My face is officially shredded. And yeah, it is a slight improvement. Winner.

More to the point, we’ve not met before. Hello! I’m Kelly and I’m a freelance journalist from Manchester. I’ve been writing for the NME for about six months and this is my first blog. So don’t be shy, I’ll talk to anyone me, I especially enjoy meeting mentalists on public transport.

Anyway, last Saturday I managed to survive with my life after a brutal punk weekender in order to come back and tell tales which you can read about in the magazine.

I went to the Shred Yr Face 2 tour staring The Bronx, Fucked Up and Rolo Tomassi on the Leeds and Manchester dates. Yeah, it was so good I saw it twice, and if I wasn’t chained to a laptop I would have hijacked the tour bus and watched the whole tour.

continued...

It’s the best line up I’ve seen in absolutely ages and considering I’m more addicted to live music than Lady Gaga is to violating beach toys, I’m pretty sure this lot just got my eyes pregnant.

Underneath the demonic rage of their live shows, all the bands are in fact rather lovely. No, really. I even went backstage at the Manchester Club Academy on 28 February to get some footage of said loveliness to show you. Come and have a look at what Father Damian of Fucked Up, James and Eva Spence from Rolo Tomassi and Matt Caughthran from The Bronx have got to say about their top four favourite songs.

Apparently, we need to download them, like NOW. Only, you sort of can’t download half of these songs so check out the bands on youtube etc instead.

Seriously, how cool are these guys? And who reckons Paul McCartney ran in the other direction?

Damian’s Top 4
Son Of Sam - Chain Gang
Bigger Than Rap – Attitude
Genetic - Sonic Youth
Conscious Unconscious - Mind Eraser

James’s Top 4
CFCF - The Explorers
M83 - Moonchild
Shudder To Think - Jade Dust Eyes
Rod Stewart - Young Turks

Eva’s Top 4
Throats - Reign Of Low
Menomena - My My
Emily Haines - Winning
(Well, sort of Eva’s choice)
Project X - Straightedge Revenge

Matt’s Top 4
The Animals - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Dinosaur Jr - Feel The Pain
Smogtown - No More Waves (actually I couldn’t find that actual song, so here’s the lovely ‘I Am The Cancer’ instead
Body Count - There Goes The Neighborhood

That’s about all from this northern music geek today. If you didn’t catch the Shred Yr Face 2 tour, well then you just go somewhere quiet and think about your actions.

Unless you live in these places, in which case, get on it!

March 5 – Brighton Concorde
March 6 - Birmingham Academy

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