Bristol’s WAKEY WAKEY RISE & SHINE turn frustration into a new-wave anthem

Somewhere beneath the damp brick of Bristol’s The Louisiana, in a basement thick with sweat and history, Wakey Wakey Rise & Shine forged their latest salvo—a track that snarls as much as it sways. “There’s Less Trouble When You Stay At Home,” released on February 14th via Velvet Echoes, is a splintered shard of real-life exasperation, born from frontman Smudge’s Kafkaesque tangle with law enforcement after a workplace assault. Mistaken for his own attacker by a bumbling investigator, Smudge didn’t just stew—he turned the absurdity into a new-wave battering ram, laced with jagged riffs and a rhythm that lurches like