Music – Fooyah – Ian Parish

August 16 2024August 16 2024

M’era Luna 2024

The middle of August means it’s time to travel to Germany and attend one of the friendliest music festivals I know [I haven’t been to many but this one does feel like home]. On a Wednesday I travelled to see Smith in London town and we had dinner. I stayed over at his house as we had an early start to catch a flight to Hannover.

This year the flight was on time and we landed in Hannover and had plenty of time to get to our room. In fact, at one point we just sat by the river and let the world pass us by. In the evening we walked to the Maschseefest after a walk to get alcohol. We were both pretty tired having got up at 0400.

Friday starts with a walk to the Bahnhof and then a train to Hildesheim. Once there we get the bus to M’era Luna. The whole experience is relatively painless. We find the tent and then chill because it’s been a long journey and not much happens on the Friday until the evening. I had some LED lights to light up the tent so we could find it once it was dark.

After I watch a band I note down a few comments on my phone. What you see below are those comments. On the Saturday the music we watched goes as follows:

re.mind – Main Stage – standard electronic. Singer wasn’t powerful but only ok. OK for a first band.

Steril – Club stage – upbeat electronic with some guitars. Much better than the first band.

Schwarzer Engel – Main Stage – Seen before. Metal.

Hell Boulevard – Main Stage – OK. Heavy rock. Keyboards in the background. Nothing special.

Centhron – Club Stage – Heavy as fuck bass and other motherfucking shit.

SPOCK – Club Stage – Excellent cheeky space based pop.

Hamatom – Main Stage – Late on – technical issues. Good set. Lots of audience participation. Heavy metal. I enjoyed it.

Suicide Commando – Club Stage – Excellent set. Best band so far. Really enjoyed it.

The Sunday bands were as follows:

JanRevolution – Main stage – Better than yesterday’s first band. More upbeat. Enjoyable. I wouldn’t buy it.

Extize – Club Stage – Heavy dark dance. Actually good. I would buy.

Eden Weint Im Grab – Club Stage – Slow rock with violin and viola. OK.

Future Lied To Us – Club Stage – Really good electronic bouncy dance. Singer had energy but I didn’t like his voice. Really enjoyed the overall set though.

X-RX – Club Stage – Great energy. Very bass. Enjoyed it a lot.

Welle: Erdball – Club Stage – I was just getting into position for Combichrist. I didn’t like it. It was actually boring.

Combichrist – Club Stage – Elliott motherfucking Berlin! Amazing. The fucking best. An old school set.

Combichrist - Old School Set — Combichrist – Old School Set

Die Krupps – Club Stage – good. But not as good a previous times but enjoyable nonetheless.

Monday was all about getting home and leaving ML early to make the flight. We managed with plenty of time and it was interesting to see just how many people on the flight had come from the festival. Obviously I didn’t talk to any of them.

May 6 2024

Faderhead – Electrowerkz

Last night Smith and I went to the Angel and our favourite little music venue in Torrens Street. I drove into the big smoke and parked in some driveway using the Just Park app. Now, let’s be clear, the app doesn’t park the car but it allows you to find a space that is convenient and, normally, quite local to your destination. It was a much nicer drive than on Wednesday when I met up with the Fulham Five for a leaving party – one of our number is heading to the US to live. There are now three of us in the USA and three and a half in the UK. Back to the gig.

First band on were Machine Vein. I spent most of the gig thinking they were j:dead because I wasn’t aware there were three bands on. While driving in to the gig I thought it would be funny to see Biomechanimal again as they have been support for many bands I have seen. It turns out that Machine Vein have some of the same members of Biomechanical. I quite enjoyed their set. It was heavy bass with tiddly sounds over the top. I had a good time.

Second band were j:dead and I thought I had seen them before somewhere, sometime, but now, having seen them I suspect not. I also thought I had some of their music on my phone but that was also not a correct thought. I think they pop up in a lot of the social media I have because of their close links to the EBM – Aggrotech genres. I didn’t find their set as much fun as Mechanical Vein but they were definitely a more polished live band to see, you could tell there was plenty of experience. I was also surprised they were British. Not sure why that surprised me but it did.

Then we were on to Faderhead, a singer I had seen before twice at a music festival and one whose shows were great. I’ve even helped fund their albums at times and there are communications somewhere in this site. I’m quite happy to pay for things that make me happy, hence I even pay for free podcasts, I will recognise that being able to do that is from a position of privilege. So, Faderhead. I really enjoyed the show. It was great to see him in London and the crowd was pretty darn good. He has a load of songs that are really good for singing along with. Some of my favourites are “No gods, no flags, no bullshit”, “Destroy, improve, rebuild”, “Fistful of fuck you”, and “Swedish models and cocaine”.

Earlier in the day Faderhead had said that he wasn’t feeling well and that his voice was struggling. I think this showed in the early songs and he clearly didn’t feel healthy-well. He sounded better about halfway through the gig and then his voice declined more towards then end. They had decided to put some extra ballads into the set to ease his voice and I didn’t mind this. Overall I really enjoyed the show. It was great to see them play a smaller venue and I look forward to seeing them again sometime.

February 24 2024

EBM Day

Today is 24 February, which in European date formation is 24/2. I doubt that EBM day is widely recognised because it is a tiny sub-genre of music and definitely not as well known as pi day or Star Wars day or even Fulham 5 day. EBM is Electronic Body Music a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music and synth-punk with elements of dance music [Wikipedia]. I only found out about EBM because of seeing Rammstein at Wembley Arena in around 2009.

If you are wondering why EBM day is the 24 February then you only need to understand that one of the biggest bands in the movement is called Front 242. I’ve seen them at M’era Luna and I’ve got a load of their albums. I prefer some other bands but I’m very happy to have 242 as the lead proponents of EBM and the use of their name to create EBM day.

December 3 2023

Holy Crap – It Looks Like A Classic

Well, the other day M’era Luna released their complete line up for 2024. I have to say – I’m fucking excited.

So, here’s the highlights as far as I’m concerned:

Combifuckingchrist OLD SCHOOL SET – currently the time I saw them do this type of gig was the best gig I’d been to. I’m stoked.
VNV Nation – excellent band who just never hit the big time in the UK.
Front 242 – should be good but might be boring.
Lord Of The Lost – always great, looking forward to it.
Die Krupps – have seen this band a few times and it’s great.
SUICIDE COMMANDO – always great even if the visuals are distrubing.
[:SITD:] – another consistently great band.
OOMPH! – can’t remember if I’ve seen these before but they now have the singer from Unzucht so might be good.
Funker Vogt – one of those bands on the list of bands I want to see.
S.P.O.C.K. – saw these at my first M’era Luna I think and I can’t wait to see them again. Very pop but space TV show themed.
Centhron – if only to hear him sing that classic song “Cunt”.

It’s going to be great. I just hope there aren’t too many clashes as that will disappoint me.

October 7 2023

Combichrist – The Garage

Smith and I went to see perennial favourites Combichrist play at The Garage in Highbury last night. I’ve seen this band loads and really enjoy their gigs. The last one was in the Assembly Rooms in Islington and I wasn’t in the right place to enjoy the gig [and there was an annoying person in the pit]. It does feel like I see Combi about once a year which is nice. I drove and parked on someone’s drive near the venue while Smith got the trains [there’s an overtime strike on at the moment. I believe that if your system requires people to work beyond their standard contract hours to be efficient then your system has a problem]. After applying makeup we had a drink in a pub and then went to the venue.

The first band/artist on was Janosch Moldau. They were a singer/songwriter who played guitar while singing along to electronic music. It was ok as a starting act but I don’t really feel the need to see them again.

The next band were Megaherz. This is a German band who I’ve seen a few times at M’era Luna in the past. In this August I saw their entire set and my comments were:

Megaherz – main stage – good German rock. Enjoyed it. Proper rain shower. Heavy rain.
Parish – this website

Their gig at The Garage was good fun. They put on the best show they could on the tiny stage. Having seen them play to 20,000 on a massive stage made the small stage seem really incongruous. They wore Kiss type make-up which meant they had black crosses of various types on their faces and white all around that. I’d made myself up with a “joker” type smile but in black.

The headliners were amazing. I stood a couple of rows back in the middle at the front. I knew that at some point there would be a pit and I wanted to be on the edge of it. I wasn’t in the mood for full pitness but the odd bounce here and there I knew would be fun. Combichrist played well and they sang a number of crowd pleasers and I think there were two new songs, at least I didn’t recognise them. I’m still not sure about the whole move into a metal sound but it works and adds a little to some of the songs. Their Old School gig was the best I’ve been to.

According to a website somewhere this was their setlist:

Blut Royale
Maggots at the Party
Modern Demon
Scarred
Get Your Body Beat
Can’t Control
Denial
Compliance
Heads Off
Fuck That Shit
Hate Like Me
Not My Enemy
Never Surrender
Encore – My Life My Rules

So, I had good fun and enjoyed the music. Somehow, a few days after now, I think I preferred the Megaherz set but that may be because I’ve seen Combichrist so many times. I think it’s nine times now. To give you some context there are bands I’ve seen once and am not that fussed about seeing again because, I’ve seen them, they don’t offer anything new.

Because I’ve seen Aesthetic Perfection a lot and also I’ve seen Combichrist a lot it turns out that members of those bands I have seen more than any other. Especially when the drummer from Combi moves to AP and the keyboardist for AP moves to Combi. I don’t know who I’ve seen most and to figure it out would require some hardcore research so I won’t really bother. I nice part of the gig was Elliot Berlin [formerly of AP] being carried by the audience to the bar at the back of the venue.

August 17 2023August 16 2024

M’era Luna 2023

Another summer another journey to Germany for a music festival. Well, it’s the only festival I’ve been to for a number of years and it’s in Germany so all of that makes logical sense. Smith and I have been going since 2015 to this festival and this year there weren’t really any big bands that drew us there but we went for the atmosphere, meeting people and some of the lower-down-the-bill bands. Other darkness visits are all within this site:

M’era Luna 2015 – the first time. A long drive and exploration.
M’era Luna 2016 – getting used to the journey and enjoying it more.
M’era Luna 2017 – the one where it pissed down and the car got stuck.
M’era Luna 2018 – the one with the Prodigy.
M’era Luna 2019 – The one with Fear Of Domination.
M’era Luna 2022 – The first one post Covid. Faderhead.

I’ll write more about the journey in another communication I think. There’s too much that happened and things to share especially from the time spent in Hannover. On the Friday we took a tram, train and bus to get to the venue. There was a kiosk in Hildesheim bus station handing out the wristbands so we were pretty much sorted and got into the venue quickly and efficiently. Friday at M’era Luna is all about looking around, seeing the merchandise and maybe attending the disco. We didn’t attend the disco. I did buy the t-shirt, a hood and a metal cup. I also got a small bag for the Legend.

Hildesheim Airport - Converted ML2023 — Hildesheim Airport – Converted ML2023

What follows are my notes from the bands I saw on the Saturday:

Antiage – mains stage – pondering slow standard stuff. Nothing exciting. Bunny dancers. Keyboard on a spring.

Intent Outake – club stage – More threatening. A better band than first one. Sun has come out. Good set design. Couldn’t see Mac operator as hidden behind car, mic with camo netting.

Versus Goliath – main stage – good guitars. Good riffage. A cross between Rage and Linkin Park . Heavy. I liked it. Almost rap. Bought their album.

Rave The Requiem – main stage – Good energetic Swedish rock with three singers and a percussionist. Looked like they enjoyed it. Too many key changes but I enjoyed it overall.

Tanzwut – main stage – rock with bagpipes and a medieval feel. Actually quite enjoyable.

Megaherz – main stage – good German rock. Enjoyed it. Proper rain shower. Heavy rain.

Project Pitchfork – main stage – Honestly boring, even with two drummers. Both drummers playing same thing – what’s the point? Walked during song three.

Solar Fake – club stage – Really fucking good, upbeat. Excellent drummer – he really impressed me.

Mesh – club stage – Boring.

Sunday was a better day weather-wise and I was looking forward to some of the bigger names this time.

Dragol – main stage – mythical? Cellist. Male pianist. Female singer. Slow, but quite interesting. Tom Tom player looked like the caveman from Ghosts.

Blitz Union – club stage – amazing. Thrash bordering on excellent rock. Interacted with the crowd really well. Wall of death. Very enjoyable. Had a good energy rather than the plodding of a lot of the weekend.

Heldmaschine – main stage. A bit plodding German metal. Nothing special.

Eisfrabrik – MainStage. Dressed in white. Bit meh.

Gothminister – main stage. Dressed very goth. New German rock. The keyboards were very chord-y. Songs were too long.

Letzte Instanz – main stage – Rock with violin and a cello. There was a cello solo.

Ashbury Heights – club stage – Very enjoyable set. Not really my stuff but got the crowd moving and the songs were excellent.

Subway to Sally – main stage – A very enjoyable set. If you have a violinist they don’t need to play ALL the time. Oddly very heavy at times.

Mono Inc. – main stage – loved it. Was close to front. They played a cover of Passenger. Excellent crowd dynamics. Great.

Within Temptation – main stage -Derivative female led rock music. I guess it was ok. Nice to see. Not bothered about seeing again.

The overall highlight of the weekend was Mono Inc. for me. I missed them play at the Underground in London because I had covid and so it was lovely to see them and really appreciate it.

Within Temptation - The End of ML2023 — Within Temptation – The End of ML2023

So, that’s it for another year. I’ve seen plenty of new bands and also some that I’ve missed in the past because other music has been on in the hangar stage. It was a lovely atmosphere. All I have to do now is wait for my back to fix itself. I’m being reminded that I’m getting older and all the walking, dancing, sleeping on airbeds and travel might not be great for me. So, until I do it all again next year:

May 30 2023May 26 2023

Zombie Live – Rob Zombie

I’ve seen Rob Zombie live. At M’era Luna one year. It was a really good show. I couldn’t tell you if this album is a good one but I expect it is. You would only really publish a live album if you thought it was worth it and well produced. Sometimes I think there is too much Zombie on my phone.

The more important fact about this album is that it is the last in the current round of album reviews. I started this just over ten years ago on 28 April 2013 with a communication about AC/DC’s Live At Donington Album. Zombie Live is the last. Ten years and the idea was that writing about albums would give me something to write even when I didn’t have anything going on or thoughts I wanted to get out there. In those ten years I’ve been through a lot. Ten years is a long time really. It’s also roughly the length of time that my music taste has diverted off into electro-industrial, aggrotech and EBM. So, guess what? I’ve bought new albums!

There will be a second round of album reviews, this time covering albums by bands I’ve discovered in the last ten years. Some albums have already been reviewed and so that causes a mild problem as I will have to check this site before writing the next review. I might try and indicate where the review did happen in the before-times. So, the next round of album reviews will cover bands like the following:

Aesthetic Perfect
Combichrist
Hocico
:SITD:
Wumpscut

I might manage to get this round of reviews done before the ten years is up. It depends on when I get time to edit this thing. I’ve been distracting myself with Fortnite, flight sims and cadet stuff.

May 29 2023June 3 2023

You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby – Fatboy Slim

You know what? I like this album. I know it’s not my normal level of stuff but the way it’s mixed and the hooks and beats are impressive. Teenage me would have hated this as it’s just taking other people’s work and making it your own but that feels like cheating. Older me appreciates that if it emotionally affects you then it’s probably a good piece of music. I guess it could make you happy or even sad, both of those outcomes would still make it an impressive piece of music.

Right here, right now
The Rockafeller Skank
In Heaven
Praise you

These are the songs that stand out when looking through the track listing. It doesn’t mean that these are the only ones I like. Just that these are the ones I know and could probably name if I had them playing. I suppose a good video – Praise You – helps a song too!

May 28 2023May 26 2023

Youthanasia – Megadeth

Youthanasia is not on my phone. This album list is made from a list on my network drive provided by my Sonos system. There are two areas of music on my NAS drive. One area is my iTunes library which is synchronised with my phone and the other area is music I could possibly listen to when I’m at home but don’t want on my phone. I suppose I should probably update my Sonos listing a little as I’ve not done a hardware update communication for a while. Things have slowly changed since the last comm. The fact that this album does not appear on my phone gives you all the information to understand what I think of it.

May 27 2023June 3 2023

Zeit – Rammstein

This is the latest – at time of writing – offering by Rammstein. It’s a very good, well crafted album. The problem is I don’t think I’ve listened to it enough to know all the songs. Here’s the thing with Rammstein. You know what you are getting and you know it will be excellent. There will be heavy riffage and amazing vocals with little bits of genius keyboard. They make great music. So, even without actually knowing all the details of this album I’m going to say it’s brilliant. Because it will be.

May 26 2023

You Goddamned Son Of A Bitch (Live) – Revolting Cocks

This band are part of the godfathers of industrial. Beers, Steers and Queers was the first RevCo song that I heard and got me into them. I probably bought this album to see what their other stuff sounded like. It’s great. I saw this band live at Infest Festival and they were pretty good there too.

This album has songs such as; We Shall Cleanse The World, 38, Attack Ships On Fire, Union Carbide, and No Devotion. All of these are great and I highly recommend all the Revolting Cocks back catalogue to you.

May 16 2023

Worship Music – Anthrax

This is quite a good album but I couldn’t tell you anything more than that. I bought this after meeting someone at a Testament gig and they mentioned it was a worthwhile purchase. I have played this a few times but, for me, there’s nothing as memorable as the other albums I’ve got by Anthrax.

May 9 2023May 8 2023

World Painted Blood – Slayer

There are some Slayer albums that I’ve listened to a lot. This is not one of them. I hate to say it but after a time the output of Slayer merges into one sort of sound and I can’t really tell the songs apart. It’s not just Slayer – it’s all bands. I think they produce some excellent early work when they are refining working together and then it’s pretty much down hill after that. I don’t want to listen to the fourteenth Iron Maiden album which sounds just like the 13th. I want power and interest. Having said that AC/DC pretty much never changed their style and I like nearly all their albums. I have no idea why that is.

May 6 2023

Wolfmother – Wolfmother

I nearly bought this album when I was in Melbourne, Australia. I think I was in a Blockbuster there and having a movie day because nearly three weeks on holiday was quite hard work. I’m not sure why I didn’t buy the CD but I ordered it when I got home. It’s a great album. A mix of Sabbath and Zeppelin. I really like it. They deserved to do well with this one.

Fair use, Link

November 20 2022

With Teeth – Nine Inch Nails

I got this album because there are some excellent albums by Nine Inch Nails and this was really the first that I bought fresh from release. It’s a good album with some excellent songs. Well worth buying. They played some from this when I saw them in Cornwall earlier this year.

November 17 2022

Wicked Sensation – Lynch Mob

I got this album way back when George Lynch, the guitarist with Dokken, created his own project and called it Lynch Mob. I’ve listened to this recently and the first “side” of the album is pretty darn good, there are no bad songs. However, side two gets a little “meh”. Overall this is a pretty good album. Here’s a list of the names of the good songs:

Wicked Sensation
River of Love
Sweet Sister Mercy
Hell Child
She’s Evil But She’s Mine
Street Fighting Man

The album is very much an excellent example of cock-rock from the 80s. I like it.

November 13 2022November 13 2022

Zero Day Festival – Electrowerkz

Last night I went to Electrowerkz to see a couple of bands as part of the Zero Day Festival the venue was running. It was nice to be back in London, I stared at some buildings as though I’d never been there before, some parts of London surely are pretty. This festival had a number of bands I wanted to see but none more important than Grausame Töchter. I’d been aware of this band for a while but had never had the opportunity to seen them before. I do love the Electrowerkz venue – I still don’t really know my way around and the place just feels “down to Earth”.

I drove to the Big City as trains are never as convenient and more expensive [that’s what privatisation does for you]. I found a car park and also chatted to reception to make sure they would be open when I returned. Then Smith and I walked down to the venue, a couple of minutes walk away. There was a band on as we arrived and so we watched them for a while. Patenbrigade:Wolff were on stage. They were dressed in orange boiler suits but in a road maintenance way rather than a scary-Slipknot way. I enjoyed this band and have since got two of their albums.

The music was well constructed and had a good variation. One of the singers just seemed to spend most of the time drinking beer and dancing around. There was a female singer and that was a nice change to their set. Overall I was impressed enough to buy some merchandise. This is mostly because it’s a high-viz jacket and I might wear it at work.

Next up was Grausame Töchter. I knew this was going to be a performance piece and I was looking forward to it. Their songs are super catchy and I think I’m probably happy I don’t know what the lyrics are about. Especially after some of their stageshow.

I really enjoyed the show and the songs. Some aspects were very slightly disturbing but I guess that’s what good art will do. There was, at times, a naked woman on stage who, in the act, seemed to be forced into killing themself along with holding up placards with various sexual references. The backing singer of the band was a part of Nachtmarh when I saw them at M’era Luna this year. At the summer show she sprayed the audience with water from a water gun. This time she sprayed the audience with a white substance from a giant syringe.

This show was great fun and I really enjoyed it for the visuals and the music. I knew it would be a “performance” and it turned out to not disappoint. Last on stage were [:SITD:] and they were pretty good. I didn’t enjoy them as much as the second act. For me they were a solid good set, I jus think they lack something in their stage show but each to their own I guess.

Overall an enjoyable evening. I beat the Google Maps time for getting home without actually speeding so that was nice. It took two thirds of the time to get home as it did to actually get to the parking spot. London is annoying at times. Anyway, overall, a really enjoyable evening and one that I’ll remember.

November 3 2022November 3 2022

Who Made Who – AC/DC

This album is a bit of a cheat album. It’s a compilation of the best songs with just one new song added: Who Made Who. This album provides the soundtrack to the film Maximum Overdrive which I have not seen. Look, it’s an AC/DC album. It’s got great songs on it. It’s worth it. But buy the other albums too.

November 2 2022

Who Cares A Lot: Greatest Hits – Faith No More

I bought this album pretty much because while I like Faith No More I’m not sure I want a whole album of their work, especially an early album. This album is good.

October 2 2022October 2 2022

Whitesnake – Whitesnake

This is a monster album. Known also as Whitesnake ’87 this album smashed it. It’s excellent. I can even tolerate the ballads. For a long time I did not know Whitesnake was a British band, they were formed in London. It turns out this album was produced with many arguments and much strife. This created a masterpiece.