I Can't Decide Which Title Is Better, So Here's Both...

1. You Make Me Sick, I Make Music*

or

2. Why Don't You Stand Up For What You Believe In You Fucking Wankers**

Oi you. Yes you, Mr/Ms young "rock" guitarist. I have a complaint. And a few questions. You don't seem to understand what that instrument hanging round yr neck is for. Does the nasty noise it makes when you turn it up fwighten you? Are you totally incapable of passion, of feeling what you play? Do you have a single original idea or sound in that prematurely jaded head of yrs? Can you not, in short, actually fucking Rock?

It's saying something seriously bad about the musical world at the moment that someone like Matt Bellamy can be considered a guitar hero. Fuck right off. He's nothing but a low-rent toss merchant who would like nothing better than to get on his knees and suck Tom Morellos cock until there's more bunting hanging from his chin than you'd see at a clown convention. And let's face it, Mr Morello's no great shakes either, what with his inability to write a single riff that Jimmy Page didn't come up with thirty years earlier. And as for his "experimental" style, come on. If you want to know what effects pedals are actually for go and listen to Helios Creed, or Kevin Shields, or even Hendrix for fucks sake. I would rather listen to 80s Yes than sit through Muse. Soulless wank and a digital multi-effects unit do not a genius make...

I could name you over a hundred great rock guitarists around today, from the wildly famous to the hopelessly obscure, but not one of 'em is under 30. Thank fuck that Metal hasn't been struck by this curse, after weathering the horror of Nu-Metal, there's a shitload of great young guitarslingers out there. But as for Rock'n'Indie etc, what in the name of the fucking horned one is going on? Can anyone name me one guitarist under 30 who can rip it out like Ron Asheton or Lee Stevens or Neil Young or J Mascis? Cos I'll be buggered if I can think of one. My musical partner in crime and I sat in the pub and tried the other day. Could we come up with one? Could we fuck. The closest we could get was Comets On Fire, and they're no spring chickens. I'd love someone to prove me wrong. But I don't think you will.

If you want a hit of good old pure live rock power, who d'you go and see? Let's have a look. Well there's those young whippersnappers The Stooges, the only member of whom is under 50 is only there cos the original bass player's dead. Dinosaur Jr. Mudhoney. The Heads. Comets On Fire. Neil Young. All old enough to be yr dad. Jeff fucking Beck has more rock in his little finger than you lot have got in yr entire bodies. Even Lee Stevens has had to rejoin Blue Cheer after 37, yes thirty seven, years to show you bastards how it's done. Again.

We live in a world where a sub-genre called Emo exists. I have two things to say about this farce:

1. When I hear the word Emo, a picture of comedian Emo Phillips appears in my head.

2. Why does it need to be pointed out that this is music with and concerning emotion? Excuse my ignorance, but what else lies at the essence of honest to goodness Rock? I always thought it was about fire & passion.

Nothing expresses the vast spectrum of emotion better than music. Whether it's intense joy or utter sorrow that's coming through, great music cuts to the quick, bypassing the filters and thought processes that mediate yr experience of other artforms, removing the need for interpretation that most other creative forms demand. You don't need to understand the language, you don't need to have an appreciation of its context or history, you just react.

I haven't fucking finished yet. I'm still writing this, but I'm posting it now because I've already accidently deleted this once, and I'll be fucked if that's gonna happen again...

* This title is/was the name of one of the members of Soundgardens publishing company. It really sums up how I feel about all of the guitar-by-numbers fuckwits that all my proper journalist friends have to endure to find that one pearl in a sea of shit...

** This one is a quote from Rock'n'Roll from the first Whitehouse lp, Birthdeath Experience. Go and listen to it. You'll probably hate it. It's where noise music really began. It's the sound of someone finally losing patience with everyone and everthing. Whitehouse are probably the most malinged and misunderstood group in musical history, mainly because most people don't have the fucking nous to see past the superficially shocking elements of the lyrics and sound to realise the true genius of Whitehouse is to hold a mirror up to all the parts of yr thinking, and especially yr subconcious that you don't want to deal with. Plus, the band that eventually morphed into, and briefly co-existed with Whitehouse, Come, were the first, almost 20 years before Earth 2 and several years before Flipper (RIP) to harness the power of an awesomely slowed down riff. Go ask the arch revisionist himself, Mr S. O'Malley, why the Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine album is called Rampton...

Before I Start Ranting, Here's A List Of Goodness And Wonderment

1. Grace.
2. The latest Morgen und Nite opus, Star In A Jar.
3. My friends. You all kick serious arse for sticking by me through the shit times.
4. Barolo.
5. Playing music that makes people look at you like you've just shouted cunt at a funeral.
6. Oceans, seas and rivers.
7. Rocking. Hard.
8. My insanely dangerous job and the bizarre places it takes me.
9. Lewes on bonfire night.
10. The wonderful world of chemicals.
11. Chrome.
12. Old Rosie, the world's most hallucinogenic scrumpy.
13. Cheap flights.
14. The smell of Neroli oil.
15. Hawaiian Baby Woodrose.
16. Vigeland Park, Oslo. Particularly the Hellraiser column. Nutcases.
17. The fact that George W. Bush can't be re-elected again.
18. Highland Cows.
19. Sleep. Both kinds.
20. The night of the destruction of Langham. Particularly the toilet door/staircase incident. You know what I'm talking about don't you Mr Gordon?
21. Young's beers.
22. Knots.

Stay tuned for the ranting, now I've written that list of joy, I can start foaming at the mouth. I have a serious bone (stop sniggering at the back) to pick with todays "rock" guitarists, lilly-livered ponces that most of them are. I'm just off to the shop for some good vodka, then I shall return to vent some spleen...

And Big Thanks Go Out To...

Whoever it was who didn't put any of us on the guest list for Cathedral last week...

Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic.

Those Little Knobbly Horns On A Giraffes Head Are Lightning Conductors

Cadmium is odd stuff. It's a metal, but you can slice through it with a knife like it's strange shiny cheese. I wouldn't eat it though. What I really like about cadmium is that it makes a really fucking cool noise. Get a long bar of the stuff and bend it. It screams. How cool is that? Scares the shit out of you if y're not expecting it. Which, let's face it, y're not.

For reasons that escape me, my brain soaks up completely useless information like a weird sponge*. What possible reasons could my unconcious mind have for squirreling away all this crap? Where the fuck does it put it all? How does it store it? Is memory persisitent or does the mind reconstruct memories anew whenever they are recalled? Is consciousness an emergent property of vastly complex quantum fields? Fuck knows. Is Marmite created by forcing millions of yeasts (is that the right word)to commit ritual suicide? Pretty much. Have I been at the bong again? Possibly. Am I likely to write anything remotely sensible this evening? Probably Not. Does the singer in Comets On Fire sound like Noddy Holder? Definitely. Am I going to tell you what's going on in my life? Not at this precise moment, no. Apart from to say Bloody Hell :-)

*(copyright Caspar Gordon 1995)

They Called It Pigfuck Part.1

At this moment, I'm very stoned and wearing an extremely dopey grin because I've just watched a DVD rerelease which I thought would never exist. The lovely people at Atavistic have kindly put out the mighty Amphetamine Reptile Records total-fucking-stupid-genius video compilation series Dope, Guns And Fucking Up Your Video Deck. I bought all three when they were originally released in 1990, 92 and 94, and somehow, over the years, all three have vanished in mysterious circumstances...

AmRep has a very special place in my heart, a record label which seemed to stand apart from it's contemporaries and which, for a few years, put out some of the greatest fucking rock music this planet has ever heard. In may ways, Sub Pop were probably the closest to them in spirit, but AmRep bands were more eccentric, more extreme, more willing to bend rock/punk/metal/whatever into shapes no one had thought of before. Dark as fuck a lot of it too, with a genuine psychotic edge that instills a sense that something isn't quite fucking right here. They may be way heavier now, but I doubt Today Is The Day are ever going to sound quite as menacing and downright wrong as they did on their AmRep albums.

They put out Helios Creed's greatest solo records; The Last Laugh, Boxing The Clown, Lactating Purple, Kiss To The Brain and Planet-X, all of them mindfuckers of the first order, particularly Boxing The Clown, which took psychedelia to a place no one else has ever been quite able to find again. Whenever the Melvins came up with an album whoever they were signed to at the time wouldn't touch with a bargepole, they turned to AmRep. There was Helmet's first couple of albums, including their debut Strap It On, an exercise in controlled precision bludgeoning which has been much imitated but rarely equalled over the years. The dense droning webs of riff which Tar built their oddly beautiful songs out of were another favourite. The glorious stupidity of the Cows, whose album title 'Sexy Pee Story' tells you everything you need to know about them and why they deserve your support, that and the fact that their singer could go "Bllllleeeeeeaaaaaaaaarrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!!!" better than anyone else I've heard.

Possibly the biggest bunch of maniacs on AmRep were the God Bullies. Their lead singer, Mike Hard, is one of the most deranged frontmen I've seen. Both live and in their videos, the look on his face alone would lead most people to conclude that his mechanism has snapped. Their track on Dope Vol.1, Cemetary, is one of my favourite songs ever, I mean, how can you go wrong with a fucking great slab of psych punk that's got lyrics like "Let's rock 'n' roll and worship Satan"? Especially when they're delivered by a lunatic dressed as a vicar who wields a wheelchair like an offensive weapon and has a nice line in singing songs whilst on fire. I don't think I've seen a front row at a gig quite as worried as when this lot played the AmRep Ugly American Overkill gig at The Venue. Scared is a better word actually. Mad bastard with big sharp crucifix, petrol and no sense of balance adds a little edge to a gig...

(Note for those who know of such things - Mike Hard uncannily resembles the legendary Dr Dent. Only a much more twisted version. Now you want to see the video don't you?)

Fuck it, I'm going to have to watch it again. Right now. And I'll finish this after. Or possibly tomorrow. I don't often wallow in nostalgia, but frankly this shit rocks.

Headbanging Is Good

I know I should write that entry on Palma, and blather on about what going on at the moment, and how I am and all that stuff, but I can't be arsed at the moment. This is, in part, because I've had a fantastically boring week and I don't want you all to fall asleep while y're reading this, but it's mainly because it's really hard to think when y're headbanging. Which is what I've been doing this afternoon. Some days, what one needs is Metal. Today is one of those days. My neck hurts now, which is why I'm writing this instead of continuing to bang my head. It's still hard to think tho, although that may be the wine. Or the grass. Or the beer. Or my special tooth pills. Anyway, I shall return tomorrow when I have something sensible to say. I'm going to put Reek Of Putrefaction on extremely loudly now and bang my head again. Possibly whilst reminiscing about when I had hair down to my arse and could do proper death metal hair twirling whilst soloing shamelessly.