FUNNY THING

I found this over on Sneakmove. Just goes to show that a good performance is all about having the right audience, eh.

THE WEEK IN METAL

Last time it was Slayer's new album, this time it's the new Iron Maiden album, A Matter of Life & Death. It's almost too much for me, weak human that I am.

I'm not going to pretend hearing a new Iron Maiden album is easy, with excessive amounts of rose tinted nostalgia comes ridiculously high expectations ( see the Star Wars prequel trilogy for more on this) and I wasn't mad on The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg, which isn't to say I didn't like it, if you get me. So, having only listened through once, I think it's going to be a grower, which certainly isn't a first time experience with an Iron Maiden album, in fact Dance of Death was one of the few albums that got me early on, and we're still talking second or third listen here.

UPDATE - Just finished my second listen and, well, I think I love it, I've even identified my stage 1 favourite tracks, being These Colours Don't Run, get the tempo change on the chorus plus an woh-oh-woh bit, and The Longest Day, which weirdly enough has a cool tempo change chorus too, spooky, a really cool quietish beginning bit and ace guitar solos.

All in all it's, cue music journo cliche, totally Maiden - which if you want a fuller description of such sentiments kind've feels like the bits in Lord of the Rings when things go right for the heroes, but without the over emotional facial expressions.

WHAT NEXT?

Every so often i just get bored of writing this thing, whether it's because stupid savefile won't let me upload any songs or I simply haven't got anything to write about (or, more usually the time to write it).

But another reason is that most of the time the stuff I write is little more than reportage and lists, with about three words of opinion, which is so wrong given that I consider myself fairly opinionated (not in an obnoxious way though, you understand)

So from now on, my posts are going to be a bit longer, maybe not as easy to read (not that they ever really are) and frothing with opinion, hopefully.

EXTREMES

It doesn't get much better than a new Slayer album especially one with the original line up, yes the original line up!!! I want to see them live and Morbid Angel but who will go with me to these things??

Nobody, that's who. (Plus Morbid Angel played yesterday, so it's, well, impossible).

I remember seeing Morbid Angel at the LA2 back in blah blah blah.... but it was like Satan was actually helping out, especially on drums, Pete Sandoval is pretty damn close to Dave Lomardo's amazingness.

The main point of this post was to say that I was even more right about metal's comeback. Look the darlings of the indie-ish scene, Bonde Do Role, just rap over metal records in like a funny baby language (sorry speakers of Portugese, that was very patronising). But if I knew what she was saying it would be nowehere near as cool.

Even Julian Cope agrees and who's going to argue with him?

Oh yeah and Junior Boys are very good live, even if the Luminaire was rammed with liggers. I reckon I was the only person who paid to get in.

Slayer - Jihad (topical) and Catatonic (a slowy)
Morbid Angel - Lion's Den ( a classic)
Junior Boys - Count Souvenirs

THREE GIRLS

Pottymouth was a much better experience than Club NME, even though I played only 3.5 songs, they were 3.5 very good songs so I'm happy.

Bonde do Role - Melo de Tabaca (Audioclit remix)
Young & Restless - Black
Galaxian!!! -
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Love in a Void

Despite a collection of weirdos who'd have put the Star Wars cantina scene patrons to shame, (including one off-her face girl who decided to go topless and bite the rear of one of the performers while everyone did their best to ignore her. Silly Cow.) it was all really rather wholesome given that the Spread Eagle is an astounding dive.

The bands were all pretty damn cool, first up was Starvation Box - a kind've Courtney Love-esque garage-y thing, with an inverted White Stripes pretension (ie. boy drummer, girl guitarist/ singer). Check out Dead Today with it's Wendy O Williams-like snarlings.

Second up was Mary Luxemburg and the Black Bats whose super-distorted guitar sound I was loving. And bless 'em they even gave me a shout out for playing Love in a Void. If only there were more people like that, sigh. Listen to Blonde Red.

And finally winning the coveted weird-as-hell-but-funny-and-catchy award was Naomi, whose myspace pictures would suggest a predilection for exhibitionism, but who managed to keep her clothes on for the performance, despite popular opnion too much nudity is a bad thing. Just a girl and her laptop making bleepy pop sings was good enough to persuade me to buy two CDs off her.Here's a song off one of them - Rien Que Ca.

SLIGHTLY OBSCURE ITALO DISCO

Super Radio are my new friend on Myspace, don't know much about them. I think they're a label and they have some fricking amazing Italo Disco acts on there, the most well-known to me being Camaro's Gang, who I believe were on I-F's Mixed Up In The Hague vol 1 (they were the days, sigh).

Their website is pretty cheapo looking, but they make up for it with the soft focus images from the 80s heyday of ID (see pic).

Anyway, I love Italo Disco, I'd forgotten all about it, well apart from like Zombi who are quite Italo.

Here's some for listening pleasure.

RAF - Self Control
Check Up Twins - Sexy Teacher
Lectric Workers - Robot is Systematic
Camaro's Gang - Bronx

IF YOU THOUGHT THE MAG WAS BAD....

Club NME was the usual shambolic affair.

Speakers sounded crap, didn't get paid enough, too few drinks tokens. Their turnover of DJs must be higher than for McDonald's staff.

I played:

Freakplasma - Punk It
Bonde Do Role - Melo do Tobaco (Radioclit remix)
BYOP - We Will Vacation, You Will Be My Parasol
Joan Jett - Bad Reputation
Young & Restless - Black
Prototypes - Tir Aux Pigeons
Debbie Harry - I Want That Man
Dolly Parton - Burning
Fleetwood Mac - Little Lies
Pat Benatar - Heartbreaker
Heart - Barracuda
GnR - You Could Be Mine

But no-one got into it, harumph.

Can't be bothered putting any songs up...

oh okay have Bonde do Role - Danca da Ventuinha (I'm well getting into them now)

DEAD DISCO

Speaking of quality female musicians, Dead Disco totally stole the show at Club Fandango - a kindof weird collection of suburban indie kids - last Tuesday. I can't remember the names of the other bands playing - says it all really. Even though they are without doubt the tiniest band ever seen (yes, smaller than The Like) I'll go for quality over quantity any day.

I have this theory that because there are fewer female musicians/bands that it's easier for girl bands to sound original simply because there are fewer precedents to be influenced by. With guy bands it always sounds like they're trying to be 'The Beach Boys' or 'The Clash' or whoever and it just sounds totally lame. Especially when they try and rip off the vocal style or add in some really inappropriate harmony to their generic indie bilge.

DD just don't sound like anything else at the moment, or possibly ever, and believe it or not they write GOOD SONGS rather than wasting their energy on trying to be the new (insert influential band name here).

And they were really friendly and chatty (see picture) and even did an interview for Pamflet (the best fanzine in the world, ask Vogue) which may or may not have recorded.

The City

NO SWEETS

Aw, last week the NFT's Access All Areas season came to an end and I saw far fewer films than I wanted to which isn't a major surprise, I only see about two things at the cinema a year just because going there takes up so goddam much of the evening and is way too expensive(I do LOVE the pick n mix sweets though, even if the film's are often a bit shit). Mainly I missed Some Kind've Monster.

Sadly the NFT doesn't do sweets, I think you can actually get booted out for eating them during a screening (yeah, they're called 'screenings' in the NFT). So it was a good job the recordings of live performances from Kate Bush and Siouxsie and the Bansees were really fricking good, so good that I wanted to become a goth for a day or two afterwards.

On top of some of the best music ever, it was so good to see a couple of complete weirdos doing their stuff with absolute confidence. Kate Bush was easily the weirdest of the two, her mime/contemporary dance show getting a lot of inappropriate laughs from the mentally retarded 50 somethings who made up most of the audience. Alot of said 50 somethings also left at the beginning of and more annoyingly, during the Siouxsie and the Banshees stuff. I called them 'squares' in quite a loud voice.

Here's Wow off Lionheart by Kate Bush because, well, it says it all.

And howabout Israel off Once Upon a Time: the singles by Siouxsie and the Bs, because that's the song they opened with, and you know it's kind've topical and all.