I've Just Spilt Beer On The Keyboard, So I'll Finish This When It's Dried Out...

As Withnail said, I feel unusual. Not just happy, which lately has been unusual enough in itself, but positive too, which was a shock when I realised it. The last couple of weeks have been fucking wonderful, a serious reminder that sometimes life is good, something i was beginning to wonder about.
First up was the best party I have been to in some time, even though it was in fucking Croydon, of which I shall say little other than dancing like a complete tit to Colosseum was one of my more dignified moments that night. Ruined would be the best way to describe the twenty or so people who then descended on the beer garden of the Dog & Bull as soon as it opened and finished off their stock of the marvellous restorative, healing tonic that is Waggledance.
Suitably refreshed, I poured myself onto the train back to London and thence to Camden for an evening of Metal 'n' Psych 'n' Newcastle Brown at the Underworld, darkest venue in the known universe. We only caught the last couple of riffs of Ramesses, which was a pity cos they sounded fucking immense. The Heads were up next, their Spacemen 3esque light show setting the scene nicely for some of the rawest, balls out hard bastard psych around these days.
The Heads never get their due for some reason, even though they've been consistently laying down some of the most blissfully freaked out fuzz known to man for the last decade or so, and generally doing it with a good deal more originality than say Comets on Fire or High Rise. By the end of the closer, Spliff Riff, a totally relentless motorik rollercoaster with guitar solos that burn so brightly you can see them with yr eyes closed, both of us are almost jumping up and down with glee and I think The Heads have won a few more coverts to the cause.
And then, Om. Fucking Hell. The greatest rhythm section in the history of Doom, back on stage after far too many years. There may be heavier rhythm sections, but no one else in Metal, let alone Doom, groove like Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius. There's a flow, a looseness and a sense of exploration in the way they play that's more akin to jazz than anything else, playing with even their most crawling riffs and rhythms in a way which reminds me of no one more than Ed Blackwell and Charlie Haden on Ornette's early Atlantic lps, that ability to find and articulate the myriad possibilites inherent in the straightest 4/4 rhythm. Mr Cisneros's frankly bonkers lyrics are as ever intoned with great solemnity over the shifting sands of riff in his unique, droning, almost mediaeval sounding drawl. (How can someone from California have a mediaeval sounding voice? Fuck knows. But he does. So there.) His words, like the riffs, changing gradually over the course of each twenty odd minute epic. A word here, a note there, the subtle shifts illuminating the all enveloping fog of bass like stars.
Slow, heavy and peculiarly beautiful, paradoxically, time passes all too quickly in Om's world. An hour isn't enough. As the last growling bass note disappears it feels like yr mind is slowly swimming back to the surface through thick molasses. Everyone at this gig had just seen something special and they knew it. To call Om a Doom or Metal band seems wrong somehow. Excuse me for sounding like a hippy for a moment, but there's a sense of peace, of calm, a warmth in Om's music which could be described as either deeply spiritual or the product of endless chillums, that's utterly unlike anything else in the metal sphere today. Stoners or shamans? I don't care, all I know is that the music of Om makes me feel righteously alive.