Slampt Underground Organization

red monkey are awesome and 'difficult is easy' was a great album which was very well received, at least in the west of canada/submission hold territory. were the important in the UK? i don't know.

Slampt is an unmitigated failure -- I mean they never broke any of their bands into the charts at all and didn't even try. Newcastle should be ashamed. Who needs Red Monkey when you've got Sting and Venom to fill the Geordie roster?

i agree wholeheartedly, except for the sting bit. what i was vaguely getting at is the whole NOU protestation: was Slampt about the music or was it plain old indie polemic (which i hold no interest in)? i think it was dull indie polemic, BUT some of the music was (and still is) fantastic: bette davis and the balconettes, milky wimpshake, petty crime, golden starlet, red monkey...

i was joking. Slampt was a very political record label, including a rejection of corporations. In the end, though, Slampt was primarily about the bands associated with the members of Red Monkey -- I consider it a success -- it more than reflected a scene, presenting some great music. What more can a label hope for? a final note: Slampt no longer exists, closing down last year. Troubleman seems to putting out stuff by the core Slampt crew now.

as for the indie polemic -- what's wrong with not wanting to play with the Media Giants or not wanting to prostitute yourself for chart success? In my book, having principles and convictions is a good thing -- even if I don't agree with those principles and convictions necessarily, but it's still better than someone just motivated by the money and adulation from adoring fans.

Yes, but what if you want the convictions and the fans? Admittedly the easy answer to that is the Clash or something, so never mind.

The album by Pussycat Trash: "Non-stop Hip-action" was pretty good in a wannabe Huggy Bear style, and lest not forget the wonderful Fire Engin... sorry, Yummy Fur (no, not the aussie one). That 60-track compilation CD has some crackers on, although it would have made a sublime 20 tracke

...Although I think that compilation was on Guided Missile, their album 'Nighclub' was a joint release between Slampt and Guided Missile and was fannytastic

That first Kenickers single was on Slampt.. so you can't say they never had their shot at the big time

I think the Clash did a fine job tossing out their convictions with their last two albums, Ned.

yea, that comp was guided missile. the slampt stuff was fairly popular with the lo-fi dudes around leeds in the mid90s (milky wimpshake seemed to play every other day), but i found the whole schtick very offputting. i agree with jack that theres nothing wrong with not wanting to play the majors game or whatever, but i think people like slampt make it the be all and end all, to a negative degree. ie - i think its a shame that they don't try and take the music to people, i don't think its welcoming. when there were slampt/lofi gigs in leeds they'd play up in hyde park (west yorkshires olympia) instead of the city. nothing wrong with that per se but they didn't even bother to flypost the city, just hyde park - keep it in your own clique - and it was so cliquey and unwelcoming to outsiders. ok, keep it to yourselves, but don't complain when people don't come

when you have labels like wurlitzer jukebox, who made an effort to get their releases more exposure, and weren't anti-pop, but went under in the end, it seems a shame to see people wilfully doing that. lets get the records out there, let people see what there is. you see, to me, it doesn't seem like they're just 'doing their thing and not playing the game' but that they're playing a different game, a game i can't see the point of

I think the Clash did a fine job tossing out their convictions with their last two albums, Ned.

Woohoo!

i just can't understand what kind of punk scene could exist in newcastle. i mean, between geezers with their reebok classics and decked out xr2s blasting garage and the nu-metal type kids who play in crappy bands (about ten years too late to have any relevance) there isn't much happening ...

what kind of venues would exist for this type of music and who would support it? having only heard red monkey (out of that group of bands) it seems pretty art-oriented punk ... can that survive anywhere other than london?

i admire red monkey for trying to get a label going. they're not my favourite band by a longshot but i do toss on their records occasionally and get into it. i wonder what they do for day jobs?

from what i understand, the Slampt scene is very tiny indeed, centered on a very small group howling against the storm. besides, newcastle has the perfect awful conditions to spawn punk bands. my boss was in a Newcastle punk band in the 80's called the Jaywalkers.

The problem in Newcastle is that the bands tend not to get signed and stagnate, playing the same old venues to the same crowd. After a while everyone gets bored, they split up......and form similar bands with the same references.

best local band - The New Tellers

what are the venues like?

pete dale looks like a serial killer.

hah, he's really quite nice though. even when my label fucked him over.

if you can say, jess, what happened?

oh, nothing really out of the ordinary: money issues and changing tastes conspired at just the right time to sink the label for me, which was in the process of putting out a milky wimpshake 7" (among other things.) the art and dat had been shipped to me from england, i had already made all the copies of the insert, etc. but just not enough money to press the records. pete was understanding (if understandibly ticked off), and i'm pretty sure the record was eventually released.