Slipknot – Slipknot

Back in the day I remember watching Chris Evans’ television show TFI Friday and I’m pretty sure I quite liked the show. It was a good mix of fun and frolics. One Friday though things were going to change. They showed a band called Slipknot. I think they played Wait And Bleed. I don’t know. All I know is that it was fascinating and amazing and such a different sound to anything else I had seen. Oh, they also wore boiler suits and masks but that didn’t bother me. There were probably complaints about the music but who cares. I bought the album and it was this one.

I listened to this album yesterday while I was experimenting with a computer monitor set up and it turns out that the last few songs aren’t that great. I’ve checked the track listing and there are some demo versions on my version of the album and so I won’t count those because Get This was there as a very pleasant surprise.

All you need from this album are the first five or six songs which is good because I didn’t really recognise any after Tattered & Torn. In my opinion everyone should have this album. I don’t think many will like it but it’s an important piece of art. It won’t make you feel good and it will assault your ears but you’ll be a better person once you’ve experienced it.

742617000027 – A nice start to this album because it sets the mood.
(sic) – A pretty sweet song. This batters you brutally around the head. Wait, what’s that? Scratching in a metal album, what is going on? “Fuck You All”.
Eyeless – Something about eyes I guess. I’m not a lyrics person but rather the beat, pace and riffage get me. This has a few greater moments. When you get to shout out “Nothing” and then “Motherfucker”.
Wait and Bleed – look, some people love it. It’s a good song but it’s not up there. I’m not sure why it lacks for me but it does. I’m happy when they play it but there are others that are better.
Surfacing – I love this song. It’s fantastic. I think I want it played at my funeral.
Spit It Out – another great song. What is that sound at the beginning? This one makes two of my favourite songs called “Spit It Out”.

Fuck it all! fuck this world!
Fuck everything that you stand for!
Don’t belong! don’t exist!
Don’t give a shit!
Don’t ever judge me!

Michael Crahan / Christopher Fehn / Paul Gray / Craig Jones / Nathan Jordison / Corey Taylor / Mickael Thomson / Sidney Wilson

Slip Of The Tongue – Whitesnake

Whitesnake were MASSIVE in 1987. I’m really it’s David Coverdale and assorted guest members of the band, a bit like Megadeth being the two Daves and another two. What happened in 87? Well, Whitesnake created a fucking monster of an album which I haven’t written about yet. This album though was the next one. This is what happens when you employ Stevie Vai and let him “Vai-up” your sound. There is not a problem with Vai-ing up your sound and I guess this album stars the voice of Coverdale and the sounds of Vai. It’s a good, slutty album. It perfectly encapsulates what cock-rock and slut metal is completely. Songs about sex and easy women, headlining the Monsters Of Rock Festival and general classic 1980s sexism. You know that trope with a woman writhing around on the bonnet [hood] of a car? That was Whitesnake.

Let’s look at some of the song titles shall we?

Slip Of The Tongue
Kitten’s Got Claws
Cheap and Nasty
The Deeper The Love
Slow Poke Music

This album also has a remix of Fool For Your Loving because it’s a good song and nothing sells or makes an album better than you putting on a remix of an old hit. I don’t have a problem with it.

I never saw Whitesnake. MH, best mate at school, saw them before this album and after the 87 smash hit. The band had different members then. Check out the list of members on Wikipedia. Mind you, they did/do have Tommy Aldridge on drums and that guy is a legend.

Coverdale has an amazing rock music voice.

Slave To The Grind – Skid Row

When I bought this album I was initially disappointed. I felt that Skid Row had moved from the LA Sound to a heavier, deeper almost thrash sound. But, after all these years I recognise this as a great album. I prefer it over Skid Row with the heavier sound and lower cock-rock influences. I fondly remember seeing the band a few times in the early 90s and this brings me back to those times. Watching Sebastian Bach tell Brent Council to fuck off and then play “Get The Fuck Out” to a crowd of 60,000 in Wembley Stadium was great. The band had been warned not to play that song and Bach read out the letter to the crowd. Good times.

This is an excellent album and I enjoy it still. There are great songs, a ballad- cos that’s what rock does, and heavy not-quite-thrash songs.

Monkey Business is great.
Slave To The Grind is great.
Get The Fuck Out – is a song for 2020, and good.
Riot Act would require a lot of mosh-pit.
Mudkicker is heavy and bouncy.

Look, someone has put this on YouTube. I was there, man. Wait for the incitement to riot! But it was a great show.

“You’re standing too close what the fuck’s with you, you ain’t my old lady and you ain’t a tattoo, no need to whimper, no need to shout, this party’s over, GET THE FUCK OUT”.

Slam – Dan Reed Network

Well, this is a biggy for me. This album was a large influence during my late teens and early twenties. I first saw Dan Reed Network when they supported Bon Jovi in Wembley Arena, I think. I enjoyed their set enough to then spend some money and buy Slam. I have played this album often. It is a mixture of rock and funk with some incredibly beautiful songs. I had a big urge recently to listen to this album and as I don’t have any analogue playing devices anymore I bought the album from iTunes. I guess one of the things about this collection of songs is that so many of them are just lovely, they send a shiver down my spine, they make me feel emotions which I would normally do my best to avoid. There’s quite a connection to SR also with this album. The Bon Jovi gig is memorable for getting a lift from a friend and them drinking cans of Guiness on the drive down the M11. This is a wonderful album.

Skyscraper – David Lee Roth

I am pretty sure that I bought this album just for the songs “Just Like Paradise” and “Damn Good”. Both of these are great songs and wasn’t DLR in Van Halen? I haven’t listened to this in a long time.

The song Damn Good was once on a compilation tape that I owned produced by a friend back in the days when music cassette ruled. I can remember listening to that song in the music department at Leventhorpe. There was a funny record button on the tape player and when I pressed it the sound output decreased, but at the same time, while playing it recorded the microphone input over the song. It was a clever little tape player but it messed up my tape version of this song.

Bad Luck Musings

Turns out that today is Friday 13th. Not that I’m bothered by that. I’ve had some bad luck recently but if I linked that to a random date then that would really be pushing the causation correlation fallacy. My recent bad luck is mostly my PC blowing up but also my left leg refusing to work yesterday morning. So far today things have been OK.

Chillblast have sent me a new PSU for the PC and last night I fitted it. The PC powered up and all seemed good, so I powered it down and then cable tied everything in place within the PC cabinet. When I fitted an extra HDD to the PC shortly after it arrived I only had a blue SATA cable and that didn’t match all the other cables so I replaced that for a black one and now the insides of the PC look all lovely. More importantly I have a functioning PC and there doesn’t seem to be any damage from the explosion last week. It all seems to be working well.

Two albums were released today and I purchased them. I expect there were many more albums released that just these two but these were the only ones I cared about. I have, of course, bought the new AC/DC album, Power Up, because. I will listed to that later but I expect it to be full of solid AC/DC songs and definitely not a disappointment. GrooVenoM also released their latest album and I got that too. I like all their music, I do prefer the mix and sound of the first album but the band deserve my support. It’s a nice mix of everything I like and so sounds different and familiar at the same time.

GrooVenoM AC/DC
GrooVenoM AC/DC

Since my Minecraft server runs from my PC I’ve been doing other things on the PS4, which pretty much means I’ve been playing Gran Turismo Sport which I probably would have done anyway. I was racing with my Mazda and noticed that I had driven quite a distance in it!

Mazda Atenza Gr.3
Mazda Atenza Gr.3

If you look at the right hand side lower panel you can see I have driven 3,266 miles in this machine. I think it’s the car I have used most but I could be wrong. Perhaps I should look up the statistics for my Porsche also! I wondered then what my total distance within this one game was and went to my career summary:

GT Sport Progress
GT Sport Progress

21,669 miles in total when I took this screenshot. That’s not too shabby! I’m a little embarrassed of my Sportsmanship Rating because it has been up to a grade B but I’m not sure what happened there. I think I did quit an online race a couple of weeks ago after being forced off the track and ending up in last place but other than that I think my driving is generally OK. I’ll see if I can work to bring that rating back up a little.

Skid Row – Skid Row

I’m not sure how I first found out about Skid Row but I do know that they were something to do with Bon Jovi. I suspect I saw them support a band and then I went ahead and bought their album. It is possible they supported Bon Jovi at Wembley Arena and then I saw Skid Row again supporting Guns ‘n’ Roses at Wembley Stadium. Look, this is a high quality cock rock album. It’s a great mix of late 80s riffage and attitude. It’s great. Sebastian Bach has a great voice or at least he did. He left under a cloud of non-disclosure-agreements and such like, I was never hugely interested in all the politics. I remember being slightly amazed by the bass player and the chain he had going from his earring to his nose ring, I always thought that was rather cool.

Big Guns – a classic. Proper rock intro to an album.
Sweet Little Sister – sexualising your younger sister, that’s what the 80s were about.
Can’t Stand The Heartache – showing the sensitive side with a sad song about falling in love with a wrong-un. Oddly it’s quite a nice upbeat song which feels cheery.
Piece Of Me – nice rolling bass riff to start and then continues to be a good song.
18 And Life – obligatory slow one about how shit everything can be for some and how you end up getting detained by the state.
Rattlesnake Shake – one of the weaker songs on this album but it’s still pretty good and fun.
Youth Gone Wild – I love this song, I mostly love the bang bang opening.
Here I Am – Lovely decent fast riff. Well structure quiet bit leading into a bluesy solo. Great.
Makin’ A Mess – fast paced twelve bar blues? Another proper sing along song on an album full of them. Has a really good middle eight with some slamming beats.
I Remember You – Bleaugh, obligatory ballad, a pretty good one though.
Midnight / Tornado – another weaker song, but it’s OK.

I really enjoyed seeing this band and I have always received a decent level of pleasure from the music of theirs that I own,

Singles Original Soundtrack – Various

This is a hugely influential album to me. I don’t know when I bought it but I do remember laying on the floor in the dark with sunglasses on listening to Drown. I guess this album helped launch the Seattle scene into the world. I had seen Alice In Chains before and owned albums by them so this was an obvious extension. I have seen the film but I don’t know if I saw that before or after the soundtrack purchase.

Singles Soundtrack.jpg
By Source, Fair use, Link

This is a very summer album and one that fills me with optimism. So many of the songs have made me happy or stuck in my head. Some of the songs scare me into dark places.

Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns is a song that is beautiful and haunting. This along with Drown makes for disturbed listening. This is an album I would consider putting on in the background of a dinner party. I’m not sure if that means a dinner party would horrify me or whether I consider this album to be one which is ripe for general consumption. I think none of the songs are potentially offensive.

The strange thing about the Seattle sound is that it pretty much leaves me cold now. I love this album and I really enjoy a few albums by Alice but overall a lot of this music didn’t really tingle my spine. Pearl Jam enjoyed massive success but just failed to do it for me. Soundgarden is the same. Nirvana was good fun while it lasted but I’m not an overblown fan and now I see the sound as tiresome. This is a shame but there’s only so much space in my head and heart and while this album sticks like sticky shit most of the rest of the upper north west productions have dripped off.

Silver And Gold – A.S.a.P

Way back in the past Adrian Smith decided to leave Iron Maiden and do his own thing. This was a little sad for me as I had always preferred Smith to Murray for some reason and I wondered what Maiden would do to replace him. Smith then went on to produce this solo album and I bought it, except that I didn’t really. At some point Jannick Gers joined Maiden and then Smith came back so now they have three guitarists. Not a classic line up but the longest running line up I guess.

Smith released the single Silver And Gold from the album Silver And Gold and I went to Our Price in the Harvey Centre in Harlow to buy the single on CD. In those days people weren’t trusted to browse real CDs and so the cases were in the shop and the CDs were kept in cardboard wallets in the back of the shop. I guess we were all thieving bastards back then. I took my CD case for the single up to the counter and the person went to the back to get the music disk. Once I’d paid my money and left the shop I looked inside the case and would you believe it?, the shop person had put the CD for the same named album in the case instead of the single CD. I had won “shopping”!

As an album this is, for me, OK. I don’t listen to it often and while I don’t mind it, it’s not something I normally seek out. Sometimes while I write these I have the album playing in the background but I couldn’t even be bothered to do that this time!

Shout At The Devil – Mötley Crüe

I’m pretty sure that a friend of mine, Mark Hodges, gave me this on tape initially. I expect that at some point I went and bought the album but I don’t have my usual clarity on personal album history with this one. I remember liking the Crüe from Girls, Girls, Girls onwards. All that 80s metal came at the right time for my teenage years when humans seem to make most of their musical brain connections. There might be a PhD in there somewhere, I know people ten years older than me who either really love the 70s rock – Pink Floyd – or Ska or Punk, the link between those formative years of brain changing chemistry and the music that rebels at that time seem strong.

I do enjoy this album, I love that trashy L.A. sound but these days I feel slightly embarrassed at the obvious sexism within the industry and songs. I don’t necessarily think that these bands were socially unaware I just think that the zeitgeist was a pretty bad place. Until a few years ago I would have said that the world was heading in the right direction and becoming more tolerant of differences but I’m not so sure now. Hatred seems on the rise and it saddens me. Maybe the only silver lining will be the eventual destruction of most of the population through climate change. Perhaps then those that remain will be able to rebuild a fairer society.

Every Mötley Crüe album has a shit song. It’s almost as though they do it deliberately. There’s Nona on GGG and this album has God Bless The Children Of The Beast. These additions seem to be short songs and utterly terrible. I don’t know why they did it. I’m not sure I care but skip these songs I will.

ShoutattheDevilCD2.jpg
By Source, Fair use, Link

Have you seen a bunch of men look more scary? The overtly heterosexual band Mötley Crüe going out of their way to shock and horrify the older generations while endearing themselves to the youth of the time by rebelling and scaring the baby boomers. This stuff freaked people out! They thought all this loud music was caused by the devil and tearing their children away from their control. A small secret is that all children seek to provoke and find themselves, they aim to select something to make them different, make them stand out, make them original. The irony of this is that we’ve all been there and some of us tolerate it while others condemn. I’m always curious to see how the next generation finds their “thing”. I’m old enough to have been around the block a few times and have seen the rebellion time and time again. Maybe my professional life helps keep me informed also? The close contact with the next set of teenagers and hearing about how they get their identity. It’s just a shame so many of them seem greedy and a bit “tory”.

If you want to see what shocks the “grown ups” then have a look at the Daily Mail and see what they show of the younger generation. I suspect it’s all about the drugs and parties, especially for the DM because then they can show pictures of young ladies behaving bad and there’s nothing the older DM reader likes more than looking at pictures of young ladies behaving badly. This also goes for the Daily Telegraph. To some extent I think it comes down to the oldies being jealous of the care-free days that they lost and won’t find again. All that awaits is the slow degeneration of bodies into permanently aching lumps of meat before death and so those in charge of society get upset at what they have lost.

I enjoy this album and would recommend it to any of you.

Shake Your Money Maker – Black Crowes

I’ve seen the Black Crowes twice and both times it was pretty good. The first time was at the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park in 1991, I went to this with my sister, Angela, to see AC/DC. The Black Crowes were the first band on stage and I really enjoyed them. I don’t think I knew anything about them prior to that. I suspect that I went and bought their first album after that. I know I had the album on music cassette and then I eventually updated it to a digital copy. The second time I saw the Black Crowes was at Brixton Academy and there are three main things about that I remember most. One; I was in the pit and the crowd collapsed and that was my first experience of that. Two; I’m pretty sure the band had a lot ofwhite fairy lights above the stage and it looked pretty nice. Three; the journey back to South Kensington with SR did not go that smoothly and for some reason we ended up on a night bus heading to Edgware and it was most definitely not Sarf Ken.

This album has a very southern/country feel to it. There’s a nice gentle rolling ambience to the songs. This band’s second album never really struck me as much as the first. I have listen to this over and over. Listening to it as I write this I that the addition of keyboards and plonky piano sounds really adds to the feel. Bluesy Rock ‘n’ Roll.

There’s also a melancholy feel to some of the songs. For me I think this album is a very “summer album”. It fits with beers in the garden and a sunny day. I don’t think this would be a “shit mood” album. I can only listen to it when emotionally happy. It would upset me more if I was down a little.

Crypt Edition

This past weekend would have been the M’era Luna festival in Hildesheim, Germany. But it was not to be. SARS-Cov-2 put paid to any plans of a weekend of music and honigwein. So, instead of driving five hundred miles to get to a soggy campsite the M’era Luna chaps put on a day of a virtual festival with a live stream of some of the bands from last year. The most important thing was that Smith and I saw ourselves in a few of the concert videos and also, in one of the interstitials – we have been recognised for our efforts. If you aren’t sure what you missed then have a look at this video of Corvus Corax.

Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son – Iron Maiden

This is playing as I write this and also while I composed the previous communication. I guess I have to start somewhere and as a spotty teenager I was descending into Heavy Metal. This was the first Iron Maiden album to be released while I was a fan. Everything else was just catch up, I missed the live released of Somewhere In Time, which gets reviewed soon I guess. My mum bought me this album from out of nowhere. She just came home one day and gave it too me – this was quite strange for my mum.

For me this takes me back to being a fifteen year old and soaking up all the atmosphere and myth behind this album. I would spend ages looking at the artwork, reading the lyrics and trying to figure out what it all meant. This was Maiden’s seventh studio album and it was their first “concept” album. I guess you write a concept album once you’ve been around the block a bit. You’ve got a solid fan base and you try something new. This album is based around the story of the seventh son of a seventh son who is meant to have magic powers.

So, this was the second album with keyboards which for Metal is wrong but that’s not really a worry. If it adds to the song then it’s fine. I think my biggest problem is that the guitar work isn’t that clear. I don’t like the sound of the guitars on this and “Somewhere”. It’s all rather vague. Maybe it’s a product of the time, new sounds, new effects, trying something different, but for me it just doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, this is an amazing album and should be rated somewhere near the top but there’s something “missing” for me.

My first concert attended was Iron Maiden on their Seventh Tour. Seeing the band at Wembley Arena was amazing and the set amazed me. It was an amazing first gig. Songs from this album featured heavily as you would expect and I loved it.

  • Moonchild – A good concert opener.
  • Infinite Dreams – I always found this to be quite a romantic song.
  • Can I Play With Madness – not great.
  • The Evil That Men Do – Good but not as good as they think it is.
  • Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son – A tour de force, hints of Rime but still good.
  • The Prophecy – I think this could be my new favourite on this re-listening.
  • The Clairvoyant – Another classic, it’s OK.
  • Only The Good Die Young – Pretty good.

Semi-Detached – Therapy?

I’ve been playing this while writing some communications on here and I don’t think I’ve really listened to this album. I don’t recognise any of the songs. This is bad, I think. I’ve seen Therapy? and I really enjoyed the gig.

Sehnsucht – Rammstein

Look, you know what you are getting with a Rammstein album. Excellent, hard German industrial metal – or whatever genre the posh people think it is – which I’ve just checked and it is Neue Deutsche Härte apparently. This is Rammstein’s second album. I first heard this band in the early 2000s when a friend, Sara, gave me two albums because she had to many and she thought I would like it. I mean, she wasn’t wrong. This band is one of my all time favourites.

What you need to know is that you should have all the Rammstein albums and you should play them regularly. Don’t think too much about the lyrics, I’ve found it’s best not to know. This band is amazing.

This album has Engel, Du Hast, and Bück dich all massive songs with excellent live performances.

It would appear that many very good albums begin with an S. Or it’s that many decent album titles just happen to begin with an S. I’ve found in life it’s often helpful to think about the direction of causality.

Second Toughest In The Infants – Underworld

I bought this album on the back of the brilliance of Born Slippy which I had on the Trainspotting soundtrack. It’s an amazing song but cutting it short is a sin. I really love the ten minute build up once the main section is over. I can remember being at a wedding at the Weald Of Kent Golf Course and after imbibing rather too much alcohol I got a little angry with the DJ when he cut short Born Slippy. He did then go on to play the rest of the track and I loved it. Not sure anyone else did.

This album is a good chill out album I think. I haven’t played it in ages and I seem to remember it lacked the brutality that I wanted.

Seasons In The Abyss – Slayer

It’s been too long since I last wrote a review on this topic, I’d actually forgotten I had done some of the “S” albums. To have Seasons In The Abyss as a resumption of service is great. This album is absolutely fantastic. It’s hard, heavy, powerful and will smash you apart. I’m not a megafan of Slayer I have seen them twice I think and I enjoyed the shows. They are one of the big four and so deserve their place in history. Every now and then the music of Slayer is a requirement because it’s just right. Make no mistake this is thrash metal and a perfect example.

War Ensemble – fast, powerful, lasting lyrics, what’s not to like? I remember Slayer at the Clash Of The Titans concert in Wembley arena announcing that they were going to record the music video to this song and were going to play along to a backing track – that did not go down well with the crowd – so they played it live.

Expendable Youth – Very good song. I do like some heavy cymbal use.

Dead Skin Mask – creepy and scary. This song messed me up the first time I heard it. I bought this album on music cassette [tape] and was playing it while walking from the record shop. Towards the end of this song a girl’s voice comes on asking for help. I hadn’t realised it was part of the song and thought it was someone behind me asking. Pooped myself.

Hallowed Point – see below lyrics, need I say more?

High velocity bullet at close range
Can damage the mind
Shattering the skull shredding the brain
Severing the spine

Slayer – Hallowed Point

Seasons In The Abyss – a tour-de-force of a song. Absolutely amazing. Calming, heavy, spooky. All of that.

I know I haven’t written about every song and there are times when I do. I think the biggest endorsement I can give this album is that I don’t skip any of the songs and love the whole thing. It’s a well rounded collection of songs.

For Health

A while back I gave up my Spotify subscription. My reasons were partly that I just kept listening to the same songs over and over and I also thought the payment that the artist receives was paltry. At that time I decided I would buy albums of artists I liked and own the music. I think this is the morally correct thing to do. There are a number of artists I really listen a lot to and they don’t make masses of money. I’m not talking about mega-bands like Metallica or Maiden, I’m talking here about bands I regularly play in 500 seat theatres. I say theatres but they are more the loveliest dives in London.

I saw the band/singer/artist Leaether Strip at M’era Luna a few years ago and I loved it. I thought he was great. Such a nice chap with excellent music. His husband was playing the keyboards for him and it was clear there was such love between the two of them. Now, I’m not really a “meet your heroes” type of person. I’ve heard enough stories about famous people being, well, people and assholes so I’m happy to leave the artists alone and let them get on and I’ll enjoy what they do. Some music I don’t listen to anymore because of the behaviour of the artist – LostProphets.

The reason for this communication is I bought an album by Leaether Strip and I know I like the music but I also know that the money helps the two men get on with their lives and especially to support Kurt as he’s been ill for a while and has had a kidney transplant. I get music I know I will like and they get a little bit of help for their lives. Seems a fair saw to me. I’m very happy for you to use the link in this paragraph to go and buy stuff also.

Seems Right

It’s a weird time I guess. I’ve been getting through the days partly because I’m used to having quite a lot of time at home – I get six weeks off in the summer – in fact I think there are only three summers I’ve ever worked through! The main difference between normal summers and now is I’m normally quite busy travelling around and doing things. At the moment I’m at home, which is OK. I’ve got some things I can do as a routine:

  • Gran Turismo – a couple of races each day, trying to get better online.
  • Laughingly trying to write music.
  • Daily exercise.
  • Getting through some TV shows.
  • Watching movies.
  • Reading a book.
  • Actual work starts again in a couple of days.
  • Trying other games on the PC or PS4.
  • Food shopping once a week.
  • Thinking about what to do or making plans of things to do in the house but probably not getting the motivation to do that.

Along with these things I’ve also been doing the right thing by following my pay-for-it policy. So, while I can and while I am in a position to still pay for things, I’ve been trying to pay for things. I’m very lucky that I have a state provided job. I’m going to assume the state will continue because if that fails we are all fucked and it’s not worth thinking about. So, for the next while I should be getting paid. Because I am able I will buy some more albums and I am also paying for podcasts I listen to because they delight me so much and they keep me settled. The amount I pay for them is pretty small compared to the benefits I get. Some people might ask why pay for this stuff if it’s free? Because it’s the right thing to do.

So, here are some things that I am currently paying for [which are also available for nothing]:

Recent albums I’ve bought are:

  • Another Piece Of The Action – S.P.O.C.K
  • From Beer To Eternity – Ministry
  • Amerikkkant – Ministry
  • How Do You Feel Today – Rotersand
  • Dawn – HORSKH
  • Gate – HORSKH
  • Nachright vom Feind – Jadu

I’ve also been involved in helping to fund a few books that I’ve been interested in. I’m currently hoping that a Hush-Kit book will be published and that’s through a website called Unbound.

There may be a time when I can’t pay for these things. If that comes then society is going to be in a really bad place and these little things won’t be enough to keep me happy anyway.