This weeks top ten comes from Max Qayyum from Taco Hell and Seeing Your Scene.
JT Soar / Nottingham's DIY scene
You would think that Birmingham, being the second city and all, would have a good DIY scene. But there’s absolutely nothing at all. When I moved to Nottingham for uni I was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of shows, bands and venues. I started going to JT Soar, a converted fruit and veg warehouse turned DIY space, where I now put on shows and where we practice. Phil Booth is one of the coolest people that I know.
Good promoters
Building on that, good promoters made me want to get more and more involved. My friend Chris Fishlock, who I started Seeing Your Scene with, helped me with my first couple of shows, then seeing people like Shanks, James Birtwhistle, Hudson, Sarah Carey, Phil, etc putting on great shows constantly made me wanna carry on and be as cool as them.
Rise Against
Rise Against were basically the first punk band that I got into when I was young. It was cool to see a band with strong social messages in their relatively poppy music. I don’t listen to them as much these days, but still love them. I got to interview Tim McIlrath, their singer, a while back and he was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Against Me!
The natural progression from Rise Against is to Against Me!, I think. I have probably listened to Reinventing Axl Rose more than any other record ever. It’s just perfect - raw with amazing songwriting.
A Wilhelm Scream
My favourite band, their music is technical and really weird. Makes me want to be a much better drummer. I have no idea how they write their guitar parts. Also, another bunch of really nice people who I’ve interviewed a bit over the years.
The National
I got into The National loads a couple years back. I think that people either love or hate them. At first it never quite clicked, but when I heard “Available” and “Graceless” it made sense. Their music is really controlled, but still energetic which is something I really don’t understand how they pull off.
Other sad stuff
I listen to a lot of skate-punk and hardcore, but bands on the emo/sad side like Lydia, Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, Mates of State, Pianos Become the Teeth, Dowsing and TWIABP probably have had more of influence on our sound overall.
The UK DIY Scene
I’m kinda copying what Andy Davies did with his here. I’ve been lucky to put on a ton of cool bands for Seeing Your Scene shows over the past 2/3 years, and now I’m lucky to be able to play alongside a ton of em too with Taco Hell.
There are SO many great bands in the UK DIY scene right now, bands like Muncie Girls, Petrol Girls, Happy Accidents, Revello, Pokemon Liberation Army, Splitsville, Revenge of the Psychotronic Man and T-Shirt Weather are killing it.
One of my favourites is Austeros who I’ve put on quite a few times and are just the absolute best, nice people with total hits. My friend Sam does music as Mixtape Saints and Heavy Water is one of my favourite EPs of all time. Holy Pinto always come up and play my shows on little notice and then drive 5 hours home which is nice.
Check out Taco Hell here: https://tacohellband.bandcamp.com/
Check out Seeing Your Scene here: http://seeingyourscene.com/
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