Click here for the first part of our Access All Areas journey around Warped Tour 2009 with Anti-Flag
Justin Sane. #2. Pat Thetic. Silent guitarist Head (reason given by the band for his not participating in the interview: “Head doesn’t talk”, despite him being disarmingly friendly the rest of the time) – or Justin Geever, Christopher Barker, Patrick Bollinger and Christopher Head. Point at the silly names, their involvement with a major label and the mohawks as evidence they’re picture-postcard punks without the nous to back up the bile, Anti-Flag are following the same lineage as Guthrie, Bragg and now Frank Turner in knowing that to get a message out on a mass scale, it has to be packaged well. It's not a case of them becoming too big for the punk community, because the issues they discuss are global in scale.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS UP, UNIONDALE NEW YORK! [pause for crowd roar] WE ARE ANTI-FLAG FROM PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA [pause for bigger crowd roar], AND THAT IS A RIGHTEOUS FUCKIN’ CIRCLE PIT [pause for biggest crowd roar] AND WE WANT YOU TO SING!” All of a sudden, thousands of young throats join in and that circle pit becomes a lot more fuckin’ righteous.
To celebrate Propagandhi's UK tour with Strike Anywhere I asked the band to make a mixtape for you guys, so here it is: each band member made some choices and links and videos are posted so you can, y'know, click along...
Chris Hannah
Black Sabbath - 'A National Acrobat': I'll keep my selections British. Punk rockers don't like Black Sabbath, but that's because punk rockers are morons.
Last night I watched 65daysofstatic under some railway arches in London. I'd been in the same venue 24 hours previously to watch a band who might one day be as good as 65, and one who won't. I'll leave you to judge who they are. 65 did what they always do - they reaffirmed, to me, what it is to really give yourself to music through the intimate care they put into performing.
I know this is something of a hard sell to many: an instrumental band from Sheffield who do things like name their albums 'The Destruction Of Small Ideas' and their songs 'Install A Beak In The Heart That Clucks Time In Arabic'. A band who make no secret of their desire to move instead of simply divert. What's most important is that every time I see them, and every single time I listen to a piece of music they wrote, the endeavour and heart shines through like a beacon. Dillinger Escape Plan once asked, 'Is the man half-machine or is the machine half man?' and 65 are that perfect balance between the two. It's like they're on a constant, unyielding quest to work out what makes great music so great.
This tour is cursed. Don’t get me wrong now, this tour is tonnes of fun and we're very lucky to here yadadada... blah blah blah... seriously who the fuck cares about us saying every show is great? How bleedin dull... what you’re here for is the gossip and the mishaps, and fuck me haven't we been lucky with them. After the bus broke down again and we missed another show (sigh, good night Barcelona) we're just about limping on our way to Madrid in Neddy the Wonder Bus and a horrible metallic scraping noise fills our ears. Our tour manager Emre and myself clamber out onto the highway to see our driver scratching his bald head and standing in the space behind our bus where our trailer should be. And it ain’t. It ain’t fucking there. At all. Or even in sight. At all.
You’d be hard pushed not to have noticed a pretty cool tour of International rock having its wicked way with the UK right now. Of course, I refer to Biffy Clyro’s current promotional live run to back up brand spanking new album ‘Only Revolutions’.
And they’ve been so kind as to take some very worthy bands on the road with them. Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra and Leeds’ Pulled Apart By Horses. Awesome times gents.
The Manchester date happened to fall on my birthday. Which is cool enough, but hold up! It was also Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra fame's birthday. Apparently he can’t get enough of northern English towns in his life as he declared during their set “This is the best birthday ever!”
I tried to make it a touch better by taking a picture of his 'happy birthday' face but this plan failed. I imagine he was backstage wearing party hats and eating cake. So I bring you the next best thing; the wildly accurate portrayal of Andy’s beard courtesy of Tom Hudson, front man of Pulled Apart By Horses. Uncanny.
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