One thing that doesn’t go unmissed by me when writing about Bristol’s punk scene is that in claiming so many bands are so good there’s risk of it sounding like I’m crying wolf; and frankly, if looking on instead, would probably think it all too good to be true.

After all, even I can’t quite get my head round it and that’s being there firsthand.

Before Covid / Lockdown managed to wind me up stuck back here, I’d spent fifteen years lapping up the live music scene of Toronto, Canada’s biggest city and North America’s—which includes Mexico, something a lot of non North Americans are often surprised to hear—fourth with a population of 2,794,356.

The only two cities in the United States bigger than Toronto are Los Angeles and New York (Mexico City being North America’s largest).

The number and types of bands that come through Toronto is phenomenal, the variation beyond measure. There’s not only the general run of the mill money making music industry, there’s all the smaller American bands that tour the continent but will possibly never make it to the UK; there’s also the fact that everyone from everywhere else in the world from Europe to Japan wants to tour there and the fourth largest city can hardly be missed in that endeavour.

If all that isn’t enough, people are often astounded to hear I once saw King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard play in a small bar courtesy of something called ‘Canadian Music Week’; a government initiative that uses public money to put bands on all over Toronto for a couple of weeks that might not make it to the city otherwise. The support that night was no less than NYC’s coolest couple (pictured) White Hills (my wizard/dragon related take on Mitosis here), who’d made it to Toronto under their own steam before. Quite how that worked, then, no idea, and nor did I really care.

It was such a good night it was too much for me to manage another free gig by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard at the Horseshoe Tavern the afternoon of the next day.

But when it comes to grassroots and the sort of environment needed for new talent to develop and emerge in the story is different.

Compared with that North American fourth place and population of 2,794,356, the same source lists Bristol as the UK’s tenth largest city with an estimated population of 428,234.

Despite this difference Toronto had but a handful of grassroots / underground bars and venues catering for punks and metalheads specifically. The Bovine Sex Club, Hard Luck Bar, and Coalition spring to mind as the only real contenders. But the Hard Luck is only open for gigs, while the excellent Coalition now completely gone but for a Facebook page thanks to the f-ing gentrification of Kensington Market.

In the Easton area of Bristol alone three pubs can be found—The Chelsea Inn, Plough and Red Lion—within a ten minute walk of each other max and only using two streets. It’s not uncommon for at least two to have well attended punk gigs on at the same time and more than once a week.

Of those three, two in particular—The Chelsea and Red Lion—along with the more central Bristol Exchange feel like the backbone to the scene; places providing the space both socially and as venues for it thrive and develop in; and I say that still not having visited all the pubs / venues like The Golden Lion, so apologies if being disingenuous to anyone here.

There’s also events like the previously written about Dean Lane Hardcore Funday and also the Punk Stage at the St Paul’s Carnival that are wholly unique to Bristol and about as far removed from corporate as one can get; in the process capturing the essence of why music festivals like Woodstock, the Isle of Wight and gigs at Hyde Park were ever put on in the first place and feeling as fresh as a punk rock daisy for it.

Creativity spawns more of the same. Literally everybody is in a band. So many bands in one place forces all to strive to a certain level of excellence if they want a chance of a look-in; though being ‘exclusionary’ is also the last thing the Bristol scene is (that said, with every band so good, it doesn’t need to be).

Bristol Skum Collective isn’t just a name of one of the local promoters, but also the mindset found prevailing across the scene. At a recent Palestine benefit gig at a squat in Bedminster—not a Skum Collective gig, it should be said—Hot Flab guitarist Megan Threader received a crowd-surfer-related hand injury that meant the band couldn’t have played a week later at Plymouth’s stalwart punk pub The Nowhere Inn if Zpangled Henz guitarist Dan Digby hadn’t stepped in so the show could go on.

Not simply an act of goodwill, time and energy on Dan’s part, I also know plenty of lead guitarists who, due to their circumstances, have point blank refused to conceive of letting someone else replace them on stage for a mere night to the detriment of the greater band.

On my favourite subject of Hot Flab, I’m totally blown away by the fact that within a year of seeing them at my first Chelsea Inn gig—which was the band’s third gig in total—they’re now support for none other than Peter and the Test Tube Babies’ when the total legends play their first ever gig at the Exeter Cavern!

Wow-wow-WOW! There was a time when listening to Pissed and Proud at least twice when getting home for the day felt essential to my sanity. In my list of special gigs attended sits Peter and the Test Tube Babies at the above mentioned Hard Luck, Toronto. It might well have been the band’s last tour to that part of the world too, given the next time Peter attempted to enter the States for a festival appearance, a border guard found footage on YouTube of him on stage wearing a blonde wig while taking the piss out of then President Trump and so refused him entry.

That Toronto performance was like the years hadn’t passed one iota, so of course the chance of seeing them with Hot Flab as support meant I instantly got a ticket without a thought for how to get there or back. I’ll put as many Bloody Marys as anyone wants to drink beforehand on that being a legendary gig, even as legendary as what took place at The Chelsea Inn Saturday gone.

Openers Bozos I’d seen before, coincidently the first time I also caught Split Dogs at the Chelsea. Back then they’d put in a solid performance well worthy of seeing again, but since that gig something has happened at Bozos HQ; an elevation in everything the band is doing leading to a heavy metal-infused punk rock ‘n’ roll orgasmic ecstasy as they tore through a set not so much as seasoned pros but far more demonically possessed ones. Utterly mesmerising to watch play!

.

Turning towards the bar at the end of the set for more delicious Shangri-La beer, I definitely caught a couple of looks on the faces of various other band members that said ‘shit; we’ve somehow got to follow that!’ For a bill of four bands, rarely if ever is such a high standard set by the first

As example of Bristol’s abundance of punk riches, seeing next up Cydernide—a band around since at least 2013 according to its bandcamp page—was another first for me.

As punk as it gets; the very essence: fast, gritty, punchy, wholly infectious, full of drive and passion – and that was just the vocals! A set of stonking raw energy ripped through the pub to send many into a moshing frenzy that frequently saw vocalist Angela retreat behind the drums given the ball of bouncing sweaty bodies spilling into the space normally reserved for bands.

Though not to be outdone, Angela soon raised the bar for the night’s mayhem by popping up on the pub’s!

With much thanks to April Wilcox for use of the footage:

Los Savages brought a distinctly different flavour to the night with a blast of trumpet-driven surf rock that could’ve come straight from the 60s via a Tarantino movie soundtrack. On paper it might’ve looked a ploy to calm things down before the big finale. But as the Chelsea Facebook page says, it’s a pub that turns convention on its head. So not in the slightest then; this particular style of surf rock isn’t for the stereotypical bronze bodies and white teeth riding waves on Californian beaches, instead it’s all about sweaty punks on swaying crowds not so much raising the rafters but almost being squashed against them, such are the low ceilings of that particular vintage of old English Pub.

Split Dogs are a band going places. The last couple of times I’ve seen them—not written about here—they’ve been a couple of cuts above the other bands on the bill; the above part of which must be stressed as those other bands were hardly ‘below’ in their performances. Tonight, though, it would be tall order to equal that going before.

Split Dogs didn’t disappoint. During Bozos set the house drum kit needed some ad hoc repairs involving heavy tape, but that was nothing compared to the impassioned pummelling it received at the sticks of Rich that may well have finished it off as the band tore through a set of what now feel long-loved classics despite only being released in the last year.

‘Gutter Bull’ ‘Big Fred’ ‘Blood Runs Cold’ ‘Prison Bitch’ and of course ‘Punch Drunk’ the track featuring the unforgettable call of ‘Just for the Hell of it!’ that still reverberates in my head today and so just had to be included in the title of the post. These and more were ripped through like a red hot sirocco in a tinder factory absolutely willing and ready to be set on fire.

Footage thanks to Richard Clements. 

Footage from the midst of the mosh pit thanks to Megan Threader: ‘Punch Drunk’ containing the call of Just for the Hell of it!

Gigs where a band on the bill is as good as any of these is one thing; a bill of four where all are is a rare and precious beautiful thing even if extremely loud and messy. A massive round of applause to the bands, pub, staff, everyone who turned up and last but by no means least–it wouldn’t have happened without them after all–promoter Rich Thomas of Turbojugend Bristol.

To further show the depth of Bristol’s scene, the same week saw release of a demo EP by the above mentioned heroes of the day Zpangled Henz.

Recorded on a cell phone—as many of the releases on previously reviewed African-focused label Sahel Sounds are—the six ‘studio live’ tracks are for the most part a blistering onslaught with only final track ‘No Fly Tipping’ offering any respite in being infused with dub.

Opener ‘Baghead in my Kitchen’ is a raucous Oi anthem packing punch after punch. To quote a facebook user who wishes to remain anon: ‘Can literally smell spilled beer listening to this’ and I couldn’t have put it better. Though this isn’t just an audio rampage, stop joyously bouncing about for a second to really listen and the intricacies flow in bounds.  

‘Band From DaLake’ verges on the stoner in places while in others somehow taking it up a gear from the opening track. ‘Beers and a Bottle of Rum’ leaves no doubt members of Zpangled Henz have spent many an hour mashed in a local park. ‘Crustacean Nation’ is, in true punk fashion, a dig at the monarchy; in particular, the one the Royals can’t stand themselves: Andrew. Politics follow with the terse ‘Tory Story’ a dark, moody, sharp like a knife track that no one of that political persuasion would want to meet in an alley on a dark night (or a sunny day for that matter).

And then the already mentioned respite ‘No Fly Tipping’ which to be fair does have plenty of heightened moments of its own, making it good representation of Zpangled Henz’ range as a band even if most of the time Jago, Dan and Nate sound like they just want to tear the listener a new one.

‘If this is just the demo . . .’ was my inward thought on first hearing. I’m told the band heads into the studio early next year to get these plus more tracks down. Watch this space! (or even better theirs).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2YM3-uU3bw

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