It’s happening again, and again it’s The Heavy Sounds hosting it. Clint’s put up a list of what he’s getting in – http://shop.theheavysounds.co.uk/RSD/index.html. If it’s anything like last year make sure you get there early to queue up for the rarities, and the earlier you get there the more likely you are to be queuing up under a roof as well.
Unfortunately I’m not going to make it this year as I’m going to be busy cycling to Skegness and back, c’est la vie.
Good way to put the morning’s alcohol connected recovery to use, I’ve done a first pass of last night’s Infest photos. It’s been all change this year with the venue, so the stage is in a different place and is a slight different shape this year, but I like it so far (at least for photos, as I’ve not really watched a band except through a viewfinder yet :))
Going to take me a while to get them all up (2 more nights , and I’m taking film shots as well) so thought I’d start with some work in progress ones.
So in this batch there’s 1 for Mandro1d, 1 for De/Vision and one for the Infest legend that is it’s compere Tails
Right, 2 hours till the next Infest band. But going via the Love Music Hate racism gathering that’s going on behind our hotel
So today was the second celebration of Record Store Day in the UK (or at least the second as far as I know). Celebrating this in Nottingham were the good folks at The Heavy Sounds, who’d got the East Midlands allocation of the limited edition singles. So in the hope of getting hold of the Bruce Springsteen 10″ I decided to start queueing at 09:30, only to find I was 30 back in the queue (number 1 had arrived about 6ish, and number 9 had turned up at 8, I’m not quite that keen).
Don’t know if the other traders in the West End Arcade knew what was happening as the queue kept building up and up (I reckong there must have been at least a 100 people or more in the queue). 10 o’clock turned up and we all started filing in in an orderly fashion (don’t think we were going to be allowed to do anything else). Took a fair while for everyone to filter in (think I got in about 11:10), but this left plenty of time to chat in the queue. Seemed to be lots of genuine music fans taking the time out to make sure they grab something so there was plenty of far ranging conversation.
Got the Bruce EP, the Nick Cave 12″ and the JAMC 7″. Plus I couldn’t resist the Surfer Blood 7″ after seeing it had an Allen Blickle (Baroness) remix on the b-side, and also this wonderful cover:
Surfer Blood - Swim 7" cover
The saddest part of the day was standing in the queue and a group of us all discussing all the independent music shops that have shut down in Nottingham over the years. But the good bit was supporting the one that’s still there (none of us could think of any others in Nottingham open atm).
Hopefully we’ll be back next year. And hopefully the Creperie will have worked out that they could make a fortune delivering cups of tea and coffee to the queuers :).
I’m a very enthusiastic user of last.fm (for the whole horror story of my music taste look here).
In the past I’ve always used various methods to make sure that my mp3 players have synced up with last.fm so I get everything scrobbled. With my previous iPod I used lastPod to update everytime I synced, which while manual was a pretty good solution.
So with an iPhone with a connection I was thinking, surely there must be a way to scrobble my tracks. Either while I’m walking along, or quickly as soon as I get within range of a friendly Wi-Fi network.
Unfortunately due to Apple’s restrictions on ‘official’ apps the Last.FM client can’t scrobble tracks (this is due to the restriction on apps running in the background).
But thanks to a jailbreak, I had another option. Scrobbl, a small free application available from the bigboss repository. The installation is the usual Cydia one and once completed you have a nice new Scrobbl icon available on the launcher.
Fire this up and it prompts for your username/password for last.fm. Enter these and then it pops up with the settings view.
You can pick whether the app should try scrobbling over your phone link (I’ve supposedly ‘unlimited’ internet so I’ve let it), whether podcasts should be scrobbled,
You also get some quick stats about how many songs you’ve scrobbled and how many are queued. The queue is great, you can listen away while you have no connection and then when you do reconnect Scrobbl will upload all your queued tracks to last.fm. Excellent.
Such a small simple app, but for a music obsessive like me it just makes the iPhone so much better. Unfortunately I now have to be careful what I listen to, no more secretly bopping away to crap 80′s pop in secret.
Saturday saw a trek down to Brixton for the now annual Carter USM reformation gigs. Well annual for everyone but me as I missed the last 2 by double booking myself (Drop Dead in Prague and Carcass at Damnation respectively), so as it’s 12.5 years since I saw them last (Rock city, May 2007) I was determined to make this one.
After the customary pint in the Beehive head across to the Academy. Very busy getting in, but the merch stall was nice and quick so replaced some t-shirts with some newer less stained versions and headed into the main hall. Very full, but thankfully there was still a reasonable amount of space to stand around to chat and drink.
The chants of You Fat Bastard started up the minute Jon Beast was spotted. He appeared to be wearing underwear and bubblewrap, but thankfully from my view point I can’t confirm if the underwear was there or not:).
Setlist for this was nice and easy. Play all of 30 Something, and then 101 Damnations, then finish with a couple of single tracks and some covers.
Sound was great throughout. The passion and performance came piling off the stage. The Audience were all well up for it, decent sized outbreak of pogoing at the front, and the anti crowd-surfing posters the the front were just a joke :). Every word has someone singing along, even the samples got a good shouting out. Despite the lack of baggy shorts I felt 15 again.
Closing with Rent just reminded me that Carter and the Pet Shop boys are both ’2 blokes with a drum machine’, the difference being that Carter went to the pub and got a sense of humour.
Hopefully the threats that that might have been the last ever show turn out to be just empty ones. not a band I want to reform, but I sure like the option to see them now and again.
Saturday saw a trek down to Brixton for the now annual Carter USM reformation gigs. Well annual for everyone but me as I missed the last 2 by double booking myself (Drop Dead in Prague and Carcass at Damnation respectively), so as it’s 12.5 years since I saw them last (Rock city, May 2007) I was determined to make this one.
After the customary pint in the Beehive head across to the Academy. Very busy getting in, but the merch stall was nice and quick so replaced some t-shirts with some newer less stained versions and headed into the main hall. Very full, but thankfully there was still a reasonable amount of space to stand around to chat and drink.
The chants of You Fat Bastard started up the minute Jon Beast was spotted. He appeared to be wearing underwear and bubblewrap, but thankfully from my view point I can’t confirm if the underwear was there or not:).
Setlist for this was nice and easy. Play all of 30 Something, and then 101 Damnations, then finish with a couple of single tracks and some covers.
Sound was great throughout. The passion and performance came piling off the stage. The Audience were all well up for it, decent sized outbreak of pogoing at the front, and the anti crowd-surfing posters the the front were just a joke :). Every word has someone singing along, even the samples got a good shouting out. Despite the lack of baggy shorts I felt 15 again.
Closing with Rent just reminded me that Carter and the Pet Shop boys are both ’2 blokes with a drum machine’, the difference being that Carter went to the pub and got a sense of humour.
Hopefully the threats that that might have been the last ever show turn out to be just empty ones. not a band I want to reform, but I sure like the option to see them now and again.
Monday 26th sees Amon Amarth playing The Rescue Rooms with Entombed supporting. Should be a good gig, and excellent to see another band either picking to, or being moved to the Rescue Rooms rather than suffering the Basement. Not quite sure if we’ll be going yet as we’ve see both bands twice this year, but it should be a great show.
Thursday 29th sees Therapy? playing the Rescue Rooms, with support from Ricky Warwick and You Slut! Been years since I’ve seen Therapy?, I can remember them playing pretty high up the bill at Reading at the height of their popularity though.
Friday and Saturday I’ll not be in Nottingham for gigs, as we’ll be at Wembley for the Fleetwod Mac gigs (eclectic music tastes, we have them).
And then back to Rock City on Sunday 1st Nov to see Absu. Supported by Pantheon I, Razor of Occam and Zoroaster. Looking forward to this one. Was a little miffed when Nachmystium were replaced by Pantheon I, but having a had a listen to some bits and pieces it’s not too bad a swap.
Bummer, appears tonight’s Goldblade gig at Seven has been cancelled. Rats, that’s put my evening’s plan to rest. Could be tempted by Editors at Rock City, but it’s not a cheap night out.
Well it looks like shaping up for some pretty good festivals next year.
Just booked the hotel for the Leipzig Wave Gotik Treffen, now debating whether to fly or take the train. No bands announced yet (as usual), but still 4 days in a beautiful city overrun with Goths, Punks and associated weirdos is always good for the soul.
Hellfest is shaping up nicely with Immortal, Twisted Sister, Behemoth and Finntroll. Think I might even invest in some cheap tickets before the end of November. This time the transport debate is between Flying and Driving, depending on what car we have at the time.
And last but not least the UK’s own Bloodstock is shaping up nicely with Behemoth, Obituary and a load more to be announced. if some of the rumours are true, this it going to be an impressive year.
I’m sure we’ll find plenty more to fit in around that lot as well. 2010 is looking to be a fun year.
Got into Rock City about songs into Suicide Silence‘s set. Got to say it didn’t do anything for me. I’ve got “The Cleansing” and didn’t think it was too bad as an album. I think the main problem was the vocals, there just wasn’t any real depth or command in them. There was a good racket from the drummer, though nothing amazing and the string section were passable. But at nearly twice the age of a lot of the crowd, what do I know?
Managed to get pretty close to the front for Behemoth. Amused by the chants for the band, seemed to be a bit of confusion about how exactly to pronounce it. Opening with “Ov Fire and The Void” from the new album was great, setting the bar high for the rest of the set. Which they hit, Slaves shall server was immense. The entire band were on top form. Inferno’s drumming was tight and fast, the Orion seemed to be having fun. And Nergal was on fine form, though touring with the Americans does seem to have had some influence on his stage manner. Where I was stood the crowd were really into the entire set, with some of the younger members of the audience having fun in a circle pit just behind. Only slight downsides were the constant leaving of the stage between songs to swap kit over, and finishing on a slow number.
retired to the Merch stand (lovely all over Evangalion print T-shirt purchased), grabbed a beer and watched DevilDriver from the back. Pretty competent set, but after about 4 songs it was all sounding a bit samey and nothing was really grabbing us so we decided the pub was a better use of time. After a slight fan moment as it was realised we were stood next to Behemoth (they scrub up well out of the stage gear) we headed off to the Tap.
Looking forward to seeing Behemoth again, hopefully headlining themselves next time. But looks like there’s at least 2 dates to look forward to next year as Hellfest and Bloodstock.
Photos from Joolz Denby, New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack and The James Warner Prophecies performing at Seven in Nottingham on the 11th October 2009.
Didn’t take too many as it wasn’t really the sort of gig for wandering around at and I was worried by just how load the mirror slap on the 30D might have sounded (it was a seated show of acoustic and spoken word performances), and guessed that dragging out a huge flash might have made me unpopular.
Happy news of the night was that my 50mm/1.4 worked flawlessly. It started playing up at another gig a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been prevaricating on sending it away ever since. So glad it’s working though as it’s a lovely little lens in low light non-flash situations.
The James Warner Prophecies performing at Seven
New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack performing at Seven
So a thursday night trip into nottingham town for a gig at the old angel, been a while since I’ve done that.
unfortunately another late appearance due to sickness and work, but we were still there for just after 9 having been warned via Facebook that the place was looking very busy. It certainly was. Ended up grabbing a pint and chatting to people downstairs (could have done without Roy’s Rock Karaoke having now spread out from the Sal) for a bit.
Remembering why we’d turned up we headed upstairs to catch Afternoon Gentlemen (I think, I’ve no idea so apologies if I offended anyone). Good short focused set.
Then time for the main act. The only time I’ll get to see Insect Warfare. And boy they don’t disappoint. Straight off from the start. People going wild, pint glasses shattering off the roof (so much for the ‘plastics only upstairs’ policy). A variety of vocalists clamber on to help out, none of which I recognise. And as usual there’s no chance of a setlist from me, not even songs stand out, just a short wall of aggression. At most it was a 25 minute set, with one begrudging encore before the band starts stripping the stage.
So another night ends on a high with ringing ears. Need more of this.
Slight break until Sunday when Joolz Denby will be performing at Seven:
Looking forward to seeing this one. Saw her perform there a couple of years ago (memories of walking into town through a snow storm), and looking forward to repeating it :) (plus I’ve got my tickets so I’ve got a veggie curry to look forward to):
On Monday there’s a talk organised by the BCS about the Enigma code breaking efforts during World War II – detail @ http://nottmderby.bcs.org/events09-sep.php (plus there’s a chance to have a go on an original Enigma).
And it’s at Chameleon Arts Cafe, which I’ve never been to. So hopefully rectify that one on Thursday. Apparently it’s above the clinton cards on Angel Row.
Friday night we’ll be enjoying Finntroll at Rock City:
And then on Sunday another Torturous promotions Gig rears it’s head, Middenhelm+The Atrocity Exhibit+Pure Negative+Anger Management @ The Old Angel in Nottingham.
As part of their “To Victory” tour, Middenhelm and The Atrocity Exhibit are coming to Nottinghams’ Old Angel.
Middenhelm were due to play Damaged Stock, but had to pull out at the last minute due to illness. If you were looking forward to watching them, this is the perfect opportunity to catch them in action!
So tootled down to birmingham reasonably quickly barring the obligatory missing of a junction on the A38 we got there just as doors were opening.
Think we’d managed a pint and a look at the merch before Morgue Orgy appeared on stage. I’d never heard of them before. quite a few of them on stage (6 I seem to remember). Liked they way they came through with plenty of influences. Definitely lots of old Death and Grind influences, with the bass player trying some funkier stuff in places and a more ‘Power Metal’ influence in some of the guitar work. Seemed to have bought a lot of mates with them which meant they had a decent crowd and some energy going. New EP out soon which I’ll probably try and obtain.
Then came FukPig. Either their 1st or 2nd gig depending on who you talk to. Anaal Nathrakh members and Ex-Mistress members (OK, they’ll be properly Ex after damnation but let’s not quibble here). Coming on in a blaze of wrestling masks and corpse painted ski masks they blasted through a short and sweet set. There’s no way I can remember which songs were played only having had the latest album for 2 weeks. Lot’s of energy. Just a shame it was such a short set, didn’t time it but it only felt like about 15 minutes.
Next up were Trigger the Bloodshed. The name rang a bell, but I can’t remember where from. Seemed to be a competent enought band, but they just really didn’t do anything for me or the others I was with. So we retired to the front bar for a quick drink and sit down.
And then it was time for the main event Anaal Nathrakh. They opened with ‘In the Constellation of the Black Widow’ the title track of the new album. That was enough to get me down the front into the small pit that formed. No chance of a coherent setlist from me. Though they worked there way backwards through the albums for the last 7 songs. Ones that defitely appeared include “Der Hölle Rache Kocht In Meinem Herzen”, “The Destroying Angel” with Pandemic Hyperblast closing the set. V.I.T.R.I.O.L. was trying to whip the crowd up throughout the set, successfully, with a reasonable pit breaking out and quite a number of stage divers.
Cracking gig. Almost wished they played more, but it makes these one offs more special.
Doubt I’ll take a camera (doubt I’d get an SLR in anyways). But it should be a great gig anyway. Not seen AN before, but a huge fan. Could do with a new hoody, so hopefully they’ll have some there.
Just seen this advert. Looks like another Black Metal documentary on it’s way. From what I can gather it’s mainly interviews with Fenriz and Varg (though I think I saw Frost in there, and the internet belief is that the Stephen hawkings impersonator at about 0:12 is in fact Bard). There’s quite a few out there (either proper DVD ones or youtube ones) so it’ll be interesting to see. Though at the moment it’s only just about to hit cinemas, and so far the only UK showing is at a film festival in London. Hopefully it’ll make it on to DVD quickly, or Broadway decide to show it.
So spotify is about to go mobile , http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8169971.stm, and as usual it’s being touted as a ‘something killer’. In this case Apple’s iTunes.
I use spotify on occassion. Having a huge music collection that isn’t completely ripped yet it’s often much easier if entertaining to plug the laptop into the HiFi and then use spotify to stream the album than it is to try and find it. It’s also great at work when I forget my portable drive with the music collection on it. There are some gaps in the library, but they tend to be the very obscure or back catalogue things, and it seems to be improving all the time.
But as a mobile app? It could be great, but there’s a couple of things need fixing before it’s going to really take off:
1) Mobile networks need to catch up on the speed and availability. I’m on T-mobile and still find it takes far to long to load even simple pages over 3G let alone stream audio. OK, phones doe voice but that’s at a much lower quality than I’d want to listen to music at. Plus I regularly lose 3G coverage, and that would be far too slow for audio
2) Phones need to get better battery life. I reckon a solid 2 hour listen to spotify on any mobile device at the moment would run the battery flat. So that’s pretty much one reasonable train journey and your mobile’s dead.
3) Allow you to download the tracks. Following on from 1+2 there’s plenty of times when I’d like to listen to music when I don’t have mobile signal. So it’d be nice if I could have some way of saving or caching these tracks.
So until that little lot get’s sorted then I think I’ll be sticking with having offline copies of songs and only save Spotify for those days I forget to take the portable drive to work. The only thing I can see it being used for would be to turn an iWhatever into a nice little portable streaming device on a home wireless network.
But the interesting thing could be waiting for see if Apple approve’s this for the iTunes store. That could be an indication of how worried they are by it.
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