We all like to rock the fuck out in the privacy of our bedrooms, right? Perfect your Bruce Dickenson hand movements, Van Halen guitar histrionics and Bonham tubthumperisms . And you’ll look like a bit of a spod while doing it too. Admit it, if someone walked in on you you’d  try to pass it off as a nervous tick.

But never fear. Thanks to Red Bull (best served with copious amounts of vodka) you can turn you bedroom antics into fame and fortune. And not in the Paris Hilton way. You will however need a band and some kind of musical talent though.

Red Bull Bedroom Jam is a…err…thing that allows bands to upload their performance to their site and let the internet, the harsh bitch that she is, judge their talents.

The winners get fame, fortune, girls, blow and will most likely end up with severe substance abuse problems, playing dive bars for pocket change. Which sounds pretty amazing to me.

So, if you’re in a band, or just enjoy arbitrarily downvoting any band that feature members with ‘haircuts’  head on over to the site and take part.

Remember Handsome Dan from Wayne’s World? (He was the ‘freak with a microphone’)

He had a cool voice.

But this guy has the coolest voice.

He may be homeless but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have quite possibly the greatest announcer voice I’ve ever heard. I could listen to him all day and be quite happy. Hell, give him the shipping forecast. I don’t care, i just want him saying stuff. Any stuff. Really. I’ve watched the video five times because I enjoy it so much.

In some pretty cool news, it looks like this video is going viral, and The Voice has been offered paying work. Go Team Internet!

Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been listening to this on repeat. For three months.

This is a music blog. So reviewing comedy is a bit weird. We wouldn’t usually do this, but both Brian and Andrew’s comedy is very much based in the world of music, specifically metal, so we’ll make an exception.

But just this once.

Andrew O’Neil is a heavy metal fan and cross dresser. He is quick to point out that he is not a goth, but I do not believe him, as his cross dressing involves a pair of those black and white stripy tights that can only be worn by goths. I hear you need a special license issued by Robert Smith to even buy them. He’s a goth. But we won’t hold that against him.

His comedy seems to draw on alt type culture observations, bizzare flights of fancy and puns so bad/good the front page of the Sun would be embarrassed. He may be a little too clever for his own good, a few jokes despite their merits fly rirectly overe the heads of many of the audience. His delivery is also a little unsure, he doesn’t seem to have the confidence to back up his humor. But hey, this is a guy I’ve only just heard of, so I’m fairly sure he’s finding his own way of doing things. He certainly has the material, and a nicely targeted audience, so he’s pretty much on his way – just needs a bit more oomph.

Brian on the other hand is a man made of good natured oomph. It’s hand not look at him without smiling, he looks like a muppet – albiet one that smokes a shitload of pot and listens to Entombed. And he knows this. He’s wonderfully self depricating – describing himself as ‘farts wearing a man costume’

His comedy fuses really, REALLY low brow humour (”Fart and Dick Jokes” is his new CD after all) with wordplay and observations. He may be telling a story about wanking, actually most of his stories are about wanking, but it never feels like gross-out humour or shock for the sake of it.

He really nails a sort of slacker mindset. People who are clever, but lazy and they know it. (Clearly he’s not lazy, but hey, y’know what I mean.)  Finding the humour in the ridiculousness that is modern life for a functioning nerd.

Plus the man is so damn likeable that even when you’ve heard the joke before, or it doesn’t quite work, hey, we’ll let it slide, because goddamn, you’re just so nice!

If my roommate did this, I would probably kill them.  I hope he gets his albums back.

And no-one turns into something…inhuman.

Cider usually means festivals in the Westcountry, teenagers on park benches and tramps on street corners. Not the best in new music. New music usually means self consciously cheap and crappy beers.

Not so any more. Kopparberg, purveys of a whole variety of tasty ciders, have got in on the game . Kopparberg Klash is the latest hunt for the nation’s best new band (among other creative type things). usually these involve a bunch of watered down pub rock bands and cookie cutter versions of whatever is currently in the top ten.

Lucky for us that Vice magazine is involved to make sure a well needed injection of skinny jeans, asymmetrical haircuts and keyboards that sound like NES  games.

The final (because who really wants to sit through the local also rans) is THIS WEDNESDAY, so if you’re about the Shoreditch area (where else?) get on down to The Old Blue Last to check out Plus Ultra, Dead Wolf Club and Filthy Boy along with MC Charlie Partridge of the East End comedy duo Robin & Partridge, DJs and a whole load of cider.

Head on down. We’ll be there if that helps.

We know it won’t.

What sucks? MOVIE REMAKES!

What rules? NICK CAVE!

So, finding out that 18 foot tall Australian master of jangly post goth awesome is penning a new version of The Crow is somewhat confusing. On the one hand, do we really need another version of The Crow? Alright, it’s a decent enough movie, but then it did spawn the horrible habit of lanky, spotty, goth boys dressing in duct tape every halloween. And remakes are genetically predisposed to be horrible bags of toss.

But then, Nick Cave is writing it. And Nick Cave is known for not sucking at anything. The Proposition was a pretty cool movie. Both his books do that dirty southern gothic thing with the subtly that few can manage.  And all his music projects have ruled.

The combination of Cave and Crow  would also cause a goth critical mass that would suck anyone wearing an ankh into a very, very black hole. Which would be funny.

This is what being metal as fuck is all about. You may have a terrible job holding a sign for a pizza place. But that does not stop you from ROCKING THE FUCK OUT.

When life give you lemons CRUSH THE LEMONS IN A FIST OF METAL AND BANG FOR SATAN! FUCK LEMONADE! ROOOAAGGGHHH!

Watch the above video for as long as you can. I lasted for around three minutes.

If you’ve made it through the entire thing without vomiting on yourself, congratulations! You are now fully aware that there is an entire festival based around the rappers dressed as clowns sub genre invented by the ICP, famous as late for not knowing how magnets work.

I have never seen so many ugly people in one video.

A while ago we reported on the fact that someone had created a Roillins / Danzig slash fiction comic imagining a world where the two icons of awesome lived together as very special friends. Rollins saw it and thought it was funny. Thanks to Decibel magazine, Danzig has seen it too.

Well, kinda. He knows it exists but didn’t want to see it.

And in a quite brilliant turn of events, the dude who created the comic in the first place turned Danzig’s reaction into another comic.  Read the whole thing here.

An Iron Maiden video that doesn’t suck?!

Amazing!

Occasionally I get sent mail from bands who want me to review their stuff, or embed their video or say nice things about them for some reason. I don’t often do it because on the whole, they are depressingly boring.

But yesterday I got an email that contained this…

We made the video ourselves and it’s basically a battle between a robot and a wizard (homemade costumes). In the video there are fireballs, russian roulette, sword fights, massages, a dog with a cape, breakfast etc…..

It’s actually pretty badass!

And I knew I was onto a winner. I love the fact that they follow ‘a dog with a cape, breakfast’ with ‘etc’ – Yeah, that’s right you know, dogs with capes, early morning meals, the usual, you can sort of guess what’s next… Brilliant.

This came from a genuinely delightful indie pop band Hotel St. George

I checked out the video. It did indeed include all the aforementioned stuff and defiantly rates as ‘badass’ The video reminds me of staying up til 3AM watching videos on MTV2 to try and find something new to impress my friends with.

Which is good.

Thanks to the lovely people at Best Buy we find ourselves enjoying a tasty meal in the VIP area of the O2 before the show. It’s all very civilised and grown up, very fitting for a band now a mainstay among parents rather than their rebellious offspring. Bon Jovi are certainly an institution, so let’s see how they fair in a giant dome crammed with their rabid fanbase. (Hint- they do well)

But to get to Bon Jovi, we must first endure Kid Rock. His blending of terrible rap and even worse country-metal music was at least slightly relevant back in the bad old days of nu-metal. He’s not even that any more. He’s a dinosaur. He has become bloated (musically – he still looks like a trailer park meth addict) and needs to be hit by some kind of metiorite. Or a truck. I’m not bothered.

Swaggering around the stage in a series of stupid hats, backed up by a band of clearly talented, but slightly bored looking musicians, he plows his now almost exclusively country furrow to a venue that is not interested. People are here for Bon Jovi. Kid Rock is like an excitable muzak tannoy, allowing people to take their seats without silence.  At one point he goes around the stage playing all the instruments. This would be impressive if he was good at them, but he plays  to about the same level as a talented teenager in a school-age rock band.

With the audience not exactly warmed by this act, we await Bon Jovi. Best Buy’s corporate box is in a great location, overlooking the stage, but this view is traded off by the most overpriced beer I have ever seen in a venue. £4.80 for a bottle of Becks. VIP – Very Immoderate Prices (Yes, I used thesaurus.com for that)

Bon Jovi hit the stage to rapturous applause – they are note perfect and have an impressive array of age appropreate stage moves – these guys are still in great shape, but no one is diving off a speaker stack or flying over the audience on a harness.  It does seem to be the Jon and Ritchie show though, they get the front of stage, the rest of the band are relegated to the backline with the amps. But still, those two know how to work a stage – and strangely the O2’s stage-space is actually quite small.

Around half way through they bring out special guest Bob Geldof. Thankfully for everyone in the venue he comes on, does ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ and buggers off. No sanctimonious speeches. Well done. This is a Geldoff I could get to like.

We get a bit of acoustic treatment, and even the inclusion of an accordian is welcomed. Ritchie Sambora sings his song, and we get some of Jon solo. The full gamut is covered.

But. We know that most of the people are here for the big ones. Bad Medicine, You Give Love A Bad Name, Livin’ On A Prayer.  How do they hold up?

Let’s be honest. You love those songs. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t. They are pop rock perfection. And even if you would deny their majesty, after a few pints you would be singing along. I’d put money on it.

They hold up very VERY well. Bon Jovi are not to be fucked with when delivering songs that have made them multi millionaires.  They kick them out with precision and passion and a set of teeth so white they burn your eyes.

I’m a bit jaded and hard to impress when it comes to music these days. I’m a bit of a dick like that.

I was singing along by the end.

Every. Word.

And dancing.

Yeah, they were good.

OK, so he didn’t quite say it. But it was pretty close. This is Fran Nevrkla of the PPL (a record industry group) talking at their AGM.

Thank you, David, and thank you for putting some of those pirates behind bars. I know that regrettably capital punishment was abolished in this country some 50 years ago, sad it is, but a few years in jail is probably pretty OK…

I’m off to torrent something I don’t really want just to piss this guy off.

1. The Whiney Little Bitch

Nothing is good enough for this miserable fucker. Their entire existence, to them at least is constant torment. Their only ray of light in their self perceived crapsack life is their own favorite highly unpopular sub sub sub genre, which of course, their band and very few other bands play. Between moaning about their home town scene, or lack of it, more popular bands and how they suck and the mundanity of their hopeless little life, occasionally they will link to their own musical output. Don’t bother clicking on it though. They’re miserable for a reason.

2. Sir Linksalot

Walk away from Facebook for even a few minutes  and your news feed is filled with links. Most likely to YouTube videos of bands that have influenced them. Often accompanied by misspelt comments explaining that the band in said clip is a LEGEND!!11! or that the music in question is a Fuckin CHOONN! How they get any music written between the day long link sessions is beyond me.

3. The Constant Inviter

Despite the fact that Facebook allows you to show your location, this enthusiastic type will persist in inviting you to whatever gig they are playing. I may well be ensconced in my London pad, as it says on my profile and latest status update, but that will not put them off inviting me to a gig someone in Scandinavia. And they won’t just invite me once. Oh no. Poking, status updates and all the rest all trying to their their friends to gigs in faraway lands. Give up.

4. Rehearsal Room Reporter

Bands don’t practice in front of fans for a reason. Rehearsals are usually quite dull, full of miscommunication and arsing about. If fans could see their favourite bands locked in the rehearsal room their opinions of their musical gods may change. Especially if the singer is trying to explain his idea

“Yeah, a sort of chugga chugga riff, but, like, not dull, you know, like maybe in like 5/4 time or something”

So reporting on these goings on will reveal the dullness of being in a band to all and sundry. But some feel compelled to do it. We do not need to know about how you nailed that solo, or worked out a great drum pattern. And for the love of god, we don’t need to hear your shitty lyrics

5. Failed Musician Turned Blogger

So you couldn’t cut it as a musician for whatever reason. Probably because you were a talentless sucker. So you do what hundereds of you kind have done. Slag other bands off on the internet. And instead of keeping it to the confines of your shitty blog, you feel compelled to spread your half thought out ideas on ’social media channels’ because a ‘guru’ told you to. Unfortunately one of those ’social media channels’ is Facebook, so the rest of us have to put up with links to godawful reviews and opinion.

Yes, this is me.

“Henry and Glenn are very good ‘friends.’ They are also ‘room mates.’ Daryl and John live next door. They are satanists.”

Danzig And Rollins sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

If ever there was a more mind boggling music based comic than one featuring a romace between Glen Danzig and Henry Rollins – please point it out in the comments.

Rollins is amused by this. Danzig, well – I guess he hasn’t seen it yet.

You can buy it here. If you want. I’m not sure.

(yes I’m going to buy it.)

I think the title sums things up. I’m quite excited to see this, because Rush are awesome and anyone who says otherwise should be banished to the outer reaches of the Solar Federation, where the Snow Dog will take a piss on their shoes.

The new way of discovering music through people. – Where music comes recommended. -Sit back and listen in full as your friends, dj’s and artists flow you the tunes they really rate flow music to your own friends and followers and earn 20% of the price when they buy.

mFlow. Uh. Yeah. So it’s Spotify plus Twitter with some way to make some money if people buy what you recommend to them. It’s quite confusing.

So lets see if it’s any good. I’m downloading it now.

Setup is utterly painless. Not sure why it wants my whole name but hey. To them my name is Optimus Motherfucker. The login screen also looks like a laynyard. That’s a nice touch.

Lets see how it works. Nicely done tutorial – no  video. Just some screens. OK, so I have to follow people to get ‘flows.’ That’s the music I can listen to. I refuse to make a joke about ‘flow’. I’m above it. Really. If I ‘flow’ music and someone buys it I get a few pence.

Ok. So who can I follow?

Fuck. Zane Lowe. I hate that guy. NME? Bah. I’m not sure they fit my taste. Bit too, well, NME. Popjustice? Love the man’s writing, but can’t say I agree with what he says is AMAZING.

I’ve heard Metal Hammer is on here, so I might as well take a punt and follow them . How do I find them? Ah, they’re featured. If they weren’t I’d have no idea.

Followd. They’ve flowed some Bon Jovi. Way metal guys. But I can take a listen to the track. To be honest nothing they flowed is ‘new music’ though. Anyone who has even stood close to a metalhead knows the bands they’re recommending.

Let’s recommend something. Clutch? Clutch. More people need to know about them.

Search Clutch. One song. From The Crobar album. Strange. Let’s listen to it first so I know what I’m talking about.

Also, 90% of searches came up bad. Not much choice. Yes, the service is new so I’m going to be uncharacteristic nice and forgive them – but they better get a shit-ton of songs in there soon.

I only get a 30 second sample. Well, that blows.

What do I do with 30 second samples? I send them to people so they can hear the whole song. I’m comfused. And a bit angry. This makes no sense.

Can someone explain this to me? I want to listen to music, but I can’t. I’m going back to Spotify and Grooveshark until someone explains why this is a good idea. I like listening to whole songs. I like listening to new songs. I don’t like having to wait til someone sends me something so I can listen.

So, yeah, if you like your music taste dictated to you – go for it!

Reports that Type O Negative and Carnivore frontman Pete Steele died on April 14, 2010 from heart failure. He was 48.

Carnivore were crossover pioneers with a do-not-fuck-with-us attitude and a sense of sardonic humour. Type O were, well completely unique. So far beyond gothic cliché they went all the way round and ended up appealing to everyone.

Everything dies.

Reviewing this gig could be a problem. In fact, I’m not sure if I’m even reviewing it on the right blog. Yes, it was a gig, but it was also the launch of a new car, and featured some pretty kickass tech, so perhaps it should be over at Electric Spectre.

(So It’s there now too.)

So Chevrolet are launching a new car. If it was something like a Camero or a Nova we might expect their launch party to be held in a strip bar and feature entertainment from Monster Magnet, the Drive By Truckers, the Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleaders and a fountain of Malt Liquor. Unfortunately we don’t live in a cartoon version of the 70s. Cars are now economical, safe and don’t come with bucket seats, four tracks and NOS as standard. Shame really. So instead we  have The Mystery Jets, Nick Grimshaw and a nail bar.

The Mystery Jets, to me, are another identikit, landfill indie band, and Nick Grimshaw can fall on a spike for all I care. But for some reason, I had a really good time. Why? Free booze, fun toys to play with a good organisation.

Some bright Spark (Eh? See what I did there.) had set up a life size screen displaying the Spark  and a ‘virtual’ spraycan. This was coupled with a nice, easy to use graffiti program allowing us to spray paint the car. The cool thing was that this was projected onto a real Spark.

This meant me and Interceptor spent far too much time trying to recreate the Mirthmobile from Wayne’s World, the Batmobile and Ecto One as well as some very obscure 2000AD referencing graffiti.

We then decided to crash a photo of some models being taken in the car by getting in the back and asking how much it was for “South of the River”. We’re dicks. Sorry.

The DJ booth was pretty cool too – a Spark on it’s side with it’s wheels being used as the turntables.

So – I’m sure the Mystery Jets fulfilled their contractual obligations and played their music, and Grimshaw played some records. But I wasn’t looking.

You can check out pictures from the gig here – including some car graffiti – You can probably spot ours….

It’s a bright sunny Sunday in old London town. What better way to spend the day than in a pub, in the company of some of the nastiest sounding bands this county can offer. What indeed?

Reviewing this will be tough – part of the fun of writing about music is giving bands bad reviews. It’s much easier to creatively insult someones music than to praise it. So, when presented with an entire day of uniformly excellent bands, it makes my job tough. If you’re into this kind of music, you can’t really go wrong checking out any of the line up – they were all damn good. So I’m digging deep to criticise…

We arrive bright and early and manage to catch the end of Berserkowitz set, only heard two songs, but they sounded Iron Monkey-esque – big fuzzy downtuned riffs and angry, intense screaming from their frontman. It’s hard being the first band on and playing mainly to the other bands, and the saddos who arrive early (me) But none the less, the don’t display any apathy because of it and blast through on the wings of dirty riffs.

Gorse are on next, and are probably the lightest and most rock oriented band of the day. More cerebral than the others, but lose nothing for it. They straddle genres well – they could probably entertain an audience of Mogwai fans as well as the longbeards in attendance here today – sitting between the heavy end of indie and the lighter end of stoner. They lack the power – hitting of some of the other bands – but make up for it in some higher thinking.

Hey, Serpent Venom, Lee Dorian called and he wants, well, everything back. Yeah, Serpent Venom has a frontman that even looks like the British Doom overlord.  But, y’know what, there aren’t many bands that can carry off the Cathedral look and sound – that’s why they’re so good. Serpent Venom certainly wear their influence on their sleeves, but when you can pull off great big crushing monolythic riffs, before throwing down a head-bang-along gallops and powerful singing, then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t.

Dead Existence bring some really grotty sounding sludge to the table. They sound like hungover people fighting, slow and nasty, each movement bringing some low end gut pain. Their singer is in fine voice pulling off some excellent gutteral noises while avoiding a decent into death metal cookie monsterism. I would like to see the band move about a bit more – this kind of noise is chacterised by fairly easy to play (says me who can’t play for shit) riffs – you’re not doing the solo from Painkiller – give us something to look at! Maybe they were hungover. Either way – it’s a small criticism for a band who delivered some top table low end sludge.

If I were to look at Witchsorrow’s MySpace, I wouldn’t be surprised if their description was Doom/Doom/Doom. (It isn’t though. Bah.) It’s pure doom. Denim and slowness abounds. They also seem to be drawing on the very early days of extreme metal, when they do pick up the pace a little (not much mind you) it goes very Celtic Frosty – one riff being almost the spitting image of the opening of Dethroned Emperor – before turning off onto it’s own path. (the singer also did the Tom Warrior patented ‘URGH’ during this song – I think they knew what they were doing!) Their sound was also a little more sparse than others – more Cirith Ungol than Black Sabbath, but nice to hear some variety in the Circle Of True Doom. I’m not entirely convinced by their frontman’s voice – not strong enough to power over the riffing, but again, a minor point of critisism in another killer set.

During the break I buggered off for chilli at Big Red, which has now utterly demolished my intestines. Thanks.

On returning Astrohenge are playing. There is a uniform look on the audience’s faces. Confusion, but in a good way. Like biting into a sandwich to find it filled with fifty pound notes. Astrohenge are fucking unhinged and fucking good. Experimental, but not in a wanky, navel gazing, introspective way, they are experimental in a ‘whatthefuckamIhearingit’sreallygoodohitschangesbut itsstillgood’ way. They seem to jump genres in the middle of riffs – from grind to space rock to punk to sketchy mathcore craziness and back again, but without losing any momentum. They don’t have a singer, but I don’t think anyone (except maybe Mike Patton) could keep up, and lose nothing for it. At one point I think they even dropped a bit of the Dune soundtrack in as an outro and have made me a dedicated fan. The weirdest band of the day, but possibly one of the best.

Dopefight only have three members, but they sound absolutely HUGE. Mostly instrumental, singing seems to be an afterthought and only pops up every now and again, but doesn’t really need it. Powerriffing and pummeling drumming soon see the whole place nodding in unison at their stoner grooves. For a band as weed-powered as this, you would expect them to be a little sloppy and play it off as their charm, but no, these guys are tight, no messing around. Power-stoner anyone?

Koresh clearly enjoy themselves. Playing a Raging Speedhorn (2 singer) style of downtuned to fuck angry metal sludge punk thing they aren’t po faced about it. Likie what would happen if you told Iron Monkey to lighten the fuck up and forced them to read Viz comics for about a decade. Their stage banter consists of “mumble mumble FUCK CUNT….giggle”  but I’m fairly sure if I could hear them it’d be funny. Judging by the fact that their T Shirts have “a picture of a duck fucking a moomin” on them – they are funny guys. Humor mixed with this sort of angry, messy music is a potent combo, and they even have some killer stage moves. I think Koresh could become the next cult British band. Glad I got that T Shirt before it gets popular.

Trippy Wicked are pros. While the other bands may as well be playing to a room full of their mates (which, judging by the good natured camaraderie on display – they are) Trippy Wicked know how to work the stage and play to fans. And while many on the previous bands have a very earthy concrete and piss style of music, live, Trippy Wicked head out on a space rock quest to kick some ass. Their singer may well be putting his voice whrough a ton of equipment, but he can sing very, very well and it adds a whole dimension on to their music. If any of the bands on the bill could have some semblance of mainstream success, it would be these three as their mix of stoner, blues and balls out craziness goes down well with the crowd of backpatches and longbeards, but would also do quite well at one of the more commercial festivals. Polished to a bright shining point, Trippy Wicked were a fine way for me to end the evening.

I had to miss Invasion and Charger – so if anyone wants to let us know how they were – hit the comments.

For a day of bands whose primary motif is copious drug use, it was supremely well organised. Massive kudos to the organisers, The Gaff, the dude who did the amazing posters and all the bands. A great festival – More please!

One day I’m going to get sick of funny metal covers. Until then, you’re going to have to bare with me. Sorry.

Both myself and Mr Interceptor attended this gig. So we decide to review it in the form of chatlog. We hope you enjoy our moronic rambling.

Interceptor: So, what were the bands called?

Von: Hang on, I’m having a sammich.

Interceptor: Hows abouts a knuckle sammich ya godamn muldoon? I have spaghetti! nom nom etc etc

Von: Right so, first up were ‘Roll Call For The Second Site‘ If we don’t count the grind/thrash band in the Unicorn.

Interceptor: But the thrash band were good! They should go in! There was a Japanese lady in VERY small shorts! And beer! God knows what hey were called though

Von: That is true. We can thank Zak for being a spazz. (Zak from weheartrecords invited us to this gig but told us to go to the wrong pub. There was a decent thrash band playing there.)

Interceptor: Thanks Zak. OK, so, tweeny thrash aside -Roll Call For The Second Site. Weird name

Von: All these post – bands have weird names.

Interceptor: Whats wrong with a proper name like Baby Eater? That’s probably what the thrash band were called. Oh I see-they were being hip and ironic..

Von: The audience did include some Hoxton types, so I guess there was a hipness factor there somewhere.

Interceptor: Camden Leisure Pirates is the technical term I believe -actually we should probably mention the venue -it was certainly cosy.

Von: It was fucking small.

Interceptor: It was like watching a band performing inside a shoe in a sex dungeon.

Von: A sex dungeon with tasteful pictures of ships on the walls. And a tiny but well staffed bar.

Interceptor: and of course, a surfeit of attractive lady drummers who doubled as stroke nurses. There’s nothing like doing your research at the bar to uncover these nuggets of valuable info is there?

Von: Indeed. So, anyway. The first band – pleasntly surprised. I think they had actual songs, rather than ’soundscapes’ or whatever these guys call their music.

Interceptor: Exactly, the singer was a little too keen to get down to his scanties, but they had a Rollins-esque energy about them -twitchy and shouty with real, actual choruses.

Von: Also, it looked like the bassist was about 14 – which gave them a sort of early days – DIY – NYHC thing.

Interceptor: And of course, being a mischevious teenage type, she managed to blow up a bass amp -always a good sign!

Von: True that. I’d have like to see them smash things up and jump off things too, but I think they were in danger of banging their heads if they stood up properly.

Interceptor: I think that would make it better -If you’re in an up-and-coming band, there’s nothing like a serious head wound to get the audience riled up I say!

Von: Bleeding over everything adds a certain memorability to the set. Anyway – so the first band – ace. Hopefully we’ll see more of them, and they continue writing songs.

Interceptor: Yep -they need to fully ignore their contemporaries and listen to more Agnostic Front and they’ll be fine -top work Roll Call! So who was next?

Von: Nitkowski. Who were one of those bands who’s songs just don’t go anywhere.

Interceptor: Big or Little Nitkowski?

Von: Big. Nitkowski Urban Achievers is the name of their fan club.

Interceptor: True, but their music was as endless and rambling as Sam Elliots monologues in the movie -basically, terrible noodly widdly wankery with too much jazz thrown in.

Von: This is what happens when bands are influenced by Fugazi and Godspeed You Black Emperor rather than Fugazi and Slayer.

Interceptor: Fuck Fugazi, they should just listen to Reign in Blood over and over again.Personally, I only owned a second hand tape of Overkill’s ‘Taking Over’ when I formed my first band -that’s why I’m such a huge rock star these days.

Von: Mmmmm.

Interceptor: I’ll be honest, I was slightly more engaged by my cider than by the band.

Von: Yeah. And I was suffering from some kind of stomach trouble. But thats a story for another day.

Interceptor: So, a band that couldnt compete with cider and the shits then.

Von: Guess not. The audience liked them though.

Interceptor: Well, what do you expect from a shoe full of hairy leasure pirates? NEXT!

Von: Silent Front. It was their party after all. But there was no jelly and / or ice cream. Crap party.

Interceptor: although there was pass the parcel, their new record dead lake -which one imagines, is probably not as bad as Celtic Frost’s Cold Lake…and I believe-the last ever weheartrecords release?

Von: But less Swans than Swan Lake….Possibly so.

Interceptor: So nothing to with Chris Lake then? Or Rikki Lake-the fabulous musical (and fat) star of Hairspray!?

Von: I don’t think so. Although a concept album on the subject of Rikki Lake’s death would be interesting.

Interceptor: is Rikki lake dead?? When did this happen? Why wasn’t I informed!?

Von: Calm down. It’s a theoretical concept album. Not really happening.

Interceptor: Curses, I was looking forward to taking over her chat show -this week on Rikki, post-rock noisecore bands – shit or what?

Von: So, whaddya think of Silent Front? Because I wasn’t amazed or nuthin’

Interceptor: Yeah they were ok I spose, but again, I didn’t hear a single – you know? They reminded me a bit of the middle eight sections from Mastodons quieter pieces

Von: Huh – good analogy. Thing with Mastodon is they then go on to write massive fucking choruses.

Interceptor: yep, this reminds me of a few years ago, when guitar solos were ‘out’ for a bit. Experimenting is fine but there’s nowt wrong with ‘ ‘verse, verse, chorus’ either is there? Jesus Christ that makes me sound old.

Von: But it’s true. if Silent Front and their kind put their musicianship into writing something catchy and put their noodling into the right bits they’d probably be playing stadiums rather than tiny sex dungeons.

Interceptor: Or even better -stadium-sized sex dungeons.

Von: Ooohhh…now there’s a plan.

Interceptor: What I’m saying is I think the first band had it right, they were innovative but still tied things up neatly -practice your great rock n’ roll endings arather than letting your tunes just fizzle out. And I’m not saying that because I fancy the drummer either.

Probably

First Slipknot and now this. I would drop some serious money on an album of this.

Last Week Downtuned was lucky enough to see a screening of the above documentary charting the history of Pirate Radio in London from it’s quite frankly ballsy beginnings an board sea-forts and ships to its slightly more low key contemporary incarnation transmitting from tower blocks using DIY technology. There is a whole lot more info here on Palladium’s site who commissioned and co made the whole thing.

Pirate radion in the 60s was a VERY IMPORTANT THING – giving an alternative to the state controlled radio at the time. Reaching millions of homes it was a real part of British culture. However pirate radio now – does it seem a little anachronistic to you? Considering to find new music requires a bit of typing and button clicking these days, dudes broadcasting to an audience with a maximum size of a few hundred people seem a little bit -dated?

Hey, remember when music magazines meant something? When they were important and relevant? Before the internet came along and soundly kicked the crap out of them, showing them up as the stilted, outdated, bloated relics they really are? Yeah? Fun wasn’t it?  Journalists were almost as important as the rock stars themselves – reviews echoing in your mind as much as the last gig you went to.

Now you have embittered bloggers like me spouting vitriol on a thousand cookie cutter blogs, each trying to outdo each other on spite and bile levels. – Which, to be honest is still fun, but doesn’t quite have the same romance.

But fear not! For the Gods of the internet themselves – Google – have put every single issue of seminal American indie magazine SPIN online so you can relive those days when a single 100 word review could crush the dreams and careers of hopeful alt. rockers. Go have a read.

For music nerds there is nothing more satisfying than grouping bands together based of their collective genres. For design nerds there is nothing more satisfying than complex data being shown in a novel and user friendly way. These two nerd sub sets collide on this – the Rock ‘N’ Roll Metro Map.

See a massive version here!

Nerdcore – the geeky offshoot of rap and hiphop, more concerned with witches and trolls than bitches and hoes – where the size of your RAM is far more important than the size of your gun has thus far been a very American institution. But things change.

Thanks to a man named  Milk Plus and the homeless of London (yes, really) The UK now has a Nerdcore scene to call it’s own.

Who is behind the UK revolution? Matt Catlow is a music production trainer for a large homeless charity by day…. and nerd rapper “Milk-Plus” by night. (Milk-Plus being a reference to the fictional drink in the book/film ‘A Clockwork Orange’) Through his work with the homeless he works in a fully equipped recording studio in Covent Garden, London providing music production training and recording opportunities for homeless clients. A lot of the service users are rappers and most of them rap about the streets and the negativity inherent in gang culture. Nerdcore offers geeksta as an alternative to gangsta rap and because of the aforementioned wide lyrical playing field rappers can find something positive to rap about and still fit right in.

So, UK nerdcore now has a home, and a de facto leader. The tenth anniversary of the word Nerdcore (as coined by MC Frontalot) is coming up and now is the time for British nerdcore to rise up and get elevated. Go here and join in the fun

Japanese music hacker / designer / all round mad scientist Yoshi Akai has created something rather cool – an 3 channel 8 step sequencer that works by putting LEGO blocks on a big LEGO grid.

It’s pretty amazing!