This album was originally bought on music cassette and has since bee played a reasonable number of times. My ignorance comes to the fore here as I don’t really know who Jeff Beck is. I think he wrote “Hi Ho Silver Lining” but I could be mistaken. I don’t want to Wikipedia him because that’s cheating. My suspicion is that he used to be a member of an awesome 60/70s rock band and then was part of a few super-groups.
This album was late 80s or early 90s and it’s good fun. It’s not rock by a long way but it has gentle rhythms and sampling along with some spoken word lyrics. I quite like it as something different for the summer evenings. Perfectly pleasant for company I guess.
It has been a while since I wrote some stuff about albums I own and what I think about them. Hopefully I’ll have a push to produce more communications over the next while. It’d be nice to get a load of stuff written that isn’t just pretty pictures I’ve taken. This site was turning into a little bit of a photo-blog and while those communications are important I should be getting back to the purposes of originality.
Jar Of Flies.
Don’t listen to this if you are slightly depressed and alone. It’s a struggle to listen to this EP when perfectly happy and emotionally stable and alone so any worse off and you need to hide your shoe laces away.
This EP perfectly uses the haunting vocal style of the lead singer [dead – drugs] and the gentle guitar sounds of Seattle. Every song on this album makes me feel. This was one of the first ten or so CDs I bought, I think I owned it before I owned a CD player. This EP is perfect and tearsome.
You must listen to it at some point. Preferably when you are well. And in a brightly lit room. Laying on the floor, in the dark, with sunglasses on and beer in your system is not the ideal listening position.
Well, it is really but we shouldn’t go there. This album takes me back to 1994 with the opening three seconds.
Throughout the rain I struggled yesterday to get to Angel. Well, it wasn’t a struggle but I wanted drama! Smith and I got to Angel with plenty of time for a few drinks before heading to Electrowerkz for an evening of music and atmosphere.
First band up on this quadruple bill was My Hysteria. They had a good solid beat but the songs were a little long and the singer needed more variation in his voice. He also didn’t manage to fit his audience participation in with the music but maybe that will change for him as the band progresses.
My Hysteria
Second band were called Matt Hart. That may have been the name of the singer, the guitarist or the band. I don’t know. I also missed the beginning of the set. My notes go as follows:
Singer. Guitarist. Heavy bass drum beat, samples. Heavy guitar. Not quite working. Not sure why. Needs a live drummer??? Distorted voice. Lacks an “energy”.
I guess that’s something they could work on as well. I do understand that this reviewing stuff is very subjective and so should you. We probably don’t like the same things. However, I do like a decent live drummer.
Matt Hart
Thirdest up was a band I had seen twice before. Biomechanimal are a regular support band over here and they played before the headliners. The main question is whether I thought they were any good. I’m not sure they were. My issues with this band are that the vocals are too distorted, I can’t hear the bass player and apart from the last two songs which were very “dance” the rest were a bit, meh. I have previously written about this band and commented then that I couldn’t hear the bass player. Disclosure: I play bass.
Biomechanimal
Finally we get to the German headliners. Shadows In The Dark or [:SITD:]. They were really good. I’d seen them at M’era Luna before. I like listening to their albums. I do think that their sound can get a little repetitive and so I thought it might be a bit like the Hocico gig. However, it was way better than that. The sound was very good. They proved that the right band in the right venue can be awesome. All their songs were enjoyable and the beat varied throughout to keep interest. It did not feel like an eighty minute set.
SITD
It was quite clear that the lead singer is suffering with his identity dealing with hair loss. I don’t think there’s ever any need to wear a beanie hat indoors. The main singer was reasonably energetic and even got down into the crowd to sing a verse and chorus of a song, a nice touch.
SITD
The [:SITD:] gig gets a solid 7.5 out of ten. I very pleasant and enjoyable evening drinking amaretto and cranberry juice. I definitely don’t have cystitis now!
It does seem that every year I end up driving all around the country and continent. This summer I drove to the Lake District for a few days of mountain walking. It is literally the other end of the country from me. If I travel about 50 miles from where I live I would be in France and my destination in the Lake District is about 25 miles from Scotland.
Then I drove to the middle of Germany. This means crossing the Channel, crossing France, Belgium, Netherlands and then half of Germany to pretty close to where the old border was with East Germany. This is about 400 miles as the crow flies. I have such a great time while there that the driving is perfectly worth it.
The only place not included this summer is a trip to Cornwall, another end of this country and maybe I need to correct that.
The total for these two trips, excluding driving around while there was 1658 miles or 2652km.
One of my favourite times of year is when I drive the 798km to Hildesheim in Germany. It takes about a day to get there and a further day to return, however, it is so incredibly worth it. Smith and I go there to spend the weekend camping in a tent city of 20,000 people to watch bands and be a part of the atmosphere.
Thursday was the day to leave Kent around lunchtime, drive the short distance to the magical train where you put cars on board and it drives you underneath the English Channel. Once we arrived in France we set about navigating our way to Bochum which is where we have a stop for the night. We travel through France, Belgium and the Netherlands to get to Germany and I will be really fucking pissed off if next year we have to pay for visas to get through those. Also, I suspect that the “leaving the UK” system will be a crock of shit. Fuck Brexit.
Friday morning we woke early and headed to Hildesheim. It’s another three hours or so of driving and we wanted to get there before the campsite opened to try and get a good spot to stay. We’d filled up with fuel back in Bochum so we should be good for the rest of the trip. Once in Hildesheim we followed the SatNav to the festival and managed to find the normal entrance to the car park. This year the fields were dry and we were much earlier than other times and so able to park reasonably close to the festival. We got some bits together and then joined the 400m long queue to enter the campsite. We had about an hour before the campsite opened but the queue was long already. It took ninety minutes to get into the old Army Air Corps base.
Mera Site
The Google Map star in the field is where I parked the car. We then walked due south and the campsite started at the runway. The grass area to the north of the runway is all campsite. The festival pretty much all takes place in between four hangers, where the red cross is marked.
The Friday was spent chilling, looking around the Middle Ages market and generally getting used to what’s around. We also had to do another run to the car to collect more equipment. Around 22:00 we headed to the disco hangar.
Daniel Graves DJ-ing
The disco was good fun. Daniel Graves of Aesthetic Perfection spent an hour at the mixing desk and it was good to see him doing this stuff.
Ok, this isn’t a gif. It’s a video clip but you can at least see the colours. pic.twitter.com/cD9Wyyl5rA
At some point that night we went back to the tent but I have no idea what time that might have been.
Saturday started with getting dressed up for the day. I recycled a costume from a couple of years ago. I was planning to wear the coloured mask that day but it was quite heavy and not easy to carry [except on my head]. If I was going to dance and mosh then I wanted a simple costume. Therefore I went for the human butcher look again.
The bands on that evening were Ministry and Prodigy, I expected both of these to be really good and possibly ones I would dance along to. So, the following is a list of the bands seen and what I thought:
Whispering Sons – hangar stage – Goth. Androgynous singer. Goth indie. Songs were ok.
Erdling – main stage – German rock. Pretty good.
Cephalgy – hangar – heavy dance but not fast. Ok. Blonde keyboardist. Singer had shirt tucked into his jeans. Not great crowd interaction. Songs slightly too long? Left after about 5 songs. My anticipation for The Prodigy is immense.
Merciful Nuns – main stage – samey songs, but goth. Goth shit.
Eisfabrik – hangar stage – dance. Snowman on stage. I guess someone has to corner the snow market? Didn’t really watch it, just saw them on the screens from outside the hangar.
Rabia Sorda – hangar stage – best so far. Good solid rock set.
Lord Of The Lost – main stage – pretty solid set. The band did well.
M’era Luna 2018: Lord Of The Lost live https://t.co/chnYP8l2Wb
Ministry – main stage – by this time I was drunk, had been for a few hours, but I have to say that Ministry were pretty amazing. I saw them about 20 years ago at Brixton and this was just as good, if not better. Smith and I were in the mosh pit for quite a bit of the set. There’s a live steam video and we appear a number of times. Just look for the two people dressed in white next to each other.
M’era Luna 2018: Ministry live https://t.co/pfwnqHePMV
In the video you can see me and Smith at 18:42 in the middle of the screen. Look for the white and me clapping.
Next band up were In Extremo but I have written no notes about them so I can’t comment. I don’t remember a huge amount about the rest of the day/
The final band were THE PRODIGY. I was very pumped to see them. They were on stage for about 90 minutes but I will admit that apart from knowing it was amazing I have very little recollection of the event. I don’t think there is any video either which is a shame because I would love to see what songs they played and possible see me in the mosh pit. All I can say is that at then end of the set I was drenched in sweat and absolutely knackered. Smith lost his phone. I know I had an amazing time. I just don’t remember much of it.
The Prodigy
Once the set was finished and Smith had used my phone to cancel his handset and we spent a short while looking over the ground it was time to head back to the tent [a 12 minute walk] and then shower the make up off. The showers were open all night so that wasn’t too much of a problem and to be fair the showers are pretty good. The biggest problem for me now was making sure I didn’t have a monster hangover, my hangovers are legendary.
Sunday morning was a little rough and eventually I got up, had an intake of caffeine and tablets, there was a headache there, brewing, waiting for the right opportunity to strike and limit me to slow movements and quiet. I struggled through trying to get ready for the day, which meant mostly painting Smith.
The collektiv at #meraluna18pic.twitter.com/RQ7sZnYCXO
— DBL_MF (@DBL_MF) August 12, 2018
So, here is the run down of the day, after we had been to the Info Point to see if a phone had been handed in.
Massive Ego – hangar stage -goth with a reasonable heavy but slow beat. British band. Buns on his head. Some of the longer deeper sung notes were not good. We saw this singer hanging around the main arena later on and that’s pretty cool,
FabrikC – hangar stage – heavy fast dance. Singer talks too much. Really heavy sound. No real singing and lots of samples from movies.
Aesthetic Perfection – hangar stage – really impressive again. Joe Letz on drums.
Rotersand – hangar stage – bloody brilliant, as usual.
Atari Teenage Riot – hangar stage – first two songs were really poor but after that it turned into high energy industrial punk. Pretty good.
Front 242 – main stage – really good sound. Songs were solid but very 242
Eisbrecher – main stage – A very good set. Impressive show. I liked the snow on stage.
M’era Luna 2018: Eisbrecher live https://t.co/7Du3fI1Uac
Considering the amount of alcohol I drank on Saturday along with being drunk before midday, sobering a little and then getting drunk again, the Sunday went remarkably well. I didn’t have a headache, I did drink lots of water, I didn’t have any alcohol this day.
I think the show finished around 22:00 and then there were showers to be had. Monday morning was all about packing up, getting everything to the car, Smith going to the police station and then driving the 798km home. This was easily the best M’era Luna so far. My suspicion is that although I am into EBM now, I have been a metal head for over thirty years and this M’era Luna was more of that than goth.
Just so you can see, here are two diagrams that show how much I moved over the two main days of the festival.
M’era Luna SaturdayM’era Luna Sunday
I am already thinking about costumes for next year and looking forward to it!
Last night coincided with a charity gig in London and so I ensured my position was sufficient to be there. It took place at Zigfrid von Underbelly, in Hoxton Square, which is the basement of a steak house as far as I could tell. There were four bands and the money raised went to the Beat Cancer charity which is a pretty good cause. So, here’s my review:
The first band up played about five songs. It was mostly electronica with some signing. My notes say:
Two blokes, woman green hair. She looked nervous. Electronica. It was ok. Nothing special. Not my stuff but they interacted well.
When I say they interacted well I think I mean the main male signer was busy with the crowd but then he also organised the whole event.
DEP
The second band were called Room 1985 and it certainly felt like their set was 1985 years long. It was Indie mixed with prog rock and it was pretty boring. There were some lyrics but they weren’t interesting. I was polished but fucking dull. Of note was the guitarist who played left handed and a standard strung guitar upside down, that was quite cool. I did not take a photo of them.
NeonSol
Thirdly were Neonsol a Danish band which was mostly upbeat europop with a hint of electro, it was good dance stuff but not really dark enough. The “drummer” played roughly two pads on the machine and I wondered why he was there!
Finally Freakangel were on. I’d listened to their stuff over the previous couple of weeks and it was pretty good. A decent heavy guitar with aggrotech over the top. The shouty vocals work and I actually don’t mind them in this case.
Freakangel
Things of note were poor sound quality for the first 10 minutes. There was no guitar sound in the beginning and it was worrisome as there was definitely something missing from the sound. Just before the band Smith and I had gone outside to get some air but it was actually colder in the basement with people jumping around than outside [FYI it’s about 30C today]. I don’t know whether to mention the fact that the drummer was female, in this day and age it shouldn’t matter should it? Everyone can do whatever the fuck they want and it shouldn’t be a “thing”. I guess it’s still not that common. The audience was at least 50% female which does not happen within metal.
Freakangel were pretty good and I think I’d like to see them again in a slightly busier dedicated venue with decent sound.
In reality I was on a fast train into London town. I had just completed a live range at MGS and got changed quickly to see the LA band 3Teeth at Electrowerkz, that lovely quiet, beautiful little venue in The Angel.
The support band were called Creepiing. They were a bit shit really. They had one good song and another one that was borderline OK.
Creepiing
Unfortunately for them, Creepiing, just weren’t that good. The crowd gave them a good reception though.
The headline band were next and for just over an hour they played a solid set. The music is dark, slow and menacing. It’s a very good blend of heavy chugging riffs with keyboards and sampled sounds. The vocals, although distorted, are clear and understandable.
3TEETH
There are a couple of things I want to mention though. Most of the songs are heavy and slow so there weren’t really any upbeat songs to get your dancing shoes moving. I know slow is their style but overall the evening needed some bounce. It’s always seemed important to me that bands look like they are having fun and can enjoy the moment. 3Teeth managed that well. The little chats in between songs were personalised and friendly with plenty of smiling from the lead singer. The guitarist was a pretty happy chap too. The keyboardists didn’t really raise their faces much, but perhaps that’s because they are keyboardists.
The gig was rated 6 on a scale of something.
Before the encore the crowd were doing what seems to be an industry standard now of chatting “one more song”. I find this really irritating. Why stop at one more song? Why not ask for a whole album? “We want more” seems a more appropriate chant to make, thereby not limiting the band to just one more song.
My favourite encore chant was “We want Moore” when I saw Gary Moore back in the day.
With the lovely weather on Saturday I decided to join friends at a pub in Norwich. It’s quite a way to go, it took two and a half hours to get there I think although the traffic along the M11 was pretty slow all the way. Why Norwich? Well, it’s not for nostalgia’s sake. I’m pretty certain the last time I was there was in 1989 for an afternoon while I attended cadet camp at RAF Swanton Morley. I remember seeing the cathedral and then having a pizza in a restaurant on a hill with some other cadets. I think Swanton Morley wasn’t really set up for an influx of eighty cadets and we felt starved!
I travelled to Norwich to attend THRASHERSAURUS at the Brickmakers pub somewhere in the Anglian city. I just followed the Sat Nav, I didn’t really know where I was going, although I had checked out parking and the local area using Google Maps, that seems the sensible thing to do.
It seems quite obvious to me but Thrashersaurus is a thrash metal festival for local bands and a few more well known ones on the UK scene. I could only be there for the Saturday and Xentrix were headlining. They are a band I have known about for about 25 years and I even own some of their stuff!
So, I kept notes as the day progressed and now I present them to you. They aren’t comprehensive but they give a flavour of what I thought. The venue was better than I had expected. The two stages were a good size and the clientele were your pretty standard metal heads; all there for a good time and pretty friendly.
Uridium – pretty good, well structured metal songs, like a faster Saxon.
Uridium – Thrashersaurus
Crawlblind – on the main stage. Shouty metal/thrash. Whatever.
Crawlblind – Thrashersaurus
Clownsmasheverything – on the B2 stage. Not thrash. Seemed like fast late 80s rock to me. 10 seconds of really heavy riff that was great.
Vendetta – main stage. Shouty but not growly. A band of short fat men. Reasonably good. Singer running up and down in front of stage.
Soulborn – main stage. Shouty vocals. Ok. Some good riffs. Only on guitarist. Some off-beat cymbal action. Nice one. Singer forgot his guitar apparently.
Psython – B2. Wailing vocals. Speed metal. From Rotherham?
Killer Hurts – Main Stage. Less technical than Testament but that style. Very 80s style thrash. Ok for what it is. Song : Blunt Force Trauma: Hilarious.
Lifer – B2. From South Wales apparently. Down tuned guitars very heavy slow riffs. Song: Words Of The Wise. Best so far.
Shrapnel – main stage. After a brief sit down went and saw last 20 mins. Quality fast thrash. Early Metallica sounds, but not quite as good and possibly 30 years too late.
Shrapnel – Thrashersaurus
Dinner time.
Reprisal – B2. Fast. Heavy noise. Not that impressive.
Incinery – main stage. Bit shit. Snare drum sounded really bad. Too much constant drumming, not enough variation. Sat down.
Forgotten Remains – B2 from Chesterfield apparently. Shouty growly vocals, no idea what he’s saying. Fast and loud, no real subtlety to it! Played The Trooper last, speeded up.
Xentrix – main stage. What I’ve been waiting for. Tight, thrash metal. Very well executed.
Xentrix – Thrashersaurus
All this finished at 23:15 and after some goodbyes I had to drive back to Kent to ensure I could take part in the second part of The Weekend Of Noise”.
Last night I popped into town to see the band Arch Enemy. They are a Swedish heavy metal band [melodic death if you are interested] and played Koko, a theatre style venue about a mile away from Kings Cross. Koko is within easy walking distance of my terminus and so I don’t have to worry about getting the tube or missing my last train home. There were quite a few times when, as a teenager, I got stuck in London because once you get the tube back from Wembley to Liverpool Street the last train has gone.
Koko Glitterball
First band up were Tribulation. I wasn’t too sure what to expect as the last metal gig I went to was Gojira and I had an awful headache that night. I’ve seen mostly EBM stuff over the last few years.
Tribulation
My main comment about this band would be that if Spinal Tap have already represented your style of music then you shouldn’t be playing it. This band were like the world hadn’t gone anywhere or done anything for about 30 years. I fully expected a Stonehenge to come down from the ceiling. My notes from the evening describe this band as “gothic metal” and then “epic long boring metal”. It was all witches and stuff. It was a giggle I guess.
Next up were Wintersun. My notes are “surprisingly good” very well constructed songs and played well together. There was lots of gang vocals and ooohing going on in the songs. It wasn’t quite viking metal but it came close in structure. Quite a few songs were fast with lots of double bass drumming [which is fine except when it’s over-used like it was]. The slow song was shit, it irritated me.
Wintersun
At one point the singer was drinking from what looked like a disposable Costa cup and we could see the tea bag label sticking out! TEA!! The guy was drinking TEA. Whatever floats your boat I guess. It’s probably better than alcohol for the throat. Here’s a short clip of stuff:
Headliners were Arch Enemy. I didn’t write any notes about them at the time because I enjoyed the gig enough. They were a tight band and put on a great show.
Arch Enemy
The crowd was really up for the mosh pit and I was on the edge of it for a short while but it soon became apparent that my leg injury wouldn’t hold up. I did something stupid to my Achilles about three weeks ago and putting weight onto my toes is not a good idea. The way the mosh pit moved meant I was regularly stepping back to get my balance and this eventually would ruin my ability to walk. Also, by this time my back was hurting so sadly and like an old man I went upstairs to watch from above and rest my weary body.
Alissa White-Gluz
I’m not sure if this is the first metal band I have seen with a female lead singer but apart from being slim and curved there wasn’t a great deal of difference between her and a male singer. The band played for a solid ninety minutes and overall I was very impressed. I’d see them again. A very good collection of songs. This gig rates about a 7 on the Smith-Parish scale of GR.
You know how it goes. Major music festival which normally announces headline bands at the end of the previous weekend goes all quiet. Then, you spend a few months worrying that it won’t be any good, because – why haven’t they announced the bands?
So, you wait and then, one day this pops up in your feed [my highlighting]:
M’era Luna 18
Gosh, this looks an excellent line up. I am already excited!! Let’s see what these bands look like shall we?
