UFC 75

Hyper-late though it may be (and indeed is), I figured it would be in my interests to get this written, simply for the notion of getting a string of UFC write-ups done. And to get the blog updated. (And I must apologise to readers of the blog who don’t like watching idiots fight each other for money; non-MMA writing will return as soon as is humanly possible. But most likely after my thoughts on UFC 76 have sprung, no doubt tardily, up.) So here, without much in the way of further ado, is this.

I haven’t seen any of the under-card bouts as I write now, and in fact I haven’t re-watched the fights I had seen on the night; perhaps I will update as and when relevant. And I am aware that the next instalment of the ongoing UFC odyssey, known as ‘76’ has technically ‘happened’ but, as I am in the UK and trust my viewing pleasure for these cards to Bravo, it is on tonight for me.

I was originally to be at this particular card. However, for reasons unpleasant (and ones that I don’t feel the desire to recount at this juncture), I wasn’t and was doomed to watch it on Setanta. I suppose the silver lining here would be the fact that I didn’t have Setanta until about a week prior to the event, and there would be further lining in the form of the card being on ‘free’ Setanta as opposed to pay-per-view. Quite the lining indeed but, all that said, I wasn’t at the O2 (nor, indeed was I present for any of the recent Prince concerts, but that – even grimmer – revelation is another I care not for explaining), so the grey cloud, lined though it was, loomed over me like the most malevolent cumulonimbus.

(At this point, using up word count: moi?, I would like to mention the writers of the ‘Sherdog’ ‘web’ ‘site’. It would seem that they, like Prometheus, have over-reached in their attempts to write well. In a way, I’m happy, as at least they are now making an effort. Still, it’s pretty sad; filling up columns on MMA with semi-colon usage and bizarre popular cultural references is my gimmick.)

OK, so there was a bunch of fighting at the O2 the other week. I shall start with the fights with which I was least bothered, so as to get them out of the way. Paul ‘The Party Animal’ Taylor vs. Marcus ‘Default’ Davis was exciting while it lasted, with great dynamic swings in whom the fortunes favoured. While both fighters displayed neat striking and killer instinct, it was the quick thinking submission application that separated the twain. Good for him. That said, I don’t care if I never see him again.

Mike ‘The Count’ Bisping vs. Matt ‘Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em’ Hamill was a scary fight for fans of the Brit. I don’t know what it is about fight sports, but they are the only realm of competition where I want my compatriot to win. In fact, it is only in MMA and boxing in which I am not actively willing the Brits/English to take a massive hammering. No idea why that is the case, but here we are. Which reminds me: Good riddance Tim!

Anyway, the fight was close, but in retrospect, reassuringly so. See, if it hadn’t been close, it would have been due to Hamill running away with it. Prior to the confrontation, received wisdom held that, as long as Bisping was able to avoid the takedown, he would be free to punch the American at will. What surprised both I and Bisping, then, was the clean, powerful striking emanating from Hamill.

Not that it was amazing or anything, but punches were thrown with a strength and confidence that threw Bisping off his game in the first round; he was attempting to throw his own strikes while on the retreat. While he regained his composure, and ended up deftly avoiding takedowns by the third round, he seemed to have done little damage compared to that which he had received. So while Bisping won the decision, perhaps in some way ostensibly to appease the British audience, his agitated post-match interview revealed all was not well in the state of Bisping. It will be interesting to see where the two go from here.

I don’t really know what to say about Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic. What was once the most feared fighter in all of mixed martial arts (while Fyodor Emelianenko was always better, it was Filipovic who could end it all, at any moment, with one shot) has been reduced to a shaken, smaller-looking, version of his old self. While I won’t attempt to play the game of ‘what the casual fan thinks’, the fact of the matter is that, with losses to Gabriel Gonzaga and Cheik Congo, his sole American win against unheralded Eddie Sanchez, his presence in the upper UFC echelons is based on name only.

I am also not one to attempt to undermine the import of his loss to Gonzaga in the light of the latter’s undoing at the hands of Randy Couture. UFC 70 is what it is, and losing to the miraculous champion later is neither here nor there in affecting the perception of Gonzaga imposing his will on Filipovic to such a shattering extent. Nor should it affect that career-defining performance. UFC 75, on the other hand, asks questions of Filipovic, rather than making any proclamations on the ability of Kongo.

We have all seen Kongo before; we know he is a big, powerful kickboxer with little else in his skill-set. Indeed, while some said Kongo was the best possible opponent for Filipovic’s presumable return to form on account of he wouldn’t attempt a takedown any time soon, I was always filled with trepidation at the prospect of the Croatian attempting to knock out a fighter with the same techniques as he, but with a far larger frame; Kongo’s icily cool confidence in pre-match interview was ominous indeed.

And so it was that Kongo essentially ‘did a Hamill’ (or, perhaps to be more pertinent, ‘a Hunt’, in reference to the last time a striker walked ‘Cro Cop’ down to win an easy decision). Kongo hit Mirko at will, forcing the favourite on to a back foot from which he would never return. Straits were dire enough by the end of the first round that we nearly bore witness to that second most legendary of MMA punch lines, ‘”Cro Cop” by triangle’. As it was, though, the French fighter escaped that particular section of grappling and returned to his stratagem of regularly kicking the Croat’s body; kicking the fight, quite literally, out of Filipovic.

This win doesn’t mean Kongo is suddenly an elite mixed martial artist, nor does it necessarily mean – as some drama queens have stated – that it should spell the end of Filipovic as a current fighter. Kongo will go on from here and how he performs against more rounded fighters will either see him challenging for the title or returning to dark matches. Filipovic can recover, theoretically should recover but, after these unprecedented two straight losses, I wouldn’t like to bet on it.

Infinitely more heartening was the main event (Quinton Jackson vs. Dan Henderson, for those unaware). Though many have banged on about missed opportunities (Sherdog did admittedly admirably on this front, actually) in hyping the momentous occasion of UFC champion fighting the Pride champion (even if they are both UFC fighters now, both of whom made their professional names in Pride, so perhaps the hype on that front would have been disingenuous), the fight was excellent.

As I thought it would be before the day, this was a close, titanic, struggle that was decided by the bigger, stronger Jackson being that bit more able to implement his game plan and wear down Henderson. Not for me the play-by-play style of fight discussion, but there were numerous moments that stood out to me. First and foremost, though UFC were playing themselves up more than title unification, Jackson’s insane level of pre-fight intensity was heartening compensation, especially as it didn’t drop a jot when Henderson smiled at him. The initial rush by Jackson of Henderson, and Henderson’s subsequent parry, was the perfect start. The swings in momentum kept this fight intriguing, even though – as the bell sounded the end of the fifth – Jackson quite clearly won.

This was a great fight, a display of rounded mixed martial artists. The tilt told a tale of a smaller man going the, very competitive, distance with a bigger, younger man. It told the tale of an erstwhile rough-around-the-edges ‘street fighter’ taking on a decorated amateur wrestler at his own game and winning. It went a long way to wash the foul taste of the numerous Sherk and Sylvia five-rounders from the collective mouth of the MMA fan. Last, but not least, it established who the linear cock of the light heavyweight walk really is.

Just in time for Shogun to debut, then.

Future Zuffa Broadcasts to Lose Key Commentators? a.k.a. UFC 74

For Total MMA

That’s right, readers. With the events of the recent UFC 74 telecast, it appears as though the esteemed vocal chords of veteran guest commentator Randy ‘The Natural’ Couture and up-and-coming voice of the WEC Frank ‘Lee My Dear I Don’t Give A Damn’ Mir are to remain absent from the airwaves as both commentators were successful in a side gig known as ‘fighting’. OK, that might have been a bit of a stretch, as Couture was already heavyweight champion, but you can’t blame a man for trying. Besides, they are really good in the booth.

All that aside, though, I suppose the show raised a few pertinent questions. One of those is quite clearly ‘who (if anybody) is going to beat Randy Couture?’ we should probably deal with that one before moving on to any further posers. While generally split, the MMA populace had somewhat decided that Gonzaga was a very dangerous fight for Couture. I suppose the fact that Randy dismantled his young Brazilian challenger so comprehensively is kind of the reason why he is Randy Couture and we’re not. Yes, in another display of strategic acumen and fighting skill, Couture decided he would neither swing with the stocky Gonzaga nor risk two-hundred-and-fifty pounds of jiu-jitsu in his face by herding him into the fence and draining his will to live in the dreaded Couture clinch.

It was only recently that I actively realised that Couture’s clinch is one of the most devastating weapons in modern MMA, along with the likes of Fedor’s ground-and-pound, ‘Cro Cop’s left roundhouse, Shinya Aoki’s rubber guard and Tank Abbott’s body odour. I have no idea why this realisation should have come so recently, because I can barely recall a time when it wasn’t an incredibly dangerous weapon. It was certainly the primary difference between the first Couture-Liddell fight (which Couture won, fact fans!), and the other two (in which Couture was parted with his consciousness in much the same way an unwary traveller would be separated from his wallet in Dubai. Seriously).

Of course, this impressive display of fighting nous sent lesser writers scurrying to their crayons in paroxysms of wonder about how Couture was defying the otherwise immutable passage of time; how he has been sent from the future (because, silly, when we do manage to get the space-time continuum to bend to our whims, priority #1 will be to send a middle aged man to the recent past in order to beat people up. Well, I guess it worked in Terminator 2). The reality is far more prosaic than that: Couture is a very smart man who seems to live in an incredibly clean fashion. And when compared to fighters who seem to be slowing, like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, he is arguably aided by the fact that his losses have come to Chuck Liddell rather than, say, Fedor Emelianenko. Now, I’m no brain surgeon (which explains writing about people fighting as a hobby), but personally I’d rather be sparked out by a single shot than pummelled mercilessly for twenty minutes by a Russian heavyweight. That’s it: Couture has a body that hasn’t been regularly concussed (compared to other mid-forties professional fighters), and he is incredibly good at enacting his battle stratagems.

And speaking of strategising, being smart and Russians who ground-and-pound, we arrive at our theoretical answer to the original question. The fan favourite in terms of ‘who can beat Randy?’ is none other than Fedor Emelianenko, A.K.A. the greatest fighter ever in mixed martial arts ever, ever, ever. Err, since 1993. But seeing as we are discussing this very topic in the next issue of this fine publication, I’ll say no more.

Another, less big, question proffered by the show was whether the speedy victory of one Frank Mir over an Antoni Hardonk was evidence that the ‘old’ Frank Mir was, indeed, back. I would certainly say so. ‘But why?’, I hear you ask, ‘he only had a quick fight, we didn’t see any great feats of stamina or really anything outside an effective application of a submission hold’. And, to that, I would say ‘exactly, mortal!’ Mir made his name (in fights with the likes of Roberto Traven, Pete Williams, ‘Tank’ Abbott and ‘Tim’ Sylvia) by forcing quick submissions (none of the above fights went over sixty-five seconds each). None of those were wars, and none of them involved any great displays of intestinal fortitude or stamina.

When he was forced to go over sixty-five seconds, against such non-elite fighters as Wes Sims and Ian Freeman, he suddenly didn’t look so hot. So it is for all of the above that I say the ‘old’ Frank Mir is indeed back, as the Hardonk fight exemplifies what Mir became famous for. Some say time will tell whether Mir is back, blah blah bling bling blah, but as far as I’m concerned, time will really be the judge of whether the ‘old’ Frank Mir was actually great shakes to begin with.

I reckon that’s probably it in terms of questions, leaving us primarily with that finest of media wines, controversy. Yes, the under-card bore witness to probably the most intense fight of the night (and the answer to another question – OK, so I was wrong – of where all that blood on the canvas had come from. It came from David Heath’s head). Apparently, Heath had called Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral a ‘motherfucker’. Some say Heath wore Sobral’s recent mug-shot on a t-shirt at the weigh-in. Whatever happened, Sobral was irked, and he made this known in incredibly visceral fashion as he spread Heath’s plasma onto the canvas like so much I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter before gator rolling into an anaconda choke.

This would ordinarily have been an exquisite end to the fight, as evinced perfectly by Nogueira-Herring II, and rather less so by Couture-Van Arsdale, were it not for the fact that Heath tapped out and then… nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen when bizarrely-moustached referee Steve Mazzagatti attempted to loosen Sobral’s grip on Heath. Only when Heath was unconscious did ‘Babalu’ relinquish the hold, and then lots of people started crying about Sobral’s conduct. The Nevada State Athletic Commission withheld the win bonus, and Dana White cut ties with the last light-heavyweight to beat divisional golden boy Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua.

According to White, the ramifications of Sobral’s behaviour would have been far more severe if what he had held onto was a joint lock as opposed to a choke. Sure, I can get behind that; nobody wants to see permanent injuries in MMA, especially within the moral grey area the sport inhabits in the minds of many powers that be. The one fact White seemed to be overlooking here was that Sobral wasn’t holding onto a joint lock. Reverend White’s sermonising was the equivalent to claiming that Wanderlei ‘The Axe Murderer’ Silva would be a very bad man if he was literally an axe murderer.

In the real world, Silva is not actually an axe murderer, Matt Wiman is not actually handsome, Sean Sherk isn’t a ‘muscle shark’ (largely because that one doesn’t exist), and Sobral wasn’t breaking anyone’s ankle or arm. Not to excuse his behaviour, as I know I wouldn’t want to be choked out after tapping, and it must have sucked to be Heath for those seconds (and the preceding minutes. And during the Machida fight), but there seemed to be a level of MMA jungle law on display here. Fighter A gets somehow wronged by Fighter B; Fighter A finds himself in a position of dominance and decides to teach Fighter B a lesson. I’m not saying this is right, but Sobral no more deserves firing than B.J. Penn, or Martin Kampmann for that matter.

Perhaps it’s a matter of penitence; Kampmann expressed ignorance about Drew McFedries being unconscious and Penn playfully dismissed his bit of bonus choking. Sobral, on the other hand, explained his behaviour by making reference to the ‘motherfucker’ accusation.

I don’t know, if I’m David Heath, maybe I should train hard to make sure I don’t get completely dominated, rather than expending my energy on trying to get under someone’s skin? And if controversy occurs on the under-card does it really make a sound? And does a couple of seconds of choking really justify the jettison of an elite light-heavyweight? Is it ironic that this occurred on a card named ‘Respect’? Is choking someone out in the heat of competition really a more heinous P.R. crime than getting arrested for misdemeanour battery this past July? I knew I shouldn’t have said that was the end of the questions. Whatever the case, Sobral must now be feeling like a bit of an idiot for his display of hubris.

Final thought: Am I the only person who is really starting to resent the constant UFC fellation of Roger Huerta? Quite apart from making a career of exclusively fighting (admittedly game) UFC debutants, the amount of praise being lavished on him is sickening. Yes, the strategy of using the big screen to see his opponent was novel, but ‘redefining intelligence’, as Goldberg moistly proclaimed? Maybe a couple of those elbows split an atom or two without my knowledge.

Live Review: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, 31st July 2007


Leeds City Varieties. Support: Euros Childs and Dave

This happened quite a while ago (nearly a month), so I am going off memory here. Despite the City varieties hosting a surprising amount of gigs from cultishly popular bands in the last few years, this was the first time I had ever been to the theatre. It shouldn’t have been, as I would like to have seen the once-mighty Sigur Rós here in spring 2002 (alas I was out of the country, and they went down the pan shortly after), but it was.

As I had missed Lanegan performing with Soulsavers in Manchester just prior to this, I was eager to get the fullness here. (Actually, I’m not sure how much I did miss on account of I have never heard Soulsavers, and they might not be much cop after all.) To be honest with you (like I spend the rest of my time lying to you. I’d never do a thing like that), I wasn’t all that enamoured with the Lanegan/Campbell album, but I figured I had to see him perform at least once this summer, I’m sure their album is better than I give it credit for, and I just wanted to go, OK? Besides, their duet ‘Why Does My Head Hurt So?’, from Isobel’s Time is Just the Same E.P., was a beautiful piece of work’; easily one of my favourite sub-three minute songs ever. Ever.

So, after an ickle drink (and large curry), it was time for the gig. I tell you, I want to go to more concerts at the City Varieties, even for bands I don’t particularly want to see, because the interior is adorable in a slightly run-down, cosy, Victoriana kind of way. The opening act was an entity going by the moniker ‘Euros Childs’ and, having never heard of this ‘Euros Childs’, had no idea whether it was a man or a band. It turned out to be a combination of the two, and I just wanted to see it based on nomenclaturial awesomeness. I later learned he was in/was Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, a fact that means little to me at present on account of I have never knowingly heard GZM.

Regardless of who he was, he turned out to be quite the engaging performer on this night. Introduced as ‘Euros Childs and Dave’, two men walked onto the stage and went about their business. Childs was immediately engaging thanks to his witty line in awarely incompetent banter: ‘this song is about… no, it’s from when… no, it’s about…’

The songs themselves were endearing, too, as they muddled along generally on electric piano; nursery rhyme melodies and minimal backing. Sometimes ‘Dave’ would play acoustic guitar while keeping time with a bass drum, but the pairing worked best when he would back the Roland piano with his own little musical box of tricks. He would add seemingly random countermelodies that would make the overall songs sound like off the wall theme tunes to kids’ shows; it was fantastic and bizarre.

The highlight for me came late on in the set: ‘Look at my Fridge’ (‘it started out as “Look at my Boots” – no it didn’t. It started out as “Look at my Fridge”, then changed to “Look at my Boots”, then changed back to “Look at my Fridge”’) was a faux-naïve catalogue of items of his that we should look at. In what seemed to be a subtle parody of the Pussycat Dolls, the question was posed re: our wanting items like that; ‘don’t you wish you had a fridge like me?’ He apparently wrote it on a whim for a toddle-aged relative. I want to see him again.

With his set over, and me very entertained, Campbell and Lanegan soon appeared on the stage. Having just got hold of a new camera, I was eager to snap at least one shot of the performers, but was overly concerned with not bothering my fellow punters (I hate it when people snap, snap, snap, viewing the gig through a makeshift window). I got it in the end, even if it isn’t the greatest photo ever taken.


As I said earlier, I hadn’t made much time for their album, so approached the performance as a bunch of stuff that was new to me; anything else would be a bonus. And it was fine. I was disappointed that they failed to play ‘Why Does My Head Hurt So?’ (after termination of this set still their finest song by some way), but what they did play was fine. There were times when the almost impossibly fragile Campbell seemed as though her voice would be crushed under the (lower in the mix) force of nature that was Lanegan, but the perilously fine line was walked with some success.

The songs from the album were faithful, in as much as they were enjoyable, far from life changing, and forgotten soon after. As I believe gigs are pretty much all about the moment (which arguably renders my writing about them rather redundant), I didn’t mind that last factor so much. They also performed new songs, all of which had apparently been written by her chubby, middle-aged guitarist (most of their band was reassuringly chubby and middle-aged). They were, to be quite honest, weak songs. Bland and far more forgettable than the rest of their songs, this was trite material which, in the vocal chords of anyone other than Lanegan, would have neared offensive in their inoffensive mediocrity.

Which brings me to Lanegan in general. I’m not sure at which point this happened, but I was overjoyed to transcend my usual gig-experiencing practice for most of the set. I stopped caring how good the songs were, or even really that there were songs. Ditto Isobel and the rest of the band. I had a minor epiphany as I realised the combination of seats, cosy environ and clear PA system was perfectly conducive to focusing like a laser on Lanegan’s voice.

It is, after all, what he is famous for, with fans ranging from Josh Homme and P.J. Harvey to Gavin Rossdale and, frankly, anyone else who has heard him. His is a deep, full voice, of a quality that renders pretty much anything it recites enjoyable. So I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb, as it were. I just listened to his fantastic, one of a kind voice, and it was aesthetically and spiritually uplifting. My reverie was aided by his performance of songs I actually knew (OK, so I cared a bit about what he sang after all); I was greatly heartened when he played songs I consider to be ‘his, even though they were covers: ‘Carry Home’, ‘Little Sadie’, ‘I’ll Take Care of You’: all classics, all now his, and all magnified by performer, performance and setting. For those few songs, this set was nigh-on perfect.

And it ended at some point. Campbell had muttered the odd word between songs, Lanegan had said nothing. Some complete cretins tried making him say something, under the mistaken ostent of humour, but he resisted their charmless shouts. (Indeed, I wonder quite why these idiots were even bothered about Lanegan saying anything, when he was singing in front of them anyway, a deed he does to far greater effect than ninety-nine percent of extant performers. Oh, that’s right – they’re idiots.) Lanegan doesn’t need to say anything when he sings like he does. See him whenever you can. I know I will from now on.

The Wildhearts – The Wildhearts Must be Destroyed

Gut Records, 2003

This album has been delaying completion of my Wildies project, so I figured I would make a virtue of the semi-apathy I feel towards it; art creates art etc. Besides, labouring over a 1-2000 word essay on this particular record would be an act of dishonesty on my part anyway, so it is in the interest of my integrity as a ‘writer’ that I dedicate as little time, space and stress to it as it deserves. Not that it’s a bad album (it’s good), but I’m just not feeling it – especially compared to the surfeit of feeling I was doing of the other Wildies albums this summer.

I haven’t even bought it yet (which explains why the above picture is markedly inferior to the ones for both P.H.U.Q. (1995) and Fishing for Luckies (1996), which I snapped with my own fair hands), but I will at some point. It’s just a bit of a limbo album for me, and genuinely not a high point for the band itself (so says me).

I have written in the past about how I went off new rock music that was coming out between about late 2000 and early 2004, and this fell into that limbo period. I didn’t like the way rock/metal was getting trendy, I was getting a bit sick of it, Noisecore was winding down, other stuff was becoming more interesting to me, and I dunno, I just felt a disconnect with anything in the Kerrang!/Metal Hammer cultural sphere. The Wildhearts album might have been worse than usual for me at this time, too. They were a band I’d been a fan of from early teens on, and I figured that when they split that was it. Their reformation was not only the re-opening of a musical chapter in my life as a music fan that I thought had closed, but it also felt like there was a party going on to which I hadn’t been invited. Besides, the reformation featured proper old school Wildies like C.J and Stidi: they weren’t my Wildhearts.

So I ignored them, just like I did Old Man Gloom, Isis, Converge and Mastodon at the time. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that rock albums by bands I was paying attention to – Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens Of The Stone Age, Cave In, System Of A Down – at this time were uniformly disappointing. Even the debuting Audioslave, who I had a lot emotionally invested in, left me cold with an album I had assumed was guaranteed gold. Yeah, I ignored the return of the Wildhearts, as well as the reunion tour and any singles that accompanied.

I was right and I was wrong. I was right because this is the least good Wildhearts album of them all. Because something about it seems a tad unfinished, feels a bit wrong. I was wrong because I have since learned never to doubt Ginger. This is mainly on account of he’s hardly written a bad song, so we can infer from that a bad album is unlikely. It’s just disappointing by his standards.

That’s not to say I don’t love some songs on it, because there is plenty to love: especially the singles. I don’t know how I got away with not having ‘Vanilla Radio’ for the years I did, because it is a fantastic, aggressive/melodic song that even has time for football chanty bits. The other track that stands out is the aggressive, almost hardcore, ‘Nexus Icon’. Great songs both, although ‘Vanilla Radio’ is pretty clearly the superior.

Apart from these, though, it’s not stunning stuff. There are great moments, such as in the chorus of ‘Only Love’, when some female backing vocals interject to enthusiastically proclaim the title almost as though this was one of those moments when you thought Marc Bolan was awesome (and then you listened to other stuff he did and decided he wasn’t). But… but this song reminds you of the good bits of seventies glam, sticks it in a modern rock song and ends up with an awesome bit of pop mastery, where the verses are just breathing space between excellent choruses.

Looking at the track-list, more titles stick out to me actually. The song between ‘Only Love’ and ‘Vanilla Radio’, ‘Someone that Won’t Let Me Go’, is one that I recall really liking too. The issue in general with this album, though, is that the Wildhearts had really toned down any metal aspects of their patented (not really patented) pop-punk-metal alchemy at this point, leaving us with an album of good – but not amazing – pop punk.

Now, pop punk in general was in a bit of a state by 2003. The mighty NOFX (pretty insanely undervalued by non punk rockers) were rather stagnant by this stage; after peaking in 1997 with the near-perfect So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes (crap title, I know), they stumbled a bit with the patchy Pump Up the Valuum (sic, 2000). In 2003, they had the good War on Errorism, which I deemed an improvement on the last one before proceeding to not listen to it again. Anyway, they weren’t setting the world on fire, I’m pretty sure Bowling For Soup were knocking about at that stage, and it was all looking a bit glum in the Cali-sounding punk stakes. Why this stab at context? No idea really. It was nice that the Wildies were apparently attempting to invigorate the scene, but the dropping of the metal from their sound just hurt them, and made them sound a bit bland overall, certainly compared to what fans of the band had grown used to. Maybe that was their secret plan for chart success, who knows?

So this wasn’t a bad album, but wasn’t great. In hindsight it was nice to have them back on account of (i) they are better than most other bands, and (ii) it eventually led, this year, to their eponymous album, which is fucking excellent. And it’s always nice to know that Ginger is staying (relatively) out of mischief. But yeah, my cynicism towards them, and the style in general, wasn’t particularly refuted when I eventually did get it listened this year. Then again, if I had got this at the time, I’d have likely attended what was sure to be a great gig during the period. What can you do?

Next up: I write about The Wildhearts again! A thousand words after all…