The Goo 1
Scene News NIALL MCGUIRK PUNK SOME WORDS WITH YUR
T Some of you may have been at the launch of YURT’s new record, Upgrade to Obsolete. Their noise can only be described as a progressive experiment in making noise and some noise they make too. I asked bass player and singer Boz Mugabe for a few words around it. Your sonic journey has come a long way from those punk rock tunes. Where does the prog influence come from? Was it always there and did Yurt allow it to come to the fore? Some of the musical influence of what we’re doing now has been in all of us prior to, adjacent to and post our activities in punk bands. YURT still feels like a punk band to me in the way we function... maybe just not a musical genre punk band. There was a progressive influence in what we did as punk bands. Andy and Bushey’s previous band Estel identified as a punk band - It was in their energy, methodology and ethos, but were ostensibly a progressive musical band. The Steam Pig always ring-fenced albums conceptually - a very prog trait - and the music was headed towards an embryonic version of what YURT became by the time of the last album.... so what might be a weird left turn to some people was a very gradual through-line. And there has been lots of cross-fertilisation with prog ideas in the world of punk - Talking Heads, Cardiacs, Nomeansno, Public Image Limited, Wire and Killing Joke are a few obvious examples of very many that spring to mind. It’s your first gig in 4 years - has your preparation for the live experience changed now that it is less frequent? We played at the GGI fest in September and the launch gig is in November which makes for a high frequency of gigs by YURT standards. Preparing for gigs is weird for us because the material is lengthy. If we gigged all the time we’d be stuck playing stuff written a decade ago. We’re either spending rehearsal time beating a set into presentable shape, or we’re writing new music if there’s no gig on the horizon. We can’t do both at the same time unless we practiced more than once a week - Between life, other bands (Senzar, Organs, Venus Sleeps etc) and retaining the last vestiges of our hearing, that’ll never happen. I’m guessing live gigs was the best way to let people to know about your band - it would also have been an outlet for sales? Have you plans for more gigs? PAGE 32 YURT’s infrequent gigging wasn’t wilful reticence - When we began, this was a side project to other very active bands that some of us were in. We simply didn’t see the benefit in being the band that said yes to everything and ended up opening some depressing gig on a Tuesday night in front of 5 people. We wouldn’t be here 16 years later if we had chosen that route. Putting a YURT album out into the world is like making soda bread and bringing it to a parish sale - That’s about the scale of our ambition - We want to share the fruits of our labour, and it’s always heart-warming when someone likes it! A RECORD The Thrash Blues - Wildlife in Pieces - Self-released There’s a real high octane bluesy punk feel to this Dublin outfit’s debut album. The 2 piece create a full sound throughout. Most of the time on this record they take a riff, drag you into it and get you spinning around the room before flushing you out at the end of it and going again. 11 times. The album is out now and if you have any interest in punk rock’n’roll then go check this out. SOME GIGS Dublin hardcore is being well represented by Blackwater Music Collective’s Gig in The Hut on Nov 19. Goon will bounce and mosh their way through the set and are preceded by Lost to Life and Sawn Off. There’s a big all day coming up in Bohs bar where you can get some fanzines, books and records. All your Christmas presents in one fell swoop. Proceedings start at noon on Dec 1 and bands include Grit, Extravision, Strong Boys, Blow Ins, Powerplant and a load more. Come along and see pretty much the cream of DIY punk in Dublin. EXTRAVISION YURT THE THRASH BLUES