Apr 16, 2010

The dagda - An endless betrayal

I know that the previous post was not a musical one, but i think it's necessary to express your political speech in a difficult theme as the "revolutionary struggle" topic. Some guys will spent some (propably many) years of their lives in the "white cells" of the greek democracy, without any evidence... So, this post goes out to them...
Niko, kosta, vaggeli, Hristofore, Pola kai Saranto... We are with you...

So, let's get back on track...
I have read i fucking cool phrase in a blog once : "I know that this shit is all around the web, but it wasn't in my shit...".

The dagda was the type of band that you have to love to see live. Even, if the style of music they used to play was not your "cup of tea", these folks was an amusement of their own... I'm stealing some words from 7inchcrust : "...Dagda got on the stage and set the place on fire: Great band, awesome musicians and very nice people. great performance and the crowd went crazy, the vocalist left the stage two or three times and danced among the crowd who carried him on their hands, after an hour of mayhem they finished their show but the audience was still hungry for their crust so they came back for the encore...
One of thegreatest bands i have ever seen,one of the best gigs i have ever been..."


I was not so lucky to be among the lunatics that saw them in villa amalias squat back in the day, and the dvd from that gig is only enough to make you (or me) curse the twelve gods of olympos as long as you - still - got the lungs to do it, 'coz i bet that you will waste your breaths on screaming the lyrics of the dagda's dance...

This lp is propably one of the most haunting ones that i ever came across. Double male vocals, one screaming low-growling and one angry, yelling. Awesome drum works, check out the fifth song to understand what i am talking about. The riffs turns out demonic with an occult feeling. Imagine his hero is gone playing black metal in a rainy forest of the northern ireland.

The lyrics goes from great to greater including all the war, social themes in a personnal matter and not the typical dis-lyrics.
"With words they promised all, laid a path of pearls knowing the swine will follow. Lulled into obedience with a fable of destiny, scribed on blood...They the captains and we the crew. Every mutiny met and cosigned to the deep. An incursion by fools manned by the slaves..."

If you are not into epic, heavy, crustcore this is the right time to dig it.
7 songs, 40 minutes... Long, epic, awesome synthesis by the ultimate crust band from europe in early 00's (that i can recall). Dagda's members were previously in My Name Is Satan, Pink Turds in Space, Jobbykrust, and Bleeding Rectum.

This lp was released by : Ruin nation records, Unsociable records, Destructure records and Rinderherz records, so you may propably can find it...

Storming the gates of heaven

One thing is for sure...that live gig of the Dagda (along with athen's long gone punktrash outfit 925) will be carved on lot's of peoples memory as one of the best ones in Villa Amalias, bringing a smile to their faces, since i tentatively remember that period being one of the best the athenian squat had (musicwise at least). Pure ferocious energy, sweaty pogo dancing, stage dives from the highest speakers (wink wink...guess who and win brutal MMA beatdown), and all around good friendly atmosphere.

This LP is the follow up to the monstrous ''Threefold'' one, and continues on the same haunted path. The black metal influence is obvious, as well as the pagan/mother nature hugging attitude these veterans have gotten over the years (from their involvment with dozens of other diy bands i won't mention now). I must say i prefer the previous one (Threefold) as i find the production more raw, and because the riffs just go on and on forever, but this one is also really good, and leaves you wanting more from this Irish destroyer.

Worth mentioning is what great characters the Dagdas were, with some of them being in the diy movement for more than 15 or 20 years (!!!). Their interview on a past (but no sooo past) Profane Existance issue was enlightening as to their political wereabouts, and their various squat/action activities, and is for sure worth an eyeing.

Original fresh crust.

dbill

7 comments:

Katarameno Syndromo said...

gia pio dvd milas re miha?

mikxxx said...

To live auto sth villa
dagda / 925 yparxei se dvd (to exo)
to thes?

Katarameno Syndromo said...

e nai re c. ego ts eida sto viologiko totes...

orea opote exoume kai leme : kafka cd, perth express 7'' kai dagda/925 dvd. orea...

mikxxx said...

egine
to copiaro kai sto ferno

Scrawled aka Glyn Smyth said...

Hey...thanks for the kind words! I played guitar / vocals in The Dagda and remember the gig at Villa Amalias fondly...definitely one of my all time favourite gigs to play.

Would there be anyway of getting a DVD copy of this gig, or it being uploaded somewhere...would love to see it!

Thanks
Glyn

mikxxx said...

Hey glyn
thanx for stopping by...
Your band has haunt me so would be great to sent that dvd to you...
email me here : fifteencounts@hotmail.gr

to work it out..
cheers, mate

7inchcrust said...

Glyn, you are the vocalist,don't you?i saw you playing in Viologico squat, Thessaloniki (the second time you visited Greece),great band and very nice people.amazing gig. :)
i have the lp's and Blind kings, i m looking for the split w Scatha but nothing found yet..