Music – Fooyah – Ian Parish

February 8 2026February 10 2026

Ashbury Heights – Downstairs At The Dome

Smith and I went to see Ashbury Heights last night. I had seen them before at Mera Luna but this was the first time I had seen them headlining their own show. This was a new venue for me and the easiest way to get there was to drive into town. I booked parking at the Tufnell Park Tavern, which, when looked at from street view, looks like a shit pub. You know the type, Sky sports wall to wall and Farage voters inside. But, I have to say the pub was really nice and welcoming, we had a drink there after the gig and it was lovely. One of the staff explained that if I park there again then if I have a drink the parking is free – something I’ll think about for the next time I’m in this area.

While driving to the venue I noticed a lot of Arsenal Football Club fans and realised I must have been close to the stadium they use. They weren’t too much of a problem although there were some local road closures to ensure people could move between the transport links and the stadium safely. I didn’t mind this. I did mind being held at a T-junction by a police motorbike. It turned out I was stopped to allow a convoy of big vehicles through. I don’t know who it was, probably either the Prime Minister or the Prince Of Wales. I was annoyed because I don’t think anyone is important enough for a convoy like that. People are equal and I don’t care what anyone else says. I have just googled where the PM was and Facebook seems to think he was at the match. I guess being in a Range Rover isn’t as cool as the helicopters I saw flying Barack Obama when I was in DC.

Before the gig we ate at what I described as a bakery with a cheeky restaurant at the back but it turned out to be a Greek street food café type thing. It was genuinely really nice and good value it was called Pitta Republic but it was hidden in the back of Intrepid Bakers. We then found the venue and it was quite standard. Black painted walls, a bar, a merch area and basically an open space, hall shaped that can fit 300 people. There weren’t really any quirky aspects to the venue, which was actually nice. The sound system was good and the set up was well balanced. The only slight issue was any lighting from the front didn’t seem to be working, otherwise, impressive.

First band up were Promenade Cinema who were already playing when we arrived. It was fine. There was a keyboardist and a singer. The songs had no real variation in them, no tempo changes or melody changes. Like I said it was fine. I did find myself wondering what to do with my arms during their set. I wasn’t clapping along so my arms just felt oddly in the way, I didn’t know where they should be. I tried behind my back, crossed, hands in pockets but they just felt “in the way” during this band. I think that means I was bored.

Ghostbells were up next and before the gig they handed out a load of plastic bracelets that had pinkish- red lights in them. The whole crown had them on their arms during this set and I thought that was a really nice touch. This band were better, their songs had variation and guitars. The singer had really good microphone control to make her singing fit with the music and changes in volume – I don’t know why I noticed this but it made me happy. I enjoyed it. I’d see them again quite happily.

The headliners were amazing. Musically excellent, great personalities, really seemed to be enjoying themselves. I could stay close all through the set as my neck started aching and given it’s been rough for over a month I moved towards the back to relax and be able to move my head a little easier. Ashbury Heights played a lot of bangers. Songs I’ve heard before and some off the album I have by them. It was an impressive display of musicianship from a band who have been around a long time. I really enjoyed it.

January 3 2026

Clever Breakdown

I browse Reddit and I think it’s the only main type of social media that I do look at. Today I saw an image which had a breakdown of my favourite types of music. I thought I’d share it here and you can see the type of stuff I like.

October 21 2025October 22 2025

Keg

Every now and then it’s well worth jumping around in front of a crowd and hitting things. I would always suggest that you do this in a safe space and also where everyone knows what’s going on. I did this recently and I had a great time. Not sure what to do if we play more songs though. How do I top that?

August 22 2025

M’era Luna 2025

There now follows a summary of my time in Germany this summer at the M’era Luna festival. This one will be known as the first one where we had VIP passes to the Hannover EBM marquee and beer.

On Thursday we woke early to head to Heathrow. Flight was good. Landed at Hannover and got the train to town. Found our “hotel” which was a box hotel. We elft our bags and headed off to meet friends. We saw quite a lot from the top of the new town hall but the best bit was the lift that took us to the top dome. It curved inside the building so the floor was level at the start but not at the end. It is more of a tourist attraction that actually being at the top. We ate at a Greek restaurant that night after seeing our room which was small (expected) and a very curious design. The floor smelt of piss though. We popped to the Maschsee Fest then headed back to the hotel, I had been up since 0400.

Friday was a train journey to Hildesheim, get wristbands and buy shuttle bus tickets to the site. We had to wait for tickets, wait for the bus and then it took two hours to get to the site and the traffic around Hildesheim was fucked. But, once at the site we found a pre-made tent and chilled. We had arrived in Hildesheim at 1045 and arrived at M’era Luna at 1600. Ants seemed to be attacking our tent but when we returned after the bands they had moved on, maybe we weren’t their correct flavour of person. Strangely for M’era Luna there were bands on the Friday night. I think this was because it’s 25 years of the festival and so a special occasion. Lord Of The Lost played and also released their album on the same day.

Lord Of The Lost – Friday headline set, a good show, lots of fireworks, your man singer from Unzucht (now Oomph!) came on stage to sing a song about M’era Luna.

After the bands I showered. There were no lights in the shower tent and no shower curtains. This is sometimes how things go. Also, definitely not the worst shower I’ve ever been in.

Saturday bands went as follows:

Null Positiv – main stage. Good metal. Female singer. I enjoyed it. Well structured songs. Good audience engagement.

Chris Harms – club stage. He’s the singer from Lord Of The Lost. 80s fucking shit. Good songs I guess but left me really cold.

Tanzwut – main stage. Rock with bagpipes.

Ambassador 21 – club stage. Fucking angry industrial. Great set. Ended with Power Rage Riot Death.

Funker Vogt – club stage. It just misses live. Can listen to their stuff not live. It’s just a little boring live. Good atmosphere though.

Faderhead – club stage. Fucking great. Excellent songs. Good vibe. Really good. My absolute best of the weekend.

Solar Fake – club stage. Solid set. Elliott MF Berlin on keyboards and guitar at times. He had so much energy. Not quite excellent though.

Eisbrecher – main stage. Excellent show as ever. The sound was really impressive.

Sunday things included watching bands, meeting people, checking train times for Monday and having a good time. The train times is a pain as you work from your flight time and keep subtracting time until you find out “get up” time, which was about 0600. This meant there was time for one missed connection but not two.

Beyond border – Main stage. All right. Two farmer dads and their son. Left to see:

Corlyx– club stage. Female singer. Good bass. Hate the guitars, very “The Cure”.

Manntra – main stage. Viking looking but good metal/rock. Classic metal with good audience participation.

Schattenmann– main stage. Metal. Liked the voice of the singer. Good show but left to:

Noisuf- X – club stage. Hard and fast dance. Big crowd for club stage at 1300. Played Hit Me Hard and Hit Me Fast

Sierra Veins – club stage. Electronic. Slow with heavy bass. Little singing and though a chorus box. I enjoyed it. But I can’t classify it. I have since bought some.

Leather Strip – club stage. Damn good. Just Kurt. Proper EBM. Really good. Oddly, given how good it was, I’m not too fussed about seeing them again.

Rotersand – club stage. Fucking great. Loved it. Singer came into the crowd near me and Smith, we pogoed together.

In Strict Confidence – club stage. A bit meh for me. I don’t get on with the deep male voice.

None of the Sunday headline bands interested us and so we went to the tent, whereupon we had the idea of travelling to Hannover Sunday evening to remove a lot of the hassle from Monday morning. There ensued quick investigations of trains and hotels and we left. We walked past the main venue entrance with two bands playing and headed to Hannover. This hotel was much nicer than the Box Hotel, and, with no explanation at all, was next to the red light district.

Monday was the flight home and to chill. It was a great weekend with Faderhead and Rostersand sticking out for me.

July 8 2025July 6 2025

An Old Music Cassette Collection

I rearranged my workplace the other week and had a bit of a sort out. One day I might even empty the cupboards at the back of the room or I may even throw away the Video DVD player that lives behind the door. But, in this clean up I found the following collection of music cassettes.

These are the tapes I would listen to in work while marking or doing other things that I’m meant to do. Although you might be thinking I’m a massive Ozzy fan because there are two tapes of him, I can assure you I’m not that fussed. I enjoy some of the music. There were more tapes somewhere and I’ll see if I can get an image of those.

May 23 2025May 21 2025

Combichrist – The Underworld

ITs’ another year and another chance to see Combichrist. This was the twelfth time I have seen this band since 2009 and, if I honest, I am starting to get a little bored. The Old School set at M’era Luna last year was amazing. I didn’t know what to expect last night but there hasn’t been any new material from the band for a while. First we have to cover the early bands.

Smith and I got to the venue while Esotrik were playing their set. It wasn’t anything special. In my notes I wrote – OK.

The second band of the evening were Crimson Veil. A band comprising 3 women and a man playing guitars. The drummer was excellent. I liked the idea of the electric viola and harp. The singing was excellent. I struggled a little bit with the beat and the length of the songs. The songs were long. The beat felt disjointed. I suspect this is what would be considered “experimental” sounds. I also suspect it was musically clever, but my ears aren’t good enough to spot that.

Extize were great. It was the singers birthday and also the release date of their new album. It was their first time playing in the UK. I really enjoyed their set last year at M’era Luna and I also really enjoyed the set they played here. It was good fun, the band looked like they really enjoyed themselves. I enjoyed myself. In my notes I described this as heavy dance with humour. I will buy their new album.

The headliners were Combichrist. It was a solid set from the band. I didn’t dance or mosh too much as I was worried my back would die again – it died at a gig I played before christmas. So, I stood near the back and observed – this was my standard position years ago before I got pit-hungry. Apart from two newer songs in the middle of the set it was all really really good. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole show. I would still argue they don’t need guitars on most of the songs, but they have moved on from electro and it does kinda work.

Elliot Berlin is now on his way to being the most seen artist in my concert going career. He used to be with Aesthetic Perfection and is now with Combichrist. Joe Letz didn’t make it to this many shows I’d seen. He left Combichrist a few years ago. It’s interesting that it has taken me this many gigs with Combichrist to start getting a little bored. There are many bands from my teenage years who I’ve seen a few times but really don’t think I’d be that fussed about seeing them again. In music my attention wanes.

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.