ALL ABOUT POINTY BOSS

Pointy Boss?
Who's that?
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What's their music like?
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This most singular of Nottingham punk rock combos is staffed, with one relatively youthful exception, by member of the local elderly community who ought to know better — what, with the waiting lists for hip replacements these days and everything.

Not that you'd focus on their crumbliness when they're on stage, and not that you'd think about it when you hear their music. Pete (vocals) and Rich (bass) have both played in countless different punk bands since the late 1970s, and have worked together musically since the mid-1990s. Keith's (guitar) punk rock music career began in the latter years of the 1980s. Brian (drums) is the newcomer of the group, joining what is his first band in the autumn of 2003. Personal band biographies for each band member can be found here.

Formed in the heady long-forgotten days of 1999 from the ashes of Channel Stoopid and the long desiccated remains of Mr Jolly, Pointy Boss set to work composing a vital new collection of popular guitar anthems that might properly showcase the band's innovative and thoughtful reinterpretation of the punk rock rule book.

In a few short, frenetic months, the band produced a startlingly effective debut set, which secured its first, memorable, public airing at Nottingham's own Running Horse that December. The Evening Post website described the band's performance as marked by:

‘thrashy and snotty exuberance.'

In the spring of 2000, Pointy Boss headed into the studio to record the band's first, and celebratedly basic, demo CD. The resulting four-song recording was heralded by City Light's magazine as:

'Music as it should be played — no frills, no glitz, just fast, furious and great fun to mosh to ... We're all Pointy Boss Fans now ...'

What that now-classic demo lacked in finesse and sophistication it more than made up for in energy and attack. 'We Are Demo' quickly became the band's promotional calling-card, securing them further live dates, in the following few months, as far afield as different parts of Nottingham town centre.

At the end of that year, five gigs on and with the band's live set now bursting with razor-sharp new material, Pointy Boss returned to the studio to begin work on a second CD demo. Released in the Summer of 2001, No Frills, No Glitz was described — inaccurately — on the punkoiuk website as sounding:

'like a faster version of The Buzzcocks'.

The band squeezed in a total of five gigs in 2001, finishing off with a classic peformance as far afield as Mansfield in November. Highlights of the following year's six performances include a set at the Derby Victoria Inn, in June; and the band's appearance at a 'Positivity' show, back at the Nottingham Old Vic.

In May 2003, the band recorded two tracks for the UK Subs tribute CD Brand New Rage. Released in early 2004, Brand New Rage became Pointy Boss's first commercial release.

In July 2003, original Pointy drummer Nik announced that he was leaving the band. The remaining members immediately began the search for a replacement, whilst continuing to write and rehearse as a three-piece (with Pete on drum duties, and Rich taking over lead vocals). In the autumn of 2003, new drummer Brian joined Pointy Boss, and intensive rehearsals began to prepare for a return to the live circuit.

Prior to Nik's departure, work had begun on a new full-length studio album. The new CD Things Like That was completed in the early spring of 2004, and can be heard here and purchased on-line here.

The band's influences are wide ranging, drawing on the best of classic and contemporary punk rock and new wave, and those bits of heavy metal and twelve bar that don't suck.

Band names that most of the group would give up under interrogation include — The Damned, The Ramones, Devo and Rancid. Other names that the band would fall out about about include — Crass, No Means No, Green Day and Hanoi Rocks.

The world of Pointy Boss is intended to be a fun one. Although the band does contain a sprinkling of steely-eyed and ruthless anti-state guerillas, determined to lay waste to the grotesque edifice of world capitalism, such concerns are off the Pointy agenda. The band's lyrical obsessions tend more towards the personal angst, torment and self-doubt associated with becoming an increasingly old git.

Pointy Boss are not in it for the money or the fame — which (as the man said) is just as well, considering the rewards so far reaped by the group. The band are in it for the sheer joy of writing, rehearsing, recording and performing punk rock ditties of their very own making. For as long as that still seems like fun, there will be a Pointy Boss.