Sunday, July 8, 2012

FORMER CRO-MAGS BASSIST HARLEY FLANAGAN ARRESTED FOR ON-STAGE ATTACK AGAINST EX-BANDMATES AT WEBSTER HALL

From the NY Post:

A former member of the hard-core punk band the Cro-Mags attacked two of the group’s current members with a hunting knife in a dressing room before a show at Webster Hall yesterday — biting one and slashing both.

The band was about to take the stage about 8:15 p.m. when tattooed rocker Harley Flanagan, 42, barreled through the East Village venue’s VIP section toward the Cro-Mags’ dressing room, sending nearly 30 guests on the balcony into a frenzy, law enforcement sources and witnesses said. 

“Someone was yelling, ‘Get his hands, get his hands, he’s got a knife!’ ” witness Dave Gustav said. 
“Everything went nuts.”
 
Several beefy security guards rushed to contain Flanagan, who seemed about to boil over before he entered the East Village venue. 

“I talked to him outside minutes before it happened and I knew something was going to go down,” a witness said, according to the Horns Up Rocks website. “He was like a lunatic outside. Next thing I know he’s in the VIP area stabbing people!”

Flanagan, the band’s former bassist and founder, suffered a broken leg by the time security finally pinned him down, witnesses said. Cops handcuffed him to a chair and took him out.

“People started booing him and throwing stuff at him,” eyewitness Justin Brannan said. “His hands were handcuffed but he still gave everyone the finger.” 

William Berario, 45, was slashed above the eye and bitten on his cheek. Michael Couls, 33, — the band’s current bassist, who is known in the hardcore world as “The Gook” — was cut on his arm and stomach.
Both members of Cro-Mags were taken to Bellevue Hospital with non life-threatening wounds. 

Flanagan, a New York native, was also taken to the hospital. He was hit with two counts of 2nd degree assault and weapons charges.

The melee forced the East 11th Street concert venue to cancel the show, which was part of the CBGB Festival and also featured the band Sick of It All.

“You can all thank Harley Flanagan for ruining the night for everyone,” Cro-Mags lead singer John Joseph McGowan told the crowd.

John Joseph addressing Webster Hall crowd after incident:

Friday, July 6, 2012

JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION RETURNS IN 2012 WITH NEW ALBUM, TOUR




Meat And Bone is the first studio album by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in eight years. This is straight-up, Grade A Blues Explosion, produced and mixed by Mr. Spencer himself, with no special guests. Meat And Bone is 12 prime cuts of raw rock 'n' roll, recorded on Sly Stone's "Riot" Flickinger console at the legendary Key Club Recording Studio in Benton Harbor, MI, amd mixed in the jungles of New York City. Judah BauerRussell Simins and Jon Spencer continue to blow minds with their fusillade of energy and rhythm, and have once again proven that the Blues is #1!

The new album comes on the heels of the meticulous and loving 2010 reissues of the band’s Matador albums, including the classics 'Extra Width', 'Orange', and 'Now I Got Worry.' (And more recently, the re-release of the long out-of-print seminal Pussy Galore catalog.) It was amid this period of looking back, that Spencer, Simins and Bauer began the process of moving forward. 

"We still have that psychic glue that allows us to create music together," Spencer states. "Over the course of a year touring and writing new songs and recording, we rediscovered our shared history as a band. We circled the wagons, and went back to our roots. In a way this is almost like another first album."  

On stage and in the studio, Jon Spencer has destroyed and rebuilt American roots music with such ferocity and wild abandon, that it's hard to believe there is anything left. It's been twenty years since The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion first pressed 'record', and twenty years since Spencer and his A-Team of sonic terrorists tore up the indie-rock landscape with fever and a visceral, untouchable vision of rock'n'roll that did for a new wave of blues-punk primitivists what Helen of Troy's face did for the armada.

But make no mistake: Jon Spencer was there first. He is the original. It was his sanctified outbursts and blues-bending riffs that began the new-fangled roots rock revolution and spawned countless imitators. With Pussy Galore, he gargled with the Stones and Stooges and wrestled with industrial noise and fuzzed-out fucked-up sixties garage crud…with Blues Explosion, he drove furiously into the future with incendiary spirit built from courage, audacity, and revolt. Nothing has been the same since.

Meat And Bone track listing:

1. Black Mold
2. Bag Of Bones
3. Boot Cut
4. Get Your Pants Off
5. Ice Cream Killer
6. Strange Baby
7. Bottle Baby
8. Danger
9. Black Thoughts
10. Unclear
11. Bear Trap
12. Zimgar

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES (more forthcoming):

October 6Underground Arts - Philadelphia, PA
October 13: German American Music Hall - Pawtucket, RI
October 16: Higher Ground Lounge - South Burlington, VT
October 18: Horseshoe Tavern - Toronto, ON
October 19: Magic Stick - Detroit, MI
October 20: Earth House - Indianapolis, IN
October 21: Bottom Lounge - Chicago, IL
October 22: Triple Rock Social Club - Minneapolis, MN
October 23: Turner Hall - Milwaukee, WI
October 24: The Basement - Columbus, OH
October 25: Rex Theater - Pittsburgh, PA
November 3: Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY
November 8: Casbah - San Diego, CA
November 9: El Rey Theatre - Los Angeles, CA
November 10: Great American Music Hall - San Francisco, CA
November 12: Doug Fir Lounge - Portland, OR
November 13: The Crocodile - Seattle, WA
November 14: Biltmore Cabaret - Vancouver, B.C.

Check out the first single, "Black Mold", via SoundCloud here