LIVE FROM THE PIT: Dead Pioneers and YAKKIE

Camden in 2026 is a strange place. Infamous for its outsider cultures, it now props up a touristic doppelganger of itself, skewed like an AI replica, propagated for commerce. The old school punks passing through, clad heroically in their leather and safety pins, are homing beacons for the grit-edged music scene pulsating at the fringes, still pulling in the notable and notorious. DEAD PIONEERS, a five piece political punk band from Denver, finished their tour here at The Underworld, supported by the ‘heavy punk supergroup’ YAKKIE. It was a promising night for Camden’s underground!

YAKKIE, a London based ‘supergroup’, has members from across the city’s DIY punk scene including, PETROL GIRLS, DREAM NAILS and COLOUR ME WEDNESDAY. Serving high camp TONI BASIL, the lead singer, Janey Starling, pumped their set full of energy, joy and radical feminist politics. Their self proclaimed ‘nineties teen film’ sound really worked the contrast, with a razor sharp edge on their post-watershed lyrics. 

In the moments the band breaks character, the set truly comes alive, fueling the upbeat energy with a much gruffer, angrier side, to match the lyrical content. The big and bold sound by Maeve Westall on the drums and Starling on vocals, was accompanied with epic shredding by the guitarists, Robin Gatt and Laura Ankles. The only downside was the mixing where the guitars were often lost and desperately needed cranking up a few notches. 

Two women a week are murdered by their spouses in the UK, and YAKKIE’s song Right Of Reply, is their requiem. Starling spells it out for us, screaming “When will we feel fucking safe?”. Rabbit’s Got The Gun was introduced as a dedication to Luigi Mangione, giving a blast of sound that would have Elmer Fudd wishing he voted for universal healthcare. Impressively, by the final song, they manage to get the crowd singing along to Under The Pavement Is The Beach - Well, for a moment at least…This was a UK audience after all. Fiercely joyful and happily aggressive, songs were delivered with infectious energy throughout. Alongside their manifestation of feminist rage calling for a revolution, YAKKIE offered a refreshingly positive message of hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM0TnyGELuI

When DEAD PIONEERS took onto the stage, the atmosphere went from rom Sunnydale California vibes, to San Pedro BLACK FLAG inflected punk. Founder of the band, Gregg Deal, sported a ‘Wagon Burner’ Tshirt and straight off the bat, his distinctive voice was pitch perfect, you would be hard pushed to distinguish it from the record. Clearly an adept orator and poet, there was no moment when you did not comprehend exactly, both what he was saying, and the politically explicit message. This was protest music without a doubt, and its caustic humour confronted the dark realities of European American colonial history, with a piercing directness. The brilliant band, made up of Joshua Rivera, guitar, Abe Brennan, guitar, Lee Tesche, bass and Shane Zweygardt, drums, shattered the set with a mix of hard, fast punk and pulpy sounding rockabilly. There was a symbiosis between the instruments and voice, the bass and drums always cutting a groove that somehow matched the wry satire on the mic, giving a theatrical swag.

Enthusiastic shouts from the audience of “Fuck John Wayne” erupted as soon as the drums on Mythical Cowboys kicked in. A simultaneous nod to the brilliant PUBLIC ENEMY, Fight the Power lyrics perhaps? “Best cowboy that never existed, White narrative gets it twisted” Deal yelled the song ridiculing the golden boy of Hollywood Western’s, an out and proud white supremacist. Immortilised through film, is a romanticised white washed narrative of the genocide of millions of indigenious populations, across the entire continent of North America. The brutal crushing of Native American languages and cultures, is enacted to this day by the USA. A huge illegal settlement, upon their stolen land, a country, “Rooted in slavery and genocide, born in the bosom of European Colonism”.

Deal is a member of the Pyramid Lake Piaute Tribe, he is an activist and advocate for the rights of his people, and he stands with and advocates for the rights of all people, across North America’s diverse indigenous populations. He is also a dad to five kids, and in a very sincere moment, asked the whole venue to sing his ten year old happy birthday, which he was missing at that very moment. His poetry and performance was confrontational and powerful and the crowd were very responsive throughout, knowing the words and the basslines for tunes like Bad Indian and The Caucasity. The audience let out an ecstatic cheer at the introduction to Nazi Teeth performed by both Deal and Ren Aldridge, the lead singer of PETROL GIRLS, who exploded with an extra dose of rebellious energy. 

Incredible live, DEAD PIONEERS delivered a shit load of subversive anarchistic energy, a salve to the right wing corporate propaganda we are saturated in. Their rhythms and basslines provided a mini mnemonics crash course in anti-capitalist theory and the colonial history. The world today is not a surprise, it is a product of what it was built upon. Deal said it straight, “Capitalism is a pyramid scheme and you ain't at the top.”

Words: Alana Madden

Photos: Dead Pioneers and YAKKIE