Thing of the Day
The REAL McKENZIES on the way
January 13th 2011
Thing of The Day today is certainly not
British Telecom - are they most incompetent organisation in the world
or what? These people make the dumbest indie band trying to work out
how get a drum kit to the Bull & Gate on a wet Tuesday night look
like a shining bunch of professionals. Three months of chaos and the
left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, the Lincoln office
not knowing what the Nottingham office does, Openreach not knowing
which hole to look down, BT Wholesale unplugging the plug that the
other guy put in and someone having to call India from our bunker to
try and get something done at the Hackney exchange half a mile from our
office, sorry he’s been given the wrong reference number and there’s
snow in the line and our records say you don’t exist and you don’t have
a phone, then what am I calling you on right now? The smugster humanoid
David Cameron is telling us to move East (that's not why we moved East,
we moved east to get away from people like him) to the new Silcon
Valley that is this side of London.. Well, it would be funny if it
wasn’t so damn annoyingly incompetent –
-
Hang on, who’s this kicking in with outrageously good cover of AC/DC’s
TNT? A raw grinding spiky evil alt.noise version demanding we watch it
all explode - Ain’t got to gun, ain’t got no knife, but don’t you start
no fight…. Hmm, its a long lost 90’s Chicago pre-post rock noise band
called Big’N, ah , yes we remember these guys from those Skingraft
AC/DC covers singles they shared with people like Brice-Glace, Shellac,
U.S Maple and such. Dirty deeds indeed, they sound like our old friends
Monkey Boy – Big ‘N, old school Chicago noise band from the 90’s, more
about them later, seems there’s a whole lot of old material been
gathered together on one album – enough of that for today though and
enough of raging against the telephone machine, today we prepare for
the bagpipe punk rock chaos of our old friends The Real McKenzies…
THE REAL McKENZIES
are coming over: the UK leg of their current European tour starts in
just four days. This is a very very good thing indeed. The intrepid
Scotsmen from over there in Canada - no sneering now, they really are
the real New Caledonian deal, or at least heart-and-soul man up front
Paul McKenzie is, he leads the band, therefore they are the real
reeling proper Scottish deal. They’re essentially from Vancouver
(although members of such bands as The Exploited or Lagwagon may finds
themselves roped in for the occasional tour and such). McKenzie himself
claims to have, while at a party, heard Robert Burns playing in one
room and the Sex Pistols in another. I’m not going to dispute
that fact with him, have you seen the guy?! This epiphany
apparently led to the Celtic cocktail he and his band serve up by
mixing rock, punk, and folk with a (very big) splash of whiskey and the
odd Scottish traditional as a garnish. Don’t be doubting things now,
they’re the full-on, kilt-wearing, in-your-face no messing punk rock
deal. 
Who
would have known that bagpipes could be such a dangerous weapon, watch
your heads when MacNastie starts swinging his down the front!
Come on now you sceptics, put off by a million American punk bands who
once had a pint of Guinness in a Boston bar and think they’ve kissed
the blarney like the merry ploughboy himself - this is not a Canadian
Scottish version of all that. The Real McKenzies are the real deal and
we defy anyone to not come out of one of their gigs bruised and
smiling. Their punked-up mix of traditional folk tunes and anarchic
punk rock is wildly infectious... Bagpipe as punk rock weapon, whisky
reels, rats chasing punks up the ship rigging, pogo mosh pits, beer,
kilts, claymores, more beer and fun fun infectious folk flavoured punk
rock beer spilling whisky drinking highland flinging fun…
And you don’t get to be Organ front cover stars unless you're really worth it…
17th Jan – Blackpool, The Blue Room
18th Jan – Brighton, Prince Albert
19th Jan - London, Borderline
21st Jan - Glasgow, The Admiral Bar (with Roughneck Riot)
22nd Jan – Edinburgh, Bannermans (with Crashed Out)
23rd Jan – Kirkaldy, Windsor
24th Jan – Inverness, Hootananny
25th Jan – Aberdeen, Drummonds (with Roughneck Riot)
26th Jan – Gateshead, 3 Tuns
27th Jan – Manchester, Day and Night Café
