Went with Smith to see Mentallica play last night at The Intrepid Fox [there used to be a link here, but the pub/venue is demolished for railway, it is no more] in London (St Giles High Street).
So, it was a tiny venue and packed with metal fans. Brilliant. The music was loud and heavy. All in all it was an enjoyable evening. I wanted more kick from the bass drum and “Hetfield”‘s guitar was rather quiet. The snare sounded quite “St Anger” and that can’t be good. So, apart from some minor points I rather enjoyed the whole thing.
The big problem is that Metallica or any other band of that type are rather safe nowadays. They used to be rebellious and dangerous but I don’t think they hit the mark any more. Slipknot and Rammstein filled that bill for a little while but now my allegiances have moved towards EBM and Industrial. See a future communication about what I feel about this.
It’s quite weird going from a small quiet leafy village in Kent to the bustling metropolis of London and seeing how busy everything is all around the clock! I used to live there and have forgotten what it’s like.
We had a Chipotle burrito for dinner and I really enjoyed mine. Seemed good value and vaguely healthy. Smith suffered with his! Oh dear.
For quite a while I have found iTunes to be thoroughly frustrating. It has issues with my music collection, randomly adds songs I’ve deleted and doesn’t like updating the artwork on my albums. iTunes also takes an age to synchronise my phone and when it does it fails to update artwork, copy playlists or new songs across to my phone. It seems to be a pretty bad and bloated piece of software. I don’t use iTunes to back up my phone and rely on the cloud for that, which I am thankful for as iTunes probably wouldn’t cope very well with it.
I searched the internet thingy and found a free piece of software called CopyTrans which has a suite of iPhone utilities. I was rather hesitant about using it as it could really mess things up. Would it work with iTunes and my phone and help me do the following:
Edit my playlists on my phone without me having to add songs one at a time?
Update the artwork on my phone without me needing to delete the songs and then load them again?
Copy music onto my phone quickly and efficiently?
Actually read my phone database and allow me to edit it (kind of)?
I do still need iTunes but only to manage my playlists on the NAS drive as that is where my Sonos system reads the files. I guess I could use a completely different music manager but iTunes works well as long as I don’t connect my phone to the PC (which is kinda the point of the software).
I downloaded CopyTrans and started it up. The Manager part of the suite is free to use. I was quite wary of doing this. I love my music and have spent ages making sure I have the songs I want and the correct artwork. It’s quite a time investment.
“Connect Your Phone”
CopyTrans wanted my phone. I connected it and waited. CopyTrans read my database and a song list appeared on my computer. I tried to copy some new songs across to my phone.
IT WORKED
AND QUICKLY
I tried editing a playlist – easy. I even tried making sure my artwork was up-to-date (I had noticed two albums only had artwork on the first song), this was really easy and IT WORKED.
The online help files are really good. It all seems so easy.
CopyTrans you have made my life a lot easier and I am thankful. I hope millions read this and use your software, but unfortunately this website only gets ~270 hits a month. More people should use CopyTrans.
Confession – I have absolutely nothing to do with CopyTrans. I just think their software it worth a mention here.
I bought this on my Boston phase. I bought up all their stuff as I really liked “Foreplay – Long Time” from Rock Band on the Playstation. Any Boston album is very well written and just what you want. I’m pretty sure this is stuff someone not into rock would cope with playing in the background. More driving music. See Boston review.
I bought this on the back of Slayer’s earlier music from the 80s and although I play this now and then there isn’t a track on it that I can remember. It all rather mushes into one song by the end. Sorry.
I think I’ve listened to this a couple of times. I’ve been getting into electronic music since I saw Combichrist with Rammstein a few years ago. I don’t think I could tell you anything about any particular song on this album. However, given it is Daft Punk I assume it to be quite a good album. Not one I regularly play but am happy to have in my collection.
Firstly let me announce that I think AC/DC are one of the best bands ever [40 million copies of Back In Black sold]. I love the raw rock sound and the cheeky lyrics. I remember being 17 years old and discovering that there were thirteen AC/DC albums and just being excited at the thought of owning them all. I probably had three albums at that time, Blow Up Your Video being my first.
This album, from 1976, has an excellent ensemble of songs by the gritty Aussie [although there is an argument to say they were British] band. Not a single bad song. Some excellent songs.
Dirt Deeds
Love At First Feel
Big Balls
Rocker
Problem Child
There’s Gonna Be Some Rockin’
Ain’t No Fun
Ride On
Squealer
Big Balls is hilarious although Wikipedia claims it has controversial lyrics but it depends whether you have a dirty mind or not. I’m pretty sure this song is about a costume party [NOT].
Rocker takes the power riff and makes you bounce.
Squealer has a brilliant bass riff and is an altogether brilliant song, for some reason I love it.
This isn’t really an album. It’s more an EP. Of the eleven songs on the album, seven are the same song just re-mixed. I really like the other Reaper stuff and this is ok. It’s more commercial and less dark/devil-ish. Not really my kind of electronic music but ok nonetheless.
I hope to see Reaper at some point in the future. His songs really mix the darkness and sex.
I loved Alice in Chains when I was younger. I still do, but I do think that they haven’t moved on musically. Their latest albums sound very similar to the early stuff.
I bought this at university after seeing Alice in Chains twice in the early 90s. I saw them support Iron Maiden and also support Megadeth. I’m pretty sure both concerts were at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, a great small venue.
This album is just brilliant from start to finish. It’s haunting and cunning. There is not a bad track on this album. You should buy it, or download it, or whatever you do to get music. Spotify? Is that the new thing? Nothing else to say.
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!).
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 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 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.
