Leatherface – Boat In The Smoke (DVD)

England’s Leatherface have been making music together since the late 80’s, but it wasn’t until after they had broken up and reformed again in 1998 that most people (particularly in North America) began to take notice. A split CD on BYO Records with Hot Water Music and a U.S. tour gained the band a dedicated following, and now on the heels of their most recent record “Dog Disco”, the band has released a DVD courtesy of U.K. video label Punkervision.

“Boat In The Smoke” consists primarily of a live performance recorded in March 2004 at Camden Underworld. The band plays a variety of songs spanning their entire discography (16 songs in all), although the largest selection of songs comes from Dog Disco. The crowd seems to be set off most by the older material though, such as Horsebox’s “Sour Grapes” and Mush’s “Dead Industrial Atmosphere”. Also included as part of their encore is a rendition of “You Are My Sunshine”, and I am happy to see that the whole ironic punk rock cover trend is still alive and well 10 years later.

It’s clear that Frankie Stubbs and co. are a little bit older than a lot of today’s young pretty boy pop-punk rockers (the very definition of grizzled veterans in fact), and their music sounds appropriately a lot rougher and more unkempt too. The band’s style of raw yet melodic old school punk rock puts them somewhere between Social Distortion and Avail. Stubbs’ gravelly voice sounds like he just finished eating a broken beer bottle before hitting the stage, and for viewers who have never heard the band before, it may wear on them enough to turn it off within the first few minutes.

Shot on digital video, the picture quality is decent, and the action is captured from a variety of angles. Unfortunately, the low light environment sometimes results in grainy video, and for the most part the band is always bathed in red stage lights making it not the most visually pleasing thing to watch. But hey, this is punk rock right? It’s supposed to be messy… I guess. At least the sound recording is good, so there’s nothing to complain about there.

In addition to the Camden show, there are 7 songs from a 2001 show in Sunderland. The sound quality and video quality for these songs are definitely a lot lower than the main feature, but the band plays with a little more urgency and spunk.

An interview with Frankie Stubbs is also included on the disc, clocking in at just under 30 minutes in length. He sits in his backyard and talks a lot about the current state of the punk rock scene, and also the history of the band and how they got their start. I’m sure Leatherface fans will find this to be a nice little bonus even though he is rather quiet and soft-spoken.

In the end, this is a DVD made by and for fans of Leatherface. It is what it is. Personally, I don’t consider myself a fan of their music and I can’t say this DVD has changed my mind. As far as music DVDs go, it’s a little below par in terms of the quality and variety of material, but it is an independent release for a punk rock band so I guess you can’t expect much more than this. If you like the band then I’m sure this is an essential disc, although I would imagine it’s not a very good substitute for actually being at a Leatherface show yourself. — Sean

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