I Know Load Records Are The New Amrep, But This Is Taking The Piss

I hear Tar. I hear Halo Of Flies. I hear Helmet, Scratch Acid and Rapeman, I hear Swallow and Blood Circus. Fuck me, I hear Tad and Bastards. Even the late and much lamented* Green Magnet School. Bitch Magnet, Lubricated Goat and Hammerhead and Chokebore... Need I go on? The new Noxagt (self-titled, Load Records) album is great, but it's an Amphetamine Reptile/Touch'n'Go/Wiiija Tribute album that's come about thirteen years too late. It's heavy. It's angular. It's discordant. Tight as a gnat's arse. No wasted notes...

No original ones either, and that's what disappoints. In replacing their departed viola loon with a guitarist, Noxagt have thrown themselves into the arena of possibly the most exacting of all "rock" line ups, the power trio, where yr musicianship is exposed to a greater extent and any paucity of ideas is right in the listeners face. In 1993, this album would have become an instant Pigfuck classic, but today, it sounds like an unecessary exercise in nostalgia, the product of a band who've discovered a stack of old Sounds back issues and are now attempting to sound like every band ever covered in the old Sound Of Speed column**. If this record had been made by a bunch of spotty 17 year olds, I could forgive it it's shortcomings, but it's by Noxagt for fucks sake, a band whose first two albums of grinding viola-led sludge encrusted muck sounded like nothing else recorded*** and left me with a big dumbfuck grin on my face which I had to remove with a stanley knife. The new guy on guitar has no excuse either, after all he's also Ultralyds guitarist, and he seems to be perfectly capable of realising a few new perspectives on the ancient art of guitar mangling on their stuff.

Don't get me wrong, this is a fucking good record, but it should have been so much more. Shame.

*By me anyways...

**Yeah, I know this makes me sound like an old git. I don't care.

***Except for a couple of tracks on Dying Ground's one release on Avant, but that motherfucker is a whole other kettle of sick. Remind me to write about that sometime...

Bad And Wicked People...

I'm listening to this right now at fucking stupid volume. Fuck, it's so, so good.

Hardcore Sweet Action

China White lollipops anyone? Just as well you can't buy these fuckers from the sweet shop...

Extreme Spacehopper Anyone? I've Got The Soundtrack...

Skullflower - Infinityland (HeadDirt)
Dave Angel - Classics (R&S)
Juan Atkins - The Berlin Sessions (Tresor)
Aufgehoben No Process w/Gary Smith - Magnetic Mountain (Junior Meat)
Hawkwind - The 1999 Party (EMI)
Chrome - Chronicles I & II (Siren)
Shifted Phases - The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Rupert J. Rosinthrope (Tresor)
Mouse On Mars - Iahora Tahiti (Too Pure)
Blue Cheer - OutsideInside (Mercury)
Sisters Of Mercy - Some Girls Wander By Mistake (Merciful Release)
Sleep's Holy Mountain (Earache)
Orange Sunshine - Homo Erectus (Motorwolf)
Mammatus - Mammatus (Rocket)
White Heaven - Out (PSF)
Slab - Slab (Release)
Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity (Relapse)
Ramleh - Be Careful What You Wish For (SFTRI)
Heldon - Allez-Teia (Spalax)
Boris - Mabuta No Ura (Essence)

Hayfever Fuck Off

If I wanted to end up with torrents of snot pouring from my red-raw nose, eyes so bloodshot and dry they feel like they've been wrung out and a suspected collapsed lung then I'd be doing hydrochloride meth cut with fucking drain cleaner, at least I'd have the energy to run totally amok. I am, as you may have guessed, not in a particularly good mood. Not that I'm going to tell you for why, cos aside from the hayfever and normal everyday werk shite, I'm in such a foul temper that I will say exactly the wrong thing, piss off exactly the wrong people and generally make a cunt of myself in a public manner. So yeah, not best pleased at the moment. I'll be alright when I can get home and lock myself in the fridge* until I cool off. A gallon of Pimm's and a lump of hash the size of a golfball should hopefully calm me down a little. Fuck it, I'm going home...

*Does the light go off? Soon the great mystery will be solved!

The Heaviest Thing Ever

There is heavy, there is heavy, then there is this. Sure you've got yr Earth 2s and yr Jerusalems and yr Lysols and yr Revenges and all the other great heavy shit, but they all pale into insignificance whn they come up against Infinityland by the immortal Skullflower. This is the closest thing to crucifixion most people will ever get, every drum a new nail, guitars splintering like brittle bones, each torrent of brainfucking noise another sputtering river of blood cut loose from the fleshy prison of the music. Harder, faster and just fucking nastier than anything else they've done, if anyone really wants to know how affecting, how dense, how emotional, how overwhelming noise really can be, play them this album. It contains the triple whammy of White Fang 2, Abraxas and Blood Orange, a trio of songs which make me feel as if I've had my brain pulled out through my nose with hooks and the cavity filled with psychedelic yeti sick. Obviously this makes me very happy. Find it, buy it and die a little in the best possible way.

A Lesson To Us All

This is how you deal with stressful situations. I don't know who this guy is, but the fucker's got style.

Sorry...

Is this the least PC drinking establishment ever? I'm guessing they have a ruthlessly enforced dress code...

This Fucking Beer's Green! I Know, It's Supposed To Be Green. I'll Drink It If You Don't Want It...

Back at fucking work again. I've just spent the last 9 days doing absolutely sweet fuck all except spending too much time in the pub, assaulting the eardrums of my neighbours, mainlining the usual huge quantities of music, films and books and trying to behave myself*. This weekend will be fondly remembered as green beer weekend. Because a lot of green beer** was consumed. When I say green, I don't mean that it was brewed using only organic ingredients (although it was), nor do I mean that it's all natural and lovely and unpasteurised (although it is). No, when I say green, I mean green as in the colour green, a deliciously dry and hoppy ale that happens to be a beautiful grassy green colour as well as being easier to drink than iced water in the desert. I can only apologise to the poor sods who are neighbours of the Quality Bureaux***. We understand that the sight of four obviously drug addled fools arseing around on the roof is not the most reassuring vista at half three on a sunday morning, but as my mate John pointed out, seeing a drunken twat standing on his roof doing air guitar (and bass) to Hatfield and the North**** actually makes a pleasant change to the normal saturday night sights in Croydon, i.e. fights, stabbings and the traditional Crown Point pitched battle/semi-riot which normally kicks off about 2am. Looked at in that light, getting drunk on green beer could almost be seen as a public service, albiet of a faintly nebulous and surreal bent, but fuck it, if we made one person laugh that can't be all bad can it?

*Not a hugely successful attempt, but then again, why break the habit of a lifetime?

**Spring Ale, can't remember the brewery, but you might find it in yr local fine ale emporium over the next few weeks.

***The real name of a friends house. Not an appropriate one tho considering his kitchen is much, much more untidy than mine. And smells of fish.

****Not actually a joke...

On Beautiful Days Like This, I Really Wish I Was A Happy Cat

I definitely have the feline solar power genes. I'm sitting behind my desk, bored shitless and cursing the crap air conditioning, feeling very jealous of the state of absolute and totally undignified relaxation that cats seem to be able to reach when the sun blazes down. The cat in the photo above is Rhoda, one of the Important Kittens*. If you follow the link you can meet the others too. Be warned, they are extremely cute and you will go "awwww" a lot.

*Important is a rather fantastic record label, putting out lots of lovely stuff like Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra which I urge you to buy, but even if everything they released was bollocks it wouldn't matter, cos they rescued the little balls of fluff and foolishness who became the Important Kittens.

My Inner Tart

Fuck. Look at 'em. So very wrong on so many levels. Want them. Furry fucking buffalo skin loafers? Genius. I've owned all sorts of foolish footwear, but these even beat my old lizard skin boots which I wore till the soles actually fell off. I want these shoes so much even though small children would probably point at them in the street and laugh. I've never let that stop me before and I'll be fucked if I'm going to start now. Although I would draw the line at matching trousers...

Mucky Boys

On the 3rd of July, the peace of the river at Embankment is going to be rudely shattered when London's gnarliest, grodiest and downright motherfuckin' rudest improv power trio will repeat their triumphant debut at the Klinker in front of, hopefully, you lucky bastards at the marvellous Boat Ting at the Yacht Club, Temple pier, right opposite Embankment station. Yep, you can thrill once more to the glory that is Bedshitting. On a boat. So I guess that makes it Boatshitting. Once again JCP will be doing the deconstruction boogie with the amazing collapsing drumkit whilst Hugh's violin slithers and coils like an epilleptic electric eel and I hack, retch and heave up lumps of projectile guitar cattarh all over the place. Imagine (Fred Frith's) Massacre fighting in a sack with the Magic Band and a lot of really angry (and very large) kittens. It sounds a little like that. But not much. Not a gig for the weak of stomach or bladder. You're going to love it. And as I said, it's on a nice boat between the Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges, it'll cost you a fiver, or £2.50 conc, plus there will be all sort of other sonic/poetic/visual/arty loveliness for you to sink yr brain into.

So, Shall I Stick A Broom Up Me Arse And Sweep The Floor While I'm At It?

Or perhaps I should make like an amoeba and undergo binary fission till there's enough of me to actually do the fucking stupid amount of werk that I've had dumped on me this week. This may come as some surprise to the people I werk for, but I'm not a Vedic deity or asura and therefore only have two arms, not eight or more... Oh, and any fucknut who uses the word 'urgent' to me when they really mean 'this has been sitting in my in-tray for several weeks and the deadline is rapidly drawing near and I haven't got a clue how to find my arse in the dark with a torch, let alone decipher this circuit diagram/G.A. drawing./contract/tender/whatthefuckever, please help me sort my life out in the next two picoseonds' will receive one of the following replies:

1. No (if I feel kindly, not fuckin' likely at the moment)
2. A massive volley of minutely detailed and extravagantly verbose abuse. (Most likely answer)
3. A severe and protracted beating with the fucking huge stillson wrench (see top left) which leans against my desk at all times in readiness for the day my fucking steam driven abacus gives up the ghost and I can smash it into tiny, tiny pieces. (Reserved for repeat offenders)

I'm In The Office And Really Fucking Bored. Can You Tell? Anyway, Here's That Now Photo

Told you. Mid-80s euro-metal hair. Jeebus fucking Christ. This is what happens when you have dreads down to yr arse and decide to get rid of them using a pair of garden shears and a small rake instead of shaving the fuckers off like a normal person... I would also like to point out that even then I owned more than one shirt, contrary to the evidence of the last two posts.

What The Fuck Have I Got In My Gob?

Any ideas? Cos I'm stumped. All I know is this photo is a few years old, I'm obviously off of my tits, it was probably taken at Langham Rd, possibly after a Superfluid rehearsal. Other than that my mind's a blank. What the fuck is it? A big tube of Araldite to the person who can identify and prove what it is...

Coming soon, the picture of Now live somewhere or other where my hair looks it would rather be playing 'The Final Countdown' than the groovesome krautmonster we were probably mid way through at the time...

Music To Deglue To

Helios Creed - Deep Blue Love Vacuum (Noiseville)
Various - Pebbles Vol.3: The Acid Gallery (AIP)
I.A. Bericochea - Sueño (Rojo)
Messiaen - Turangalila Symphony (Naxos)
Pharoah Overlord - 4 (Ektro)
Mahalia Jackson - Complete Columbia Recordings (Columbia)
Black Sabbath - Live In Paris 1970 (Bootleg)
Chrome - Blood On The Moon (Siren)
Model 500 - Classics (R&S)
OLD - Formula (Earache)
Jefferson Airplane - Bless It's Pointed Little Head (RCA)
High On Fire - Live (Relapse)
Scott Walker - Drift (4AD)
Hototogisu - Floating Japanese Gardens Ooof! (REP)
Xenakis - La Légende d'Eer (Mode)
Various - M2M (Minus)
Chas Smith - Descent (Cold Blue)
Howlin' Wolf - New Blues (Chess)
Pelt - Skullfuck (VHF)
Carl Craig - Landcruising (WEA)

Todo Huele De Araldite

I haven't been sniffing glue, honest. It's the shit I have to spray up my nose twice a day to keep the dreaded pollen beast at bay, Fluticasone Propionate* it's called. Makes the whole world smell of 70s glue. I could be standing in front of a huge pot of the most wonderful curry in the world, bubbling away under my nose, and would I be able to smell it? Would I fuck, the whole fucking world smells like Araldite. I couldn't even smell the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery in Silvertown this morning and on a bad day you can smell that fucker for 3 or 4 miles. You know what I could smell though? Yep...



It's all I can taste too, which is weird. Even spliffs and cigs taste of it, I'm living in epoxyworld at the moment. Maybe if I just shoved one tube up one nostril and the other up the other**... No, it would make huffin' stuff a bit tricky. And breathing. And smelling. Plus I really do draw the line at solvent abuse. Well, that and tropane alkaloids, which are another story altogether***

*The dosage of this suff is tiny, 50 micrograms a snort, which makes me wonder just how strong this shit is, cos the only things that spring to mind with similarly low active dosages are my old mates LSD-25 and Salvinorin-A...

**The other up the other... hmmmmm, I shall store that phrase away until such times as... anyway...

***And not one that I'm telling you bastards just yet.