Hands Up Who Wants To Die are one of the heaviest bands in the country. The make a lot of noise for short, irregular periods of time, often in Ireland and often in other parts of the world. This Saturday they will be making a lot of noise in the very tiny room that is the Joinery in Stoneybatter (details anseo). They will be playing with semi-mystical Mayo band Riastradh and -best musical act name ever contender – Samuel Beckett’s Broadband Connection.
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A few weeks ago, on a podcast for Curious Broadcast, we done selected some Irish tunes that have provided us with aural pleasure over the last ten years or so. Thus we’ve decided to mix it up/turn reality right on its head/fuck with the mindboxes of the general public and pick tunes by some of our fab fave foreign bands that we’ve shared the stage (usually figurative) with. We’ve been lucky enough to meet lots of lovely and fiercely talented people over the last few years and the following videos provide something of an insight in to the musical adventure we’ve been on – HUWWTD
Don Vito – Electric Mayhem
What a tune to start with. Don Vito are a three-piece sweet from Leipzig that bash out playful and naïve, yet metallic and abrasive noise-rock. It sounds like the soundtrack to a cartoon children’s disco in a steel factory. We had the pleasure of doing our second ever tour with them around Ireland and it was a delight to see them assault people’s aural cavities four nights in a row. From the flowing drumming of the rubber-armed Christian to the sharp clangs of the aluminium guitars and the mic-less shouting they gave us all shivers of delight and sounded exactly like nothing we had ever heard before. They also brought us over to Leipzig to publicly display our hangovers to what was one of the biggest crowds we ever played in front of. Ah well..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3rCvVzZd04?rel=0]
Gone Bald – Christmas Song
Gone Bald have been whipping out discordant filth for the best part of twenty years at this stage. While us Hands Up noiselings were still only in nappies, Ivica invited us over to Amsterdam to play their 15 year anniversary having only heard ‘Graveyardsh and the one with the dead babiesh‘. They’ve been through many incarnations over the years, in terms of both music and line-up. When we saw them it was Ivica bringing the filthy riffs on his glass bodied guitar and Assi delivering some amazing beats. This tune is from what was their next release and it sounds amazing! Pretty unnerving “a day in the life” style Santa video to boot.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SD34DKpOM0?rel=0]
Marvin – Discose
We’ve been fans of these fabulous Frenchies for a few years now. They bring a particularly fun mix of head-banging analogue synth/vocoder action and virtuoso guitar/drums to the international rock table. The Ballroom of Romance (RIP) brought them over to Dublin on a couple of occasions and we got to ‘play’ with them at the aforementioned Don Vito 10″ launch in Leipzig. They’ve got a good few bangers so it was hard to pick one but this here video is one of those special live performances where a band are just on top of their game.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_t0nlyUmNk?rel=0]
Silent Front – More Than Grazes
A pretty hilarious and attentive Dutch promoter named Sander, referred to as ‘Zoltan’ by the young lad Roy Duffy of Squarehead fame, played us Silent Front’s Delete EP when we were on tour a few years back and we thought it was bleedin’ deadly. We organised a Dublin gig for them soon after and a beautiful relationship was formed. They blew people away with their super-tight, super-discordant, super-intense super-choons in the style of Ten Grand and they’ve been back a number of times since, pulling bigger crowds each time. They also returned the favour and had us over to The Unicorn pub (in London innih) last year for a really lovely gig with themselves and Shield Your Eyes. The added bonus is that the singer resembles the English pub landlord guy in that horrible comedy and the drummer is the cut out of Moss from the IT crowd. That and they’re the nicest lads ever. They really bring it live and this tune is from their Dead Lake gatefold LP.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrGrMSNjU6w?rel=0]
MeNFoLK – Nine
This band of bass-driven sages have come to Paul’s attention over the years as he has flirted with Copenhagen’s charms. The four sweethearts therein deftly play abrasive and aggressive rock music with lashings of musicality. We had them over for a jaunt around Ireland in early 2011 and they had a ball bringing the tunes off their second LP Beast One/Man Nil to the earholes of Ireland. It’s a real classy piece of work. This tune, from their first album Colossus (recorded by their drummer Per who also worked on the second album), displays a rawer sound and style and basically encapsulates everything that we love about the band.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbbLSPKrdYM?rel=0]
Upfall?! – Track 1
Upfall?! are a jazzy noise-rock duo from the north-eastern French town of Nancy. They are made up of two mad lads named Imran and Matthieu. We had the pleasure of playing with this tasty troupe in their home town earlier this year and got to witness them rip through a blistering set of complex rhythms delivered with brain-melting accuracy and bucketfuls of danceable banana-town charm. Our Matt instantly bonded with Matthieu as they share a very similar name, he’s shallow like that. Happily, the other half of this demented twosome came to visit Ireland recently and now our bond with Imran is undoubtedly as strong as that of the Matt/Matthieu axis. They’re a great band.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORuDXkctjmE?rel=0]
Shield Your Eyes – Flown
Shield Your Eyes hail from London. They’re kinda like a mathy/noisy version of meandering 70’s rock. We played with them at that Silent Front gig in foggy London town in the summer of 2011 but they’ve been around a while. Paul’s heart was so warmed by their performance in the Lower Deck a few years ago that he had to apply after-sun to his aorta after the gig. Though these rocking rapscallions can definitely emote in spades, there is a particular technicality to it all, born out of some acutely original guitar playing with lots of neck-bending, broken strings and musical feedback. Definite weirdo music.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knae2bn1y7U?rel=0]
Boutros Bubba – Rabbit Song
No song better sums up these Dutch nut jobs like Rabbit Song. A twisted racket oozing with personality that hops around the place like, I dunno… a frog or a rabbit or something. We played with these guys at the Le Chéile festival in Meath a few years ago and they didn’t disappoint. Needless to say their accents were also very entertaining; that unmistakable sound of Mayo and German drawls in a big melting pot of comedy. This performance is particularly super-charged with a very appreciative crowd and a cameraman seemingly on acid.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdI4c5gdIWM?rel=0]
K’atla – Heads On The Road
K’atla are a noise-rock trio from Frankfurt who mix a unique, snarling guitar sound, slabs of ferocious baritone and wildly entertaining beats into a hook-laden party storm. Diego, Pete and Mücke were our tour-mates on our latest jaunt around the continent in April of this year and piling into a van and playing gigs with those German cats every day was a strangely wonderful experience. We’ve been fans of the guitarist Diego’s amazing other band Gentle Veincut for a number of years, so much so that we went to Frankfurt to record our last album with Highlander, who was behind the controls for their last number of records. This particular video, shot by Matt on his smart phone, is one of the shorter K’atla tunes but nevertheless was one of the many standout tracks every night of the tour. They’ve nearly got their first release sorted we hope…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeYqCLo0XaQ?rel=0]
Poino – Widow’s Cube
Poino are a force of nature. Earlier this year, we brought them to Cork and Waterford, where they went down a storm, before they headlined our all-day festival party gig in the Whelan. Three fine gentlemen, their guitarist/vocalist used to play in a fantastic band called Giddy Motors and he looks truly demented when singing in to his guitar. This tune is off their first album Moan Loose which was released in December 2010. It displays their trademark water tight/relentless rhythm section duelling with Gaverick’s aforementioned perturbing styling’s upfront and has an absolutely brilliant video to boot.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHnkDzgY42g?rel=0]
That’s all from the Hands Up media desk. Our second long player will be out next year. If you’re not videoed out of it you can have a look at us doin’ our thang on Sean Zissou’s vimeo page, he’s been shooting sexy practice space videos with some of the best Irish bands around for a while now. Peace and fuckin’; believe.
