ShouldaWouldaCoulda #4 - The Sharp Lads

Playing their own brand of bone-snappingly loud in-your-face punk n’ roll The Sharp Lads kicked ass and took names from 2009 until 2015. Released 3 records and made friends and enemies everywhere they played. I think this excerpt of their bio describes the band better than I ever could:

“Dave Tierney leads the charge with schizo vocals alternating between desperate screams and genre bending melodies. Rob Fudge shreds alien riffs that make you feel like your first time all over again while Kurt Wahlstrom holds down the bowel shaking bottom end playing a bass carved from a Jamaican treehouse. Driving the beat like a hell spawned hot rod with its brake lines cut, Steve Dios is blasting these songs with a frightening fury all the way to their grisly finish. 

Surrender your sons and daughters. It’s already too late.”

In 2011 the Sharp Lads gave the world the self-released debut album Something to Scream About. The opening track might be one of the heinously funny things ever put on record. The nefariously titled Drugs, Booze and Your Little Sister is as juvenile a punk song as it gets. I love it. You Don’t Have to Join a Traveling Freakshow has guitars that could make Johnny Thunders blush, Machine Separated Man has some great JT style riffs as well. The wonderfully weird Spatula is a song about a spatula. Now I have to admit that these are the only four songs of Something to Scream About I’ve heard (via their youtube chanel).

Second album Death By Misadventure was released in 2014 after a line-up change and touring the States. Kicking off with Tierney yelling “Baby baby baby” as band goes straight into full gear with screaming guitars a full use of all the frets on the bass and what can only be described as a demon playing the drums. The dust kicked up by opening track Inventing the Future has barely settled down when the band floors it even more on title track Death By Misadventure. Guitar licks flying all over the place and Dave Tierney screaming out nihilistic lyrics with the grace of a Tasmanian Devil. St. Mark’s Hotel is another banger with a bit of a Ramones feel to it. They don’t really slow down on the rest of the album, with more awesome riffs, weird lyrics and bpm to be found.

Final album Blackout Offensive was released a year later, featuring more wild punk n’ roll and even 2 songs passing the 6 minute mark! In Motorbike Brain Fuel ’s case it’s because of an awesome near 3 minutes jam culminating in repeating the frantic chorus. No slowing down there. Follow the Buzzards is the Sharp Lads being a bit more experimental, slowly starting off with bluesy guitar solo’s followed by the band banging the hell out of their instruments and Tierney basically ripping his vocal chords to shreds. 

Phist Phight With Fil Anselmo is so heavy it could’ve up a comatose deaf person and the Sharp Lads sound like they would actually win such fist fight. Opening track The Kids Don’t Want No Rock N’ Roll, New Orleans (Seems Like a Nice Place to Die) and Bury Me At Sea are my favorite tracks by the band and are perfect punk n’ roll tracks in my book. The whole album is great and sounds like a band on the verge of perfecting their craft. 

But the band called it quits the same year. 

Fear not though, talking about perfection, there were sweet things (pun definitely intended) on the horizon for anyone who loves rock n’ roll. 

Buy their records here.

Listen on Spotify:

Open up and let The Tip in.

There’s a party going on and everyone’s invited, and once again I’m late to the party, but this time not too late. These guys from Nashville fucking rawk! They look and sound the part, walk the walk and talk the talk.

Formed in the summer of 2014. releasing first album and going on tour the next year, and second album the year after that, The Tip isn’t fucking around. 

Singer Benny Carl sounds like he’s put on this planet to be a rockstar, his raw roaring voice is astounding. In fact this entire band sounds like they were born for this purpose, each and every song is played with so much pizzazz and wild abandon, it’s hard to comprehend this band is from this decade. 

“Rock N’ Roll Man” from their S/T debut record pretty much says it all. From the Hey Ho gang chants and Benny screaming his heart out claiming he’s “Just a Rock n’ Roll man in a Rock n’ Roll band”. Nothing wrong with that. “Outta Control” is pretty self-explanatory, a stompin’ rocker to lose your shit on.  Beautifully juvenile lyrics about sex, drugs, rock n’ roll and fast cars. Nothing wrong with that either. As opening track welcomes us to the night, I can’t help but think about another band that welcomed us to the jungle on their opening track on their debut album. Like GN’R before them, the Tip invites us to come party and never look back, and I don’t think I ever wanna look back on my existence before I found The Tip.

2016’s sophomore album “Sailor’s Grave” is another great rock n’ roll record. Opener “Struttin’” has a great groove to it and just hearing it makes you cooler than you actually are. After taking you to “Rock N’ Roll Heaven” the band assures us, rather unnecessarily that they “Ain’t Fakin’ It”. The band gets down and dirty on blues stomper “Corner Bag Blues”, the riff, piano tinkerin’ and harmonica gel together perfectly resulting in a thick, thick wall of sound that’d blow the roof off of any sleazy honky tonk they play in.

“Whiskey and Coke” starts with an intro reminiscent of Motörhead’s “Rock ’N’ Roll”, I wasn’t checking the track-listing while listening and first thought it was a cover. Seeing the title, maybe it’s a tribute to Lemmy, I don’t have a physical copy yet so maybe it’s in the liner notes or something. If it is, it’s a fitting one, if it isn’t, it’s still a cool song.

Closing the album is title-track “Sailor’s Grave” a lament for all who died at sea. The sing-along chorus sounds like an actual 1700’s pirate song. The beautiful guitar arrangements and haunting outro make this the perfect album closer. 

There’s one thing that bothers me about this record, it’s too short. But then again, maybe they made the right choice by not putting 2 or 3 filler tracks in there.

Can’t wait too hear what they’re gonna put out next.

The Tip is: Benny Carl - Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica. Myles Baker - Guitar. Robby Bote - Bass. Dixie Carl - Drums.

Buy their records here.
Sailor's Grave on Spotify:

ShouldaWouldaCoulda #2 - Crystal Pistol

Whatever the fuck happened to Crystal Pistol?

Their self-titled album is one of the best debuts I’ve ever come across and I remember thinking they were the best thing since sliced bread when 16 y.o. me first heard it in ’06. My opinion hasn’t changed much 13 years down the line.

Founded in Vancouver in 2000, Crystal Pistol is/was one of those sleaze bands that was actually good. Sure they had the guy-liner and dyed black hair like many glam punk bands in the 2000’s, but this band went beyond the looks and image. CP had a rare sense of honesty in their music.

Mik Ireland’s raw and snotty singing and primal screams are the perfect fit with the fast and blasting guitar riffs and solos being thrown at you like a blitzkrieg of squealing notes while the bass and drums drive you forward like a locomotive. 

From opening track “Watch You Bleed” until the final notes of “No Fun City”, Crystal Pistol takes you on a drug fueled joyride that appropriately ends with Mik Ireland screaming he wants to burn the city down. In between there are the delightfully arrogant proclamations of being a rockstar in, well, “Rockstar”. Of course there’s a song about everybody’s favorite Colombian brand of powdered sugar, if you don’t know what kind I’m talking about they spell it out in the intro of “Line It Up”.

The only point the band slows down is on “Salt of the Earth”. Once again Crystal Pistol differentiated themselves from their peers here. Though the song is something of a ballad, it’s not the clichéd obligatory copy-paste attempt at Poison’s “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” for extra radio play. They kept their integrity here and recorded something that doesn’t feel forced.

 “XXIII” is my favorite Crystal Pistol track. The perfect anthem for someone like me, growing up in the economic crisis of the last decade, working shit jobs for shit pay, “XXIII” was and still is often necessary kick in the ass for me. “You sit around and you always complain / That life is boring and it’s always the same” always hit home & inspired me to get off my ass and stop waiting around for someone to solve my shit for me.

Songs like “Locomotive”, “Shake”, “All The Freaks” and “Live Fast” are Crystal Pistol at their best. Straight up balls-to-the-walls rockers about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll”

In 2007 the band released a 3 track E.P. called “Serpentine River”, another collection of loud n’ fast glam punk and a taste of more to come. 

Then things get a bit quiet, I’ve been searching around on the web for a while now and can’t figure out whether they broke up or not. They do seem to do some shows every once in a while though. I’m still holding out hope for more releases, I stumbled upon Mik Ireland’s Soundcloud the other day and it features 3 awesome Crystal Pistol demos and I would love to hear them finished along with more new songs on a long awaited follow up to their classic debut album.

When, by some miracle, Crystal Pistol comes through your town make sure you cancel any plans you might have the next day because one thing’s for sure, the party ain’t over until they say so.

Crystal Pistol is: Mik Ireland - Vocals, Brian Bresset - Guitar, Pinto - Guitar, Dave Troutman - Drums, Greg Laikin - Bass

Buy their record here.

Listen on Spotify:

The Cruel Intentions

Vains of Jenna fans around the world breathed a sigh of relief and excitement in 2015 when original singer Lizzy Devine announced something big was-a-coming in the form of a new band called The Cruel Intentions. Soon after that, first single “Borderline Crazy” was released and I was hooked.

The riff is infectiously exciting and has you bopping your head instantly. Lizzy Devine has the Midas Touch in his vocal chords, his unique voice is what drew me to VoJ and what set them apart from a lot of the other Scandinavian sleaze bands of the 2000’s for me way back when and it’s awesome to hear him fronting a sleazy glam punk band again.

The next 2 years the band released video’s and singles for a couple more cool songs culminating in last year’s release of debut album “No Sign of Relief”. It’s hard not to compare The Cruel Intentions to Vains of Jenna but this release proves Devine’s new band is not a case of copy/pasting, of-course there’s still the big hooks and choruses in “Sick Adrenaline” and “Genie’s Got a Problem” but songs like “Jawbreaker”, “Reckoning” and “Chaos in a Bombshell” shows VoJ’s big brother has a bit more balls and edge to it.

Their I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude shines and the fast and loose early GN’R style playing makes this record feel unpredictable and exciting. Devine shows growth in his songwriting without the dull pitfall of trying to be deep.

This is music made to party to, loads and loads of riffs and solo’s, lyrics about getting wasted and going crazy and going crazy because of getting wasted too much. Who cares about self righteous douche bags singing about stopping world hunger or ending wars while cashing in on it when you can listen to a crazy Swede singing about a girl throwing up in the shower?

“No Sign of Relief” is an awesome first offering and it fills a void I didn’t notice I’ve been carrying with me since 2010. I’m sure The Cruel Intentions will be around to kick our asses for a long time and I can’t wait to hear more stuff.

The Cruel Intentions are: Lizzy Devine - Lead Vocals and guitar. Kristian Solhaug - Lead Guitar. Mats Wernerson - Bass. Robin Nilsson - Drums

Buy No Sign of Relief here.

Listen on Spotify:

Why This Blog?

Recently I was searching the internet and Spotify for some cool new bands to listen to and found I was having a hard time finding songs to add to my playlists. Once again I was getting frustrated by inaccurate similar-to’s & horrible recommended-for-you’s.

Not giving up and jonesing to be blown away by something I hadn’t heard before, after some time I finally struck gold! My patience was rewarded and I found a couple of bands I really dug, my appetite was now being satiated by awesome singles, E.P.’s and albums. 

While listening I started doing my usual research about the artists, where are they from? How long have they been playing? What bands did they play in before this? Have they released more stuff than there’s on Spotify (the answer to that is usually yes, and I often find people’s best work isn’t on the platform) etc.

And of course the million dollar question, any new music being written or recorded? Shows or tours coming up? Sadly I found out that more than half of the bands I just discovered had already called it quits.

This was not the first time this has happened to me and it always really bums me out. And what pisses me off even more is that so little is being written about their music. This while bands & records that have been around forever keep on being praised, reviewed and played to death on the radio.

So I decided to take it upon myself to help spread the word about new bands & records and lament the ones that aren’t around anymore who I believe should’ve gotten more recognition.