Pre-order my band's debut album
As well as writing about music, I also make it. I play drums in CRABS, and we’ve just announced that we’ll be releasing our debut album Down From London on 21 June.
When people ask what sort of music we play, I usually tell them, “Punk, I guess.” So that’ll do for you too. We play punk. I guess. It’s noisy, anyway. And fun. So much fun. Our songs are generally about living in a small town that is in the process of rapid gentrification. No just that, but mainly that.
Pre-order it on CD or download at Bandcamp.
We’re playing an album launch show at the Tom Thumb Theatre in Margate on 21 June. You can also catch us at a couple of shows next week, supporting Armitage Shanks at the Hope & Anchor in Islington on 23 May and Mozart Estate at Where Else in Margate on 24 May.
If you’re wondering, yes, I do generally handle copywriting for the band. However, for the album liner notes the brilliant writer Iain Aitch wrote something for us. Here it is:
CRABS are the riposte to Margate's ever-spiralling gentrification that nobody asked for. Soaked in three-chord punk, rather than wallow in the false nostalgia of Kodachrome postcards, CRABS sell Margate back to the punters just how it is. It's scuzzy, it's shady and it smells of skunk. This isn't the Hamptons, even if magazines and newspapers want to label it the 8th coolest place in Britain. But, should you need it, they can help you fake it until you make it. Or at least long enough to drink up the warm white wine at the private views.
CRABS are middle-aged Margate-dwelling musos who are annoyed at having to converse with Tracey Emin or Jay Joplin every time they pop out for some milk or a 4-pack of Polish lager. Heads down, they try to avoid the poverty paparazzi as they 'shoot the poor' on the streets where the local kids run free and then try to sell the prints to Saatchi without so much as the recommendation of a decent private tutor.
Their brand of caustic rock is anything but fake, but that doesn’t stop CRABS tackling hyperlocal mysteries around pretend rock formations, which they tear into with the same speed and aplomb as they do into Airbnb owners who care more about vintage radiators than the ballooning cost of local rents. This is a band who have had enough of Brutal architecture and brutal house price inflation, and if you don’t like it you can crowdfund a legal case against them, adding to the Margate tote bag mountain.
In a time when every conversation in Margate begins with ‘when did you buy?’ or ‘how much did you pay?’, CRABS are a breath of fresh, rotting seaweed-scented air that will soon have you jumping up and down, yelling obscenities about campervans, the false notion of ‘community’ and small plates. But if the anger doesn’t do it for you, then you can enjoy tongue-in-cheek gallops through the life of the local Tory MP or the wonders of the lesser-spotted East Cliftonville sights.
Every bit as iconic as the Lido tower, yet far less Instagram-able, CRABS are here to tell you everything’s shit, and are happy to name and blame. Come to Margate and catch CRABS, before CRABS catch you.