Friday: There's this mentally sub-normal bloke who lives on my road, tells people he works at HMV in Oxford Street, but he doesn't, he goes there sometimes, pretends he works there and asks random people if he can help. Saw him this morning after I left the house, he saw me crossed over the street and tried to talk about the weather, I ignored him and he started talking to a postman who just happened to be passing. Crossed Cuxton Road, looked behind me and he was following me, lost him after that thankfully. Got to Soho, bought some AC/DC, Sonic Youth and Why? albums in Sister Ray, got the new Grinderman seven inch in Virgin then went on a long hunt for a Miles Davis album that I eventually found in the huge Jazz section of HMV. Went up to Camden, got something to eat at the Vegan Thai place, went in the World's End for a drink and got served by a bar maid who was being chatted up by a foreign Goth with a moustache wearing nail polish ("I buy you any drink you want" "I'm not aloud to drink while I'm working, I can except tips though" "I buy you anything you want") found a corner a read for a bit waiting for the rain to stop so I could get in line.
El Thule: Kind of like an aggressive version of The Sword. Not anything special, it was funny to hear the singer struggle with his English between songs though.
Solace: Fuck me sideways. It might have been that the singer looked and sounded like Dave Wyndorf that I just instantly thought of Monster Magnet playing proper Stoner Doom, actually I saw the guitarist had a tattoo of the artwork from God Says No so I wasn't just imagining the Monster Magnet influence.
Orange Goblin: I've never seen a Stoner crowd get so rowdy: a pit, stage diving, crowd surfing. Surprised that they still played a load of old songs and not that much from the up coming album. Ran into Nick that writes for Kerrang when I was coming back after getting a glass of water, told me his band was putting out a seven inch at the end of the Summer. They ended with Blue Snow then encored with Round Up The Horses, a cover of No Class by Motrhead and Scorpionica.
Got the train to Chatham then got a taxi home, enjoyed listening to music for a while as my parents have fucked off for the weekend.
Saturday: Went to the Tap, ran straight into Liam who told me that Wired weren't playing as Ben told them the day before he didn't want to play, so they're firing him and replacing him with Liam's brother and Anticomplex were doing an impromptu reunion to fill in the gap in the bill. Gabriel came down then later Steve with Nadine saying he saw Ben in town, he was actually coming to the show before Steve told him Liam was pissed off at him, said he didn't have the heart to tell him he was fired in front of his girlfriend and best mate (after seeing the good turn out at the Tap he said he may fire him via text). There was a guy who came from Gravesend especially to see Wired, I recognised him from their MySpace page, I pointed him out and they went over to talk to him, he was a little freaked out to find out he was their only fan who wasn't a friend of theirs. Went in the pool room, played a couple of doubles games with Gabriel, Steve and Nadine. Came out and watched A Phoenix De Nova and Red 13 (both quite good for local bands), sorted out the next Wired show to play with Red 13 in June, then Steve had to leave to take Nadine home. Anticomplex were about to set up when they found out no one in any of the other bands was prepared to lend Patrick a snare. Liam's mum started having a go at Red 13's drummer, Liam's Dad had to take her outside, Steve passed them arguing when he came back, the band decided to ban Liam's parents coming together at any of their future gigs. After hanging about for a while Steve, Gabriel, Liam and his older sister came back to mine, they had a joint in my back garden, we had something to eat while I made them watch the Sheer Terror documentary (they were a Spinal Tap of Hardcore so many things went wrong with that band). They went out to smoke a bong Gabriel constructed from a water bottle. After they were done I decided to dispose of the evidence, had Liam come to the back of the garden and chuck it over the back fence, only he threw it so hard it went into the neighbours fence, I've caught their kid smoking weed before, maybe he'll get blamed for it. Came back in and watched The Proposition then they all went back to Liam's house. I listen to Miles Davis and went to bed.
Sunday: Cunting rain, thankfully I saw a rail replacement bus before I crossed the bridge so I didn't have to waste time walking to Rochester and got a train to Victoria from Strood Station. Went to Virgin in Oxford Street, went to the DVD section and got Three Extremes and one of the Ghost In The Shell series, got ID by a cashier who found out I was the same age as him. Went up to Camden, got the new Heresy re-release from the second hand place, went in the big music shop before the canal for the first time and discovered they had loads of good stuff really cheap, got AC/DC and Captain Beefheart albums for five quid each. Grabbed a drink in Marks & Spencer's then something to eat at the Vegan Thai place, had the piss taken out of me by two gay guys with shaved heads holding a balloon each while I ate near the Sainsbury's. Went in the Word's End, got annoyed by drunk West Ham supporters singing at the top of their lungs. Got in the queue and saw a group of winos in front of Camden Town Station, one guy was busking with a guitar, he tried sing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life but could only remember the verse that goes "life's a piece of shit when you look at it" and kept singing that over and over. Doors opened, bought Hidden Hand and End Of Level Boss CD's.
End Of Level Boss: When I first heard them on a Terrorizer CD I thought they sounded like Wired. Live they sounded more Doomy, their singer had a few Steveish rants "We're End Of Level Boss, here to kick of tonight's proceedings of 'eavy fucking Metal" "our album is out on May 21st but you don't have to wait 'til the 21st because we're selling it tonight, so buy it and you can hear it before any other fucker." They had a female bass player who banged her head like Tom Araya (which was enough to win my heart). Normally when i go to show I try to wear shirts that would be out of place, but my Bad Brains shirt got some postive attention, some guy tapped me on the shoulder and said "Yes, Bad Brains are awesome and so are you" which I should have anticipated, what with The Hidden hand being a DC band too.
Stinking Lizaveta: I was a bit nonplussed when I first heard them but they won me over half way through the first song. They had a female drummer who had the drums set up right to the front Monitors, a guy playing a huge modified electric stand up bass and a guitarist that looked like Cheech Marin and approached the guitar in a similar manner to him as well, he was running around the stage dripping sweat everywhere (literally, the guy was like a tap of sweat, he'd bang his head and you just see loads of sweat cascade towards the floor) and kept putting the guitar up to his face and going "Woo!" into the strings and it picked up through the amp, in fact the only vocals he did was approach the mic and go "Woo!" at one point he gave the guitar to someone in front to play and just went back to the mic going "Woo! Woo! Woo!" They finished with a song that had proper lyrics to it, came off and had to do an encore with the amount of applause they got.
The Hidden Hand: I thought Bossk took the piss with the amount of FX pedals they used.
I only have some of their stuff so I didn't really know many of their songs, it was just cool to see Wino.
Got to Victoria, grabbed some tofu and rice from the Japanese place and headed for my train. Walked home from Strood Station, made it home before it started raining.
El Thule: Kind of like an aggressive version of The Sword. Not anything special, it was funny to hear the singer struggle with his English between songs though.
Solace: Fuck me sideways. It might have been that the singer looked and sounded like Dave Wyndorf that I just instantly thought of Monster Magnet playing proper Stoner Doom, actually I saw the guitarist had a tattoo of the artwork from God Says No so I wasn't just imagining the Monster Magnet influence.
Orange Goblin: I've never seen a Stoner crowd get so rowdy: a pit, stage diving, crowd surfing. Surprised that they still played a load of old songs and not that much from the up coming album. Ran into Nick that writes for Kerrang when I was coming back after getting a glass of water, told me his band was putting out a seven inch at the end of the Summer. They ended with Blue Snow then encored with Round Up The Horses, a cover of No Class by Motrhead and Scorpionica.
Got the train to Chatham then got a taxi home, enjoyed listening to music for a while as my parents have fucked off for the weekend.
Saturday: Went to the Tap, ran straight into Liam who told me that Wired weren't playing as Ben told them the day before he didn't want to play, so they're firing him and replacing him with Liam's brother and Anticomplex were doing an impromptu reunion to fill in the gap in the bill. Gabriel came down then later Steve with Nadine saying he saw Ben in town, he was actually coming to the show before Steve told him Liam was pissed off at him, said he didn't have the heart to tell him he was fired in front of his girlfriend and best mate (after seeing the good turn out at the Tap he said he may fire him via text). There was a guy who came from Gravesend especially to see Wired, I recognised him from their MySpace page, I pointed him out and they went over to talk to him, he was a little freaked out to find out he was their only fan who wasn't a friend of theirs. Went in the pool room, played a couple of doubles games with Gabriel, Steve and Nadine. Came out and watched A Phoenix De Nova and Red 13 (both quite good for local bands), sorted out the next Wired show to play with Red 13 in June, then Steve had to leave to take Nadine home. Anticomplex were about to set up when they found out no one in any of the other bands was prepared to lend Patrick a snare. Liam's mum started having a go at Red 13's drummer, Liam's Dad had to take her outside, Steve passed them arguing when he came back, the band decided to ban Liam's parents coming together at any of their future gigs. After hanging about for a while Steve, Gabriel, Liam and his older sister came back to mine, they had a joint in my back garden, we had something to eat while I made them watch the Sheer Terror documentary (they were a Spinal Tap of Hardcore so many things went wrong with that band). They went out to smoke a bong Gabriel constructed from a water bottle. After they were done I decided to dispose of the evidence, had Liam come to the back of the garden and chuck it over the back fence, only he threw it so hard it went into the neighbours fence, I've caught their kid smoking weed before, maybe he'll get blamed for it. Came back in and watched The Proposition then they all went back to Liam's house. I listen to Miles Davis and went to bed.
Sunday: Cunting rain, thankfully I saw a rail replacement bus before I crossed the bridge so I didn't have to waste time walking to Rochester and got a train to Victoria from Strood Station. Went to Virgin in Oxford Street, went to the DVD section and got Three Extremes and one of the Ghost In The Shell series, got ID by a cashier who found out I was the same age as him. Went up to Camden, got the new Heresy re-release from the second hand place, went in the big music shop before the canal for the first time and discovered they had loads of good stuff really cheap, got AC/DC and Captain Beefheart albums for five quid each. Grabbed a drink in Marks & Spencer's then something to eat at the Vegan Thai place, had the piss taken out of me by two gay guys with shaved heads holding a balloon each while I ate near the Sainsbury's. Went in the Word's End, got annoyed by drunk West Ham supporters singing at the top of their lungs. Got in the queue and saw a group of winos in front of Camden Town Station, one guy was busking with a guitar, he tried sing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life but could only remember the verse that goes "life's a piece of shit when you look at it" and kept singing that over and over. Doors opened, bought Hidden Hand and End Of Level Boss CD's.
End Of Level Boss: When I first heard them on a Terrorizer CD I thought they sounded like Wired. Live they sounded more Doomy, their singer had a few Steveish rants "We're End Of Level Boss, here to kick of tonight's proceedings of 'eavy fucking Metal" "our album is out on May 21st but you don't have to wait 'til the 21st because we're selling it tonight, so buy it and you can hear it before any other fucker." They had a female bass player who banged her head like Tom Araya (which was enough to win my heart). Normally when i go to show I try to wear shirts that would be out of place, but my Bad Brains shirt got some postive attention, some guy tapped me on the shoulder and said "Yes, Bad Brains are awesome and so are you" which I should have anticipated, what with The Hidden hand being a DC band too.
Stinking Lizaveta: I was a bit nonplussed when I first heard them but they won me over half way through the first song. They had a female drummer who had the drums set up right to the front Monitors, a guy playing a huge modified electric stand up bass and a guitarist that looked like Cheech Marin and approached the guitar in a similar manner to him as well, he was running around the stage dripping sweat everywhere (literally, the guy was like a tap of sweat, he'd bang his head and you just see loads of sweat cascade towards the floor) and kept putting the guitar up to his face and going "Woo!" into the strings and it picked up through the amp, in fact the only vocals he did was approach the mic and go "Woo!" at one point he gave the guitar to someone in front to play and just went back to the mic going "Woo! Woo! Woo!" They finished with a song that had proper lyrics to it, came off and had to do an encore with the amount of applause they got.
The Hidden Hand: I thought Bossk took the piss with the amount of FX pedals they used.
I only have some of their stuff so I didn't really know many of their songs, it was just cool to see Wino.
Got to Victoria, grabbed some tofu and rice from the Japanese place and headed for my train. Walked home from Strood Station, made it home before it started raining.