UK Subs and Discharge
With first and second gen punks still touring, some of 'em in their 70s, with songs of state control, decontrol, run-ins with the CID and New York State Police and living in a car, is old-school punk still relevant? On the evidence of tonight, of course it bloody is.
As well as being hugely influential on the hardcore, thrash metal and grind scenes, Discharge even have a (sub)genre - D-beat - named after them. Rainy plays (perhaps surprisingly) complex lines on a mean, distorted bass. Dave "Proper" Caution delivers the D-beat drums. Bones and Tezz thrash away at their guitars. Over the top of it JJ provides coarse and guttural vocals. This is a formidable wall of sound - no, there is no subtlety and there is precious little variety but why mess with a formula that sounds this good?
Like Discharge, UK Subs have been going for forty years on and off. Tonight’s set spans the years, from 1979 debut album Another Kind Of Blues through to last year’s Ziezo. Having released 26 albums, with titles running through the alphabet from A to Z, the Subs won’t be releasing any new music but will keep on touring.
There may be a new boy on guitar – one time Angelic Upstart Steve Straughan – but the Subs’ sound hasn’t change. This is straight-ahead, defiantly old school, punk with its roots in pub- and garage rock. With songs like Born and Die a Rocker, Barbie's Dead, and the stone-cold classics Warhead and Stranglehold, why the hell should it?
The rhythm section of Alvin on bass and Jamie on drums is one of the sharpest in the business. How Alvin manages to pump out those riffs with his bass dangling that low is a mystery of nature. Vocalist and mainman Charlie Harper may be approaching his seventy-third birthday but shows no signs of slowing down and that blunt instrument of a voice is still in fine form. He’s no singer but a fine vocalist and frontman.
The encores of CID, I Live In A Car and New York State Police along with the afore-mentioned Warhead and Stranglehold were worth the price of admission alone.
Yeah, old school punk is still relevant and is still exciting. I bet the likes of Slaves and Bad Breeding have listened to both Discharge and the Subs in their time. And you know what? Live, Discharge and the Subs can, on occasion, out-play and out-class the youngsters.
