Tag Archives: punk

Real Gone Presents: A Boston Round-Up, June 2025

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Over the previous couple of months, the submissions for the popular Real Gone Singles Bar have been more than plentiful. It’s actually got to the point where we’re getting so much good stuff, it’s been almost impossible to keep on top of it all. When compiling a recent column, it came to our attention that we’d had a huge amount of submissions from Boston based bands. Since we were massive fans of albums produced by Paul Q. Kolderie & Sean Slade at Fort Apache back in the 90s and, in more recent times, our site has received regular support from a few Boston based bands, PR companies, labels – including the sadly missed Red On Red Records – it seemed to make sense to take some of these great tracks and highlight them in a feature of their own. The Singles Bar will continue as normal, of course…but this bunch of tracks, shared as a selection in its own right, features some great material. Please join us in giving a hearty shout out to a great city with a thriving music scene… As always, we hope you find something new to enjoy!

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MUGGER – Get A Clue EP

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Following their very promising demo from 2022, which shared eight tracks of blistering hardcore punk, noise-making Texans Mugger sound a little more polished on their first “proper” release. It’s clear, though, within a few bars of the first track, that any actual polishing is relative. Yes, their ‘Get A Clue’ release (being touted as an EP, despite only featuring two tracks) sounds bigger and a touch more professional, but it really doesn’t present the band in any more of a commercially viable manner.

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JUDO CHOP! – Cosmic EP

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When a band advertises themselves as “throwing melodic punk, thrash metal, martial arts and Jimmy Barnes into the pit, with no rules, no ref and no care for the victor!”, you’ll get a sense of a band who value fun as much as musical prowess. Although it’s not entirely clear how one of Australia’s national heroes actually figures in Judo CHOP!’s work, the rest of those descriptors are a fairly good fit for five of the six tracks that make up their ‘Cosmic’ EP.

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THE BRIEFS – High Society / You Can Move Me

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Back in 2000, when the rock press seemed to spend a lot of their time getting excited by debut albums from A Perfect Circle and Linkin Park, and most punk was starting to be treated like old news, The Briefs burst onto the US punk scene with their debut album ‘Hit After Hit’. Behind its ironic title, the record shared a bunch of hard edged tunes, bristling with riffs on loan from The Ruts and The Clash, along with the kind of gang vocals that drove the second wave of UK punk. They sat alongside other revival bands like Lower Class Brats and Street Dogs, but were clearly superior musicians and songwriters from the get go. Twenty plus years on, their ‘Sex Objects’ album showed off slightly bigger production values, but the band’s songwriting and musical approach had clearly held firm. With a bunch of speed driven numbers that showed influences from The Clash, Buzzcocks and Lurkers, The Briefs still shared a love for older British punk, but – from a US standpoint – some of the material shared the furious energies of The Germs. In terms of style, it was a great record.

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THE SLEEVEENS – UFO’s / Bernadette

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Released in February 2024, The Sleeveens’ self titled debut launched the band in largely great style. In a little over half an hour, potential fans were reeled in with the help of eleven punk ‘n’ roll numbers that, in the main, fused high octane riffs with a knowing sense of humour. ‘Give My Regards To The Dancing Girls’ provided the perfect opener with its combo of old school punk riffs and distorted vocals; ‘Aretha Franklin’ added a little more of a punk ‘n’ roll feel via a harder sounding guitar, and ‘Metallica Font’ served up pleasingly trashy riffs on an ode to teenage love. Best of all, a cover of The Undertones’ ‘Get Over You’ – dressed in a cloak of distortion – ended up sounding like The Sleeveens had dug up an old Real Kids track and given it a welcome kick. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the perfect debut: the over-long, mid tempo ‘Dry Cider’ did some serious damage to the middle of the album, not just through dragging the mood, but also due to offering some unwelcome lyrical content: a weird, outdated reference to “The Handicap Association” suggested that The Sleeveens really did believe they were still living in 1977. [According to the band, the lyric is based on a real life story from several years ago which puts things in a clearer context, but it doesn’t stop archaic words jarring with a modern ear.]

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