Beard hijaks the Halt Bar Hijack! (for a couple of hours at least...)

Now then, now then, there's a fine FREE event a-happening this weekend (Fri 13-Sun 15 June) at the Halt Bar on Glasgow's Woodlands Road and yours truly has been asked by the marvellous young gents running it to spin a few top pop tunes. I'll be on from 5-8pm on Saturday, so come down and say hello.

The Halt Bar Hijack features Beard faves Kylie Minoise, Nackt Insecten, Noma, Vom, Super Adventure Club, Triple School, Plates (featuring Howie from the mighty Tattie Toes), Wounded Knee, Sparrow & The Workshop and much, much more. And did we mention it's FREE? Yes, we did, but it bears repeating.

The last Beard radio! (for now...)

Our last show! Myself, Neil, Guanoman and Chris. We can only apologise for Chris's offensive banter. He is a bad, bad man.

Sparks - Dick Around (Hello Young Lovers, 2006)
Cheap Trick - Surrender (Heaven Tonight, 1978)
Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing (1955)
Clipse - Mama I'm Sorry (Hell Hath No Fury, 2006)
Dananananaykroyd - The Greater Than Symbol And The Hash (Cissy Hits, 2008)
Shellac - Prayer To God (10000 Hurts)
Yo La Tengo - Did I Tell You? (Fakebook, 1991)
Fleetwood Mac - Sara (Tusk, 1979)
Erin Koray & Ter - Hor Gorme Garibi (Hava Nargile
Eat Skull - Punk Trips (Sick To Death, 2008)
THe Hospitals - Hairdryer Peace (Hairdryer Peace, 2008)
The Open Mind - Magic Potion
Patty Waters - Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair (ESP Disk, 1966)
Bo Diddley - Diddy Wah Diddy
Meshuggah - Combustion (Obzen, 2008)
Beach Boys - Solar System (Love You, 1977)
Gorguts - Nostalgia (Obscura, 1998)
Sparks - I've Never Been High (Exotic Creatures of The Deep, 2008)
Harvey Milk - The End (Special Wishes, 2003)
Robert Wyatt - Sea Song (Rock Bottom, 1974)
The Tornadoes - Telstar (Decca 7", 1962)
Velvet Underground - Afterhours (The Velvet Underground, 1968)

And then Black Static Transmission, with added Guanoman and Beard. Not for the easily offended. Again, we can only apologise...

VALET - Kehaar [ 'Naked Acid' ]
MOUTHUS - The Final Tribes [ 'For The Great Slave Lakes' ]
MELVINS - Dies Iraea [ 'Nude With Boots' ]
APPLEBLIM - Gold & Silver [ 'Soundboy Punishments' ]
FRACTION - Get Out of Her [ 'Moon Blood' ]
GROUND ZERO - Those Were The Days [ 'Plays Standards' ]
SKULLFLOWER - Fak Revolt [ 'Ponyland' ]
KASTANETZ & KATZ SINGING ORCHESTRAL CIRCUS - Rumble 69 [ 'Quick Joey Small' ]
ALICE COLTRANE + PHAROAH SNADERS - Journey In Satchidananda [ 'Journey...' ]

Beard Static Transmission - final radio show!

Yes, that time has come: the final Beard radio of the term. Hopefully Subcity will let us come back for more shambolic broadcasting mayhem in the Autumn (when I'll actually be a real live student again!), but in the meantime prepare to wrap your lugs around a very special final show. This is no ordinary edition Beard radio, but an epic three hour jam with Black Static Transmission, who are normally on right after us. We'll do our normal show from 6-8pm, but with added noise mayhem and offensive banter from student radio legend Chris Storey (his Grind Your Mind show won an award for best specialist programme), before hanging around to invade his airspace from 9pm. We'll also have our good chum and jingle co-creator Guanoman in to drop some heavy bizarro rumbles and massage your third eye with some esoteric nuggets.

Doing the radio show has been an absolute blast, so we want to go out on a high. We'll be playing stuff we've always wanted to play along with some favourites from the past year. And we're taking requests! Bring it on: beardmag@yahoo.co.uk

No Age

Photo: Jeremy Hogan

Apologies for the lack of posts and radio show this past week - I've been jumping around to popular beat combos at Barcelona's glorious Primavera Sound festival. More on that coming soon, but in the meantime, here's something from No Age. Their Sub Pop debut Nouns is out now and it's chock full of scuzzy noise-pop gems. The LA duo werebitchin' at Primavera - catch 'em when they roll up in your area!

This is the full transcription of the interview with No Age I did for The List. I would liked to have asked more questions, but it was only for a short piece and I had limited time. But hats off to Dean Spunt for the righteous and fun things he has to say. They've played Glasgow by now, but hopefully they'll be back soon. You can read the published article here.

Tell me about how No Age started.

Dean Spunt:It started with Randy and I thinking about the type of music we wanted to hear. We wanted to make music we could listen to. Our first proper show was at the smell in April 2006. Randy and I love to play music together and it happens so natural that we decided to make it a two piece, instead of adding more members. The first songs we wrote were Dead Plane, Get Hurt and Neck Escaper.

The Smell scene has been gaining a lot of attention. How has being a part of that shaped you as people and as a band?

DS:The smell, for us, has always been a place we admired, so the attention is due i think. The amount of attention has nothing to do with us as people or as a band, we would still be doing the same thing (because we were!) if nobody had heard of us or the smell. In my mind the smell has been the coolest punk club around for the past ten years, so i have always seen it the same way, mystical and awesome. The Smell hasn't changed a bit either.

You have great merchandise, especially the bandanas. Any new lines being introduced for the next tour?

DS: We made a NEW ERA hat for the magazine FADER, designed shirts for the skateboard company ALTAMONT, a shirt for ART IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION, some sunglasses with a no age / void logo... void was a hardcore band from the 80's if you didn't know, one of the best bands to ever exist. Only the glasses will be on tour, everything else will be in stores or are super limited items..

Some bands "are all about the music" but for you there's so much more - art work, personal politics, a DIY ethos. Do you think it's important to represent something?

DS:It is important for us to represent ourselves, to be honest and just make music. The other things are important because they are what we do, and become what we are. We are both vegan, we enjoy playing in places other than rock clubs, we like art, punk rock, etc. don't get us wrong,
we are "all about the music" too.

Your live shows are inclusive and joyous. As you progress to larger venues and festival stages how will you maintain that quality?

DS: By doing the same thing! Trying harder to make it more fun, and hopefully we will be able to.

Along with Times New Viking, you favour a scuzzy lo-fi sound. Is this a reaction against increasingly slick indie-rock production or more of a reflection of your influences?

D: Both. But mainly for us it was because we couldn't afford to be in a studio. All we had was our friend who recorded some stuff on 1/4 inch tape for us and we had a digital twelve track. The new record was mainly recorded in studio's on very, very nice equipment. That was exciting for us, a new challenge. That didn't stop us from bringing tape recorders, broken microphones, mini disc players etc into the studio with us to record stuff as well, all that stuff ended up on the new record too.

Your last Glasgow show, with Mika Miko was a blast. Are you looking forward to playing Optimo?

DS: we are looking forward to it VERY MUCH! since Glasgow was our favorite show of that whole tour by far.