Tag: music

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That Way Madness Lies

A weekend during August meant it was time to travel to Germany again and the beautiful town of Hildesheim. In 2015 Smith and I went to the M’era Luna festival. This year we had tickets earlier, the tunnel booked earlier and also a plan! Except the plan had to be adjusted as Smith was flying into Brussels on the Friday morning. I spent the Thursday evening packing the car ready for the weekend and got up early on the Friday to head down the M20 to the Channel Tunnel. Last year there were problems with Operation Stack and this year the M20 was fine although the scene of a fallen pedestrian bridge a few weeks later.

After the tunnel I headed to Brussels, which wasn’t that far off the route we needed to get to Hildesheim. There are two main motorway routes that head to the industrial heartland of Germany’s Ruhr Valley and one goes via Brussels, the other via Antwerp. So the first three hours of the journey were completed on my own, with podcasts and talking books for company [I don’t do music on long journeys].

Smith sent a message saying he’d meet me in P1 level 3. Well, I wondered while traversing the Ring if that is what the signs on approach to the airport would say or would they be in another language or missing entirely. Fortunately they did and we found each other easily. A quick adjustment on the iPhone Googlemaps app and we were heading to Hildesheim past Leuven.

Not a great deal of note happened along the way until we got close to Bad Oeynhausen when the app was telling us that there was a 90 minute delay and would we like to go a different route? Well, yes please. So we left the A2 motorway, where speeds reach in excess of 110mph, and headed cross country to Hamelin and then Hildesheim. I think that all in all the journey was about eight hours, which isn’t that bad for five hundred miles. All we now had to do was load up the trolley and walk about a mile from the car to the festival entrance, find a spot to camp, put up the tent, eat food and drink. We camped almost exactly as we did last year, about as far from the main festival as possible. This meant it was reasonably quiet and the toilets weren’t over run.

Runway 07L
Runway 07

Friday evening meant wine, Jägermeister and Absinthe. This was possibly a little silly as Saturday was quite hard work for me. Although there is no live music on the Friday evening there is a disco in one of the hangers and plenty of stalls open along with the Medieval Village where you can practise your ax throwing, should you want to.

The weather wasn’t as hot this year compared with 2015. The forecast had 25C or so which suited me fine, the 33C of last year was too much. The night was good and Saturday morning meant a walk along the runway to showers and coffee. Not at the same time but I needed both. The shower marquee was pretty good and had lovely hot water to clean away the hours of travel yesterday. The queues for coffee were pretty long and I wondered whether it was worth bringing a stove to make a coffee each morning but it feels quite sophisticated drinking coffee in the morning sun on the taxiway of an airfield waiting for the outfits and music.

M’era Luna is cheap enough that if you just come along to display your costume and make up abilities then you don’t have to worry about the music. With Download coming in at about GBP200 the GBP80 for M’era Luna seems a bargain. It’s also small enough to feel cosy and pleasant. Getting ready for the day’s activities this year was a little more time consuming this year as Smith and I had plans for costumes, also it appeared there was a naked selfie competition on WhatsApp with a group of friends started by Walshe! These photos still exist in the ether but they are not going to be published anywhere public.

I should probably get on to the music with that being the reason for driving five hundred miles an’ all. But first there was getting an outfit on! Because Suicide Commando wasn’t playing on the Saturday it meant we dressed in white shirts [shock horror!] and Ayria ties bought when we saw her play at Electrowerkz.

And so on to the music. I seem to recall saying last year that the little details disappear from my mind and so what follows is mostly just a list with my thoughts at the time. Some of my favourite bands will appear with more details. There are two stages at M’Era Luna, the main stage and the hanger stage.

Saturday

Shaargot [main stage] – good industrial metal.

Vlad In Tears [hanger stage] – shit.

Erdling [main stage] – goth. shit.

Time for lunch.

Gothminster [main stage] – killing a zombie on stage during the first song. Bat ventriloquism in the second. What the fuck is going on? Left to the hanger stage.

Gothminister
Gothminister

A Life Divided [hanger stage] – caught the last song. pop metal.

Chrom [hanger stage] – the first band I was really looking forward to. I liked the music but they were boring. A shame.

Chrom
Chrom

Stahlmann [main stage] – dressed in silver. female guitarist. slow goth rock. couple of faster ones, ok.

Noisuf X [hanger stage] – three blokes. White shirts. Two drumming. Heavy EBM. Good.

Cassandra Complex [hanger stage] – listened to this stuff before we went. Sounded ok. Turns out that live it’s just goth shit.

Oomph!
Oomph!

Oomph! [main stage] – Good German pop rock. 2 guitars, keyboards, percussion, drummer. Bass and singer.

Hamatom [hanger stage] – from outside hangar. Faster metal. Masks. Ok. A little derivative! Should be more dangerous given masks.

Apocalyptica [main stage] – Pretty good given it’s men with cellos. Too many Metallica covers.

[:SITD:] [hanger stage] – Solid good set. This was actually a pretty good set and they played well. Very good to finally see this band.

[:SITD:]
[:SITD:]
Die Krupps [hangar stage] – Fuck yes! Playing metal pipes. Breaking guitars. Industrial well done.

Die Krupps
Die Krupps

VNV nation [Main stage] – 1 song. Boring. I’ve listened to a lot of this at home and I like it. But only at certain times. It’s gentle music. The sort to put on when having dinner.

Hocico [Hanger stage] – Actually pretty good. Big sound. Two percussionists with black Angel wings!

Sisters of Mercy [main stage] – Bad. Dull.

And there ends the first day at M’Era Luna festival 2016. It was a good day. Plenty to see and the surprises of the day were Hamatom and Oomph! for me. I enjoyed both. Not to say I hated all the others, I just liked these two more. Oh, and Die Krupps were pretty awesome along with [:SITD:]. Hocico made a better impression that when I saw them previously at Electrowerkz, but still didn’t quite manage brilliant.

Sunday

Morning time means the usual hunt for coffee. Showers and packing up the tent. Sunday’s plan was to pack up camp and then drive a couple of hundred miles after the last band. We had a date with Eurotunnel at about midday on Monday and we definitely wouldn’t make it if we left Monday morning. We walked the mile or so to the car and then got dressed in the costumes. Again we were dressed in white.

And here we have today’s list of acts we watched.

Me The Tiger [hanger stage] – Pretty good. One song. Good.

Aeverium [main stage] – Female main singer, sexy. Heavy. Male singer. Good contrast.

Rabia Sorda [hanger stage] – Rock, a bit pop? Guitar with keyboard sounds over top. Ok. Nothing special.

Rabia Sorda
Rabia Sorda

Heldmaschine [hanger stage] – Ok. Industrial. Correction very good.

Centhron [hangar stage] – Live bassist. Good. Shame we left early.

Combichrist [main stage] – Darn good. Pit. I’ve seen this band many times and they haven’t failed to impress although I do prefer their earlier electronic work! [go to 3:24 in the video and there I am!]

Faun [main stage] – Pagan shit.

Spock [Hangar stage] – Awesome Star Trek pop!

Zeromancer [hangar stage] – Sat at back. Sounds ok.

Eisbrecher [main stage] – Drunk girl talk, orange hair. Late on stage. Very good. Speaks too much. Liked the set and the black suits. Left early to see:

Suicide Commando [Hangar stage] – Live drummer. Excellent. Including song: Die Motherfucker Die.

Suicide Commando
Suicide Commando

In Extremo [Main stage] – 1 song. Fucking medieval rock.

Had cup of tea. Listened to Within Temptation. Went and got some food. Left.

We travelled just inside Belgium and parked the car up and slept for a few hours before waking, driving to a service station for coffee and then getting to Calais for the Eurotunnel and home. We chatted about music and costumes for next year. I’ve got some ideas but I need to learn about mammal skulls first.

It’s hard to sum up the entire weekend. Almost every aspect of it was brilliant. The journey, the chatting, the alcohol, the food, the vegan food server with her lovely freckles, the coffee, the costumes, the music, just being away and feeling like I was at home.

There may be more to add to this but it has taken a long time for me to get around to writing this so I will publish this communication. Changes and added bits will be noted as such.

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3Teeth – Electrowerkz

Popped over to Electrowerkz last night to see 3Teeth play. There were support bands but I didn’t watch them due to spending time in the bar chatting to people. The support were:

  • Stereo Juggernaut
  • Deadfilmstar
  • Ventenner

3Teeth were on from 22:00 hours and I was quite impressed. They played a solid set. The first three songs were probably the best and I am sure that once they have created more music the rest will be as strong.

3 Teeth
3 Teeth

Oddly I got admonished by a man for talking too loudly in the main performance room! Very strange, the sound of the band was perfectly loud enough!

There’s a couple of gigs coming up soon so look to see what I think of them.

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Europe

I will soon be heading off to Europe for a weekend of music. I’ll be heading to Hanover for a German goth music festival.

Hanover
Hanover

It’s quite a long journey, but one I am looking forward to very much. I always find the journey to be a lot of fun. Obviously not as much fun as actually getting to your destination but still a major part of the whole experience.

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The Cosmic Dead – Electrowerkz

Smith and I went out to find some noise. Our initial heading was to the World’s End pub in Camden and the Underworld venue where a Japanese band were playing a two hour concept album. Can you believe it, the place was full. We weren’t allowed in. That was a shame so we went in search of food and ended up at a terrible Chinese buffet place. It looked ok from the outside but Smith couldn’t find much food that he liked. I liked nearly all of it. After that we returned to the World’s End. The Underworld club night was due to start at 23:00 but the music looked a little popular and boring. They were going to play some Arctic Monkeys FFS.

So, we decided to walk to Electrowerkz in Angel. It was about a 40 minute walk. It’s alway nice to walk around London, it feels more organic and natural compared to hopping onto a tube train. I guess I should have been surprised at how many people we saw standing around in parks playing Pokemon.

Now, we knew there was an event on at Electrowerkz, we just didn’t know what sort of music it would be. The current music taste of DBL-MF is industrial electronic. Almost everything else doesn’t matter. But, as we walked down Torrens Street we could hear noise and it seemed good. GBP15 lighter after paying to get in and we went into the downstairs music room. The band playing were called Bad Guys.

 

So, as you can see, two double guitars, no bass player, a drummer and a singer. It was rock type stuff. It was tolerable although the vocals were shit. After they had finished we had some drinks and pondered the nature of the post-referendum country [we are fucked] and what the next band could possibly be like.

 

Pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs were on stage at 01:00. Two guitarists, bass player, drummer and singer [who also played a synth which I couldn’t hear]. They weren’t great. They were energetic and played well but it was screamy shouty music and it bored me.

The two bands that we saw were ok. Nothing great. Nothing special and not my current taste in music. It’s quite difficult to find aggrotech on a usual night out in London, Slimelight is almost the only club night and that’s fortnightly on a Saturday. The crowd was a metal crowd. People dressed in denim and dark t-shirts. It was like being in a house that you’ve just sold and are waiting to move to your new home. The furniture was normal and in the right places but your new home awaits and it’s more exciting and a fresher place to be. I much prefer and feel more at home with the “alternative” crowd who attend AC and Slimelight.

Thank goodness there are trains every hour from Victoria towards Gatwick. That meant we could get home. There’s something quite wonderful about walking through the capital early in the morning, it doesn’t ever sleep.

 

Added 12:09 18 July:

It struck me that this communication is titled “The Cosmic Dead”. Well, they were the band on at 02:30. We didn’t stay that long, we didn’t think it would be worth it. All of my gig communications have been titled the Headline band so this one did the same. I’ll do similar with Mesh when I see them because I’m really going to the gig to see Aesthetic Perfection.

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Going Underground

Spent an hour under the Kent countryside one afternoon as I dived into the world of Chislehurst Caves. They are man made caves in the chalky hills. They are also quite impressive and a good place to go when you want to escape the summer heat and humidity. The tour guide was a bit cheeky but funny in the right way and he was knowledgeable, he was just the sort of person you want to show you around.

According to the guide Hendrix and Zeppelin both played the caves, which would have been amazing to see but I guess the sound would have been terrible. Although this was the late 60s and early 70s so you would have been smashed out of your head and not notice.

I would recommend this tour as it was good value and interesting.

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Gentle Death – Excessive Force

This band was a side project of KMFDM. Excessive Force is a electronic industrial album with undertones of heavy guitar work. It’s actually quite a calming album and a good listen. I recommend this as a starter into the heavier stuff.

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Gardens Of Seth – Reaper

After getting into aggrotech I was searching for music. Reaper was an artist I really liked, the album The Devil Is Female is pretty awesome. So, I found some more albums by Reaper. But, it turns out there are three artists called Reaper. I’d downloaded all of them. The Gardens Of Seth is labelled as “METAL” on my phone to remind me that it is an album of metal and not hellectro.

Do I like the album? I haven’t listened enough. It’s pretty hard and heavy with large themes overall. It’s an occasional listen.

AFAIK the band are Italian.

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Garage Inc – Metallica

I do own both CDs of this double album, but I have no idea what is on the first one. I didn’t want to listen to it. I was more interested in having a digital version of Garage Days Re-Revisited. I used to listen to a tape of these songs when I was younger and I was always impressed by the songs and the sound. The songs are cover versions, played to introduce Jason Newsted to the band.

Garage Days Re-revisited:

  • Helpless (Diamond Head)
  • The Small Hours (Holocaust)
  • The Wait (Killing Joke)
  • Crash Course In Brain Surgery (Budgie)
  • Last Caress / Green Hell (Misfits)

All of these are great songs and I am happy to have seen Diamond Head play and also Killing Joke.

Other songs of note on this CD are:

  • Am I Evil?
  • Blitzkrieg
  • Breadfan
  • The Prince
  • So What

The rest are boring.

All of these written in this communication are worth listening and playing over and over obnoxiously loud.

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Disaster Area 11 March 2016

Disaster Area opened the MGS Rock Evening last night.

Set List:
Learn To Fly
I Hate Myself For Loving You

Disaster Area is:

  • Miss Alloy
  • Mr Gymer
  • Miss Mason
  • Mr Martin
  • Mr Parish
  • Mr Taylor
Disaster Area
Disaster Area

To see more about us head over to Faceshit. As explained before I don’t do Faceshit.

20160312_173343000_iOS

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G’n’R Lies – Guns And Roses

So, it has taken a while and we are finally into the Gs of my album reviews. These reviews have been organised by album title and also don’t include a lot of the aggrotech that I have bought over the last two years. I doubt I’ll get around to those, also I am starting to stream music more than just buy or download albums. I’m not sure how that will turn out, I like the idea of “owning” an album rather than knowing it’s there to listen to via streaming. Let’s wait and see.

There’s an overriding problem with all of the cock rock from the 80s and G ‘n’ R is one of the main culprits. The lyrics are very sexist, bordering on obscene. I don’t think that the music alone can justify these lyrics. We could use the argument that society of the time was embedded within these albums but I’m not sure about that either. There have always been people working towards equality. Let me make this clear: equality means everyone being treated the same, it’s that simple.

Anyway, on to the album. This was released after Appetite For Destruction but has songs from before those days. It’s a pretty good rock EP and displays the destructive talent that was Guns and Roses. Patience is a pretty good ballad. Used To Love her is a great song. It reminds me of a time I saw Guns and Roses at Milton Keynes with a recent-ex-girlfriend. I may have sung along to Used To Love Her very loudly. The acoustic version of You’re Crazy is a delight.

The biggest problem is the song One In A Million. Whether we should judge the entire output of a band upon one song and the lyrics it contains or their behaviour off stage is something I haven’t got an answer for. I do know that I don’t listen to any LostProphets any more, it makes me feel ill. So, the dodgiest lyrics in One In A Million are:

Police and Niggers, that’s right
Get out of my way

Immigrants and faggots
They make no sense to me

Radicals and Racists
Don’t point your finger at me

I don’t know if these lyrics mean Guns and Roses are homophobic, racist or just trying to be controversial. Maybe it’s something we can’t know. They seem immature and a poor decision. The sort of thing a young person would write when trying to connect with the world.

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