Se Busca: Una Batería

I need a drummer. Badly. Someone who's equally happy locked into a krautrock/frogprog groove and clanking out off-kilter greasy Chromesque psych-damage* with a side order of mucky garage, a Trashy Liebezeit if you will**.

The reason being that I thought I'd treat myself to a new guitar, as I've been having a shitty time of it, and, breaking the habit of a lifetime, I bought a Fender***, a Duo-Sonic to be precise, and it's a rasping trebly snot machine par excellence which makes me want to blast off into sleazy motorik space every time I pick the fucker up. So yeah, I need a drummer, any takers?

*Think Damon Edge as opposed to John Stench. Owning a 50lb bomb casing is optional.

**Sorry, can't help myself.

***Yes, that was a flying pig that just streaked past yr window. Contrary to popular belief, I don't hate Fenders, I just hate Strats.

Terapia De Electrochoque

I fucking love this song. For so many reasons. Chrome's finest pop moment. So wrong, and yet so very, very right.

Muy, Muy Alto

Ok, here's some proper damaged brainwrong, and something I didn't expect to turn up on youtube. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, from the grey depths of 80s Britain*, the excellently freaked-the-fuck-out fuzzbomb that is Get Stoned Ezy by High Speed & The Afflicted Man.

Warning: this record contains extremely long guitar solos. Really, really fucking long ones.







*1982, not sure whereabouts they're from exactly tho.

Revolución

I know this is Mudhoney covering Spacemen 3 ripping off the MC5, but fuck it, I love Mudhoney, and this kicks the crap out of the original(s). I just wish the last 30 seconds or so went on for much, much longer.



Turn this fucker up.

Lo Siento Señorita Christensen

I make no apologies* for posting this masterpiece/monstrosity of 80s metal from Denmark's magnificently named Evil. I know it's shit, but, and this is crucial, it's also fucking brilliant for exactly the same reasons.



I am now imagining High On Fire covering that. Fuck.

*Except for the one in the title.

Ya Estamos Otra Vez...

Okay, I'm back. Not 100% yet, but feeling slightly better in myself, a little more level after the last months constant battering, and more able to take care of shit instead of wanting to run away from it all. Thank fuck for that, and I'll say no more about it*. I'm going to listen to Red Exposure at ludicrous volume, have a big coffee and a bigger spliff, and then I may just write something that doesn't involve moaning**.

*For the mo', anyway. You know what I'm like.

**Well, not much...

Hola

The sun has finally come out again, which is nice, however, it feels like someone is very slowy sawing my foot in half with a rusty hacksaw, which is not. I am in a phenomenally fucking bad mood at the moment, and I am sick to fucking death of being in pain. It really fucking gets me down sometimes, and I've not been coping as well as I normally do with it lately, which is why I haven't posted, or emailed or whatever. Sorry, I'm just all up and positive one minute then plummetting downward the next and I really don't like feeling like this. So again, sorry for not emailing/phoning/whatevering you if I said I would, I'm really sorry, I'm just not exactly Mr Reliable at the moment and trying not to let this crap take over my life is taking up most of my energy and brainpower at the moment.* I'll be fine soon, I know, I just needed to vent some, as I'm storing up vast quantities of excess bile and it's going to have to come out somewhere, and that somewhere will be here.

*It's not just the pain that's getting on my nerves, there's other, far more personal stuff that eating away at me at the moment, but I just can't talk about that here, I'd just like to say, just for once, can that bit of my life please just go smoothly or in a vaguely normal manner? Fuck's sake.

Atropellamiento

I know I've been uncharacteristically quiet. I'm good, just had a really fucking exhausting and needling time at work last week, and I didn't really want to inflict that shit on you lot, because if I start ranting about last week I might actually have some sort of online freakdown, and lose it completely. And we don't need that, believe me. It would get fucking ugly. The week was topped off by having to spend the entire bastard weekend flat on my back in a Syndol induced haze, because I caught some bug that's been making the rounds, and therefore my immune system decided to kick the crap out of me in no uncertain terms. I still feel faintly shitty, but I am in a much, much better mood now, so a bit of residual wobble is bearable.

It's census time again here in the UK. Now, apart from the joy of finding out what percentage of the British population will lie their arses off*, and the moment when you come across the mysterious question encountered on every single government form in this country, the "this question is left intentionally blank" question**, what I really want to know is this; why, in a country which has been successfully carrying out a census every ten years for the last two hundred, and many times before that in the previous thousand, have our fuckwit-filled government, that coalition of cunts, employed Lockheed-Martin to print the fucking thing, run the call-centres and handle the data capture and processing? What. The. Fuck?

As far as I'm aware, there's an enormous government agency, the does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-bloody-tin Office For National Statistics, that exists to do all that stuff, and has been doing it perfectly well for fucking donkeys-years. And as far as I'm aware, Lockheed-Martin mainly specialise in the production of very exciting and futuristic ways to kill people, with either as much sturm und drang as they can muster or as stealthily as possible, like a jet propelled ninja, and not in collating statistical data or running call centres.

Maybe they do excel at call-centres too. That would make Lockheed truly evil. But seriously, I am confused, and everyone else I've spoken to is as well. Why have we paid 150 million quid to a defence contractor for this? Any thoughts?

*In 2001 we discovered that the 4th largest religion in the UK were the Jedis.

**Why? Why is it blank? Why is it there in the first place? Why is it called a question when it isn't a question, but a remarked upon intentional absence of one? Is it just there to fuck with people? Move along, nothing to see here...

Soplar Mi Propia Trompeta, Y Salchichas

At some point this week I will, assuming it's any good hehe, be posting an or some excerpts from M&N's universe-new-arse-tearing-of set from Oto last week, in the meanwhile, here's a rather nice review of it and some other Oto-ness from The Liminal, although I must warn you, it does feature another prehensile toe wrongness* action shot.

I would also like to recommend this excellent and informative blog**, catering as it does for all yr top quality tubular meat product needs:

Rate My Sausage!

*"It's disturbing... like watching Christy Brown". Actual quote from an audience member.

**Good call Joe. I became instantly hungry after clicking that link.

Ella Tiene El Cabello Rubio

I'm not in the best of moods today. Work shit mainly, the usual getting paid late crap that completely scuppered what should have been a fucking good weekend, plus other bollocks which I can't even be arsed to go into, 'cos I'd just end up in a worse fucking mood, and you'd be really fucking bored. Apart from that tho, things are pretty good. Friday night was fucking great, I think our set was pretty damn fine, especially given that M&N have been hiding out in the drone cave for an extended period of time, it wasn't a bad way to get back into the live swing of things at all. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but then again, when is it ever? Lots of people said good things afterwards, the sound was great, the PA didn't die* and Mick and Neil were fucking brilliant, dropping the sort of white-light one chord ramalama fuzzbombs that put a massive fucking smile on my face. A good time was had by all, and goddamm it, I've got to fucking play live more this year, be it M&N, solo, whatever, because there really isn't much else that gets me quite that high, even if I'm stone cold sober**, so yeah, another killer night at Oto, and it was a bit good to share the bill with two of the musicians who inspired M&N in the first place.

So, a slightly bad mood, tempered by the above goodness, the knowledge that I'll be solvent again tomorrow, and some really nice Laotian weed***. And in the next couple of days I really will do all the emails I was supposed to do last week because I didn't do them the week before. I know, very slack, but I've had shit on my mind, had to have the twice-yearly battery of tests unpleasant to check my nerves still work and all that crap, plus my head's been a bit up in the air for the usual reasons... Anyway, this is an apology to anyone I said I'd email and didn't. Sorry about that. I do get there in the end tho.

And by way of a musical offering to appease those I haven't got back to yet, please enjoy this exquisite piece of Spanish psychy frug by the wonderfully named Albert Band...

*A couple of hacking coughs, but nothing terminal...

**No, seriously, I was driving. Still came off stage feeling like my brain had done a moebius twist tho. This is a good thing.

***As Gilbert Shelton once said, "dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope". Sometimes hippies get something right. Not very fucking often tho.

Remolinos Del Sonido Eléctrico

OK people. get ready for this. Two (count 'em) of the UK's finest blugmongering duos will be psychedeliciously slicing their way through yr heads and hearts at Cafe Oto next friday. Headlining will be those whirling dervishes of ever-ascending radiant modal clatter, Mick Flower and Neil Campbell, ably supported by Morgen & Nite in laser-guided brain-burn synth'n'guitar gut-rot mode. Oh yeah.

Six quid in advance, eight on the door, details and directions at the Oto website.

And yes, it is now officially "&" instead of "und". Because we like ampersands. That's why.

Música Hielo

This week I will do all the emailing people and other things I was supposed to do last week. Stuff ran away from me a little last week, in a very good way mind, you know how it goes. But I'm a little bit the worse for wear today. Hanging in rags, to be honest, but fuck it, it's all in a good cause. Anyways, in lieu of writing anything vaguely coherent except to say Thursday night was seriously fucking good, I'd like to point yr attention to this excellent Radio 4 programme on the extraordinary, beautiful music at the Geilo Ice Festival in Norway performed entirely on equally extraordinary and beautiful instruments sculpted entirely from ice. It's up on BBC iplayer for a few days more I think, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Music That Melts

Ciudadanía De Brighton...

Obviously, I was going to be going to this gig anyway, what with it being at The Outer Church, and featuring the mighty Demdike Stare for only a fiver. Bargain. But lovely people, I'll now be DJing before the worlds finest DubTechnoPersianAstralJazzSoundscapingOccultists do their not inconsiderable thang. This pleases me immensely, and I hope you'll be there too because it's going to be fucking brilliant.

La Casa Del Ácido

If you don't like acid house, you really won't like this post. Seriously. I just got the new Tin Man 12", Acid Test 01 (Absurd), and it just fucking kills, and so, in celebration of this lysergic magnificence entering my life and probably annoying the fuck out of my neighbours, here for yr pleasure are a couple of his choicer cuts from years gone by.





Damn I love this shit.

Terapia De Venta Y Curry

I was overcome with the need to buy some new threads a couple of days ago. Specifically, a(nother) suit. Because as we know, I'm a complete fucking tart* when it comes to that sort of thing, and I have a ludicrously specific concept of what looks and feels right when it comes to the tailor's art, probably due to the preponderance of modernist DNA in my sartorial genome. Which is how I've come to own a beautiful severely-cut fucker of a purple tonic suit**. Yes. Purple. I know. I'm a sick man. But I'm a sick man with a fucking killer purple suit and therefore I WIN.

Although the win is balanced out by the lose engendered by the massive fucker of a hangover I'm nursing this morning. The weekend was a bit good to say the least and I have had approximately three hours sleep since friday night so I can't get really pissed off due to the entirely self-inflicted nature of my current state. And it was most definitely worth the brain dehydration which I'm currrently attempting to counter with the aid of syndol, an enormous bastard bucket of outrageously good coffee and a brace of bacons sandwiches (hehe) the size of paving slabs***, beacuse it really was a very, very good Saturday night (and Sunday morning). A marvellous combination of magnificent home-cooked Indian food, a large selection of delicious IPAs and assorted vinous goodness, great fucking music, and some of the very best people I know. Plus, any gathering where the blokes are outnumbered by about 3:1^ is just fine by me...

Anyway, the reason for this completely pointless rambling is just to say hello everyone, my computer is working again, my broadband is back up and behaving itself for once, and I will finally get round to answering everyones emails and all that stuff as soon as I no longer have a furry tongue and can think just a little straighter than at this present moment.

*A word which, in south London, has a large number of other connotations in addition to it's more common colloquial usage as a slightly less offensive synonym for slag. (Yes, very amusing Ms Apostolou, I can hear the cackling already.)

**Palatinate and Regalia purples, for all you colour fiends out there who may have been wondering. I also snaffled a pair of shoes so shameless that I'm not sure I can describe them without having my (already questionable) sanity bought into question. Bear in mind that I have no compunction whatsoever in wearing electric green leather shoes or pony skin loafers, and you should get some idea of the mental processes which make me go "ooh, look at the shiny" when I spy footwear that most people would just shake their head at and say "what kind of pervert would wear those fucking things?". That would be me.

***Mmmmmm bacons. There is a reason I often write bacons instead of bacon, and we call her Mang! (I can't remember why we call her Mang!, but I do know it's my fault). We have to go out very soon you loon, it's been too bloody long.

^Especially when one of said guests looks like a cross between Louise Brooks and Claudia Winkleman and has a smile like a searchlight...