Sticky Filth - Stainless CD (Alley cat records 2005)

Before I even start this review, I'd better state that I'm a Sticky Filth fan from way back. This New Plymouth band were the first original band I ever saw in at a bar show back in the late eighties. Last time I saw them play was sometime in the nineties though. I have the German Gift of Life Weep Woman Weep on vinyl which sells for high prices now days.(bought new in Palmerston North for $30) and I have Nektar Der Gotter on vinyl (So I'm much better than you unless of course you have the Ima-Hitt copy of Weep Woman Weep.
After claims of elitism I'll admit to selling my copy of Def through Misadventure 7" cause I didn't like it much at the time.

There was meant to be a new Sticky Filth album some before this album was released The master recordings were sent to an Australian vinyl pressing plant which closed down and the masters were lost. This explains the lengthy gaps between albums.

This came out in 2005 but due to living in Taiwan and Smokecds giving up shipping to Taiwan I wasn't able to get this album when it first came out. What do Sticky Filth sound like? Imagine Napalm Death, G.B.H.Dinosaur Junior, Suicidal Tendencies, Motorhead, eighties speed metal and The Birthday Party all meeting together and that's a rough idea of this band's overall sound.

Anyway to the Stainless album. It's great and retains the old Sticky Filth sound. Craig Radford's vocal have to be some of the coolest melodic punk vocals in NZ. There's thankfully no whooooah whoooooah type stuff. At times Radford does sound close to Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies but that's hardly a complaint. A few of the songs are more metal than previous Sticky Filth First song Nadia recalls Sticky Filth of old sing about witches and has the one of the rhyming couplets I love hearing this band do (In 1993/she cast a spell on me). ("Alice was there in her wonderland/dancing naked, she stole my hand" was my fave from Nektar and can't be topped). Hate Remains has the coolest Motorhead type bass which Radford does so well. Sucidal Tendencies influence can be heard on this song.
Flesh recalls the slower songs from the Nektar Der Gotter LP(i.e cooler than pre-shark jumping fonzie). Same thing could be said for the next song, Cold. (although there is a riff that sounds a lot like Motorhead. Astronaut is a thrasher with an unrelentess drum beat. The intro of Jahbullheboosay has me wishing Shihad still played the style they did on Churn cause that's what is sounds like. Anyone yearning for Shihad of old could get their fix from this song.

Mary-Mary is Sticky Filth ska.It sounds like The Stranglers. Two Thumbs from me.

Mother is an awesome punk/metal crossover song.
Vanguard Hellride 6 is another song that sounds like it could have been on Nektar Der Gotter as does Already Alright.
Girl with the Luger is one the same thing could be said. This song is so catchy and cool.
30 Days harks back to the slower stuff on Weep Woman Weep and the Birthday Party influences can be heard in Craig's vocals on this song. Then it's back to thrashy punk with Scrap Metal Man.
Too Deep which features guitarist Chris Snowden on vocals brings Slayer's South of Heaven album too mind though Snowden's vocals are more melodic than Tom Araya's.
A great album by New Zealand's longest running punk band which ends with a couple of Techno remixes by Concord Dawn of Nadia and Mother which personally I have to be in the right mood to listen to.

A clip of Astronaut from the forthcoming Sticky Filth DVD



Order this CD from smokecds

Offbeats, Vicious Rumour, Skaface Claw, Lead Pipe Larry at Valve November 30

This show was advertised as being Wellington Ska band, The Offbeats Christmas party. I'm not a huge fan of modern ska and don't really like The Offbeats. I attended this because I wanted to see Vicious Rumour and Skaface Claw again. I purposely arrived sometime after 10:30 thinking I'd at least miss the first band since there were really only two bands of any interest to me. When I arrived the first band, Lead Pipe Larry and The Dangermen were playing No Doubt's spiderwebs. They were nothing special really.





Skaface Claw have now changed their name to Otis Claw but the ska/punk/surf crossover three piece is still the same great band. They seem to have got even better than last time saw them. The ska audience seemed more appreciative than the confused pop punk audience did the previous time I saw them despite the first songs seeming more rock/cow punk. They played a few new songs plus called one called Dennis From Accounts that vocalist, Varnya, apologised for due to it being the first time they'd played it. He really didn't need to apologize as it sounded great. Otis Claw still sound mostly like Man or Astro-Man crossed with Operation Ivy and maybe Motorhead.
Definitely a band worth checking out both live and recorded.





Above pics: Otis Claw


The Offbeats played next. They weren't really my thing but lots of people seemed to enjoy them more than I did. I found the length of their set hard to take and went across to the fish and chip shop across the road to buy a bacon and egg toasted sandwich after they'd already played for what seemed like an hour. When I got back they were still playing. This show had been promoted as The Offbeats Christmas party so I'd assumed they'd play last and I'd just go home after seeing the two bands I wanted to see. I think they many played covers. The only one I could place was Rancid's 'Timebomb' which was also sung by a member of Vicious Rumour. Highlight of their set was my bacon and egg toastie.



Above pic: The Offbeats

Napier band punk band Vicious Rumour played next. They played what I thought was a lengthy set. Even playing the same cover twice. They seemed to be having fun. It has to be said that now the frontman's huge mohawk has disappeared. At least two guys in this band look like they've watched Trainspotting too many times. They seemed to play a lot of covers but I dunno really as I didn't recognize too many of their songs. They covered Lars and The Bastards playing Billy Bragg and passed it off as a Billy Bragg song. Weird. Left straight after the bands finished because I was incredibly tired.

Audience band T-shirts read like a list of who's toured New Zealand lately. A lot of Bad Religion and Motorhead shirts.



Above pic: Vicious Rumour

TAB - The Argumentative Bastards EP

This 1989 Ima-Hitt 7 track LP from Wellington band TAB is a New Zealand underground punk rock classic. I've seen it listed for sale recently at US $35 on some punk vinyl website. The band were sometimes compared to Bad Brains due to their reggae song Sniffin' and vocalist Aaron Watson's dreadlocks. Sniffin' was about teenage frustration, drugs and unemployment. The singer, Aaron Watson, now the editor of the Capital Times, grew up in Porirua and wrote about the bored kids in the streets of Porirua at the time. Set to a slow two-chord reggae beat with a searing guitar solo at the end, it received some lukewarm reviews at the time but was ultimately classified as not radio friendly. However student radio loved it..

I remember Fred, a fast melodic punk song with a mid-song reggae beat about a cop killer receiving a life prison sentence, getting heavy student radio airplay from Radio Massey in Palmerston North at the time this record came out. The cover of John Denver's Country Roads is a classic New Zealand punk cover version.

I contacted Brian Wafer from Ima-Hitt records about a year ago seeing if I could get a replacement copy for my vinyl but unfortunately he didn't have one and his comment was that TAB record was bloody excellent.

The band line-up on this EP was Rob Stewart(bass guitar), J.P. de Raad(drums), Simon Gotlieb(guitars), Aaron Watson vocals. There were only ever 500 copies pressed. I recently contacted Simon and asked a few questions.

Smalltakeover: Why were there only 500 copies pressed and is there any chance of it ever appearing on CD?

Simon: We had NO money. Brian Wafer from ImaHitt records in New Plymouth fronted up with the bucks for the pressings and yes we only made 500. I have both this EP as mp3s. I have the final 1 inch master of Ganja and Chocolate Fish but have not as yet had it digitised as it's really hard and expensive to find a cheap-ish recording studio with this sort of analogue equipment nowadays. But there's always the idea there. Ganja and Chocolate Fish is a MUCH better recording. Looking back Argumentative Bastards is a very naiive record, but hey, we were only 19, 20, 20 and 21 then.

Smalltakeover: I read that Hamish Laing (who played bass on the first Shihad
EP Devolve also played for TAB, is that true?

Simon: Yeah Mishy and me go way back. He was playing in both bands for a while. Played rhythm guitar (not bass) for TAB and bass for Shihad before he quit both bands to go semi-professional motorcycle racing. Karl Kippenburg took over from Mishy and he's a bloody good bass player. AFAIK Hamish is still with Avery Ford.

Smalltakeover: Why did TAB split?

Simon: TAB pretty much split up because it had run its course. Both Aaron and Jean-Pierre were pre-uni students when we started the band and I guess Uni and work commitments took over too much. It was very difficult to make money out of music back then.

Smalltakeover: What do the guys in the band do nowadays?

Simon: Not sure what Rob is doing. I manage a digitisation company after spending many years working in the advertising industry. Aaron is the editor of Capital Times(the free Wellington weekly), and JP is the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and has been a policy advisor in economics to the Government for ages.

Smalltakeover: What other bands have you been in?

Simon: Be cool to find a band to muck around with. I haven't played with others in a while. There's been a number of other bands (played Mountain Rock with Open Oyster and got good reviews) but none quite as much fun as TAB.

Cheers to Simon for answering my questions