This is a teenage fantasy album. It’s pretty obviously a load of cock-rock and remarkably a product of its time. I’m pretty sure I own this on picture disk and the cover is likely the reason I bought it. All my vinyl disks are stored in decent boxes in a cupboard. I haven’t put them in the loft as I harbour secret desires to play them again one day. I don’t have the same response with my tapes, they are less tactile and less loved, tucked away in the loft somewhere getting heat cycled.
Look, if you want 80s LA rock then get this. It’s does exactly what it says on the cover.
This album has been with me throughout most of my life and I still rate it as one of the best albums I have ever heard. Blow Up Your Video came out in 1988 and the singles were released before then in the wonder-year of 1987. so, you love AC/DC and start looking up old albums. Then, the excitement that there are thirteen albums is palpable.
This is a best of the first few albums, and it fucking rocks. They hadn’t even released Highway To Hell yet and all the songs on here rock.
This album has healed me emotionally when I have felt broken. It has calmed me when I have been un-calm and it has restored me to who I am on many occasion. SR once told me to go and listen to “If You Want Blood”, it’ll make you happier. That was somewhere in the early 90s and I hadn’t realised its effect was so obvious.
I had to re-purchase this on music cassette because I had listened to my first version of this so many times the tape had stretched in places and it made the music sound wrong.
I’ve bought this on CD since. And then I ripped that to save onto an MP3 player. Then I used the CD to rip to a higher specification and it is now on the NAS Drive.
After you’ve listened to this a lot you can hear the smiles in the band, you recognise every note, you can imagine where they are on stage and what they are doing there.
For many years I had only seen the front of this album, the rear cover wasn’t part of the tape version I had. When I saw the back cover I wasn’t disappointed.
Front CoverBack Cover
I dare you to find a song on this album that can be considered weak. I dare you.
Wow. This album was released in my summer of music awakening. 1987, when I was fifteen, was, in my mind, a year of Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet and Hyteria by Def Leppard. It was the year of my second summer camp and moving into the fifth year at school.
I think Armageddon It was released as a single and I loved it. So I bought the album. It’s great. Well, it was then. It’s a product of its time and I’m happy with that. It has consistently been in the top of album lists.
Then you hear that the drummer only has one arm. He lost the other one in a car accident and you think, wow. This is really impressive.
I was meant to see Def Leppard as my first concert. They were playing the Royal Albert Hall in the round in April 1988. I had a friend to go with and everything. But I got a cadet trip to Cyprus and so did that instead. I’m still glad I went to Cyprus, it was a brilliant, but frustrating experience. That left Iron Maiden to become my first concert on December 10 1988.
I finally did see Def Leppard play. They opened one of the NFL games at Wembley Stadium that I’ve been to. I had grown up then and they didn’t really bother me.
So, the album.
It’s full of hits and power ballads that knocks the 80’s out of 1987. It’s probably another great driving album.
The thing is, once you’ve listened to this, you seek out other Def Leppard and you get some excellent stuff like “On Through The Night”, “High n Dry” and “Pyromania”. Each of these is a better album, but not as popular.
I remember trying to persuade my Events Manager at college to book Senser in 1995. I wanted to see them play but he refused, they would cost too much. I had owned the Stacked Up album for about a year and found it thrilling. This album is the classic mix of political lyrics, heavy bouncy guitar riffs and chilled out beats that made Senser an awesome band. I have seen them twice. Once in Southsea and once at the Underworld. If you want to hear Senser then buy Stacked Up. If you want more buy this.
In the mid(ish) 90s I was travelling around London and occasionally looking in record shops, as we still called them. I was minded to find some Ministry when Smiff told me about a son called Jesus Build My Hotrod. It was a great song, fast and heavy but not metal. I found it interesting. I’d not yet really got into industrial music, that was to come about ten years later.
Houses Of The Mole is not that stuff. It’s a later album I bought, just because it’s Ministry. It’s a political album about the horrifying aspects of George W Bush’s presidency. It’s worth listening to but it’s not a classic.
I’ve seen KMFDM twice before although by the date of this gig I should have seen them thrice! They were due to tour in June or July but postponed until Sept. They were playing at the O2 Academy in Islington. I saw them here once before and also at M’era Luna this year.
The O2 Islington is a twenty minute walk from Kings Cross, which is handy as that’s where my train gets to after leaving Kent. Yep, that is the wrong side of London for most of Kent, but it’s perfect for me. Most of the venues I go to are up in the NE of the city. After a drink at The Angel Wetherspoons with #3 and we went to the venue to find Lord Of The Lost playing.
Lord Of The Lost
To me, this almost felt like being at home. They are a very “German” rock band. I say that as someone who has experienced a lot of German rock over the last three years with time at the M’era Luna festival. I had seen them before although I wrote very little about them in this communication. They were very good. They looked like they were having fun and the music was crafted well along with sounding good. I particularly liked two songs: La Bomba, which I’m pretty sure was a samba, and I.D.G.A.F. which is obvious. Their interaction with the crowd was very good.
Both of those songs are on the above EP. Next band up were Inertia, whom I don’t think I’ve seen before.
I’ve just searched my website and I saw them play when they supported Ayria. It turns out I didn’t much like them then and I wasn’t impressed last night. My notes for this time say: slow plodding songs and few audience interactions, odd. I did take a photograph but a picture here isn’t warranted.
Headliners were KMFDM. They started with D.I.Y. and continued with ninety minutes of excellent heavy music. It was a really good set and thoroughly enjoyable.
KMFDM
Their guitarists were the chaps from Lord Of The Lost, which makes sense really. If your normal pickers aren’t around use those travelling with you. There wasn’t a huge amount of crowd interaction by the main two but the guitarists made up for that. Having seen them at M’era Luna this year it was clear that all the chatting to the audience back then was them try to cover the technical issues that surrounded that gig.
After the first song the main man actually smiled and showed emotion. This was a little surprise! It was nice to see that one of the guitarists [the main singer from Lord Of The Lost] was wearing a Combichrist t-shirt, a good endorsement.
It was really enjoyable and a solid professional set, as you’d expect.
KMFDM
AS a side note I’ve decided I might start wearing some ear defence to gigs. It’s just a thought at the moment. I’ll have to ponder it over the next year or so.
After leaving the Lake District I drove down to Bradford. I had known about the Infest music festival for a few years but the bands in previous years had not been enough to draw me, also it’s in Bradford. Smith and I had accommodation booked in the university halls of residence and the festival itself was based in the student union. I arrived, got my keys, found my room and also found somewhere to park the car. Then I waited for Smith to get up from London and wandered the university to get my bearings.
There were three bands, the headliners, that I wanted to see:
Rotersand – I saw these at M’era Luna and they were bloody fantastic.
Die Krupps – I’ve seen these at M’era Luna too and they were very impressive.
Revolting Cocks – pioneers of the industrial sound and iconic and influential band [although arguably Die Krupps were more important in musical history].
On the Friday evening I watched:
They Call Him Zone – slow beat goth and boring.
Noyce – band with a violinist, indie style fast beats but with goth lyrics. One of the musicians was playing a saw in a song. Could be improved (!) if the violinist played a melody rather than just holding a chord note for each line.
Accessory – good fast industrial pop, very fucking good.
Rotersand – fucking awesome.
Rotersand
And . . .Friday night was done.
More Rotersand
We hung around for a while chatting to a few people. The rooms in halls were pretty good although there wasn’t a basin. There were two shower/toilets for four people to share which I guess is OK. It reminded me of my time in student halls at Imperial. Mind you, that particular hall of residence is no more. Bradford halls were based on town houses with four levels, IC halls were a messed up design with spiral staircases which created interesting loyalties.
Saturday morning came and it was time to find food. We wandered Bradford, I was not impressed, and bought some needed liquid latex. Then we found a small cafe and had breakfast at the Smorgasboad Bar. Upon our return to Infest we got changed and I actually felt an unease at being different. I do not get this apprehension in Germany.
Preparation Table
Saturday’s bands were:
Riotmiloo – shouty female singer, microphone didn’t work for quite a while.Started slow, got better as beat increased. Good finish.
Chemical Sweet Kid- French. Female keyboardist and male singer and guitarist. Good, upbeat songs. Quite enjoyable. Slightly formulaic songs. Good version of Paint It Black.
Chemical Sweet Kid
Empathy Test – left after two songs. See this review in this communication.
Wulfband – fast electro punk. Singing in German. Guitarist on but only played in last half of songs. Singer had a posed fight with someone during one song. Crazy. Best comment from the crowd:
“I don’t know what you are but I want more.”
Wulfband
Then we had food. My notes say the letter B but I can’t remember what that means!
End.user – DJ type stuff. Bullshit.
Finally to top the evening were Die Krupps – they were heavy and really good.
Die Krupps
On Sunday morning we wandered around Bradford some more looking at the Cathedral, the Waterstones shop and Little Germany. I’ve just looked at the Google map of the city and it shocked the shit out of me as the University was on the wrong side of the centre. For some reason I had thought it was on the SE of the centre, I was wrong in my head and that explains what the sun was in the wrong place in the sky while I was there. This does happen at times, me being wrong, not the sun being in the wrong place. I should have studied the map a little more while I was in the city.
There’s a Science and Media museum in Bradford. We looked around it. While there was a good collection of cameras it was pretty shit for a museum. Very little science and not a great deal of media. This could be due to the fact that my local museums are all in the capital and generally pretty impressive.
So, Sunday’s bands and my thoughts follow:
Among The Echoes – standard guitar based rock with synth stuff over the top. Not good. Not bad. Quite routine.
Sidewalks and Skeletons – slow ambient DJ type stuff. Industrial noises. Not feeling it.
Vampyre Anvil – good, heavy industrial electronic. Two guys and computers. Distorted singing.
Juggernauts – Left for food after 10 mins. Belgians with shiny helmets. Not sure what was going on.
iVardensphere – upbeat. Heavy bass. Not the easiest to discriminate between all the sounds. Not sure it translates well to live. Still good but not quite same as album music. Drum solo! Really heavy song. Good variation.
iVardenshpere
Revolting Cocks – 38, No vocals for first half of song. Change of singers after Big Sexy Land. Last song Beers Steers and Queers. Then encore: If you think I’m sexy (not expected and quite disappointing).
Revolting Cocks
I was somewhat underwhelmed by the Revolting Cocks but that’s probably normal for a band of such stature. I had enjoyed Rotersand and Die Krupps far more. However, it was good to see this seminal collection of people doing their stuff. They are quite influential although Die Krupps win the overall who influenced who competition having influenced many including Nitzer Ebb who then influenced the Cocks!
We both decided that the atmosphere on the Saturday was a little strange and I didn’t get as much of a party atmosphere as when I’m at M’era Luna. Attendance at this little festival of goths and freaks will depend on the acts they book, as it did this year.
At some point during the weekend we were sitting outside around a table. I was reading a news article on Babylonians and their understanding of trigonometry. I need some head space during the weekends otherwise I get over-loaded. I kinda shut down for a while and enter calmness. A young woman sitting opposite [looking a little smashed] asked me what was wrong with me and why wasn’t I happy. I explained I was fine. She asked again. Smith tried explaining that being quiet now and then was what I do, to reset myself. So, she asked again what was wrong with me. It was one of those situations that happen when you keep getting asked why you are in a mood, when you aren’t. The incessant questioning eventually puts you in a mood.
So, I explained to this woman that I had read a news article about how the Babylonians had possibly figured out trigonometry before Hipparchus and that an interpretation of one of their clay tablets could show a decent base sixty understanding of trigonometric tables. I explained I was a little phased as it wasn’t something I had expected.
This is now an annual event. Travelling 1000 miles in a weekend to see a bunch of bands and spend time chilling out at a great music festival. Curiously we haven’t really watch any of the headline acts over the three years that we have attended but there are enough excellent bands elsewhere on the bill to make it worthwhile. I would argue that some of the bands I enjoyed should be higher in the playing order but I guess the bosses organise things to fit the mostly German audience.
We chose to try and spread the journey out a little this year. We left the UK on Thursday and drove to Dortmund to stay in a (very) cheap hotel, the bon marché hôtel, Bochum. We arrived there around 2 in the morning but checked in and got our room. It was clean and good value. 336 miles completed so far. When I woke up I was somewhat surprised to see hospital rooms right outside of my window!
It turns out there’s a hospital outside the room?? pic.twitter.com/c23R2jj1hm
Friday morning meant a short trip to Hildesheim Airport to hopefully arrive early and get our choice of camping spot. 166 miles (ish). There were Facebook updates and app updates along the way asking people to hold off arriving because the rain was and had been very bad and the organisers wanted the ground to drain a little before 20,000 campers turned up. We detoured through Hildesheim itself, because in three attendances we haven’t been in to the town centre yet and it is designated a World Heritage Site and looks gorgeous on websites. We decided quite quickly that we would head to the campsite and see what happened. It was raining and we wanted to get our tents set up.
Arrival
The weather was mostly light rain, the sort that really gets you wet. The forecast at this point was pretty shit with rain all night and also Saturday. We walked around and checked out the rest of the festival area. Picking out the most convenient [but quiet] toilets. There were some new additions along the runway, a food place, “posh” toilets and a small coffee place that was very stuck in the mud. The campsite was very busy when we arrived so our earlier than normal for us arrival didn’t really help, but with two tents this year we found somewhere suitable.
EDVM Runway
We looked around the medieval village and tried to pick out a festival t-shirt before really wanting to call it quits. The rain had got to us along with parking issues [covered elsewhere] and I was fed up and wanted to sleep. The tent beckoned and I pondered which outfit to where in the expected rain on Saturday.
Saturday morning meant finding somewhere for the daily routine. The “posh” loos mentioned already were spacious and didn’t smell. Wood chippings had to be thrown over the waste to stop the smell. These were also clean, but to be honest the receptacle was just a wheelie bin.
Time to get dressed and head to the festival. We had standard photos taken this year next to the M’era Luna sign and the overall joint aim of the weekend was to get our photograph taken and then on websites and in magazines. The costumes were designed to shock and be colourful, anything other than black stands out very well among the 25,000 attendees.
We got a neighbour to take a photo at our campsite area.
Then we had photographs taken at the entrance sign by the pond. You can’t see the mud here but there was tons of the fucking stuff. The rain had ruined the entire area of the festival.
Entrance Photo
I guess I out to talk about the music. That is why we were there. It was the music that had attracted us originally to a goth festival in the middle of Germany and the dressing up is just a little bit extra. As I have done in previous years I noted which bands I watched and what I thought on my phone. The following is pretty much what I noted down.
Saturday
Circus of Fools. Main stage. Metal. Black and white outfits. Female singer with male. Circus act. Girls on a ring.
Circus Of Fools
During this act I had a hayfever attack. I last had one of these in Cyprus and it lasted a few hours. I had a few episodes over the weekend, I think it was mostly to do with the air in the gas mask directed straight at my eyes. I even had an attack in my tent one morning so who knows what caused it. At times I could only wear the gas mask for a few minutes before I couldn’t see anything!
Eden Weint Im Grab. Main stage. Metal with violin and cello.
Ambassador 21. Hangar stage. Fast hardcore industrial. Female singer. Good.
Ambassador 21
Left to Unzucht. Main stage. I really enjoyed this band previously and once again they entertained. I really enjoyed their set.
Ost +Front. Main stage. Dita von Teese rip off with red liquid in the champagne glass. German industrial metal. Risqué show. Guitars dirty thrash sound.
We ate lunch at this point. The vegan Indian food stall was very good and most of the people working there remembered us from last year. We had a nice chat with them.
.com/kill on the hangar stage. Good electronic industrial. Could do with being heavier in places?? Less impressive than expected. The front man wasn’t that great and the lyrics were mostly repetitive which meant the singer didn’t do a great deal.
Feuerschwanz main stage from the side. Medieval German rock with violins. I don’t really need to add anything to this description.
Mesh. Main stage watched while getting a drink. Plodding electronica.
Faderhead. Hangar stage. Brilliant. Best act so far. I really enjoyed this set.
Faderhead
Ashbury Heights. Hangar stage. Female singer pretty much had her boobs out. Songs ok but too long and boring. It didn’t really work for me. Lacklustre front man/woman. I need band members to at least look as though they are enjoying themselves, which kinda goes against the Goth image!
Project Pitchfork. Main stage. 3 drummers, why? All seemed to be playing the same thing. Plodding but very well done. Not quite my stuff but glad to have seen them.
Solar Fake. Hangar stage. I put no notes here so I have no idea what I thought about them!
My Favourite Photo
At this point I went to take my Camelbak off. I had filled it with Pimms but I wasn’t really drinking it much and it was annoying me at this point.
Subway To Sally main stage. while waking through. I don’t like this band.
KMFDM hangar stage. Pretty much as excellent as expected. Very guitar orientated sound and almost thrash at times. Played a few songs from the new album. Technical issues.
Food (stuffed bread) while ASP (main stage) technical difficulties meant he was delayed and that also meant that Korn were going to start late. The Saturday entertainment finished around 01:00 on Sunday. I had already left and was asleep. I couldn’t care for Korn and it had been a long day with plenty of rain. The whole site was a mud bath and I wasn’t feeling the happiest.
Sunday
This morning we had to get costumes from the car, which fortunately was “parked” reasonably close. We could also try and take back stuff we wouldn’t need anymore to reduce the load we would carry Monday morning. My inspiration for this costume was a banana republic dictator although it has been pointed out to me that I need some medals. This photo of me captures me unaware, which normally gives good results.
Sunday Uniform
Over the last two days the campsite had been turned into an excellent mud wrestling venue:
Muddy Mess
I guess this is the accepted standard of things once it rains a lot. Who would have expected this in August in the centre of Germany though? I’m glad my boots help up to the challenge of keeping my feet warm and dry.
Here’s the run down of the bands seen:
Johnny Deathshadow. Main stage. Metal. Actually good. Good crowd interaction. Good metal.
Give Me Food
Then I had a vegan breakfast and whiskey with ginger, Of course!
SchwarzerEngel. Main stage. Ok-ish. Metal. Not ok-ish. A bit shit really. Boring plodding metal.
What’s Going On?
Darkhaus. Main stage. Dies in middle of song. Quite well done Rock-pop. Songs start well but die. This band could have been really good but their musical style just angered me. The songs started really well but then during the bridge they utterly lost all beat and sound. Not good.
Absurd Minds. Hangar stage. Electronica. Upbeat but not quite feeling it.
Versen gold. Main stage. Irish medieval rock. Makes me want to dance. This is really a ceilidh. Couple of songs.
Tyske Ludder. Hangar stage. Good dance industrial with German language. Good. Russian flag waving. Good front man. Really good set.
Outside for a drink. Megahertz on main stage. A fucking ballad!!
Left to: Leather Strip in the hangar. Very good EBM. What it’s all about. Still very good today. Really impressive and great fun.
Leather Strip
Haujobb in the hangar.Moody electronica. Artistic and very well done music but not really for dancing or watching? A little bit of politics!
Caught a little bit of Mono Inc. on the main stage and fuck me they sang a terrible cover of “After the war”.
Front Line Assembly. Hangar. Somewhat lacklustre. Left for a meal at the vegan store.
Went to have some mead. Saw the fish kebab, possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever seen, it looked puke-worthy.
DAF. Hangar stage. Early electronic. Basic like Nitzer Ebb. Probably something really special and transformative but not quite my stuff.
EDVM Tower
Came out for Blutengel on the main stage. Witches with fire. Started with “Black” first. Lesbian nuns and a female devil stage show. Girls stripping down to underwear. Is this 2017?? Rock Pop goth. The dancing girls were needed because the front man and woman are really boring.
The Results Of Rain
To medieval village for Rhambrot and an orange flavoured cookie.
De/vision in the hangar, we lasted one third of a song.
Outside to And One headlining the main stage. Clean pop-type electronic. Nothing special really.
And that was it. Favourite bands were Faderhead, KMFDM, Leather Strip and Tyske Ludder. The weather on the Sunday was much better and the general mood was great. Monday morning we woke early [ish] and packed up, got the car loaded and headed home. It was a foggy start in central Germany! This is a last photo of our camping area:
Misty Monday MorningSunrise Over Bora Horza Gobuchul
There are reasons the car looks quite lonely in the parking field and these will be covered in another communication. I had some parking issues over the summer and as the summer isn’t currently over I expect a few more to come!
The return journey included a poorly sign-posted diversion around Duisberg and we ended up relying on Apple Maps as Google was failing us at this point! We returned to Calais via the Brussels ring road and Lille. This route has a few more corners and hills along the way! 525 miles.
We got to the tunnel check-in two hours and 2 minutes before our train was due to depart and the woman working there delayed our check in by two minutes so we wouldn’t have to exit and go through the queuing system again. We met up with some friends for a chat at the Eurotunnel terminal and during the return train journey I cleaned my nails. What else are you going to do?
Did my nails the best I’ve done them for this years M’era Luna. Andy agreed. #mera17
After such a busy week spending time visiting cool stuff around East Anglia, I had to spend a few more hours at work because I was playing in the band. Disaster Area has been going a while and we normally open the Rock Evenings. Last Friday was no exception although normally we have been practising the songs for a few months rather than the two run throughs we managed an hour before the show.
We opened with Crazy Train.
And continued with Learn To Fly. There will probably be official videos somewhere on Faceshit.
I don’t understand the Sunday night gig thing. I do know that the law changed a while back to allow dancing and music for public entertainment on Sundays but I don’t understand why so many gigs are now on Sundays, in London. Can’t the cities in the rest of the country have the Sunday gig? Sunday nights out are a big inconvenience.
First band up were already playing when Smith and I got into the venue. They were called Car Bomb and they were shit. Some of the crowd really liked them, but I couldn’t get on with their music. There didn’t seem to be any method or pattern to it at all, there wasn’t really any good riffing or beat.
Car Bomb @ O2 Forum
There’s a possibility I’m too old for the newer styles of metal like core-metal and nu-metal. Code Orange were the next band. They had a drummer singer and a bassist who ran around and got the crowd going but who didn’t sing. There was also a female guitarist but I’m not sure if mentioning that is sexist or not. They were much better than the first band and they actually had some songs that had a good rhythm. I’ve got written down that they were core-metal with some good riffage. I don’t think this is my thing.
Code Orange @ O2 Forum
And we come to the finale. Gojira are a French metal band along the lines of Mastodon but less pretentious? I have listened to some of their stuff and think it’s better than Mastodon.
Gojira @ O2 Forum
The sound was BIG. The light show was excellent. There was a video backdrop and it fitted very well with the songs and general atmosphere. The crowd was heaving and packed.
More Gojira @ O2 Forum
This was a good gig and it was nice to get back to the heavy metal sound.
Unfortunately I felt incredibly rough during the show and I left early. It had been a long weekend with lots of travelling. I feel bad for leaving Smith there, but I needed to get into fresh air and home. At least I saw the first half of the show. Gojira seemed overwhelmed at the support they had in London.
