Greetings friends,
As the great Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe and Husker Du would have us believe, everything falls apart. That we are now governed by Spitting Image re-animated in a disaster capitalist orgy of absurdity, a 1% Prime Minister elected by 0.01% of the population, reinforces this idea. It’s easy to be disheartened, demoralised. Now is the time to double-down; the time that punk rock has prepared us for.
We’re facing some collective struggles of our own, but the struggle we face together is much greater. All we have is each other, friends. Now is not the time for capitulation, now is the time to do the things.
Saviese, Switzerland
WHAT’S THE CRAIC?
We’re just back from three weeks on tour in Europe with The Murderburgers and Flamingo Nosebleed. Huge thanks to everyone involved for taking care of us, booking the shows, hosting/feeding/watering us, and all the wonderful people we met along the way.
Cheers to Fraser for the opportunity to play bass and much respect to Hazel for the managing the stress of tour driving. I’ve been friends with Fraser for a long time, first putting The Murderburgers on in Perth and Dundee well over a decade ago, and I’m grateful we got a chance to tour together before the band ends. Enjoy the last tours, me maaaaaaaaate, you deserve it.
Huge thanks and much respect also to the Make That A Take crew for taking care of everything at Conroy’s Basement while we’ve been away. Shout out to Jason for heading up the tech crew and Papa D for repping all the shows, your efforts are much appreciated. Being thirteen years in, the MTAT collective continues to evolve and, sometimes, these changes happen very quickly. As per the Broken Stories song, sometimes it’s everything all at once.
Things are changing within the collective; Conroy’s Basement will now be fully managed by Make That A Take. Where previously “Burst Cow” dealt with third-party bookings, all new bookings will be done through MTAT. While this wasn’t a situation that we anticipated, necessity is, as always, the mother of invention. While the book has been closed to new bookings while we’ve been away on tour, we anticipate having the books back open in the next few weeks once we’ve had a chance to catch up with everything.
We’d like to thank everyone for their patience during this period of transition and would like to reiterate that ALL BOOKED SHOWS WILL GO AHEAD.
We’d also like to thank those previously involved for their graft and participation. We wish all parties the very best for the future and look forward to the new possibilities that our new arrangements may afford us. Thirteen years is a long time to keep any kind of autonomous collective together, a lifetime in DIY, and we hope to navigate these changes to ensure the best possible outcomes for all.
Apologies for the delay in getting back to everyone, it’s not easy managing multiple mailboxes on a 3G connection, but we’d like to thank everyone for their patience and offer assurance that, if we haven’t been in touch already, we will be soon. I know an auto-reply can be annoying but all emails that come into MTAT are read and will be responded to. Hope y’all understand!
We also have some issues as pertains BOOK YER ANE FEST XIII; due to changes in arrangements, namely the venue closing, BYAF XIII will not be taking place at Abertay Student Centre. We’d like to extend both our thanks and commiserations to all of the staff involved for making us feel so at home over the last couple of years and express our regret at both the loss of jobs and an excellent venue.
As is the nature of Book Yer Ane Fest, things will once again evolve. We were informed of these changes whilst on tour and while we don’t yet have anything fully fixed up, beyond half a booked festival and four months to go (lolz), but we have the utmost faith that we can make this happen.
Both of these situations are somewhat fluid. We’ll do our best to keep y’all informed.
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IMMEDIATE ACTIONS
The show must go on and the Cowpunk Summer continues this weekend with a double-header shredder of hardcore punk solidarity.
Friday night sees TINS FOR TUNES in solidarity with Dundee Foodbank return to the basement. We’re delighted to be hosting the mighty Kaddish at their first hometown headline show of the year alongside old grizzled mutant blues troubadour Tim Holehouse. They played together in The Balcony Bar some time in the decade previous to this one and it’s a rare old geeky thrill to be able to bring them back together. Tim is joined on the road by fellow acoustic guitar-slinger Scott Wainwright and in the basement from intense homegrown instrumental ecossemo crew The Blood Red Moon.
Tins For Tunes is go so we’d welcome any and all donations of non-perishable foodstuffs/toiletries/period products in exchange for music/swag. All support in this endeavour would be very much appreciated. Half seven doors. Fiver advanced, six quid on doors.
Saturday night sees an international masterclass of melodic hardcore and technical skate-punk as Chilean punks Cronos Debe Morir play the only Scottish show of their debut European tour en route to Punk Rock Holiday (make sure and check out Goodbye Blue Monday opening the Beach Stage on the Tuesday). We’re beyond excited to be welcoming them to Scotland for the first time in the company of Perth legends PMX, Lockjaw Records pyro-technicians Fair Do’s and Dundee’s gnarliest Bed Of Wasps. This is a strong contender to be shredder of the year, we’d strongly recommend getting down early. Fiver advanced, seven quid on doors.
We’d also encourage you, if you can, to bring items of warm clothing/shoes/tents/blankets/pillows/sleeping bags/medical supplies/period products/etc to trade for music/swag. Our friend Suzanne is co-coordinating a campaign to shift aid from Scotland to Lesvos in solidarity with the tremendous work of Attika Human Support and we’d love to enlist your help. We all live under the same sky; no person is illegal. Suzanne is also running a crowdfunder campaign, which can be found here.
Food Not Bombs will also be out in Dundee from noon on Saturday. Find us by the dragons!
Wednesday 21st August; Denmark’s bleakest blackened antifascist hardcore warriors Hexis kick off their mammoth 111 show in 109 days tour today. The EXCLUSIVE SCOTTISH SHOW happens at Conroy’s Basement on Wednesday 21st August. They’ll be joined on their UK dates by Swiss mind-melters ZATOKREV and in Dundee by KDY queercore grinders Gay Panic Defence. Half seven doors. Seven quid advanced, tenner on doors. Zero messin’.
More shows coming, keep ’em peeled. Physical tickets for all shows are available at Groucho’s in Dundee. E-tickets are available here.
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OTHER ORDERS OF BUSINESS
Get It Together are taking their “LIVE FREE” LP out on the road for a northern English weekender next month. They’ll be at the 13th Note in Glasgow on Wednesday 7th August with Moonshine Docks, Intrusive Thought and Nelson Savage. They then hook up with our northern posi-hxc punk comrades AVAS for a run of dates in Liverpool, Withington (Manchester, innit) and Sunderland.
“Live Free” is a total pearler and Get It Together slay it live, so these shows are strongly recommended. Be sure and grab a sick bundle from the band at a show or online. We’ve got LPs and CDs too, shit rules.
The Stonethrower LP commeth. Grab “HOLD YOUR HEXES” for free/pay-what-you-want download. Potential vinyl release collaborators, please feel free to get in touch. An ecossemo monolith awaits.
There will be more new music this year. Releases from Queequeg’s Coffin, Woolen, Uniforms, Goodbye Blue Monday and more, including a new label sampler, a “Live at Kesbri Studios” Samaritans benefit compilation and the eighth in the Make Yer Ane Comp series, are all at various stages of completion and are forthcoming.
There are also a couple other new projects, and new bands, brewing. Now that we’ve finally got a little bit of time off tour, we can knuckle down to some homegrown endeavours.
We’ve got some summer sales on the go; 20% off the full 100+ release MTAT digital discography download from Bandcamp and heaps of cheap records + swag at Bigcartel. Cheers to everyone again for their patience with deliveries, all current orders have now been sent. We’ll horse COOL FREE SHIT in with all orders.
My Tragical History Tour single as part of Punks Versus Depression, Volume 2, released through Struck Dum Records in support of SAMH, is out now. The single features a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and a live version of “The Fear” by Uniforms, both recorded at Kesbri Studios by Ant Booth.
Check out the Paper Rifles single while ye are at it, covering PJ Bond. Great stuff indeed. The full album is forthcoming.
Think that’s about us for now, I still have post-tour brain. Anything else, email to info at makethatatakerecords dot com.
Be radical, spread joy.
Cheers,
Derrick (MTAT)
