Argue With Silence!

University Radio Falmer Show #3

2012-02-08T23:45:00.002Z

Originally broadcast 3/2/2012

1. Sir Lord Baltimore – Hell Hound
from ‘Kingdom Come’ (1970)
2. Blues Creation – Demon and Eleven Children
from ‘Demon and Eleven Children’ (1971)
3. Blue Cheer – Out of Focus
from ‘Vincebus Eruptum’ (1968)
4. Flower Travellin’ Band – Satori [Part 3]
from ‘Satori’ (1973)
5. Pentagram – 20 Buck Spin
from ‘First Daze Here: The Vintage Collection’ (2002)
6. Tin House – Be Good and Be Kind
from ‘Tin House’ (1971)
7. Budgie – Rocking Man
from ‘Squawk’ (1972)
8. Captain Beyond – Mesmerization Eclipse
from ‘Captain Beyond’ (1972)
9. The Stooges – ‘1970’
from ‘Fun House’ (1970)

BONUS TRACK: Osanna – Oro Caldo
from ‘Palepoli’ (1973)

Download here.

University Radio Falmer Show #2

2012-01-28T13:04:00.004Z

Originally broadcast 27/1/2012

Playlist:

1. Worm Ouroboros - A Birth A Death
from 'Worm Ouroboros' (2010)
2. Neurosis - A Sun That Never Sets
from 'A Sun That Never Sets' (2000)
3. Isis - The Pliable Foe
from 'Melvins/Isis Split' (2010)
4. Black Math Horseman - Deerslayer
from 'Wyllt' (2009)
5. Breach - Big Strong Boss
from 'Kollapse' (2000)
6. Kylesa - Scapegoat
from 'Static Tensions' (2009)
7. Cult of Luna - Receiver
from 'The Beyond' (2002)
8. Trainwreck - Dem Staub Keine Träne
from 'Of Concrete Canyons and Inner Wastelands' (2009)
9. Converge - Dead Beat
from 'Axe To Fall' (2009)

Download here

Things I have learned since broadcast: cobwebs don't "grow", "rifling" through something involves an intent to steal.

University Radio Falmer Show #1

2012-01-25T19:01:00.004Z

Originally broadcast 20/1/12

Playlist:

1. Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song (Live)
from 'How The West Was Won' (2003)
2. Sweet Williams - Clare De Lune
from 'Bliss' (2011)
3. I'm Being Good - NanoParty
from 'Mountain Language' (2011)
4. Broker - Nature's Humans
from 'The Piping Hot EP' (2011)
5. Cousin - Super Toight
from 'And Other Relations' EP (2011)
6. Attack! Vipers! - D-Rail Me
from 'The Mirror and The Destroyer' (2008)
7. At The Drive-In - Picket Fence Cartel
from 'El Gran Orgo' EP (1997)
8. Shield Your Eyes - Drill Your Heavy Heart
from 'Volume 4' (2011)
9. Action and Action - No One Is Born With Disappointment
from 'Pique' (2009)
10. Nitkowski - Harbours
from 'Stay In The Home You Love' (2011)
11. Hookworms - Teen Dreams
from 'Hookworms' (2011)
12. Drowningman - Supermarket Riot
from 'Busy Signal at the Suicide Hotline' (1999)

Download here

After an even longer hiatus...

2011-07-18T19:24:00.009+01:00

There's very little point in me trying to explain why I haven't written anything up here for nine months. I was at Uni, doing the first year of an English degree, and because of all the free time I became even lazier and more negligent than before. Every thought I had about putting something up here was immediately followed by another, far bigger thought: why bother? I'm sure you recognise this thought; not just as a pair of words, a common little phrase used by everyone in the English-speaking world when faced with a small, pointless, unnecessary task that can be deferred or abandoned entirely without much loss or injury to anyone involved; I'm sure you also recognise the thought as a great mental obstacle that is rarely surmounted, rarely even attempted, or maybe as an equally great mental precipice, that stops dead any course of action as suddenly and decisively as a CIA sniper bullet stops a political dissident while he's striding to the podium amid wild cheers, ready to deliver the speech of his life and change the world for the better. All good intentions snuffed out on the very threshold. No, the vast canyon of Why Bother? won’t let you across, no matter how long your run-up to the edge. It is an impossibly deep hole in the human brain shaped like a fucking question mark, and there's nothing it won't try to swallow.

For a long time I did not bother, and now I will try to bother again. As I already stated, there's very little point in trying to explain why. I blame Ulysses. After I got a fair way through it, words started to seem dumb, flimsy and too easily manipulable. I wrote sentences, looked at them and thought "Oh why the Fiddler's Fuck have I just written that?!" Years ago I would write a sentence and then try to improve it by rearranging it around its axes, sort of like free improvisation with a Meccano set: as much freedom as there seemed to be, nuts were nuts, bolts were bolts, and struts were struts. They had their own functions and they ultimately looked the same regardless of whatever bizarre structure they formed part of. Now it's more difficult; language as a gift of infinite blank jigsaw pieces. Put them together how you fucking like - draw something on top of it later. Where can you start with that? And what kind of awful bollocks will it look like whenever you decide, quite arbitrarily, that it's 'done'?

So I suppose it was less that I didn’t bother and more that I didn’t feel I could. There’s very little point in trying to explain why. It might seem ridiculous – after all, I ‘could’ before. Writing informal bits and pieces about music/film/life doesn’t look like much of a challenge to whoever is reading those bits and pieces. (Go ahead: read my bits and pieces. They aren’t challenging.) But then I encountered the dreaded pit of Why Bother? opening up like at the end of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. It was the informality itself that had stopped me, the very same convenience that had previously allowed me to switch off most of my analytical functions and write just like I was talking, y’know, just talking to you about something I thought was valuable enough to be worth talking about. Or maybe not just, y’know, writing like I was talking, but maybe writing like I was writing about what I’d more often just, y’know, talk about. And with the power of hyperlinks, writing about and then showing you what I’d previously only been able to just… you know… talk about. Before coming up to the edge of the valley and knowing only that I must capitulate, it really had been that simple.

It could be simple once again. I can write at more than one register, and the sooner I start the better. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the first year at Uni or anything like that, although I probably should have tried harder to be. It was just laziness. I’m up to nine or ten hours sleep as standard now. It’s fucking disgraceful. All I’ve done today is clean out the filter in the hoover, pay the rent, and this. I haven’t even eaten yet and it’s almost half seven. I really want to go to Metal Monday at the Green Door Store tonight, but I might be too skint. I’ll probably have a shit soon. This entry was only going to be a load of screencaps from the last.fm comments boards and me taking the piss out of people. I told you I could write at more than one register, I just can’t necessarily separate them all out from each other. It’s a skill I should really learn, although as I said, there’s very little point in trying to explain why.

After a long hiatus...

2010-10-01T21:18:00.011+01:00

Most of these posts now seem to begin with an apology for my absence and laziness, and this is no exception. I wish I had a decent excuse beyond the fact that this is, after all, an arbitrary bit of webspace that I have no real obligation to maintain, but I'm afraid I don't. It's simply neglect. I am very good at neglect. It's a good job I don't have pets or children.

I've been jobless for a couple of months now because I start at the University of Sussex on Monday 4th October and I decided to give myself a bit of time off before my shit-for-brains hits the Higher Education Fan. I've not done much besides spend an awful lot of money, but I have been working on the second Me With Others album, 'Don't Accept, Be Broken'. It's shaping up to be a nine-track, roughly forty-five minute album with bass, percussion, a lovely warm-sounding Fender Jaguar, piano, Wurlitzer organ and, as promised, creamy full-fat vocal harmonies. My old computer died a few months back and I lost a lot of old recordings, but I now have a brand new laptop with a shitload of pirated software for recording, mixing and artwork purposes, and I hope to have the record wrapped up in the next couple of months. Definitely before Christmas. It'll be out by Spring. Maybe. Probably not. Anyway, here's the front cover:

The sketches and text are from old declassified Top Secret military maps of Europe from the early 1940s. For every feature represented by a symbol on the map, they have these little illustrations of what the feature would look like on the ground. Everything from a quick-set hedge to a water level gauge to, er... a "prominent tree". I thought they looked lovely and so now they're the artwork.

No update would be complete without something to do with music, and there are few excellent shows coming up in Brighton this autumn/winter. I'm very much looking forward to Polar Bear next Tuesday at the Komedia. If you don't know them, they are an excellent five-piece jazz group, very distinctive in their quite laid-back vibe and especially the involvement of both drummer Seb Rochford (of Acoustic Ladyland and the F-IRE Collective) and Leafcutter John on live electronics. It's the latter that really sets them apart though; Leafcutter John's interjections are tasteful digital tweaks and effects pedals, and he manipulates not only his own sound sources but the instruments of other band members as they are performed. They aren't particularly improvisational either, so the restraint and awareness is visible onstage. Here's a great clip of them performing "Tomlovesalicelovestom" from their third (self-titled) album:

November also sees the return of the inimitable Dillinger Escape Plan, touring their latest record 'Option Paralysis' with Rolo Tomassi. I don't have 'Option Paralysis' yet but I did pick up Rolo Tomassi's latest, 'Cosmology', which is a very solid record, if perhaps lacking the immediacy of their debut full-length 'Hysterics'. And there's a bit that sounds so much like like The Mars Volta that I can't imagine anyone hearing it and not saying "This bit sounds almost exactly like The Mars Volta". Anyway, it's been eight-and-a-half years (!) since I last saw Dillinger kick the shit out of the Mean Fiddler so I'm very much looking forward to it. If they don't play "Black Bubblegum" I'll confront Greg Puciato myself and call him a pussy. Except I definitely won't because he is terrifying. Here's a couple of videos from those two bands. First is the new(ish) video for Rolo Tomassi's 'Party Wounds', just in case you're not already in love with Eva Spence enough.

And Dillinger's second video from 'Ire Works', the aforementioned "Black Bubblegum".

I've heard that some 'purists' have been less than kind about this song, but let me register my opinion here that they're full of shit. Ben Weinman and Greg Puciato have a great skill and instinct for song construction and they've managed to apply that to some of the most challenging extreme music around. This song is produced in a more 'pop' style: there are few actual riffs, it's not at all guitar-led until the bridge towards the end (where the discords remind us we're still dealing with Dillinger Escape Plan here), and it's unapologetically chorus-centred. But not only is it catchy as fuck, it also seems perfectly in accordance with the band's expanded musical personality - an identity forged mainly through Greg's efforts to break out of the 'screams-only' pattern established by original vocalist Dimitri Minikakis. Their ability to write and produce songs like "Black Bubblegum" as well as tech/hardcore stuff is not only rare but an extremely hard-won distinction achieved through taking big risks. I can only assume they credit their fans with intelligence and eclecticism, and they don't do anything by halves. The Dillinger Escape Plan fucking rocks.

Not too dissimilar to Rolo Tomassi, there's an Italian band called Inferno that I've posted up here before. They seem to be recording a new album at the moment, which is very cool indeed. I hope they get themselves an attractive invitation to come and play in the UK sometime soon. Here's a short video montage of them doing pre-production demos.

This band is great because they sound like they're having an enormous amount of fun making music. The songs are mostly short, tightly constructed, alternately mathy and straightforward in all the right places, and the keyboard sound is really quite distinctive. Their hardcore punk influences are very clear too, which helps them avoid seeming po-faced and 21st-Century-wanky-squiggly-supposedly-groundbreaking-mathcore-trendy. As you can see, I have officially abandoned all prospects of becoming a music journalist.

Another band coming to Brighton this year is the legendary Swans, who will also be playing at Supersonic Festival in Birmingham in about three weeks time. I've been to Supersonic the last two years running and it's fast becoming one of my favourites. It usually happens in July but they held out longer this year in order to procure Swans as the big name headliner. I, however, will be missing Swans in favour of what is sure to be one of the most exciting sets I've ever seen: Hallogallo 2010. This is a new band with Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and Aaron Mullan from Tall Firs, put together by Michael Rother of Neu!/Harmonia fame to play Neu! material that hasn't been perfomed in over 35 years. You may be aware that I'm a bit of a Krautrock fan, so this is about as awesome as it gets until they find a way to bring Michael Karoli back from the dead. And Klaus Dinger for that matter. Here's the awesome 'Negativland' from their first (self-titled) album (1972). [Stick with it, it changes gear and rocks the fuck out after a little while.]

The festival has a great pedigree and so predictably the rest of the lineup is pretty fucking sweet too. Of particular interest to me are Eagle Twin, idiosynctratic doom weirdos on Southern Lord, Alan Dubin's post-Khanate project Gnaw, the reformed Godflesh, original drum 'n' bass residents PCM, the always manic Melt Banana and Aaron Spectre's vicious Drumcorps project.

However, three other artists deserve a special mention. The first is Napalm fucking Death. What else really needs to be said about Napalm? Well, perhaps that the first extreme metal song I ever really clicked with (not counting the Cannibal Corpse bit in 'Ace Ventura') was "Necessary Evil" from their fantastic 'return-to-form' record 'Enemy of the Music Business' (2000), and I've never looked back since. Were it not for that song on a Kerrang! Magazine sampler (April 2001 by the way), my life would be very different indeed. Okay, it could very easily have been much better, but there's just as much chance it might have been worse. Or at the very least, a lot quieter. And quiet is fucking lame. Anyway, they've basically had the best ten years of their existence since that record, the first of a run of five totally ripping, brutal, gauntlet-throwing albums that bring the intensity even to bands like Converge (okay, not live but on record at least). They'll be playing a hometown show on a very eclectic bill, and they're headlining on the Friday night. Should be an absolute fucking belter. Here's a video of them playing "On The Brink of Extinction" at Wacken 2009:

A late addition to the lineup is a band I've been aware of for some time but never bothered to check out - Chrome Hoof. I must have been put off by the sparkly imagery, but then again they're ATP-approved and that's usually a good sign. Someone once used the phrase "disco doom" to describe them to me but I quickly erased that horrible prospect from my mind before it had the chance to really sink in. Then later someone told me that Leo Smee was behind it, and he's pretty cool. He is I suppose better known as the bass player from Cathedral and (occasionally) Firebird, and he seemed nice when I met him at a Khanate show a few years back. So I checked them out today and apart from noting they're a perfect band for Supersonic, I can't really work out what to say. I mean, it certainly is funky, and there's some great vocoder shit going on... I don't know what they have to do with 'heavy' music though, but then that doesn't really matter at all. Perhaps when I get there, presumably pissed, and forget the 'heavy metal' connections via Leo Smee, I will be convinced one way or another. Very interesting band though. Sort of like Guapo doing Chromeo covers. Fucked up.

An then there's Ruins. That's right... fucking Ruins! I'm not sure why, but this one was a real surprise. Yoshida Tatsuya is the man behind this project - he plays drums and vocals behind/on top of some very strange prog/Rock In Opposition/mathy madness (the number of forward slashes here denoting the depth of my confusion). He's collaborated with virtually every reputable figure in the Japanese underground and has been active for over twenty years with Ruins, which is now just a solo project. His drumming is superb and the compositions are utterly insane, usually traced back to the influence of Magma but far nuttier and more frantic even than that. He does sing in a made-up language though, which probably accounts for half of the Magma reference. Here's... something or other by Ruins:

If you go to their unauthorised MySpace site you'll see a track called "Hard Rock", which is a very dense medley of classic rock tunes. Some Hendrix, Led Zep, Deep Purple. Try and spot them all. It's fun.

Hopefully among my next posts will be a full Supersonic review and pictures, maybe even a video montage or something pointless and time-wasting like that. I actually did a half-hour video montage of last year's festival but it was too large to upload anywhere and then my old PC died, taking with it an awful lot of porn and bad smells. Let's hope I get it right this time.

Well, there's a new Melvins album so I guess I'd better review it

2010-07-05T15:35:00.006+01:00

I've been trying to get everyone I know with a passing interest in rock music into The Melvins for years, with very little success it must be said. I don't understand. It could be that for all their killer riffs, which must be into the hundreds by now (seriously!), the band's tendency to topple over into smirking, wilfully obtuse audio wrangling and/or utterly unlikely codas is just too much to reconcile for the unconvinced listener. But I would argue that The Melvins never asked anyone to reconcile the many facets of their musical character, nor do they expect any listeners to set themselves that challenge. And so when another hulking mutant riff comes lumbering and whip-cracking out of the speakers, only to be rearranged, curtailed or replaced immediately by a funny whirring noise or something, (a decision that more straightforward bands might regard as "riff abuse",) the question we ask is not "Why?", but "Why not?" This may seem like a approach that is antithetical to the idea of critical analysis, but in some cases it's not really so. When we expect certain artists to be a little madcap (David Lynch, to use an almost-too-obvious example), it's up to us to draw our own boundaries between what's 'characteristic' and what's simply frustrating and unnecessary.

And you might guess, then, that I have a lot of time for this band, despite the many things they've done that definitely are frustrating and unnecessary. Like the track "Pure Digital Silence". Like how they split every song on "The Maggot" up into two tracks that are exactly half the length of the song, meaning you can't listen to it on shuffle. (I mean really, why the fuck did they do that?) There are many more examples, including the end of this new record "The Bride Screamed Murder", which is a repeating and slightly downtuned recording of a small child counting slowly to six.

I'm not making a very good case for this, am I?

My point is that this is all part of a very well-established pattern of oddball humour. This is the kind of band that would, for instance, put a ten-minute tympani piece at the end of their most concisely-rocking record "Houdini", which was also their major label debut. Somehow commercial suicide is just part of the joke. You and I might think that the right way to start and end a song isn't with an ear-splitting sine wave dialling up and down speaker-fucking frequencies, and we might even be right, but The Melvins don't care what we think. They don't hate us, they just don't care what we think. And I can get with that. I want my favourite bands to not care what I think about them. It's the only way anything really good ever gets made.

So... the new Melvins record? Well it fucking rocks. Obviously.

Here's them playing some of it...

From the Vaults #3: As you may have guessed

2010-07-05T12:26:00.006+01:00

Did you guess? I did.

From the Vaults #2: Sisters are Ruining it for Themselves

2010-05-19T22:29:00.020+01:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. To be very honest, I've been losing interest in sustaining this paltry little web presence. Maybe it's frustration at my inability to write anything 'serious', maybe it's just the way the world seems to scream "NO ONE GIVES A SHIT" in my ears on a daily basis, but I'll hold my hands up and admit to a lapse.

I don't have the motivation right now to attempt another long-ish piece, nor will I bother you with my fanboy approval of some semi-obscure rock band or another, so I humbly return to the format of "From The Vaults": in which I dredge up loads of Old Shite from the past and explain why it's funny, bollocks, or otherwise noteworthy.

In the first of these entries I mentioned that my job at the time was to build a few volumes of Victorian-era Irish Feminist writings - clippings, cartoons, letters to the editor, even full novels - that focused mainly on female suffrage but, being Irish and Victorian, also wasted no chance to rail against English oppression as well. All very righteous in principle, though it was far too full of angry revolutionary Catholic rhetoric to be of any interest here. Not to mention all the dour and pious protest poetry, which was tiresome and endlessly shite. No, it was the opposing volume I was later assigned to that yielded the most hilarity: 'Victorian and Edwardian Anti-Feminism'.

As you can imagine, this was a treasure trove of stuffy Olde English sexism and condescension. The most common misunderstanding among the monocled gentry in the (ahem) 'satirical' media was the belief that if women wanted the right to vote, they also must have wanted to act like men in every other way imaginable. Cue dozens of 'hilarious' gender-reversal cartoons spanning almost fifty years from Punch Magazine (example: an old matriarch asking her son's fiancee if she can "keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed". The son stands sheepishly at the door.) I would post a few of these cartoons up but I won't waste your time or cause any unnecessary movement of your scroll-down finger. If you really want to sample Punch Magazine humour you can simply go to a country pub full of wheezing septugenarians and read the corridor walls while you're heading out for a piss.

Perhaps that's a bit of a cheap shot. I mean, the magazine's stance towards female suffrage is not really surprising given that it's named after Mr. Punch, husband of Judy and everyone's favourite Puppet Perpetrator of relentless domestic violence.

The real reason for this post was to upload an example of what I have decided to call the 'Helen Lovejoy Defence'. This is, of course, something along the lines of: "Won't somebody please think of the children???" Unfortunately these silly histrionics are not just coming from the male critics, I guess mainly because men had far more pressing things to do back then than worry about the day-to-day welfare of their own children. Those old-timey moustaches don't grow themselves, you know.

The Helen Lovejoy Defence seems to be the most frequent protestation of the many female anti-suffragists that vehemently insisted they shouldn't have the right to vote. Honestly, before I put this book together I didn't think female anti-suffragists even existed. That's not a sweeping statement, it's genuinely baffling to me why someone would stand in the way of their own enfranchisement. A closer look at their testimonies reveals what I should have suspected all along - these women are either startlingly unambitious even for their time, or just rich enough not to care. Here's a grainy picture of a stall set up by a 'Mrs. Bray' to spread the word. The posters read 'Women do not want votes':

You'll notice the odd irony in how Mrs. Bray has joined a pressure group to prevent her own political voice being heard. I've been trying for hours to think of a suitable simile for this illogic, and the best I can come up with is also the shortest: it's like screaming to be gagged.

One of the most astonishing snippets is this quote from Lady Henriette Haversham, whose ability to succinctly patronise half the world's poulation is unparalleled. Check it out:

I can't help but feel a bit sorry for Lord Haversham, what with his being married to such a wet dishcloth of a woman. Still, I don't suppose she bothered him much unless she needed rescuing from a wasp or something.

Anyway, here is the prime example of the Helen Lovejoy Defence, as promised. This made me laugh so hard in the office that I actually had to hide it under another stack of papers and not even look at it while I was scanning it. It's such a great example of emotionally manipulative propaganda I can almost hear Josef Goebbels taking notes across the pages of history. Behold!

More posts to come as I try to kick this blog into gear again, including: Mediafire links to lots of old recordings I've been involved with, the recent breakup of ISIS, and possibly some sort of Plurals long-weekend mini-mini-tour diary.

Do We Clap Now?

2010-02-22T22:39:00.048Z

[interspersed with a few photos and clips from the archive]

On a particular Friday afternoon in October I was walking home from work in rather a hurry. This in itself is unremarkable - any journey to or from somewhere I wouldn't usually volunteer to be will make me irritable and my pavement-hopping speed far too brisk for most of Brighton's meandering pedestrians. On this particular Friday afternoon, however, I needed to get home quickly because a friend of mine was playing the early opening set of Brighton's experimental music and sound art festival, Colour Out of Space. One of the meandering pedestrians I cut past was a squat, bald old man speaking very involvedly into a dictaphone. He was looking into one of those shops that sells trinkets and crystals and chakras and lots of holistic nonsense, and I walked past him thinking, "Weirdo." You see, when I'm in a hurry, everyone blocking my path is insane.

Skip forward a few hours, and I see him again. This time he's onstage at the Sallis Benney Theatre, sitting at a table with miscellaneous bits of noisemaking debris and hidden little boxes to manipulate their sounds. He's playing an empty Coke can with a horsehair bow. Four other middle-aged gentlemen are sitting at tables onstage too, playing an array of unidentifiable things, creating an acoustic/electronic collage that totally enraptures a full venue, myself included. This, as it turns out, is Friday night's headline act: Morphogenesis. They are veterans at this kind of thing, and it is a special occasion. Looking them up today, I noticed that one of the albums I recommended on this blog last year actually came out on their record label.

The Jim Morrisons hassle the awkward Volks crowd, May 2007:
You may have guessed what I'm getting at here. I saw a man on the street who I decided was a weirdo and it turns out that I happen (at least loosely) to be a fan and patron twice over. Obviously it means I judged him unfairly by his appearance, but does that then mean he isn't a weirdo after all? Not necessarily. Does that then mean I am also a weirdo? Or, perhaps, actively pro-weirdo?

Every so often I find myself kneeling on a stage, howling into a microphone and looping together the sound of my voice into huge cavernous drones of faux-mantra harmonic gibberish. Four other people do similar things around me, with keyboards and laptops and dozens of assorted effects pedals, and then we fade out and fuck off after a maximum of twenty minutes. I suppose at these moments, when I am doubled over, sweating and grinning in my workshirt, I also look like a fucking weirdo. This is, of course, the world of "experimental" music, where nothing is at is seems or should be or looks like it's going to be. Where trendies and hermits collide. Where chin-stroking anti-musical theorists can still be genuinely confused by what they're hearing and seeing. How did I stumble into this? One day I was listening to Slayer, then what? Contact microphones, cathartic ramblings and a suitcase full of mangled electronics. Fantastic.

It's what we do - Plurals at Komedia, Feb 2010:
There are so many ways into this huge meta-genre that it surprises me how obscurist and esoteric it is perceived to be from the outside. But then again, when you're presented to something from the more aggressively strange end of the spectrum it's difficult to make the link, to somehow connect it with the more formal musical styles it may relate to only in theory. For instance, the stuff I'm talking about is almost all improvised around an idea or setup, and roughly the same can be said of process music*, acid rock or a 12-bar blues solo-swapping jam. All of these are fundamentally restrictive but allow for something unexpected to occur; indeed, unexpected things are bidden to occur, and made an equal partner in the performance alongside whatever is prepared for that performance. I'm not claiming that it all works in this way, but certainly the stuff I like does.

Merzbow (drums) and Keiji Haino's erratic and extremely noisy set at Supersonic 2008

And I think that's what drew me in to begin with. Music is exciting when chance is allowed into the room, but in reality chance is always in the room - what we do with it as part of a collaborative event is down to the receptiveness and willingness of both parties, the performer and the audience, and of all the individuals within them. Musicians who are only satisfied with 'ideal' levels of ultra-professionalism/perfectionism are often on the sticky end of chance as a result. But when people get it right, it's often exhilarating. For example, I went to see the psyche rock band Comets On Fire a couple of years ago and they played such a brilliant show that we wouldn't stop calling for an encore. The house lights had gone up and people were filing out, but we did manage to get them back onstage for another song. Somehow the fact that the band played on in a fully lit room, and clearly against the curfew, made the performance change. A psychological barrier broke down. People were sitting on the edge of the stage and the distance between the players on the wide, deep boards of the Scala made it seem surreal. The amps and the drum kit were tiny towards the back curtain. For the first time, it felt more like we were in the same room as the band rather than just at a gig. It seems like an obvious point, but it made a huge difference.

Petals has a waistcoat and a suitcase full of noise:
A lot of the avant-garde stuff and the noise and the sound art I've seen (which is nowhere near enough for me to be speaking as anything more than an intrigued punter) essentially multiplies many times over this receptiveness to chance. The majority of the players are kind of tinkerers too, and many homemade devices and sound manipulators abound. The sonic probabilities and possibilities unfolding are so endless that every set is kind of... bespoke, in a way. Myriad slabs and scrawls of sound can be magicked out of virtually nothing at all. Another example: at the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch a couple of years ago I saw Sutcliffe Jugend. At one point in their set it was so ear-piercingly, unbearably horrible and nasty that I decided to find the source of the noise. I followed the chain of effects pedals, metal boxes, laptops, endless wires wires wires wires amps switches tables chairs, to find that it was all coming from a humble jack lead, held nakedly in the air and touched, on and off morse-code-like, at the very tip.

Some of this stuff is borne of extremity and catharsis and perversion, and some is playful and dadaist. This is no different from any other creative art. What is different, though, is how it forces the audience to decide almost straight away whether or not they think this is a valid expression. It almost grabs you by the collar and demands, "Is this really a performance? Does it tick your boxes? What would you prefer this to be?" This is not really what happens at an alt rock show. Looking around the room, I occasionally notice people bemusedly unwilling to allow their faces and behaviour to answer those questions. You can tell it by the way they glance at friends and strangers as if to ask, when the sound from onstage has finally died down, "Do We Clap Now?"

A dutch lunatic in a posing pouch destroys a toy laptop to the deafening strains of Michael Jackson's "Earth Song"

Tim Cementimental's most renowned circuit-bent creation: The Ghost Box

*I know that process music is quite fundamentally not improvised, but it does allow for unintended things to happen as a result of the processes themselves, the room, the equipment, etc. I'm thinking about the Pendulum Music thing as an example.

September/October ramble Pt. II

2009-10-26T12:00:00.018Z

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

2009-09-25T19:32:00.008+01:00

(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

2009-09-08T20:47:00.012+01:00

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

2009-08-25T19:59:00.018+01:00

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

2009-06-08T18:49:00.013+01:00

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

2009-06-07T02:39:00.004+01:00

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

2009-05-17T15:09:00.007+01:00

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

2009-03-12T17:09:00.007Z

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

2009-02-09T13:10:00.004Z

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"

2009-01-19T12:53:00.006Z

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!

2009-01-14T16:14:00.009Z

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.)

Dave does a MySpace questionnaire for girls. Results: predictable

2008-12-29T12:41:00.005Z

Year 2008, Day #363: Dave attempts to fill in one of those weird, bafflingly personal/impersonal MySpace questionnaires without breaking character, or lying to make himself seem Super Awesome.

Who do you text the most?
I couldn't work this out, so a cursory glance at my Inbox would suggest an equal tie between Dave George, Duncan and Mike 1.

Do you wish you had smaller feet?
No

Has a rumor been spread about you?
Yes, but not for over 5 years.

Are you a gullible person?
Yes

Are you easy to get along with?
Hopefully, that's the goal anyway.

When you're walking, do you stop to drink?
No, nor vice versa.

Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?
No

Are you in a complicated relationship?
Relationships between humans are never simple.

Do you hate more than 3 people?
Yes, but not too many more. No one I can't easily avoid, thereby saving myself the trouble of actively hating them.

Are you too forgiving?
No. People ought to be more forgiving anyway.

Do you like your hair color?
Yes, could be straighter though. You can't enjoy heavy metal to its fullest with a shaven head.

Name 3 people who you talked to today?
Parents, colleague Ken

What were you doing at 8 am this morning?
Sleeping

Last person you talked to on the phone?
Branch Manager of Interlink Express depot in Slough.

Do any of your friends have children?
Yes

Are you wearing make up?
No.*

When was the last time you spoke to someone you dont like?
Saturday

Has a boy/girl ever called you baby?
Not seriously, honeybunch.

Have you ever kissed on a boat?
No, although I did stalk on a ferry.

What bed did you sleep in last night?
Mine

Have you held hands with anybody in the past week?
No

Do you have a friend you can tell stuff to and you're sure they won' t tell?
Difficult question. I think my friends are decent enough to know what they can "tell" and what they can't, but the best way to ensure people don't repeat things is to not tell anyone in the first place.

Do you want kids?
I could probably handle it, I would likely enjoy it a lot, but "want" is not a word I would use.

Did you go out or stay in last night?
Stayed in

Do you like to text or call more?
About the same

Do you have someone you can be your complete self around?
I can't be my "complete self" at work, but anywhere else and in any other company - yes, lots of people.

Looking back in time did you ever waste your time on a certain boy/girl?
Pass. No time is truly wasted anyway.

Have you ever had a really big fight with your best friend?
No, but I don't have a best friend either.

Can you touch your toes?
Fucking no chance.

Would you kiss anyone on your top friends?
Probably, but not in any serious way.

Do you say sorry first?
Before what? Excuse my childlike innocence.

Has someone promised you something and broke it?
Yes, but such is the nature of people. I've never made anyone promise anything that would destroy me if it were broken.

Have you ever been cheated on?
I can answer "no" with more confidence than most people.

Who was your last text from?
I can't remember.

Last time somebody hurt you physically?
The lead singer from Mob Rules elbowed me in the face a few weeks ago.

Butter, plain, or salted popcorn?
Butter

Will you be in bed within twenty minutes?
No

Would you rather be a fish or a bird?
I already can swim and don't much care for it. Flying would be awesome though, so a bird.

Is there a girl that knows everything or mostly everything about you?
No

Are you anything like you were at this point last year?
Exactly the same, minus one drummer and with slightly blacker lungs.

In the past week have you cried?
No

Who was the last person you were in a car with except for family?
Dave George, Mark and James W.

Is it easy for someone to make you smile?
Yes, very. Yet I apparently have a reputation for being a miserable bastard, which I resent slightly.

Meet anyone new this year?
Of course. If you've stopped meeting new people you might as well stop getting out of bed in the morning.

Have you ever told anyone you were OK when you really weren’t?
Yes

Do you think anyone in general out there loves you?
My parents and my nan I'm sure. Also, "in general" serves no purpose in the above sentence.

If you could change your eye color would you?
No, there's nothing wrong with brown eyes.

Can a girl and a boy be best friends without having feelings for each other?
Yes. Mulder and Scully managed it perfectly well, if you exclude how she was artificially inseminated with Mulder's sperm but it turned out the baby might not have been his because it was actually an Alien-Human Hybrid/Supersoldier with telekenetic powers.

Have you ever dated someone to get back at someone else?
No, though I'm sure it would be fun if I was a bit of a cunt.

Last boy in your room?
Mike 1 came over before we went to see ISIS.

Are you close to your mum?
I suppose so. We argue constantly, but it never really amounts to much.

Do you wear your feelings all over your face?
Hopefully not.

Have you ever dated someone twice?
No

Does it bother you when people hate you?
Yes, intensely.

When did you last hit rock bottom?
Christmas '05 to Spring '06 I can hardly remember.

Do you think abortions are horrible?
Biologically yes, they're pretty gnarly and I wouldn't want to do one myself. But morally... ultimately, there's nothing to say because it will never be a choice I'll have to make.

What do you think of people who do drugs?
They have the best stories and are usually more awesome than me.

Why did your last relationship end?
For further details, see the lyrics to "I Know It's Over" by The Smiths, and insert more dick jokes.

Have you kissed more than 10 people in 2008?
I doubt it.

What deadly sin are you most guilty of?
Sloth is top, with Envy shoulder-barging Gluttony for the 2nd place.

What do you want right now?
Happiness, Love and Comradeship, but there is a very nice looking cheese baguette in the fridge that will do for now.

Does anyone hate you?
Yes, a few people. But they're up their own arses anyway.

Have you ever lost someone in your family?
Not immediate family, but yes - two grandparents and an aunt.

Do you have any secrets?
Yes, lots.

Have you ever touched an elephant before?
Yes. When I was younger on holiday in Greece, a circus set itself up next to the hotel and tied its elephant up outside. They let it off for a walk at some point too.

Do you believe girls fight too much?
Wouldn't know. As a generalisation, they over-analyse.

Have you ever walked in on people having sex?
No, but I've already been in the room before they started a couple of times. Also I did barge in on a couple having sex so I could retrieve my lager from next to the bed.

What would you like to say to the first person you kissed this year?
It will have been either a family member or a mate, so I'm not sure.

Do you find it in your heart to forgive?
Yes, but no one's properly shat on my soul as yet.

Do you think the drinking age should be lowered to 16?
No, it would be chaos.

Ever kissed someone else's girlfriend/boyfriend?
I don't just go around kissing everybody and making notes, who the fuck wrote this shit**?

What's a fact about the last person who was the opposite sex, who had their arms around you?
I'm not sure. It was probably on Saturday at some point, but I don't know who.

What do you currently hear right now?
Fan heaters and typing

Where did you get the shirt you are wearing?
Christmas Day from my aunt.

What are your chances of getting with the person you like?
Low, I suppose.

Could you go a day without eating?
I doubt it

What was the reason you got grounded for last?
I'm 22 for crying out loud.

Do you know anyone that smokes weed?
Yes.

Do you still talk to the person you last dated?
I don't "date" people, and even if I did I wouldn't call it "dating".

Have you ever kissed anyone whose name started with a C?
Yes

When it comes to the opposite sex, what's your "type"?
I'm not sure, there are many levels of expectation and preference depending on what you're actually looking for. Many will humour a horrible slag just for some quick sex, which I wouldn't do. Many will ignore those they find most beautiful because they themselves are not beautiful enough to succeed, which is a shame and somewhat self-defeating. Other people think human relationships are nothing more than an S&M Bar tarted up as a Circus disguised as Real Life, and end up on the internet shagging an exhaust pipe or picking shards of glass out of their own anus. I'm just thankful I fall into none of those groups, and the jury is still out on what exactly is "my type".

Where is the furthest place you've travelled?
Tampa Bay, Florida

How long does it take you to shower?
5-10 minutes

What was the last thing that you drank?
Coffee

If you could have one thing right now what would it be?
A gig to play tonight, in the middle of a tour. And someone to come with me.

Does anyone love you?
Hasn't this question already been asked?

How has this week been?
It's Monday afternoon, so if we're counting last week then it's been excellent. Good food, good tunes, good times, good people. What else could I need?

Does the last person you shared a bed with mean anything to you?
It was Dave George.

Do you curse in front of your parents?
About a tenth of the amount I curse in front of others, but yes I do.

Are you slowly drifting away from someone?
Er... probably?

Did anyone see you kiss that last person you kissed?
Yes

When a friend walks out of your life, do you go after them or let them go?
No one has cut their ties with me acrimoniously as far as I know, but many friends have up and left town. They seem perfectly happy where they are and I don't sit around wailing over their absence, but I always stay in contact.

Have you ever fell asleep in someones arms?
Outside of infancy, no.

What are you doing tonight?
Curry at the new restaurant in Totteridge, then over to Gemma's flat for a get-together of some kind.

Who are two girls you trust most?
Oooh... shit, tough question. Trust with what? Information, possessions, my life?? A couple of my mates' girlfriends are quite trustworthy and they know me pretty well. Hold up, this quiz is actually for girls isn't it***?

Can you fill this out without lying?
Yes, but not without avoiding some questions.

What are you doing now?
Shirking

When is your birthday?
December 6th

Who was the last person you took a picture with?
The end of Saturday has blurred edges.

What are you listening to?
Nothing right now, but this morning I put on "Blues For The Red Sun" by Kyuss in the car.

Is anything bothering you right now?
Many things, mainly where I'll be in six months time and what will be happening in my life.

Where was the last place you fell asleep other than in your bed?
Sofa bed at Ryan's house, next to Dave George.

What's the very first thing you do when you wake up?
Try to go back to sleep in vain.

*Here I began to suspect it may not be a unisex questionnaire.
**This should have been where it became obvious.
***The penny drops.

ATP Nightmare Before Christmas gig report: curated by Melvins and Mike Patton

2008-12-18T14:41:00.010Z

It's been less that a couple of weeks since I got back from the Melvins/Patton-curated All Tomorrow's Parties, and I still haven't quite recovered from the sheer awesomeness of the event, as well as the reckless abandon with which we treated our chalets, eardrums, immune systems and body clocks. There was enough going on for me to write a whole book about, but this is (honestly) the Short Version, leaving out anything irrelevant or long since forgotten:

The journey was straightforward, clear sky etc. Homemade Somerset Chili Burger at a roadside trailer for breakfast, and a cup of tea. I took a bag of CDs along for the journey without recalling that J, the driver, has possibly the best MP3 Player contents in the world, and so most of my contributions were superfluous. We pulled up listening to 'Rembrandt Pussyhorse' and some Hellboy courtesy of Dubya. I was dismayed to find that our chalet had no living room and only one wooden chair, so we headed immediately to the Irish Bar, then for another in the main pavilion next to who may or may not have been two-thirds of Teenage Jesus. After another two drinks and some ill-advised shots in the Pool Bar, we decided to go for pizza. Walking out of the bar, I was bemused to recognise something from Rolo Tomassi's 'Hysterics' from the speakers. This certainly was ATP.

We headed to the Centre Stage, a wide and impossibly dark venue, for Melvins 1983. I enjoyed this set, but it could have been better in all honesty. It was short, and the band (& soundman) only really geared up in the second half. 'Snake Appeal' got people moving, and the last song was great.

I caught Madlove next having not read the booklet blurb on this band, so I was expecting something not so straight once I knew it was Trevor Dunn's project. It was decent, interesting Alt Rock stuff and it came off well live.

Since we'd been drinking with serious intent from about 1.00pm, by this point I was already pretty hammered. I'd decided for some reason to smoke a large joint before Big Business: stupid idea. I was a bit too spaced out to get the best from this set, but it was really very good anyway. Their music makes a lot more sense to me when it's not seguing into the Melvins' set - sonically it stands up better when it's not immediately juxtaposed with something more powerful. That's nothing against them - the Melvins are just bigger than Big Business in sound, performance, numbers and noise levels (much of that can be attributed, ironically, to the Business boys themselves...)

During that set, Dubya was wandering a bit. Maybe he'd had too much to drink. It was only 6.30pm, but it's easily done when the music goes on for over twelve hours each day, at least six of those hours stretching out far beyond the edges of the average Bad Hangover. Net result: three full days of self-flagellation and broken promises Never To Do This To Myself Again!

I think I missed the beginning of The Locust due to Dubya staggering around the fish & chip shop irritating random people and trying to seduce the blonde girl at the Spirits trailer, but what I did see was quite masterful. They are in total control, unique and skilled, with inimitable stage presence. I knew not one single note of what they played, but it didn't matter. People were pretty lively, I heard, but I don't remember much violence.

I'd seen ISIS the night before and loved it, this was even better. The sound was dead on from the start and the new song stood out as particularly awesome. A lot of people I spoke to decamped to Zu instead, who were apparently amazing. I'm sure they were, but in all honesty I was never going to miss Isis for anybody, Melvins included (though luckily it didn't come to that). Friday night was the 7th time I've seen them. One of the best bands on the planet.

Meat Puppets next, I enjoyed it. I'm new to them (except for the Nirvana MTV Unplugged covers) and I was wondering if the more "country" material would be too tame, but it comes across more forcefully live and the three-piece lineup were well balanced, experienced and very good players.

Decisions needed to be made over what could have been Time-Clash Of The Fest: Os Mutantes and Porn. Although I now know Porn's set included Thurston Moore and Brent Hinds among the usual suspects, Os Mutantes were the trump card of the whole festival. I've loved this band for a year or so and was overjoyed to see them added to the lineup. I had never guessed Patton would be such a fan, although it makes sense that these guys might have been just as much of an inspiration for 'Disco Volante' as, say, The Mothers of Invention. Their original recordings are much more experimental than what comes across on the stage, where they are unable to recreate the Musique Concrete and the Big Band stuff. While it was just the Baptista brothers and some hired guns, the whole show was vibrant and amazing. Sparkly jackets, tights, capes, dreadlocked percussionists, vocal harmonies... it was a party. Mike Patton watched most of it from the wings, as did Dale & Jared a bit later on. Sergio Baptista is a very good, traditional-style guitar player and some of his solos were great. I danced around like a loon for the rest of the night and by the time I got back to the chalet I was a little worse for wear, standing on a chair shouting the (few) words to 'Bat Macumba' in a very cracked voice.

Saturday:

I started off thinking Junior Brown was just an old-fashioned R 'n' B & country player, but it took a while to sink in before I realised the music itself is far from simple. Some of the chord progressions were highly unusual. Had this guy been around in the 50s, he would be considered quite the oddball. Good stuff though, and the guitar/lap steel cross he uses is worth coming out for.

It was the third time I've seen Mastodon, and I staked my place by the sound desk to get the best mix in my ears. The fact that they were one guitarist down only emphasises quite how powerful they are at full strength, and while the performance and material (lots of 'Blood Mountain' and 'Leviathan', plus some new stuff) is strong, I know how this band can lay waste to a venue. They didn't, but it's not their fault really. Expecting them to be devastating and finding them merely excellent... well, that's hardly cause for concern.

The Melvins were reliably awesome. My first time hearing 'Nude...' material live didn't disappoint. 'The Kicking Machine' and 'Dog Island' were the winners from that album, with the bulk of 'Senile Animal' still sounding great alongside it. 'Tipping The Lion' was a welcome surprise. The slow one from 'Senile Animal' sounded nasty as fuck. Another Melvins show doesn't disappoint, what a surprise!

Next up, the Butthole Surfers and yes, Gibby was drunk as fuck but what do we expect anyway? The set was great, full of old classics and Paul Leary was particularly deranged. Gibby veered between having the crowd in stitches laughing and having them heckle him wildly. He picked up a Telecaster, muttering to the crowd something like "Try and visualise, if you can, me... being able to play the guitar" and lumbered about twanging discordant notes for two minutes before losing interest and putting it down. Irreverant and timeless, I'm glad I finally have a Butthole Surfers gig under my belt.

I was slightly disappointed by the lack of Dave Lombardo in Fantômas, but Dale Crover stepped up and delivered admirably. I know he's an awesome drummer, but Lombardo has the speed thing down perfectly and some Fantomas stuff is pretty frenetic. Anyway, they were brilliant - tight, eclectic, brutal in places. Patton commented graciously on the festival as a whole, saying he'd seen more amazing music in the last day and a half than in the last ten and half years and thanking ATP etc. He's a very compelling frontman to watch, and 'The Director's Cut' album itself came across like a sardonic rock opera. Most of the time I was watching Dale, though. He was probably the highlight of the set.

I spent the next two hours drinking and smoking too much in the chalet of some new friends Dubya had made, so I was quite leathered by 1am for Teenage Jesus & The Jerks' second set, but I somehow had a perfect view. Short, angular, pissed off and very committed, controlled and forceful. The drummer was particularly powerful for someone with only one actual drum to use. Lydia Lunch, Thurston Moore and Jim Something-less-pronounceable from The Bad Seeds have all been Pros for such a long time that they could possibly have approached this nasty, squalid old material in the wrong way. But no, it was very very good indeed. Lunch's post-Branca guitar noise was all but perfect.

After Teenage Jesus, more Ouzo happened to me and we bowled in to see Squarepusher en masse. This was truly the best set of the weekend by some margin. This guy can do anything. He has a melodic sensibility like no one else, and seems to be unerringly in love with the bass guitar because he has wrung more out of it than any other bass player I can think of, and continues to do so. If Buzzo is a bottomless pit of riffs (which he is), then Tom Jenkinson is a bottomless pit of ideas. It's not like he's never made any filler, but who can hold that against him? The 'Just A Souvenir' material is a major departure from his usual stuff, but the rock riffs and drummer work brilliantly. The live drums are also an asset when the set gets to the inevitable 'Come On My Selector', it's "let the bass kick" drop was the singular high point of the weekend for me.

The rest of the night is lost to uncertainty. After heading back to the chalet of our new friends, I remember making a go at finishing the Ouzo while watching 'Goodfellas' over many animated and unsober conversations, failing, and hauling myself home at what must have been at least 5am.

Sunday:

My terrible hangover was only slightly lifted by Joe Lally. I love Fugazi and Ataxia, but Joe is an unassuming performer of subtle alternative rock music, and I had nothing to really grab at at a time when that was desperately needed.

I caught a bit of Leila as well but she was having terrible sound problems. Hardcore digital clipping. Not pleasant. I was with Tim Cementimenal, and he said "It would have been fine if it was just that sound."

I sat around feeling sorry for myself for a while, then grabbed J (who had been awake about thirty-six hours by this point) and headed for Monotonix. I won't go too far into it as I'm sure people have talked a lot about this band already. I decided to forego the bar and head into the melee. It was impossible to see what was going on, occasionally you'd see a guitar neck poking out from somewhere in the crowd. The vocalist shoved past me occasionally, on his way to climbing the walls & railings or hanging from the ceiling. You couldn't tell where the band were most of the time. Bits of drum kit were being passed along, played by members of the crowd. I was looking for the guitarist when I saw a swelling of people coming towards me, and I got out of the way to find the whole band moving their gig to right in front of the sound desk. After a while the vocals cut out and the drums had been dispersed. The gig appeared to be over. I decided to go outside and look for my mate in the smoking area but there were hundreds of people blocking the doors. I phoned him up and he said he was "outside, watching the gig". We filtered out, hearing wild cheers from outside. By the time I got out the door, the band pushed past me and back inside with whatever instruments they still had hold of. The gig was now over.

Another period of self-pity followed. It was imperative I didn't get drunk or stay up too late as we had to check out at 10am. Dälek are, and were, brilliant. They had two more collaborators adding sound manipulations and contributing to the general Industrial Brick Wall Noise the duo are well-known for. They remain the only hip-hop act I've ever truly enjoyed because the music itself is so strong and effective. I don't listen to anything purely on the strength of its lyrics, and most hip-hop backing tracks sound like just that. Aside from a few tasteful examples I can think of (and my knowledge is pretty basic), it just sounds tepid, uninspired and cheesy. Dälek are one of those examples.

Melvins again, and I actually detected a little rhythmic sloppiness in the middle of this set. It didn't really deter much though, and once again the latest two records got the lion's share of the setlist. 'Boris' was the real high point of their two performances, with the ending part of 'Eye Flys' running a close second. That's not me being elitist about their old material (although 'Oven' or 'Antitoxidote' would have been nice), those songs are just their most crowd-flattening. Buzzo finished off with a minimalist rendition of 'Okee From Muskogee' while Jared crowd-surfed and assaulted a roadie who was then finished off by Dale creeping back on the stage to drag him away. Not a real assault, but tell me you wouldn't feel a little raped with Jared straddling you in front of thousands of people, harmonising a country song.

Contrary to most people, I enjoyed The Damned. 'Love Song' and 'New Rose' were worth staying for, and I found their eclecticism enjoyable. They have a big sonic range that packed a lot of clout, what with the keyboards and Captain Sensible's very fat-sounding Gibson SG.

After this, we went back to our friends' chalet. Ben from Reading had been sitting around all day in his poncho, resigned to not seeing anything at all as he'd overindulged so much the previous night. Not for me though: rousing myself for a final push of adrenaline, I walked in mid-Double Negative and immediately rushed straight to the pit. What can I say? They know hardcore punk rock, and they know it well. Completely fantastic. They ended with Minor Threat's "Seeing Red".

Finally, another great Squarepusher set, though slightly eclipsed by the previous night. I managed to get to the front, where a very inebriated individual was propped against the barrier with his head bowed. He somehow managed to nod the affirmative whenever the security asked him if he was okay, but would then zone out again. Eventually I decided enough was enough and, through succinct hand signals that would have been far beyond the capabilities of my sober self, conspired with another reveller to quickly hoist the comatose raver over the barrier and drop him on the other side so we could take his place. Outstanding success, much high-fiving ensued.

Checking out in the morning was a semi-conscious affair, and we were two hours away before I realised my denim jacket was still at Butlins. And so the weekend ends with me grumbling, swearing and frowning into a sub-par Service Station toad-in-the-hole, or maybe it ends later on that day, after a long detour, in the square of a sloping Cotswolds village drinking coffee and preparing for the home stretch.

(Photos to follow - mine didn't come out.)

My problem with HxC is that I'm not very HxC (on purpose)

2008-12-01T17:12:00.003Z

Five or six years ago my town of High Wycombe was on the gigging circuit for a lot of decent UK Hardcore bands - people like Knuckledust, Underrule, Diction, Special Move, Unite, BDF etc. A handful of people I knew would attend, some locals I didn't know would invariably be around, but mostly the crowd were followers and friends of the bands themselves. Usually they'd have come out from London. I liked the music we saw and heard - I still do. The last couple of decent hardcore shows to roll through Wycombe were the USHC bands Throwdown and Terror, the latter being the White Horse landlord Paul's last gig in charge of the pub. After that the UKHC gigs dried up, aside from a few bands playing at the largely Punk Rock-inclined Pass Out nights.

About two years ago a friend of mine, ex-Owing To This (who had captured a moment very successfully in the scene some years before), started a UKHC band with some younger members. After six months or so, they hit their stride and suddenly I was at one of their shows, standing at the edge of the biggest crowd of Hardcore kids I'd seen outside of London in nearly half a decade. It was far more violent than I remembered and though the music was still as spiteful as it was before, the fans seemed more vicious. This was more ominous than the videos of snarling, spitting, cartoonish Punk Rockers from the '77 First Wave.

Since then I've witnessed the UKHC scene accelerate through Wycombe again, riling up its youngsters as it passes by. I was never a die-hard follower, but I've lost something of the connection I once had with it. I find it hard to become enraged, indignant and territorial on cue. In fact, in the years since I left school I've tried to actively avoid those mindsets. The genre still appeals to me because I like angry, fast, and heavy, but I've never felt right standing on stage screaming at The Enemy without also screaming at Myself in the same breath for the sake of fair balance. These kids are making good music and they mean it, but they appear to me as a pack of wolves sometimes, and I doubt that individually they are as headstrong and righteous as their group catharsis would suggest.

Some of it is shamelessly Tough Guy and irksomely Preachy, too. Maybe that's a simpler reason why I'm not so moved by it all any more - I am not a Tough Guy, or a Preacher. I'm as wrong as I am right, ultimately, as is everyone.

The Reliable Surprise

2008-11-14T13:32:00.007Z

It seems that no matter what tangent I go off on, I always come right back to metal. It's not that I ever enjoy it less or get bored by it, but occasionally other styles drag me away. Recently I realised I had an awful lot of Radiohead to catch up with. A while ago I became enamoured with Comets On Fire, Guapo, Black Mountain, and other superficially 'retro' but ultimately quite contemporary stuff. And last year I realised The Flaming Lips are one of the finest American bands of all time.

Last night, though, was all about metal. I went to the Scala in Kings Cross to catch the ever-evolving Enslaved for the first time since the 'Below The Lights' tour in 2003. They've got bigger in every way since then - bigger stage, bigger crowd, bigger sound. It was a great performance at the beginning of a tour supporting a justifiably widely acclaimed album ('Vertebrae'). What is really remarkable is that they are one of the few remaining original Black Metal bands and their momentum is still gathering after fifteen years. Every one of their ten albums seems to have been a destination, from which they would then start again. They have a rich sound and their genuine progressiveness never reaches a point where it no longer Rocks Very Hard (alternatively, they are never form over function). The international metal scene is lucky to have them.

Most of the set was from the opposite ends of their career - 'Vertebrae' was, naturally, represented heavily alongside a couple from 'Ruun' (including the pit-opening "Fusion of Sense and Earth"). But they also played "Eld" and a track from 1992 (does that make it from the "Yggdrasil" demo tape??), and ended with what may have been "Slaget I Skogen Bortenfor" (my Old Norse is a little rusty) from 'Hordanes Land'. The unity between old and new was as palpable as the difference, but all the thematic speculation was swept aside by massive blastbeats. Righteous!

So metal raised my eyebrows and called me back in again, as has become the reliable norm.

The only sour point was a very tall man who stood in the centre of the crowd and Zieg Heiled his way through the first three songs. Thankfully he was ejected by security. He looked unsurprised, and made almost no attempt to fight back for the Fatherland. Sadly there are still some grown adults that feel the need to make their small, hateful point from within a scene that has far outgrown such insularities. If he wished to live out in the woods listening to puerile NSBM and avoiding racially impure citizens, then why not do it? Because he must live in the real world to pay his bills and buy his pagan jewellery, and the real world does not accommodate him. Thus, he sulks. And when he goes to the black metal show and feels his "sincerity" rebuffed by every other attendee, who is to blame? Unfortunately, if he's already stupid enough to earnestly Zieg Heil in public, the logical truth - that he is to blame - will not register in his mind.

On a Lighter Dark note, the lineup of the new band Shrinebuilder has given me something to look forward to: Scott Kelly, Al Cisneros, Wino and Dale Crover.

Read that again. They have the potential to be the best band in the entire universe.

Roadburn '09 will destroy us all

2008-11-10T13:10:00.014Z

Just when I thought this December's ATP Nightmare Before Christmas was the best festival lineup ever*, along came Roadburn 2009. The festival, held at the 013 in Tilburg, is effectively the Mecca for stoner rock fans and its reputation is growing. Rare things happen there. In 2008, Lee Dorrian and his cohorts took over one evening for the Rise Above Records 20th Anniversary, with the mighty Down headlining.

Next year's lineup has excited me greatly. First and foremost, Neurosis are in town. When this happens I'm compelled to attend. They are, however, bringing their Beyond The Pale festival with them. This event happened two or three times at the beginning of the decade in San Francisco and usually presented itself as a kind of Neurot Recordings showcase. As the label and its roster have grown in status since the last festival, this should be a truly unique event and they've already signed up Guapo, Akimbo, US Christmas, OM, Skullflower, The Young Gods and Josh Graham's latest project A Storm Of Light (which seems to have temporarily replaced Red Sparowes for him - his place was taken by the Made Out Of Babies guitarist at Supersonic Festival this year). The very notion of Om, Skullflower and Neurosis playing the same gig is overwhelming. This beats the Earth/Boris/SunnO))) Doom-a-thon of ATP '07 hands down.**

The rest of the festival does not disappoint either. Cathedral themselves have confirmed, which means more than just a quality gig - perhaps they're back in the game after a few years off. A reformed Saint Vitus are booked too, which is a real coup considering the supposed animosity between Wino and Dave Chandler. I'm especially looking forward to Colour Haze's set, which will be my first. But my excitement will be almost entirely reserved for Amon Düül II.

I have a great fondness for Amon Düül II, they were a very colourful and idiosyncratic band that stood out from their peers and made some truly kaleidoscopic music in what many would call the Golden Age of rock music. I remember my first listen of 'Tanz der Lemminge', being utterly stoned, confused, and in awe. They've been reformed for a while now but remained low-key (save for a performance on the long-running and much-loved Rockpalast in Germany), and their inclusion is an unexpected one. Their relationship with doom/stoner etc. is not strong, but they were definitely psychedelic and very heavy on occasion.

On Halloween night I had the great pleasure of seeing Doomriders, SSS and Tortuga at the Islington Bar Academy. The guitarist Chris Pupecki was wearing an Amon Düül T-Shirt. He blew up his amp shortly into the set, and Tortuga's new guitarist (ex-Bossk) lent him his lovely fat Sunn head, which was then also blown up. Only SSS's rack could stand the volume and held up until the end of the set. We spoke briefly about his shirt, he told me where I could order it and I informed him that they're booked for Roadburn 2009. "I can't imagine they're very good these days." he said. Let's hope they prove him wrong.

Here's an excellent performance of 'Eye-Shaking King' for your pleasure:

*Previous "best festival lineups ever" include the Portishead ATP '07, Glade Festival '07 and Download Festival '05. But we all know the actual Best Festival Lineup Ever was in fact the Isle Of Wight Festival 1970.

**It must be noted that all three bands surpassed themselves the next night at the 'Altar' show in London, one of the best gig's I've ever seen.

ATP Festival brings up an old question

2008-10-17T12:04:00.010+01:00

The development of the lineup for this year's ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival has been exciting. I've had tickets since pretty much Day 1, knowing that it was being curated by Mike Patton and the mighty Melvins, of which I am a huge fan. By and large and somewhat predictably (in a good way), Patton has been responsible for picking the more avant-garde acts and the Melvins have added the Punch of Punk Rock. First of all Melvins picked their buddies Isis, of which I am also a pathetically huge fan, alongside Torche (HydraHead's latest critical hit) and some others I'd never heard of. Patton waded in with his own Fantômas band, The Locust, Bohren und der Club of Gore (who I've seen supporting Isis on the Panopticon tour in '05, playing in near complete darkness), Dälek (the only hip-hop act I've ever truly enjoyed and one-time Faust collaborators) and some equally leftfield acts. Okay, I thought, this could be both the most experimental AND the most rock-oriented ATP I've ever seen, all in one festival.

Then came the additions of both Mastodon and Squarepusher at the same time, picked by the Melvs & Patton respectively. Holy fuck. It just stepped up a few notches in one go.

After that, the floodgates opened: J G Thirlwell (of Foetus), Mark Lanegan's band, a Stockhausen performance, Trevor Dunn's new band Madlove, Boss Hog (ft. Jon Spencer of Blues Explosion fame), the reformed Butthole Surfers, Rahzel and The Damned. And lots more names entirely new to me.

I only had time for a few days of over-exuberance at the inclusion of the Butthole Surfers before yet more esteemed musicians came rolling in - Lydia Lunch & Thurston Moore re-unite Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, the Meat Puppets and Joe Lally answered the Melvins' request, and Patton stunned me with his successful acquisition of the legendary Os Mutantes, who I never thought I would ever get to see.

For all the eclecticism on show here, and this can be said for most ATP festivals, there does seem to be something that ties all these artists together. For instance, I don't recall seeing anything on any ATP bill that's made me think "That shouldn't be there". Portishead, the Britsol trip-hoppers, curated the only other ATP I've been to, and they loaded the lineup with doom metal. The Mars Volta did one a few years ago that leaned towards the excesses of the Old-School Psychedelic, but they also booked ATP's first bona fide Metal band, High On Fire. After the first couple of years, you'd be forgiven for assuming it was something of a Pretentious Shoegaze-athon; even though great bands were present (Godspeed etc.), it appeared rather insular.

But the lure of recklessness could not be resisted. Tape loops now co-exist with downtuned riffs, Headbanging and Chin-stroking can be done simultaneously. The dust is settling and it appears that quite a few of these highly disparate styles can be collected together with the only common factor being Us, the Audience, the Fans - which, of course, includes Them, the Performers, the Musicians, because they are all Fans too.

What do Squarepusher and Mastodon have in common apart from my fanship and their inclusion in the lineup? Musical prowess, intensity of sound... But then we have Rahzel the beatboxer, a man whose lack of drums is as notable as Dale Crover's use of them. And then there's Joe Lally and Sergio Dias of Os Mutantes, whose music has been politically and socially effective on several levels, sharing a bill with King Buzzo, whose early lyrics were literally gibberish, and the Butthole Surfers, whose Grand Plan seemed only a ten-year blaze of hedonism and finely-wrought chaos.

I can't link them all up in any way, they come from different backgrounds and they create music from different angles. Some are straight-faced and others sly-grinned. They are all at the very least singleminded enough to be unmistakeable, and perhaps that's the common ground - individuality and authenticity. These traits extend beyond the festival itself and stretch out almost infinitely, dwarfing the numbers of those making derivative and dishonest music without flair or purpose. People seem to think I hate most music, but that just can't be true.

MadShit Weekender (September Chapter)

2008-10-13T17:05:00.039+01:00

There have been many times I've questioned my devotion to the cause of Music and half-heartedly threatened to turn my back on it by just a few degrees, if only to be able to spend a little more time and money on other things both necessary and frivolous - replacement front tyres for my car perhaps, a new shirt, the repair of my digital camera maybe. Many people I know are at least as serious about Music as myself, most of them even more so, yet their lives seem ultimately far more multi-faceted than my own. Proportionately I'm about 80% music, with the remaining 20% shared between beer, Cinema, Indian meals and sleep.

But the irony is that it's only during the musically barren times I'm so unsure of my convictions, when by all conventional logic it should be when I've been abused, deafened and beaten into submission and poverty by Music. Like the morning I was forced to awake after five hours of hung-over sleep on a sofa in Swindon just to move my car miles away to avoid a parking ticket. Or when I fell asleep outside Elephant & Castle tube station. And it really should have been during the four-hour journey back from Wales that began at midnight, with two gigs booked for the coming day.

Last Sunday night was another of these exhausted situations. Heading back along the A404 towards Wycombe, I could have sworn I began hallucinating new kerbs in the near-blackness.

Friday 26th September

My dad's 53rd birthday. I bought him a copy of "Death Magnetic" and a jokey card. The band had been working hard to find replacement drummers for this weekend's two out of town shows and it looked like we were all set to manage it. I arrived first at The Chichester Inn (in Chichester, yes), bought a 36-film for the old camera that I was bringing back into use and headed to the pub for drinks. I was meeting my old drummer James, who moved to the town two or three years ago, and staying at his house. Well, it's actually his girlfriend's house and he doesn't live there any more... that's insignificant anyway... The band themselves were stuck in traffic for some time due to their unwavering belief in the Sat Nav system's All-Wiseness, especially its Supreme Foresight in sending them towards the M25 at 6pm on a Friday. I was drunk by the time they arrived at 8pm and we took to the stage (a.k.a the floor) about half an hour later.

All was well, except for the high volume of the microphone and the alcoholic heckler. He made some comment about my personal talentlessness that rubbed me up the wrong way. I stopped the song and confronted him, hoping to raise an Ian MacKaye-esque moral high-ground objection to his behaviour, and remind him that he doesn't have to watch if he doesn't like me, and that I didn't come all the way here to meekly ignore his dickishness - I came to play our music. However, I ended up screaming at him as he stood up to leave, hurling obscenities at my highest volume until he got ejected by the kindly Belligerence guys. Apparently he fell over outside. Normal service resumed, we played the song and afterwards I apologised to the crowd for my anger. I later found out I was very close to being ejected too, mid-set by the manager himself, until he heard my general apology and decided not to pursue the matter further.

The wonderfully-named Alternative Car Park played next, who were all hair and riffs. Most excellent. I remember James and his friends, who are not rock- or metal-inclined, remarking at how difficult it must be to play the right notes while flailing around so much. I concurred. They are the local boys down there and played like it. They use their whole space collectively, whereas my band make a line, concentrate and play very loudly while I crouch and shout at the floor and stare at the ceiling, occasionally vacating the stage for the solo sections. Watching the interaction between the members of any band, with each other, the space, and the music itself, has become something of a fascination.

The band then said their goodbyes during the first or second Belligerence track and head home with a full car. I drunkenly thank Mike, tonight's drummer, and ask him if he would do it again for us sometime in a very long-winded, semi-coherant babble. I think he said yes.

By this time James and his friends had decided to make a night of it and I'd remembered that half the kit our drummer was using tonight belonged to someone else, my friend Sam who had generously subbed us his precious Breakables in the knowledge that I would return them to him the next day in Southsea, where he needed them to play with his band Action & Action at the Punk Rock Alldayer. Well, where the fuck was his stuff? James called me to the bar where he had bought me a Southern Comfort. I decided to neck it first, look for the drums second.

For at least half an hour I was convinced I'd lost them, or at best they had been picked up by someone else and could possibly be retrieved eventually. This was not good. I couldn't see any of it. As much as I enjoyed Belligerence, my cautious headbobbing was more of an excuse to look around the room frantically without drawing too much attention to myself. Fucking shitchrist, it's not here is it?? I had no intention of spending my inevitably hungover Saturday afternoon buying the best part of a grand's worth of drum kit to give to someone who was stupid enough to trust me with their possessions for one single day. Tossballs.

As it turned out, I was being paranoid. I can't remember where I found them. In fact, I recall checking inside my car more than once, even though I knew I hadn't been near it for hours. Eventually I had managed to put everything on my back seat. The important thing is that no matter how many times I checked as the night wore on, all three bags were still there. Victory.

The rest of the evening is very sketchy. I'd been on the college campus earlier on with James and his friends, and we headed back there after it became belatedly obvious that we were the only four people left in the pub. We sat in the car for a while listening to quite bad drum 'n' bass, smoking cigarettes and drinking more beer we'd managed to find somewhere. People they knew kept coming up to us and talking. I felt like one of those dickheads that turn up to college campuses at ungodly hours and sit in their car listening to bad drum 'n' bass, smoking cigarettes and drinking. At this point, I could somewhat see the appeal.

I think we got a cab back.

Saturday 27th September

Awoke feeling dreadful and immediately aware that I lost my Neurosis hat. Bummer.

Their landing window has been smashed in. There was an amusing story to go along with that I think. Also I vaguely remembered something being written across my car bonnet in white stuff, which I then had to wipe off with my jacket sleeve. I took a picture of it, but can't remember what it said. This will be one of the many joys awaiting me when I take the film to the chemist for developing*.

We walked into town for breakfast, I remember saying something like "I don't know how many towns I've walked through carrying a sleeping bag and pillow. I must look like a fucking vagrant." There was a place called Chives Cafe in the middle of an indoor shopping parade. The breakfast was expensive but decent, and the place was full of old people. We were the only non-old-people in the entire restaurant. It dawned on me while queuing with at least five old ladies in front and behind me that I was wearing my Today Is The Day t-shirt, which has a picture of about a hundred sperm swimming towards a pentagram on the front, and "IT'S A SWEET RIDE, MAMA" on the back (I don't know what that means, but knowing Today Is The Day it's probably got something to do with rape and/or sodomy, possibly with your mother, probably involving the death of one or both of you in the process).

We split so they could go shopping and I went back to the car. Portsmouth is only twenty minutes away from Chichester and the weather was beautiful and clear all weekend. I impulsively decided to go to Hayling Island before Pompey, which is connected to the mainland by a bridge of only a few hundred feet. It's an entirely normal south coast small town except for the beach, which is large and full of pebbles and stones, and has a small amusement park and arcade as well as a cafe. There was the same palpable air of decline that can be felt at any faded British seaside town, perhaps more so considering how close the city of Portsmouth is to it. Still though, there was an old rollercoaster that looked abandoned at first, but I got closer to discover it was very much active and even boasted a small, tight loop and a steep, if short, main drop. Of course, hangover or no, I'd have to be a Serious Cunt not to go on such a dubiously constructed and potentially fatal ride. It was £2 and after a glowing review by some local kids, I went on it and got away clean, but mark my words: someone will be killed one day on that thing.

At The Fawcett Inn, the gig was yet to get under way when I arrived. L Morgan was there and Fij wasn't yet. There were a few people hanging around that looked like either faux-hippies, mid-life crisis PsyTrancers, or just plain cokeheads. When three men enter a toilet cubicle, there is left little room for doubt. One of them even had a two-year-old daughter playing in the garden outside.

The venue is very cool although it was never meant for live music when it was designed (probably 100 years ago). The band plays in the right hand corner facing towards the back door, the audience either crowd in that direction or are bottlenecked along the bar that's built into the middle of the pub. The mass of bodies can at least muffle the sound for the sake of the people at the other side, but that's probably the only redeeming feature of the set-up. The day starts with L herself, it is her birthday and she does a couple of duets with Kelly Kemp, who takes over the semi-acoustic and plays next. Crackhead #1 makes his presence felt by pulling out some stupid Tai-Che dancing bullshit directly in front of the mic stand, asking questions only an inane crackhead such as himself would ask and heckling unintelligible shite for far more than an hour. L eventually escorts him away. What Southsea Scummers keep giving this fucker booze??

There are three acoustic acts, not particularly Punk Rock in sound but certainly in spirit. Then bands take over. We are treated to You, Me and The Atom Bomb, Apologies I Have None (whose guitar got stolen by Anonymous Crackhead Presumably #2), and the very excellent Attack! Vipers! (in anything but that order).

The real reason I went is of course the music, but some of it happened to be played by friends of mine. Action & Action came down and were billed quite late in the day.

Beat The Red Light were supposed to be playing before Attack! Vipers! but they got delayed by yet more absurd suicidal M25 drivers causing a pile-up. At the very beginning of A!V!'s set, their vans finally arrived and Pook, their singer and trombone player, walked in. It was immediately apparent that he was shitfaced, and he explains this away as a result of boredom while waiting in the traffic jam. They had decided to have "a reggae party" in the middle of the jam, during which he got out and starting bumping and grinding against people's cars.

Pook's general high spirits can be held responsible for much of the crowd-surfing during Attack! Vipers!'s vicious hardcore punk set. Guitar pedals were uplugged, much sweatiness was had, beers were Fallen, and great joy was felt by all. Sam Barry, Fij, and the band's vocalist were all lifted, as were a few more folks.

Beat The Red Light are now an eight-piece band including four trumpet and trombone players, and two excellent guitar players. They play a surprisingly coherent (considering) mixture of thrash metal, hardcore and ska punk with all the force of eight men including what I call the "Offensive Brass Section" - this is basically Pook, Bill and Rob running into the crowd while playing their parts, often ending up somewhere unlikely like on the bar or in the garden or something. I'm never sure. There's too many of them to look at anyway, and they played brilliantly.

The night wore on and I found the strength to drink again, mainly as a result of a random bout of record shopping in SoundZ (Rush - 'Hemispheres', Simon & Garfunkel - 'Wednesday Morning 3am', Iron Maiden - 'Powerslave', Van Morrison - 'Veedon Fleece' and The Cure - 'Faith'. All very good.).

We were then treated to OK Pilot and Action & Action, who intensified their performance to match those of the other bands. A&A's music is less full-bore than most of the stuff we heard throughout the day although it has its frenetic moments. Everything went up a notch for them and the "It's a fiasco!" moment (see 'Reflective Clothing') was one of the loudest. We had been joined by another dancing random by this point - a very short man with glasses whose signature move seemed to be 'hunch over and rock up and down at odds with the rhythm of the song'. This disappointed me because up until then, I thought I had invented that one.

There was some savagery after this with Crazy Arm and Gramercy Riffs, and from that point my memory is muddled. Mike 1, Henry, Gemma and SamStock had arrived earlier and seemed very serious about the idea of a late-night drunken curryhouse visit. Southsea is home to the very excellent Bombay Express and it seats until way past Chucking Out Time at the pubs. The kicker is that it's also BYOB. Armed with Many Liquors, we sat the fourteen of us down and gorged. At one point, the waiter had to ask us to stop banging the tables in unison (apparently by theatening us with another party's bill on top of our own), and I also politely confronted the staff asking why the Jalfrazi and the "Chicken Zelfarji" on two different menus are actually the same thing, thinking it was some kind of Foul Play. I can now understand neither their decision to do this, nor my own decision to object to them doing this. The food was wonderful as usual, my only regret being that I had no space left inside to help SamStock's friend (who was considerably hammered) finish his meal. It looked awesome and I wanted it, in fact I still want it. I can imagine myself eventually reminiscing about it all misty-eyed, forever wondering what became of The Uneaten Portsmouth Curry**.

Culinary romanticism aside, I think we staggered back to meet Fij outside the lock-in at the Fawcett and went back to his. I vaguely remember dropping a can of Cobra and kicking it across the road thinking that was an awesome thing to do. What a dick. I fell asleep on the floor and apparently people tried to watch Commando for a while. I doubt anybody got to the end.

Sunday 28th September

The day was beautiful again but I felt awful when I left at 9.30am. After swearing at myself and others (I am not a morning person), I took off to Henley to pick up today's drummer for the show at the Purple Turtle in Camden Town. He had first heard us a week before and rehearsed with us only once. I met him a couple of years ago in a motor home out the back of the bass player from RBAP's house, attending a rehearsal for their new band Fist For A Beard (which I was, and still am, due to join), and was impressed. We had only the afternoon when I got back from Portsmouth to cram another practise in, so from midday to three we returned to Chiltern Studios and bashed out a couple of successful half-hour sets. I said, "Even though that went really well, I still wish I was in bed."

After discussing with Sam W (from Stone Baby and more) the relative merits of the current Dillinger Escape Plan drummer versus the original one, the new Metallica record, how Jon Theodore was great but Thomas Pridgen is insane, Meshuggah riffs etc., we set off for London. I played Sam the latest Psyche Out EP as we came down the Westway and arrived early in Camden where as it turns out I'm boring enough to be made happy by free parking. (It's down Bayham Road behind the Koko, parallel to Camden High Street up to the tube station and free after 6pm Monday to Saturday, all day Sundays and Bank Holidays. Never tell me I don't help people out). We waited outside with the window cleaner. Rock 'n' Roll sure is glamorous.

The venue itself was excellent, with the highest stage we have yet been allowed to grace. The bass bins sat directly underneath stage front, vibrating the feet. There was a small upstairs area with sofas and a booth some feet away from the balcony with a pole in the middle. Reproduction B-Movie posters adorned most of the far wall, alongside three very average paintings of Johnny Cash giving the middle finger, Mick Jagger, and some anonymous burlesque dancer between them. We immediately set to work insulting each other as usual, and as the rest of the bands filed in we went to eat. When we returned, Sam W soundly beat us all at Table Football, gloating as he did so, the bastard.

It originally looked like we had been shoehorned onto a Cock Rock bill, but mercifully this was not the case. Red Thirteen were a decent rock/grunge/stoner act with a superlative, even tasteful virtuoso guitarist, and Men & Gods looked the epitome of Pomp & Posture before their Rock 'n' Roll Righteousness became apparent. The frontman mastered some classic moves and looked like he was born with Russell Brand's hair and a Telecaster strapped to him. They closed with a sumptuous cover of Bowie's 'Life on Mars', although unfortunately most of the clientele looked like they'd have found more emotional resonance in 'Girls Girls Girls'.

At some point we wandered north towards the Lock Market and had a beer (although I opted out for the sake of my sanity), where we were faced with the tricky social dilemma of whether it's okay to think somebody in a wheelchair is fucking annoying when they insist on singing at the top of their voice for half an hour on a very crowded rooftop terrace.

We got onstage late and played well - Sam W stepped up his game and hit with force and I somehow managed to squeeze one last half hour set out of my throat. Stu's amp continued to explode into Merzbow-esque noise at will, but this was dealt with fairly well. During the solo section in 'Wisdom Received' I sat on the stairs that descended the edge of the stage and watched Stu and Big Dave trade off against each other, hidden from the audience by a PA stack. It was a perfect climax to the weekend, and I thought "I could do this a million fucking times and never get sick of it."

Which brings me neatly back to the beginning of this entry. I could hardly breathe, was soaked in sweat, hung over and clad in the same underwear as three days before, and it was at that exact point that all the effort became worth it. Music beat me again - we share something of a sadomasochistic relationship.

Post script:

*Here is what was written on my car. I still don't know who was responsible.

**I later found out The Uneaten Portsmouth Curry was doggy-bagged by Sam Luck and enjoyed later.

Also, the live photos were taken by Thom the Photographer who was generous enough to grace us with his company and regail us with Fresher's week tales of alcohol and sexual deviancy. Two other punters supposedly attended the Purple Turtle and gave my band's name on the door, which led to this brief but exemplary exchange between myself and the lovely barmaid/money-taker:

Me (looking at the tally sheet): Is that two people down there or is that, like, some punctuation marks?
Lovely barmaid: That's two people
Me: Two people came to see us?
Lovely barmaid: Yeah
(Long pause)
Me: Who the fucking hell was that??
Lovely barmaid: Er... I don't know

P.S. God bless you if you got all the way to the end of this shit.