May brewings

 The month of May has brought us warmer weather, longer days, and much gothier nights.

New Zero God ushered in the the start of the month with their performance at PassPort Club in the heart of Piraeus.  The event was an open-door St. Paul High School’s Class of 1990 reunion fundraiser to benefit the Thiva-Lamia Women’s Prison. The stage was set for fellow schoolmates’ bands to entertain while raising money for a worthy cause. 

New Zero God kicked off the show.  Drummer, Dimitris “Sidheog” Steves, hammered skins for his classmates with songs like “Kiss the Witch“, “Bang Bang“, and The Flowers Of Romance classic, “Kashmir“, which was originally performed by New Zero God singer Mike Pougounas during his Flowers days.  Fellow NZG/FOR bassist Harris Stavrakas brought home the medley with his signature style while Michalis Christou strummed like no other guitarist before him.

The following clip is from that evening. 

While we’re on the topic of “Kashmir”, Cassandra’s Castle of Nightbreed Radio [UK] has announced their May 10 through June 9, 2011 schedule lineup, which includes “Kashmir”.  The next show will air on Tuesday, May 10 at 6 PM/UK | 8 PM/GR (repeated at Midnight/UK | 2 AM/GR) and will run for four weeks.

A live review was posted today at Dominion Magazine [UK] on New Zero God’s Sunday night performance at PassPort Club by the magazine’s newest correspondent, Thanos.  With all the focus on New Zero God and each NZG members years of contributions to the music scene, it was decided that a Greek journalist should be brought into the folds to let viewers know what else might be happening in this little country of ours. 

Thanos came up with THIS first part of the history of the Greek “dark” scene.

And since we’re on the subject of England, we should also mention that Dominion’s Radio Chart was released yesterday.  On it you will find Nexus, the prior band of Mike Pougounas and Dimitris Steves.  It is a huge honor to see songs of the past brought back to life in a country so far from our footsteps.

 

H. R. GIGER REVEALED

Tribute-Film / Documentary / DVD by Deep Side Production.

Directed by David N. Jahn, Let bizarre landscapes take you to the world of biomechanoids and aliens, erotomechanical constructions and devilish monsters where you lose your track of time and space.

You are about to watch two hours of unique private footage of Swiss surrealist and the world he created, digitally remastered moving collages of paintings from all important periods of his work.

The H. R. Giger DVD includes:
* Stuff that Giger always dreamt of, come to live!
* H. R. Giger’s work finally 3D animated!
* Erotomechanics fellatio, Biomechanical landscapes etc. all in motion.
* Interviews with artists like Ernst Fuchs, Ridley Scott, Debbie Harry…
* Making Of the Alien and other sculptures.
* Rated for hardcore fans only!

H. R. Giger Revealed is a must-have for all Giger fans in the world. Packed in a luxurious double-wall slipcase, you’ll find a real collectors piece. Perfect Dolby and DTS 5.1 surround sound and lots of special features. The H. R. Giger DVD was specially designed and supervised by the artist himself. Don’t hesitate!

Check out our full DVD content or breath-taking video trailers.

The DVD is in stock, region free and available in both PAL and NTSC formats. Please expect 7-14 working days for delivery. Order it now securely with Paypal or at Amazon.co.uk.

 

UK SUBS all NEW album on sale NOW!!!

 

Whilst the Punk community sit round and eagerly await the Queens Honours List (!) to see if U.K.Subs vocalist Charlie Harper has been knighted for Services to Punk Rock the man himself has continued to tour the world relentlessly. Now up to the letter “W” in the quest for an album for every letter of the alphabet, this is undoubtedly one of Sir Charlie and co.’s best efforts to date, a real bonefide Punk Rock classic. It features a great cover of The Sonics “Strychnine”, a co-write with Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen plus a dozen Subs originals – “Work In Progress” = 14 powerful, melodic and lyrically spot on Punk Rock anthems. 35 years on and still going strong. This is a classic and you should own it.

Disk 1: CREATION | TOKYO ROSE | HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE | THE AXE | RADIO UNFRIENDLY | THIS CHAOS | GURU | EIGHTEEN WHEELS | CHILDREN OF THE FLOOD | ALL BLURS INTO ONE | ROCK N ROLL WHORE | STRYCHNINE | ROBOT AGE

 

 

http://www.captainoi.com/details.asp?CatNo=AHOY+CD+310

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1AcyG6p4rw&feature=player_embedded

 

Grave Jibes Fanzine

In their own words: “Grave Jibes Fanzine was founded by Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy on Oct, 2008. The original idea of the fanzine is publishing some information about post-punk, cold wave, death rock etc styles and bands which play this music.”

A Metro Decay interview can be found on Grave Jibes Fanzine here .

You can find all their issues here.

 

 

The DIY ethic

Since my last post had to do with the cassette culture and the DIY ethic of punk rock, I thought, “why not to expand a little more…”

According to wikipedia “DIY culture (abbreviation of Do It Yourself) is a broad term that refers to a wide range of elements in non-mainstream society, such as grassroots political and social activism, independent music, art, and film.”

I said to myself, “that would be an interesting issue to write about…”

So I will use quotes from wikipedia or from other sources that I will mention every time.

“In the punk subculture, the DIY ethic is tied to punk ideology and anticonsumerism, as a rejection of the need to purchase items or use existing systems or processes. Arguably since the 1970′s; emerging punk bands began to record their music, produce albums and merchandise, distribute their works and often performed basement shows in residential homes rather than at traditional venue, to avoid corporate sponsorship or to secure freedom in performance. Since many venues tend to shy away from more experimental music, houses are often the only places at which these bands can play.” (wikipedia)

So, I said, lets check the YouTube.

And this is what I found:

“Taken from From the documentary Northwest Passage: Birth of Portland’s DIY Culture, Greg Sage’s legendary Wipers live in 1983.”

 

Wikipedia continues as follows: “Adherents of the DIY punk ethic can also work collectively. For example, punk impresario David Ferguson’s CD Presents was a DIY concert production, recording studio, and record label network.

The DIY punk ethic also applies to everyday living, such as learning bicycle repair rather than taking a bike to a mechanic’s shop, sewing/repairing/modifying clothing rather than buying new clothes, starting vegetable gardens, and reclaiming recyclable products by dumpster diving. Some educators also engage in DIY teaching techniques, sometimes referred to as Edupunk”

So, I found a trailer of the documentary “D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist” that was directed by Michael W. Dean and released in 2002.

Dean  also “allowed and even encouraged people to make copies for non-commercial use.”

It features interviews with Lydia Lunch, Ian MacKaye, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr, Jim Rose, J. G. Thirlwell of Foetus, Mike Watt, Eric McFadden, Richard Kern (filmmaker), Ron Asheton of The Stooges, Madigan Shive of Bonfire Madigan, Dave Brockie of Gwar and others.

If you are interested, follow the link to Michael W. Dean who posted the film for free downloading.

I also found a trailer of the documentary “Roll Up Your Sleeves” directed by Dylan Haskins in 2008.

“DIY is about giving the tools to the people that have something to say.
Roll Up Your Sleeves is a manifesto for an alternative way of organising, working and thinking.”

“Roll Up Your Sleeves examines the relationship between DIY culture and the need for autonomous social spaces, looking at various projects across Europe and how these compare with the situation in Ireland.”

Sounds interesting ?

Take a look:

 

There is this link that takes you to the “Scissors and Glue”, published by Oxford University in 2006.  

Here is a little teaser for you:

“Yet, it remains within the subculture of punk music where the homemade, A4, stapled and photocopied fanzines of the late 1970s fostered the ‘do-it-yourself’ (DIY) production techniques of cut-n-paste letterforms, photocopied and collaged images, hand-scrawled and typewritten texts, to create a recognizable graphic design aesthetic. The employment of such techniques and technologies has had an impact on an overall idiosyncratic and distinctive visual style affiliated with punk fanzines.”

So, this brings us to the next vid I found, a documentary about “two comic book artists who publish their own work.”

And who doesn’t like a good comic book ?

 

So, thats it for now.

I will continue when I’ll find the time for more.

Unfortunately, this post was not done entirely by myself…but…anyways…

Its not bad sharing interesting stuff with the correct information whenever you can…

 

New Zero God in Brazil

Foreign blogs dedicated to Greek underground rock bands are something we don’t see happening very often… (for me, this is the first time).  We’d also like to point out that not only is this a foreign blog, but its also one that comes from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

What we have here is a Brazilian blog dedicated to the bands New Zero God, Nexus and The Flowers Of Romance and is located somewhere in Brazil.

They were kind enough to let us know about this new blog which refers many times to postings of Tribe4mian.  As a small gesture of our thanks, we will permanently post their banner on our own blog.

New Zero God / Brazil

Now, to be a little more detailed, the NewZeroGod blogspot is written in Portuguese, a language that I don’t speak, but is the seventh most spoken language in the world.

The blogmaker’s aim is to help New Zero God become known to Latin America and it was made out of pure love and admiration for the music adventures of these three Greek bands, starting from the Flowers Of Romance, continuing with Nexus and translating the news of New Zero God in Portuguese.

So, again we’d like to thank the creators of this Brazilian blog whose links lead people from Latin America directly to our blog and we wish them all the best.

We hope to see even more blogs be made for more Greek underground bands.

FUN IS A FOUR LETTER WORD - New Zero God

With this opportunity, lets note here that Puzzlemusik Records announced the release of the New Zero God CD album, “Fun Is A Four Letter Word”  for the 17^th of February in Greece.

The album will also be initially distributed in Italy and Australia.

Amazon announced the CD and digital release will be available on February 10 (the digital release is already available through iTUNES and CDBABY)

New Zero God will play live on Saturday the 23^rd of January at the Club “On Stage” (Kodrigtonos 54-56) and will be supported by the band Chewing Gun.

New Zero God

More information:

NEW ZERO GOD:

Official Site - Brazilian Blogspot - CD Baby - Amazon USA – Amazon UK – Amazon France - iTunes

NEXUS:

Official Site - CD Baby

FLOWERS OF ROMANCE:

Official Site

CHEWING GUN:

Official Site

 

Why Golgothas ?

There’s no need to write down about the importance of the fanzines during the 90’s.

A mainstream record release is something that people will get to know soon but in the underground, things move slow.

The Woodstock festival, in 1969, was promoted by fanzines for at least 6 months.

Mainstream means someone has the money to buy time.

Underground means that someone has the time but no money.

Mainstream means you do your best to make money someone else.

Underground means you spend money to do your best.

Of course, in the underground you’re free to do what you want.

People will prove you right by supporting you or wrong by not doing so.

Most of the people that were writing for the Greek fanzines were having fun.

They were creating a big company of friends and they didn’t mind exposing themselves in ways that the mainstream mags wouldn’t dare to do.

Like this young man here, on the photo, who published his picture from his summer vacations in one of the “Stis Skies tou B23” issue.

He was one of the two publishers and drummer of a h/c band.

His name is Giannis Kolovos.

On the other hand, preparing a fanzine was always a pain in the ass.

Gathering any information they could (no internet available yet), doing interviews, writing reviews, paying for the fanzine to be printed with money coming out from their own pocket….never in time and always late…

Sometimes the “new” bands they were writing about no longer existed.

The publisher of the next fanzine summed all his troubles in the name of his fanzine: “Γολγοθας” (engl. Golgotha).

Because Golgotha is a place of suffering and sacrifice…

The first issue of this fanzine was “published” in the early 90’s.

It started as a black and white 48 pages fanzine to become a 64 pages publishing with colored cover but black and white glossy pages.

In the beginning “Golgothas” was interviewing mostly Greek rock bands and reviewed foreign releases.

 

The team of the fanzine joined forces a little later with the team of an other fanzine, “Roller Coaster”.

The last issue I have, came out under the names of both fanzines and it was focus mostly on foreign artists than on Greek rock bands.

Probably they stopped publishing it soon after that.

You can read about other important Greek fanzines here and here.

 

Baby steps to a new era vol. VIII

Athens wasn’t the only city in Greece that moved forward the Greek underground scene.
In 1985, a fanzine saw the light of day.
It was titled “Rollin Under” and it was published by a small record store in the center of
Thessaloniki.
The name of the record store was “Rollin Under” too.
Babis Argyriou who tried his best to bring the fanzine on a high level status, initialy started
with xerox copied b/w issues written with a typewriter, that would promote the tape releases of his record store.
As “Rollin Under”, the store, became also the basis of a record label named “Lazy Dog“,
this fanzine was the best way to give informations about the releases of the label and even more.

This might have been the first Greek music fanzine, I am not sure about that.
I think the rest of the zines came all after that.

Issue by issue, it became an official publication with a circulation in most parts of Greece,
covering issues about the american h/c punk scene and later on, almost anything about the underground.
It stoped being active by the early 90′s.
The following is a funny story:
The rumor has it that the Athenian indie record labels sent a shovel, as a gift, to the editors of “Rollin’ Under”
fanzine cause they were giving very bad reviews to their releases… (A joke, meaning that “Rollin Under” was “burying” the Athenian releases …)
Anyways…

The second tentacle of the record shop, the alternative record “Lazy Dog”, kept on releasing
albums for a few more years.
The label was either releasing matterial from Greek bands or was licensed to re-release
foreign bands for the Greek market.

Releases of Lazy Dog Records:

Γκούλαγκ – Είσοδος Κινδύνου (LP) 1987
Ορα Μηδέν – Μόνα Λίζα (7″)  1989
Γκούλαγκ – Στην Αυλή Των Θεαμάτων (LP, Album)  1990
Ziggy Was – Here (LP, Album)  1994
Γκούλαγκ – Η Άλλη Πλευρά (7″, Single)  1994
Middle Fingers – Middle Fingers (7″, Single)  1994
Εκτός Ελέγχου – Εκτός Ελέγχου (LP, Album)  1994
Patrik Fitzgerald Group – Pillow Tension (CD)  1995
Bokomolech – Xero (LP)  1995
Ziggy Was – Two Turns To One (Vinyl, MiniAlbum, S/S)  1995
Ροδάμα – Κάτω Απ’ Το Δέρμα (LP)  1995
Raining Pleasure – Memory Comes Back (LP) 1996
Γκούλαγκ – Πάτα Γερά (LP, Album)  1996
Lost Bodies – Ζωή (CD, Album)  1997
Τα Ρόδα Της Ερήμου – Ταξίδι Σα Ψέμα (LP)  1997
Raining Pleasure -Nostalgia (LP) 1998
Πράκτορες Του Χάους – Τρανσατλάντικα (CD)  1999
Various – In Dog We Trust (CD, Comp)                                                                      Deep Freeze Mice – The Saw A Ranch House Burning Last Night (LP, Ltd)  1995
The Astronauts – It’s All Done By Mirrors (CD, Album)  1995
17 Pygmies – Jedda By The Sea (CD)  1995
The Astronauts -  Peter Pan Hits The Suburbs (CD, Album)  1994

I also have to mention here, Costas Apostolidis, the partner of Babis Argyriou.
Apostolidis was the guitar player of the h/c punk band Goulag who were formed in 1985.
The band released their first album, “Isodos Kindinou“, in 1987 and went off to tour Germany, Norway and Italy.
“Rollin Under” this tour by an extensive article tha you can read here (its in Greek).
part1, part2, part3, part4 and part5.
The German label, Wreck Age Records, released their single “Big Talk” in 1989 right before their second European tour.
The tour covered Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and Italy.
In 1990 they released their second album, “Stin Avli ton Theamaton” and during December the made a mini tour in Germany.
By the same year, one more 7″ was released through the German label Weed Productions as a compilation
titled “16 guys against the rest of the world vol. 1” featuring also bands from USA, Germany and Switzerland.
On February 1994 they released the 7″ single “I alli plevra” and during 1995 they were featured in  the German
compilation “Lacmayer’s Island“.
In 1996, Lazy Dog released their album “Pata Gera” finding the group with a different line up and more heavy metal elements.

For more about the band press here .

During the early 2000, Lazy Dog stoped releasing albums too, so only the record store is still there today.

As it is obvious, this record shop became the main center of the underground scene in the city of Thessaloniki, helping
the bands release their music and also passing around news about the underground.

Some of the bands would be signed later to major labels, such as, The Lost Bodies and Raining Pleasure from the city of Athens and Patras respectively.

“Rollin’ Under”, the fanzine transformed into MIC and can be found today  here .

 

A Greek rock guide – 1965/1986

By the end of 1986, the magazine “Ntefi” (engl. Tambourine ελλ. Ντέφι) released a “guide” to the greek rock releases from 1965 to 1986.

“Ntefi” was not an underground magazine. It was a mainstream publication dealing mostly with greek music.

I think the magazine stoped printing sometime by the late 80′s-early 90′s…

But lets see here these four pages that include everything that was considered as “rock” back then.

part one 1965-1975

part two 1976-1982

part three 1983-1984

part four 1985-1986

The list was written by Dimitris Dimitrakas, who played the drums for a lot of the bands that he mentions.

Although I don’t agree with him about some of the releases that he mentioned, I have to respect that this catalogue comes from the mid 80′s and this is how they considered “rock  ” to be…

There would follow thousands of rock releases…

 

Merlin’s Music Box

Merlin’s Music Box published its first issue in October 1989.
By some weird coincidence, its second issue came out during February 1989…
Its not a mistake.
Yiannis Kastanaras, first published the second issue and then the first one.
The pics here will prove me right.

Merlin’s Music Box was based in Athens and it started as a b/w 32 pages fanzine
to become a multicoloured 80 pages mag a few years later.

It was dealing with bands such as the Trilobites, Nirvana, Fugazi, Fuzztones, MC5,
Last Drive, Deus X Macina, Dead Moon, Wedding Presnt and many more.

Published every 3 or 4 months per year, it reached a circulation of about 4000 copies and lasted
till the mid 90′s maybe 1997-98.
Strangely it was subtitled by the line “We are the goverment and we Rock’n'Roll”…
I believe that it is obvious now, how powerfull the Greek scene was back in those years, as
there were so many fanzines coming out, cheap or expensive, releasing records or not.
There were record labels paying them for advertisement and there was an audience interested to read
what all these fanzines were writing about.

Young photographers,journalist wannabees, vinyl junkies, music lovers were all working united for these
fanzines that were giving information to the ones who cared about what was going on in the international
underground rock scene.