US CULTURE is going down the drain along with human rights, democracy and any semblance of justice. At one musical extreme Trump’s lackeys have taken over the Kennedy Center, home of prestigious and progressive classical concerts and other “high culture” events. 

At the other, the country which gave us the Velvet Underground, MC5, Dead Kennedys and Rancid has just denied access to three quarters of England’s legendary punk band UK Subs despite their having the correct paperwork - the only logical conclusion being that it’s because of their social media postings about Trump. 
 
UK musicians are already having problems getting into Europe because of Brexit, now it looks as though we’re going to be increasingly shut out of the US because of Agent Orange. Everything is turning bollocks, stuff which was already bollocks is turning even more bollocks, and we need to give Trump, Vance and Putin the sack before things get hairier still. 
 
Charging around again last week: four gigs in three days in the north-west and a very creditable 2-2 draw for Brighton away at Man City. The highlight was a return to The Station in Ashton Under Lyne for another fundraiser in support of landlady Pauline Town and her team’s brilliant community self-help project We Shall Overcome. 

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A packed pub saw brilliant sets from Eastfield, Indignation Meeting and Mary Moden and the Male Members, interspersed with poems and songs from a shouty bloke from Southwick. Here’s a picture of most of the cast: a great time was had by all and £350 raised to support the homeless and hungry in the area. Tonight the mighty Joe Solo will be doing another gig there as this fantastic musician-led initiative goes from strength to strength. 
 
Now it’s time for some album reviews – and they are all absolute belters in completely different ways. I’ll start with One Foot In Front Of The Other, the latest from Muddy Summers & the Dirty Field Whores, whose inspirational leader Gail sings words of strength and survival to superb folk-punk-jazz-classical melodies. 

Wonderful musicianship – especially the violin – and very personal reflections allied to calls to arms. “Human rights are being eroded/unless of course you’re fucking loaded.” Tate’s misogyny, misguided sectarian activists claiming the suffragettes’ banner, a cornucopia of crap urged to “get in the bin” with panache, style, sensitivity and confidence. 
 
The Big Picture, the third offering from London/Bristol singer-songwriter Gecko, whose debut Volcano was my album of the year in this column a few years ago, is a whimsical, relaxed, beautiful record ostensibly about evolution (he rhymes “millennia” and “smellier”), birds singing the dawn chorus, birds migrating, pigs escaping from humans (The Tamworth Two) living under a forest canopy, finding your life partner, living far too far away from people you love (Family To Me) and escaping from a desert island, which means that it’s at least partially a desert island disc. 

And everything I have just described is basically a great big allegory for Life, and is summed up on the last track, The Universe, which is actually about Will hoping that people who come to his gigs remember what happened afterwards. It’s a beautiful, warm, melodic, human record where tiny things become huge. Bit like evolution, actually. All the arrangements are played on proper instruments. And Gecko, whose real name is Will, is one of the gentlest and nicest people in the world. 

Finally let’s bring the noise. A Model World is the second album from the aforementioned Indignation Meeting, a veritable Partridge Family of musical railway enthusiasts fronted by a 15-year-old multi-instrumentalist visionary called Peter. His blasting, data-sodden, anthemic songs are about narrow gauge railways (I didn’t think it was possible to write an anthemic song about a narrow gauge railway, but Talyllyn Railway is that very thing)  mall black shunters and various other sundry railway accessories and contain incitements to illegal acts while trainspotting. 

His mum, dad and sister are in the band, along with a hairy metal bassist called Hugo who plays guitar in the mighty Blyth Power, from whom Indignation Meeting are a fortuitous and glorious mutation. See them both supporting my band Barnstormer 1649 in Yorkshire in April.

For further info please visit https://www.facebook.com/attilathestockbroker and/or https://attilathestockbroker.bandcamp.com/merch