Legendary pop-punk band The Mr. T Experience are playing three shows in California in March with The Queers. The band gained a cult following throughout the nineties and disbanded when frontman Dr. Frank followed his other career as a novelist.
A new MTX track, ‘King Dork Approximately’ appeared in December.
London’s Midnight Playlist are a four piece alternative pop-rock/pop-punk band, who bring a strong sense of good times and youthful spirit on their debut EP ‘Built To Break’. There’s a real energy present from the very beginning of the opening track: a door slams, voices chatter, an amplifier buzzes…and with that, the quartet burst into life. That opener ‘A Year In Hell’ mixes pop-punk guitar chords and an alternative rock spirit, like a DIY collision between early Sum 41 and Don Broco; it’s a performance on which drummer Atish really excels. Twin guitars chug and thrash in classic punk-pop style – even making room for a couple of lead flourishes – while lead vocalist Aaron cries each line with confidence, all the while happy to let his natural accent through, despite the attempts of a few vocal filters to make his voice sound more generic to the musical style. You’ll have heard this sort of thing a thousand times before, but there’s an energy and tightness here – even obvious despite the limited recording budget – that makes this tune very enjoyable all round.
Second only to a great punk compilation, split releases are a great way to discover work by new bands, or else bands that might have slipped under your radar. This particular split release is a great primer for two acts who fit firmly under the Ramones-core banner, both geographically opposed but united in their love of simple and direct punk-pop. Issued via Swamp Cabbage Records (home to Caffiends, Up For Nothing and Gnarly Whales), the ‘Smile of the Tiger’ EP brings four fantastic previously unreleased tracks from Austria’s DeeCracks and Eastcoast US punks The New Rochelles.
Dan Vapid & The Cheats have posted a new video on YouTube, which you can watch in full below. The video documents clips from their last tour set to a soundtrack of ‘A Long Way’, a track from their second album.
As ex-drummer with The Prozacs and various other US power pop/punk bands, Glenn Robinson has worked hard over the years. In addition to drumming with various acts and supplying guitars and vocals to his own 90s covers outfit, he’s also found time to kick off a solo career. His 2013 full length ‘Modern Mistakes’ is the kind of record that deserves to push him towards a wider audience; there’s absolutely no filler material and his abilities to bring variety to punk-based arrangements puts many similar acts to shame. Perhaps most impressive, though, is the fact that almost everything on the album is played by Robinson himself, with other guests only stepping in for the odd guitar solo or a few backing vocals here and there.