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Midnight Mines

@midnightmines

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I mine the midnight mine

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8 days ago

I’ve been banging on so much about the Retail Simps coming to the UK that I haven’t yet given any proper attention to our other guest at Mystery Planes Number 15, UNMARRY ME, who I am very happy to be putting on.

Chris Rowley has been inspiring me for literally decades, even in the mythical lost years when it seemed like he had disappeared off the face of the earth. If you’d told me as a fifteen year old buying a copy of the ‘Rubbing The Impossible To Burst’ 45 from BPM on Granby Street in Leicester that he would re-appear in my Adulkt Life in a totally different and unexpected context then I’m pretty sure my teenage head would have exploded all over the pavement. His new band is amazing, and here is Jon Dale who can explain the new group concept better than I can:

“Unmarry Me is the unholy trinity of Lise Frances (Help She Can’t Swim), Jon Slade (Huggy Bear, Snoozers) and Chris Rowley (also Huggy Bear, Adulkt Life). They formed in 2025, so their music currently maps territory between possibility and impossibility, wild confidence and creative uncertainty. It’s formative music, still putting itself together as you’re listening, which makes it thrilling, unstable, slightly threatening; as though they’re stealthily shadowing you as you listen, urging you to notice the new in the way they pull together electronics, beats, loops, soundbeds, spoken voices, sung lungs.

I don’t want to box Unmarry Me in with too many comparisons or precursors, but if you’ve found yourself loving Flaming Tunes, The Vitamin B12, Rimarimba, Inca Eyeball, or the uncompromisingly surreal worlds created by labels like It’s War Boys! or Cordelia Records – well, those are some curious parallels, partly correct, partly dreamt.”

Their afternoon matinee show, upstairs at Walthamstow Trades Hall on Sunday 1 November, will also be the record release party for their new 5-track 12”, Lions In Autumn, on Bruit Direct Disques feom Paris, wfuch comes with a 28 page (!) full colour zine, put together by the band.

Advance tickets available from ticketlab

Photos and footage from the band’s appearance at Velcro Flats nite at Red Sun Moon earlier this month by @midnightmines

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16 days ago

In just a few weeks time THEE RETAIL SIMPS will be flying all the way over from Montreal (that’s in Canada) to pot balls all over the green baize. And when I say ‘green baize’ I mean the United Kingdom. And when I say ‘pot balls’ I mean play rocknroll songs that make people smile, nod, dance, cry, vomit and laugh. They are playing in the UK’s cursed capital TWICE and you are strongly advised, by both me and Barry Hearn, to cop advance tickets for the following shows now:

Friday 23 October - New River Studios w/ Virvon Varvon, The Weird Weather Underground + General Echo Reggae Disco dance party in the bar afterwards

Sunday 1 November (afternoon matinee show) - Mystery Planes Number Fifteen, upstairs at Walthamstow Trades Hall w/ Unmarry Me (ex-Huggy Bear), Midnight Mines + annoying tape collage mind-melt from the Major Trauma Sound System

Ticket link in bio or search up Retail Simps on Ticket Lab

The new Retail Simps LP, Real Simple, is out imminently via Total Punk Records, you have been warned by @midnightmines

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21 days ago

Virvon Varvon back from summer holidays and playing this Friday at the Hope & Anchor in Islington with The OhNos, The Phobics and Solo1981. by @midnightmines

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a month ago

Private Sorrow playing guitar in his Lemmy Caution guise as part of Black Time in Portland. Oregon, nearly two decades ago. So much time has passed that I can’t remember who took this photo, but it was probably Andy Larsen. I seem to recall this venue used to be a morgue, but maybe that’s just something that’s crept into my morbid imagination? The best moment of this evening was when me and Janie Too Bad mentioned the Sexaphone 7” to Hart from the Hunches and he blurted out “I actually liked it!”. This was Black Time’s first tour of the USA, and we were very lucky to be accompanied by the unbeatable @the_husbands_sf, who have recently started playing again. What a band.

If you want to read more about Black Time and my stupid array of ever expanding pseudonyms, then you can do so in the latest issue of Sniffy Linings, in a feature written by @chipoil, published by the fine people @totalpunk45s and available now.

If you want to see how little my guitar playing has progressed in the many years that followed this moment, then you can do so on Friday 23 October at @newriverstudios where i’ll be spraying ham-fisted two note solos all over @virvonvarvonlondon songs, and on Sunday 1 November at @tradese17 where I’ll be mining the midnight mine. Both shows are in support of the mighty Retail Simps, who are coming all the way over from Canada to entertain us with their totally brilliant take on stupido underground rocknroll. I am getting kind of organised in my old age though, and there are ADVANCED TICKETS on sale for both shows. Links in thee bio. Please consider purchasing one so I can pay the bands. Also, if you are in the UK but not in London, then tha Simps are on tour throughout the rotting kingdom in the last week of October, so you can go see them in your nearest town. by @midnightmines

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a month ago

Tell a friend to tell a friend etc

THEE RETAIL SIMPS OVER LONDON

23 Oct @ New River Studios w/ Virvon Varvon & The Weird Weather Underground. Friday nite dance party!

1 Nov @ Walthamstow Trades Hall w/ Unmarry Me & Midnight Mines. Sunday afternoon matinee special!

Advance tickets available from Ticketlab, links in bio by @midnightmines

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2 months ago

RETAIL SIMPS HIT LONDON!

All the way from Montreal, Canada 🇨🇦! What if the Velvet Underground had written ‘Wooly Bully’ and Sam The Sham ‘Sister Ray?’ If Ron House picked up some bongos and joined CCR or If Half Japanese and Hasil Adkins started a Meters cover band? This is the scrap yard of the Retail Simp’s mind. Catch them at the following dates in the UK capital:

Friday 23 October @ New River Studios w/ Virvon Varvon

Sunday 1 November, Mystery Planes Number 15 @ Walthamstow Trades Hall, afternoon matinee show w/ Unmarry Me (ex-Huggy Bear) + Midnight Mines.

Ticket links for both events in thee bio - £8 advance or £10 on the door. by @midnightmines

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2 months ago

I like zines and I like Charlie. Charlie has made a zine. It’s good. Swipe left for the email address to write to Charlie and get your own copy. Charlie’s band Xanax playing Spanners in London on 21 August. Event put on my one of my fave radio shows, Repetitive Strain. See you in the pit etc etc by @midnightmines

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3 months ago

Do you like synths? How about advice on how to drink Gyokuro with a casual mind by a duo who are coming to E17 all the way to Paris to explain this to you using wires and noises? What about a guy coming from even further (Stockholm) dressed in chain mail, who has turned a metal gauntlet into an oscillator or something? Does it get anymore dungeon synth than that? Please don’t answer that last question.

Anyway, our pal Matt Sullivan is putting on this crazy event in the upstairs room of Walthamstow Trades Hall this coming Saturday 4th July. It’s the launch party of his DIY modular synth company, with live sets from Blason (Bruit Direct Disques), Undhulat and Luke Knott. This is not a Mystery Planes event so don’t ask me what’s going on, but I will be playing some random electronic records in between the acts. If it all gets too much you can go downstairs and listen to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. by @midnightmines

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3 months ago

Sniffy Linings, the print magazine put together by the minds behind Total Punk Records, has just published its second issue, and it features a fairly long interview with me (Private Sorrow on this particular account) by my pal Chris ‘Shake’ Taylor of the Real Losers, about various strands of my punk rock history, including Black Time, Midnight Mines and Virvon Varvon.

Part of the way I deal with life (and the chaos of my own brain) is via aggressive compartmentalisation and hiding behind various concocted identities and label / disco names (I mean everyone’s identity is concocted, this is just a bit more blatant) where I don’t necessarily want people to join the dots (plus it’s fun), so this process was slightly uncomfortable, and I’m not used to being interviewed so I find answering biographical questions a bit like writing my own obituary. But all that aside, I’m grateful to Chris for putting so much time and effort into making this happen (plus the amazing graveyard rocker illustration he did to accompany the article!) and I’m happy that there’s any audience whatsoever for the music I’ve made (one of the cool things about being a DIY musician is if you go on tour you get to meet pretty much every single person that has bought one of your records, and chances are it’s their floor you’re sleeping on after the show). It was also Chris turning the tables from when I interviewed the Real Losers for Maximum RocknRoll years ago, a lot of which involved wrestling each other for a bottle of ouzo in the back of their van, not sure if it was my finest stab at journalism.

Sniffy Linings itself is the very definition of a ‘labour of love’ - 80 pages, tons of funny / interesting columns, reviews, interviews (Lavender Flu!), killer layout, AND an advice column by Tina from The Trashwomen, what more could you possibly want in a publication?? Hats off to Rich and the crew for stellar work. Issue 1 is well worth tracking down as well (tho that one might be sold out?). You can get issue 2 direct from Total Punk in the US, or in the UK 14th Floor Music have a few copies. by @midnightmines

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4 months ago

Here is documentation of SKINTERN at Mystery Planes No.14 on Saturday 30 May. I said “Brainbombs chant the scum manifesto” when attempting to hype the show and that’s not far off the reality, though whereas most bands that try and channel the Brainbombs are fucking terrible, Skintern do something totally cool and different with thee debased template. Very simple (and very catchy) riffs with caveman drums welded to skincrawling lyrics and an utterly feral vocal delivery. Reminded me of some Texan bands like Stick Men With Ray Guns or Pain Teens in places as well. Full confession: I hadn’t actually seen Skintern live when I booked them, I’d just heard their (amazing) demo tape, so was slightly worried that they would be rubbish live, but of course that was unfounded anxiety and they crushed it. Even the weird inaudible guest horn player couldn’t ruin their set. A couple of videos that I can’t post here because some of the footage projected behind the band was a bit rude! Quite a few of these slides by the prince of darkness himself, the emperor of entertainment, Deano Brannagan.

There is going to be another Mystery Planes on 1 November (Sunday matinee vibes with more random visitors from North America, details soon) and maybe one before that. Got to finish the VV, Echo Sounds and D.S.T. records at some point. And in the meantime come along to upstairs at the Trades Hall next Saturday 4 July for the Caos Modular evening with Blason and Luke Knott and Undhulat and Major Trauma Sound System. Industrial synth, cosmic synth, dungeon synth, all the synths. I think you can even buy a synth at the event? I’m sure it will be a ton of fun. by @midnightmines

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4 months ago

Here are some photos and videos of VANITY CRYSTAL at Mystery Planes No.14, which took place on 30 May in the upstairs room of Walthamstow Trades Hall. On the poster we promised MORE ETERNAL DREAM DAMAGE 4 YR SAT-UR-DAY NITE and I think it definitely delivered. Vic / Vanity Crystal plays bass in my favourite current London band (RUBBER, who destroyed my brain at Mystery Planes No.12 back in January), co-presents the excellent monthly radio show REPETITIVE STRAIN, DJs all round town, and makes mind-melting solo music like this which filters all sorts of pop culture psychic detritus into ecstatic electronic hum.

Documentation of the SKINTERN and D.S.T sets to follow. Another Mystery Planes happening sometime, though I def need to up my promotion game a bit. What we do is secret and all that, but not THAT secret.

Next Saturday 4 July, I (Private Sorrow) will be back in the same room in my Major Trauma Sound System guise, playing tunes in between acts at a night put on by my pal Matthew (another one) to launch his @caos_modular company. Live sets from @vincentblason (record out on @bruit_direct_disques) and more. It will be an excellent evening of strange sounds, see you there? by @midnightmines

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4 months ago