This video on my channel over at YouTube is just a bunch of people pretending to be Slipknot and having fun. That is all.
Phoenix Lake – Saltbox Nottingham
I have very mixed feelings this weekend as I was meant to be in Germany watching a bunch of my favourite bands in Oberhausen. Smith and I had to cancel that because the war in Iran caused him to have flight delays and that pushed his return from a holiday past this weekend. So, E-tropolis will have to wait for another year or so, band dependent. When I told Dave I was sad about this outcome he invited me to help him photograph some bands in Nottingham and I love a road trip so agreed. I guess I was the Best Boy for the evening! I helped set up video cameras and then guarded the equipment from people. I also was sent out to get emergency batteries and a USB memory stick for the audio desk output. The bands were ok, here’s my review:
7eventh Sea – shouty metal. Had a backing track that sounded electronic but this was drowned out while the rest of the band were playing. They had some good start-stop riffs.
Aethoria – my favourite of the evening. The singer had a great voice and looked like she was really enjoying the gig – which for me, makes all the difference. I want my artists to be involved and happy. One guitarist was supertechnical in his playing but from where I was watching the sound mix wasn’t great. I still enjoyed it though.
Black Lakes – It was core-metal I think. I didn’t really enjoy it as much as Aethoria but they were quite good – I liked the boxes they used to raise them up a bit at the front of the stage. The bassist played a left handed guitar but upside down and in a right handed way, this was strange. When I wrote a message to Smith about this I said the bassist looks like a middle-aged teacher, he was a lot less metal looking than the rest of the band.
Phoenix Lake – this was a home town show for this band and that meant it was a shame the venue wasn’t as busy as it could have been. Also, some twat-man shouted out “get your top off” a couple of times and that’s just cuntish. This band were melodic metal and it was ok. The guitarist was playing some whizzy stuff. There was a backing track that also had guitars on it so the single guitarist could play solos and things without the band losing the overall sound. Overall it was ok. If I had to see a band again it would be Aethoria.
It was quite nice to see the bands mixing around after the gig. I didn’t talk to any of them, that would be a major stress, so why would I? Dave chatted to them and as I was his assistant I stayed in the background, I’m not the one trying to make a career out of this.
Now, considering we drove from Maidstone to Nottingham the whole thing was really good fun. The journey home was a little more stressy as there were road closures on the M1, M25, and M11 which meant we had a few detours. I got home at 0300. The next day was not pleasant as this was the second late night in a row and it turns out my body does not react to that very well anymore. For pretty much all of Saturday I felt as though I was incredibly hungover – I wasn’t but that’s what it felt like.
Mercy
I made the wrong choice of film to watch. The whole weekend was a disappointment of cinema attendance. I watched Iron Lung – one man in a submarine for two hours – and then I went to see Mercy instead of Shelter. The tide was low as I drove to the showing. After the film I rated this on IMDb and I gave it four out of ten. There’s a communication somewhere way back that tells you how the scoring system works.
I spent some time during this film wondering whether to leave or not. I was miffed at watching another film with just one person starring in a single location. It didn’t look good. Yes, there was the AI judge but it’s AI so doesn’t count as a person. I though Judge Maddox was looking rather Starbuck like during the film and I wonder if that’s the hairstyle and look Hollywood now associates with strong female characters.
Amusingly this film was financed by Amazon and it effectively is an argument against AI. The irony was not lost on me. The main actor, one of the Chris people, was OK in all this but hardly a likable character. A violent drunk who’s only conviction is that he wouldn’t hurt his wife. It’s OK the film tells us, there’s a good reason he’s a drunk. Bullshit, say I. You can’t write this stuff and make the guy likeable. I don’t think I mind him being an alcoholic, but he is a cop and a dick. Worse than that he’s an american cop and that makes him very dodgy. I didn’t care if he got killed or not by the state.
I was hoping to see an action film with stupid stunts. What I saw was a cheap film with no discussion of the morals of AI usage in the real world. Just the explosive outcome at the end of the film. Why would an AI judge have a face? Why would it be white? Why would it have emotions? Why would it glitch? Gosh, it’s a bad film.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Holy Crap – It Looks Like A Classic
Well, the other day M’era Luna released their complete line up for 2024. I have to say – I’m fucking excited.
So, here’s the highlights as far as I’m concerned:
- Combifuckingchrist OLD SCHOOL SET – currently the time I saw them do this type of gig was the best gig I’d been to. I’m stoked.
- VNV Nation – excellent band who just never hit the big time in the UK.
- Front 242 – should be good but might be boring.
- Lord Of The Lost – always great, looking forward to it.
- Die Krupps – have seen this band a few times and it’s great.
- SUICIDE COMMANDO – always great even if the visuals are distrubing.
- [:SITD:] – another consistently great band.
- OOMPH! – can’t remember if I’ve seen these before but they now have the singer from Unzucht so might be good.
- Funker Vogt – one of those bands on the list of bands I want to see.
- S.P.O.C.K. – saw these at my first M’era Luna I think and I can’t wait to see them again. Very pop but space TV show themed.
- Centhron – if only to hear him sing that classic song “Cunt”.
It’s going to be great. I just hope there aren’t too many clashes as that will disappoint me.