1984 are back with their 3rd studio album. Nothing Will Ever Change will drop in May and is available for pre-order via Dirty Punk Records and Coretex. This is the band probably best album and has 11 tracks in their mix of Oi and Streetpunk with sing along choruses for your Friday night madness. Imagine Stiff Little Fingers punk rock and a bit of Clash style punky reggae. Check them out and don’t miss this from this French band. Oi and Punk at it’s finest.
You were looking for some punk? look at new SNUFF album: Off On The Charabanc via our friends from SBAM Records. I must say that this band dosen’t have the credit that they deserve and it is a shame. They formed back in 1986 in London and for sure it is a band that every punk listener should have it in the playlist. The new album it is PUNK (yes the way should be), it is fast, it is melodic and is honest. Go Easy the first song starts amazing and the album continues like that on all 15 tracks, oh well…from track 9 to 15 there are acoustinc versions (and SNUFF are no stranger to the acoustic versions as they had various materials on this), it is a proper sing-a-long album. Children Get Ready also bring some ska influences with horns and keyboards. Like they say we need to slow down a bit and enjoy life and the simple things, specially in the fast world of non-values promoted and the social media “trends”. This is still punk, still honest and still SNUFF. The album is fresh, came out in March this year so go and grab your copy or stream it online on all the platforms. Cheers.
Tracklist
1. Go Easy
2. Off On The Charabanc
3. Booster
4. Yellow Lights
5. Purple Prisoners
6. Fireball
7. Children Get Ready
8. The Skip
9. Charabanc (Acoustic)
10. Go Easy (Acoustic)
11. Reach (Acoustic)
12. Yellow Lights (Acoustic)
13. Toxic (Acoustic)
14. All Over Now (Acoustic)
15. An Arm And A Leg To Kinsey Crag (Acoustic)
Days N’ Daze formed in 2008 in Houston and they play a mix of folk (yes folk) and crust, there is a weird and interesting combination in the same time, but hey this is music about, experiment to make something good. Show Me The Blueprints DEMOS will be out in May at our friends from SBAM Records and Flail Records. The band is signed with Fat Wreck and the original album was a blast for them. But as Jesse said: “For over a decade I recorded Days N’ Daze on a Tascam board through a single Sterling ST-55 with no DAW in a closet at my folks place in Houston, TX. I’ve never really known much about recording, mixing, and mastering. Always kinda just did what I could with what I had and understood to get a sound closest to what was in my head. Needless to say, flyin’ out to California to record an album for Fat Wreck Chords in an actual studio with computer screens, more than one mic, and someone who actually understands what all the little bips and bops on a soundboard mean was a pretty big step out of our comfort zone” so in short this version is one with the demos as they were recorded before the album was out on Fat. 15 tracks to listen loud and check them out HERE
Oi! you, from the Greater Wallachia region in Romania, all the way to Aztec land, I received the StrgOI fanzine. It is hard for me to write an objective review as I’ve known Cezar for a long time, back in the days when we were exchanging lists of music on ODC and having MySpace, but I will try to write something honest. The name Strigoi refers to a type of supernatural creature or undead being, often associated with vampirism or revenants. The concept of Strigoi varies in different regions of Romania, but generally, they are believed to be souls of the dead who have returned from the grave, possessing some form of malevolent intent. Cezar is also known for his old fanzine: No Bollox Just Oi! and Strigoi brings the same Oi, Punk, and metal music back into the center of attention.
The package came with the first 2 issues, both of them with hard covers and nice black and white prints. Both issues have some beautiful A3 posters made by Cristina (MissRhyne). The first issue has 70 pages and features interviews with: Karloff (punk and black metal from Oldenburg, Lower Saxony), Plakkaggio (punk and black metal from Italy), Hardsell (streetpunk/oi, hc from Austin), Coro from Axa Valaha (booking and underground promoter from Romania), Scandal (streetpunk/oi from Romania/UK), NapOI!ka (streetpunk from Czech Republic), Rotheads (death metal Romania), The Unborn (horrorpunk oi from Italy), Mendeku Diskas (distro and mailorder from Basque Country), Collision (postpunk oi from France), Sasha from Wrong Turn (hc/punk band tattoo artist from Romania), Toro Bravo (oi from Lithuania), Leather Brigade (fast metal from Romania), and Eroszakszervezet (punk from Hungary).
It also includes a short history of Iulia Hasdeu Castle in Campina, Romania, and an amazing artwork for the back cover made by Cristina and a nice poem. Number 2 came out this year and has 90 pages with a hard cover B5 format. It features interviews with: Live By The Sword (oi/metal USA), Trespasser (black metal Sweden), Grinder (thrash metal from Romania), FC St. Pauli (interview with the firm), The Dead Ceausescus (punk from Romania), Real Enemy (skinhead fanzine from Slovakia), The Uncouth (oi from USA), Terror Art (post-punk legends from Romania – interview in Romanian and English).
There’s also a nice article about How To Live With Death in the Wallachian style and another article about Romanian venues (Bucharest part 1). The fanzine also has some nice artworks by the same MissRhyne: The Adventures of Strigoi and Friends, and another kick-ass back cover artwork with a poem.
Both issues have the interview written in English as well as the articles. Cezar did a great job with the questions, really personal some of them, covering political issues and football among other cool subjects. Being myself a huge collector of fanzines (both printed and digital), I must give kudos for the huge work that they did, as both of the fanzines are looking professional and of nice quality print. I like the A3 poster for the second issue so much that I ordered a frame to have it on display in my office. I also love that both issues have a nice layout with 2 columns and nice photos; all interviews have different feels and like I said, really crafted questions.
As a small critic, I must say that 2 interviews were a bit hard to read as the background artwork with the black text didn’t go well together, but all in all, this is something to have for any fanzine lover out there. Please do check them out and order directly from them this amazing zine.
From the underground of New York, here comes Demoted. 9 tracks under the name of Shit For Brains, really fast, short and angry. In the mix of hardcore and punk that will remind you of Minor Threat. This is true DIY from the band released on CD and old school on tape. Fast riffs and guitar distortion and adrenaline, good to listen to your gym sessions. Also a nice cover artwork in the old school punk art mood. Check them out on their official web https://www.demotedband.com/
Punk to the bone.
STAGE BOTTLES
interview with olaf
Hey Olaf, this is MirceONE from mptyzine, so nice to have you here for this interview, how are things?
Now things are becoming a little bit more quiet after releasing our new album in December, after touring in December and after celebrating our 30th anniversary with a big festival we organized in December.
We are not a professional band, so we’re all working in normal jobs. That’s a lot altogether, but everything went alright. So: happy and relaxed days at the moment.
For those who don’t know the band, can you please give us a short history?
The Stage Bottles were founded in 1993. The first line-up was recruited from a circle of close friends from the antifascist skinhead-scene in Frankfurt am Main/Germany. At this time it was a hard fight for the real non-fascist skinheads to act against public prejudices – we didn’t want to be confused with fascists – and to fight against the Neo-Nazi-scene on the streets. The Stage Bottles were part of this (national and international) process right from the start.
In the last 30 years the Stage Bottles released eight albums, four 7-Inches, one Live-album, one Best-Of-CD (2003) and three spilt-7-Inches with Los Fastidios, Scrapy and No Respect. Additionally there were some exclusive songs released on compilations. The closest cooperation the band has had in the past was with the record-labels Mad-Butcher-Records and Knock-Out-Records.
We already played hundreds of concerts so far. Not just in Germany. There were also concerts in Canada, Russia, Belarus, Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Spain, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Croatia, Denmark, Norway, Serbia, Slowenia, Italy and Greece.
1993 and counting, how the band changed along these years?
I am the last original member of the band. There were several changes in the line-up as a result of – mostly – changes in private life like founding a family or for reasons in work-life. So there were different drummers playing on every released album before 2023. On our new album “We need each other” our drummer O2 (“Olaf2” because I was the first Olaf in the band) is the first drummer who recorded a second album with Stage Bottles. The leaving of the band of the female singer Manu in 1999 was one of the most effecting changes in history of the band. The female voice was – next to the use of the saxophone – one of the most characteristic elements of the music of the Stage Bottles. The saxophone – originally used at the start due to the non-existence of a solo-guitar-player – is still one of the most recognized characteristics of the band. Even most of those people who think that a saxophone normally doesn’t fit to Punk-Rock changed their minds.
The music style and the intentional content of the lyrics didn’t really change, but, of course, we’re getting older and more self-reflected, so it’s not all the same as when we were young.
Tell me few things about your influences as a band
We were always influenced by “classis” English Punk Rock bands like Angelic Upstarts, Stiff Little Fingers, The Damned, Leatherface, Cocksparrer, Newtown Neurotics, Blaggers ITA and a couple of more bands. Blaggers ITA were very important for the band ‘cos I used to live in England in the early nineties and I joined the band on saxophone. They had a strong antifascist attitude with also acting on the streets and they used brass (trumpet and saxophone). They even had a Hip-Hopper in the band later. So this mixture made my mind more open for different musical influences. And it showed it’s possible to use a sax in this kind of music. The whole spirit, politically and musically, of Blaggers ITA was the base for the spirit the Stage Bottles still live.
Congrats for the new upcoming material, We Need Each Other, please tell me more about it
Thanks. It took 10 years to do a new album after the last one “Fair enough” that was released in 2013. The reasons are Covid, personal problems and a couple of line-up changes. So we had to integrate 2 new guitar players in the last three years. We couldn’t practice due to Covid. In the meantime I even wanted to disband the band ‘cos I thought I am losing my feeling to do it authentically. Without really feeling it positively I couldn’t do the Stage Bottles.
But then I kind of reorganized myself and I found myself again. And so songs and ideas for lyrics came back into my head again and the story continued.
That’s the story why we still exist and why we recorded this album and didn’t stop.
About the album itself: The title “We need each other” is a reaction to what happens all over the world. Everyone seems to be up for confrontation and not for searching for solutions for many problems we’ve got to find and we’ve got to try to solve together. Problems like climate-change, aspiring right-wing-parties and psychopaths everywhere, religious conflicts and so on. Specifically for fighting the climate change we need nearly EVERYBODY. Even most of the countless arseholes everywhere. That’s just a determination. The way how to tackle it is another question. But the song is also about friendship. Many Punks, Football people, Skinheads, etc. of my generation are becoming lonelier while becoming older. We’ve got to care about each other, we’ve got to have an eye on each other. Getting old is a dangerous thing for many reasons. If you don’t watch out you are socially isolated. That’s what we’ve got to impede.
Also the rest of the lyrics adapt to topic issues in general. Sometimes more concrete, sometimes more abstract in a global meaning.
A reference to my time with Blaggers ITA is definitely the song “You’ll never stop us”. It’s a song recorded in collaboration with the Punk-Hip-Hop band Moscow Death Brigade. I wrote the whole music and I had the idea for the title, the rest of the lyrics were written by Moscow Death Brigade. This is pure crossover.
We think musically this is the best Stage Bottles album ever. We worked out the songs in a long time and much more meticulously than in the past. The mixture of musicians works superb. The studio where we recorded did an excellent job.
Everything fits. And a lot of people obviously like it. Being recognized that much after having a release-break of 10 years is great.
And there is another thing that changed: we released the new album kind of “D.I.Y” via a label-platform of our friends from the band “Loikaemie”. We both have been ripped off by record labels in the past. To prevent this Loikaemie decided to release their new (excellent) album “Menschen” on their own label. As friends they offered us to do the same by having the opportunity to do it on their label-platform. It works very good. And at the end we get all the money we deserve to get and e need to finance everything: studio, production, promo, etc..
Please make me a top 10 of your favorite bands
1.Blaggers ITA
2.Angelic Upstarts
3.Leatherface
4.Newtown Neurotics
5.Stiff Little Fingers
6.The Specials
7.Bruce Springsteen (first inspiration to write songs)
8.Madness
9.Red London
10.Charly Parker (famous jazz sax player from the fifties)
And for sure a couple of more bands.
Are you guys preparing a tour to promo the new album? Where people can see you in the near future?
In December we already had a little tour supporting a german band that’s very big in Germany: Feine Sahne Fischfilet. We played three gigs with them altogether in front of about 15.000 people.
In 2024 we are not planning a tour. We’ll play festivals all over Europe and smaller gigs. Due to the fact we’ve all got normal jobs and some have also got families we can’t do big tours. But we play at weekends as much as possible. But it’s also important for us to have time to recover so we are sensible and we don’t play every weekend we could.
If you have the opportunity to do a split EP with a band, what band will be?
To be honest, I can’t answer this question. We are not in the age anymore where we adore other bands and wish to do something with them.
A collaboration like with Moscow Death Brigade is great. But a split with any band? We would be up for it in general, but it must be a band that’s fitting to our attitude and quality of music.
Tell me where people can buy or listen to your music?
You can order in the Stage Bottles-Shop, at “Feetfleck Records”-shop or at Cargo Records. Please order in our shop to support us completely!
But it’s possible to stream it everywhere aswell.
You guys played in many parts of the world, where it was the most amazing?
Well, “amazing” may be the wrong word for our first tour in Russia in 2008. But the circumstances for this tour were very special. We were the first west-European band with a strong antifascist attitude that played in Russia until this moment. Twenty friends from Germany and twenty friends from Russia were with us the whole tour for security reasons. At this time there was kind of a war between fascists and antifascists on the streets of big Russian cities. When we played the tour we were threatened by Nazis, one venue was painted with svestikas, security checks at the venues ere sometimes the same s at airports to prevent that guns etc. were brought inside to shoot us and the people of the audience. Very, very sadly three of the Russian friends who were with us were killed – better executed – by Nazis later. But the experience in general to meet so many great people, to feel how important it is for people to get international support, and to give it, that was amazing. Our collaboration with Moscow Death Brigade is still a result of these things happening in the past.
On the other hand it’s always an amazing thing to play on other continents. We played in Mexico for example. Not well organized, but dead nice people and a setting that’s different to European gigs. A different culture and a different landscape. Great. We enjoyed it a lot.
Olaf, thank you for your time, please if you have a message for our few readers
Get our new album “We need each other” and listen to the lyrics. Then everything was said.
And never forget: we need each other ‘cos only together we’ll weather the storm.
We need each other ‘cos otherwise we’ll go down to flames.
Let’s stand together against homophobia, sexism, racism, fascism, capitalism and so on. Let’s fight for real justice. Then we’ll live in a better world where everything has hopefully a chance to become happy. Don’t be selfish.
MirceONE vs Olaf Stage Bottles – December 2023-January 2024.
Oi you, MirceONE here from MPTYZINE and hope you got a nice start of 2024. Here is a really short number from our webzine and i hope you will like it. For this 2024 stay strong, make your music count and go to concerts, help the bands how you can and stay close to your family and friends and stay healthy. Thanks for reading us in 2023 and in the last years, here’s for another full year. I will try to release more numbers this year so if you have some bands to promote or concerts, also any kind of promotion, please do get in touch and i will be more than happy to spread the word. Be nice and stay strong and healthy, stay rude, stay rebele, always stay yourself. Cheers!
Here is the latest number for you to download. As always this is a free zine but however if you like it you can send me for coffee on my paypal. GIVE ME A COFFEE
Hey guys, MirceONE here and here are my personal picks for 2023. (in no particular order) i have choose some albums that i have listened in 2023 from punk, ska, oi and hc. Cheers!
Violent Way-this is for us / Stage Bottles-we need each other / Sekta Core – simfonia del caos / Rancid – tomorrow never comes / The Porters-to the good times and the bad / Mustard Plug– where did all my friends go? / Hold My Own – in my way / Evil Conduct – 10 tracks no bullshit / Omnigone – against the rest / Anti Flag -Lies They Tell Our Children
Stomper 98 are back. This is their 7th studio album called Stomper 98 released by their own label S98 Records. The band are celebrating their 25th anniversary and what is the best way to celebrate if not with a new album?. Social and political lyrics with sing along choruses and catchy melodic rhytm. Classic punk rock with hardcore and reggae mix with a lot of energy and some amazing line up featuring Tommi and Sebi (Toxpack) and Lars (Rancid) with Holgi on Saxophone and the new band members: Sille on bass and Stefan on drums. This is streetpunk.
Amazing news for the hardcore fans out there. Death Before Dishonor the Boston HC outfit are celebrating 24 years as a band and they are returning with a new two song EP 7”. This EP was recorded by Zeuss (Hatebreed, Agnostic Front) and it has two new songs: Master Of None and a cover of Sonic Reducer from Dead Boys. So this is hardcore and metal riffs mixed with punk at their finest. The EP is out from Bridge 9. Make sure to give them kudos for this and wait for the new material.
Official music video for Death Before Dishonor’s “Freedom Dies”, off their new album ‘Unfinished Business’. Out now on Bridge Nine Records. This is their latest full album released just before the pandemy in 2019.
mpty zine 