2019 was another wonderful year for CPRW. We continued to showcase many of our favourite DIY punk bands and discovered plenty more which we happily told you all about. We visited a new festival – Booze Cruise Festival in Hamburg – and went along to some old favourites, such Manchester Punk Festival and Level Up Fest, and had a smashing time watching great bands and hanging with the best people. We also celebrated our fifth birthday in June by releasing a 125 band compilation album showcasing so many of the friends we have made through CPRW. Again a huge thanks to everyone who contributed, shared and bought the comp – we have raised £670 for Mind (so far). You can still get it here. We had a great year in 2019 and we're planning an even better 2020.
Hopefully you've seen by now the biggest news we have about CPRW for 2020. Following the success of our fifth birthday comp, I have decided to start up CPRW Records. I had a lot of fun putting together the birthday comp and enjoyed communicating with bands and getting it all put together so I figured it would be good to make it a more regular thing. The aims of CPRW Records are simple – showcase some of our favourite bands and raise money for charities we care about. We are planning to release a new comp every two months, all based around a different theme and raising money for a different charity. The first two themes are based around Positive Communities and Bands With Less Than 200 "Likes". The Positive Communities comp is out on the 24th of January, pre-orders will be up soon and the Bands With Less Than 200 "Likes" is scheduled (in my fancy new Star Wars calendar that my sister got me for Christmas) for March 20th. More details on that, including a much snappier title, will come at the beginning of March. If you have any ideas for future themes or you would like to get involved in some way, please don't hesitate to get in contact with us at hello@colinspunkrockworld.co.uk.
Don't worry fans of words! Even though we're expanding, we won't be neglecting our album and gig reviews, top tens and columns. These are the things that are the foundation of CPRW and we will continue to post these articles as regularly as ever. We still retain a great passion for sharing releases we love with you and hoping that you enjoy them as much as we do. We're also planning on adding some different features to the blog which we think you will enjoy and create some interesting discussion among the punk rockers. If there's one thing we love, it's a passionate discussion about music. We've got a few new contributors joining the CPRW team to help with the workload and give fresh perspectives on different topics. They’re as passionate and excited about punk rock as we are and will be great additions to our already brilliant team. Look out for new articles from them. Also, if you're passionate about punk rock and fancy writing about it get in touch – we love welcoming new folk to the team. Our email is hello@colinspunkrockworld.co.uk.
We're looking forward to some new releases from our favourite bands in 2020. 2019 was a great year for new releases and, with all the great bands all over the world, we fully expect the coming year to be the same. There's nothing we love more than getting excited over new albums and we can't wait to hear what bands are going to release in the coming months. We're also looking forward to another year packed full of gigs and festivals. First up for us is Do It Together, an event we're excited to put on with our best buds Paul from Be Sharp Promotions and Sarah from Shout Louder and Lockjaw Records. Tickets and details are available here. I'd buy tickets if I were you, it's going to be a special weekend. Speaking of our best bud Paul, Be Sharp Promotions have an incredible year lined up and I really suggest you give their Facebook page a like to keep up to date with some of the incredible things he's got lined up for the New Cross Inn.
Festivals are always a big highlight of every year in punk rock. We're excited to return to Manchester Punk Festival and Hamburg Booze Cruise in 2020. We're also going to some festivals we've never been to before – the Bristol edition of Booze Cruise, Kaiser Fest in Belgium and Punk Rock Holiday in Slovenia. We can't wait to check out some new bands and make some new punk pals in the summer.
2020 is going to be another big year for DIY punk rock and we're looking forward to attempting to cover as much as it as we possibly can!
This column was written by Colin Clark.
No comments:
Post a Comment