will just have to bide their time.

Yeah I know it’s all subjective but who is in charge here?

Maybe the next album can be called. Wrong place, Wrong Time, All the Time, but regardless of what is currently in and out it can’t really be denied that with this release they have knocked it out of the park. It’s a home run album in every sense of the phrase.

Its dirty rock and roll sung and played with punk attitude and there’s no weak links on show. Every song is up there trading blows with the big boys and girls who have the platinum discs hanging in their bathrooms, and on more than one occasion it is the Idol Dead that is landing the heavier punches.

Fingers crossed the band do a UK wide tour in support of this. The Idol Dead are what the music scene needs just now. They are the defibrillator that needs to be pressed hard against the chest of the dead horse that the music biz keeps flogging.

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Delinquents – About Last Night

Less is more, less is more, less is more, and Delinquents have taken that maxim to heart. 

No frills, no bullshit, just short sharp blasts of ramalama punk and roll to soothe the savage beast within.

And yeah, I like this sort of thing. Of course I do. In fact scratch that! I love this sort of thing.

The Ramones kicked it all off and then in their wake a million bands rightfully rallied to the flag and ran with the onetwothreefour, but while the Delinquents are all over that like a rash they’re no weak facsimile of the brudders from the bowery because Gilman Street and Fat Wreck Chords are in there too.

There’s plenty of that late eighties early nineties heyday being revisited, but that’s not all. There’s more. Much more to About Last Night.  

Shove some Snuff, Travis Cut, Senseless Things and Mega City 4 into the blender alongside the US bands and hit the switch and once you have given it a solid five minutes you can pour yourself a big glass of Delinquents.

It's astounding how they manage to hit all the sweet spots. 

You wouldn’t have been able to get a band like Delinquents ten years ago. It needed everyone to come before them and lay all the ground work for it all to be stripped down and built back up again, and that they have managed to do that and keep the passion and urgency needles in the red throughout is impressive indeed.

Yet another worthy band that is carrying punk into future and slapping the tired old punk is dead slur out of the mouths of those who cared too little and gave up too soon.  

Events - 40 Years of Bollocks

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons tour dates with Airbourne.

The good news for rock fans just keep coming.

Not only are Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons recording a debut album, but they are also heading out on the road with Airbourne in November. 

Click on the tour poster to enlarge it for details. 

With the passing of Lemmy most feel that it is Phil that has picked up the torch and is carrying it forth into battle on behalf of Motorhead fans. Without trying to offer up a weak facsimile of past glories Phil and his Bastards are obviously dealing in a solid rock sound that reminds us all that there is something very worthwhile in dragging the best aspects of the NWOBHM into the present for new audiences to enjoy.  

Add in that they are warming up the audience for Airbourne and that's a night of hard rocking that really can't be missed. 

and this is obviously damn apt.

Reach for your GUN

In the great words of the reputable, and most esteemed, Doctor Frank N Furter 'I see you shiver with antici.........pation' about the forthcoming release of  'Favourite Pleasures' from GUN.

And so you should be.

It's less than a month to go now. Oh how time flies when you are having fun. So mark the 15th of September in your diaries. Write it in red marker and draw a circle around it. Call your boss and take a holiday to celebrate it.
Seriously. You don't want to have any other distractions on the day. Let's devote it to celebrating all things GUN.

With three tracks already aired by the band the album is shaping up to be a doozy. Not that anyone expected anything less from them.
Or did you?
Did you harbour some doubts? Yes you. You at the back there. That's right. You! Hang your head in shame. Shame on you. Have you even listened to the songs?

Well here they are to save you having to go and look for them. Don't say we ain't good to you.



Is it just us or does Silent Lovers sound like a Beatles and Clash (Londons Calling) mash up while still being unmistakably GUN?


And the latest hot of the presses.



So are you now suitably excited?

And if all of that isn't enough the band are going to do some acoustic in-store/signing appearances and we are filing that away as proof that you can get too much of a good thing.

Dates are:
15th Sept - HMV Glasgow @ 5.30pm
16th Sept - Feel The Groove Paisley @ 1pm
18th Sept - Assia Records - Edinburgh @ 1pm and Assia Records - Dundee @ 5,30pm

Don't forget the dates with InMe and the Barrowlands gig too.

Oh it's all getting to much.
My hearts racing like a conservative minister that has just been told that Murdoch knows about the cocaine and rent boy parties..........and is pissed that he didn't get an invite.

Ryan Hamilton & The Traitors. 100% recommended.

Without over sharing there has been far more downs than ups over recent weeks around these here parts. Hence the dearth of blog updates.

That's not something that I am cornering the market on though.

Without exaggerating I don't think I can recall a time when so many people I know personally - and by extension through my love of music - have been going through such hard times.
It doesn't really matter what they are. It could be a physical health issue, a mental health issue, financial problems, a relationship breakdown, or a combinations of all of them.

Life, at times, can pretty much suck.

For myself one of the few things that I have been looking forward to is seeing Ryan Hamilton and the Traitors tonight.
The gig could realistically be described as the light at the end of a tunnel that I was aiming to reach, or possibly considered as a singular night of respite that will allow me to let my hair down and recharge the batteries in readiness to face whatever comes next.
Regardless of that I have been very much looking forward to it, and I'd like to dedicate this update to everyone out there who is waking up with their first thought being 'I need a break from this shit'.

So here's Ryan Hamilton and the Traitors to blow some cobwebs away just for you. And remember, tomorrow is another day.











GUESS WHO HADN'T BOUGHT TICKETS. TOTAL PANIC. NOW SORTED. :)