Manchester Punk Festival Releases 37th Compilation
Manchester Punk Festival have released the 37th volume of their compilation series ahead of this year’s festival. Manchester Punk Festival Vol. 37 is…
What do you know about Ruts DC? What do you want to know about Ruts DC? It’s nearly fifty years since the two sevens clashed. In a little over fifty more years, they will clash again. Roughly around the time they last clashed The Ruts were hot wiring barbed wire guitar, passionate poetry and rhythm weaponry together somewhere in a London that probably does not exist anymore. Splicing heat haze dub thinking to the energy flash of punk close to the big bang of late twentieth century culture. Open to ideas. Committed to ideals.We now get to hear the first taste of Ruts DC‘s new album in the title track and new single, Counterculture. Drums and Bass building the defence wall. Guitar and whatever else lobbed in stun/attack mode. That is Ruts DC. That is all you really need to know.
Some band’s sound punk. Some look punk. Some even look and sound punk. And some, simply, are punk. Without turning this into a game or statistics, Ruts DC were early challengers to the misunderstood notion that punk was a somewhat luddite dogma wherein complexity, creative exploration and musical prowess were considered a shameful affectation. Ruts DC songs moved with a precise muscularity and carried lyrics of eloquent and graceful rage. No two-chord thrash with shouting over the top. Go back. Listen to everything. From the very beginning to now, with the forthcoming release of new album Counterculture?’, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2016’s incendiary Music Must Destroy album, that is due out on November 11th via their own Sosumi Recordings. Counterculture. Now is the time. Was there ever an age with more reason to rebel? Counterculture. Do not think you can simply buy a way in. To Counter; to push against, to oppose and redress. By being a spectator, you are NOT a part of the counterculture.
“Counterculture? For us, it never went away. We’ve always been on the outside and still are. It’s ok to be a freak. That’s why The Ruts started in the first place. If it’s still inside you, it’s time to light that flame again. Get to know what you don’t know. Come and borrow my lighter.” (John “Segs” Jennings)