A few weeks back, the arrival of Jack White in London for a short-notice gig at the 890-capacity Islington Assembly Hall caused much excitement among broadsheet newspaper music journalists who saluted the former White Stripes man for what The Telegraph's headline writers called “a one-man mission to rescue rock ’n’ roll’s soul”. Taken in tandem with recent editorials lamenting the disappearance of bands, written by commentators who long ago stopped attending gigs in venues with fewer than 10,000 seats, one could be forgiven for imagining that Britain has become a desolate wasteland for rock 'n' roll, that one might drive from city to city on any given weekend on a desperate, doomed The Last Of Us-style question for the sound of an over-driven electric guitar. This, of course, is utter nonsense. Every single night there are hundreds of bands playing shows up and down the length of the UK, and just because the lazy, the jaded and the professionally blinkered have given up on rock music doesn't mean the rest of us have to, or will.
As he mentions in his typically entertaining introduction to Lost in Bermondsey, John Reis aka Speedo aka Slasher aka Swami has been visiting the UK, and London specifically, since the early '90s, first with his best-known band, San Diego showmen Rocket From The Crypt, and subsequently with a host of equally explosive rock'n'roll collectives, from Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes to The Night Marchers, Sultans, and Plosivs. Most of those gathered in Hackney's Oslo bar tonight will have seen at least three or four of those bands in the past, and are here in the sure and certain knowledge that their introduction to Swami & The Bed Of Nails will be a joyous one.
Following an early doors set from fellow punk rock lifers Dealing With Damage, Swami leads his latest identically-dressed crack rock 'n' roll troupe onto the Oslo stage, and ushers in the night's entertainment not with a song from the newly-released All Of This Awaits You, but with Do You Still Wanna Make Out? from 2022's Ride The Wild Night, his first official solo album. For the faithful, it's a nice little tease that anything could happen over the next hour, and a sure-fire way to keep everyone on their toes. Not that Swami ever fails to deliver: one of the finest story tellers in punk rock history, Reis introduces the likes of When I Kicked Him In The Face and Vape In The Dark Alone with amusing stories about their origin, and admits that when it comes to making music he remains a proud “troglodyte”, married forever to the old ways. We wouldn't want it any other way.
The night speeds by all to fast, with All Of This Awaits You singles Privacy, How Are You Peeling? and Ketchup, Mustard and Relish among the main set highlights, each a perfect nugget of concise punk 'n' roll ramalamawopbamboom. Before the night is out Swami's supportive audience are also treated to a blast through The Night Marchers' All Hits (from 2013's Allez Allez album) and a glorious set-closing I Hate My Neighbours In The Yellow House, released in 2020 as a taster for Ride The Wild Night.
In about 20 years time, if such things still exist, heritage music magazines will doubtless do a retrospective feature on John Reis, heralding him as one of the great cult artists of the early 21st century, a true believer in the power of bare bones riff rock, uncorrupted by fads and fashions, yet cruelly overlooked for mainstream success at the time. Swami will look back and laugh, but right here, right now, he remains an elemental and essential underground voice, and always worth your precious time.
