Ruts DC and The Jaded at Monkey’s Music Club - 13.5.2026

This week there were two promising shows that I could have chosen to write about. The first and more obvious choice was Public Image LtD, who apparently sold out the Mojo Club on Saturday night. The second was Ruts DC, Wednesday night at Monkey’s Music Club. Now, PiL is a band that I’ve been listening to and enjoying for most of my life at this point, but I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant about going to see them. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a great band, and an unquestionably historically significant band, but their lead singer, John Lydon, is quite simply one of my least favorite people in music. 

Outside of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, where even I have to admit that he’s pretty effective, Lydon’s schtick just doesn’t speak to me at all. And in recent years, as his spittle-laden invective has come to be more and more peppered with right-wing talking points, I’ve seen less and less reason to give him the time of day. Ultimately, the idea of exposing myself to him for two hours, and of putting any of my money into his pocket, just wasn’t sitting right with me, but still I was conflicted. PiL is, as I said, a long-time favorite, and Ruts DC is a band that I was, until recently, basically only aware of from the presence of their biggest hit, “Babylon’s Burning” (from when they were still called The Ruts) on the 2003 Rhino compilation No Thanks: The ‘70s Punk Rebellion.

Fortunately, there were a few factors that made my decision easier. For one thing, I was feeling a bit sick over the weekend, so all I really wanted to do on Saturday night was curl up in my bed and watch a few episodes of Portlandia. More significantly, it turned out that Ruts DC’s opening act would be my friends in The Jaded, people who I always enjoy seeing perform and hanging out with. When I realized that the next day would be a state holiday — The Ascension, which the Germans call Christi Himmelfahrt (literally, Christ’s trip to heaven) and which also serves as Germany’s kinda weird de facto Fathers’ Day — meaning I wouldn’t have to wake up early to teach any English lessons, the deal was sealed.

And oh my god, people, I can hardly begin to express to you just how happy I am with my decision. I went down to Monkey’s fully expecting to have a good time, but I don’t think I’ve ever attended a concert that exceeded my expectations as wildly as this one did. 

First of all, there was The Jaded. I’ve seen this group perform many times, and as I’ve said in previous dispatches, I always enjoy their classic punk vibe and, in particular, singer Rich Parsons’s endearingly cocky front-man energy. This time, though, was something different. Their sound was bigger, tighter, more varied, and in all ways more compelling than anything I had heard from them before. 

The Jaded - Ricky (semi-visible), Carl, Rich, and Joe

The Jaded have gone through several incarnations since they first formed nearly eight years ago. If I recall correctly, only Rich has been in the group for the entirety of its existence, but the current constellation of him, long-time Bassist Carl Voss, and relative newcomers Ricky Barkosky on Drums and Joe Holloway on Guitar has been together for a bit over a year now. I can only hope that this version of the group will keep going well into the future, because apparently they’re only now really hitting their stride.

Joe played with a percussiveness and confidence that made me see him in a whole new light, bringing a range of textures from thin, chirpy Televisionesque riffs to heavy Black Sabbath Powerchords to a kind of fighter plane (his term) chop that kept the audience’s attention and elevated the whole experience. Ricky displayed an incredible precision and creativity, even according to his already high standard, keeping a heavy driving energy throughout and adding fascinating syncopated figures to every song. I think I might even have detected a nod to the drums on Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” at one point. Whether or not that was intentional, it can give you an idea of the kind of energy we were witnessing.

New Single!

Meanwhile, Carl, while providing a supremely confident and solid bottom to the whole performance, also added an element of comedy with his expressive reactions and facial expressions. I don’t think any of this escaped Rich, who seemed to be glowing as he bonded with his bandmates and performed his part with a relaxed energy that really let him do proper justice to their impressive set of songs. Particular highlights were “Detention”, a cover of Wire’s 2003 song “Comet”, and especially their new single, “Someone Get Me Out of Here”, which was just officially released today.

Ruts DC - David Ruffy, John "Segs" Jennings, and Leigh Heggarty,

And then there was Ruts DC, from whom I really had very little idea of what to expect. As I’ve learned recently, The Ruts, who formed in 1977, were never what you would call a typical punk band. Just a glimpse at the cover of their debut album, The Crack, makes it clear that we’re looking at a different aesthetic direction from anything punk had produced up to that time. A kind of art-deco Sgt. Pepper’s featuring the band along with various people they knew and/or admired, including members of The Damned, with whom they had toured as an opening act, Comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Radio DJ John Peel, Guitarists Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix, and even the popular astronomer Patrick Moore, the original painting by John H. Howard was actually stolen from the band by the artist, sold to a New York art dealer, and later tracked down and purchased by major band booster Henry Rollins.

Henry Rollins poses with his new acquisition.

What you hear on The Crack also stands out within the field of ‘70s British punk. Unlike most of the first wave bands that formed before them, several of the members of The Ruts had considerable experience playing other music, notably progressive rock and funk, before they formed the band. Perhaps as a result, they tended to approach their instruments with a much gentler and more subtle touch than had been previously heard in punk, and in particular original guitarist Paul Fox brought a sophisticated arsenal of intricate riffs and textures that could compete with essentially anything that was happening in rock at the time. As the band themselves states in their website bio, “The Ruts were early challengers to the misunderstood notion that punk was a somewhat luddite dogma wherein complexity, creative exploration and musical prowess were considered a shameful affectation.”

The Ruts c.1977

Also, while playing gigs for the Rock Against Racism movement early in their career, they were exposed to a lot of reggae music, and even their early reggae-tinged songs, like the classic “Jah War” are notable for sounding, at least to my ear, a lot more like actual Jamaican reggae than pretty much anything else I’ve heard from white British groups. Their distinctiveness seems to have grown even starker after they became Ruts DC, following the untimely death of their frontman, Malcolm Owen, in 1980. They released one fantastic album, Animal Now, in 1981 before taking a hard turn into deep dub grooves from which they would not return until, having broken up in 1983 and reunited in 2007, they released their album, Music Must Destroy, in 2016.

The current incarnation of Ruts DC consists of original rhythm section John "Segs" Jennings on bass and lead vocals and David Ruffy on drums, along with guitarist Leigh Heggarty, who joined after the death of Paul Fox in 2007, and they are quite simply spectacular. At this point in my life I’ve seen a lot of aging bands perform. Many of them were bands that I love, and the majority of them were honestly still pretty good. This was something different, though. This was a trio of older men, nearly fifty years past what might be called their moment of peak relevance, who somehow seem to play together even more compellingly than they did when they were young!

I know it sounds crazy. I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t been there. You just have to see them for yourself. Jennings and Ruffy seem like they must be somehow psychically linked, playing incredibly tight grooves that start, stop, and mutate on a moments notice, all while seeming as relaxed as if they were just having a quiet chat over coffee. Heggarty, meanwhile, is a firecracker, constantly in motion, brimming with enthusiasm, and burning through intimidating guitar parts, both Fox’s and his own, with a native fluency that makes it easy to forget that he’s a replacement.

Several of the songs they played had a staight-ahead punk energy, sometimes even verging on hard core, but they also played so much that was built around more relaxed, slightly twangy, grooves, often interspersed with etherial chords that reminded me of Simple Minds, that I would hesitate to call what I witnessed a punk show exactly. The most consistent through-lines were Jennings’s super deep echoey dub bass and the basic message of kindness and unity exemplified by the chorus of their song, “Born Innocent,” “Hate nobody, hurt nobody, harm nobody.” 

The mood of their songs varied from ominous to angry to inspirational, but through it all they gave off a vibe of good natured positivity, coupled with a clear acknowledgment that, to quote Jennings, “the state of the world is, as we know, bollocks.” Ruts DC like to claim, as Jennings said in a 2023 interview with Punktuation, that they “were never really a political band,” which may seem odd, because I would say that this concert featured just about as much politics, in both the lyrics and the stage banter, as any I’ve ever attended. I do see where he’s coming from, though. It’s not the politics of politicians that they’re interested in, but the politics of people respecting and looking out for one-another, without the need for a hierarchy, as Jennings expressed in his very next sentence, “we don’t think politics is the answer. We think autonomy and self rule are the answers.” That certainly seems like a profoundly political statement to me, but if they want to call it something else, that’s their prerogative. 

It’s hard to even talk about highlights, because the whole show really feels like a highlight. Certainly, a few of their classics from the Owen era, particularly “Jah War” and “In a Rut,” both of which sounded more intense and powerful than the original records, stand out, but there were also newer songs that could stand toe to toe with them. The ominous “Faces in the Sky” and the slightly Beatlesy “Poison Games,” from the acclaimed 2022 album Counter Culture?, both stand out in my memory, and the closer of their main set, “Psychic Attack,” from 2016’s Music Must Destroy may have been my favorite moment in the whole night.

The last time Ruts DC were in Hamburg they played at Knust, which is a considerably larger venue. I don’t know who made the decision to downgrade them, and hope it didn’t mean a big pay cut for them. I have to admit that I’m selfishly grateful to have had the opportunity to see them in the more intimate atmosphere of Monkeys. One thing’s for sure, though. The next time they come to town, I’ll be coming to see them wherever they play, and I’ll be telling anyone who will listen that they should be there too.

Do yourself a favor and make sure to catch them when they come to your town.

-Peter Lawson 15. May 2026