There was a time when I liked listening to Prince, or whatever his name became. I saw him live on the Diamonds and Pearls tour in Earl’s Court Arena and I was really impressed with the show. The man is a genius. For some bizarre reason I just wanted him to play “Anarchy in the UK”, I think it was his guitar sound, it had that punk edge to it.
This is a good album. It’s different. Not metal and a bit funk and pop, but I still like it. I don’t think you’d get far putting this stuff on at a disco but it is brilliant. It also takes me back to the carefree times of the early 1990s!
Alice In Chains are an awesome band. I find their music haunting and beautiful. I reckon that the first few albums are just brilliant and after that the newer albums seem to sound the same. If I want slow heavy ghostly rock then this is an album I’ll play. It’s a newer album to me and is therefore subject to the Old Dog problem.
Saturday 21 December. A date that will live in my memory and on this communication. Andy and I travelled to The Angel to see Combichrist at Electrowerkz venue.
This is the running order, taken after I went to the “rest rooms”.
The whole venue was a bit weird. Pretty much a dark room in a strange building with a bar and unisex toilets. The black painted walls were painted with phrases and sayings and my favourite was the one that said “Hadley’s Hope” – the terraforming city on LV426 in the film Aliens. The mixing desk was hanging from the ceiling and the bottom edge of this construction was just at head height.
The first band on were shit. I reckon my staff band at work were better than them. They said they were from Coventry. Not sure if that’s a causation thing or not.
One of the things about listening to the type of music I like now is that the whole musician thing is constantly questioned. The eighteen year old me would hate me. I like electronic music which can be played using a laptop. Das Kapital (below) had three laptops and bopped around behind them. My issue with this is that although I might enjoy the music I don’t understand the creation process. Surely if your music is samples and drum tracks why don’t you just press play? Perhaps I need to see more of this type of music created. If only there was a festival dedicated to alternative music, somewhere like in Kettering next year.
Combichrist consisted of two people. Singer and mixer-dude. They were very good. It was brilliant to hear the old songs played – the gig was billed as the Old School Electro Set. I didn’t take any photos as I was about two rows back from the very front. As much as it ashames me I held my hand up and got to hold hands with the singer twice. I am such a teenager.
Songs I remember them playing:
Body Beat
Blut Royale
This S*it Will Fcuk You Up
Like To Thank My Buddies
Electrohead
There were others and I am sure I could find them if I searched the internet thingy but I can’t be bothered.
Andy gave this gig a 10. I am bordering on 10 but at the moment more than likely it is: 9.9 < r < 10. Don’t know why, there was just a little something missing and I’m not sure what that was.
Went to see Bullet For My Valentine on Thursday (5 December). Travelled over to Wembley Arena and saw three bands. On the way we took a wrong turn thanks to poor Sat-Nav instructions and me not paying attention (I wasn’t driving) and we ended up on the bottom of the M1 heading north where the first place to turn around is Watford, added half an hour to our journey, but we still arrived on time.
First band on were Young Guns. I think rather than be disparaging about their music it would be best to describe their set as very not my kinda stuff. Dave, who I went with, said this band looked like a “metal boy-band”, a bit manufactured.
Young Guns
Next up on the stage were a band called Asking Alexandria. Apparently from “somewhere up north” and from this fair isle of Great Britain this five piece were much better than Young Guns. Not brilliant but better. I was impressed, but then again, not enough to buy their album. The music was good but there was too much shouting singing for me and it didn’t sound like anything new. Skinny guitarists!
Asking AlexandriaAsking Alexandria
Next up were Bullet For My Valentine. They had a lovely curtain in front of their set. It made me almost patriotic. What I would say was that about one third of Wembley Arena was not used. There were curtains blocking the back part of the arena and some of the seats were covered. This could have been intentional to make it a more intimate gig but maybe they can’t sell 12,500 tickets in London?
The music in between bands was good. There was lots of AC/DC played and I liked that but the song that everyone sings is “Run to the hills” by Iron Maiden. This is not the first gig I’ve been to where everyone sings that song. It must be some kinda anthem for us British metal fans.
So, the opening music was Carmina Burana to get the crowd excited. This is, unfortunately, an overused piece of music. Ozzy used it in the 80s and 90s and I was seriously expecting him to come on stage. Also, the X Factor use it. Grow up and choose something really dark and mysterious. “Night on a bare mountain” for instance.
BFMV Flag
When they came on they played a song I had never heard. Never a good start. I really liked “Scream, Aim, Fire”. Over all they played a solid set and were musically impressive. Stage presence is something they don’t have and overall the stage show was a bit shit. It lacked something. Oh, they had flames and sparkly shit when they came on and then there was nothing but the unveiling of a giant screen that showed everything in black and white. The encore was 30 minutes long and they played a montage. I hate montages. Metallica played a “Kill ‘Em All” montage in 1990 and I hated that then and I hate montages now. Fuck off and play all the songs, or come on earlier. Oh, and they played a ballad. I don’t care if other people like them, I don’t. Oh, and further, oh, there was a guitar solo. Shit, a guitar solo. Bollocks. I was actually texting a mate during the ballad and ensuing solo. Arse.
Anyway, overall it was a 6 or 7 out of ten. The audience was composed of different types of people than I am used to, more women and more make up. I guess that might be who this music appeals to. If that’s the case then it’s a shame I listened to my stuff all this time (few women!).
Reaper is a DJ whose music comes under the genres of aggrotech or hellectro. I like that sort of music and have done since I saw Combichrist play at Wembley Arena supporting Rammstein. The Benelux countries have some excellent things of which to be proud and this music style is one of them. What else would you expect from an area of land that has been conquered and fought over so often.
The Devil Is Female is an awesome album. I love it. The album cover is scary enough to make me feel uncomfortable – just the point of art (create emotion). The opening song is a good old dance-floor filler. Good beats and a simple repeated melody. The album makes the most spectacular turn upwards with the second song:
X-Junkie
The happy dance beat and melody underlie disturbing lyrics. I am not going to go into much detail here. You should listen to it. What you should most definitely not do is listen to the song on the tube with any women around you. Just listen on your own, somewhere.
Now, the album does include a number of remixes of X-Junkie and I can forgive that as the rest of this guy’s work is really good. Happy for him to indulge himself a little on this album.
Other highlights:
She Is A Devil And A Whore
190
Execution Of Your Mind
Hellectro isn’t for everyone. Thank goodness. I like how exclusive it is.
Somehow I ended up downloading this from iTunes, probably following a “what other people bought link”. I was searching for some music rather like Slayer and Evile but something a bit new.
What I got I would pretty much call an instant classic. This album is awesome. It’s got all the elements that make a great thrash album. There are chugging riffs, melodies, awesome vocals. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good bit of thrash.
Looking into the band I can see that they only managed this one album. Fair enough. The best music seems to come from the friction and hatred from working together to produce something that works.
I love a bit of Saxon. That great NWOBHM sound. Two guitars, bass, drums and vocals. Nothing else needed.
Denim and Leather
I bought this off iTunes about a year ago as part of a multi-album pack. I don’t like they get lumped together in the music app though so I edit the meta data and split the albums up with their own album art work. iTunes HATES me doing this. Recently I did this with Suicidal Tendencies and iTunes went ape-shit at syncing with my phone and I have to rebuild my complete library. I hate iTunes most of the time.
This album is awesome. I originally had the Best of Saxon on music cassette and played it loads. This album has some of the greats from there and others too.
My highlights are:
Denim and Leather
Princess of the Night
20,000 Feet
It’s real party music (or at least I think it is).
HEAD is the title of my current favourite playlist on my iPhone and Sonos system. I use the iPhone in the car and the Sonos system at home. If I ever get the chance to listen to music at work then I use the iPhone there also, I have some Bose headphones I plug into.
Anyway the HEAD playlist consists of the following songs (an eclectic mix!):
“Das Grauen” from “Hell Starts With An H” by Reaper
“TIP the DANCER” from “YOUR WORLD IS BURNING” by Panzer AG
“Get Out of my Head” from “Today We Are All Demons” by Combichrist
“Inhuman” from “All Beauty Destroyed” by Aesthetic Perfection
“Duality” from “Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses” by Slipknot
“Motherfucker” from “All Beauty Destroyed” by Aesthetic Perfection
“Surfacing” from “Slipknot” by Slipknot
I once owned “If You Want Blood . . . . You Got It” by AC/DC on music cassette and I think that whole album pretty much played the same role in my life as this current playlist. I played the cassette so much that the tape eventually stretched in various places and I had to upgrade to a CD as it sounded awful.
I’m grateful to Andy for helping chose the songs for this playlist.
I went to watch Front Line Assembly at the Garage in Highbury. It was a venue I’d not been to before and a band I hadn’t seen before either. The company I was keeping was delightful, although I did accidentally miss a tube stop. Started with drinks at the Porterhouse and then went on to Highbury and Islington.
The venue was nice and small-medium sized. Bigger than the Underworld but smaller than Brixton Academy. The sound was good and the drinks prices seemed reasonable to me. There was only one main area and it was pretty hot in the room (it was a hot day outside too). There didn’t seem to be any form of air-conditioning which was a bit of a shame (the Underworld beats you there!).
First band on were (as far as I can tell) iVardensphere. I really liked them, probably not enough to buy any of their stuff but enough to watch and enjoy. Heavy electronic music. Pretty good, nice and upbeat too.
Second band were Haujobb. Their songs were probably better crafted than the first band but their pace was a bit slower and I didn’t like it as much. They were still pretty good at the music they make though.
Headline act were Front Line Assembly. The latest album is more electronic than some I have heard and a bit slower. They were very good and had a live drummer, which is becoming more important to me as I watch more of these EBM bands. Quite clearly they were the best band last night and it was good to tick them off my list. I probably wouldn’t see them again, I think I’d rather take a punt on an unknown band and see what happens (much like my restaurant-food-choice policy).
I first got this album on double music cassette in about 1992. I had seen Slayer as part of the “Clash of the Titans” tour at Wembley Arena and really liked them. They recorded the video to “War Ensemble” at that particular concert. I think that some of the songs on this album were recorded at that exact gig that I saw. The tape version has since been supplemented by a CD version and finally an MP3 version on the NAS drive.
This is an AWESOME album.
If you only buy one thrash metal album then it had better be this one and then in all honesty you only need to play the first song as it covers all needs of guitar based turn-on.
My favourite songs on this album are (and I don’t apologise for the length of the list):
Hell Awaits
War Ensemble
South of Heaven
Raining Blood
Dead Skin Mask
Seasons in the Abyss
Mandatory Suicide
Angel of Death
Hallowed Point
Blood Red
Postmortem
Chemical Warfare
The atmosphere conveyed by these disks is brilliant. You can only find one better live album out there (Live After Death). This puts all others to shame. Get it. Play it. LOUD.
I’m expecting some complaints after this communication and album review. First let me give you my personal story of “Dark Side of the Moon”.
I was about 14 and was visiting Lynda, my best friend’s Aunt. First she showed us the video to “Thriller” which was very exciting and then she told us to listen to a particular album. It was, obviously (?), “Dark Side of the Moon”. I can remember the gatefold album and looking at the cover. I don’t really remember listening to the music much but I seem to remember the catchy riff of money. The music had a lot of weird stuff going on.
Years later I remember describing Pink Floyd as “dull monotonous shit”. I think, overall, this is a statement I will stand by. “Dark Side of the Moon” I will accept is a classic and parts of it send shivers down my spine. That does not mean that I have to like everything by that band and it certainly doesn’t mean I have to accept them as geniuses.
BTW I probably will accept Pink Floyd as genius. Their music really does affect some people a lot. A lot more than I would consider suitable but they love. It just doesn’t bother me so much. Sorry about that. I think I can recognise the good but also you have to accept it does nothing for me. It’s a bit like religion. I understand the attraction to religion and its good points but for me it’s all rather offensive.
I bought this album because I was going to see Testament play at KoKo in London. I know “Practice What You Preach” from my days at school and I thought I needed to know a few more songs and so I got their latest album.
Old Dog applies to this album, but I would say it definitely works well. There’s a maturity in the song writing and it is also well produced. The anger is still there but reduced slightly from those heady days of teenage testosterone. They played a few songs live and they sounded good. There’s something funny about middle-aged rockers trying to maintain the anger at the establishment, but also becoming part of the machine they hated.
HexRx make dirty hellectro music. That’s quite curious because hellectro is rather dirty in itself. HexRx take many samples from horror films and then build “tunes” around them. I can listen for about an album at a time and then it’s time for something else.
I like it, I just can’t take too much. Listening is an experience, which is a bit of a theme with this album.
D.O.A. The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle
This is seminal. When you take the members of Throbbing Gristle and look into their backgrounds and previous work you start to understand where they were coming from. In 1976 COUM Transmissions were doing this sort of crazy stuff. And modern day artists like to think that they are pushing the boundaries. I guess they are, but I can’t help thinking that it’s all been done before.
So, Throbbing Gristle, they made “music” to challenge pre-conceptions and to see how far they could take it. You might not like listening to it, but your life will be enriched for doing so (unlike a 1D album). You have to remember when this was made. 1978. The technology they were using was ground-breaking and their sound was something special. To understand the origins of modern industrial music you HAVE to include TG.
Favourite tracks include:
I.B.M.
Hit By A Rock
Dead On Arrival
Hamburger Lady (one of the most disturbing songs I have ever heard)
AB/7A
Blood On The Floor
Listen, appreciate, take some paracetamol (you’ll need it).
Went to see a few bands at The Ivy in Sheerness last night. I was most interested in the band called:
The Antithesis
I’ve seen this band a number of times and really enjoy their music. I thought they were good. Also saw Where’s Billy? who were ok. It was an enjoyable evening. Thanks Dave.
In about 1990 I was given a music cassette with “Stand In Line” by Impellitteri. I was stunned. It’s a brilliant album with some seriously cracking songs and heavy riffs. Fast forward 15 years and I noticed that there was a double album deal on Amazon for some Impellitteri stuff. I bought it.
This is very much speed metal in the vain of Yngwie or Gamma Ray. My concerns were raised after playing the album through a few times. Let me show you the titles:
Beware of the Devil
Slay the Dragon
Fear No Evil
Speed Demon
My curiosity was piqued and I did a little Wikipedia-ing. This is what they say there:
Chris and I and Ken Mary are all Christians, but James and Ed and Glen, our touring drummer, don’t necessarily proclaim themselves as Christians, so it’s not a Christian band.
The themes of the songs are religious. I would say they are a Christian band.
Does this affect what I think of the music? Yes.
Should it? Probably not, but then I think that religion is immoral and particularly offensive and serves no place in the modern world.
Do I still listen now and then? Yes, I quite like the style, it’s worth a play now and then.
I still think that “Stand In Line” is stunning.
I bought/downloaded/borrowed this originally because I wanted some Bon Jovi on my phone but didn’t want to buy the original albums. I sometimes go for “Best Of” albums because you are meant to get the best of that artist. I don’t think it always works out like that though. It appears that there are restrictions on the songs put on these “Best Of” albums. Also, some albums work as albums and you should listen through the whole thing.
So, I have since bought the albums I like and so only have a few songs left in this. The six songs left are:
Someday I’ll be Saturday night
Blaze of Glory
Prayer ’94
In and Out of Love
Runaway
I’ll Be There For You (version 2)
I’m not sure why I still have the last song there. I find both versions really tedious. When I saw the Jovi at Twickenham I just wanted “I’ll Be There For You” to stop. I also hate key changes. Look, get the original albums. There’s a reason the Jovi are as big as they are, it’s good stuff.
Along with Andy, my sister and niece, I went to the Underworld in Camden to see some bands. This was an important gig as I was taking my niece to see some proper music for the first time [she confessed that she has seen Olly Murs but didn’t say it loud enough to cause threats of physical damage to us].
The line-up was:
Ingested
Senser
DJ Starscream
We got the train into St Pancras and then walked the twenty minutes to Camden High Street. After some food and a drink in the World’s End pub we entered the venue and I showed my guests around the delights of the basement. Ingested were on first. They had shouty vocals. They weren’t the worst example of this type of music I had seen but they weren’t that good either.
The main reason I had wanted to come along this evening was that Senser were playing. I have liked their stuff since I was, ok, let’s just say since about 1994 and I saw them once before in Southsea! I like the music and the sound that they have. I thought they were really good. They played two new songs, I think, and the rest I knew. Very good, very energetic. I’m glad my niece saw these as her first proper band. All good stuff.
DJ Starscream was on next. He is the DJ from Slipknot. We tried it. But it’s not our stuff. We left and went for coffee. That’s not down to his ability to play, I’m sure he’s very skilful at what he does, but it left me cold.
I bought this album on music cassette in the late 80s, I’m ashamed to say it but it was probably not long after “Winds of Change” was in the charts. A good ballad is always an indication of a good band as long you then forget the ballad (they annoy me).
This album is a stunner. It’s exactly the sort of music I like. There’re songs with gang vocals, guitar slides, cheeky riffs, excellent bass work, it’s as though the Scorpions know exactly what sort of music works well in an arena. Given how long the “boys” have been around it’s no surprise that this album is well-crafted and wonderful.
I like all the songs. It’s precisely the sort of album that, when in the correct mood, you can play in its entirety.
