Luton: Centre of the Punk Rock Universe

With Abbo and Spon….

Spon (left) Abbo (right) at DV8 2012

Spon (left) Abbo (right) at DV8 2012

Abbo and I will be at Luton’s Hat Factory Art’s and Media Centre on Friday 25th November to talk about Punk in the Luton area back in the late seventies. This is part of the “40 years of Punk” celebrations going down over November at that venue and widely across the country. I am hoping to put together a few slides of various characters, bands, venues, fanzines from Luton and the surrounding are during the late seventies early eighties period. Hopefully this inspire discussion among ourselves and the audience.

Then Justin Saban will join us and we shall perform a couple our punk platters ‘unplugged’ style. So after I have written this I had better dust off the cobwebs of my guitar and get practicing!

When are UK Decay returning for more gigs and recordings? – As part of the talk we shall be hosting a questions and answers session hopefully this question and many others will be answered!

Tickets are just £5.00 bookable in advance from here

Further info

 

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THIS IS NOW

“Film and Video after Punk”

THIS IS NOW POSTER

THIS IS NOW POSTER Saturday 21st November 2015. Leighton Buzzard Library Theatre 2pm – 11pm. Free Entry and Bar

Steve Spon will be attending a question and answer session at the festival…

“Dumping It On Parliament Revisited”

Dumping It On Parliament 2015 Live Presentation

Dumping It On Parliament 2015 Live Presentation

Steve Spon is helping to host a fiesta of protest, a host of bands covering tracks from the original 1986 “Dumping It On Parliament” and also presenting their own contemporary original protest songs to ‘Dump On Parliament ‘ today…

CALL OUT TO YOUNG, EMERGING BANDS IN BEDS…

Did you know Bedfordshire has a punk history? Bedfordshire’s alternative post-punk scene flourished in the 70s and 80s as a reaction to the various social and political shifts of the time: high unemployment, cuts to public funding and a Conservative government… does this sound familiar to you? Issues such as these fuelled the ‘Punk’ spirit and ‘D.I.Y ethic’ which was embraced by the local bands, venues and political activists of the time.

An example of this raw, creative, politicised energy was the Dump it on Parliament: 1986 Luton Compilation cassette part of Bedfordshire Against Nuclear Dumping (B.A.N.D.). In true punk spirit, local young alternative musicians came together against a proposed nuclear waste dump in Bedford. Bands contributed specially written songs protesting against the Governments nuclear agency – Nirex. You can read more and listen to tracks from the compilation here:

http://uk-decay.co.uk/heritage/communities/anti-nirex/

We want to revisit and celebrate this piece of alternative local history, to start a conversation between exciting new bands and original band members from Bedford’s post punk scene. We are working with Steve Spon from legendary post punk/gothic band UK Decay, one of the area’s most influential post-punk bands to produce a new Dump It on Parliament Revisited compilation.

We are looking for exciting Bedfordshire bands to participate. Does this sound like you? If so, we would love you to be part of the compilation and related events and workshops. We would like to include one of your current songs that captures a similar politicised, countercultural feel of the area’s historic post-punk output. We would also want you to record a cover version of an original track of your choice from Dump it on Parliament and through 5 workshops on Wednesdays in October/November with musicians Roshi Nasehi (Roshi Feat. Pars Radio, David Thomas, Suns Of Arqa) Graham Dowdall (Gagarin, Ludus, John McKay, Pere Ubu) and Steve Spon (UK Decay) write one new track, exploring what YOU would want to dump on parliament today.

We will be printing a limited addition vinyl/cassette of the compilation, recorded live at a gig at the Leighton Buzzard Library Theatre on the 27th November. We will play a warm up gig at Houghton Regis Library and will also be producing a DIY inspired film of the event which will be shown at Grove Theatre Dunstable. Other connected activities will include new fanzines, fashion, posters, banners and cut-up appropriated videos being produced, all of which were part of post-punk culture back in the day. The project will be widely publicised through different events and media and we will also be collaborating with BBC Three Counties.

As Rob Callaghan from original compilation contributors The Twist put it, “parliament deserves to be dumped on again and again.” Do you agree? If so, and you’ve a musical way of saying it, let us know!

Dump-it-on-Parliament 2015

Dump-it-on-Parliament 2015

The project is commission by Bedford Creative Arts:
http://www.bedfordcreativearts.org.uk/index.php/library-as-laboratory/

UK Decay Communities ten this year

UK Decay Communities are ten years old in 2014, to celebrate we bring you an updated and refurbished website.

The new website will host the Luton area’s community aspect whilst continue to house the resource for the early period (1978 – 1983) UK Decay. The Luton and area Punk community pages will be hosted under ‘The Communities’ button, whilst UK Decay related material will be hosted under ‘Historical UK Decay‘ button.

The ‘spin-off bands’ including Pneumania, Furyo, In Excelsis etc will now sit under the ‘DK-ClanProjects’ button. Each of the mini site’s have also been updated and refurbished.

A new store to be managed like the old system with ‘Werewolf’ in charge of the orders will soon be opened, specialising in the earlier period merchandise. So if you would like to replace or purchase a new classic design ‘For My Country’ or ‘Unexpected Guest’ T Shirt this will be the place to shop and buy. Werewolf will administer and fulfill the orders so you can expect a prompt and speedy service. Anyone wishing to purchase new UK Decay related merchandise should visit the store at that site here

Coming soon we hope to be selling some new designs based on IN Excelsis, Pneumania and Furyo as well, the artwork will be prepped in the new year – watch this space!

We will continue eventually with some discreet ads but as soon as we breech the Google threshold of £60.00, we shall accept their payment and shut down the ads. The money will pay for a period of webhosting. We will invite private entrepreneurs with material appropriate to this website  to advertise instead with a small and very reasonable charge.

The new website will of course be closely allied to the new period website and their will be some shared resources and linkage.

The old forum is still in place, it is eventually hoped to migrate to a new archive position, but in the meantime it is still in place as a resource. The gallery to eventually will be migrated but in the meantime it has recently been augmented with an amount of new material. We have built in a cool new feature that will throw the picture up into a lightbox, similar to Facebook etc. so you don’t have to leave the page to view.

We will be looking at improving social network integration in the future, as the new site is built on a wordpress based framework, we should be able to keep up with twenty first century web continuity.  Also it should in theory at least in most areas be adaptive and responsive for mobile and tablet viewing.

So please go ahead take a look around the new UK Decay Communities.

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