Robyn Writes

Panic! At The Breakup – TBO’s predictions

So, it’s official. Panic! at the Disco are no more the happy little foursome they once were as Ryan Ross and Jon Walker step away to create their own project, leaving Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith to soldier on, breaking the hearts and spirits of a thousand fangirls as they go. Without sounding too cynical, this is probably the best news I’ve heard all week, if only for the sheer hilarity of it all. The possibilities of new incarnations! The pained screams of fangirls worldwide! The furious internet blogging! Me and ninthandash had a pretty good time hypothesising how everything would all work out last night, and I’m going to share those thoughts with you all. If any of this actually becomes real, I’ll be shocked and amazed. And also pretty damn awesome for predicting this shit. I also apologise for the bad Photoshopping.

Team Ryjon

First up, we’ll go with the deserters, as it were. The truth is, Ryan and Jon will probably go up to the mountains, smoke some weed, collapse on the floor giggling and write songs about it. But, if we had to choose some other likely options, we’d go for these:

Dolly Parton, anyone?

Yes, Pretty.Odd was one step away from the Beatles, and the logical conclusion would be to move towards country and western. Perhaps. Anyway, Ryan and Jon already have the plaid shirts, so rocking the banjo and jug shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Not to mention, you get to drink cider in country and western. CIDER.

Electronica is in vogue again, after all…

At least in the UK, electropop is back in a big way. Of course, this was the stuff early Panic! was made of, so it’ll come naturally to Ryan at least. Plus, you KNOW they could pull off the fashion. And the serious faces. And the makeup. Actually, this would be my preferred Ryjon band.

Or, you know, pretentious hipsters…

After all, this is Ryan Ross we’re talking about. The pretentious hipster band, with the pretty guitars and the tight jeans and the lyrics which nobody understands. It seems a bit out there for Jon, who seems a little more down to earth with his music, but whatever, he can go with the flow. See vague Myspace pics also with this one. (NB: this is the real one, Hillside Session. I was thoroughly disappointed when I found out, I was expecting something much more exciting. They sound quite good though.)

Team Brencer
Good news about this combo – the exclamation mark is coming back. To be honest, I’d missed it, and it just shows that they could be planning on going back to the original Panic! style, which was actually, y’know, good. But, if they were going to do it any other way, this is what we think might happen.

Cabaret, darling!

Panic! toured with the Dresden Dolls, and now that it’s just Brendon and Spencer, there’s the perfect opportunity for some cabaret style piano. The makeup, the dazzling outfits, the outrageous stage antics! That’s exactly what I want to see from Panic! At The Disco.

Epic, maaaaan…

Spencer has a pretty serious beard going on right now. Beardy drummers usually means either a) awesome Gainesville punk or b) stoner rock/metal. And I’m guessing the latter, due to the bandana wearing as well. The only thing preventing this is Brendon’s love of sweets, which leads us to our next idea…

Screw the band, let’s open a candy factory!

Ever since the top hat in the first video, and then the candy land in Nine In The Afternoon, it has been my dream for Panic! At The Disco to own their own candy factory. Brendon Urie would make the perfect, less creepy Willy Wonka and well… Spencer’s too tall to be an Oompa-Loompa so I have no idea what he’d do. Test shit or something. Om nom nom.

So there you have it, our ideas for the future of Panic! At The Disco and related projects. To be honest, Panic! had come to their natural conclusion and it’s great to see a band end amicably as opposed to having an all out war against each other. Now, we just need to wait and see who has the better project.

A personal history on paper (by soufex)

I realised, the other day, that I have been making zines since I was about 8 years old. My first was a zine about dogs (for they have always been a love of mine), and I distinctly remember tracing over typography from other magazines for my titles and headers. A few years passed and I made more zines, about the Brownies (I had a three or four-week stint there as a child), Beanie Babies, and another one about dogs (I obviously really, really loved dogs as a kid)- the latter two I actually distributed amongst one or two friends, and I remember correctly, actually collaborated on one of them.

For a very long time after that, for the few years that punk rock didn’t exist in my life I forgot all about my stints as a self-publisher. However, under my feet as I type this is a cardboard box filled with notebooks and sketchbooks that I have kept all but continuously from the age of eleven; a personal history on paper.

When I hit fifteen or sixteen (my high school years were mostly a depressing blur so forgive my vagueness), the world opened up to me and it wasn’t just about how much my braces hurt my mouth or how, as a 12 year old, I thought Éowyn from The Lord of the Rings was a bitch; I started to record my travels and gig experiences in books full of photographs and cut-outs, rant on at length via journals and one-sided conversations in the school grounds about how whatever album I was into that week was amazing and everyone should copy it or buy it, because it’s just that great. I would write stories and draw short, stupid autobiographical comics for my own amusement and to vent my frustrations in my notebooks and although I was very tedious about people going through things so personal to me I slowly, reluctantly, relented.

Seventeen years old, and I fell in love with David Carson. As an artist, he is one of my greatest inspirations to date; his beautiful, unforgiving images that set the style and broke the rules of 90’s graphic design ruled my world through the second year of sixth form, and has continued to inspire me through my somewhat short-lived stint at university and then some. (This is all relevant, partially because I made a zine for an AS Graphics project, and partially because Carson’s just that shit-hot at what he does that it needs to be extolled wherever possible.)

The world of zines fascinates me incredibly and one way or another, seems to have always been a part of my life. Granted, it’s perhaps hard to compare our very own Two Beats Off with Sniffin’ Glue or Cometbus, it’s still driving that same message. We all have our paper histories, and in a world where it’s very easy to feel alienated, finding a common ground and sharing our stories is integral to our (sub)culture.

~sfx

further reading

Microcosm Publishing

David Carson Design

Live: OK Pilot – Robbin’s Well Leamington Spa, 24/11/10

NB: I apologise for the shitty photo editing – my computer decided to be slow and didn’t like Photoshop, so I had to make do with Photobucket’s online tools. Whatever, it’s totally punk rock and DIY.

Tuesday is clearly not a good time to put on a gig. For a start, I had to wait half an hour for the bus as it didn’t show up. When I finally got there, as I wandered down the stairs to the basement part of Robbins Well, I saw Punksoc, people from bands and well… not many other people. A few of Kourosh’s (vocalist of Heads Will Roll) friends, who were clearly not into this kind of thing, appeared, looking more than a little bewildered. The basement show is a little more impressive when there’s more than thirty people in the room, but still, there’s always something exciting about tiny, intimate shows. We just had to make sure we crowded right round at the front.

There were just three bands playing tonight (which was advantageous for me as it meant not missing any buses), which could have also contributed to the relatively small audience. We all moved forwards so it looked like there were more of us, and Heads Will Roll took the stage.


For the first band on, this was a little intense. HWR play awesome metal-influenced hardcore, and as was stated on the Facebook events page for the gig, it really is ‘the music of nightmares’; Kourosh’s deep growls are completely unexpected and wonderfully terrifying. Despite a slight bass problem at the beginning of the set, the band played fantastically. The lack of audience was perhaps an advantage for Kourosh, who roamed through the audience and provided some much required energy to the room. Plus songs about bikes are always good and their drummer has one hell of an awesome beard. At the end of their set, I watched curiously while Kourosh’s friends left with slightly perturbed glances to each other. That’s the mark of good hardcore.

Next up were Company L, hailing from South London.


I’m told that these guys are the new project of Mike Scott, who used to be in Phinius Gage and should therefore be good. Unfortunately, I suck when it comes to knowing the British scene these days and therefore had no idea who either Phinius Gage, Mike Scott or this band that were about to be on were, so I nodded and decided to form my own opinion. Fortunately, it was a very good one, because Company L are just great. Awesome melodic punk with an edge and just generally pretty sweet. I’d hardly call Mike Scott an enigmatic frontman, but there’s something about him that’s just cool. They played a fantastic set, and I’d definitely go see them again. Also, kudos to their new guitarist Hannah, as it was only her third show with the band and played fantastically – a real inspiration to girl guitarists everywhere!

It soon came to headliners OK Pilot. I was pretty excited about this, being the only band I’ve seen recently that I’d actually heard of before the night.


I was not disappointed in the slightest, as they were absolutely incredible. I’ve always loved the back and forth between both vocalists, and this dynamic works extremely well live. OK Pilot are anything but static live, and despite the restricted space, threw themselves into the set and played pretty much non-stop, giving a energetic and exciting performance. If you’re in the area next time they’re on, I highly recommend that you check them out.

So in conclusion, Tuesdays might not be the best night to put on a gig, but that’s probably the best Tuesday night I’ve had in a long time.

What the hell happened to Green Day?

This morning, I stumbled downstairs, got myself a cup of coffee and sat down to MTV2 for five minutes of procrastination before I had to go and get ready for the day. It was on this very sofa that I am sat upon now that I first witnessed Green Day’s latest single, 21st Century Breakdown. And wow, did it suck. I’m not going to lie, I haven’t been keeping up with Green Day. After their second break into the mainstream with American Idiot (I’m also counting Dookie because it really did shoot them to relative fame, but not enough to ruin them), I was left disappointed and betrayed. It wasn’t a bad album entirely, aside from the singles, but it lacked that sense of fun I’ve always associated with Green Day. It seems that Billie Joe found some eyeliner and got all interested in politics and well, I’m sorry boys, but I just wasn’t that interested. This, coupled with that video where the kid goes to fight in Iraq and you’ve got Green Day being just a bit too serious. I don’t know about you, but I like my pop-punk with a sense of reckless abandon, thank you. 21st Century Breakdown is merely an extension of the political cry for attention, right down to the Banksy style video.

Quite frankly, it’s upsetting and unfortunately very typical of how most bands try and hit the right kind of ‘attitude’ once they hit the mainstream. 30 Seconds To Mars did it with title song A Beautiful Lie and that ridiculous video in the Arctic (isn’t having your band videoed ‘playing loudly’ on ice caps contributing to global warming?), NOFX did it with The War On Errorism and even Armor For Sleep tried it as soon as they got a little bit of recognition with third album flop Smile For Them. As soon as they can introduce a bit of politics into their work, you know a band’s got it made – well, as long as they aren’t a political punk band to begin with. My point being, Green Day were never political. Green Day were never serious. Green Day were never concerned with their hair. And now, all three of those dominate their music, and well… it sucks!

I decided that Green Day and I were no longer friends when I first heard The Saints Are Coming. The fact that they collaborated with U2, who are potentially the most safe and boring band on the planet, just showed that they had nothing of their former self left. I had stuck by them through American Idiot; I learnt to play Jesus Of Suburbia, I sang along to St Jimmy, but I mocked the very notion of the ‘rock opera’ they had put before us. I thought “Please, nobody but Queen can attempt anything as grand as that!” but no, Green Day gave it a go, and it tarnished what otherwise would have been a great album. Well, that plus the Iraq video. It’s not like Green Day aren’t allowed to be serious – one of the most depressing songs they’ve ever written, Redundant, is one of my favourite songs of all time – but come on, it’s not like they could ever inspire a teenage population to rise up and take on the government, and that’s all they’ve got backing them these days. The thing is, I want to like 21st Century Breakdown as an album. There are some standout tracks on it, like Lights Out, as directed to me by fightclubsandwich. It’s like, they’ve grown up, they’ve got better, and then they shit all over it with the singles they put out and the bland, generic riffs. At least each song used to sound a bit different, but now, I can’t tell the difference between half of their singles. 21st Century Breakdown in particular uses a real mashup of different styles in an attempt to make it more grandiose and it just doesn’t work. The oddly placed solo, the weird shift in tempo… it’s almost as if they’re trying to reinvent Jesus of Suburbia into a song that’s half the time.

I really hope that the next Green Day album is a return to form, I really do. I don’t want to end up hating these guys as much as I hate Fall Out Boy these days (that’s an article for another time) because I believe that Green Day can be good. Those hidden gems on each album are evidence of that. I just don’t want to have to search for diamonds in the rough any more.

Live: North Lincoln – Robbin’s Well Leamington Spa, 12/10/09

It turns out that my university has a little society called ‘Punksoc’, where people sit around, talk about punk and go to a lot of shows. The idea of this intrigued me, being a fan of such things, so I signed up right away. Monday was the first gig social, and we went to nearby town Leamington Spa to see North Lincoln at Robbin’s Well.

There were three awesome things about this particular gig. The first was that it was an actual basement show. Sort of. The Well has a downstairs area for gigs which is pretty much like a basement in that everyone crowds around the band who are playing on exactly the same level as you. This is probably the closest I’ll ever get to experiencing something like that, so it’s totally a basement show. The second was that it was North Lincoln’s last tour, and we got to see them in such a small and intimate environment. I will admit, I’d never heard of North Lincoln before (I really should follow record labels more considering they’re on No Idea) or any of the other four bands on the lineup, which brings me to the third awesome point – five bands for a mere £5. I am fed up of paying ridiculous prices for gigs. In January, I’m seeing Henry Rollins, and paying £22 a ticket for the privilege. It’s just not punk rock any more. So five for £5 is pretty damn good, even if the drinks were fairly expensive.

First band up were Caves, a fairly melodic punk band from Bristol. We came in late and missed about half of their set, but from what I could tell, they were pretty good. Nothing particularly original, except that their lead, female singer had an exceptionally gruff voice for a girl. Not a bad thing at all.

Second on were Big City Plan, hailing from Birmingham. It’s difficult to compare them to anything else, but I seemed to think that they were like a less hardcore No Trigger with rougher vocals, which is still pretty awesome. These guys were one of my favourite acts that night, with their tuneful, energetic songs receiving a great reception. Really good fun, and their song ‘Paint The Town Rad’ is a must listen. They’re also playing again soon, and I’ll definitely be seeing them again.

Next up was James Black, a folk punk artist from London. Now, I like folk punk, and I like it a lot, but every song here sounded exactly the same, both lyrically and musically, and not in a good way. I found him to be fairly bland and he didn’t really fit with the rest of the line up. Folk punk is tricky to get right, and you don’t need to shout all the time to do it. It also wasn’t too interesting to watch, even though I’ve found someone with nothing but a guitar to be compelling in the past. Personally, I’d give this guy a miss.

The Amistad, a relatively local band, were on next. The Amistad have this real charm about them, probably because they talk lots in between songs and are genuinely quite funny. The songs are good too. Very catchy, with the potential to become real anthems. They probably didn’t sound as good as they could, due to the vocalist having taken over bass duties and not really being able to play it. He managed pretty well though! Great energetic punk rock and one I’ll definitely be looking out for.

Finally, North Lincoln took the floor. I really have only one word to describe their set – amazing. They had a really laidback approach, and knew that they were having fun, which in turn meant we were having fun with some awesome music. Their gruff punk anthems filled the basement well, playing really old stuff as well as the last few songs they wrote. Everybody in the crowd was there for the same reason – to see North Lincoln – which sounds like a strange and obvious remark, but too often, I go to gigs and see people there because they were dragged there with friends, or because they wanted to see the support, or because it’s something to do, and it made for an incredible experience. All I can say is that it’s a shame North Lincoln won’t be touring again, because their wonderfully melodic punk needs to be heard live to be truly appreciated.