Pangs of guilt. I've not been to a gig in a couple of weeks, and there are two tonight I should really atend - magazine types are putting on True Swamp Neglect at Sleazy's, and Edinburgh's Subway is reopening its doors for the first time in ages with mrw44 promoting. I'll be doing the sensible thing and going to neither.
Instead, I'll save myself for a weekend of ROCK in 7 days time. A 'seminal' band of umpteen years ago are playing in Edinburgh. They're supporting the Magic Band. They are the FIRE ENGINES, and they're doing a one-off show in support of their heroes. And I have managed to get a press place - phew! Thing was, I hummed and hawed about the Beefheart thing - I always preferrred his later stuff - oh, contraire - and also was quite surprised that the band had got back together without their leader to rework much of the early back catalogue. Personally I never got into the skewed delta blues stuff from that era, perhaps due to a bad experience when I borrowed Trout Mask Replica from the local record library around the age of 11. I wasn't impressed, and never got into the Captain until around Shiny Beast, when it all seemed rather punk rock. Either way, I will be there, to see history in the making. Or something.
I know that if you read these things in any detail it's to find out if there are any new bands which have found their way into the jockrock or itm? collective hearts and minds. Probably so you can avoid them when they come to town. The demo pile these days is ever-large, and of dubious quality, but there's usually one shining in the mire, and this time it's from Yay Us. A multi-national 5 (?)-piece from all over the place, they make wired scratchy punk rock, shout a lot, and show some surprisingly smart (given the previous classification) touches. I actually saw them at a house party many months ago - when The List had a small spate of covering gigs in houses and back gardens - and at that time they were good, but maybe overshadowed by the other acts playing, like the Hector Collectors and particularly the Pendulums. But the demo shows they've come a long way, literally as well as figuratively. I have no idea if they are playing live or planning on releasing anything, but I'd certainly like to say "you'll be hearing more from this lot..."  ¶ 8:15 AM