Blang Documentary film is screening now at Doc'N'Roll festival
The documentary film about Blang is finally out. Selected for this year's Doc'N'Roll Festival, the 43 minute film made by first-time director La Staunton is streaming on-demand from the Doc'N'Roll site here for a bargain £5 from November 7th until the 21st. Catch it before Sunday!
Here's a review from Joyzine.
"You forget about people don't you? About resistance in the face of a massive wall of hopelessness. This film puts that back in front of you. It's almost unsettling viewing. That's mad isn't it?" - Jason Williamson, Sleaford Mods
"It's been ages since I got vaxxed against boredom and loneliness, and this film is the &*(#ing booster shot I needed!" - Jeffrey Lewis
A smash and grab celebration of genre-bending independent UK label, Blang Records. Capturing the spirit and energy of a label determined to put out records despite never making any money, 'Blang: 16 Years of Outsider Music' showcases the music, artists and artwork from the label's rich and colourful back catalogue in a breakneck 43 minute package.
‘Blang: 16 Years of Outsider Music’ is slated for the prestigious Blang100 catalogue number and is the first non-music release for the label. It was made during various lockdowns on a shoestring budget by radio broadcasters and first time filmmakers La Staunton and Beth Soan:
‘In true Blang style, we didn’t have a clue what we were doing, but we weren’t going to let a lack of technical ability stop us telling this brilliant story. It was refreshing to be immersed in a scene populated by decent people, but this is basically the cinematic equivalent of being held together by chewing gum, goodwill and gaffer tape.’
Blang is a label firmly rooted in the DIY/anything goes attitude of punk and antifolk. Although broadly united by storytelling with edge and humour, diversity is key to the 100 strong back catalogue of releases, and the label has remained consistent in its commitment to releasing outsider music, or as label boss and founder Joe Murphy puts it “giving a home to the acts that don’t have a home anywhere else”.
Blang October residency at Hope & Anchor
Blang takes over the legendary Hope & Anchor venue in Islington every Wednesday in October to finally celebrate the release of five lockdown albums.
Blang Blang Baby every Wednesday in October at
Hope & Anchor, 207 Upper Street, N1 1RL (4 min walk from Highbury & Islington tube)
Details & ticket links below.
October 6th
Sheepy 10 pm / Trailer Crash 9 15 pm / Blang: 16 Years Of Outsider Music (film screening) 8 15 pm
Liverpool's punk-pop earworm merchants Sheepy released third album Get Out My House on Blang in late 2019. "There is no doubting their ability for writing short, punchy hook-laden songs that will have the mosh-pit bouncing" (Norman Records). Trailer Crash are Blang-man JJ Crash's new Hitchin-based garage groovesters. Vagrant Lovers are Glaswegian electro-punk musician Gil De Ray and poet/novelist Kirsty Allison, who Irvine Welsh has called 'the greatest cultural beacon this planet has produced'. Enjoy living up to that one Kirsty!
Tickets £7.50 in advance from Dice (no hidden extras). £ more on the door.
Doors 7.30 pm
October 13th
David Cronenberg's Wife / Jellyskin / Nat The Hammer
Scalpel-wielding post-punk surgeons David Cronenberg's Wife released 4th album The Ship (Necrologies) in 2020. "Staggering brilliance" (Louder Than War). "I won't hear a bad word against them" (Indiependent). Jellyskin are a fantastic electronische duo from Leeds. Nat The Hammer fronts The Reverse who released the Which Way Out album in 2020. "At times as humourous as Brit-pop once was, at others a hard to swallow overview of adult life" (Recless (sic) Reviews). "A dash of darkness and a lot of sardonic humour 9/10" (Alt Together).
Tickets £7.50 in advance from Dice (no hidden extras). £ more on the door.
Doors 7.45
October 20th
Sergeant Buzfuz / Lucy's Diary / Slate Islands
Sergeant Buzfuz released the Fox Pop album in 2020. "A host of melodies that recall the wistful observations of The Kinks" (God Is In The TV). "Fills your head and heart with joy" (Angry Baby), "Wrapping a fiery political core inside layers of charming, playful psychedelic folk-pop" (Joyzine). "A perfectly crafted antidote to chart pop" (Beehive Candy). Lucy's Diary return after a long absence with more entries from the post-punk journal. Celtic noirists Slate Islands preview songs from long-awaited debut album The Corner Of Your Eye.
Tickets £7.50 from Dice (no extra booking fees). £ more on the door.
Doors 7.45
October 27th
The Awkward Silences / The Faux Fibbers / Pink Eye Club
Paul Hawkins, the Alan Bennett of outsider pop and his merry band of wonk-pop provocateurs The Awkward Silences released their eponymous album in 2020. "Their catchiest, most unusual work to date" (Joyzine). "Daring instrumentation...daring lyrics...5/5" (Alt Review). In the same year The Faux Fibbers released Learn To Lie, an absurdist blues-pop album to lose your trousers to. "Like a less bitter Half Man Half Biscuit, serving up slices of gentle absurdism in a way that's altogether charming" (Freq). Electronica mischief-maker Pink Eye Club is newly signed to Blang, expect the unexpected from him!
Tickets £7.50 from Dice (no hidden booking fees). £ more on the door.
Doors 7.30
Les Becasses: 'Bloody Winter' album
From the French underground squat circuit, Paris-based Les Becasses - Marion (vox, guitar), Christophe (bass) and Aurelie (drums/bvs) - visited England for a mini-tour in 2019, playing with Liverpudlian-based Blang Records band, Sheepy. Blang planned to release its first European record on January 1st in response to Brexit, but Brexit and Covid intervened. They are now excited to announce the UK vinyl release of ‘Bloody Winter’. The album is in shops on June 4th but avalable now from the Blang shop.
For fans of The 5.6.7.8’s, The Ramones & Les Wampas, ‘Bloody Winter’ is an eight track mini-album clocking in at twenty minutes and was recorded in just two days. The band named the record in the Autumn of 2020 as they braced themselves for the bloody winter they saw coming to Paris.
The title track borrows from The Rock-A-Teens 1959 rockabilly classic ‘Woo Hoo’. All tracks are sung in English. The record makes us look forward longingly to a summer of bloody loud gigs where we can jump around and spill beer to sounds like these two minute nuggets of female vocal-led razor pop energy.
“For this disc, we decided to print our lyrics as we thought they were rather fun and French people generally need to have them written down to appreciate and understand English texts. Les Becasses’ songs use very classical themes in the pure tradition of Pop music (love, parties, freedom…) although we like to use a bit of humour especially in these dark times. Brexit is a sad thing to us and our friends in general as we love the UK and want to think a part of her loves us back!! It seems that Boris Johnson would have been a perfect prime minister in a Monty Python movie, not real life. Anyway, after Brexit we now have to face the Covid restrictions. We really hope we can come back to the UK, we all had such a great time and were very proud of the English audience's response to our shows!”
Marion, Les Becasses