Not Fade Away

Heavy nostalgia vibearamas will be going down this weekend when the UK Subs come to town. One of the original of the punk rock species, the UK Subs may never have impinged on the collective consciousness as much as The Pistols, Clash and Damned but hey, they sure rattled a few cages in trying. Unlike the vast majority of their contemporaries who either gave up, moved on or are in prison, the UK Subs never disbanded, never stopped playing and never stopped releasing albums. This, then, is no retro night out or special anniversary tour: it's the real thing, just as it was back in 1977.

Formed by the veteran R'n'B singer Charlie Harper, now 55 and still blasting them out, the band specialised in sub three-minute bursts of frenetic guitar blasts with trademark shouty vocals - and their contribution to the genre remains impressive. Singles such as Stranglehold, I Live In A Car and Tomorrow's Girls still resonate now as they did then, and the live album, Crash Course, remains a particular vinyl highlight.

On a musical base of souped-up pub rock, they superimposed some terrifying sonic assaults, with the debut album Another Kind Of Blues setting out their stall as one of the most dynamic and energetic of the punk rock outfits. Harper was endlessly teased about his age and musical background, but ironically enough he remains one of the great survivors and the only ever-present member in the band's ever-changing line-up. After the first flush of punk, the Subs got side-tracked slightly with the addition of some metal moments into their music, but never went the full Motley Cure monty on that one. There was also a side project, known as Urban Dogs, which specialised in MC5-style musical assaults - but the original band was still the main focus, and for the last 20-odd years, there has been an average of a new studio album every two years. Still possessed of a smattering of fans who have been with them all the time, and buoyed up by a new generation of followers, the UK Subs may not make it into any type of Hall Of Fame-type gatherings, but you can only admire their longevity and single-mindedness. There was a happy ending of sorts for Charlie Harper a few years ago, when Guns 'N' Roses recorded a version of his Down On The Farm - ensuring a large wad of publishing royalties. The one and the only UK Subs play The Da Club tomorrow night at 9 p.m. with support from Striknien and Skint. Admission is a fiver.

This year's DIY Music Festival down at The City Arts Centre has all manner of stuff lined up over the next week, with more "beat cafes", "acoustic cafes", seminars, workshops and gigs than you can shake a fanzine at. The live highlight is a performance by Funmental next Friday night (worryingly spelt Fun-De-Mental in the programme, but never mind). Always lumped in with other Asian acts such as Cornershop and Asian Dub Foundation - the so-called "New Asian Kool" according to the excitable types on The Face magazine, Funmental may not have made the same commercial breakthrough as the other two, but give it time. Their last album, Erotic Terrorism, was one of those epic and bombastic works that fused traditional-type Asian rhythms with the best of modern-day industrial music. They've got a good T-shirt too, which says "If you don't stand up for something, you'll fall for anything".

Formed by Aki Nawaz, co-founder of Nation Records, seven years ago, the Bradford band came sprinting out of the traps with enough searing rhetoric to capture people's attention and enough pan-global samples to keep them interested. The early singles, Righteous Preacher and Gandhi's Revenge subverted the then Asian stereotype of political humility. Arguably they paved the way for Cornershop - but something tells me they wouldn't be very happy about that statement. There's a particular stand-out single called Dog Tribe which memorably begins with a hate-filled anonymous phone message from the far-right organisation, Combat 18. The following hip-hop inflected album, Seize The Time, saw them being compared to Public Enemy. A fairly awesome live band, they play the City Arts Centre next Friday night at 10 p.m.

Those nice, polite girls from Chicks are playing The Temple Bar Music Centre tomorrow as part of the March Against Racism event. Also on the bill are Heavy Flow and King Sativa. It all starts at 3 p.m., ends at about 9 p.m. and admission is absolutely free . . . The same venue also hosts The Divine Comedy for a special one-off, low-key, etc., gig on September 5th. Young Neil's new album, Fin De Siecle, is out now (see review in The Records).

Next week: Release the bats: it's a Goth special!