April 2019 – Page 2 – Fooyah

April 17 2019April 17 2019

Early Air Pioneers

Until about four days ago I didn’t know that the first powered flight of an aircraft in the UK occurred on the Isle Of Sheppey. The island isn’t that far from here and so I went to have a look at a beach.

Upon some investigating it turns out that the first purpose-built aircraft factory was on Sheppey and built by the Shorts brothers. Then it turns out that they then build the first airfield nearby in 1909. This is amazing and I don’t know why I didn’t know this before this week.

I had previously known that Shorts used to make aircraft at Rochester and used the Medway there as the aerodrome. It is here that they made the Sunderland and other famous planes.

Eventually they moved production to Belfast and now the company is known as Bombardier. It would have been magnificent to see sea planes taking off and landing on the river Medway, such an age of exploration and adventure. This would have made Rochester such a target during the second world war as there was a Royal Navy shipyard and also an aircraft manufacturer there.

On Sheppey I drove to the old RAF Eastchurch site which is now three prisons built on Crown land. It was strange driving to the museum as there was lots of security along a public road. It felt like entering an RAF base. Two of the prisons there are high security and the walls were impressive. The third prison is an open prison and the museum is on the land of that prison with a cafe nearby run by inmates.

The key to the things I have marked in the above photo runs such:

The museum
The first aero hangar in the UK
The RAF base water tower
The original airfield control block
The E-W runway
The N-S runway

There are plenty of features there to see and the person running the museum was really friendly and told me loads about the history. It’s strange to me all these old air force bases that are now re-purposed. I guess I hanker for the old days of aircraft everywhere.

One of the buildings on the site still shows the scars of war with bomb damage on the brick wall:

The museum is based in one of the original base buildings and certainly contains lots of lovely information about the early days of aeronautical exploration in this country.

Inside the building was a photograph taken at Muswell Manor on the east coast of the island and one of the early headquarters of the Royal Aero Club. In that photograph the following people are pictured:

The Short Brothers
Frank McClean
Frank Hedges Butler
Warwick Wright
JTC Brabazon
Wilber Wright
Orville Wright
Charles Rolls

That is an amazing collection of rich people who had the money to start the aviation industry in this country and the world. The Wright brothers had come across the Atlantic with their flyer to try and create interest and also start manufacturing the product. This they managed and the Short brothers built the Flyer under licence. The rest is pretty much history as we know. I hadn’t even been aware that the Wright brothers had come over here!

Near Muswell Manor is a statue to the Short Brothers. It stands as a marker for the start of aviation in this country and the adventuring that started at Shellness.

April 17 2019

Metallica – Metallica

This is known as the black album by most fans I think and it is the first Metallica album I bought straight from release rather than playing catch up with their discography. There is one good song on here and one semi-good song. The rest I would not play.

Sad But True – this is a pretty heavy amazing song, although slow. It crunches through you, especially live.

Enter Sandman – this is designed to be a single and went massive. It’s an OK song.

The rest of the album I could not tell you about from memory. This is interesting as when I saw Metallica at Donington in 1991 these were the only two songs that they played from this album, even though it had just come out.

I bought this on tape and I’ve just checked the NAS drive and amusingly I haven’t even updated my collection of this album to a complete digital version. I only have three songs from this album in digital. I also have Wherever I May Roam, but let’s face it, that’s a shit song.

This album marked a major decline in my appreciation of Metallica. There was a slight decline after “Justice”, but this one hastened the break up. Metallica went massive after this album and became mainstream. That’s when I stopped liking them. I’m not sure which way around the causation goes, whether their music changed and I stopped liking them or whether they became mainstream and so I stopped liking the music.

I did go to see Metallica play in Earls Court in about 1995 [just checked and it was October 12, 1996] and it was quite good but the new songs are shit and I really struggle to get past that. The show was filmed as the DVD Cunning Stunts. In that DVD one of the stuntmen is described as the “burning man”, not by his name by the band. This guy set himself alight over the complete tour every night and yet the band didn’t know his name. I guess that’s how it goes being a rock star but I didn’t like that.

April 17 2019April 17 2019

Hellboy

Yesterday I went to the cinema to watch Hellboy. I pretty much went just to spend a couple of hours being entertained as I had some spare time. Of course, I noted the state of the tide and it was low.

From the picture you can see the mud flats or banks of the river closest to the camera and these are normally hidden at high tide. Also, on the very left you can see a barge just sticking out and the is one of two which live in a freshly dredged area of the mud bank. Even more exciting is the existence of cranes on boats. Seriously, there are cranes that work from boats, how amazing is that?

I should probably explain a little about the film now. I rated the film on IMDB and tweeted my result. There’s a communication here explaining the rating system.

I rated Hellboy (2019) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/4fppvES82I

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 16, 2019

This film was pretty poor. I’m not sure what it was about really. Something to do with the rightful heir of the UK I think. The film starts at Pendle Hill in Lancashire and something to do with witches and King Arthur [who most definitely wasn’t a real person, like Robin Hood wasn’t]. Then we head to Mexico to see a vampire, which is fine.

Over the course of the movie London is laid to waste and that seems a reasonable metaphor for the current state of politics. There was some fighting stuff and a man who can change into a killer leopard at a whim, but who takes drugs to stave off the change, but manages to change back to human without any trouble. I don’t know. This film was pretty shit.

I did like Hellboy’s crown of flames hovering above his head in the last fifteen minutes of the film, that was pretty cool.

April 16 2019April 16 2019

Mechanical Resonance – Tesla

I bloody love this album. It’s proper 80s cock rock and it’s amazing. I had this on tape for many years and oddly the music cassette is still in a cupboard in the kitchen ready to be played on a non-existent cassette player. Years ago I would have had a CD/Cassette/Radio in the kitchen. I mentioned Tesla in this communication years ago! Also, in March 2014 I noticed the tape in the cupboard and wrote about it within this communication. It is still there:

I still don’t have the heart to remove the tape and put it somewhere else. All my music cassettes are in the loft and this one is now a memorial to that portable format.

So, this album is playing while I type and it is brilliant. Lots of excellent choruses along with memorable hooks. It’s very much like a Bon Jovi album [one of the good ones] but slightly less commercial. I have enjoyed playing this album for over thirty years and I think it will continue. Well done Tesla.

April 16 2019

Mechanical Animals – Marylin Manson

You know what? Marylin Manson makes some pretty good rock music and I’d be keen to see him play somewhere.

I’ve been aware of Manson for quite a while but he came to the forefront when his music was blamed for the massacre at Columbine High School. He wasn’t at all to blame but the people wanted an easy answer, they wanted a quick thing to blame. He copped the worst of it and struggled after that. His name is still associated with the massacre and I guess I am perpetuating the myth here just by mentioning it.

There are always going to be people who don’t fit into the societal norms. People who need help and protection for themselves and to protect others from them. It’s how society copes with that which is important. I remember two massacres when I was young, Hungerford and Dumblane. The governments of the time banned certain types of guns. This seemed to be a perfectly rational response because it’s easier to get rid of guns than it is to psychologically screen everyone who wants to buy guns.

Just because I’m fine today doesn’t mean I could be fucked in the nut tomorrow and become completely unhinged from what is considered normalcy. Remove the guns from society. This is why modern terrorism tends to be other methods of mass murder. Ramming crowds with trucks and using knives. These methods require very little training and you can pretty much get anyone motivated enough to use them. Bombs are hard work and guns hard to get. What’s important is how the government and therefore society reacts to these attacks and how we go about trying to stop them in the future.

I suspect there are always going to be people unhappy with the current format of society and so there will always be threats to the “state”. The vast majority of people will act on their displeasure when they come to vote next time or join a march for some reason. There will always be a few people who think they can force change, for what they think is the better, using violent means. I also suspect they are largely correct. Violence tends to work in the long run as it forces governments to listen and change, but shhhhh, don’t say that loudly.

This album is playing right now as I type and I’m reminded that I was going to write about how I first heard Manson stuff. It was the Resident Evil soundtrack that allowed me to hear this chap for the first time and it was good. This album is perfectly acceptable rock.

April 16 2019

Master Of The Rings – Helloween

I don’t remember getting this but I did listen to it the other day and it’s pretty good German speedmetal. It’s not one that’s stuck in my head because I prefer Keeper Of The Seven Keys. I am an old man and new songs just don’t stick like they used to. Memory cares less about new things as you get older and I don’t have the time to invest in learning new words and songs.

April 15 2019

Album Reviews News

Over the last year or so I’ve been writing album reviews for this site as a way of adding content easily. I’ve been doing this in the knowledge that anything I’ve bought in terms of EBM would be reviewed once I had completed my pre-2011 albums.

The very first album reviews were written in April 2013. I started adding them because it’s a way of expressing myself and writing communications on this site. I also thought it would be interesting to see what I would write about the music and how it affects me.

For the last few years I was missing all the electronic albums off when going through the music on my NAS drive. I thought that my original plan was to write reviews of metal stuff and then start again on the EBM stuff. Last night I found out I was wrong.

I was watching Aesthetic Perfection with my niece and looked up on this site when I had seen AP before and whether she was with me or not. As part of the search results where were some album reviews of the AP stuff. I was a little surprised as I didn’t think I had written them.

Now I’m stuck. I’m going to have to go through all the album reviews to see where I finished the EBM stuff and then eventually, once I’ve finished my current plan of only metal reviews, I’ll go back and fill in all the music that I’d started but thought I’d not done.

April 15 2019April 15 2019

Aesthetic Perfection – O2 Islington

Last night I went to the O2 Academy in Islington with my niece to see Aesthetic Perfection. We drove into town as it just makes it easier to get home and not worry about running to get the last train. After arriving we had burritos for dinner and then headed to the venue.

Machine Rox were playing, this was a slight surprise as they weren’t on the bill as far as I knew but we watched them anyway.

I didn’t mind them. The singer owned the dress she was wearing and that was excellent. I couldn’t understand what she was singing though and that seems to be a bit of a flaw. The drummer doesn’t really do much and the guitarist is pretty cool in his silver outfit and lights on his head. They were OK.

Next up was Amelia Arsenic. I hadn’t heard of her before this series of concerts and so was curious. She came on stage and explained that her band were stuck in Cincinnati and she’d been hit by a car the day before. She had a computer set up to play the music and her performance was really good. I could understand what she was singing and really enjoyed the show.

I can’t remember how many tracks she sang but I was impressed. On my next pay day I think I’ll be buying some of her work. I don’t think there are enough female artists in this genre and it’s good to see more. She had a wonderful confidence and even came and sang the last verse in the crowd.

Priest were up next. I’m still not sure what to make of this band. I enjoyed it for a while and his signing impressed me but the songs didn’t vary much and were built around his seemingly classically trained voice. I thought I detected a slight French accent but I may have been wrong there. Apart from the outfits there didn’t seem to be much going on stage.

I’ve just checked and the band are from Sweden, so that explains why I thought they were French. I did like that the singer called themselves:

The Cybernetic Trinity known as Priest

It was a nice touch. I don’t think I’d need to see more of them though.

The headliners were Aesthetic Perfection. I’ve seen this band a few times and have always enjoyed the show. They were the second EBM type band that I started listening to and so are one of my original favourites along with Combichrist. Also, now that Joe Letz plays with AP I think that means I have seen him perform more times than any other musician.

I was curious to see how the band handled the new guitar influences on the new album but the keyboardist played the guitar on two songs and I think it worked. I like the new album a lot and so to hear the songs live was very exciting.

The band played a solid set and it was very enjoyable. It’s nice to be part of a crowd that really sings along and joins in. These guys are excellent showmen and the addition of Joe Letz brings the album sounds to life. I always think that live drummers add more to the sound than they cost. I really like it when electronic bands do that.

This gig was good fun and I enjoyed it immensely. AP are still one of my favourite bands and I will continue to see them when they come over. A good solid evening of music.

April 14 2019

Master Of Reality – Black Sabbath

I bought this album probably because it was cheap. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to it.

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