Apologies in advance as this year's experience of BYAF was truncated due to football rescheduling, meaning none of Friday night's acts were seen - sorry about that.

When it comes to writing about the rest of the event, the tenth of its ilk, one's kind of scuppered to begin with as, having read MTAT leading light Derrick Johnston's history of & thoughts on the festival in the accompanying pamphlet (along with contributions from associated folk from across the Ecossemo & punk scene) it's hard to better what those so intimately & emotionally involved with it over the years have to say. As you've not got access to their heartfelt words though I'll do my best.

This year’s weekender saw the downstairs shows in The Firefly including full bands in the proceedings, rather than just solo acts so the air there was rent by some of the heaviest acts of Saturday’s bill – Carson Wells, The Burnt Tapes, Mug and Aberdoom’s mighty BOAK. Earplugs a must for every set but all to the good as you can’t play that sort of stuff quietly. At other times during the day Canada’s Chris Snelgrove was a good draw down here, as were Glasgow’s Brian Curran whilst Joyce Delaney were as enjoyable as when last seen at Pop South! In January.

Upstairs in Buskers, whilst the insanity of Get It Together’s performance was missed (but easily imagined from the debris), Sink Alaska pulled it out of the bag despite the need for a short notice drummer, Bratakus were an enjoyably cheerful new discovery (along with sporting the finest headgear of the weekend) and Elk Gang, PMX, Bed Of Wasps, Lachance, The Kimberley Steaks and The Cut Ups all turned in absorbing sets. Revenge Of The Psychotronic Man were probably one of the most engaging acts of the event (& certainly the most rubberfaced) with one of the widest ranges in subject matter – Dadaism to Corbyn via Space & good old booze, whilst Billy Liar was an undisputed highlight, especially for the all-star line-up of Paper Rifles, Chrissy Barnacle & Freddy Fudd Pucker which joined him for his final track.  

Closing things out on Saturday came the reunion of ska punkers Joey Terrifying and the ever entertaining old guard of Oi Polloi.

Sunday, as was the case last year, for some reason saw a smaller crowd throughout the bulk of the day but the bands were undaunted. Emo’s usually a description that sets me heading for the door but the Dundeemo of The Barents Sea (reformed just for today & sporting two stand-ins) proved to be one of today’s highlights, the others being Chrissy Barnacle’s full set in The Firefly and yet more emo-tinged stuff from Terrafraid. Bulking things out for me before the last two late nights and another day on my feet took their toll were Salem Street & their Clash/’50s influenced punk, intense sets from Clearer The Sky and XharoldshitmanX, The Sparrowhawk Orkestrel & the brazen cheek of Torturo Nervosa (making it a family show with the drummer’s 15 year old daughter joining on guitar for a number).

Another cracking weekend of punk and more from the MTAT team, amply upholding all they hold dear and benefiting Tayside Mountain Rescue, Insight Counselling and The Royal Life Saving Society in the process.

Sticking with the punk end of the music release spectrum this month for In Profile we put a few questions to Birmingham label All In Vinyl founder David Tighe.

MG: Firstly can you tell us the basic beginnings of All In Vinyl coming into existence?

DT: Initially we set things up solely as a distro towards the end of 2007. I remember the first box of records had arrived and we still hadn't got a name, so I wouldn't let anyone leave the pub that night until we'd come up with something. I played poker for a living at the time and so somebody suggested All In Vinyl. There were a few distros that stocked a similar style of music but they mainly sold CDs. From the outset we knew we only wanted to stock vinyl, so combine that with the poker element and the name made a lot of sense, even if it was very last minute.

MG: The label appears to have been on the go for around 4 years, with I think 4 series of split singles amongst your releases in that time - what prompted
you to set the label up initially and what's the attraction of a series of releases, split or otherwise? As I fan that sort of thing certainly grabs my attention but I'm presuming there's some extra element on your side of the deal.

DT: It's actually almost 7 years ago, which says a lot about how long it takes to get one of these series completed from the initial organisation to the final record being sent out. We were lucky in that there was a vinyl revival very soon after the distro started and so that gave us the confidence to give the label a go. We'd been talking about it for a couple of years and I'd always had this idea that I wanted to try a series of split releases. Bands have been doing split
7"s since long before I was born and there were series subscriptions out there like AOTU, so in that sense it was nothing knew. It did feel however that the majority of the time bands would do splits was because they were touring together or because they were good friends. I liked the idea of trying to get similar sounding bands on the same record, where the fans of the UK band probably hadn't heard the international band and vice-versa. Mix that up with some slightly different genres over the 6 releases and the hope was people would discover at least a couple of new bands across the series.

MG: You don't appear to have had any News posted on the site in the last couple of years - has that been due to the pressure of running the label and/or balancing a day job or simple blog fatigue?

DT: A couple of years ago I got a breakdown of the number of people visiting each part of the site and basically almost nobody clicked through to the news section. We send out newsletters every couple of months and I figured that, along with social media, was how people were relying on news updates, so it's the part of the site I've neglected. It's a real pity as on our old site the main page was set up much more as a blog, similar to the Specialist Subject site.
Moving our site to Limited Run helped us introduce a lot of new features but unfortunately the ability to do that was the one we lost.

MG: LPs normally seem to cost twice nowadays what they did when I was buying them on a weekly basis, albeit that was 20 years ago - how do you manage to keep yours down at such keen prices (i.e. under a tenner)? If of course that's not a trade secret.

DT: It's very hard nowadays! We only add on about 50p to each record to the cost price to cover the paypal and site fees and that's been (almost!) enough to break even over the years. In the last 18 months I think the cost of importing records has gone up 50%, the records themselves maybe 15% and the exchange rate has deteriorated about 20%. We've gone from selling almost all the LPs for around £8 to the point where the majority are going to be in the £10-12 range going forward. Sadly because of that there's going to be an inevitable shift away from the distro end to concentrate on the label. Even before these latest price increases we were selling way more records 5 years ago than now, and that's only going to get worse after Brexit. I think if we went on Dragon's Den with this business model they'd laugh us off but thankfully it was always intended to be a hobby and not to make money.

MG: Across the label's releases you've a number of distinctive covers, not least in the aforementioned 7" series - how do you go about choosing the cover art you use?

DT: One thing I was really keen on from the outset was making sure the records looked good. I mentioned the AOTU series earlier and that was one thing that let it down for me. Don't get me wrong I love those records and own almost all of them but there's just no thought or effort put into the artwork. For each series we get one artist to do the covers for all 6 7"s. The first series was done by a friend of ours, an art teacher called Fritz, the second was by Joe from Calvinball, the third was Lubrano from Iron Chic and the latest series by Jamie from Pale Angels / The Arteries. There are so many good artists in the punk scene, we're certainly not short on options!

MG: Do you ever get involved in the live side of things with the bands you've released stuff by or would that currently be a step too far in terms of time and effort?

DT: We always try and do a Birmingham show for whoever needs one but I just don't have the time to book a whole tour unfortunately, although we obviously help putting them in touch with the right people. Birmingham, considering it's size, has an absolutely dreadful scene for this type of music. It's got a great "old punx" scene but really struggles when it comes to the style of punk we concentrate on, and it's not for the lack of trying.  Over half the shows I go to are out of town, which is pretty ridiculous when you live in the second biggest city in the UK!

MG: You've two final releases in the current 7" series to come and the new Arms Aloft album due out in September - what else can we look forward to from All In Vinyl in the last quarter of 2016?

DT: Those are the only records planned for this year. I can't wait for everyone to hear how good the new Arms Aloft album is, hopefully with Red Scare doing the digital side it will help get it the recognition it deserves. With work, November through to February is my busiest time of year so I try to keep releases in this period down to a minimum, and this year it looks like I'm finally going to succeed in that respect! There's already a couple of releases pencilled in for early next year, and hopefully 2017 will also see a new Down & Outs LP and maybe even the much delayed Murderburgers / Billy Liar split 7".