"Crywank In Session" - © 2012 Anthony Barlow

“…nothing more than complaints from a dumb spoilt kid”

Crywank is the alter-ego of James Clayton, a singer/songwriter from Barnsley. Having garnered a lot of attention with, his first album, James Is Going To Die Soon, Crywank has become a staple of the UK’s acoustic scene. Now with Narcassist On The Verge Of A Breakdown, his latest album, out and available for download – both records are available for free online – we thought it was about time we did a session.

Crywank played two songs from the new record, and they came out awesome. Please share with your friends, like on YouTube, subscribe and all that stuff. Drop us a line in the comments if you have any ideas who we should session with next.

Nostril Tampon

You Couldn’t Teach Me Integrity

Filmed under a bridge in Manchester by Dicking Around Productions and edited in a less glamourous location.

Oxygen Thief recently took on a jaunt around the UK (accompanied by, the awesome, Mark McCabe) and we chucked on a show for them in Manchester. Y’know, because we’re nice like that. So before the gig started we thought we’d record a session under the very bridge our podcast/promotions thing/psuedo-record label is named after. Little did we know, we’d have some, pretty awesome, intruders.

Seriously, we have no idea who these girls are. If you do, please let us know by emailing us by clicking those links in the sidebar. And, as always, please let us know what you thought in the comments and on YouTube. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave those here too. For now, why not enjoy two awesome songs from Oxygen Thief and his two-part dance troupe.

‘Paper Planes’ (M.I.A. cover)

‘Mestle & Porter’

It’s that time again, folks! Under The Bridge is back and, once again, we’re joined in our favourite boozer by Emma Hallows to discuss music and other inane subjects. In this episode, we discuss what happens when the three of us go to places and get drunk. This includes a lot of chatter about the insanely good time the three of us had at ManchFESTer II and a Women’s Rights House show in London.

We also played some bloody good new songs from Apologies, I Have None, Tim Barry, The Magnificent and Well Wisher. You should check all of those bands out, and be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes if you liked it so much. For those who just want to dip your toe in the murky waters of UTB, there’s a link below.

Go on, have a listen:

UTB #36: “Let’s Do A Fuck In Thatcher”

On his recent UK tour, we caught up with Austin Lucas and put him to work. After all, playing a song to a video camera is exactly what you want to do on your birthday, right?! Austin, very kindly, obliged to play us a new tune for a Moon & Back Session and it’s absolutely awesome. ‘Alone In Memphis’ is going to be featured on his new record and we can’t wait to hear the final version. But, for now, we have this to tide us over.

Apologies for the camera not quite getting Austin’s guitar into shot. This room was tiny and there was five of us in there. Regardless, we think it turned out great. Be sure to check out Austin’s latest record A New Home In The Old World and tell us who you want to see do a session for us in the comments below!

‘Alone In Memphis’

The subject of Carol Vorderman is firmly off the table for this week’s Under The Bridge, we’re sticking to the music talk. Thank christ for that! This week Emma Hallows tells us all about her recent tour with Dave Hughes, we discuss hypothetical meetings between penguins and polar bears and are asked the question “What is Cliff Richard doing right now?”

This week’s music is provided by Great Cynics, Martha, Harker and The Menzingers. No excuse for this being late. Barlow (eds note: honestly) just forgot we’d done it. It was edited, ready to go, and everything!

Go on, have a listen:

Under The Bridge #35: We’re Going On Tour With Soundgarden Too!

Henry Rollins is one of the hardest working guys out there. The former Black Flag and Rollins Band frontman now spends his time touring the world, performing spoken word shows to packed crowds and writing the occasional book (amongst other things). Thankfully he took some time out to answer some questions of ours, covering everything from Black Flag, to politics, to Green Lantern.

That’s a good question. I guess I will have to at some point. Honestly, I don’t really think about the future, past the work I have to get done and perhaps the year ahead so I can plan it in advance. I guess I will go as I do until I go a different way.

You seem to be have a huge backing for the current revolutionary activities (and rightly so) in areas such as Egypt, et al. That being said, do you think there could be more done by countries in the west to help relieve the political vacuum that is often left after revolutions of this nature?

I think more pre-emptive action could be taken as in not setting up bad governments in countries you wish to dominate, not destroy their economy, etc. These ideas sadly go against the party line of American foreign policy. We want the vacuum. That’s when we come in and do our work. The disaster is what we’re after. If you really wanted to help, you would get in and get out and leave behind sustainability. To do that, you would have to understand the culture and care about the history of a country so you don’t wreck it. Western solutions to non Western places, that’s a big fail.

During 2010-11 a project was started by a woman named Angela Bennett called “Thanks to Hank” which featured contributions by various people who feel they had been helped immensely in their lives by yourself and your work (we both contributed, so thank you!) This must have been a very humbling gift to receive but do you find it hard to not let it go to your head? In your shows and books you never seem to really give yourself credit as being such an inspiration, why is that?

I don’t think it a good idea for me to think about any of that too much. I truly appreciate anyone paying attention to what I do, of course and am very grateful that someone gets something useful out of what I am trying to do. However, I don’t know what else to do about that past being thankful and keep working on things. I am humbled nightly by an audience being there, people out by the bus, the letters, etc. That’s all it is to me–humbling. It doesn’t cause me to swell up as much as it urges me to do as good as I can. My overall feeling, besides gratitude, is one of caution to be clear and patient.

Could you tell us a little about the voice acting you did on the Green Lantern animated film you did last year? How did it come about and are you a big fan of graphic novels? (if so, the next question is, DC or Marvel?)

I work with the producer Andrea Romano now and then. She called me in to do the voice work on that character. I don’t know much about the graphic novel world.

You were quoted in a 2011 edition of Trebuchet magaizine as saying “… and I must say that I miss it [music] every day. I just don’t know honestly what I could do with it that’s different.” Is there a possibility of you collaborating with other artists in the future as oppose to writing your own material, and does include production of other artists? (from what we’ve read the last production project you did was the 1995 Mark of Cain album, Ill at Ease).

I am really not interested in doing music at this point. I did a lot of it and don’t know what else to do with it and production doesn’t really interest me all that much. It’s a lot of sitting still.

Recently Keith Morris, Bill Stevenson, Steven Eggerton and Chuck Dukowski ‘reformed’ Black Flag at GV30. You must be sick of questions like this, but would you ever be a part of something like that?

No. It’s not of my interest.

Finally, as a guy who always appears pretty clued in on good music, could you recommend some artists/bands you’ve been enjoying recently?

Electric Wizard, High On Fire, Boris, Bong, Ashtray Navigations, a lot of old German space music.

So…we were in The Garratt to record the show and Ellen Degeneres was on the TV above us doing push ups with Michelle Obama. This is where that title comes from and that’s all we’re going to say on the matter!

So this episode of Under The Bridge is the most inane and offensive episode we’ve ever done. It doesn’t even have anything to do with music really. Honestly, we went in without show notes and flew by the seat of our pants. There was a group of people eating food on the table across from us and, yes, we carried on these conversations. No, we weren’t drinking. Maybe we should drink more, because stuff like this wouldn’t happen.

So we talked about nothing and got a passing guest in the form of, Well Wisher’s, Mike Cahill. Barry also passed through, but didn’t really do much, and Lewis Bolland makes his triumphant return. We also have new music from Lucero, Cheap Girls and Ben Marwood.

If you want to email us questions and/or ‘contructive’ criticism direct your answers here – utbcast [at] gmail [dot] com.

UTB #34: “Barack Obama’s Wife Looks Like A White Lesbian”

Franz Nicolay might be the most talented person I’ve ever met. Not only is he a multi-instrumentalist (he plays guitar, accordion, banjo, keys and probably a few more), but he’s got a fantastic voice too. Having previously played in The Hold Steady and The World Inferno Friendship Society (and collaborated with Against Me!, Frank Turner, The Bouncing Souls and The Loved Ones, amongst others) Franz now takes to the stage as a solo artist and his live show is absolutely amazing.

On his recent tour with Chris T-T he was gracious enough to record a Moon & Back Session, playing two songs from his forthcoming 3rd solo album Do The Struggle. If you’re not a Franz fan yet, these next couple of tracks might just change your mind. He plays both songs on the banjo too which, at the very least, is something different. Check them out below, and look for a session from Chris T-T before the end of the year.

‘You Don’t Know I’m Here’

‘Live Free’

Against Me! have been one of the most successful and revered punk bands in recent years. Having just come off a UK headline tour, the band took to the road with Frank Turner. Before the show we chatted to, bass player, Andrew Seward about the band’s transition from major label to self distribution, how the band had taken to Turner’s crowds and the possibility of re-recording Vivida Vis.

Under The Bridge is back for what might be the last time this year. Lewis Bolland is our guest as we talk about everything from porn to the Bee Gees. We didn’t have much of a topic, but when do we ever? Either way, we think you’ll enjoy it. Splitting up our inane banter, we played some really awesome tunes. There’s a new one from Apologies, I Have None, a cracker from Digger Barnes and even a bit of At The Drive-In.

Go on, have a listen:

Under The Bridge #31: “Who Reads Blind People Magazine?”

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