Antillectual

In July we went on a tour with Propagandhi that took us through Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and Slovenia. Here’s a little impression of how we experienced that tour.

Edited by Tom Roelofs

Last weekend we had an amazing release fest in our hometown Nijmegen and a great show at Brakrock Ecofest in Duffel (Bel) the day after. Thanks to all for making these happen and making them such great experiences. We sure hope you all had as much fun as we had ourselves! Some pictures have surfaced.

By Nous Davidse

So, the album is now officially out. To order it go to our web store, and also check out the new shirts. Or stream or download “Perspectives & Objectives” at our bandcamp.

What’s next? Our upcoming European tour with Timeshares. Feel like dropping by? Do it!

AUG 30 DE Meppen, Kleinstadtfest
AUG 31 DE Holzerath, Roeds Rock Festival
SEP 01 DE Wiesbaden, Sabot
SEP 02 DE Stuttgart, Kap Tormentoso (Antillectual acoustic)
SEP 03 CH St. Gallen, Grabenhalle
SEP 04 IT Milano, Spazio Ligera
SEP 05 AT Salzburg, Shakespeare (Antillectual acoustic)
SEP 06 AT Hollabrunn, Alter Schlachthof
SEP 07 SI Ljubljana, Gromka
SEP 09 AT Graz, Sub
SEP 10 AT Wiener Neustadt, Triebwerk
SEP 11 DE München, Backstage
SEP 12 DE Leipzig, Kulturcafe Manfred
SEP 13 DE Nürnberg, Zentralcafe
SEP 14 DE Langenau, Kaos Keller
SEP 16 DE Hannover, Secret Show (Antillectual acoustic)
SEP 17 DE Köln, Sonic Ballroom
SEP 18 LU Luxembourg, Soul Kitchen
SEP 19 DE Essen, Weststadthalle
SEP 20 NL Gouda, So What
SEP 21 BE La Louvière, Boripunk Festival
SEP 22 UK London, The Black Heart (Camden) **
SEP 23 UK Cardiff, Gwdihw **
SEP 24 UK Leeds, Santiagos Bar **
SEP 25 UK Birmingham, Scruffy Murphys **
SEP 26 UK Exeter, The Cavern **
SEP 27 UK Southampton, Unit Club **
SEP 30 DE Mainz, Kulturcafe

** with Dividers (UK)

The Facebook event

With a new album come new streams! On August 23 we will release our new album “Perspectives & Objectives”. Until that date we will stream new songs from the album every Monday.

We have had the privilege to travel the world and play our music all over the place. Our new album will be released in most of those territories, including Brazil, Russia and North America. The stream of “Mother Inferior” was hosted by our Brazilian friends of Daily Hardcore. Today’s guest entry comes from our friend Aleksey who releases our albums in Russia through Angry Chuck Records. A little peek inside Russia, how we have toured over there, and how our album is released:

“Despite the fact that I live in St. Petersburg with another 5 million people (the entire population of Finland or 1/3 of Netherlands), I usually see about 50-100 people at shows, with or without local bands playing. And it’s sad, not so much people love and listen to this music and even less people visit shows. Organizing booking agencies lose money, bands don’t see much support from people. But even in such deplorable situation bands from abroad want to visit Russia. When you tour in Europe or the USA you rent a van and drive between cities. Here, in Russia, it’s little bit harder to play shows:

– Russian roads, oh.. hell yeah! Like on the Moon! And distances between towns are really huge. Do you want to spend 12-14 hours on the road from Moscow to St. Petersburg in winter when you don’t see anything except snow (Hello, dudes from ASTPAI & ARTERIES)? Come on!

– Vague expectations. You don’t know a lot about Russia, you don’t know how many people know you. So you can end up playing for 15 people.

– You need invitations to apply for visas. Sometimes you just can’t make them in time.

And if you ask me about why bands come here? I don’t have an answer for you. But I call them heroes. If they come back again – I can call them idiots, haha. Maybe it’s like a small exotic adventure: it’s interesting to see another country that lives by other “rules”, to see how people live here, to take photos with bears with balalaikas and ushanka at the Red Square in Moscow, to drink vodka? In general to have fun! Even if you don’t get much money from the shows – you will have some good memories about this place and some stories to tell your friends.

Running a DIY label/distro/mailorder in Russia is just wasting your money / time, don’t even try! But I think a lot of people from small DIY labels may say the same. Anyway I’ll tell you some peculiarities:

We don’t have a pressing plant for vinyl, so we must order records in other countries. Hello to additional shipping costs. Hello to customs and slowest Russian post (please, burn in hell). If you don’t wait for your package with records less than 60 days – you don’t know anything about this life! Your package can be lost or damaged (yeah, I know it can happen to everyone, but I have some things to compare with). The same problem with orders from other labels from abroad. Prices for shipping within Russia aren’t so good, it’s more expensive than in EU / USA I think. And shipping time is… ooh, god damn, fuck Russian post again and again! I think I can talk about such problems forever.

But anyway I like to run DIY label / distro / mailorder! Now I know so much great people in Europe and USA. It’s a really great choice to meet new friends over the world, to listen to new great bands, to make your life more interesting.”

– Aleksey / Angry Chuck Records

Pre-order “Perspectives & Objectives”, or a package including it and receive a stream right after. After this, 1 more song to go! Next week another song about family. Not about a mother, but a father.

Mother Inferior

Mother married the minister, she got divorced because of the abuse
Sold her body to the businessman, as before, the kids got bruised

Mother’s task, to look after us, disregarded by her taste in men
Best for all would be to stress: please, be a single mom again

We, the kids, file for divorce
We, the kids, had it with these conflicts of interest
Keep in mind the welfare of us all
Keep your eyes focused on the ball

Liner notes:

The separation of church and state has gained ground since the 19th century. Well, kind of. Governments are supposed to be autonomous in their actions, independent of whatever external institution and should only represent the people that give them sovereignty. However, since the 1990s governments seem to have lost their autonomy and have become more and more intertwined with and dependent of economic forces. No longer the church, nor The People are the ones pulling the strings. CEOs, lobbyists and the fear for economic despair seem to be in charge. Instead of becoming a modern, independent, single mom, our governments have sold themselves to the highest bidder, without taking their kids’ interest at heart.

Today we present the last addition to our release fest on August 23. Last week the band was announced as Serious Talent at 3Fm (national Dutch radio), previously they released 2 EP’s on Shield Recordings. May we have your attention for The Road Home! If you like your punk Gaslight Anthemic or Socially Distorted, make sure to check them out and drop by on the 23rd!

If you pre-order your ticket through the Doornroosje website you can now get a stream of the new album if you forward us the confirmation email or screen print of your ticket. In case you bought a physical ticket, scan/take a picture of it and send it to info@antillectual.com to receive a stream of our as of yet unreleased album.

With a new album come new streams! On August 23 we will release our new album “Perspectives & Objectives”. Until that date we will stream new songs from the album every Monday.

The “axe effect”, what does that remind you of? Shredding your guitar, or making sure you don’t smell bad? I’m afraid the latter. The advertisement around us is successfully playing in on consumers’ insecurities about their appearance. Whether we look good enough, smell the right way and wear the right clothes. For some reason that reminds me of elementary school and its bullies. I hope you didn’t buy their shit back then and I hope you don’t fall for their shit right now.

Today’s guest writer is an artist named Bansky. Not that we asked him to contribute to this song, but after finishing “Bullies” we stumbled across one of his writings about modern day advertising. It is so in line with the theme of this song that we borrowed his words for liner notes and guest contribution. I’m sure he doesn’t mind:

“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and all the fun is happening somewhere else.They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are ‘The Advertisers’ and they are laughing at you.

You, however are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”

– Banksy

Pre-order “Perspectives & Objectives”, or a package including it and receive a stream right after. After this, 2 more songs to go. Next week another song that might sound familiar, about our mom.

Bullies

“You stink, you are fat and you are ugly
What the hell are you wearing?”
Some examples from a bully’s menu
“Kids can be so cruel”

“You stink, you are fat and you are ugly
What the hell are you wearing?”
Random commercials on our TV
“You want to become cool?”

Everybody wants to be unique
But nobody wants to stand out
Sweaty, smelly, hairy, belly; not all dwarfs fit the fairy tale
Photoshop can save us all

Flash-forwards to a promising future
Give me flashbacks to a troubled past
Manipulated, objectified and brainwashed
Solutions to a problem we never addressed

Don’t believe them, the schoolyard bullies when you were young
Don’t believe them, the corporate bullies that tell you wrong
Don’t believe their fairy tales, “improving” who you are
Don’t buy what the bullies tell or sell you