BREAKING THE CHAINS: Inner Terrestrials @ TJs

Tonight we headed once more to the Legendary TJs for a benefit gig to raise funds for Cardiff Anarchist Prisoner Support Group. The bill was looking good, quite varied, and a shed full of old faces in the crowd was guaranteed.

As we walked in it looked like a scene from the Anarchist Bookfair, with stalls run by South Wales Anarchists, Cardiff Prisoner Support, Gwent Hunt Sabs and the Keble Cooperative in evidence.

TJs is famous throughout the world for being where many big American bands played their first UK gigs. The stars in the making don’t come around so much now, but the legend lives on. Like so many little clubs that have played their part in Rock ’n roll history, it is a bit of a dive; that is part of its charm though.

DIRTY REVOLUTION

First up were Ska-diff’s Dirty Revolution, a name we have been hearing for some time now but have not got around to catching. Very quickly we were kicking ourselves, why have we not caught them before? A wicked blend of ska/dub/punk and attitude, they were just what we needed to get us limbering up for what was to come. Lively, skankalicous and thought provoking. We will be watching out for these again.

THE REJECTIED

Then came The Rejected. Hardcore punk like only Newport can produce. Loud, shouty and angrier than a pit bull with his balls on fire. Unlike the three wise monkeys, they see evil, they hear evil and they speak about evil. The world is sleep walking into mindless compliance and these guys are here to wake us up with a baseball bat, sending out an alarm call at the top of their voices.

KILNABOY

Things calm down a bit after the rejected, but not much, with the ever-present black flag waving, welly stompin’, waistcoat wearin’, mandolin pluckin’, beer swillin’, G8 hatin’ Kilnaboy. Being in a band is not just an option of these boys, it is compulsory; they have to make music, they have to turn up wherever people are resisting they system and they have to make you all jig about and smile while filling them Molatovs. Maybe it was the surroundings, maybe it was the company they were keeping, but from where we were stood it felt like tonight’s set was a little punkier than usual. The moshers up the front weren’t complaining.

INNER TERRESTRIALS

Then it was the main attraction, Inner Terrestrials. These guys have been about a bit, and you can tell. They glide through a set of old classics and new numbers with an ease only old hands can pull off. While the dance floor becomes a frantic blurred pit of sweat and snot, IT stand there on stage smiling at each other like brothers that have done this so many times they can communicate with the nod of a head and a turn of the eye. They are well and truly at home on stage and despite their contempt for the system that controls our lives, they love the brother and sister hood of the resistance, they love being outsiders and most importantly they love making music.

They drift seamlessly from full on punk attack, through folky rebellion, to skanking dub and back without batting an eyelid. They deftly turn their hand to whatever style fits with a natural ease, displaying a talent and imagination that can so often be missing from the ‘angry brigade’ of the punk front line.

The gathered unwashed lap it all up, throwing themselves around in reckless abandon. But there is something different. Despite the intensity of it all, it is not an exclusively male environment, the revolution is not going to be patriarchal and the mosh is open to all.

Amongst the crowd is the son of Stig, the late singer with Icons Of Filth. I.T. drag him out of the crowd to sing the old Clash favourite ‘Guns Of Brixton’, a moment that is moving without being sentimental. That is I.T. all over, they know how to do things differently and with style, always unpredictable yet always reliable.

The old faces we had expected were more than satisfied with the performance and, perhaps more importantly, the new faces that had wandered in on the off chance were converts to the I.T. cause. That is another thing about them; they are also irresistible.

Expect a new interview with IT on the main PEPPERMINT IGUANA website soon