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That sound you hear is my ears ringing

It’s been a musical week for me. On Tuesday 20 October, I saw Tinariwen in concert. They’re a Tuareg band from Mali. I’ve liked their music since seeing a documentary on the Festival in the Desert seven or eight years ago. They proved much better live than I expected. I bought their new album, Imidiwan: Companions, at the gig, and it’s better than the previous one. Here’s some Tinariwen:

And then I spent Saturday 24 October in Leeds at the Damnation Festival. I’d thought about going to this the last couple of years, but the line-up never appealed. This year, it definitely did. I got to see three bands I like a great deal – Mithras, Anathema and Akercocke. Mithras played with their new line-up, with Sam Bean, ex-The Berzerker, replacing Rayner Coss on bass and vocals. Anathema performed a somewhat over-the-top “best of” set, but it was bloody good. Akercocke weren’t wearing suits. Also there were Rotting Christ, whose last album Theogonia is good. The headline act was Life of Agony, but I wasn’t too impressed. But still, a good festival – much better than I’d expected.


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Normal Service Will Be Resumed Shortly…

I’ve been feeling a bit uninspired blog-wise recently, but since I’ve just done another “double whammy” on the music front I’ll post about it…

A double whammy is two gigs on two consecutive nights. This time it was French metal band Gojira on the 13th March, followed by prog rock band Magenta on 14th March. Both were excellent.

Here’s some Gojira for you.

And here’s a bit of Magenta.


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The Year in Question – 2008

It’s not quite the end of the year but, with Christmas coming up, now is probably a good time to look back at the books I read, the films I watched, and the albums I bought in 2008. And… it was a bit of an odd year. I caught a new “enthusiasm”. Aircraft. Specifically, jet bombers and interceptors of the Cold War. And 1930s flying boats. And no, I’ve no idea why those in particular. But I bought and read books on the B-3, 6, Avro Vulcan, XB-70, BAC Lightning, Tu-16 Badger, de Havilland Sea Vixen, and the Short Empire flying boat, among many others. Oh, and the Bristol Brabazon, because the noise its engines made is really impressive – see this video of its test flight here, around the 3:50 minute mark as it takes off.

But back to the books read, films seen, etc. By December 18, I’d read 213 books (a new record for me) but, as usual, had bought more. Science fiction still formed the bulk of my fiction reading – 62% of it, in fact – but no heartland sf novels were good enough to make the grade as best of the year. I also read considerably more non-fiction than I’ve read in previous years – more than half my total reading. And I also read a lot of graphic novels – fifty-four, to be precise.

I watched 245 films and/or assorted seasons/series of television programmes, most of which were on DVD. And most of which weren’t all that good. There were the contents of the two 50-movie boxed sets, of course. That started out as fun, but soon turned into a chore. And some of the crappy sf and fantasy films I bought cheap on eBay proved to be less entertaining than I’d hoped or imagined. Some didn’t – and I included them in my Top Ten Obscure SF Films. I also started watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for the first time, and discovered that I found (most of) the cast more appealing than in other Trek franchises. Having said that, the series’ treatment of terrorism and the like compares unfavourably with the new Battlestar Galactica‘s treatment of similar subjects. But then Deep Space Nine is pre-9/11.

On the music front, I attended twelve gigs and two festivals (Bloodstock and the Day of Unrest), and saw 46 bands perform live. That included several favourites – Dark Tranquillity, Blue Öyster Cult, Mostly Autumn (twice), Opeth, Pelican, Anathema, Mithras… In 2007, I tried to go to a gig a month, but failed. This year, I managed it – although that’s averaging it out over the year. I’ll have to see if I can do the same in 2009.

I bought around the same number of CDs as in previous years. Some bands I like released new albums – Opeth, Gojira, Martriden, Mostly Autumn, Scar Symmetry, and Anathema. The Opeth and the Anathema made my top five. I also discovered some new bands (some of which were, er, actually old), and a couple of them quickly became favourites. It was quite a good year for music.

Oh, and in 2008 I also became a book reviewer for Interzone and a DVD reviewer for VideoVista.

But on with the best of the year…

Books

The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles (1969)
I’d seen the film many years before, and had a vague recollection of the plot. I’d also read other books by Fowles and I hold a high opinion of his fiction. But I’d somehow missed reading this one. So I took it with me on a business trip to Stuttgart… and couldn’t put it down. I hadn’t expected it to be so engrossing a read. Beautifully-written, clever, and affecting.

The Jewel in the Crown, Paul Scott (1966)
This was my October book for my 2008 Reading Challenge, and I loved it so much I immediately added Scott’s novels to my wants list. And I’m looking forward to reading the remaining three books of the Raj Quartet. I wrote about it here.

The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow (2008)
This is the only book in my top five which was actually published in 2008. I don’t actually read that many original anthologies – well, not unless they’re themed and the theme interests me, such as The New Space Opera or The Space Opera Renaissance. But I’d read a number of very approving reviews of this anthology, so I bought it. And… it’s a very strong anthology indeed. I wasn’t convinced by every story, but the overall standard was impressively high – albeit some stories worked better for me than others.

Sixty Days and Counting, Kim Stanley Robinson (2007)
This is the final book in Robinson’s Science in the Capital trilogy, and is a perfect indication of why Robinson is such an important sf writer. The book is educational – if not didactic – but eminently readable all the same. A fitting end to a trilogy which should be read by more people. Especially people who don’t believe in climate change.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon (2007)
I’m clearly not the only person who thought this was very good – it won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award and Sidewise Award. Deservedly. I wrote about it here.

Honorable mentions:
Collected Poems, Bernard Spencer (1981)
I think I can safely say that 2008 was the Year of Poetry for me. I started reading considerably more of it, and I even had a go at writing it (see one effort here). And of the poems I read during the year, Bernard Spencer’s were among the best. Admittedly, this collection contains everything he published, so it’s no surprise it’s strong.

Matter, Iain M Banks (2008)
A new Culture novel is a matter for celebration, and while this one was certainly better than Banks’ last sf novel, the very disappointing The Algebraist (which wasn’t a Culture novel), it wasn’t as good as earlier ones. I wrote about it here.

Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, Ian Edginton & D’Israeli (2006)
Probably the best graphic novel I read in 2008. This is a sequel of sorts to a sequel of sorts to HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds. Its concept is perhaps not the most original idea ever – after the Martians die, the British empire reverse-engineers their technology – but it’s well handled. Great art too. The Great Game just wins out over Scarlet Traces because of a cameo by Dan Dare and Digby.

Films
Rio Bravo, dir. Howard Hawks (1959)
The plan was to work my way through the Time Out Centenary Top 100 Films, which is why I stuck this one on my rental list. I’m no fan of westerns, but there were a few in the Top 100 – The Searchers, The Wild Bunch… and Rio Bravo. And I have to admit Rio Bravo didn’t seem as though it would appeal: John Wayne, Dean Martin (playing a drunk!), Ricky Nelson… Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson sing a duet! Sheriff has to defend town against evil cattle baron’s henchmen bent on vengeance, with drunken gunslinger and callow youth to help! So many clichés! But. I loved it. I even went out and bought the special edition DVD – once it no longer broke the Rule of DVD*, of course.

In The Shadow Of The Moon, dir. David Sington & Christopher Riley (2006)
My enthusiasm for all things space-related remains undimmed, although I didn’t buy as many books on the subject as last year – well, I still have a huge pile of them to read. This film pretty much explains the appeal. It consists chiefly of talking-head interviews with those involved in the Apollo project, interspersed with film of the various missions. As you hear the astronauts talking matter-of-factly about their trips to the Moon, you soon realise what an astonishing achievement it was. It should be repeated. Soon.

The Dark Knight, dir. Christopher Nolan (2008)
My only trip to the cinema in 2008 was to see this film. It’s a less baroque treatment of Batman than its predecessor – Gotham City resembles Chicago more than the weird Gothic metropolis of Batman Begins. Heath Ledger steals the film as the Joker, but he has excellent support from Aaron Eckhart, Christian Bale, and Gary Oldman. Maggie Gyllenhall makes a better Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes did, but the character still seems mostly peripheral. Perhaps the film did at time feel like two films welded together – the Joker story, and the Two-Face story. But the various set-pieces more than made up for it. I’ll be getting the DVD.

Autumn Sonata, dir. Ingmar Bergman (1978)
Okay, so Bergman was sure to appear somewhere on this list, although it was a toss-up between this one and Shame (see below). But Autumn Sonata just wins out because it’s the less contrived of the two. Famous pianist Ingrid Bergman visits her neglected daughter, now the wife of a country pastor. Ingrid Bergman gives a polished performance, but Ullmann steals the show as the daughter. Anyone who thinks Ingmar Bergman’s films are dull and obscure should watch Autumn Sonata.

Mirror, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky (1975)
This film is near impossible to describe – and better people than me have tried. It’s the cinematic equivalent of stream of consciousness, which by rights shouldn’t really work. But it does. Extremely well. There are enactments of scenes from Tarkovsky’s childhood, newsreel footage, dream sequences… Despite lacking a plot, or any kind of coherent path through the story, Mirror is engrossing.

Honourable mentions:
Naked Lunch (1991), Crash (1996), Eastern Promises (2007), dir. David Cronenberg
2008 was a bit of a Cronenberg year for me. I’ve always enjoyed his films, but last year’s A History of Violence was something of a revelation – a polished and subversive thriller from the director of Scanners and The Fly? Eastern Promises is the same but more so – although perhaps in parts it could pass as an episode of a superior British television thriller. Naked Lunch and Crash, however, came as real surprises. Both are “unfilmable” novels, but Cronenberg managed to somehow make excellent, watchable drama out of them.

Shame, dir. Ingmar Bergman (1968)
Bergman favourites Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are enjoying the simple life on a rural island (Fåro), away from a civil war. The war catches up with them, however, and they are forced to give a television broadcast supporting one side… only to be subsequently captured by the other side. Emotional stuff, albeit perhaps a little overwrought in places. Nevertheless, it’s a strong story handled by two strong leads.

The Sacrifice, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky (1986)
Despite its glacial pace and its long takes, this is an intense film, and hard to watch in places. I wrote a little about it here.

Albums
Skycontact, Phlebotomized (1997)
Phlebotomized were a short-lived death metal band from the Netherlands. They recorded a handful of demos, an EP and two albums. Skycontact was their last album. It’s progressive stuff – the band featured a violinist – and quickly became a favourite.

Anatomy of Life, Noumena (2006)
This is melodic death metal from Finland, but it also features some clean vocals and some female vocals. And the singer’s growl has to be heard to be believed. I suspect he uses a pitch shifter… Excellent stuff – and I’ve been playing the track ‘Monument of Pain’ almost constantly.

Hindsight, Anathema (2008)
Anathema are currently recording a new album – they said so when I saw them live. But until that’s released, we have this, a compilation of acoustic takes on some of their better-known songs. It’s yet more evidence that Anathema should be filling stadiums by now, not tiny rooms with beer-sodden carpets…

Corē, Persefone (2006)
One of things I love about extreme metal is that it’s an international genre. Admittedly, pretty much everyone sings in English – although with growl vocals it’s often hard to tell. Persefone are Andorran. That’s the tiny little country between France and Spain. Population about 70,000. Corē is a concept album about Persephone, the goddess for whom the band are named. An excellent mix of death metal, progressive metal and acoustic pieces, with both clean and growl male vocals, and female vocals.

Watershed, Opeth (2008)
And a new album which proves to be even more progressive than the preceding Ghost Reveries. I’m still not convinced I like the direction they’re going as much as I liked older albums such as Blackwater Park. But it’s proving to be an interesting journey, and they never disappoint.

Honourable mentions:
Still, Wolverine (2006)
I saw Wolverine supporting Anathema in Glasgow back in 2006. I enjoyed their set, but not enough to dash out and buy their albums. Then, for some reason, this year I ended up buying their latest CD anyway. And it quickly grew on me. So much so that at Bloodstock, I bought the preceding two albums, The Window Purpose and Cold Light of Monday, at the Earache stall.

Watch Us Deteriorate, Crystalic (2007)
If there’s a band which epitomises Scandinavian death metal, I suspect it’s Crystalic. This is fast-paced aggressive metal, but with a slight twist. And in Crystalic’s case that twist is the use of a fretless bass – or at least that’s what it sounds like.

Headspace EP, Headspace (2008)
Twenty-first century prog rock, featuring Rick Wakeman’s son Adam on keyboards and Threshold’s original singer Damian Wilson. This EP is a taster of their material. I’m looking forward to the debut album.

And finally, a few worsts…

Worst film isn’t going to be easy – I watched everything on those crap 50-movie boxed sets, after all. But other “gems” watched during the year include Barbarian Queen, The Warrior And The Sorceress, Star Odyssey, and Zombies Zombies Zombies (reviewed for VideoVista)

Worst books include Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein (see here); Projekt Saucer 2: Phoenix, WA Harbinson (one day I’ll work out why I’m bothering to read this series); Orlando, Virgina Woolf (self-indulgent tosh; see here); The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (silly OTT nonsense; see here); and the new charm-free Dan Dare comic from the now-defunct Virgin Comics. Two of these titles were from my reading challenge for the year, so in that respect it was less than successful… except the challenge also introduce me to Paul Scott’s writing. He made my top five, so I think that balances them out.

* the Rule of DVD: never pay more than £10 for a DVD.


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Unrestful Music

Some bands are worth the hassle and expense of travelling halfway across the country to see perform. And that’s especially true for ones that haven’t played live for several years. One of my favourite bands is Mithras, an extreme metal duo from Rugby. They’ve released three albums, but they’ve not toured for several years. So when an opportunity to see them play came up, I was determined to go. Even though it was in London.

They were actually appearing with eight other bands at “The Day of Unrest”, the “Zero Tolerance All-Day Xmas Fest”, at the Purple Turtle in Camden on Sunday 14 December. Zero Tolerance is a metal magazine published by Mithras’ guitarist and his wife.

So I’ve been. And I survived. And Mithras were excellent live.

Myself and Calin caught the train down to London on the day and met up with Liam – who provided crash space (ta). Since Calin and I got into the venue early, we received Zero Tolerance goodie bags – a couple of CDs by obscure bands, stickers, posters, stuff like that. Ironically, I already owned one of the CDs in my goody bag. The Purple Turtle was a bit of a dump, but the staff were excellent – helpful and quick to serve.

Of the nine bands playing, Haxan were first up. They weren’t bad, but I’ll not be dashing out to buy the album. Let ’em Burn followed. Their singer was very entertaining, acting about and cracking jokes between songs. Nebukadnezza were quite good, and made a lot of noise considering there were only two of them. De Profundis I liked. Winterfylleth had their moments. Liam had appeared by this time, so we went out for a meal, and enjoyed some Thai food at a place near Camden Lock. Apparently various celebrities, including Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page, had eaten there. Back at the Purple Turtle, we caught the end of Infected Disarray‘s set, which meant we had missed Sarpanitum.

And then Mithras took the stage… And I knew it had been worth making the trip to see them. An almost constant barrage of blinding fast guitar work and 300 bpm drumming. I’ve no idea how they kept it up for their hour-long set. We were knackered afterwards, and that was from just watching them.

We stayed for ten minutes of Satori‘s set. But none of us likes drone all that much, so we left. And once we got to Liam’s we spent a couple of hours playing Guitar Hero. Fortunately, the game doesn’t feature any songs by Mithras…

Then it was up early the next morning to catch a train home. St Pancras railway station is pretty impressive now, but it’s also freezing cold. It was the last time I was there, back in March.

On the train back, the bloke sitting next to me received a call on his mobile. Given his proximity, it was hard not to overhear his half of the conversation. And I was much amused to hear him rave about the gig he’d been to the day before… Coldplay at the O2 Arena.


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What I’ve Been Doing Recently…

… or A Desperate Attempt To Generate Content For This Blog Before People Give Up On It. Well, perhaps not “desperate” – it’s not been that long since I last posted. But my last few posts might have given the erroneous impression that I’ve mostly given up on reading science fiction. I haven’t. And here’s the proof. Sort of.

I have been reading…

The Quincunx of Time, James Blish (1973) – I knew this was an expansion of a short story, but I didn’t know if I’d read the story. So the déjà vu which hit me two pages into the book didn’t come as much of a surprise. I had read the story, ‘Beep’. Unfortunately, as Blish explains in a foreword, he had never intended to expand ‘Beep’, and when he was eventually persuaded to do so he chose to focus on some of the issues raised by the story. He didn’t expand the plot, or the story’s remit. He just deepened the scientific bollocks the various characters explain to each other. It made for a dull and unconvincing – and short – novel. Not one of Blish’s best.

The Facts of Life, Graham Joyce (2002) – I have unjustly neglected Graham in my reading. I thought his first few novels were very good indeed, but sort of stopped buying and reading them for no real reason. I actually interviewed him for a small press magazine when his debut novel, Dreamside, was published. Unfortunately, it was on the last day of a convention, and we’d both been drinking until 4 a.m. the night before and were very hungover. I sent Graham a verbatim transcript of the interview. He replied, “I remember it as quite an insightful interview… so who were those two fucking Martians on the tape?” A carefully edited version, which made both of us appear sane and intelligent, later appeared in the magazine. But, The Facts of Life. I decided to buy this because it’s set in Coventry. I went to university there, so I know the city. The Facts of Life is excellent stuff and I have no excuse now for not reading more of Graham’s books. Incidentally, I was little spooked by one chapter in the novel – because it’s set in Coventry it of course features Lady Godiva. Which couldn’t help but remind me of my own encounter with her (see here). Graham’s done that to me before: I had a lucid dream the morning before starting Dreamside, which opens… with someone having a lucid dream.

The Universe Maker, AE van Vogt (1953) – for some reason, an image from this novel has stayed with me throughout the decades since I last read it: a shadow in the shape of a person, and in which you can see stars, appearing in a park and speaking to someone. But I couldn’t remember the context. So I decided to reread the book to remind me. And it is apparently a Shadow, one of an elite which rules a future Earth and the members of which appear to have special powers. So there you go. This novel is, like most of van Vogt’s, completely bonkers. It’s a headlong charge through a number of sf tropes – chief among them time travel – most of which make little sense if you pause to think. And that’s part of its charm. Before you can even scoff, you’re thrown into something new and even more implausible. Now I want to reread van Vogt’s Mission to the Stars, which has the giant battleship that splits up into hundreds of little ships when it hits a galactic storm…

House of Suns, Alastair Reynolds (2007) – Reynolds is one of those authors whose books I buy in hardback as soon as they’re published. He’s also one of those authors whose work can sometimes disappoint, but only when compared to his other novels. And so it was with House of Suns. I never quite swallowed the novel’s timeline of millions of years, and the characters seemed a little too contemporary for me to willingly suspend disbelief. But, there were – as usual – some real gosh-wow special effects, some jaw-dropping ideas, and even an occasional nod here and there to other sf books and films. Good stuff.

The Ship That Died of Shame & Other Stories, Nicholas Monsarrat (1959) – I have a soft spot for Monsarrat’s fiction – The Cruel Sea is a classic, and his unfinished The Master Mariner is one of my favourite non-sf novels. So I continue to seek out and read his books, even though many of his plots have passed their sell-by date. It’s a bit like watching the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents from the mid-1950s – those twists in the tale have been done so many times you can see them coming a mile off. But they must have been a surprise when they were first used back then. And so it is for some of Monsarrat’s novels and short stories. But I’ll still read him.

I’ve been watching stuff, too. Such as…

The Sacrifice, Andrei Tarkovsky (1986) – Tarkovsky isn’t a science fiction film director, although three of his films were sf. Both Solaris and Stalker were adaptations of sf novels – by Stanisław Lem and the Strugatsky brothers, respectively. The Sacrifice, on the other hand, is from an original screenplay by Tarkovsky himself. A man living on Gotland, a Baltic island off the coast of Sweden, witnesses the end of the world by nuclear war, and in despair vows to God that he will sacrifice everything he loves if the world is returned to normal. He then – at the urging of a friend and neighbour – sleeps with a female servant, who is a witch. The next morning, it’s as if the nuclear holocaust had never happened. And so the man sets about fulfilling his vow, alienating his loved ones, destroying his possessions, and burning down his house. Like all Tarkovsky films, it’s very slow, with very long takes. But parts are disturbingly intense. The reaction of the man’s wife, for example, to the end of the world is difficult to watch. There are also dream sequences which might not be dream sequences, and a use of colour and black & white film which might help unravel the ambiguous story. I think I prefer Mirror more than The Sacrifice, but it’s a more affecting film than some of Tarkovsky’s, and he remains a favourite director.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 2 (1993) – I’d read often enough that DS9 was the best of the Trek franchises, but I’d only ever seen a handful of episodes from the first season. From them it was hard to see it as any better than any of the other franchises. But I decided to give the series a go – prompted by a much-reduced price on Amazon. And discovered that not only was the setting interesting – the planet of Bajor after Cardassian occupationary forces have withdrawn – but I liked the characters. Much more so than the Star Trek: The Next Generation ones. Well, except for Quark the Ferengi. He’s just irritating. Anyway, I finished season 1, and then bought season 2. And I have every intention of working my way through to the end of season 7. Especially since I’m told it gets much better when the Federation go to war against the Dominion….

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, dir. Steven Spielberg (2008) – it seems a bit pointless to moan about Hollywood remakes of perfectly good films from earlier decades when they’re just as liable to dig up old franchises and add a new vehicle to it. And what a creaking lumbering vehicle it is. Harrison Ford manages to hold his own, despite his advanced years, but the plot in this thing is a horrible mess. It’s as if they chose to throw as many clichés at it as possible in the hope one or two would stick. Unfortunately, it’s not plot coupons which stuck. This film is just an embarrassingly bad sequence of CGI spectacles and stunts held together by a plot which makes no attempt at plausibility. Best avoided.

Aliens Vs Predator 2: Requiem, dir. the Strause brothers (2007) – sadly, my film-viewing could sink even further than a geriatric Indy chasing after a “magnetic” skull which can bizarrely attract non-ferrous materials. It plummetted to this. The directors clearly felt that making the film as dark as possible would hide a multitude of sins. And I don’t mean “dark” as in mood. I mean, “dark” as in filmed at night, “dark” as in having to sit in a pitch-black room in order to actually see what’s on the bloody screen. Which isn’t much more than the title suggests. There’s this Alien, see; and it crash-lands on Earth. And a Predator gets this signal telling it what’s happened. So off it goes to hunt it down. In Ridley Scott’s excellent Alien, the eponymous creature was an unstoppable killing machine. In AvP2, teenagers with shotguns slaughter hundreds of them. Which is a bit like revealing Sasquatch as a marmoset. But then, what teenager wants to watch a platoon of elite forces get blatted by a single alien? They’d much rather see themselves in the title role, wreaking mayhem and spraying bullets and killing all those nasty cunningly-externalised fears and neuroses… Avoid this film like you would a, well, an alien.

The DEFA Sci-Fi Collection – I mentioned one of these in a previous posts – Der Schweigende Stern / The Silent Star, dir. Kurt Maetzig (1960). See here. The other two in this boxed set are In the Dust of the Stars / Im Staub der Sterne, dir. Gottfried Kolditz (1976), and Eolomea, dir. Herrmann Zschoche (1972). The first is… plenty weird. A mission from one planet arrives on another. There’s something suspicious going on, but they’re welcomed with a big party. Of course, they soon find out what the actual situation is…. But. The strange 1970s GDR aesthetic is one thing. But the gratuitous – tastefully back-lit, so in silhouette only – nude scene just seems completely, well, gratuitous. And then there’s the party scenes. Disco-dancing East Germans in Spaaaacccceee. Sort of. Eolomea is a much more restrained affair. Some ships have gone missing, and a group of scientists are sent to figure out what happened. It seemed to me a bit of the story went missing somewhere as well. The film’s title makes no sense for the first thirty or so minutes, and is only explained in passing. But never mind. It’s all good post-2001: A Space Odyssey 1970s sf – none of that silly Western Imperialist space opera thank you very much. There is a fourth DEFA sf film which isn’t included in this collection, Signal: A Space Adventure (1970). I want a copy.

And I have been listening to…

The “double whammy” – I wanted to see Isis, who were performing locally last Sunday night, but no one else wanted to go. Then Stuart said he’d go, if I went to see Johnny Truant at the same venue the following night. The “double whammy”.

Isis were excellent, as usual. They’re another one of those bands you forget how good they are… and then you see them live. I ended up buying one of their CDs from the merchandise stand, and was tempted to buy more. They were ably supported by Torche, who were good in parts.

And then it was Johnny Truant… Who are a bit too hardcore for my taste. This was a much younger crowd than Isis – I could have passed as just about any audience member’s dad. The sound was also very loud. I don’t mind loud – and I’ve been to plenty of loud gigs. But it seems a bit pointless when everything’s turned up so high you can’t actually hear the guitars. Just the bass and blastbeats. The rest is a wall of noise. Mind you, there was a little more banter between songs than the previous night. The only words spoken by Isis were, “This is our last song.” The lead singer of Johnny Truant, however, was cracking jokes – “Our next two songs are ‘Hotel California’ and ‘Tiny Dancer'” – and moaning about eating too many pies. Not to mention the lead singer from support act Blackhole, who climbed down from the stage and performed most of the set from the middle of the dance-floor…

I’ve been working as well, of course. The big fat space opera sequel, assorted short stories (three sold this year so far; go me), and even another poem or two.


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More Music

Saw Anathema live last night. I first saw them two years ago in Glasgow, but this time it was local. Not a big gig. Intimate, almost. But very loud. And excellent. Definitely one of the contenders for the best gig I’ve attended this year.

Here they are playing their “hit single”, ‘Fragile Dreams’. It’s from their Were You There? live DVD.

I can’t wait for the new album.


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Me & My Magic Man

I’ve not had a musical interlude for a while. So let’s have one.

It’s not all death metal round here, you know. Every now and again I like to wig out to a bit of 1970s prog rock. Check this one out. Uriah Heep, performing their classic ‘The Wizard’ on some television show.

Bad lipsynching! Flowery jeans! Dancers in hotpants! Mick Box giving it some axe attack! An audience that looks like it doesn’t know what it’s doing there! Ah, those were the days…


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Mud & Metal

I spent last weekend in a field in Derbyshire with several thousand other people. We were all there for one reason.

Metal.

The Bloodstock Open Air music festival takes place at Catton Hall in Derbyshire each year. It’s considerably smaller than European ones such as Germany’s Wacken or France’s Hellfest. I don’t know what the actual attendance at Bloodstock 2008 was, but I’d guess around 8,000 people. It was certainly higher than last year.

Much as I’d enjoyed Bloodstock Open Air 2007, I’d only planned to attend in 2008 if bands I liked were playing. So when Opeth signed up, it was hard to resist. Add in Swallow the Sun and Akercocke, and resistance was futile. I also quite fancied seeing the likes of Eluveitie, Týr, Moonsorrow, Soilwork (again), Napalm Death and At the Gates. The headlining acts on the Saturday and Sunday night – Dimmu Borgir and Nightwish – I was not so keen on.

Calin also wanted to do Bloodstock again. And this year, we were joined by Craig, another work colleague. So the three of us bought tickets, booked the days off work, and made our plans…

Friday 15 August at 10:30 a.m., and Craig turned up in his car. We headed off to pick up Calin (and his camping gear). The plan was to arrive at Catton Hall around midday – in time to get the tent pitched before the first performance.

Except this year, Bloodstock actually started at 10:00 a.m., not 4:00 p.m. Still, the first band I really wanted to see, Akercocke, weren’t on until 2:55 p.m., so there was plenty of time…

Once Calin and his gear was aboard, we stopped off at Asda for beer, water, baby wipes and assorted other items. And then onto the M1.

Which is where it all started to go horribly wrong.

Craig had googled for Bloodstock’s venue, and taken the postcode from Catton Hall’s website to use in his GPS. The route it gave him struck us as odd, but it was the right distance so we didn’t question it too much. We should have done. There are apparently two Catton Halls. One in Derbyshire – the location of Bloodstock. And one in Cheshire. Which is where we ended up.

So we didn’t arrive at the Bloodstock until much later than planned. After Akercocke’s set, in fact. Damn.

It didn’t get better. There were a few other changes instituted this year. Such as, no parking the car near the tents. All vehicles had to stay in the designated car park, which was allegedly a “short distance” from the camping field. Lies. It was a good ten minute walk. Another new rule was a limit of one case of beer per person in the camping area over the entire weekend.

We arrived, carried the gear through two fields until we found somewhere to pitch the tent, put it up, had a can of beer, and then made our way to the arena. The increase in size was immediately obvious. Not only were there more clothing stalls and more food vendors, but also a funfair, with bumper cars and a couple of rides – the ones that are guaranteed to make you lose your lunch. Especially when you’re drunk. There were also lots more people.

And lots more security. They were checking the bags and pockets of everyone entering the arena. Not for weapons. For beer. No cans or bottles were allowed in the arena. Fair enough – that could be a safety issue. But when the bouncers were turning back people who were carrying paper cups of beer purchased inside the arena earlier, it was clear it was really about forcing festival-goers to buy their drinks from the arena bars.

At £3.50 a pint.

And there was a 10p surcharge on the paper cups. But you could get this back at another stall. I thought this was quite a good idea – less litter, more environmentally friendly. Until I discovered the surcharge only applied to alcoholic drinks. There was no 10p refund on cups which had held soft drinks. Which made the whole thing mostly pointless.

Still, music festivals are about the, well, the music. We were there to see bands perform. I didn’t get to see everyone but – with the exception of Akercocke and Týr (who had actually been on before Akercocke) – I did get to see everyone I had wanted to:

Friday. I caught the opening of Soulfly’s set, but I’m not a fan so I left after a couple of songs. Helloween none of us bothered with. Power metal. Ugh. But, of course, we were back in front of the stage for Opeth. They’re a favourite band, but that night they were disappointing. I’ve seen them twice before and both times they were excellent. However, the sound wasn’t good at Bloodstock, and the set was too laid back.

Saturday. Eluveitie were entertaining. It’s not every day you see a metal band with a member who plays a hurdy gurdy. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people carrying around flags at the festival, and they often got in the way and blocked the view of the stage. Swallow the Sun, who followed Eluveitie, were good. The sound could have been better, but I plan to buy their new album (released later this month). I saw the start of Napalm Death

Speaking of flags, Calin bought a Romanian flag (since he is, after all, Romanian), and carried it around all Saturday. Later that morning, he was approached by a bloke who was also Romanian. He was at Bloodstock with a group from Scruffy Murphy’s, a well-known rock pub in Birmingham. We spent much of the weekend in the company of Cornell and Semina, the two Romanians in the group. Unhappily, the flag was stolen from outside our tent while we were asleep on Saturday night.

Throughout the weekend I saw flags from a number of countries, among them Sweden, Finland, Norway, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, Israel, Australia… and one I couldn’t identify. I asked and learned it was Slovenia. Oh, and lots of Union Jacks, of course.

Sunday. The three of us plus Cornell and Semina went for lunch at the White Swan in Walton on Trent, and very nice it was too. There were two bands on at 1:00 p.m. we wanted to see – Alestorm on the main stage, and Serotonal in the Scuzz tent. We managed to make it back, albeit ten minutes late. Serotonal were excellent. They finished before Alestorm, so I also caught the end of the pirate metallers’ set. The five of us then hung around the arena for a bit until the next band appeared…

It was bad enough the fairground rides pumping out Tina Turner and Bon Jovi, and drowning out the stage in some areas of the arena; but there was also a DJ blasting out commercial metal to advertise Monster energy drink. They had a couple of armoured cars – no, I’ve no idea why; and a “Ball of Steel”. This last was some twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, and at regular intervals three blokes on small motorcycles would do a Wheel of Death-type act inside. And every time they did it, the announcer’s patter was identical. Even the “ad lib” joshing during which the DJ “persuaded” the announcer to stand inside the ball while the motorbikes whizzed around him was word-for-word the same.

Then it was time for Kataklysm. They’re not a band I know, even though they play the sort of no-frills death metal I will happily listen to. I don’t know what it was, but everything seemed to come together right for them. The sun shone, and the wind dropped. The sound was excellent. The crowd were in the right mood, too. Before the band appeared, a group of moshers had been entertaining us – one of whom was in a kilt, and happy to demonstrate exactly what he was wearing underneath. Or wasn’t. These moshers had also tried human pyramids, but kept on falling down. Then they did high-speed Ring a Ring o’Roses, which resulted in most of them being flung at speed into the surrounding crowd like bowling balls…

Kataklysm definitely gave the set of the weekend. Nothing afterwards came close. We missed As I Lay Dying and Overkill. And had fun on the bumper cars while we waited for At the Gates to appear on stage (they were good, but I’m not a big fan). Last act of the night, and clearly the most popular of the festival, was Nightwish. Another band I don’t particularly like. The pyrotechnics were impressive; the music less so.

Of course, no music festival in the UK is complete without a downpour. Bloodstock 2008 was no exception. Friday was glorious, but torrential rain had been forecast for the Saturday. In the event, it didn’t rain until late that day, and it wasn’t as heavy as promised. It rained for most of Sunday. The camp site turned into a quagmire – although happily not where our tent was pitched. A lot of our stuff got wet, however; and we still ended up muddy.

And, of course, no report on a music festival in the UK is complete without mention of the chemical toilets. I’d been suffering from a bad stomach the week before, which had me worried. The combination of that and portaloos did not bear contemplating. But on the Thursday, I discovered that the Bovril I’d been eating each day was from a contaminated batch. I stopped eating the Bovril, and my stomach immediately recovered. And yet, the toilets at Bloodstock… were actually better than the previous year. They smelled, yes; and when they filled up they were stomach-churning. But they stayed clean, and they were emptied regularly. Of course, there weren’t enough. There never is.

Bloodstock 2008 was bigger and more commercial than 2007. That was both good and bad. I didn’t see as many bands I liked as last year, but the selection was better. And some I watched proved to be good. There was also more of a festival atmosphere. But the beer was expensive and the security was intrusive. If they want people to buy beer in the arena and not sneak in cans, they should sell it at a reasonable price – like £2 a pint. Mind you, it’s not as if music festivals are about music. They’re about money. Hence the expensive beer, the expensive burgers (£5!), the expensive jacket potatoes (£4!), and the annoying Monster energy drink marketing. Ironically, the CDs on sale were mostly cheaper than on the high street.

Will I go in 2009? Probably. And almost certainly if the line-up is good. A festival is pretty much the only chance I get to see bands which don’t tour the UK, such as Swallow the Sun or Eluveitie. There are certainly plenty I’d like to see, but haven’t done so yet. And just as many I’d happily see again.