For those reading this, brought here either through a quirk in the matrix, a google search gone awry or as a result of my soon to be relentless spamming of this blog on social media... welcome! It doesn't look like much at the moment but hopefully soon it will be somewhat more than a placeholder blog and an actual useful resource!
Why Horror Punk? And why focus on the UK? As a genre Horror Punk has been an ever present in my life since I first heard the incredible sounds of the Misfits, which must be getting on for some 30 years ago now. As I've grown up, it's been an ever present soundtrack - not necessarily the most important cultural touchstone at all stages, but in the background the mixture of Punk Rock and Horror aesthetics has always been there, influencing my other interests and as a constant companion through times both good and bad. B-movies and classic Horror films have always been in my heart, a low level gothic charm where all things 'spooky' have an incessant pull on my psyche, and punk rock was a life saver for me.
It was 'classic' hardcore from a different shore that was my first love - 80's American Hardcore consumed my musical tastes for many years; not only the haunted spectacle of the Misfits, but the So-Cal melodic hardcore of Adolescents, Descendents, D.I., Angry Samoans, Channel 3; the No-Cal oddness of Dead Kennedys and Crucifix, the sounds of the midwest (Negative Approach, Crucifucks, The Zero Boys, Husker Du), the awesome bands from Texas (the Dicks, MDC, Big Boys); the DC and NY hardcore bands (Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Reagan Youth, Government Issue, the early Dischord bands, Cro-Mags); the bands from the North East (SSD, Negative FX, Jerry's Kids, Gang Green) - I could not get enough. Mix that with a more-than healthy love of 80s Anarcho-punk (Crass, Conflict, Subhumans, Flux of Pink Indians) and then a broad love of anything else from across the world of the era (the Japanese hardcore weirdness, Finnish and Italian hardcore chaos... I could go on!) and my musical path seemed set.
Which was, in hindsight, odd, as I was not a teenager in the 80s. I liked the bands that were around in my teens - Pennywise, Bad Religion, NOFX, Rancid etc - as well as all forms of loud, rebellious music, but I always felt an infinity to something a bit different. It was the early 00s that saw my first delve into the local music scene, and my exposure to a punk and ska scene in the UK that was massively enjoyable, full of extreme talent and wildly energetic. Capdown, Lightyear, Ye Wiles, Howards Alias, The Scrub, The Filaments... they were great times. But as time passed, and doing three gigs in one night and being awake enough the next day to work became harder, I retreated to a less active gig life and more stay-at-home musical interests. It's at this stage that Horror Punk became more than just a part of my interest and more central - alongside an altogether darker musical taste.
Bands like Blitzkid, the Vladimirs, The Rosedales, Zombina and the Skeletones, Wednesday 13, Bloodsucking Zombies from Outer Space, The Coffinshakers - bands that I didn't see many people talking about but which were able to fill a hole in my soul. As age overtook me, I seemed to become more interested in that darker element - alongside Horror Punk came an interest in Black Metal, Doom Metal... anything hard, loud and dark. Every year I'd dedicate almost certainly too much of my time to finding new bands, new sounds to be the 'soundtrack of my life' and whilst tastes change and some styles I can go in and out of love with, it's horror punk that always pulled me back, despite me being somewhat distant from any scene that existed.
Fast forward to now and the start of this blog. With more time on my hands (don't ask!) and a still burning desire to both discover new music and expand my knowledge of bands I've not delved deep enough into, I thought it was time I started being a bit more focused. And one gap I noticed quite early was despite there being a few UK Horror Punk bands I really liked, I didn't know enough to know what was really going on. Time to change that, and it's always good to support the local scene - I delved deep into the UK Black Metal scene some years ago and that was eye opening, and immersing myself in the list of Horror Punk (or adjacent) stuff coming out of the UK has had a similar impact. Nothing wrong with a bit more promotion of an under-represented set of bands, and we have some seriously great ones on this island!
I'll also be looking at older stuff from the UK, as well as Horror Punk more broadly - and no doubt be touching on other bits which sort of fit in to a greater or lesser extent. So expect some other punk stuff, some horror influenced music of other genres, as well as old horror movies, random goth ramblings and who knows what else!
And finally, anyone thinking the UK focus means I'm sort of flag-shagging nutjob - I'm a proud antifacist, I have no tolerance for racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia. Doesn't have a presence in this scene or any other. I don't intend to write long diatribes about any of that on here or extol the virtues of 19th century anarchist writers in great detail (although I must mention the awesome t-shirt from We Are Horror Records, with the quite simply amazing back design of 'No Gods, No Masters, Just Monsters' which is legendary and fits nicely for this blog), or go into great painful detail about how whilst I adore the Misfits (and Danzig. And Samhain) I have absolutely no time for Glenn's personal politics, as this is intended to be a horror punk focused blog and I'm fine if that means the talk is mainly on the spooky. That being said - I *really* don't like fascists. If that offends you I could not give less of a shit.
Anyway, with that pre-amble out of the way, and without as many spelling mistakes as I feared there would be, I guess it's time to start writing some stuff for this blog!
I do intend on eventually having a gig calendar, a release guide, reviews, DIY mix-tapes (basically mini-playlists with links on where to buy the songs rather than just sticking a playlist up on Spotify... although I do have a playlist on there by the way, which I'll embed here at some point but can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4r1rDVWSQEATEEUMgIkqXD?si=Ku4z0Wg5T3y5Cq9QlyJ5IA) and other random bits.
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