Review: Dag Nasty at The Fleece, 9/8/16

I rock up to meet a few of the old crew, just for a pint, before they go and see one of their favourite punk bands from back in the day.  I quite like the one album of theirs I knew but I rarely listen to that kind of thing now.  G-Rhymes, Rakka B, Big E & Mrs E and AFray are in full effect, though, so it’s all good.

When AFray turns up (he’s got the train from London to meet up with the crew for this), he’s got two tickets and he’s not sure why.  I had just nipped out for a pint and a catch-up with friends I haven’t seen for ages….Big E nods in my direction: “Well, here’s a man that needs a ticket.”

Fuck it, I’m in.  It’s the kind of thing I should’ve done more when I was a kid and more interested in punk – doing things impulsively, staying out with the whole crew instead of going home early, going to more gigs….so, in we go.  Punk as fuck.

You might well have heard of the support band.  I had, but have never seen them live before.  There’s no point in me slagging off a band, especially as I’m not naming names, but….

They’re every band in Bristol in the 90s; there’s a trombone, a keyboard (for what reason, I know not – you only hear it right at the end of each song) and “hilarious” I’m-just-a-knobhead-havin-a-laugh, me! frontman schtick.

They’re fucking awful.  Not just to slag them off for the sake of it, but I really just found them genuinely annoying….but it doesn’t matter, stop goin on about it.

At one point I say to G-Rhymes: It’s like watching the band I was in when I was eighteen.  He smiles and shrugs.  I recoil in horror.  “Were we this bad?”  He smiles and shrugs again.

Jesus, it’s worse than I thought.  We were worse than I thought, and so are this lot.  (And I didn’t think either were any good…) 

“But we were eighteen though…”

“Yeah, and this lot are mid-40s…”

“Right, so they’ve got no fuckin excuse at all.”

Leave them alone, theyre havin a go…..

British punk is mostly utter bollocks.  Not all US punk bands are good, but almost all good punk bands are from the US.  The film Punk: Attitude by Don Letts explains all this better than I can/am.  “Punks”, or “punk-rockers” in the cities of the USA were arty people with no money and no access to mainstream ways of producing and distributing art, so they wore knackered clothes and made their own art and got it out any way they could.  In Britain, the attitude was similar, but seemed to become more of a posture and a style very quickly, with kids deliberately ripping their clothes to look a bit different and shock older people on the high street.

With both, those who could get their shit together enough to tour, or put out a record on their own terms, were the ones who managed to do anything really interesting and lasting.  Taint whatcha do, it’s the way thatcha do wit…

I remember a documentary about The Smiths with Morrissey talking about how exciting punk was in the 70s, about The Ramones, New York Dolls, Sex Pistol, Buzzcocks and all them – which then cut straight to Johnny Marr saying: “To be honest, I thought all those groups were crap”, that they couldn’t really play, that he understood in retrospect how important it was as a way of empowering people, demystifying the making of art and music, and generally shaking things up….but they couldn’t really play.

Anyway, this support band….they are a lot more together than we were, but that’s worse, in a way.  They must have put time in to get the band tight, and it’s apparently occurred to no one along the way to stop and look at what they’re actually working on.  There’s retro, there’s doing styles of music you love whether or not anyone else gives a shit, and then there’s just being painfully, embarrassingly passe.  (Apologies for this language, but it really is appropriate in this context.) 

“It’s like the last twenty years didn’t happen…” says G-Rhymes.

“Riiiiight…..it did though, didn’t it?”

“I think so.”

Alright mate, drop it, they’re just a band, it’s their thing, you don’t like it, you don’t have to watch them, ok?

The singer especially, looks like he’s going through the motions, putting on an affected sort of slackness, like he’s done it so many times before but is still trying to look like there’s some novelty or lack of grinding professionalism involved.

Look, we get the point, lay off, yeah?

By the 80s, punk bands could play.  The guitarist in Dag Nasty (I don’t know his name, as I say, it’s not really my kind of thing) was also in Minor Threat and Bad Religion, so his career in music is a useful guide to who’s any good in punk.  Other members of Minor Threat went on to form Fugazi, so that’s all bases covered, pretty much.  Tidy CV.

Musically, Dag Nasty do the same thing on stage tonight: they cover every style of punk music worth knowing anything about, and you can hear how much they influenced the skate punk/Fat Wreck 90s style, as well as the simpler, slower stuff.  Drummer’s a demon as well, mind (not that I know his name or anything, I’m not much of a fanboy).  At times, some of it sounds a little bit indie rock, but I don’t say this to anyone, I’m not looking for an argument.  (That’s why I haven’t said anything about the support band, I don’t wanna just be swanning about the place slagging people off…they were shit, mind.

DROP IT, MATE.

But we were only eighteen and people were always slagging us for being shit - which we were, to be fair, but we were just havin a laugh, y'know, just bein knobhead kids, havin a go...)

The singer banters with the crowd and makes the mistake of holding the mic out for someone to shout into.  The band are from Washington, DC, so naturally there’s a language barrier, although I’m not sure what the punter guy’s saying either, until the singer responds:  “If you’d like to buy me a pint after the show, that’s cool, but I’m not sucking your cock.”  Classic gig banter… #britishpride

I even recognise a few of the songs from the one album of theirs I know, Wig Out At Denko’s.  I recognise several faces, as well.  Big G is here, of course.  Down the front, of course.  It’s an older crowd, as you wold probably expect for a band active up until 1991.  There’s a little mosh pit where some fellas are re-living their youth.  Looks like a laugh.  One couple have brought their young kids along.  Which is, um…unusual…? 

G-Rhymes has pointed out the nippers – as we know, Fugazi and a lot of others on that scene only play “all ages” shows, in the conviction that this is a community, very capable of taking care of each other, and if children cannot come here and be safe and enjoy themselves and if others can only enjoy themselves if there are no children around then the community is diminished.  As I say to G-Rhymes, I’ve got a lot of time for the ethos, but I’m not sure if it works quite the same here….but this family obviously think so.  I wonder if the kids are enjoying it.  They, like others, have ear plugs in, which is probably for the best.  Punk as fuck.

The singer (whatever his name is, how would I know – I think someone said he’s not the original one, but I wouldn’t know, not being much of a fan) is up on one of the pillars near the front of the stage, just like I was when my first band played our first gig here, in this very venue, 17 years ago.  Punk as fuck.  Like me when I was eighteen….or not.  I often think about when I’ve played here when I see gigs at the place, but this is the starkest; my Dad reminds me of it sometimes.  Punk as fuck, my old man.

Big Ups to everyone who was there. Old Friends and Loud Music. 

Punk as fuck, yeah?