September/October ramble Pt. II

Following on from the previous post, I should probably veer away from chillis and antiquarian books and back towards music. There's plenty to report on the subject too.

A few posts ago I wrote about Cave In ending their "indefinite hiatus", and since then they have been gratefully re-re-received (the extra "re" is for 2006's "Perfect Pitch Black") by their Boston, Mass. hometown fans at a sold out show followed by a few more bookings over the Summer. I shelled out £17.00 for their new 12" EP "Planets of Old", and it's pretty damn good - raw, slightly techy in places, with some very big nods to the sludge (read: slow) and hardcore (read: fast) roots of their music. They've even resurrected the old logo from the days of "Until Your Heart Stops" and "Beyond Hypothermia", which should give you some idea of what they were going for with this one. The odd thing about Cave In these days is that they seem to want to return to a point of inspiration sometime before they wore themselves out with the RCA contract, but from which point? I'm as unsure as the band seem to be, but that doesn't make the music any less enjoyable. It's coming out as a CDEP sometime next year, so make sure you pick it up and don't pay quite as much as I did.


More HydraHead Records related news - Oxbow's debut LP "Fuckfest" has been reissued in a nice sorta vinyl-style cardboard sleeve and slipcase. It's a far cry from the more recent material that I know best, but a great album and a way overdue re-release. Oxbow are a difficult band to classify but for the benefit of the uninitiated... (fuck it, I'll put this in the Music HackSpeak Box):

There we go, hopefully I won't have to do that again. Anyway, they're doing a few shows over here in November, including the Engine Room down here in Brighton. We're all very excited about that.

Also in September we had the weird, devastating and wonderful Kayo Dot in the UK. Well, actually we didn't because of the (possibly) over-zealous UK customs officials, who denied entry to all but three of them. Luckily the three included the main man Toby Driver and his most frequent collaborator Mia Matsumiya (the violinist), as well as a gruff-looking metalhead dude that, as it transpired, played clarinet and keyboards. This trio toured as a stripped-back version of Kayo Dot, a sort of alternative 'reading' of the band's sound, and were billed as Toby Driver's more minimal project Tartar Lamb. Very good as it was, it's a shame that customs intervened and robbed us of the full band. I've heard numerous times about this constrictive litigation. I think it's something to do with work visas, although it's obvious the upholders have no idea that the likelihood of a band actually earning money for touring abroad is virtually nil, especially at this level. You might well expect me to start ranting about this being yet another example of infrastructural difficulties for non-professional musicians, but frankly the bullshit comes with the territory. It shouldn't be the case, but it is. Maybe try explaining DIY ethics to the Foreign Office. Let me know how that goes, I'll be at home waiting for Travelling Troubadour Tax Breaks to be instated. (I'm joking of course, but I bet even carnies get a better deal.)

I just realised this is turning into a HydraHead wank session. I should do something about that, er...

That's better. I guess I must have some kind of hipster/metalhead split personality, judging by the two festivals this Winter I'm most excited about... Ten Years of ATP at Butlins Minehead, and Damnation Festival at Leeds Student Union. It will be my third ATP and my first Damnation, and the lineups for both are eclectic and brilliant. ATP is boasting probably their most star-studded lineup ever - it's really quite ridiculous, including: The Mars Volta, Explosions In The Sky, Melvins, Sunn0))), Mudhoney, Six Organs of Admittance, Modest Mouse, The Breeders, Múm, Bardo Pond, Tortoise, Shellac, Dirty Three, Fuck Buttons, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Battles, Devendra Banhart, The Magic Band (yes, Beefheart's Magic Band, with Drumbo and Zoot Horn Rollo)... I don't actually like all of those acts of course but whichever way you look at it, it's a huge lineup. It's basically a list of bands I should really know a lot more about by now, which bodes well for a festival.

Similarly with Damnation - it's only Electric Wizard I know a great deal about. Most of the others fall into awkward categories like "I've only got one of their records" (Destruction, Firebird, Rotting Christ, Lockup and Mistress in my case) and "I saw them supporting __________ a few years ago" (Jesu, Charger). Hopefully the bands I'm unfamiliar with can catch my attention - Negura Bunget, Nazxul, The Gates of Slumber, Mithras and A Storm of Light.

The downside of such good lineups is that the inevitable clashes are even more frequent. I've had to make some horribly ruthless choices in the past... Anthrax vs Meshuggah... Porn (with Thurston Moore and Brent Hinds) vs Os Mutantes... Four Tet vs Squarepusher... the list goes on.

I was also very pleased this month to find From The Dust Returned. An extreme metal review site that's open-minded, literate and detailed is a major discovery for me, as most sites are badly designed and full of Uber-Necro shut-ins from the Ukraine and Deathcore teenagers who can't spell properly. The site's creator has recently drawn up Top 20 Metal Records lists for every year since 1982, and he certainly knows his stuff.

There's been a new Gong record since my last update, and naturally I had to buy it straight away without regard for my ailing bank balance. It is fabulously silly of course, filled with the usual references to pixies, teapots, witches, mystical planets, drugs, human brotherhood being compromised by warmongers et cetera. All the "political" stuff is as wooly as can be expected from a shamelessly hippyish band like Gong, but I barely notice the cheesiness any more. There's some great hypnotic unwinding deep space rock jams on it, and Steve Hillage is back in the fold. Enough said. They're playing at the Brighton Corn Exchange at the end of November (last date of a pretty big tour), and I'll have to make damn sure I'm stoned for that one. They're the best space rock band with a 76-year-old frontwoman of all time.

And then we come to the Shrinebuilder record. I rushed back home with the CD (spotted a couple of days before the official release date in Resident Records), cranked the fuck out of my stereo, sat on my bed and proceeded to spend forty minutes squealing and giggling like an excited little girl. It's awesome, both in the "fuck yeah!" colloquial sense and literally awe-inspiring. Four of the most distinctive and consistent musicians working in underground rock and metal today, and somehow it actually does sound as good as the sum of its parts. To hear Wino and Scott Kelly alternate verses while coiling long threads of guitar together, to the point where they can't be told apart, before Al Cisneros comes in with his Om-mantra monotone over effortlessly hypnotic riff-cycles... well, I'd better stop now before I explode into a pile of ashy superlatives. I was never in a million years going to be able to look at this record impartially for a proper review, and thank fuck for that. SURRENDER YOURSELVES! ALL HAIL SHRINEBUILDER!

Finally, ISIS rolled back into Camden Town courtesy of the fine folks at ATP, supporting their most recent album "Wavering Radiant". It was the eighth time I've seen them so surprises weren't in abundance, but it was a reliably fine and gutsy performance - heavy as fuck and very compelling. All but one track from the new album were played, and I finally lost my cool about half way through 'Threshold of Transformation' when I barged through the stock-still beard contingent waving my camera above my head, screaming "yyyeeeeaaaahhhhh" and headbanging with no regard to spacial awareness whatsoever. Fuck 'em, it's not my fault they never noticed that ISIS are actually a band borne of nasty, cavernous sludgecore. We then managed to spoil someone's fun by screaming the lyrics to 'Carry' at the top of our lungs, before a rare airing of 'Altered Course' capped the night on a high.

It was also very significant to me that I was with the same two friends that I'd persuaded to come along to their Mean Fiddler show in support of "Oceanic" on Saturday March 15th 2003, six and a half years ago, still one of the best shows I've ever attended, and one that converted us to a style that has since grown and developed into something influencial, genre-straddling, powerful, genuinely progressive and unignorable. It may be a little over-analysed these days*, but it's been a hell of a lot of fun so far and long may it ride.

(Next post will be a review of Damnation Festival with photos and videos!)

*I got talking to someone outside the gig who said he was studying Modern Classical music and doing his thesis on the band. Though admitting that I wouldn't know Modern Classical music from a horseshit sandwich, I said I couldn't see how ISIS can have much in common with his course. He disputed this strongly, saying there were all sorts of connections. I then suggested that the connections might not be intentional, which he again disputed. He said I should come to an exhibition/performance somewhere in a couple of weeks to see what he meant. I had to fight my urge to grab him and shout "I'm only in it for the RIFFS!", and although I'll definitely look deeper into his argument, I didn't want to tell him that I already had tickets to see a folk band that night.

September Update Pt. 1 - a Chilli Festival comes to town

(N.B.: I started writing this post with the intention of making it quite short, simply a few unconnected things that have happened lately and are coming up soon. But typically I went off on one and now I can't bring myself to abridge it. It starts off with a list of what's supposed to be in one single post, but I decided to leave the list in and just do several posts instead so I can add pictures, links etc. and make it a little more digestible.)

More general updates and tidbits to end the surprisingly sunny and optimistic month of September 2009, including:

- Dave visits a Chilli Festival, wins a game of chicken against his own digestive system

- UK Customs deny alternative jazz-rock

- Dave fails to self-promote again, promotes other people instead

- HydraHead re-release Oxbow's long out-of-print debut album 'Fuckfest', average level of awesomeness increases all-round.

- Winter festival season gets exciting

- Dave becomes a film snob, enjoys it, and assumes you want to know about what CDs he's bought recently.

- Scott Kelly (Neurosis) plays his new band and invites you to argue about the first four Metallica records.

Now I'd like to revert back to the more comfortable First Person and continue, hopefully with a few more readers in tow thanks to the Tucker Max-style self-reference that seems to impress today's more discerning blog-followers (but probably not). Firstly, what can I say about the Fiery Foods Festival that came to town last weekend? Fucking phenomenal. I didn't even know it was happening until the day before, and then I got drunk and forgot about it before bed. I was woken up by a text message: "Chilli festival. Where's my sock?" Holy shit! No hangover could dash my hopes today.

It was merciless from the very first stall. These people simply do not fuck about. If you're the kind of person that buys that "Cool Salsa" shit with your Doritos, stop reading right now. I've since discovered that there's two kinds of stall on the chilli festival circuit. There's the rustic, culinary, homespun sort of stall - the people that make chutneys and sauces from ingredients they've grown in an allotment, package them up in quaint little jars and supply to those upmarket grocers that no one can really justify shopping in unless they live in Seer Green. These stalls were my favourites. Everything on them tasted wonderful and was made with real care by people with a proper talent for spices.

The other stalls are the ones that care not for your personal safety. They don't do pansy shit like "presentation" or "taste", they just line up their garish and frightening arsenal of sauces into a spectrum of spiciness that goes from Pretty Damn Spicy to Immediate Stomach Ulcer, and wait for victims. Wearing matching shirts and standing with their arms crossed, they scout for greenhorns to deceive with massive understatements like "That one? Yeah mate, it's got a bit of a kick to it." Then they refuse to hide their own smugness as people stumble away, spluttering and crying and sincerely wishing they were dead.

I'm being dramatic, of course, because this was definitely one of the best days of the year. All the saucemakers put out broken crackers and rice cakes and little sample dishes for us to try. I came away with a jar of half-relish, half-paste called "HHH" (standing for Hell Hot Habanero). It was from one of the 'culinary' stands, Mr. Vikki, who was definitely my favourite. Four of his sauces had been selected for stocking by Fortnum & Mason, and deservedly so. Please check this guy out if you are so inclined - I reccommend HHH, the King Naga (his hottest), and the Hot Coriander Sauce.

I was marvelling at Mr. Vikki's stand when Dan made me aware that he was suffering quite acutely. He'd already fucked himself up a bit ("Blair's Ultra Death") within five minutes of us being there (as had I with the "Dragon's Blood"), and it looked like he'd done it again. The cause of his discomfort was a little jar of something called "Pure Pain Paste". I had some of it, and it fucked me up a bit too. Then I noticed the carved wooden skull with horns sitting ominously on the table like something out of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'. It was drawing attention towards two savage-looking sauces. "Be Damned" was a really fucking hot one and actually quite tasty (as was the sweet but violent "Trinidad Scorpion"), but my mistake was to take a reccommendation by a couple of massive muscly dudes that looked like they could shit broken glass every morning without wincing. "Try the '10 Minute Burn'" they said. I can tell you that ten minutes is selling it somewhat short.

The next day we came back with Duncan and several pints of milk. We were told that fatty things like milk, ice cream and cheese were best for soothing the burn, and to avoid water. Duncan is a Mekon so he had to make do with beer, but we slammed our milk bottles down on the counter of Scorchio (UK-import home of the infamous Dave's Insanity Sauces) and informed them that today we'd come prepared. We tried a few more things and pretended to be seasoned chilli-maestros, which was fun, but quite honestly I didn't have the same gung-ho spirit as the day before. The other guys did though, and we were all in varying degrees of pain before long. I learnt that the "10 Minute Burn" had been removed from the display because two people had passed out that morning, which I relayed to the Scorchio folks. They asked me whose sauce it was and I described the stand. "Oh yes, that must be Gerald." they said. Suddenly the idea of a Travelling Chilli Carnival Community became too awesome to bear.

We got talking to a couple of other reckless folks and I suggested they try Gerald's "The Beast" sauce. They approached us again a few minutes later, laughing and in serious discomfort, proclaiming Gerald to be "some kind of dark underground chilli sadist."

Tasting some of these chilli sauces is a bizarre experience. A paste called "Fist of Fire" increased my heart rate and turned me bright red immediately. The "Mongoose" sauce sent me stumbling around light-headedly, like a 12-year old glue sniffer. Sharing voluntary intense pain is a weirdly gratifying experience, so make sure you go to the next Chilli Festival and fuck yourself up.

(to be continued...)

From The Vaults #1

As some of you may know, my job is to scan books. I scan them to .tif format files, photoshop the scratches out and send them on their merry way to a publishing house of some kind. At the moment I'm building a book from scratch - it's about Irish Feminism in the early to mid 19th Century. But I digress, my point is that occasionally I'll come across something in these old books that really needs saving for one reason or another. Some snippets are hilarious, some offensive, some just plain brilliant. Here are a few of these dusty old gems:

The first is from a book called 'Cosmic Consciousness' by a Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke M.D., "formerly medical superintendent of the asylum for the insane, London, Canada". It was first published in 1901, and it's basically a very long 'study' into the concept of cosmic enlightenment. Burke reckons himself 'enlightened' (forgive me if I use in inordinate number of inverted commas here, it's just that most of this is complete bullshit), and considers examples of other notable enlightened people of history: Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Dante Aligheri, Francis Bacon, William Blake, Honoré de Balzac, Walt Whitman* and more. (His list of almost-but-not-quite-enlightened people is interesting: Moses, Socrates, Blaise Pascal, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Henry David Thoreau). At some point in the book, he starts to analyse the correlation between 'age at enlightenment' and 'age at death', providing us with a helpful table of reference. This is the first bit that made me laugh.

Look at the table. It's chronological, but the mid-to-late 19th Century (Bucke's own era) is vastly over-represented. His own initials are bang in the middle of the list (#33) , surrounded by the initials of other people that he was, coincidentally enough, pretty well acquainted with. Now, call me a cynical old bastard, but it does look an awful lot like Dr. Bucke simply had Delusions of Grandeur on an overwhelming scale, not only ranking himself alongside Socrates and Moses on the spiritual enlightenment scale but roping another bunch of self-regarding Victorian cock-ends into his drawing room to sit around in a circle and profoundly discuss how they're all, like, totally super-enlightened right now.

If that wasn't ridiculous enough, check this out. I think he's arguing here that enlightenment to 'cosmic consciousness' is a kind of evolutionary process, if not necessarily in strictly Darwinian terms, and in some cases can lead to insanity rather than anything positive. Not too controversial in itself, but during this section he drops a truly priceless bit of classic racism, with some very very specious reasoning thrown in for good measure. It's a fucking marvel.

There’s so much wrong with this logic that I can’t even be fucked to start. What I will say though is that, in 1901, widespread psychological evaluation was probably not one of the most pressing concerns of the black community. And while we’re on the subject, I doubt that Victorian-era Canada** could offer much in terms of a representative sample anyway.

Maybe I’m wrong, I dunno. He does have a Wikipedia page after all.

This one’s from a batch of books we got about the 18^th Century Scottish social economist Adam Smith. You may have noticed him on the back of a Scottish twenty quid note. One whole volume was dedicating to the context of his theories – extracts from contemporary journals and such. I found some great stuff in there, including this Georgian-era depiction of a city of vices. It’s called ‘Gin Lane’.

It’s nice to see that gin’s not changed in 300 years, eh?

And now for the piece de resistance. Quoted heavily in this volume are the works of Daniel Defoe, notable of course for writing ‘Robinson Crusoe’, and a fella called Arthur Young. Both men traveled Britain extensively and wrote in great detail about their journeys and the subcultures and specifics that could be found across the land. This is an extract from Arthur Young’s ‘Southern Tour’, published in 1768, in which he ‘reviews’ the inns and taverns he stayed at during the trip.

See that? The Antelope – a nice place to be… 241 years ago.

Just a quickie to finish with, and I promise this is awesome. It’s from a batch of books sent to us by the Naval and Military Press detailing the first-hand accounts of Australian WWI soldiers, mostly Light Horse regiments. These guys saw some very nasty fighting, particularly against the Turks at Gallipoli, and later on the Western Front alongside mostly Canadian and American troops, pushing the German army back across North-Eastern France and Belgium in 1918.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the Real-Life Rambo: Sergeant Stanley Robert MacDougall, 47^th Battalion, A.I.F.:

Fuck yeah.

* It was only when searching for the link to Walt Whitman's Wikipedia entry that I saw how awesome he looks. He looks like Dickens, Father Christmas and Socrates all rolled into one awesomely bearded human-shaped unstoppable ball of awesome (see right):

** The first time I went to write "Canada", it came out as "Conan". Psychological analysis on a postcard please

Rambling update, not quite pointless

For the third time I will start writing this blog entry, and I really hope I can finish it this time. The thing is, I used to write this stuff (somewhat) discreetly during work hours, and now my job has changed and it's not so easy to get away with any more. And also, because it's such an achingly monotonous job they let us listen to music on headphones. This means that if I'm hunched in the corner typing away with music on and my boss approaches and looks at my screen, I won't know she's there.

Right now my bosses are far away, so I'm in the clear. However, as it's been necessary to remove the headphones, I have been forced to listen to a very long and explicit conversation between a couple of co-workers, involving sexual conquests, lesbian encounters, quite seriously illegal virginity-loss and other hilarious and distracting personal information, freely bandied around by a vacuous slag and the alarmingly unsubtle slimy bastard attempting to shag her on a rebound of what sounds like three days. So yeah, I haven't got very far.

But anyway, I thought I'd share a few links this time round. I've been to a shitload of great gigs recently that I will get round to summarising eventually but for now, here is a list of better stuff to look at:

Angry Chair - This website fucking rocks. It's a huge directory of rapidshare links to some great underground and not-so-underground music, with over 2500 albums/EPs/demos/vinyl rips/tape rips etc. The most well-represented genres are stoner rock and doom metal, but there's all sorts of stuff there. And also it's where I found out about these guys:

Inferno - This band fucking rocks. They call themselves Sci Fi Grind 'n' Roll and I couldn't explain it better. There's some really catchy bits on this record, liberally peppered with fairly cheesy prog keyboards (that's the Sci Fi bit), but most of it sounds fairly extreme and more Converge-like. Except that Inferno sound like they're having more fun.

The Krankenhouse - This place fucking rocks. It was the venue for Rip This Joint's triumphant Summer alldayer last Saturday, and it's a converted nursing home that is now an art space/venue/semi-squat and general place of excellence. I could go on forever about how great that day was, but I'll just say that this is a very positive use for an otherwise derelict space and it's really worth going to if you have the chance.

NB. The urinal is made of a gutter, some perspex, a hosepipe and a sponge. Just a heads up.

Keepers of Metal - This website ist fucking krieg. It might be even bigger than Angry Chair actually, although it's in Spanish, cluttered, and full of spyware and dead links. However, it has a really spiffing collection of not-especially-famous extreme metal bands - the albums that you'd have to go to Resurrection Records in Camden and cross your fingers for - the bands that appear on the back of cutoff denim jackets that are far, far superior to your own.

As long as you can wait for the clunky bastard site to load and fend off a crash or five, this one's worth delving into. It's a nice opportunity to hear more horrible spiky-sounding bands like Behexen, Xasthur and Thorns if they eluded you the first time round (as they did me). Plus I now regret not buying Exhumed's 'Gore Metal' album when I was fifteen, because it fucking rips.

Anyway, I'll end with a few things I've learned since the last entry:

• I should already own 'Gore Metal' by Exhumed by now.
• If you think Bjork should be forced to smash a policeman's head in with a metal cash box and then get hanged for it, this is the film for you.
• If you think Willem Defoe deserves to have his testicles shattered with a fucking great slab of rock, this is the film for you.
• If you know you'll be spending the day in a squat, steal napkins beforehand.
• Don’t stand anywhere near the band Monotonix if you have a drink in your hand. See below:

Good News, Bad News

Two items I'd like to bring to the attention of any readers...

Firstly, and I think I'm a bit behind on this news, but the thoroughly awesome Cave In have reconvened after their hiatus of three-and-a-half years and are releasing an EP soon on Hydra Head Records. They have one Boston show booked and no plans to tour, but new music is more than I could have asked for or expected anyway so that's cheered me right up...

(This is Cave In playing "Big Riff" a.k.a. one of the best songs ever ever ever)



...especially after hearing the sad news that Canterbury scene jazz/rock legend Hugh Hopper has died, succumbed to the leukemia he was diagnosed with only this past Winter. Mr Hopper was one of the finest bass players this country has produced - he not only had the chops, but he had a fantastic sense of balance, texture and his own role in a composition. He played with many notable figures in British music, but will undoubtedly be remembered as a not-quite-founding member of (The) Soft Machine. In this spot he hammered away through many exciting and charismatic jams, sharing the rhythm section with Robert Wyatt (among others) and authoring such post-psychedelia classics as "Memories", "Facelift", and the four-part suite "Virtually" that can be found on Soft Machine's "Fourth" album - surely one of the best jazz fusion records of all time. I was lucky enough to see him perform two years ago with Brainville, the frenetic and abrasive free jazz/noise/rock/beat-poetry trio that also included Daevid Allen (of Gong/ early period Soft Machine/University of Errors) and Chris Cutler (of the dangerously insane-sounding Henry Cow, and many more). It was my first time seeing any of these players live, and I was especially excited about seeing Daevid Allen play lead guitar. But once they took the stage it was Hugh Hopper that held my attention, anchoring the daring explorations of the guitarist and drummer by dropping these huge thick slabs of electric bass at baffling meters and appearing every inch the refined and tasteful musician that forty-five years behind an instrument will make you. And when at one point I looked down to see how his distortion pedal could possibly sound so savage and noticed it was the 'Facelift' itself - sharing its name with the song that bowled me over as a 16-year-old - I was genuinely starstruck. Here's a great clip of the three-piece version of Soft Machine ripping through Wyatt's "Moon in June". These guys all look insanely cool by the way, like... devastatingly awesome. I mean, just look at Hugh's moustache and Mike Ratledge's glasses (keyboard player). And Robert Wyatt's tie. Roughly translated, all that get-up means "I'm better than you at jazz fusion, and I don't really feel the need to put too fine a point on it."



Also, The Mars Volta covered Hugh's "Memories" as a bonus track for the iTunes version of 'Bedlam...' and it's great. It's also further proof that The Mars Volta know what the fuck they're talking about, because this song was never on a proper Soft Machine record (only a collection of '66 demos, and covered by Allen and Wyatt on the "Bananamoon" record in 1971). You can listen to Cedric and Omar's version here.

And here's a shot I took of Hugh playing with Brainville (3/7/07) at The Borderline in London. (L to R is Daevid Allen, Chris Cutler, Hugh Hopper.) (Click to enlarge by the way)

From The Ground Up

As some may know, I now live in Brighton and one of the very best features of this town is the live music. I've seen some truly memorable bands and solo artists in the short time I've been here, and it's gratifying. A couple of weeks ago I caught the frenetic Japanese force of nature known as Melt Banana at the Engine Room, an excellently dingy basement bar right opposite the seaside, supported by The Shitty Limits. The latter band includes my friend Eddie and it was great to see them, as well as the small but significant entourage that accompanied them - Cheryl (of Counter Culture, the last bastion of grassroots music appreciation in my hometown of High Wycombe, and just a damn good record shop), Kieran (punk rock devotee, occasional promoter and all-round very decent chap) and Pook (the ever-lively frontman of Ska-Metal party-bringers Beat The Red Light). The Limits were playing a lot of new material and they've really upped their game, sticking to their strengths but broadening slightly in terms of composition and focus and tempo and stage presence and a fuckload more things as well. Melt Banana then proceeded to tear the town a new arsehole in the way that only Japanese extreme bands can - with vigour, creativity and character. The place was as hot as a hellish sauna. It was especially great for me because I'd never really listened to them before, trusting in their reputation by the word of like-minded friends and other fringe-ish musicians/journalists/promoters. All the hype was indeed justified. They melted my face a bit. Fuckin awesome.

While on the subject, discovering bands for the first time by seeing them live is the greatest pleasure a music fan can enjoy. They may be at their most elemental, enthusiastic and playful in this format and many of my current favourites 'sold' themselves to me by playing an outright awesome show at a night I had attended for a different reason. A good example of this is Matthew Houck a.k.a. Phosphorescent, who I caught supporting the wonderful Black Moutain at the Scala in King's Cross last spring. He strolled onstage with only a well-weathered guitar and a loop pedal and proceeded to bewitch everyone into silence with his fragile and haunting Americana country-folk. As an acoustic singer/songwriter myself, I was immediately bowled over by his music and voice and he showed me another way to approach the form. He recently gathered together a band and headed across the Atlantic for a tour, stopping at the Engine Room to play in front of a rapturous crowd of which I was a priveleged member. The promoter took to the stage and introduced him, saying "Well... Phosphorescent, what can I say? If anyone wants me I'll be slumped in the corner of the room crying." Please do watch this clip I filmed of the full band rendition of "A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise", a beautiful fucking song if ever I heard one.



I noticed recently that my friends over in Southsea had booked a folk-punk crew called Defiance, Ohio to play at the Fawcett and that the band were heading over to the Cowley Club the very next night. The Cowley Club is a brilliant institution - the base for a radical community who put on shows across many genres and host forums and discussions on a wide range of causes that I won't try to abbreviate. Just check them out. Even if you're not into the politics, they have fucking good beer and tea. Anyway, I decided that I should look into some upcoming gigs there and discovered a Swedish hardcore band called Grace Will Fall. They played tonight and I went along, expecting a big crowd but presented with an empty venue for the entire evening. Well, all I can say is it's everyone else's problem because they missed a fucking excellent band, and a prime example of the kind of modern and invigorating European hardcore punk I could spend years trying to discover. This kind of stuff kicks the shit out of so much music, really. Imagine them playing a gig with Attack! Vipers! or early period Mínus. It would be so good I'd probably have to re-align my life afterwards.

But the aim of this post was to say that after the show, these very friendly Swedish dudes hung out with us and drank beers and talked to us about their tour so far. The singer was flying straight to Portugal to record a famous local crust punk band's album, and one of the other guys was going straight to his brother's wedding. We told them that the next time they come over to the UK (which they hope will be early next year), we would hook them up with our promoter friends in Portsmouth and Southampton and High Wycombe, because we know they would be perfect for these shows. And this, to me, was another example of the deconstruction of the business end of music making, even at the smallest level, where musician and audience are levelled to a healthy and altrusitic platform and there's no place for bullshit or division. I bought their album, and it's fucking awesome. I'm listening to it for the third time in a row while I type this.

I suppose I have no real point to all this except to say that if you love music, go out and find it at your own level because there's no player that won't appreciate that or feel encouraged to press on, challenge themselves and contribute to the worldwide resource of artistry and creation. I feel like I want to shout it from the rooftops, which is probably a good sign that I should go to bed pretty soon anyway.

I Quit My Job, Moved, and Ignored This Blog

Sorry. We've had internet for over a week now so there's no excuse. But there are a few things worth mentioning now I've waited a little while so here goes:

I know just how few people get past the beginning of these unnecessarily verbose blogs, so I'll kick off with the self-whoring and inform any readers about two releases to which I have contributed. The first is the "Half Reality" EP by Plurals on Dead Sea Liner records, it's £3 and can be viewed here. Plurals is the drone/ambient/soundscapes-ish project I am part of alongside my friends Duncan (of Psyche Out/Xenon Codex/Horse Vomit), Mike (of Psyche Out/The Edges Fray/Pump Shark/Xenon Codex and more), Dan (Ekca Liena/Nmesme/Sakura promotions) and Pete (Masturhate). I'm very pleased with this EP because not only does it look great, it also represents the two extremes of our sound - straight-ahead drones and an altogether less linear, highly atmospheric bleak-athon. The tracks are "Air Yet To Touch Skin" and "Hanging Bar" respectively.

The second is from my own solo project Me With Others. The 'Cigarettes' EP is with the pressing people as I write, and will be available through Beekeeper Records, which is the new label from Ashley of the now-defunct Division Street Records. I don't know how much it will cost, and I left the artwork entirely to Ashley and Niall so it'll be a surprise. I trust them though, and await the final copies eagerly. There will be a total of 50 copies made, I'll carry some around but most will be available from the Beekeeper site and in the distro section of the Dead Pilot Records site. The tracklist is: "The Seventh Seal" (a Scott Walker cover), "Behind a Cloud", "Gold Circle" and "No One Knows You". All of those songs can be heard on the myspace in some form or another, but the EP versions of "...Cloud" and "...Circle" have been left off there as a lame incentive for you to buy the EP. It's better, shorter and (probably) cheaper than the album anyway so I don't see how you can fail.

I moved to Brighton a little over three weeks ago and although unemployment is frustrating, mainly because I can't buy a lot of records and eat in restaurants anymore, it has been a good move. We have an awesome five-storey house near the train station and it's been a blast so far. I have decided to claim back a little of the tax I paid over the last few years to keep me going, in the guise of Jobseeker's Allowance and hopefully some housing benefits. I actually lost three grand a year to taxes in my last job, and if I claim some back then it means I haven't contributed to the shower of shit that will inevitably be the London 2012 Olympics! Double win.

Also, DCS sadly broke up within a week of me leaving town. This is despite my promise and honest intention of commuting to rehearsals. Turns out two years is simply too long for a 21st century human being to stick to his/her word. Things change, apparently. Perhaps it would've been easier if Joseph Heller had quit writing 'Catch 22' after two years...

Anyway, there are a few more musical things I feel are worth sharing. Dinosaur Jr are back in town supporting their new record 'Farm' and they're as brilliant and noisy as ever if "I Want You To Know" is anything to go buy. It's up for free download on their website and I urge you to check them out live as they are one of the loudest, earthiest and most enjoyable rock bands on the planet. Also they have a link on their website to FreeSoFree, a very lovingly-created database of bootlegs from Dinosaur Jr's entire career. Any band that will link fans with their own bootlegs deserves a serious listen. Here's a fucking storming version of "Forget The Swan" from the Rollins show a couple of years ago.


I just saw today that the hugely underrated doom trio YOB have reformed in the wake of Middian's demise. This is great news, because I reckon their last two records are absolute genius, but I can't help feeling slightly discouraged by the Middian situation. This was Mike Scheidt's post-YOB band who were forced to split up after a lawsuit was filed against them by another 'band' calling themselves Middian. The "original" band were some kind of shitty nu-metal throwback that hadn't done a gig in years, and consequently fell under the radar when the newer band researched to make sure no one else had the name. The full story is on their website, but it boils down to a horrible case of sour grapes and unwarranted self-importance that spilled over into the courts, wasted everyone's time and money and forced Metal Blade to pull all the copies of Middian's "Age Eternal" off the shelves. How can it be that someone so blessed with the art of the Magick Doom Riff could find themselves on the wrong end of all this shit? Court cases and petty little personal wars should be left to the red-tape-loving corporations that seem to enjoy the attention, and musicians should co-operate and compromise, or at least just write it off if they can't agree on anything. I feel sorry for the band, but at least we have YOB back and a new album to look forward to. I would say that you should order "Age Eternal" anyway because it's good, but no one will see a penny of whatever you'll pay for it. Here's a live version of "Grasping Air" off their last album 'The Unreal Never Lived'.



Also I managed to score an "industry" pass to the Great Escape Festival this weekend. If you've never heard of it, it's a "new music" event that hijacks Brighton for three days and there's a gig in pretty much everywhere that can be used for one, regardless of capacity. It's a great idea and the party spirit has definitely taken hold, but musically it pushes very few buttons for me. I did manage to catch the very excellent Cursive play an enrapturing half-hour set at the Ocean Rooms, followed by compelling stuff from Gentle Friendly and Zach Hill at the Freebutt. Zach Hill is the drummer from Hella, a mathy group I've yet to wrap my ears around. His solo stuff is literally baffling. I've never seen a drummer like him and I simply cannot conceive of how this music was written, created and performed. Takes a lot to do that to me these days. Check him out, he's on Ipecac now. I also went to a liberally-cushioned art space called The Basement and caught Elizabeth, who play slightly haunting Portishead-esque music, and Mike Bones. Mr Bones could have gone either way for me - his blurb described him as a Bob Dylan/Lou Reed crossover and a favourite of Vice Magazine. Take from that what you will, but for my own part I thought it could either be genius or a self-concious Noo Yawk bullshit exercise of the highest order. Typically he was neither, and came across passionate, warm and genuine. He doesn't have an unwavering aim just yet though, but some of his stuff was very good indeed. For the last night I caught Throats and Ghost of a Thousand at Club Revenge on Old Steine. There is a catwalk in this club which kind of looks like a penis. It is definitely a catwalk first and foremost though, and probably only looks like a penis because of the shape of the room and also because it's some kind of gay club architectural gag, and not a bad one at that. Anyway, both bands were vicious and very dynamic. GoaT predictably took home the honours as it's a hometown show for them but Throats were far, far more extreme. Here's Thursday night's highlight Cursive playing a new song on Letterman recently. It's weird to write that.



I was loaned a copy of the Portent CD too. This is some really excellent one-man black metal that has apparently taken a few years to complete by Dom, who also plays in Ethernal and was involved in the unfortunately disbanded and scarcely-seen Bucks group Huorn. I'm no expert on black metal, but to me it sounds like a cross between very early Opeth, some Immortal-sounding guitar tones, and the thrash sensibilities of Sci-Fi-era Voivod, all while being quite "dismal" most of the time (quote from the man himself). Of course, when metalheads say words like "dismal", "horrible" and "sickening", this means it's fucking great.

As a final note, I have been unable to buy the new Mastodon or Isis records as I'm unemployed and skint. Pity me. And thanks for reading as always.

Subliminal, Liminal and Super-Liminal

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0699216/

Simpsons fans may recognise the blog title as a line by the one-off character Lieutenant L T Smash in an episode about hidden marketing messages. In response, Lisa asks "What's super-liminal?" Smash demonstrates by yelling "Hey you! Join the Navy!" at Lenny and Karl as they walk by the window. I was reminded of this by an article I saw on imdb.com recently about lawsuits being flung around by those involved in the movie 'Righteous Kill'. Apparently, some psychological manipulation was afoot:

"...the shot of Pacino wearing a Tutima timepiece in the 2008 drama has already sparked a legal battle between the movie's production company and the watch firm. Bosses at Millennium Films accused Tutima executives of failing to hand over a $50,000 (£35,000) fee for a three-second close-up shot of one of their watches... and now both of the film's stars have become embroiled in the case, filing suit against the film's distribution company Overture Films claiming they never authorised a commercial tie-in with the watch company. De Niro and Pacino accuse movie chiefs of failing to tell them about the deal with Tutima and insist they would never have agreed to the plan. The papers state: 'Had their permission been sought, both De Niro and Pacino would have flatly refused to consent to the use of their names, voices and/or likenesses in connection with the tie-in.'"

I believe that Al Pacino would indeed have refused to sully his profession, and his art, by wilfully contributing to a subliminal advertisement, but what I base that belief upon is anyone's guess. I don't know him, I'm only ever seen him acting - that is, quite fundamentally not being himself. I have assumed that his artistic integrity would not knowingly allow him to be a shameless hawker of a posh piece of jewellery. And further still, I have assumed that the concept of 'artistic integrity' I just carelessly used in the previous sentence can be defined in that way, or in any way, and that it is a mutually accepted definition by at least myself and who I am judging. Having never met the man, some pretty big logical loopholes have been ignored in my decision to empathise with him. And yet I do empathise. He must feel like a patsy. I would too.

My point is that in the world of the arts and entertainment, fans like us have a twisted relationship with those whose work we follow. We inexplicably assume there is a common ground between us. For instance, I just demonstrated that my admiration for a fine actor cannot be extended to the point where I can simply guess at his morals and expect myself to be right. I might as well claim to know, having twice seen 'Donnie Brasco', what he had for breakfast this morning. It's a shame, because we like to hold strong to the belief that even Hollywood mega-bucks can't fuck with our own personal appreciation of the people we respect, or the creative output for which we respect them. This extends to music, literature and god knows what else. When all the salesmanship and psychology and soundbites and demographics are removed, we are left with a single artistic statement communicating with a unique human being. This is how the lefties and paranoiacs like myself are comfortable with consuming mainstream culture - we separate the artists from the management, the source from the middle men, and ourselves from the crowd. It may indeed be that Al Pacino supports this kind of anti-mass-marketing approach to his movies, and I'd like that to be true. Art is timeless, after all, and advertising is transitory by its very nature.

The scary thing is that the middle men can so successfully taint both sides of this dialogue between artistic creation and artistic appreciation, to the point where I don't know I'm being advertised at, and Al Pacino doesn't know he's the one doing it! That is fucking absurd, and lamentably commonplace too. But hey, perhaps the Tutima executives are 'just trying to make an honest buck' and 'what's the harm?' I mean, I hadn't even heard of them before I read about it on imdb.com. Now I know the name of several different watch manufacturers, and I don't even wear a fucking watch, or want to. If you play that game, it's not manipulative to want to get your company's name out there on the screens, the billboards, the magazines, the sides of buses. Most normal people won't care, and most normal people aren't human-shaped grey holes for marketing execs to manipulate either. So who are the real crooks in this story? Maybe there's no crooks, and we're all just suffering from an irrevocably disjointed miscommunication about what we are all supposed to do within society.

Hence: Neo, there is no spoon.

Have a good weekend.

Hiring a Man to do a Scarecrow's Job, or My Weekend

On Saturday I played an acoustic show at a venue called The Good Ship on the Kilburn High Road in London. The stage was down in a kind of pit towards the back of the room, just behind the bar, and with a high balcony area on the other side of it. I was due to play first, with another acoustic act after me and a couple of pop bands to finish off the night. I'm usually quite restless before any solo gig I play. I want to get on with it and play so I can relax and enjoy myself, and when it goes well I'm usually in a good enough mood to want to play again with renewed vigour. But I was acting shiftily all night prior to my set, had very little to say to the other performers and I kept having to ask people to repeat things to me when they spoke. It was the first time in a while I'd played a gig with no one but strangers in the room, and I suppose it's something I'll have to get used to.

It went okay although I made a few mistakes that I had to work my way out of by diverting attention away from the guitar playing. I had virtually no recollection of how to play these songs, I couldn't focus and I had to rely on muscle memory to move me through the sections. Very strange. A few people watched whereas most of the bar was filled with Saturday Night folks talking very animatedly over my music. Of course, I could blame many things for this - being booked on the wrong night, my own mistakes, the overbearing earnestness of my own songs clashing with the rest of the acts - but quite simply they didn't need a real person to fulfil the function of providing background noise before the bands came onstage. They needed a CD.

The other acoustic act fared better, because he had brought friends along and his songs were lively little ditties about modern life. He said he was enjoying the background noise because a few days before he had played a Hippy Cafe in Camden where everyone was silent and attentive and it caught him off-guard. I watched his set because he watched mine and because his comment had allowed me to put our differences into a wider context. Give me the attentive hippies Glenn, and you can certainly have the bustling Saturday night North Londoners in the palm of your hand.

I chucked him a demo and thanked the promoter for the chance to play, apologised for my Zero door count and bade farewell to Kilburn with my guitar on my back. Then it was onwards to Liverpool Street where some inebriated friends welcomed me. Three bars and an impromptu breakdancing competition later (not between us, obviously), we called it a night and taxied back to Limehouse to visit the world's second most poorly stocked mini-market* for beer and a sausage roll. We then played some table tennis and ate toast.

The next day I discovered that if you're looking for a Full English in London, you're best not alighting at Bank. It's heavy on cigar shops and nondescript banking firms, light on Greasy Spoon caffs. I then found a fry-up near Hoxton and headed central to spend an alarming amount of money at HMV Oxford Street. It's probably the last decent chain music store in the city. They had face-outs of the latest Asva and Electric Wizard records, 'Salvation' by Cult of Luna and the most die-hard of all the Monster Magnet albums, '25...Tab'. Fuck me! I thought, and took a picture. They even had a PoS block that said "Drone" on it. And to think my friend Dan laughed at me when I said I was in a drone group because he thought I'd made it up. But then again, he did also 'guess' the name Megadeth without having heard of the band apparently.


So anyway, the moral of the story is that the new Napalm Death and Phobia records are shitkicking. The End.

*The World No. 1 most poorly stocked mini-market was a Costcutter in West Drayton where most of the shelves were empty or spaciously displaying less than three of any given product. Four men stood behind the counter but only one actually manned a till, and when I asked them for extra slim filters I had to point the box out to them, which prompted a lengthy huddle and discussion in a foreign language. They then asked me how much I usually pay for these things. I was so baffled I actually gave them the correct amount. I have seen archive footage of shops in the last days of Communist Romania that stocked more than this place. I can only assume the four men behind the counter were squatters that had taken control of the shop without working out how to actually order more stuff for it.

"Lighten up, Dave"

On Saturday I went to a house party in Reading for my friend Andy's 22nd birthday. It was a normal Uni House kind of affair: punch, strangers, vomit, nudity etc. I had a great time but at one point, when the party hit its peak, an old social question re-emerged. The front room was packed with revellers and the centrepiece was the stereo, into which people were plugging their iPods and selecting well-known songs for everyone to dance around to. As I said, I was having a wonderful time, but I couldn't face getting up to dance. It's not that I don't do it - I've been to plenty of allnighters, festivals and dingy raves where I've danced idiotically for hours - it's just that no matter how drunk I get, terrible music is still terrible. I may be having the time of my life, but that won't make me like a shit song.

The music in question was stylistically varied, and although it spent most of the time well within the boundaries of Radio Friendly Rock Music it did occasionally stretch out to some Hip-Hop and Dance Classics from the 90s. Two songs that particularly irked me (as well as coincidentally receiving the most enthusiasm) were Feeder's "All By Myself" and that euphoric electrowank "Ecuador" song from when I was in middle school. For the unfamiliar, Feeder's track is exemplary of their inoffensive and polished take on US Pop Punk, where the "Ecuador" song is a tedious and overplayed rehash of the Euphoric Trance* formula. In my opinion both are pure unadulterated chaff of the highest order, and I won't go into the reasons why.

My body would simply refuse to dance to either of these songs, much like it would refuse to jump from a plane or step off a railway platform. But my question is whether this is wrong, whether this is a pathetically over-earnest and pretentious display of pure artistic obstinacy on my part. I had already played Sly & The Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On, which lasted two and a half songs, and though I've long preached the message that one person's opinion is no more valid than another's, despite how much or little deliberation and research has gone into the forming of that opinion, I cannot think anything other than "Do you seriously prefer Feeder to Sly & The Family Stone... are you insane???" And so while everyone danced and sang the Pop Hits, I sat on the vacated leather sofa, contented, comfortable and without a sour thought towards anybody in the room, yet people kept asking me "Are you alright Dave?", and "Are you sure? You seem a bit off." (It's a good job no one actually used the words "lighten up", which is a phrase that's guaranteed to rile me immediately.) I wasn't "a bit off" at that point, but maybe I am now. I've confronted myself with the possibility that I am a cantankerous elitist, and I don't like it one bit.

But in reality there was no harm done. I didn't like the music, I didn't dance to it, and I didn't bitch and moan about it because I had an awesome night. And besides, would Greil Marcus dance to The Sweet at his niece's Wedding Reception? I fucking doubt it - I'll count myself as one of his followers, and follow him in respectfully sitting out.

Here's Sly & The Family Stone to sing us out (from The Dick Cavett Show in 1970.)

*Further research has revealed that Sash!'s music is in fact Progressive House/Eurodance. I'm fucking sorry I mislabeled it, okay?

The Underground is Infinite!

Ask your friend's Casual Music Fan dad about what "the scene" was like back in the day and listen to his reply. Make a few mental notes - there's probably some very good stuff in there. But take whatever he says with a pinch of salt, because one of the biggest lies you can hear from that generation is this: "There weren't a lot of bands around then, not like there is today."

What he is alluding to is a time when the Hitmaker was also the Visionary, when the Stadium Filler was also the Standard Bearer. The mainstream media offered enough diversity at the turn of the 1970s to satisfy most of the Western world's "proper" music fans (i.e. those who asked more of their listening experience than just to be a soundtrack to the ironing), which in itself is quite remarkable. If you lacked the time or the inclination to look further than a few choice record labels and the latest copy of New Musical Express, you'd still have a pretty damn good record collection on your hands by '76. What they mean by "there weren't a lot of bands around then" is "I didn't really feel like I needed to look for them".

Which is understandable, because looking and finding was fucking hard to do. Underground music from abroad was even less likely to end up in your local record shop than it is today, by a long way. Around the time The Beatles were writing 'Sgt. Pepper...', Paul McCartney would hear about the latest imports from New York arriving at London's hippest outlets. If you had to be in the biggest band in the world to get a heads-up when the new Fugs or Sun Ra record was in stock, what chance did that leave the rest of us?

The irony is that the 21st Century may in fact be the best chance you have of hearing all the music your Casual Dad didn't know existed. Legions of collectors and music nerds have been starting up labels worldwide dedicated to reissuing albums that slipped through the cracks due to a combination of bad management, bad distribution, bad promotion or just outright indifference. None of these factors actually detract from the music itself, which is an injustice. How many times have you thought about that band you know that never quite got the recognition they deserved? They could end up on the 2030 AD equivalent of Repertoire Records being re-released in a digipac, with liner notes written by you.

I picked up a few more of these Lost Gems, Oddities and Groundbreakers recently and I'd like to share them with anyone reading this:

Sir Lord Baltimore - 'Kingdom Come' (1970)


This rocks. Hard. It's utterly brilliant. In fact, it may be one of the definitive recordings in the history of heavy music. This New York three-piece attack every fantastic riff in their repertoire with such gusto and purpose that it actually made me want to abandon my artistic pretenses entirely and spend the rest of my life wailing on an SG, screaming "Yeeeaaaaahhhhh" while being stroked and idolised by an army of nubile young groupie chicks. In a convertible. The vocalist belts out these "mystical woman" lyrics like he's actually spent the last few years doing just that (except that he's also the drummer, not the guitarist). I bought this on the recommendation of Julian Cope's article on his Head Heritage website, and you must read it because he's far better at selling it to you than me.

Malachi - 'Holy Music' (1967)

This reissue from Fallout Records is marketed as one of the earliest psychedelic-themed albums ever recorded, back in Summer 1966. Malachi himself had been transformed into some kind of Zen-like spiritual being (presumably by a combination of drugs, hiking holidays in Mexico and the palpable Spirit Of The Age) and recorded this album with a (future) member of Red Krayola in one evening. I like it, but I don't know why. It consists mainly of quiet, Eastern-themed acoustic meanderings with seemingly random plonks of Jew's Harp over the top. If these two were any calmer when they made this they'd have been asleep. Some vocals come in towards the end of the album I think, but I can't be sure as I tend to actually fall asleep while listening to it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that a fair chunk of this record is silence. 'Holy Music' is sonic Diazepam. There's a funny review of it here by someone who knows more than me. I agree with what he says, but I still like this record somehow. (As did Allen Ginsberg apparently, who contributes a respectful soundbite to the album sleeve.)

Brast Burn - 'Debon' (197?)

You know a record is obscure when the reissuing label is appealing for information about it. This is a great expansive mindfuck of an album - no "tracks", no names, no recording info. I wouldn't be surprised if the musicians involved simply vanished after completing it. Needless to say it's mad as fuck in the usual way you'd expect from Japanese experimental music. Minimal ethnic percussion and some very laid-back bass and slide acoustic work are the bedrock for the majority of this album, but I was most disoriented by what's on top of that stuff - sparse Found Sound loops, trickling water, vocals that are a cross between mantra and acid-rock swagger, and queasy out-of-phase synths to name but a few. In the second half they fade one hypnotic melody into another without the first fully disappearing, then back again, if only to mess with our heads (it works). If you ever found yourself thinking "I want to hear some really, really whacked-out shit", this is as good a suggestion as any. (Here is a concise summary, where the reviewer places them quite thought-provokingly between Comus and The Residents.)