And in his hands, two lager cans.
Apr. 27th, 2004 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hirezNot being a well-read sort of chap, it's hard to know how to kick this one off. For instance, the sky was resolutely not the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel, unless you've an odd sort of telly that emits bright and cheery sunshine. Neither were we overly bothered by bats from Barstow, a wooden-overcoated foreign johnny running aground in the teeth of a gale or Martin Sheen having a funny turn.
His downfall was a blonde girl, but that's none of your business!
Instead... Imagine, if you can, a football club bar lovingly preserved in Watney's Red Barrel in the state it was in 1978. Brown dralon chairs round brown fag-burned formica tables surrounded by brown fakewood panels that are covered with footy scarves, framed yellowing newspaper articles and pictures of burly blokes grinning lager at the camera. Outside there's a concrete-and-wavy-tin stand rusting quietly in the sea air, bogs that would scare hardened Glasto visitors and a kiosk where you could have bought polystyrene cups of bovril and bacon rolls... The only concessions to the change of century seemed to be the URLs on the fading billboards facing the pitch and the cell tower at one end of the ground.
... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's been alleged that this was a Stepford Whitby, presumably thronged by amiable robot facsimilies of people you'd otherwise expect to be having booze-and-drug fired meltdowns in the middle of the Elsinoire, and the only way to spot the androids would be to stab them in the side with a hunting knife to see if they leaked sprockets.
I firmly disagree with that notion, since it assumes that the chaotic state of lurching between self-constructed crises is somehow a more preferable condition than catching some sea air and having a right laugh with yer mates.
In fact, I suspect there were strops, meltdowns, howling confrontations and screaming matches aplenty. I just finally grew enough good sense to walk pointedly in the direction of Away if it looked likely that sort of malarkey would be kicking off.
Thus I managed to have an unexpectedly good time.
In the booze club, George Best does rule.
The bands I wanted to see most were Zombina and ELR - I'd heard enough good things about both from people whose (musical) judgement coincides well enough with mine that it seemed missing either would be criminally stupid. I'm bound to say that they both ruled in an efficient and pleasing manner. Musical highlight of the weekend? Absolutely. Zombina manage to sound like The Cramps and Altered Images at the same time, with occasional lurches into Postcard territory to confuse sad old Peelites like me. Pretty much a guaranteed hit with the sort of people who'd be pitching up to view The Damned and The Mission.
ELR were... Pretty much exactly my kind of thing. I've since listened to a slew of early New Order, and the parallels with that era of post-punk experimentation in mixing scratchy handfuls of guitar with dance-inspired synth lines become desperately obvious. There are similar parallels to be drawn with My Bloody Valentine and 'Album' vintage PiL.
The verdict of the cloth-eared g*ths? 'Bleepy'.
Look, Micronauts and LFO are bleepy. There's even a specific techno genre called 'bleep'.
ELR are no more 'bleep' than Joy Division.
Sorry, I appear to be getting carried away with refuting the snap judgements of the slack-jawed, when I should be pointing to the splendid exercise in performance dynamics that occurred when the rest of the band filed off the stage and left Ben to his own devices for a song that owed more to Big Black than Billy Bragg. You wouldn't see a g*th band trying anything that brave - they'd just stand about like they were waiting for a bus and let the DAT machine play the twiddly stuff.
Pearls before swine.
I'll allow, though, that the state of the PA was... Shitful. I was well inside the six-yard box in front of the stage for both those bands, so was in reciept of what turned out to be the optimal sound mix. A day later I wandered through the doors and past the bottle bar to be greeted by The Dreamies going 'Momp Momp Momp'. It sounded like Leechwoman having an anvil-throwing competition from the back of a Chinook as it flew over a dustbin factory. The circa 20db reduction afforded by the military surplus earplugs I now habitually carry made the proceedings bearable, but I've only got the one set of ears and I've got better things to do with them than allow some already-deaf 'engineer' to drag me down to his/her level.
Former fan at the bus stop.
Meanwhile, back at the Whitby FC ground, the bar was filling up with seemingly out-of-place g*ths as the pitch filled with a team from the Whitby Gazette and a g*th all-stars XI (though it seemed nearer a XXII at times). All good end-to-end stuff, though I suspect a little too reliant on the long-ball game toward the end of the second half.
It was all disturbingly familiar, as I'd spent several seasons following Cheltenham Town as they slowly progressed from the Southern League, Midland Division, to the Alliance Premier, before realising that turning into Nick Hornby was going to be a bit redundant.
In the marble halls of the charm school.
I've already made guest appearances in several other accounts of the weekend, so I'll spare you my versions of those same events, save to mention that the rambling, storytelling and arm-waving that went on was of damn fine quality and I look forward to a return match if y'all will have me.
His downfall was a blonde girl, but that's none of your business!
Instead... Imagine, if you can, a football club bar lovingly preserved in Watney's Red Barrel in the state it was in 1978. Brown dralon chairs round brown fag-burned formica tables surrounded by brown fakewood panels that are covered with footy scarves, framed yellowing newspaper articles and pictures of burly blokes grinning lager at the camera. Outside there's a concrete-and-wavy-tin stand rusting quietly in the sea air, bogs that would scare hardened Glasto visitors and a kiosk where you could have bought polystyrene cups of bovril and bacon rolls... The only concessions to the change of century seemed to be the URLs on the fading billboards facing the pitch and the cell tower at one end of the ground.
... But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's been alleged that this was a Stepford Whitby, presumably thronged by amiable robot facsimilies of people you'd otherwise expect to be having booze-and-drug fired meltdowns in the middle of the Elsinoire, and the only way to spot the androids would be to stab them in the side with a hunting knife to see if they leaked sprockets.
I firmly disagree with that notion, since it assumes that the chaotic state of lurching between self-constructed crises is somehow a more preferable condition than catching some sea air and having a right laugh with yer mates.
In fact, I suspect there were strops, meltdowns, howling confrontations and screaming matches aplenty. I just finally grew enough good sense to walk pointedly in the direction of Away if it looked likely that sort of malarkey would be kicking off.
Thus I managed to have an unexpectedly good time.
In the booze club, George Best does rule.
The bands I wanted to see most were Zombina and ELR - I'd heard enough good things about both from people whose (musical) judgement coincides well enough with mine that it seemed missing either would be criminally stupid. I'm bound to say that they both ruled in an efficient and pleasing manner. Musical highlight of the weekend? Absolutely. Zombina manage to sound like The Cramps and Altered Images at the same time, with occasional lurches into Postcard territory to confuse sad old Peelites like me. Pretty much a guaranteed hit with the sort of people who'd be pitching up to view The Damned and The Mission.
ELR were... Pretty much exactly my kind of thing. I've since listened to a slew of early New Order, and the parallels with that era of post-punk experimentation in mixing scratchy handfuls of guitar with dance-inspired synth lines become desperately obvious. There are similar parallels to be drawn with My Bloody Valentine and 'Album' vintage PiL.
The verdict of the cloth-eared g*ths? 'Bleepy'.
Look, Micronauts and LFO are bleepy. There's even a specific techno genre called 'bleep'.
ELR are no more 'bleep' than Joy Division.
Sorry, I appear to be getting carried away with refuting the snap judgements of the slack-jawed, when I should be pointing to the splendid exercise in performance dynamics that occurred when the rest of the band filed off the stage and left Ben to his own devices for a song that owed more to Big Black than Billy Bragg. You wouldn't see a g*th band trying anything that brave - they'd just stand about like they were waiting for a bus and let the DAT machine play the twiddly stuff.
Pearls before swine.
I'll allow, though, that the state of the PA was... Shitful. I was well inside the six-yard box in front of the stage for both those bands, so was in reciept of what turned out to be the optimal sound mix. A day later I wandered through the doors and past the bottle bar to be greeted by The Dreamies going 'Momp Momp Momp'. It sounded like Leechwoman having an anvil-throwing competition from the back of a Chinook as it flew over a dustbin factory. The circa 20db reduction afforded by the military surplus earplugs I now habitually carry made the proceedings bearable, but I've only got the one set of ears and I've got better things to do with them than allow some already-deaf 'engineer' to drag me down to his/her level.
Former fan at the bus stop.
Meanwhile, back at the Whitby FC ground, the bar was filling up with seemingly out-of-place g*ths as the pitch filled with a team from the Whitby Gazette and a g*th all-stars XI (though it seemed nearer a XXII at times). All good end-to-end stuff, though I suspect a little too reliant on the long-ball game toward the end of the second half.
It was all disturbingly familiar, as I'd spent several seasons following Cheltenham Town as they slowly progressed from the Southern League, Midland Division, to the Alliance Premier, before realising that turning into Nick Hornby was going to be a bit redundant.
In the marble halls of the charm school.
I've already made guest appearances in several other accounts of the weekend, so I'll spare you my versions of those same events, save to mention that the rambling, storytelling and arm-waving that went on was of damn fine quality and I look forward to a return match if y'all will have me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 01:57 pm (UTC)NEXT TIME!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 02:14 pm (UTC)I'm already glad I added you. You really get this prose thing done. You either have a talent or too much time; either way, I enjoyed that little writeup ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 02:17 pm (UTC)Took me a while to grow the same sense.
And when the rain comes down
Would you choose to walk or stay...
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 02:51 pm (UTC)It sounded like Leechwoman having an anvil-throwing competition from the back of a Chinook as it flew over a dustbin factory.
Sounds great, where can I get a copy?WTF, a Chinook flying?!?Andrew.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 04:11 pm (UTC)Damnit, another week has gone by and I've done nothing with the mp3 of a concrete-breaking machine that
Wish I'd got some footage of the hardcore grader/auger folding itself up like a steel anemone too.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 04:20 pm (UTC)Downloading lots of Stockhausen at the moment -- bring on the helicopters and the string quartet!
Have you heard of The Faint? Their album Danse Macabre has been in and out of my PC all week, very groovy, kind of like Killing Joke doing disco. Proper Killing Joke, mind, not whatever passes for Killing Joke nowadays.
Sanity was the worst thing that could have happened to Jaz Coleman.
Andrew.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 05:34 pm (UTC)Andrew.
Yay, the Stockhausen arrived... *clang*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 01:53 am (UTC)I have some 10 minutes of guitar feedback on a CD by a band from Chicago called 'Frontier'.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 05:57 am (UTC)Wacky.
Andrew.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 04:53 pm (UTC)www.earthlooprecall.com should you actually give a flying.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 09:40 pm (UTC)i only *discovered* The Faint on monday!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 02:08 am (UTC)I presented my duelling weapons to my counterpart and offered him the choice of both weapon and location, which we swiftly agreed upon.
At the appointed time, my second, the umpire and I arrived at the field of battle to be told that the other chap had fled the scene.
Thus we retired to a most convivial locaction for tea, spliff and fiddling with the duelling weapons, which I left in the care (as you may have gathered from the usericon) of my second.