All Years Leaving - Introducing Distophia
On November 15th & 16th This is Tmrw will be hosting their first ever music festival, All Years Leaving, at the Hare & Hounds.
The weekend will see a number of bands, including Yuck, Dutch Uncles & Distophia play across the two days. In the run up to the festival we shall be featuring a number of ’Introducing’ blogs to showcase some of the acts that will be gracing the H&H main stage. This time it’s the turn of Distophia, who are reforming after 10 years to play the Saturday of AYL.
DISTOPHIA
From: Birmingham
Playing: Saturday 16 November @ All Years Leaving Festival
“This young quartet have adopted Sonic Youth’s dirty chug combined it with Dinosaur Jr-style guitar and Pavement-esque vocals then blown the whole package sky high. Stunning!” Kerrang in 2003
“Local heroes”, “the band’s favourite band”, “should’ve made it massive”: all quotes that often come up in conversations involving Distophia and their imminent return to play a very special reunion show at this year’s AYL Festival. Having been the leading presence on Birmingham’s underground noise scene in the early noughties with amp-blowingly loud shows, on stage gymnastics that saw venue ceilings collapse, and some of the wittiest cutting stage banter this side of Kings Heath, the band were eagerly snapped up by Necessary Records in 2002 as their first signing. Their debut record ‘Soda Lake’ (a mini-album comprising of perfect pop meets swaithes of feedback recorded in under 10 hours) was released in 2003 upon an unsuspecting world, one that sadly was too drunk and too dumb buying into the I’m a bloody lad indie of the recent Necessary Record’s signings Hard-Fi. Whilst pumping every rolled up bank note the label could find back into the arses of their pop chart successes it was Distophia who were left exacerbated and frustrated.
Despite national tours and critical acclaim from both press and fans alike Distophia split in 2006 just as their second record was about to see the (official) light of day. But this isn’t a sob story, this is a band that got back up and got on with doing things their way whether it be the sublime Calories, Sunshine Frisbee Lazerbeam or Burning Alms, in some form or other Pete Dixon and co have been a prominent fixture in the city ever since. But then Distophia have always been the “will they won’t they get back together” of Birmingham’s recent musical history, and songs like “Robert Redford”, “Cats of Brazil”, “Children Know The Score” and “Joanne” still blast out of our speakers to this day, so to have them back for AYL festival is obviously a big deal for us!
The “band’s favourite band” returns to celebrate the release of that debut record now a glorious 10 years old. Expect this to be a welcome back party like none other before, you know the score.
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