All the Bands

This trio from west London play high-energy, no-nonsense rock'n'roll

The Actionettes are an all-female dance troupe who choreograph their own synchronised routines to songs by sixties girl groups, such as the Shangri-Las, the Ronettes, the Marvelettes, and other 1970s icons such as Nancy Sinatra and Dusty Springfield. They have performed all over the UK and in Europe too, bringing some sparkle and panache to club nights and other events, as well organising their own club. They describe themselves as 'strictly amateur' as none of them have experience - except for years on the dance floor every Saturday night.

Hand picked from the cream of washed up child stars and inbred royals, with their tailored cut of nervously stitched rock and roll, this swamp of degenerate apes beat the Jesus out of the art of ability, like Cole Porter's bastard child after a night on the tiles, it throbs and pummels, it doesn't stand and wait, it lurches at you like a drunken uncle. A visceral soup of subtle innuendo and palatable bad taste.

Medway's premier league 1977 punk band have been bashing out all manner of punk rockery since 1991. Back in action with a freshened-up band and better than ever, they are belting out the finest old school punk classics alongside new classics of their own making. Resist their albums "Urinal Heep" and "Top Of The Plops" at your peril. Do you dare to miss the authentic sound of the suburbs as Dick Scum and chums leer in your face and veer your brain cells towards the inevitable cider and glue apocalypse? It's punk and it's rock, it's punk rock.

What name would be more accurate for a rock'n'roll band in the present times - in a decade where car bombs, ethnic cleansing, suicide bombing, and kidnapping are the equivalent of elevator music on the news? Guitars rumble like a Panzer rolling through a French village, drums pound like mortar shells hitting no-man's land, the singer wails like it might be his last day on Earth. This is a band for people who are into the MC5, Stooges and Suicide, and all the noise-merchants that came after them, through to the Royal Trux and Brian Jonestown Massacre. By the way, these garage punkers from Berlin like to point out that there are two asses in the band name...

Maximum Rock'n'Roll says: "Screaming, overdriven rock'n'roll compression at it’s best. Atomic Suplex are the British Guitar Wolf, the English Lightning Bolt or maybe the London New York Dolls." Time Out, meanwhile, says: “This is probably what Bill Haley sounds like if you have the worst tinnitus in the world. Not so much a sonic cathedral as a sonic corrugated iron shed.”

With a big fan base in their native Brazil, who love their startling and energetic mixture of the B52s, Dick Dale, Devo and the Ventures, this power trio has toured across South America and even accompanied Guitar Wolf all across Japan. Make sure to check out the video for "Mundo Moderno": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LUgFBTa-v4

NME says they're a "dirty, scuzzy garage-rock band whose songs sound like they were actually recorded in a shed in Detroit by Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs... Tunes that make us want to neck a bottle of Jack Daniels, turn up the stereo and shake it like a Polaroid picture."

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A bluesy rock'n'roll outfit who formed three years ago in London, Barrelhouse play all original numbers, all of which are floor fillers, packed with energy, guaranteed to get the crowd moving. The band's stated aim is to aims to bring the British blues scene into the 21st century with their raw, explosive sound. This is a band that has that invigorating zeal of a 17-year-old hearing his first Stooges record. With their blasts of rockin’ guitar’n’drums their song bite you, shake up up. This is a sweat-soaked blues frenzy that has the urgency of an ambulance careening along back-alley streets with a man on the brink of death inside. American Guitarist/singer/songwriter Mat Treiber will return to Dirty Water to guest with Barrelhouse for a couple numbers on this date. http://www.themattreibergroup.com

Batrider sound like a grainy 16mm black and white snuff movie of Courtney Love going hard at it on PJ Harvey with a whisky bottle. Their punk-grunge noise is a slick, ugly, powerful creature that, once it sinks its claws in, refuses to let go…

With his latest combo, The Musicians of the British Empire, Billy carries on his tradition of home made punk and rhythm and blues, singing odes to Joe Strummer and nodding to The Who, whilst showing the next generation what a real rock ’n’ roll group sounds like. Since his first recordings in the late '70s with the Pop Rivets, Childish has followed a single-minded course under a variety of monikers including the Headcoats, the Milkshakes, the Mighty Caesars and more recently the Buff Medways. Childish hasn't really deviated from his punky Kinks-Who-Bo Diddley-Link Wray formula – but, hey, if it’s good it’s good, if it ain’t broke there’s no need to fix it!

Armed with addictive melodies, compulsive rhythms and striking suits, The Bishops are rightfully carving their ascension towards the heights of rock’n’roll prominence. Their self-titled debut album was produced by the creative genius of Liam Watson at the infamous Toe Rag Studios, whose lean, fat-free, no-nonsense production packs a meaty punch when required but is sparing when necessary. It captures the band’s raw sixties influenced beat sound perfectly, with them coming across as a more punky version of Hamburg era Beatles.

A three-piece fuzzed-out electric rock'n'roll band, their songs are distorted blues - maybe from a different time, maybe from a different place, or maybe just distorted… But peel back the fuzz and distortion and you're left with some real musicianship. There's no Clapton-esque trying-to-be-clever here, though. Just some great, loud, riffage with nods to sixties British blues imitators and seventies balls-out rocking. If you thought the blues  just about slow, ponderous songs, full of super extended guitar solos - think again! The Black Apples have a no-nonsense approach to the music – they strut confidently on-stage and blast through their exciting and electrifying set with the precision of a guided missile.

Straight outta Nashville and self styled vagrants of the world The Black Diamond Heavies sound like a freight train derailing and rock twice as hard, a unique punk blues pairing of drums and keys only or as they put it skin and bone. Imagine the ghosts of John Bonham and Ray Charles jamming Fat Possum's back catalogue in hell with Tom Waits on vocals and you're half way there...

The Black Flowers have taken off right where the Hellacopters left off, only they have taken an extra dose of their punk rock vitamins. Coming over from Lyon, France, they deliver balls-to-the-wall fist-pumping rock’n’roll that would make Iggy proud. Their new six-song EP, including songs such as "Set Free the Devil Inside" and "Keep Coming On", is chock-full of ’70s riffage  played with the energy and spontaneity of punk rock with razor-sharp edges.

Pitchfork says of their new album 200 Million Thousand: “Whatever you like to call the Black Lips' particular branch of guitar rock - garage, revival, their own “flower punk” tag – it’s an easier sell whenever the band in question is painted the fastest, craziest, or most depraved in the land. But it's long past time we put the band's reputation and ridiculous press aside and look at them for who they are; they're neither buffoons nor savants, and they deserve to be judged on their music, which was plenty maniacal without taking any outside factors into consideration. Now on the verge of a potential breakthrough-- maybe because of it, who knows-- on 200 Million Thousand, Black Lips sidestep expectations and make a record less approachable than its predecessor. Indeed, the cleaner sound and summery pop of Good Bad Not Evil has been ditched here for a psychedelic haze.”

Featuring former members of the Action Time and the Hotwires, Black Time indulge their love for underground LA punk legends Crime and obscure, mostly forgotten DIY punk 45s, mixed in with the Cramps and early Fall.

Formed in Hitchin in 1977 and originally called the Fur Coughs, The Bleach Boys are punk's best kept secret. The best way to describe them is simply to say that they're very loud and very fast, with a sense of hunour in everything they do. Dead kennedys meets The Ramones on speed or Red Bull (if you want to stay legal). They might be old enough to know better (as if that's a good thing!) but they aim to keep on going "until someone else out-punks us"!

These garage rockers from Buffalo, New York are "experts at making stripped-down and basic sounds vital and exciting"..."a sweat-soaked blues frenzy that has the urgency of an ambulance careening along back-alley streets with a man on the brink inside"