New York, NY (Top40 Charts) With 'Put 'Em Up', CH3 has delivered a career-defining album. Written and recorded in the wary post-election days of 2017, the collection of 10 songs are connected as a tightly focused novella, a 'concept album' by nature of the timeframe and frame of mind in which it was recorded. The music remains refined punk with traces of classic '77 Brit to 80's hardcore, power pop rock, which combined, make up the CH3 sound.
The album sees the reunion of several long time CH3 conspirators. Past Channel 3 member and Posh Boy house producer Jay Lansford returned to produce. Jim Monroe of Racket Room Studios engineered and mixed the songs, and Mark Rainey is relaunching the venerable TKO record label with this new release. Seve Soto (Adolescents) lends his sweet backing vocal charms. It is a homecoming on all fronts.
A timely and urgent commentary on current events, with clean, visceral lyrics and a blistering soundtrack provided by long time bassist Anthony Thompson and new drummer Nick Manning.
Some of the songs reference back to the band's earlier political works such as "Manzanar", as those concerns seem more relevant than ever. Other songs deal with the politics of the heart and themes that have become a trademark of the bittersweet CH3 songbook.The stark Fighter Stencil imagery done by Kiyoshi "lucky" Nazazawa for the cover art is the perfect complement to the combative music within.
Channel 3 was formed in 1980 by childhood friend Mike Magrann and Kimm Gardener. They met in the newborn suburban community of Cerritos CA, innocent 8 year old lads lads who remain life long friends against a backdrop of ever changing cultural storms. They learned to play guitar together in junior high and witnessed the birth of punk rock in the heady Southern California scene of the early 80's. They graduated from being obsessed fans to backyard party hacks and finally upon the stage themselves.
Contemporaries of fellow So Cal punks Social Distortion, Bad Religion, T.S.O.L., Circle Jerks, etc., CH3 has been steadily touring the world since releasing their first eponymous EP on the influential Posh Boy label in 1981.
CH3 will be playing a series of shows this summer and fall, including a stint at It's Not Dead Festival 2 on August 26, alongside Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, Buzzcocks and many more. Tour dates include Midwest club dates in September, the Remember the Punks Festival San Antonio TX in October, and a East coast visit in November. CH3 returns to
Europe in April 2018 at the Punk and Disorderly Festival, Berlin.
The album will be released via all digital retailers, CD through the CH3 bandstore https://ch3store.bigcartel.com/ and on vinyl through TKO Records Friday August 18, 2017.
A new video for the title track, "
Put 'Em Up" will premiere the week of release. The new video celebrates the cultural diversity of Los Angeles as the band strolls through the various ethnic hubs that make up the Southern California landscape and arrives finally on a rooftop overlooking the city that has become home to a diverse family.
Magrann explains the inspiration for the title track: "On our first self-titled EP (Posh Boy Records, released in 1981) we included the song Manzanar, about the Japanese internment camps of World War II.
My Mother was sent to a camp with her family, as well as all my other relatives on the Japanese side. Growing up, the stories of the interment became familiar tales, as spoken reminisces around the dinner table often do. My Mother remembered having to choose the things they would take as they were only allowed what they could carry, and my grandfather burying his ceremonial swords in the backyard by moonlight. Those images stay with you, and the bewilderment of a shameful act in the hometown wrote that song."
"Decades later, we see families ripped apart once again by a decree based in fear. People baited into hatred, action engaged without thought.
Once again, we turn to our guitars and microphones to express ourselves.
The campaign shouts of Put up a Wall! and the cry to Put em out of the Country! unbelievably echoes the sentiments of those earlier dark days. When we actually put families up in horse stables and put children born in Los Angeles up in the freezing
Sierra Nevada Mountains. It inspired us to write the title track for our new record: Put 'Em Up. We see it as not only a response on this new effort to divide the country but also as the literal call to put up your hands in fight against this madness."
Lyrics:
Put Em Up
It's not the same, these voices have changed
Once was a discussion but it's now a spitting rage
Bring us your tired, bring us your poor
Just drop em off at the prison doors
A call to prayer, you hear a call to arms , A turn to Mecca as a civil alarm
Out in the fields they all fall to their knees They sign the cross as they pull the weeds
Put em up in the stables boy
Freeze em out in the snow _
We'll build a wall out of ignorance
And hatred heavy as stone_
Checkpoint, check, put the curfews in place, re open up Manzanar
Let's concentrate on concentration, put 'em up in boxcars
So feed your fears and put up your walls
To block your view of injustice for all
Our melting pot is now a pressure cooker, and here we come to the boil
You offer your sweat, your food and your culture, but where the fuck is your oil?
The anger that you bury down in the dark, That fecund fertile place
It pushes up through the soil of your heart, a seed married to your fate
The crack in your heart let the light turn black, the hope all turn to gloom
What will load each empty chamber, which caliber of doom?
History is written at night Put up your hands, give up your rights
History is written at night When they come will you put up a fight?
Put em all away
Upcoming shows:
Aug 26 Glen Helen Amphitheater formerly San Manuel Amphitheater San Bernardino, CA (It's Not Dead)
Sep 15
Chicago IL- Liars Club
Sep 16 Green Bay WI- Lyric Room
Oct 21 Remember The Punks 2 Festival San Antonio, TX
Nov 10
Boston MA-
Middle East Club
Nov 11 Brooklyn NY- Godsounds
Nov 12- New Haven, CT- Cafe Nine
More dates to be announced.
'Put 'Em Up' Track Listing
1. Model Citizen
2. Water & Time
3. Put 'Em Up
4. She Never Wanted
5. Half The Day
6. Not That It Matters
7. God You Deserve
8. Blue Skies
9. All The Night
10. Take Me To Your Leader
https://www.chthree.com
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