Heaven's Basement @ Barfly

Have just returned from seeing Heaven's Basement at Barfly with Kitty Moran and McTizz. I don't know what I was expecting, but they certainly surpassed it. Their website says they'll make people fall back in love with rock and roll, and I believe they will. I can't believe they're still unsigned, but I can tell you that they won't be for long. They already have quite the following, and several of that number turned out tonight in skinny jeans vying for autographs and high-fives.

I was standing right smack in the middle of the second-ish row taking photos, like everyone else. I have never seen so many cameras and phones out for so long. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the future. At one point the lead guitarist Sid got ahold of someone's phone, filmed the lead singer Richie and the crowd, then handed it back to its owner.

This is the lead guitarist that, for a period of time, played his guitar behind his head. Well.



He was one of the best guitarists I've seen up close. He was also giving some of the girls in the crowd "that look -- the one that works" at the same time. Multi-tasking. Effective.

As for Richie, he proclaimed he was glad to be back home in "an accent that could melt better" (I believe, was what Kitty said) and Cardiff was glad to have him. There was a significant degree of reverence from such a small crowd in such a small bar, and Heaven's Basement did not disappoint. They were wildly talented and indulgent headliners, and I can only see them getting bigger from here. From a completely cynical perspective, you can't go wrong with a group of hard rockers who are that pretty.


Still, when you see them, the prettiness really isn't the first thing that strikes you. In fairness, the first thing that struck me was that Jonny Rocker's extra long cardigan and skinny black jeans combo was both trendier and girlier than anything I own, but that was just me. Much more apparent in person is the intensity with which they play and the raw quality of the music. It was thoroughly enjoyable and over too quickly.

Kudos to new bass player Rob for fitting in so well -- I had no idea he hadn't been playing with them since the beginning.



On a side note, met drummer Chris afterwards to say thank you for the interivew, etc, and he was absolutely lovely. Let the record show that Heaven's Basement are very nice and they support their indie magazines. Hooray!

PS - Support band Dear Superstar were a lot of fun, particularly their thrash-punk cover of the Kinks' Lola. The bands showed their influences on their t-shirts - The Misfits & Ramones - and that made me smile. Hope to hear more from them in the future.

For more on Heaven's Basement, check out Issue 3 (which is out now, and beautiful) via the website. You can also check out the best of the best photos from the show here.

Heaven's Basement and Issue 3

Heaven's Basement's Chris, Hannah Yates photography

Have spent the week so far getting ready for Issue 3! I've just interviewed Heaven's Basement (see above), and I'm getting ready to interview Rochester, MN's Metaloa and Bath's comedy group, 100% Balls. Exciting stuff! Also pleased to confirm that this issue's literature section will be geared toward short stories and flash fiction, with Chapter 3 of Amphetamine Logic, and short stories by Rhys Owain Williams and Liza Penn-Thomas. Now, I've already read these, and I'm sure you'll love them!

I've been getting so many excellent literary submissions in fact, that I'm planning on putting together a Literature section on the website so I have somewhere to put all of it! The section is going to stay in the magazine, but it'll be helpful to have somewhere to put all of the other brilliant things I get if the zine runs out of space. If you've got them, you can send your submissions to primaryantagonist@gmail.com!

Have also updated the Facebook fan page with our first four covers (September 2001 - March 2002) and our latest contributor photos. Check them out here.

Am terribly excited about Issue 3, and will keep you updated as the content comes in. Remember, if you'd like to submit to the magazine, this month's deadline is the 20th of November. Get writing!

Sexually Transmitted Punk

The bake sale was a great success! Not many people actually came due to an error on Facebook (gee, thanks, Facebook), but everyone there was really cool and bought lots of baked things! I spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (for DEAD OF NIGHT) baking and all that's left are a couple of lemon cupcakes. Not bad going!

With the raffle and the door charge we managed to raise enough money to print the first small run, and that's awesome. There's a printing company in Mid Wales willing to print runs of any size on glossy paper, and I'm waiting for their samples to come in the post. Good stuff!

Everything is happening so quickly for the magazine, and it's wonderful, but I'm having a hell of a time keeping up with all of it. The insomnia has helped a bit, but I've been ill all weekend and now I can't talk or concentrate, either. That makes things a bit harder. I just have a couple of more pages to lay out before I convert everything to PDFs and send it off to the printer, and the first t-shirt order is going out next week.

Things are already ticking over for the next issue: I'm interviewing Blind Pilot, Heaven's Basement, and hopefully getting a friend's interview of Black Eyes and Neckties. No idea who's going on the cover. Tempted to use another amazing picture of Kitty Moran. With friends like these, who needs celebrities?

Speaking of amazing friends, Emma, my lovely Uni friend with an MA in Publishing, is going to help us put together a Greatest-Hits-style portfolio to get the magazine stocked in chain stores. This is exciting as well, but my own ambition scares me sometimes. I'm not worried about it selling. Weirdly, I don't I especially care if it sells. I know it's important to keep it going and funding itself, but it will always exist, and that's the point: it needs to exist so I have something to read. A lot of other people are reading it, too, and that's fantastic; I'm glad I've given them something to read.

I love magazines. No, let me put that another way: I love the idea of the magazine, but so few people get it right. Even though my magazine is very different -- black and white, skinny because there aren't any adverts -- I feel that I, at least, have my priorities straight. I'm not a catalogue masquerading as public service. I appreciate that sometimes people like adverts, but the balance between helpful and prescriptive is so tricky that I'm not even going to attempt it.

I went down to WH Smith today. I can home with Big Cheese and the Rolling Stone. Both had Green Day on their covers. [Everyone has Green Day on their cover this month. That's not a complaint.] I read the Rolling Stone interview first, which, as always, was very well written, but left me with the distinct impression that the band has lost the plot. I don't think they have, but the focus on drawing comparisons between them and the overrated and super-famous was irritating. All of these comparisons to U2 and the Beatles are making me very uneasy, and I'm afraid they're going to go that step too far and ruin my memories of my favourite band forever. I hate U2 and the Beatles, and as far as I'm concerned, they have nothing to do with Green Day or, in fact, "Rock & Roll", whatever that means. [This naturally makes me wonder if I just woke up one day as an idealistic Punk, or if I was born that way. Can Punk be sexually transmitted? Nevermind.] But I digress, the point was that the Rolling Stone is always well written, at least, and it was probably a bad idea to read that interview first.

The Big Cheese, on the other hand, had this awesome Green Day feature that lasted pages and pages, but the interview (with Mike Dirnt) was most unsatisfying. I had to re-read sections because I wasn't sure what the writer was trying to say. The layout and the headings were cheesy (no pun intended), and what could have been a terrific interview was undermined by jumbled writing. It was extremely frustrating to read! The intention was there, and the old photos were great, but I'll be damned if I can remember a single thing Dirnt said. If The Antagonist ever gets to interview Green Day, I have no idea what I'd ask, but I'd make sure it made sense before I published it.

Other than that, the magazine was pretty good -- they review zines, which is something that a lot more people are doing now, although I hardly think they can criticise them when their own layout is dodgy and many of their pictures are pixellated. Granted, I think they might realize this as none of the criticisms are too harsh. That's nice. There was a sizeable feature about new bands that I found particularly useful, and although multi-coloured adverts spring from every corner, their hearts are probably in the right places. At least I'd like to think so.

Curiously Compelling

All systems go for the Minion Fest on Friday. Am so excited I can hardly contain myself.

The support from our families and close friends is overwhelming, and the website traffic is looking better than ever. Kitty Moran* came to town today with a box of American cake mix and two jars of frosting for the bakesale. She's staying at the headquarters after the Black Stone Cherry gig at Sin City and she had nothing but the best things to say about them & their support, the wonderfully-named Heaven's Basement. I wasn't there, but she's going to write it up for the zine and from what she's told me, it sounds like an amazing show and I can't wait to read the review. They're touring the UK for the time being, and I'm hoping to score some more interviews for the July/August issue. Kitty likes the idea, but all she really wants are the BSC pants they had at the merch stand. This desire led to an odd brainstorming session -- she had the idea for a series of photos of pants. Not on people, just in weird places. Mailboxes and teapots and such. I've got the teapot, and I find the image of a pair of pants thrown over my tea service curiously compelling. ;)

I can't believe how bright it is. It's 6:11 AM and the sun is in full force over the Headquarters. I'm incredibly awake. Don't think for a second I just woke up -- you know me better than that -- I just haven't been to sleep yet. Who needs sleep when you have inspiration, eh? I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with me, but I'm extremely motivated. It's Monday morning and I've had the weekend off; I'm ready to get on with this magazine business! I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. The ideas keep coming and when they stop, well, I'm about fifty pages away from finishing Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters and I have to finish it. I was reading it in the kitchen earlier, waiting for water to boil. It's beyond description. I'm crazy about CP's writing. And by writing I don't mean Brad Pitt in Fight Club. I'm just glad it didn't catch on fire over the hob.

Rented Australia last night. I suppose it was the night before last, now. Imagine a western crashes into a WWII movie, cows and bombers flying everywhere, while retaining that touch of stylistic camp that Baz Luhrmann does so well. That was impressive. The characterisation was not. There is NOTHING wrong with Hugh Jackman - believe me, I just saw Wolverine - but the characters were either a) Very Good, or b) Very Bad, and there was no real development. When the prissy English Lady makes out with the rugged Drover, you could believe it with no stretch of the imagination. Voila: two beautiful people kissing sloooowly. Great. Then there's David Wenham, who I love, as the "bad guy". That wasn't so great. I just didn't believe it. His performance was melodramatic and campy (I credit Luhrmann for this); when he threatened people, I giggled. I guess I was just remembering him and Jackman in Van Helsing... maybe he was, too.

Right! The temptation fo the final 50 pages of CP calls! Plus, The Punk has been sleeping for six hours already. He's worn out from an epic stag overnight that involved something called "gorge walking". ??? On his way home this morning - or was it yesterday morning? - he was almost trampled by the thousand women in pink running at him in Bute Park. Granted, he is stupidly sexy, but on this occasion it was for the Race for Life and he stumbled into it with a hangover. Surreal.