Greetings friends, we trust you are well?
As ye are no doubt aware, this has been a year of transition and change for MTAT. We’ve written extensively about our summer of discontent and the associated need to seize the means, something which has provided us with many challenges, but we accept reality as it presents itself to us and this is where we’re at.
The nature of all things is change. Book Yer Ane Fest started as an all-dayer in the back room of a Perth boozer eleven years ago, never did we think that it would grow into a five-day, three-city celebration of collaborative DIY punk culture featuring hundreds of bands from all corners of the UK, Europe and the globe.
We’ve been very lucky over the years, hosting some of our favourite bands and creating memories that will last a lifetime, long after the last chord of BYAF rings out. This has all been well-documented elsewhere and is by no means news, but we’re exceedingly grateful for the experiences we’ve been afforded as a result of simply trying to get some shit done and to raise some money for our friend’s charity. In 2019, Book Yer Ane Fest evolves again.
Book Yer Ane Fest XIII will be held on both floors of Conroy’s Basement. There will be two main stages and we’ll be running both levels all weekend. There will only be FIFTY ADVANCED WEEKEND TICKETS and HAVING ONE OF THESE IS THE ONLY WAY TO GUARANTEE ENTRY TO ALL BYAF SHOWS.
We appreciate that this is not ideal but, given the extenuating circumstances and existential threats we’ve faced this year, this is simply the only way that we could make Book Yer Ane Fest happen. We collectively decided that this is the fairest way to do things. Capacity will be limited this year and not everybody will be able to get in to see every band. For that we can only apologise but appeal to your sense of understanding; staying true to our principles and those of BYAF, ye do what ye can with what ye got.
This year we will be working in solidarity Addaction, Royal Life Saving Society, Dundee Women’s Aid, Dundee Foodbank, Dundee Refugee Support and LGBT Youth Scotland.
Pre-Book Yer Ane Fest will happen in Glasgow on Thursday 28th November in collaboration with Dammit. Post-Book Yer Ane Fest will happen in Edinburgh on Monday 2nd December in collaboration with Mope and Anti-Manifesto. Details of both shows will emerge over the next couple of months, as will the rest of the main BYAF line-up and details of all satellite events.
For a fuller history of Book Yer Ane Fest, please check these links;
“Make That A Take” (2017) – A Short Film By Owen McLaughlin
Book Yer Ane Fest XII recap by Everyday Madness Everyday
We think it’s going to be a sick time. We hope you do too.
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THE MURDERBURGERS (Last Show!)
Scotland’s greatest ever pop-punk band bring the curtain down on a chaotic thirteen years of punk rock rammying across the globe with their last show at Book Yer Ane Fest. Having covered hundreds of thousands of miles with a massive discography of countless LPs, splits, live cuts, singles and side projects in the canon, highlighting massive musical and personal growth, The Murderburgers have a peerless legacy in Scottish punk. The “What A Mess” LP on Asian Man Records is the perfect swansong, BYAF the perfect place to say goodbye. Thanks for everything, me maaaaaaates. Rammy on!
OAKMAN (France)
Soaring, upbeat super-melodic new-school pop-punkers from Lyon, France bring their skyscraping emotional dream-pop to Dundee for the very first time. Halfway between Fargo and Twin Peaks, like Paramore drinking with The Manchester Orchestra, Oakman will bring equal parts rage and fragility, romance and hope to the opening night of a weekend of Book Yer Ane Fest rowdiness. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
THE DANGERFIELDS (Northern Ireland)
The DangerFuckinFields bring their full-blast gonzo maximum punk rock’n’roll mayhem back to Dundee for the first time in over twelve years to visit the same joint where we first made their acquaintance at an undergroundscene.co.uk all-dayer way back in 2003. UK punk legends, The Dangerfields spent over a decade ripping up the toilets of Europe way before we graduated baby punk school. Utterly deranged, born to rock, glorious!
MISFORTUNE COOKIE (England)
Though they’d balk at the word, we are absolutely delighted to welcome this solid gold UK punk’n’soul “supergroup” featuring members of Bear Trade and Dear Everyone to Book Yer Ane Fest for their first Scottish show. Taking all that is golden from a lifetime lived in punk, Misfortune Cookie are like an old woolen jumper and a cup of tea on a cold November night, the incredible vocals of Helen Chambers front and centre. The “Heavy Seas” LP on Everything Sucks is essential.
The inspirational godfathers of ecossemo and the only ever-present members of the revolving Book Yer Ane Fest cast, the mighty Kaddish return to their new spiritual home in the basement to bring us their hardcore hymns against immiseration. All hyperbole aside, it’s impossible for us to be in any way impartial pertaining Kaddish and BYAF; our collective hairs stand on end every time they play. Consume the entire catalogue.
Arguably the most progressive and challenging in all of ecossemo, there are few bands with the heart, soul and drive of Aberdoom-born anti-fascist punks Cavalcades. Now strewn across this broken kingdom, Scottish hardcore’s most cinematic recorded their incredible new “Let Yourself Expire” LP with Graeme Watt at Seagate Studios in Dundee, another majestic dystopian leap of heartbreaking defiance. It’s our absolute pleasure to welcome them back to BYAF.
NO MATTER (Northern Ireland)
Heavy rapid gobby melodic pop-punkers from Belfast come screaming back into Dundee fresh from releasing their top drawer “Excess Baggage” album through Umlaut Records and ripping up the major punk festivals across Europe and North America. One of the tightest multi-vocal punk rock bands around, No Matter last ripped it up over this way at BYAF XI and have ramped up the rammy since then. Let’s hope Dan falls asleep with his clothes on this time.
One of Scotland’s most vital and near-universally acclaimed contemporary artists, we are delighted to welcome Kapil Seshasayee and his unique progressive desi-futurist noise back to Dundee. Last year’s genre-defying “A Sacred Bore” LP propelled Kapil from the basements of the Glasgow indie scene to the pages of Pitchfork, the stages of SXSW and into realms previously unexplored by Scottish DIY punks under late-capitalism. Searing, righteous, important stuff.
East coast cowpunks return to bring the ruckus after six months of rest, recuperation and recovery. Last seen blazing it through Canada en route to Pouzza Fest, the nae messin’ pop-punks return with a slack handful of fresh fizzy bangers and a bundle of rowdy throwdown cowpunk bangers. The elusive LP is set to emerge sometime, but definitely not before the end of this particular decade. Ye gotta go to know, yo.
Fresh off the release of their incredible new “Confessions of a Justified Cynic” LP, the five-years-in-the-waiting follow-up to the stone cold classic “To Live and Die in West Central Scotland” LP, Larkhall’s greatest exports return to Book Yer Ane Fest. Originally “Big In Dundee”, The Kimberly Steaks have evolved into one of the UK’s greatest pop-punk bands, just straight banger after banger, the perfect square-go between Jawbreaker and Beauty School Dropout.
The most dangerous band in Scottish pop-punk round out a radical year that started with a trigger warning, took in tours with Spanish Love Songs, Pkew Pkew Pkew, a run of Euro festivals and opening for Off With Their Heads, and landed them back in a Dundee basement on the first night in December. One of our most beloved band of bozos, Goodbye Blue Monday have grown from nervous pop-punk upstarts into a hulking rock beast in the most life-affirming way. Misery punk ruined all our lives.
A electro-goth molotov cocktail thrown into a punk rock basement, the newest members of the MTAT community bring their banging industrial beats to BYAF fresh from the release of their debut “Daddy” EP. Having spent the last year setting venues across the east alight with their incendiary dance-punk grooves and stratospheric vocals, we’re getting stoked for a righteous stompin’ Book Yer Ane Fest techno party.
BATWOLF (Netherlands)
Pedal-to-the-metal white-knuckle punk rock’n’roll madness from Netherlands road warriors tearing it up across the UK with their full-blast Zeke/Dwarves/Motorhead-inspired holy rock’n’roll goodness. Featuring former members of Black Volvo, these true believers play full-on heads-down, zero frills, positive blue collar punk rock in the most refreshing pretense and irony-free way imaginable, pure solid gold good-time Friday night rock’n’roll party time!
FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS (England)
Radical mind-boggling progressive anti-fascist hardcore/thrash/mathcore mayhem from philosophical Manchester activists playing their first ever Dundee show. One of the most challenging, inspiring and incendiary bands from the fertile north-west punk scene, we’ve been keen to get them up this way for some time. Intense, thought-provoking, angular and anthemic all at once, like Refused, Punch and At The Drive-In having beef over a Heidegger essay.
GETTING AWAY WITH TREASON (Germany)
Progressive international Euro-skramz/hardcore/skate-punk radicalism from Berlin punks back in the basement to rip it up after making a whole bunch of friends earlier this summer. Their self-released “Welcome” album is one of the essential European hardcore releases of the year, capturing the rage and anxiety of a world in late-capitalist existential crisis in the most vital and refreshing way possible. Be radical, spread joy never seemed so appropriate.
PLUS LOADS MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED.
WEEKEND TICKETS ON SALE NOW; £30 HERE.
These weekend tickets are strictly limited in number to FIFTY. Having one of these weekend e-tickets is the ONLY WAY to guarantee entry to ALL BYAF SHOWS in Dundee. Information about day tickets will be forthcoming in the next while. All weekend tickets will include a physical copy of the new Write Yer Ane Zine, a copy of the new Dae Yer Ane Sampler and the requisite cool free shit. Apologies for the booking fee.
Please keep an eye on the event page for more details as they emerge.
We shall try our best to answer any and all questions as best we can as we go forward and aim to be as responsive as possible. Thank you so much to everyone for your patience and understanding, it truly blows our minds how invested in this that people have become, truly humbling.
We hope that you understand and that you’ll join us for what should truly be a special and unique Book Yer Ane Fest, when the abyss gazes back.
Cheers.
