Thursday: Got up early to wish Dad a Happy Birthday and go to the volunteer's bureau to be told they've finally got all my references and they will start taking me to prospective places for me to work. Found out the interview I was supposed to have tomorrow was cancelled because the woman was a bitch who didn't think I was flexible to the location. When I got off the train at Victoria I said to myself I wasn't going to get a four shot Espresso, just a single to keep me awake but when I got to the coffee place I asked for Espresso the girl asked me if I wanted single or double, my mouth, acting almost independently of the rest of me said "double." Went to HMV in Oxford Street, picked up a Ghost In The Shell TV series DVD and Read Or Die (I'm becoming a fully fledged Anime geek, fuck it, I have no shame anymore). Went up to the second hand place in Camden, was staggered by all the new stuff they had got in since the last time I was there, picked up a Celtic Frost album, a two CD Final album (my, that's an excruciating fuckload of Drone) and a Hey Colossus album, all for under ten pounds each, went over the road to Virgin and picked up the new Municipal Waste album. Got something to eat at the Vegan Thai place, something to drink in Marks & Spencer's, took a walk round the backstreets of Camden and came across this church saw this sign..
Like Jesus is going to come and do a signing, I seen some dumb signs in front of Churches before (the Baptist one in Chatham's good, one time they had one with pictures of piercings and their prices then a nail through and hand with the caption reading "some piercings you can't buy, right now they have one with Christ's back with a crucifix over one shoulder with the caption reading "the power of love") but that one especially made me laugh. Decided I didn't really want to see the opening bands so I went back down to Soho for a look around (actually I went back to HMV to get another Ghost In The Shell DVD because I realised I bought five when I didn't have four). Got back to Camden just in time to join the line before it got too long, Will was handing out flyers put didn't recognise me as I had my hood up (or maybe he did and he was just being rude). In front of me was a couple of guys drinking, these two middle aged blokes came up to them saying something about it being illegal to drink in the street in a joking manner, then a policeman came up and told the two guys it's against the law to drink in the street but it's only illegal if they kept drinking after they've been warned, it was obvious that the two middle aged blokes had seen the officer tell other people and started doing it themselves to take the piss, the two guys went off (I'm guessing round the corner to finish their beers, one of the two middle aged blokes went "God, you can't smoke in the pubs, you can't drink in the street" the officer didn't see the humour and said "we could discuss it more if you step over here" "I agree with you, THERE'S LOADS OF DRUG DEALERS ALONG THE HIGH STREET" "We're dealing with them" "no, you're not." Got in and checked my bag into the cloak room.
Dead Beyond Buried: Shit. And boring.
Dam: Reasonably good Death/Grind but didn't make me want to buy their stuff.
Onslaught: The first time I saw them they were supporting Venom, I was just told they were an old British Thrash band reformed and wasn't expecting much, they blew Venom clean offstage (that wasn't that hard to do though, Venom kind of phoned in their performance for the most part and didn't even play for a whole hour). I bought their new album and one of their old ones, the guy doing merch shook my hand, I'm guessing most people only cared about the new one after a song was on a Terrorizer CD, I didn't actually realise 'til I saw them onstage that he was their drummer. The band opened with Killing Peace, Sy walked onstage singing "Spitting blood in the face of Godddddddddd!" They ripped everyone a new arsehole as expected, loads of people stagediving, Sy hugged the heads of people when they came up to him like Ozzy Osbourne (in fact I noticed he stole a few moves from Ozzy including "Let's go crazzyyyyy!"), it struck me that unlike a lot of Thrash bands making a comeback theirs feels a lot more sincere, with Venom it just seemed like Kronos was thinking "I'll make a new album, play about four shows and retire back to obscurity in Newcastle with the royalties from re-issuing the back catalogue" but Onslaught are touring like a motherfucker really trying to make this mew album work. They finish with Thermonuclear Devastation and Onslaught.
Obituary: Yeah, this is smart, after the show doesn't open on time and three opening bands play, dismantle one complicated drum kit then construct another almost as complicated kit (what the fuck happened to equipment sharing). Whilst people were chanting Onslaught's name before they hit stage people were just shouting "come on!" Obituary seemed to be recording for a live video, a couple of roadies tried to get people to chant "Obituary" but no one was having it. After playing the intro tape what seemed like three times they hit stage with John Tardy looking like a happy Metal poodle and play Find The Arise which almost made up for the long wait, they played mostly new stuff, when they played the songs I've been listening too for years it was great, when they played songs I didn't care about it was tedious, I was at the bar getting some water when they went into Chopped In Half, it sounded just as good as on record (could I have been better off if I stayed at home and listened to their records?). They finished with Stand Alone (which is actually my favourite song off the new album) then Don Tardy came out and did a longer than welcome drum solo, after five minutes I realised I probably wasn't going to care about what they were going to play next (if they came out at all) and left, I'll be telling people I went just to see Onslaught, I've always wanted to see Obituary and I can at least say I did.
Got to Victoria, went over the road for chips in pita then got a fast train to Rochester, walked home from the station.
Friday: Think I slept five hours, it was hard to tell with the lucid dreams couldn't know if I was asleep or not. Found out November Coming Fire didn't play the show at the Tap last night, missed nothing but trendy Hardcore then, good good. Got an e-mail from Sue the woman who has replaced Donna and seems even more hellbent on getting me into paid employment (which I like), she spoke to another woman who was meant to be interviewing me this week but cancelled because she was ill has sent me a letter saying the position has already been filled (which my Dad accidentally opened). Started walking to the Tap after half seven, got there at half eight, spent a miserable hour by myself, got a text from Chris saying he'd be at the Post Office. Went down, got ID'd by a bouncer (which I can accept as I don't go there too often and I look young, he's only doing his job and at least they do check for ID there). Chris got there after twenty minutes, had a chat, later Sam showed up, hung out with us then Ollie and his mates showed up, hung around for an hour, watched Ollie's mate Chris try to win a Nintendo DS on that Stacking game they have and fail. We get to the Tap and I see Mills for the first time in at least a month or so, he comes up and bear hugs my head, we catch up for a while but he had to leave after midnight as he had to get up for work at seven. Hung about with Chris, Ollie and his mates. After two am these two girls come up to me and Chris, one girl tells us her friend is "special needs" and she takes her out every week, Chris tells her we both have Asperger's and are actually classified as disabled. Chris tried to get me to stay 'til three am but I was too tired and had to leave at half two, maybe some other week when I've actually had a full nights sleep.
Like Jesus is going to come and do a signing, I seen some dumb signs in front of Churches before (the Baptist one in Chatham's good, one time they had one with pictures of piercings and their prices then a nail through and hand with the caption reading "some piercings you can't buy, right now they have one with Christ's back with a crucifix over one shoulder with the caption reading "the power of love") but that one especially made me laugh. Decided I didn't really want to see the opening bands so I went back down to Soho for a look around (actually I went back to HMV to get another Ghost In The Shell DVD because I realised I bought five when I didn't have four). Got back to Camden just in time to join the line before it got too long, Will was handing out flyers put didn't recognise me as I had my hood up (or maybe he did and he was just being rude). In front of me was a couple of guys drinking, these two middle aged blokes came up to them saying something about it being illegal to drink in the street in a joking manner, then a policeman came up and told the two guys it's against the law to drink in the street but it's only illegal if they kept drinking after they've been warned, it was obvious that the two middle aged blokes had seen the officer tell other people and started doing it themselves to take the piss, the two guys went off (I'm guessing round the corner to finish their beers, one of the two middle aged blokes went "God, you can't smoke in the pubs, you can't drink in the street" the officer didn't see the humour and said "we could discuss it more if you step over here" "I agree with you, THERE'S LOADS OF DRUG DEALERS ALONG THE HIGH STREET" "We're dealing with them" "no, you're not." Got in and checked my bag into the cloak room.
Dead Beyond Buried: Shit. And boring.
Dam: Reasonably good Death/Grind but didn't make me want to buy their stuff.
Onslaught: The first time I saw them they were supporting Venom, I was just told they were an old British Thrash band reformed and wasn't expecting much, they blew Venom clean offstage (that wasn't that hard to do though, Venom kind of phoned in their performance for the most part and didn't even play for a whole hour). I bought their new album and one of their old ones, the guy doing merch shook my hand, I'm guessing most people only cared about the new one after a song was on a Terrorizer CD, I didn't actually realise 'til I saw them onstage that he was their drummer. The band opened with Killing Peace, Sy walked onstage singing "Spitting blood in the face of Godddddddddd!" They ripped everyone a new arsehole as expected, loads of people stagediving, Sy hugged the heads of people when they came up to him like Ozzy Osbourne (in fact I noticed he stole a few moves from Ozzy including "Let's go crazzyyyyy!"), it struck me that unlike a lot of Thrash bands making a comeback theirs feels a lot more sincere, with Venom it just seemed like Kronos was thinking "I'll make a new album, play about four shows and retire back to obscurity in Newcastle with the royalties from re-issuing the back catalogue" but Onslaught are touring like a motherfucker really trying to make this mew album work. They finish with Thermonuclear Devastation and Onslaught.
Obituary: Yeah, this is smart, after the show doesn't open on time and three opening bands play, dismantle one complicated drum kit then construct another almost as complicated kit (what the fuck happened to equipment sharing). Whilst people were chanting Onslaught's name before they hit stage people were just shouting "come on!" Obituary seemed to be recording for a live video, a couple of roadies tried to get people to chant "Obituary" but no one was having it. After playing the intro tape what seemed like three times they hit stage with John Tardy looking like a happy Metal poodle and play Find The Arise which almost made up for the long wait, they played mostly new stuff, when they played the songs I've been listening too for years it was great, when they played songs I didn't care about it was tedious, I was at the bar getting some water when they went into Chopped In Half, it sounded just as good as on record (could I have been better off if I stayed at home and listened to their records?). They finished with Stand Alone (which is actually my favourite song off the new album) then Don Tardy came out and did a longer than welcome drum solo, after five minutes I realised I probably wasn't going to care about what they were going to play next (if they came out at all) and left, I'll be telling people I went just to see Onslaught, I've always wanted to see Obituary and I can at least say I did.
Got to Victoria, went over the road for chips in pita then got a fast train to Rochester, walked home from the station.
Friday: Think I slept five hours, it was hard to tell with the lucid dreams couldn't know if I was asleep or not. Found out November Coming Fire didn't play the show at the Tap last night, missed nothing but trendy Hardcore then, good good. Got an e-mail from Sue the woman who has replaced Donna and seems even more hellbent on getting me into paid employment (which I like), she spoke to another woman who was meant to be interviewing me this week but cancelled because she was ill has sent me a letter saying the position has already been filled (which my Dad accidentally opened). Started walking to the Tap after half seven, got there at half eight, spent a miserable hour by myself, got a text from Chris saying he'd be at the Post Office. Went down, got ID'd by a bouncer (which I can accept as I don't go there too often and I look young, he's only doing his job and at least they do check for ID there). Chris got there after twenty minutes, had a chat, later Sam showed up, hung out with us then Ollie and his mates showed up, hung around for an hour, watched Ollie's mate Chris try to win a Nintendo DS on that Stacking game they have and fail. We get to the Tap and I see Mills for the first time in at least a month or so, he comes up and bear hugs my head, we catch up for a while but he had to leave after midnight as he had to get up for work at seven. Hung about with Chris, Ollie and his mates. After two am these two girls come up to me and Chris, one girl tells us her friend is "special needs" and she takes her out every week, Chris tells her we both have Asperger's and are actually classified as disabled. Chris tried to get me to stay 'til three am but I was too tired and had to leave at half two, maybe some other week when I've actually had a full nights sleep.
poopy:
Obituary! 