What I Done On My Holidays

Some people spend their time off from work lounging around on sunny beaches. Some people spend their vacations snowboarding down glistening white alpine slopes. Some people explore exotic locations and take tedious photos of themselves posing next to ancient ruined monuments.

I get drunk in fields in the Midlands and talk shit at rock stars at heavy metal festivals. So far my Summer highlights have included….

1) Giving Pepper Keenan a reach-around.

2) Remincing about said reach-around with Turbowolf.

3) Insulting DevilDriver’s taste in Star Wars characters.

4) Being accused of being a rapist by Hardcore Superstar – and this was filmed BEFORE Pepper Keenan!

5) Talking titties with Doc from God Forbid.

6) Poking fun at Five Finger Death Punch’s ludicrously literal video treatements.

7) Comparing haircuts with Wayne from Static-X.

8) Debating animal fighting (and fucking) with Suicide Silence.

9) And trying to pay Dregen from the Backyard Babies to beat up an endangered species. Classy.

All on behalf of ThrashHits.com. There’s a whole load more of our video tomfoolery from the festival over on the Thrash Hits YouTube channel. It’s pretty damn badass, actually.

So good I bought it twice

If you’ve spent 8 minutes or more in my company over the last 12 months, then you’ll no doubt have already heard me espouse the virtues of Bristol electro-rawkers, Turbowolf. After stumbling across them entirely by accident at Stag & Dagger 2008, checking them out for their name as much as anything else, I’ve become a convert.

Their latest single, ‘Read and Write’, came out last week, and it is 100% badass. My copy of the limited edition 7″ vinyl arrived today. I say “copy” I really mean “copies”, but that’s neither here nor there – this band is so good I’m buying extra copies of their releases to give to people to convert them.

Normally if there’s a band I want someone to pay attention to, I’ll fire them off a link to their MySpace page, or chuck them a cheeky mp3. But how often do you ignore recommendations like that? I’ve got a stack of them saved up for when I’m bored/hungover/hungry. Click click click, ho hum. But if someone gave me a frickin’ 7″ record, well, I’d make for damn sure I gave it a spin.

Not sure who’s getting the spare yet. To be honest, if you’re the kind of person who reads this blog, then you’re probably the kind of person who should be buying it yourself instead of expecting me to gift you this freebie. Get thee over to HMV.com, cheapskate, and order a copy.

Ten Things Learnt At Download Festival 2009

1. Killer Bees either love/hate heavy metal. So much so that it causes them to form TORNADO SWARMS in front of the second stage.

2. Mike Patton: still got it. INCREDIBLE.

3. Rock stars are split roughly 50/50 when it comes to protecting/smiting endangered species. CONTROVERSIAL.

4. Marilyn Manson hates music so much that he doesn’t even phone in his performances anymore, he bloody well texts them in. And on top of that, he does it from one of those websites that lets you send free SMS instead of using his own phone. TERRIBLE.

5. Pepper Keenan + booze + terrible drum’n'bass-rock crossover music = interview gold.

6. Slipknot: still got it. SHOVE BEING TR00.

7. Cab-sharing WILL make you a sex pest.

8. Scandanavian women are still pretty much the greatest thing in the world.

9. Websites, hotel rooms, backstage media centres and Limp Bizkit’s PR people all stop working at the worst possible moment.

10. What happens at the Saturday night afterparty STAYS at the Saturday night afterparty. No matter how hard you try to remember it…

You’ll be wanting to keep your browser on ThrashHits.com all next week for the videos, reviews, interviews, gossip, and shazizzle from Download. Trust me – it’s gonna be off the frickin’ hook.

The new Marilyn Manson video is a big pile a wank

Go on – take a look at what the censors and suits have done to ‘Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon’. Not only is it a bit of a shit video (who the FUCK came up with this treatment? “We’ll have a series of boring Manson headshots on rotate, few cuts to the band, then a stupid all-too-brief-final ruckss” THAT’S SHIT. Shit and cheap-looking), but of course it’s coupled with the ultimate musical brain-rape: the worst radio-edit ever made by man or beast.

Now, I understand the importance of having a radio edit when the very song you’re trying to sell has ‘Motherfuckin’ in the title, but this edit is going to put people off the new album.  It’s not only the swear words that have been ham-fistedly removed with weird-sounding echoes, but a whole load of other words deemed “too controversial” by the censors. So words like ‘Kill’, ‘Suicidal’ and ‘Goddamn’, are find themselves included in the cull. Which as a result of ends up changing the chorus from this:

First you try to fuck it, then you try to eat it
If it hasn’t learnt your name, you better kill it before they see it
First you try to fuck it, then you try to eat it
If it hasn’t learnt your name, you better kill it before they see it

It’s Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon
FUCK. EAT-KILL, now do it again.
It’s Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon
FUCK. EAT-KILL, ET CETERA

to the following load of mumboing horse toss:

First you try to…, then you try to eat it
If it hasn’t learnt your name, you better…it before they see it
First you try to…, then you try to eat it
If it hasn’t learnt your name, you better…it before they see it

It’s Arma-(arma)-(arma)-geddon
….. EAT-(eat), now do it again.
It’s Arma-(arma)-(arma)-geddon
….. EAT-(eat), ET CETERA

Words can’t give the awfulness of this justice. Go and watch that motherfucker and tell me it’s not the worst cut’n’shut audio job you’ve ever heard. It makes the block-headedness of the infamous ‘This Is The New Hit’ edit sound positively subtle. And that’s not even taking in to account the fact that half the verses end up getting carved up too.

Is Manson even going to get much airplay on mainstream radio programming? People aren’t exactly going to be jamming the phone lines to request the Frankenstein-abortion of a radio edit. Will the video get much exposure on music TV channels? Well, I can’t see a video as blandly boring as the promo that’s been produced being a favourite with fans, casual viewers, programmers or pluggers. It’s going to get buried.

Shame too, as the original version is one of the best parts of The High End of Low, which is probably the best record Manson’s done in a decade. Oh yeah, it’s pretty damn good.

Give Cosmo Lee some money

A few weeks ago, US metal journalist and blogger extraordinaire, Cosmo Lee, was burgled. And the robber bastards nicked his computer, his hard drives, and a whole lot more besides. What a bunch of c**ts.

Cosmo’s written reviews for Metal Injection (the Thrash Hits site of choice for metal videos), the frankly awesome Decibel Magazine (seriously, a few years ago who would’ve thought the best metal magazine in the world would ever be written in America??!?), and is one of the guys behind Invisible Oranges, which is easily in contention for the title of Best Metal mp3 Blog Of All Time.

If you’ve got any interest in promoting quality writing and metal discussion on the internet, then please go over to Invisible Oranges and donate a few quid to help the man get back up to speed. If you don’t already read Invisible Oranges on a regular basis, then start doing so from now on – I’ve lost track of the killer tips and recommendations it’s provided. Since I’m a massive poor loser with poor financial skills, I could only stretch to giving the man a tenner. I reckon you can stretch to a fiver at least.

The Future

8 Days of Evil

Look – it’s part 2 of the Thrash Hits video reports from SpineFeast 2009. Watch it for stories about vomit, greed and outer space. Part 3 up….tomorrow? WHO KNOWS. Otherwise – I’ve been busy as a Russell Brand’s ballsack. Let’s take a look at the recent schedule:

Thursday 12 Feb: Romeo Must Die and The Defiled at a sparsely-attended Camden Rock Bar. The Defiled’s equipment kept breaking, Romeo Must Die were tight as hell, and hardly anyone was there to see it. Boo.

Saturday 14 Feb: Defenders of the Faith tour hit Brixton, headlined by the getting-so-many-column-inches-in-the-metal-blogosphere-it-stupid Lamb of God. For reasons that I’ve never understood, I’ve never been able to see an entire Lamb Of God set before. There’s always been some cocking reason stopping me – when they’ve played gigs in London, I’ve been out of town. When they were playing at festivals I’d been to, there was some no-mark band or another I had to interview at the exact moment they were playing. Which is why I was beyond super-stoked to see them bludgen Brixton Academy like a redneck wailing on his sister.

Sunday 15 Feb: The Big One – okay, so it technically wasn’t bigger than the Lamb Of God show under any criteria you care to name – but it was the first ever solo-promoted show that myself, and my HypnoCop compatriot, Ben, put on without outsiders. Despite a few monumental cock-ups (like the soundman rolling up 45 minutes late, Dallas, Strangeways and Mills’n'Ware were all fantastic. We even made a modest profit (of which all was given to the bands). Roll on the first Thrash Hits night….

Wednesday 18 Feb: Gama Bomb, Cauldron and Mutant at the Old Blue Last. Thrash party ahoy!

Thurdays 19 Feb: Bossman Raz’s birthday at the Phoenix, followed by heavy metal bowling c/o the Children of Bodom aftershow at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes. The Kingpin Private Suite no less.

Saturday 21 and Sunday 23 Feb: Hellfire Festival at the Islington Academy. Some good bands, some bad bands, Warrior Soul without a frontman, anda distinct lack of moshpits. I FEEL A FEATURE COMING ON.

Monday 23 Feb: Spinnerette interview and gig, once again at the Islington Academy.

And I’ve still got two more nights out on the trot after tonight. Can someone rewind time please? I need to find a few more minutes from somewhere to write the live reviews for half of these damn things up…

What happens in Finland, stays in Finland…

Just a quick one – the first (of three) videos we shot at SpineFeast 2009 has gone live on Thrash Hits. That’s it up there.

In other news, I just got back from seeing Romeo Must Die at the Camden Rock Bar. They were amazing. Also, I’ve just seen the new line-up additions for this year’s Download festival. Also amazing.

Punk, Shit, Metal, More Metal, Festivals, Paranoia

Keeping it brief – I’ve been…

LISTENING….the Spinnerette EP, Ghetto Love. There’s a possibility of an interview with Brody Dalle when she’s in the UK at the end of the month, so I’m swotting up.

SLATING….Hollywood Undead and everything they stand for.

PUBLISHING….that Future Hits piece on The Defiled.

HEADING OUT TO WATCH….The aforementioned Defiled and Romeo Must Die at the Camden Rock bar.

GETTING INCREASINGLY EXCITED….about Defenders Of The Faith, Download, Bloodstock, and Sonisphere. I haven’t been this stoked about line-up announcements in years.

STILL SHITTING MYSELF….over the gig we’re putting on this weekend. Just 3 days to go!

Finland, Cold Wars, Festival Secrets and Surviving The Snow

I’ve been stupid busy, but also having stupid amounts of fun since I last blogged. SpineFeast was everything I expected of it and more. I love Finland so much I want to move there. As I’m typing this up, I am very slowly uploading the videos we shot there onto the ThrashHits YouTube channel – or ThrashHits TV as we’re apparently calling it now. I’ll post some proper links once the videos are up and published.

The fact that I flew home to a Cold War-themed houseparty that we were hosting put back my return-to-real-life even further, and the 18 year-record snowfall that directly followed it pushed routine and normality even further from the agenda. This, combined with the impending departure and (hopefully) replacement of one of my flatmates has meant that it’s all been a bit too chaotic for my liking in my usually-quiet fortress of West London. Hence my blog-tardiness.

Speaking of ThrashHits, I’ve gone and made the plunge and made it my primary focus for writing now. I’m still going to write for Music Towers from time to time, and I’ll never forget the debt of gratitute I owe David Harrison for taking me on and giving me a free reign to write what I please, whilst simultaneously providing his own window into the machinations of the music industry – his passion and ability to be both stone-black cynical and almost child-like in his idealism has been a big inspiration. Once I get my shit together I’ll give my Music Towers tenure a proper ob-lituary (I’M SORRY, IT JUST CAME OUT).

That “huge project so secret I shouldn’t even be making this piss-poor allusion to my involvement in it” I talked about in my last blog? Well, it’s out of the bag now – I was subbing some of (not all of) the copy for the Sonisphere Festivals website. I was sworn to secrecy on it, which, as a journalist, made it the most frustrating project I’ve done in a while. It does look like it’s going to be one kickass festival though.

I’ve also recently been…

FINISHING OFF….Future Hits pieces on both The Defiled and – you guessed it! – Turbowolf.

CONTACTING….ex-heavy metal band members to take part in my forthcoming Dead Metal column for Thrash Hits, effectively replacing my Heavy Metal Haiku blog.

WATCHING….Young Guns (I talking about the band of that name, not the awesome film) play at South Of The Border. And making plans for a Thrash Hits monthly at the said-same venue…

BECOMING MILDLY TERRIFIED….at the prospect of the upcoming gig that myself and my DJ compadre, Ben, are putting on (well, to be honest, he did most of the legwork). Handily, every band involved in the night has created their own Facebook / MySpace events for it, making gauging attendance figures even more of a nightmare than usual. Wonderful.

INTERVIEWING….The Gaslight Anthem before their show at the Shepherds Bush Empire (go check out Dan Griffith’s excellent photos from the show). Apparentlyit was the biggest headline show they’ve ever done anywhere. They acquitted themselves quite well, I thought.

BECOMING MILDLY OBSESSED….with 24 again. I started to watch it again from the beginning and even though I’m now just a third of the way through Day 3, I’ve remembered why I love this kind of ridiculous TV nonsense.