Oops, been getting a bit lax about posthing these up with one thing and another. So quickly getting the last 2 bands out of queue.

So here’s Nachtmahr. Didn’t really know much about this band, but I’ve caught L’Âme Immortelle a few times over the years (Nachtmahr being a sideproject of Thomas Rainer from L’Âme Immortelle)

Moving swiftly on through the Sunday lineup we get to Ayria. Good fun bouncy ebm tunes and plenty of energy coming off the stage

Website – http://www.ayria.com
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/ayria

As Flickr doesn’t appear to be letting my flickr gallery stuff work properly at the moment, here’s a direct link to the other Ayria Photos here

Moving on up throught Sundays bands and we get to Patenbrigade Wolff. Pounding rythyms based around a stage show that seems to be based on German Road menders. Though as it seemed to involve lot of wandering round swigging beer I’m not sure how true to life it was :)

Website – http://www.electronic-music.org/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/patenbrigadewolff

So it’s that time of year when afficinados of real ale traipse up to nottingham castle to sample the delights of the nottingham beer festival.

For the past couple of years I’ve made sure to book the first thursday of the festival off of work to make sure I get a nice relaxed chance to sample the ales. And this year was no exception. Starting off at the Malt Cross with a jacket potato to make sure the stomach was amply lined we wandered up to the castle to work through the barrels.

Being me, I decided to stick to the darker side of beer and make the most of the stouts and porters on offer. So the following were drunk: (numbers relate to the festival programme, and any spelling errors are down to trying to type on an iPhone while drinking).

284 Mallinsons – porker porter – little thin for me. Roasted taste, good starter.

63 Bottle Brook – paranoid – def a porter in my book. Good solid porter but let down by no uniqueness. Would be good for a session though as a litle lighter than most.

135. Driftwood – Bolsters blood. Another good porter good strong taste but doesn’t linger too long. Only slightly chocy to me, but that’s me.

84. Brown Cow – Thriller in vanilla. Very nice. Vanillla touch just right. Goes lovely with oysters. And chilli sauce.

Waen blackbery stout. Awful didn’t even finish raster (Updated: – Please see the comment below from the brewery. I’m more than happy to accept that it was a bad cask, and hopefully I’ll get to have a try at a later point).

707. Nook brewhouse cherry stout. Very smooth, very slight hint of cherrymess but not overpowering. Litle thin but very drinkable.

622 – Brewdog – paradox. 10% very strong. Lovely taste of whisky, a nice big sherry cask? Lovely taste but too strong really for a festival sup. Quite Jammy almost. Wish they had offered this in 1/4 pints, as 1/2 pint was a bit too much. Despite offering it around I had to pour some away :(

699 – muirhouse – jolly roger stout. Very nice. Decent taste that cut through the prevous, just the right amount of bitterness and fruiteness for a stout.

341 – Potbelly – Pigwash. Good honest beer. Almost coffe like bitterness. Liitle acidic for me.

430. Tempest. Smokehouse Vanilla porter. Nice and smooth with a slight
after taste. No obvious vanilla notes, but that might be due to all the previous beers

So another succesful Nottingham beer festival. The only improvement I’d like to see from Nottingham Camra is a few more seats. Maybe some of the long bench style seats you get at german beer festivals? The little round ones they offer now seat too few people.

The outstanding beer for me was the brewdog paradox, I’d love to settle down at home with a bottle of that to last the evening, but it’s not a beer for drinking with others. For a night out drinking I’ve definitely go for Brown Cow’s Thriller in Vanilla.

These guys I did really enjoy (and would be enjoying right now if I’d managed to get to their merch stall, and if failing that MusicNonStop had decided to take less than 4 weeks to ship me a CD!). Good old fashioned shouty stompy political stuff always goes down well, even first thing in the afternoon.

And they were the only band over the weekend I felt like breaking out the film camera for as well, though those photos probably won’t appear for a bit as I’m working through a backlog.

Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/concretelung

And moving onto Sunday we start off with one of Saturday’s bands. By all account Parralox had a hard time making it to the stage, but a hastily rearranged set saw them opening up on Sunday afternoon

Website -http://www.parralox.com/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/parralox

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

On to the Saturday night headliners Rotersand.

Website – http://www.rotersand.net/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/rotersand

Moving on up through Saturday lineup we get to German “Industrial Terrorists” [X]-Rx. Nicely photogenic and a pretty good noise coming off stage, certainly got the crowd up and moving.

Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/xrxindustrial

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

As we clambered into the Press pit we were warned “It might get messy”, oh and how right they were. We had fake sperm and fake blood aplenty with Agonoize.  We got very good at spotting when the singer was ‘plumbed’ up for some blood action, and it went a fair way (you can see the pressure it was under in the photo up top)

Website – http://www.agonoize.com/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/agonoize

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

And moving into day 2 of Infest the opening band were Northern Kind. A nice laid back start to the day, which had been a bit of a bizarre start thanks to all the police horses that’d been drafted in to keep the EDL ****s in order.

Website – http://www.northernkind.net/
Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/northernkinduk

My Infest 2010 photo archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

And moving onto the first headliner for 2010, De/Vision. Not a band I’d heard much by, but the crowd certainly seemed to be enjoying their synthpop stylings. Good upbeat way to finish off the first night.

Nice lighting on stage, but I wish I’d had something wider on the 30D as the band we pretty spaced out around the stage so was hard to get them all in from the stage edge.

In other news, I’ve just been asked to submit some of my photos from Infest for publication. So here’s hoping they like what I’ve sent them. No names yet, just in case they don’t ;).

Myspace  – http://www.myspace.com/devisionmusic

Website – http://www.devision-music.com

Infest 2010 archive – http://napalmgram.co.uk/wordpress/index.php/category/infest-2010/

Right, back from the States, Nottingham half marathon completed, and I’ve stopped panicing about colours as my work monitor is just crap so it’s time to get on with some more Infest photos.

Starting off just like the festival with Mandro1d

So we kicked off with a band I’d never heard of, and of course I hadn’t read my programme by this point either. So it took me slightly longer than most to catch on to the humour in the songs (never claimed to be quick on the uptake).  But soon saw the funny side of songs like “The summer of 6.9“, the one that rips off Headhunter and the free advertising for Jaeger and MusicNonStop meant there was plenty to laugh at

Mandro1d Myspace – http://www.myspace.com/mandro1d

Taken a bit longer today as had to the drive back from Bradford. But here’s a couple of previews of photos coming from Day 3 at Infest. From the top we have Project Pitchfork, Ayria and Concrete Lung

Pitchfork really finished the festival off brilliantly, and Concrete Lung were really impressive. Unfortunately I spent so long faffing around trying to find people that I didn’t get a chance to pick up their CD.

Day 1 Previews – Infest 2010 photos day 1
Day 2 Previews – Infest 2010 photos day 2

And so day 2 of Infest’s first pass of photos is done. 1 each for Agonoize, Memmaker and Northern kind.

About to head up for day 3, starting earlier as Parralox have been rescheduled for 3, so it’s going to have to be a fast walk up the hill

Day 1 photos from Infest 2010 here

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 another Infest, another DJ slot in the 2nd bar. And this is what I played:

Inca babies – Evil Hour
Rubella Ballet – Money Talks
Bloody Dead & Sexy – Hey ho Armegeddon
Miguel and the Living Dead –  Aliens wear sunglasses
Joy Disaster – Artemis
Fangs on Fur – Cigarette
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Talk about the Weather
1919 – Machine
Chameleons – In Shreds
New Model Army – No Rest for the Wicked
Killing Joke – WarDance
Gun Club – Sex Beat
PiL – Public Image
Alien Sex Fiend – Walk the Line
Virgin Prunes – Caucasian Walk
Die Krupps – Fatherland
Skinny Puppy – Assimilate
Ministry – Jesus Built my Hotrod

Well Infest is back on this year, and looking forward to it. Though for a bit of blatant self-promotion I thought I’d just mention that I did the promo shots for this year – http://infestuk.com/press.html. And the kind organisers have agreed to let me DJ on the Friday night on the 2nd floor, so I didn’t annoy too many people when I DJed in 2008 then :).

Now these were a fun band to watch. Full on medieval garb, swords being swung and goblets of blood being drunk. I seem to remember some ‘vomiting’ of blood, but thankfully the camera was kept far enough out of reach :)

Heimataerde MySpace
Heimataerde Webpage

So I’ve been a little tardy getting these up (18 months), but finally i’ve gone back and got them all sorted out. Half the time was taken trying to find the portable drive I’d stashed them on. There you go kids, tip number 2154, make sure you remember where you leave your photos (this is something moving onto film will make easier as I can just keep them all in a box in the cupboard :) )

First up are a couple of bands where I only got one or 2 of them (unfortunately a lot of EBM bands don’t actually move much, so chance for interesting shots are a little rare).

Marsheaux:

Coreline:

Noisuf-X:

More will appear shortly.

And if everything has worked behind the scenes this should also mean i’ve rejoined LJ, and in a moment of synchronicity these are the pictures I needed to sort out in my last post

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.