The Fat Angel Sings

Hatchie’s stunning new album release, “Giving The World Away“, is worlds away from her previously established dream-pop universe (see: 2018’s Sugar & Spice EP and 2019’s debut LP, Keepsake). When told standout album track The Rhythm gives us industrial, Gary Numan vibes, Hatchie (aka Brisbane-bred artist Harriette Pilbeam) looks chuffed before admitting that translating this particular track song for her recent live performances around the country “was a bit of a process”: “I think one of the main things with us is figuring out the drum sounds. Because we do have some live backing tracks, so we can sample some stuff, but we wanna do as much live as possible to really get that live sound, I guess, so it doesn’t feel like we’re like cheating… We got there in the end.”

During previous Hatchie tours, Pilbeam has played bass as well as singing, but she’s temporarily cast her beloved bass aside for her latest run of Australian shows. “I’m just singing at the moment,” she clarifies, “but I think we’ll be changing that up depending on where we’re touring. In America, we’ll be driving around and it’s a lot easier to have one less person in the van. So I think I’ll be going back to playing bass rather than getting someone in on bass, but we’ll see.”

We can’t help but wonder whether Pilbeam had separation anxiety when she first took the stage, sans bass. “A little bit, yeah,” she allows. “I definitely didn’t realise how much I have been hiding behind the bass; I think in some ways it’s easier, because you really can just stay in one place. If you’re singing into the mic and holding a bass, you can’t really do much so the pressure’s kind of off in some ways. But, in another way, it means it’s really hard to connect with your audience when you’re stuck in one place with just, like, your eyes moving around. So I think there’s a really fine balance that I’ve managed to find after a few shows of no bass, but it took a little bit to figure out, for sure.”

When asked how deliberate Hatchie’s sonic evolution was during the making of Giving The World Away, Pilbeam explains, “I really wanted to step it up and kick it up a notch and write songs that were for bigger stages and for, you know, really specific visual and light shows, and I really wanted to match that energy. But it was partly just a natural progression, with my confidence from being in bands for ten years and being in this project for – I think it’s coming up on five years now! But it was definitely gradual and took me a while to get here. I think the show now is very different from a Hatchie show you would’ve seen four years ago.”

Formerly a member of Go Violets (before they disbanded in 2014), Pilbeam also fronted the indie-rock band Babaganouj – singing and playing bass – but made her solo debut as Hatchie after quietly uploading her debut single Try to triple j Unearthed back in May, 2017. Hatchie quickly became a buzz act and, looking back on her rapid ascent during this time, we wonder whether she perhaps struggled with Imposter Syndrome. “Oh, yeah, for sure,” Pilbeam admits. “I mean, I think most people do. Especially because of how quickly everything happened in that first two years, I felt like nothing could have prepared me for the progression I had – which was amazing, but it was definitely difficult to keep up with emotionally so, yeah! It’s been a really wild journey.”

While Hatchie steadily gained traction, Pilbeam supplemented her income working in “cafés and stuff like that”. “I quit the last [café job] in 2018 when we went to South By Southwest,” Pilbeam details, “and then I managed to just live off touring. And I moved back into my parents’ at that stage as well just to kind of make ends meet.”

But then when Covid the fun sponge hit, Pilbeam’s hopes of making a living from her chosen artform alone were immediately dashed. “I did about 12 months in retail and then I started a Patreon, where I share music and do special releases every month,” Pilbeam shares of how she managed to eke out a living once touring ground to a halt. “I honestly didn’t mind retail; I think retail’s better than hospitality. But, I mean, there’s good and bad in both worlds.”

When told this scribe’s go-to anxiety dream is being thrown in the deep end, working in a super-busy store for the first time and not knowing what to do or where anything is, Pilbeam sympathises, “Oh, I hate that! I know exactly what kind of dream you mean – it’s awful!” Has Pilbeam had any recurring nightmares? “What do I have?” she ponders. “I’ve had bad dreams to do with touring, definitely. I had one nightmare where my band was all too drunk to play and they messed the show up, which was a really terrible one. And that’s never happened, but maybe it’s a hidden fear of mine? Yeah, I guess being unable to play a show is definitely a fear of mine, particularly because – before the pandemic – I think we used to play shows no matter what. I played shows with hardly any voice, I played shows when I had a vomiting bug and it never felt like an option to cancel shows. Whereas now, with Covid restrictions and things, cancelling shows – or postponing shows, at least – feels almost normal. So I think, yeah! I’ve had a lotta dreams about having to cancel shows and it being the worst thing in the world.”

We discuss how emerging artists often say yes to absolutely everything, because they’re worried that knocking back even a single opportunity could mean they miss their ‘one shot’.

“There’s definitely a delicate balance with that,” Pilbeam offers. “I know that over the last few years I’ve definitely realised that I was saying no to a lot of opportunities, whether it was interviews or shows or writing sessions with artists. There was a lot of things that I was saying no to, ‘cause I wasn’t quite comfortable yet. And sometimes that’s definitely for the best, but sometimes I think you do need to say yes to things that scare you and take a leap of faith. So, again, it’s about finding that balance of going with your gut and definitely pushing yourself in some ways – and saying yes to a lot more than maybe you were previously – if you really wanna make a change. But also not getting yourself into uncomfortable situations.

“A lot of it comes down to who you work with and, yeah, just working with people that you really know and trust, which is definitely what I do: I like to work with the same people for a long period of time rather than jumping around a lot… I’ve done the whole project with my husband Joe [Agius, formerly of The Creases] from the beginning, we collaborate on everything. And I think the only thing that’s really changed is my record label in the US [Hatchie signed with Secretly Canadian in September, 2021] – just because we kind of took the opportunity to move to a bigger team that could cover more ground internationally.”

In February 2020, Pilbeam and her husband Joe – who is also a member of Hatchie’s touring band – went to LA to collaborate with some different songwriters. “That was really like a test, that trip,” Pilbeam points out. “Joe was the only person that I felt truly comfortable writing with at that point… We feel comfortable nutting out ideas and just figuring out what’s the best for the song, and not really worrying about ego or anything like that, and, yeah! I think we have a shorthand language for everything as well, so we get things done a lot quicker. And we can fill in each other’s gaps with knowledge – and our ability on different instruments and things like that – so it works really well.

“It was really important to me that [Agius] was a part of that process as well, because we really understand each other creatively – and personally – and it makes the whole process a lot easier and, yeah! We really see eye to eye on everything, so it just made sense.”

After spending “just under two weeks” working with a few different songwriters (Pilbeam: “We did something like eight sessions in eight days. I think we had one day off in the middle”), some successful new song writing partnerships emerged. “Four of the songs from that week ended up on the record, including two songs that we did with Jorge Elbrecht: This Enchanted and Lights Off – those were two really important songs to me; I knew they belonged on the record and they really dictated how the rest of the record ended up sounding. So it was a really great trip and it was unfortunate that we couldn’t go back and continue working on the album with Jorge [in person] as we intended to, because of the pandemic, but he ended up producing the whole record over the internet. And we’ve since gone back over and done more writing with him, so it’s been a really good collaborative relationship.”

Giving The World Away’s lead single This Enchanted (released in September, 2021), boasts uplifting, anthemic keys – a nod to piano house – and calls to mind Saint Etienne to this pair of ears. When this early-‘90s UK indie-dance outfit is mentioned during our chat, Pilbeam beams broadly, “Yep, totally. Saint Etienne was exactly who we were talking about when we did This Enchanted, so I’m really glad that you’re picking it up.”

This Enchanted’s accompanying film clip stars Pilbeam sporting white feathered angel wings not dissimilar to those worn by Claire Danes as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. This homage was “kind of accidental”, however: “The wings were a last-minute addition to the This Enchanted video shoot. We were shooting that night and Joe – who directed the video as well – decided that it needed another element to add a bit of interest and a bit more depth, I guess, to the story. ‘Cause it makes you think a bit more about where the character is walking to and from – you know, has she come from a party or something like that? I like that I’m looking out into the cityscape and I think someone from my record label, when we sent it to them, remarked about how it looked like I was a fallen angel from the sky who was trying to figure out where to go next. So I like that it kind of creates a bit of mystery.” A still from this music video also graces Giving The World Away’s album cover. 

Pilbeam felt inspired to write another of the songs on Giving The World Away, Take My Hand, after reading one of Nick Cave’s poetic responses to a question – submitted by a 16-year-old girl who was struggling with body image issues – on his website, The Red Hand Files (excerpt: “I often wonder how much accumulated misery a hotel mirror contains as it reflects back at us what appears to be our essential self”). 

“I had started writing [Take My Hand] – I had the demo going – but I didn’t really have a direction in mind and I wasn’t sure where to take it,” Pilbeam recalls of this particular song’s genesis. “I think I had some basic lyrics in there that weren’t really specific to any experience, and didn’t really tell you much about myself personally, and I really wanted to explore something a bit more important to me. And I don’t remember how I came across it, because I’m not like a regular reader of that series [The Red Hand Files], but I was reading that particular message that he’d written to a young girl who was struggling with her body image and it really spoke to me. Because that’s something that I have struggled with a lot, particularly when I was younger.

“And it was something that I’d never really spoken about in my music, but it’s such a big part of my life so it felt odd to not address it. So I really wanted to explore that theme. And [Cave’s response] was kind of a kicking off point for it, because he had some really lovely advice for her… Someone like Nick Cave, who I would never guess could relate to that feeling a teenage girl was experiencing – you would never think that those two people had such a shared experience. But it can be really comforting to know that someone like him could at least somewhat understand what she’s going through.”

While writing this song, Pilbeam also happened to be reading a collection of essays, Trick Mirror: Reflections On Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino, which contained “some really personal moments of self-reflection” from the author. Pilbeam then explains how this work informed her own lyric writing: “Just how personally she went with it really encouraged me to dig a bit deeper and not really spare any detail when it came to emotionally exploring my past, I guess.” 

The second single to be lifted from Giving The World Away, Quicksand features a bleak, almost gothic bassline during the verses. But as soon as the immediately catchy, upbeat chorus enters, you’ll wanna make a beeline for the nearest dancefloor. Within this song, a couple of autobiographical phrases – “I used to think that this was something I could die for/ I hate admitting to myself that I was never sure,” and, “It’s all I know and I’m taking it back” – perfectly illustrate Pilbeam’s commitment to opening up and revealing more of her authentic self via lyrical content. 

Pilbeam reflects on writing Quicksand: “There were elements of me feeling really unsure about what I wanted for so long, whether or not it had panned out exactly how I wanted it to and, if it had, whether it was what I still wanted, and, yeah! It definitely applies to my music career as well, but – at least at that point in time –  it really applied to every element of my life, whether it was my romantic relationship or my friendship or, you know, things that I was going through personally. 

“It really was like every element of my life was just seemingly perfect and what I had always wanted, but I wasn’t sure if it was still what I wanted. Whether it was, yeah, really big life things or really little things, it was just this overwhelming feeling that I had to really process.

“And whether it’s, like, some sort of positive progression that I had with my mental health, or a friendship that I’ve managed to improve, or something to do with my music achievements – or anything, really – I think I forget that good things that are happening to me that might seem normal now, didn’t even seem possible a few years ago. So I really need to sit and reflect on my present more, because I was really focusing on my past – and my future – way too much and getting really anxious and overwhelmed and disappointed, and I didn’t realise how good I have it.”

So it sounds like Pilbeam’s enforced break from touring actually strengthened her resolve. “It definitely reminded me how badly I want it and how hard I’m willing to work for it,” she agrees. “I hope that I’ll never complain about touring again, ‘cause I definitely miss it a lot more than I thought I would. So I’m promising myself that I’m not gonna take touring for granted ever again, because it’s been really hard not having it.”

At the time of our Zoom chat, Pilbeam and her hubby were packing up their house: “We’re going over [to the States] for shows and I think we’re gonna be moving around a little bit, but our home base is gonna be LA for at least a few months in between tours.” 

Aside from LA’s outstanding Mexican restaurants, what else does Pilbeam rate about The City Of Angels? “Oh, Mexican restaurants is definitely the one,” she concurs, before adding, “I think the fact that you can go to the dingiest bar and they’ll make you a margarita – it’s just standard over there – whereas here people are like, ‘Um, no, you can have a vodka, lime and soda’,” she laughs.

“Also, I think it’s such an incredible creative hub; not just for songwriters and musicians, but for everyone in the arts industry. We went over for a few months at the end of last year and met so many people that we really wanna work with. And made a lot of new friends as well, because everyone’s kind of there for similar reasons. So it’s a really vibrant, fast-paced place, but it’s also got a few similarities to Brisbane in terms of the weather and the fact that it’s just sprawling suburbs and less like a city.”

So is Pilbeam a frozen or classic margarita gal? “I go for both. I like a spicy margarita as well, but I don’t discriminate when it comes to margaritas. I think a frozen mango margarita is a bit of a game changer as well, so I highly recommend that.”

At long last, It’s here! The Camp Trash LP , We promise you that this thing was entirely worth the wait. “The Long Way, The Slow Way” picks up where “Downtiming” left off and explodes into new directions. You already know that Camp Trash know how to write a hook, but they refuse to play it safe. Their debut LP explores different tempos and different moods that show a lot of depth to a band that is clearly on the verge of something big.

Camp Trash isn’t just a real band—they’re a really great band. Their debut LP “The Long Way, The Slow Way” dropped in the middle of this summer. That’s appropriate, as it’s wall-to-wall bangers from the clean opening riff of “Mind Yr Own” to the post-metal detour of “Another Harsh Toyotathon” to the loving comedown of “Feel Something.” No matter when or where you are when you press play on “The Long Way, The Slow Way”, it’s sunny and 75 when Bryan Gorman urges you to “give it a rest, let it ride.”

That’s the biggest lesson in “The Long Way, The Slow Way”, a record nearly a decade in the making—there’s nothing wrong with taking your time. Sometimes you end up with a masterpiece.

Bartees Strange is a producer and songwriter in Washington, D.C.His mother is an opera singer. His dad served in the military for decades. He traveled widely for his parents jobs — born in Ipswich, England 1989, his family did stints in Germany, Greenland, and a number of states across america before he hit his 12th birthday when they settled down in Mustang, Oklahoma.

Where do you go after you blow up big? For Bartees Strange, the follow-up to his 2021 of breakthroughs—a buzzy Pitchfork Fest set; support slots for tours with Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Courtney Barnett—is a push even further forward in sound and intent. Bartees continues to impress me with his ever-evolving sound. “Cosigns” builds from a slow-burning laundry list of those music industry Ws (“I’m in L.A, I’m with Phoebe, I’m a genius, damn“) to a tear-up-the-dance-floor finale of raw ambition: “Hungry as ever, it’s never enough.” Country ballads, gentle piano soul and hard-driving rock elbow each other for room at “Farm to Table”, but the multiplicity is rapturous rather than merely chaotic. Bartees Strange’s unpredictability is his superpower, and it’s so exciting to watch his artistic expression evolve. 

released June 17, 2022

Bartees Strange under exclusive licence to 4AD Records

With its self-professed blend of “indie rock for the pop punk kids, pop punk for the indie rock kids,” Snow Ellet’s “Suburban Rock Star” was one of our favorite EPs of 2021. Now, on the heels of last November’s “Cannonball” (not a Breeders cover) and December’s “Boys Don’t Cry” (yes a Cure cover), Chicago-based Eric Reyes is coming at us with another extended play.

The five-song collection “Glory Days” its opening track, a ridiculously catchy emo-pop track called “19” that exists in continuum with bands like the All-American Rejects and Oso Oso. “19” leans harder into early ’90s Jesus Jones-style drum machines than previous Snow Ellet material, matching the stuttering programmed beat with power-poppy emo vocal hooks aplenty. The electric guitars also sound like hooks, fervently slicing or gracefully chiming depending on the needs of the moment. During the muted, lo-fi intro, Reyes begins, “The time passing is vital/ I thought I’d say 19 for a while/ I was wrong.”

It’s no coincidence that Snow Ellet’s sophomore EP is titled “Glory Days”. Where the debut suburban indie rock star was self-described as “indie rock for pop punk kids, pop punk for indie kids,” “Glory Days” leans into the latter, calling back to the heights of the genre. It’s the closest anyone’s come to capturing the youthful energy of bands like The Starting Line or Yellowcard at their peak. “I thought I’d stay 19 for a while / I was wrong,” Eric Reyes crows on the opening “19,” and though the world might keep spinning, “Glory Days” is a nice reminder that that childlike joy doesn’t have to go away forever. 

If Carpool’s 2020 record “Erotic Nightmare Summer” was a band finding their footing and firmly establishing themselves on solid ground, the group’s new EP For “Nasal Use Only” finds them fully exploring the landscape they’ve created, searching for every sound and idea to throw in and pushing the boundaries of what you’d expect from the group. Carpool still plays in a wild manner, with more sick riffs and drum fills to count, but they’ve added synths here and leaned more into sunny pop vibes, reflecting the lyrics that pick up the self-destructive behavior documented on “Nasal Use Only”  and take the logical—if difficult—next step of trying to change and lead a more sobre, clearheaded life.

Opener “Anime Flashbacks” shows this different sound right out of the gates, with the synths taking more of a melodic lead that allows for some more off-kilter, mind bending interjections from the guitars and bass. The extended outro takes Carpool into some of their most cinematic territory to date, as the synth melody cuts through overtop of the band going absolutely nuts. It’s followed by “Quitting,” a title that takes on more than one meaning as it starts with a familiar topic for the band with Stoph Colasanto singing “so you walked out of your job today / told ‘em fuck off / and you spit in their face,” overtop a bassline and snaps that make it feel like a punky variation on “Summer Lovin’.” When the band kicks in with more huge synths and an infectious melody at “so you showed up at your birthday party / but when you get there you don’t know anybody / because the drugs don’t hit like they used to / and you’re introduced as a recluse” the title meaning has shifted. Things become almost unhinged in the bridge with the synths ditching the melodic lines for a frantic feeling reminiscent of so many of the riffs peppered throughout “Erotic Nightmare Summer”. 

“Tommy’s Car” kicks off as a more straightforward punk ripper before shifting into a repetition of “if everybody feels like shit / what makes me so different?” over a bouncing bassline and trippy synths. The tune swells and grows, with a melodic guitar line that feels almost reserved when compared to what you’d hear on “Beauty School Dropout” or “The Salty Song (Erotic Nightmare Summer).” It’s in that relative reserve of the guitar here (taking the role of the synth on much of the rest of the EP), that Carpool is able to show off their range, working through a gamut of ideas in “Tommy’s Car,” and ending with the nail-in-the-coffin line “if this was a movie I don’t think I’d even have a supporting part / said it a thousand times we’ve been fucked right from the start / that’s what I deserve”—the instruments dropping out so Colasanto delivers the final line to a suddenly silent room.

That silence is picked up by a bright acoustic playing a chord/chuck pattern so sunny and poppy that it could have spent months on TRL in the early 2000s. “Discretion of Possession (A Love Song)” is probably the most unexpected tune Carpool has put out yet, the tune flips with some more active picking on the guitars and such an uplifting, joyful feel that it’s hard not to smile A two-minute turning point on the record, it feels like a moment of clarity or the sun bursting through the clouds, breaking through what seemed like an endless cycle of gloom.

That sunniness is contrasted with “Everyone’s Happy (Talk My Shit),” a song kicking off with riffs from different guitars that almost seem to be in conversation with each other, Again, the song doesn’t stay too long with one sound as a slower breakdown leads into a palm-muted bridge, with the band going nuts after Colasanto throws in ”god, I’m so done with feeling like this” on a pass through the repeated lines. It’s arguably the quintessential Carpool song—a perfect example of what this band can do when everything is clicking.

EPs can be a wide range of things for bands, from a place to dump some B-sides that maybe sound a little better after marinating half a year or so, a place to throw songs that a band really likes but can’t quite fit into another release, to a place for a band to expand their sound, trying out new ideas Carpool’s willingness to throw in new instruments and styles pays off on “For Nasal Use Only” with tunes that can match the highest points of their previous records while also challenging your expectations of what could be a Carpool song. 

“For Nasal Use Only” is out this Friday 23rd September on Acrobat Unstable Records.

If you’ve had your ear to the ground over the past year or so, there’s a good chance you’ll have heard of Elliott Green already. If not, now’s a good time to listen. The Seattle-based songwriter released “Referee” as a teaser from her then-unannounced second album back in July. Green also signed with Count Your Lucky Stars last month off the back of “Nothing to Anybody”, her self-released late-2021 debut. 

She’s drawn comparisons to Julien Baker with a similarly confessional and emotionally lacerating style, and if that record was her Sprained Ankle, then its follow-up is her “Turn Out the Lights”. A bold statement, but then you listen to Green’s new single and it makes sense. “Goodness” is the second song to be lifted from “Everything I Lack”, and is anchored around a thunderous full-band interjection that stands in stark contrast to the frailty and introspection of its verses.

Green sums up the song as “a sliver of optimism that allows us to push through. On what is an album largely about loss and heartbreak I wanted to leave space for a track that’s about the little joys in our everyday lives that we so often take for granted.” Fans of Baker, her boygenius cohorts Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, Indigo Sparke, or even Cassandra Jenkins: you’re going to love this record, and this is a shining example of why. 

Originally released on Sarah Records in 1992. Compilation of various singles and early tracks including Sarah Records’ first release “Pristine Christine” (Sarah1). First ever vinyl reissue for this sought after long player. Liner notes by Television Personalities legend Dan Treacy.

Cutting their teeth as teens in a West Bromwich bedroom, The Sea Urchins were nothing like the heavy metal that seemed to fill every bar in the UK Black Country. Fringe haircuts, perfect trousers, suede jackets and infectious tambourines gave plenty of hints as to their youthful ambition, but nothing could fully prepare you for just how utterly spellbinding these songs would be. Compiling their fanzine-only flexi material with the full complement of singles for Sarah Records, “Stardust” runs chronologically from late 1986 to the middle of 1989, beginning with the singles split for Clare Wadd’s Kvatch and Matt Haynes’ Sha La La, before hitting the first of what would be an even hundred releases from the new label Wadd and Haynes would form – Sarah.

The song that launched a legendary label and defined a sound, a scene, a place and time; “Pristine Christine” still rings out as immediate and magical today as it did on first listen. What a glorious jangly rush racing around the corners of pop’s history! The band would reach such heights time and again over the course of this three year burst. The melancholy swinging folk of “Everglade” and it’s wonderfully yearning vocal; the organ-fuelled british invasion garage rock sing-a-long of “Solace”; the playful psych pop of “A Morning Odyssey”; the acoustic sweep of “Wild Grass Pictures”; the perfectly named “Summershine” leaving you with a ramshackle smile out on the dancefloor.

All of it is just so filled with delicate humanity, yet somehow absolutely perfect. As Bob Stanley said about the shimmering ballad “Please Rain Fall” while bestowing it with NME Single Of The Week (an honour also bestowed upon “Pristine Christine”), “think of some variations on the word marvelous and you’re most of the way there.” In their time, they might have seemed wildly out of step, but it’s not crazy to say that things could have been very different for the likes of Radiohead, The La’s, and Oasis without The Sea Urchins.

The Sea Urchins – A band from West Bromwich, England James Roberts (vocals,acoustic guitar) Robert Cooksey (lead guitar) Simon Woodcock (rhythm guitar) Darren Martin (bass) Bridget Duffy (vox organ,tambourine) Patrick Roberts (drums)

Terry Hall, singer of UK pop and ska band The Specials, has died aged 63 following a “brief illness”. Terry Hall, the lead singer of the Specials and a former member of Fun Boy Three and the Colourfield, has died aged 63, his bandmates in the Specials have confirmed.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing, following a brief illness, of Terry, our beautiful friend, brother and one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced,” the band announced on social media. 

They added, “Terry was a wonderful husband and father and one of the kindest, funniest, and most genuine of souls. His music and his performances encapsulated the very essence of life… the joy, the pain, the humour, the fight for justice, but mostly the love. 

“He will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him and leaves behind the gift of his remarkable music and profound humanity. Terry often left the stage at the end of The Specials’ life-affirming shows with three words…’Love Love Love’.” The band then asked for fans to respect the Hall family’s privacy.

“Ghost Town”, the recession-themed single released in 1981, hit top spot in the UK. As well as performing with The Specials, Hall collaborated with numerous artists, such as Sinéad O’Connor, Gorillaz, Tricky, Bananarama, Lily Allen, and many more acts. 

Hall joined the first incarnation of the Specials – then called the Automatics – shortly after the Coventry band formed in 1977, replacing vocalist Tim Strickland. After a stint as the Coventry Automatics, they became Special AKA, known as the Specials. The pioneering 2 Tone band rose thanks to the support of Joe Strummer, who invited them to support the Clash live, and of BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

They released their debut single, “Gangsters” (a reworking of Prince Buster’s Al Capone) in 1979, which reached No 6 in the UK singles chart. They would dominate the Top 10 over the next two years, peaking with their second No 1 single, and calling card, “Ghost Town”, in 1981. The lyrics, written by the band’s main songwriter, Jerry Dammers, dealt with Britain’s urban decay, unemployment and disfranchised youth.

At 12 years old, Hall was abducted by a paedophile ring in France; the singer told Richard Herring on his podcast. “I was sort of drugged up then on Valium for about a year, and I didn’t go to school,” Hall added, noting that he dropped out of school at 14 due to his trauma.

He sang the words “You took me to France on the promise of teaching me French” on the 1983 Fun Boy Three song, “Well Fancy That”, alluding to what happened to him. “I can laugh about it now, but it sort of switched something in my head, and it’s like I don’t have to do that, and that’s when I started not listening to anyone,” Hall told Herring. The singer also discussed trauma with The Big Issue. Having survived a tough childhood in Coventry, Hall became one of pop’s defining voices at the turn of the 80s, chronicling British decline and disfranchised youth with the 2 Tone band

“The Specials were a celebration of how British culture was envigorated by Caribbean immigration but the onstage demenour of their lead singer was a reminder that they were in the serious business of challenging our perception of who we were in the late 1970s. RIP Terry Hall,” Billy Bragg wrote on Twitter. 

Singer Belinda Carlisle also paid tribute to Hall, noting, “Forever bound in music history with #terryhall. He co-wrote the breakout hit, “Our Lips Are Sealed” with Jane Wiedlin.

Folk punk singer Frank Turner also chimed in and tweeted: “God damnit. Just heard the news about Terry Hall. What an absolute sadness. The Specials were one of the most important bands for me as a kid. Taught me many things I needed to know. Gutted. RIP.”

Portishead and Beak multi-instrumentalist Geoff Barrow shared his tribute, too: “This is very very sad news

“It’s time to put the specials where they belong as one of the greatest British bands ever.

Born in Gastonia in 1988 a few months after my grandpa Booge died. He no longer remembered dad because of the Alzheimer’s and I can’t imagine how painful it must’ve been for my father. Adeem is a seventh-generation Carolinian, a makeshift poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar Artist.

I don’t know what their financial situation was like, to be honest. I know that my grandfather had his little garage and that he didn’t charge people very much to work on their cars. I know that he worked his daddy’s farm and then as a machinist, then managed an auto-parts store, that they owned a house in Mecklenburg County. Booge was blue-collar and my dad was blue-collar. I can’t say if we were ever people of means.

My dad dropped out, got his GED, and started running the lathe when he was a teenager. One time he told me about running away to the beach with a girl he’d pined over. He described it wistfully as a teenager’s dream. She soon grew lackluster, though, and one day she was just gone. I don’t think he ever told me her name but I remember it as Tiffany.

My parents were young. Dad was 23 and mom was 19 when they found themselves expecting me. They couldn’t afford me. They didn’t know each other. The first place I can remember is the trailer on Thomas Fite in Belmont. I must’ve been a little over a year old when we moved in there. I played Power Rangers in the yard. Their friends would come ‘round still in the early years. I remember nights of drinking and partying and I remember these as the fondest years. There is warmth there in the trailer.

At night, I stay up late with my mother and we watch La Femme Nikita on the television together, fawning over Roy Dupuis. It’s a callback to the trailer where we sit snuggled close on the couch with Days of Our Lives flickering on the tube television. Marlena is possessed by a demon and I mention it over dinner.

Faye is the other friend & alternative neighborhood aunt. Faye lives in a house on the corner that turns down our street. To me, this is the upper echelons of Belmont in my childhood imagination. She lives with Joel who is the first musician I ever meet. Joel plays Dungeons & Dragons. He has long, beautiful hair and very empathetic eyes. He always smells like weed & speaks softly. My mother told me that he was in love with her and asked her many times to leave dad to be with him. Cannot verify. He gives me my first guitar pick- it is 2mm and dark purple.

Joel & Faye have been together for several years but they are not married. This is tough for me to understand at this age. When he died, I was in my teenage years. It was an overdose. Faye was devastated. She gave me a CD of his songs. I still have it. He was a beautiful songwriter. In the trailer, dad and I play games together. We wrestle like the fighters on the TV and we line up army men and throw bouncing balls to see who can knock over the most. My dad would take me to hockey games back then and sometimes we would pick up a box of tacos on the way home if the Checkers scored enough points. I loved Chubby and the cold games with my dad.

We had souvenir Checkers cups and a brown food processor. Dad would toss ice cream, milk, and peanut butter in that food processer and we would have peanut butter milkshakes on weekends. We’d drink them out of the Checkers cups.

These are some of my favorite memories. Cigarette stained memories. Alcohol scented memories. Everyone is loud. Everyone is profane. Every callous exchange imbued with irreverent humour. I am twenty-two years old when I leave my parents’ house for the first time, out into the infinite unknown. In a flurry of symbolism and rage, my unconscious exorcises the first large, looming specter of my childhood trauma & I am thrust towards the truest parts of myself uncomfortably, armed with a watered-down accent and an arsenal of potato chip casserole recipes.
My entire childhood is white trash revelry. Big Dave, the biker my grandfather is friends with, who is on the run from the Hell’s Angels’ pops by the trailer for a meal. Richard brings his girlfriend by and they smoke a joint and we rent a film from the blockbuster in Gastonia.

This record was funded largely through $1 contributions via Venmo, Cashapp, & PayPal from people who believed in me or thought it was a quirky fundraising idea. It was an impossible dream to create this album that meant so much to me manifested by the kindness of others.

The above essay was written 2 years ago and the songs on this record largely fell out of it. The players on this record were folks I had dreamed to be able to pay well to perform with. The studio we recorded in was a block or so from the first apartment I ever lived on my own.

A lot of meaningful pieces came together for this and it all began with a phone call to my friend Kyle on October 30th, 2021. I said, “I want you to do something on my new album yet but I haven’t decided what yet.” He said, “Why don’t you let me produce it & my buddy Robbie Artress can engineer?”

I said, “Well, we’d have to raise at least 5k by the end of the week to hire the folks I’d want to hire and all that.” Kyle said, “Maybe you can, I don’t know.” So, that night I posted a silly Tik Tok saying all I needed was 15,000 people to donate $1 each for the album to be funded.

That included a budget for production, mastering, publicist, radio, & the whole shebang. By Tuesday, we had $5,000. I paid for the studio time and started asking people if they’d come. By the end of December, all the parts had been tracked & I was slack jawed.

I threw a little party at my buddy Troy’s tattoo shop. We got tattoos and ate barbecue & listened to the first mixes and took photos for the album cover & accompanying lyric book. What a rush, the whole thing. A whirlwind. 

released December 2nd, 2022