Artsy Fartsy Nonsense

This week I had one of those one in a life time mind blowing experiences that will live with me forever. The kind that I'm not content just storing in memory and giggle about from time to time. This was one of those once in a life time experiences which you just have to rant about on a blog that no one other than your most sarcastic of friends would read. Any how lets cut to the chase. This Tuesday night I caught up with a uni mate for a bit of a catch up. Now the plan for the evening was to go and see one of our former uni lecturers do some stand up and heckle...erm...I mean show our support. So anyway we had time to kill before the actual show so we had a couple of games of fooseball which resulted in me being defeated and humiliated much like Scotland in their friendly against the yanks. After that we decided to grab a couple of Krush'ems from KFC. After taking around 40 minutes to finish mine I came to the conclusion that I would make a terrible gay guy. Just as well I wwasn't planning on going down that road anyway.

So after finally finishing my Krush'em and taking a couple of minutes to regain my breath we headed back to the gig to discover that our former uni lecturer had just got off the stage. Doh! We had a brief chat with him and he said we should stay and check out the remaining acts. I said, "Okay!" So me and my mate paid our £3 to enter, and looked like complete fools trying to get our glowstick wrist bands on (mine was pink by the way). We took a seat in the corner and eagerly anticipated the next act.

So trying to keep an open mind we watched the first performance which to my surprise was actually pretty good. It was a 3 actor performance piece that satirized the self righteous atheist movement. Since I am a self righteous atheist I got a real kick out of it. The message was seemed about as subtle as a punch to the face. I prefer my satire subtle. Anyway, after being pleasantly surprised the hostess gets up on stage and introduced the next act who was a DJ. Now the letters D and J stuck together strikes absolute terror in me and has done so ever since I stood in the Garage a few years back, bored out my mind listening to some twat dicking around on a MacBook for an hour while I was waiting for Steel Panther to come on. Now if I can go off on a tangent for a second. Just because you spent £800 pound on a MacBook with the same spec as a £400 PC does not make you a musical legend. It makes you a superficial wank pot. I can not fucking stand this super pompous aura that a lot of Mac owners have.  It is not a gimmick for impressing your mates and giving them metaphorical penis envy. It is merely a tool used to do work. Simple as that. Reigning it back to the topic at hand. So after his introduction a guy in a Pingu outfit gets on the stage and sets up a reel to reel tape player, a mixer and a bunch of other audio equipment. I thought to myself, "this looks interesting" as he starts "performing". Now how to describe what I heard. I'm known for my honesty so let me just say it was the most horrifically bad thing I've ever heard in my life. It sounded like white noise being fed back without any discernible tune. I felt like my brain was going to explode like the dude in Scanners. The noise droned on and on, and then then pingu pulls out what looks like a Kazoo and starts groaning through it in to the mic. From there he went out to the crowd, still growning, while I suddenly found religion and was praying that he wouldn't come near me. Thankfully it was heard and he walked on by. So after what seemed like an eternity, he finished and I took a sigh of relief. My mate turned to me and asked, "Have you ever felt so out of place?" I pondered that for a second, going through my personal hall of shame. I have been to the odd night club, surrounded by drunk idiots. I have been to a Juliet Lewis gig and listen to her talk pish in between mediocre tunes. I have even been to Ibiza or as I like to call it, "The land where culture goes to die". So weighing everything up I'd have to say that this probably wins the title of the most out of place I have ever been in my life. I think the thing I found most shocking was that the dude got a round of applause at the end. I know it was an artistic showcase and all that but get real what was that pish all about? It was like the musical equivalent of that chick who presented her unmade bed as an art exhibit. I would google her name... if I cared. It had absolutely nothing to convey as far as I could tell.

Now maybe the performance was a piss take or I could be a complete philistine and be missing the point entirely but that would require it either being funny or communicating something audible. It did neither. So how can I best describe what I had just experienced? I like the term "inaudible wank". Now I'm sure if I were to play the audience on that night a bit of Slayer they would have the same reaction as I had to this. And they would be justified in doing so if it ain't their thing. However,even on Slayers worst day they are more artists than any so called DJ. As a metal fan I often get people looking down their noses at what I listen to, dismissing it as just noise. Trust me there is more to that "noise" than there is all this techno, dance, trance pish. I think I'll close by saying that although what I experienced was a huge shock to my system I at least had the balls to endure it. I challenge anyone reading this to give metal the same chance I gave this performance. Rant over.        

Attica Rage "Ashamed", Christie Connor-Vernal photo shoot, and other stuff

Finally the Attica Rage "Ashamed" music video has surfaced. I completed the video around 3 months ago but the band decided to sit on it until they had announced their new record deal with "Off Yer Rocka records", which is possibly the most cringe worthy name for a record label I've ever heard (sorry boys). So like I said it is finally out there and looking back I could have done so much better with it. A combination of circumstances and time constraints on the day plus a lack of proper planning on my part just resulted in the video not coming off quite like it could have. So looking back I'm kind of disappointed with it but I'm sure the fans of the band will appreciate it. Hopefully my next music video will be a little more well conceived and technically better executed. Anyway, here's the video to check out and critique. Off the back of last months session video with solo artist Christie Connor-Vernal I decided to go in to photography mode and do a set of promo shots for her. So I brought her out to Larkhall and Chatelherault on what luckily turned out to be an amazing day weather wise. The shoot also ended up being quite successful. Christie certainly has a unique look and it allowed to be quite creative with the shots. My personal favourite is the head shot with the "Rock and Roll" tattoos in front. The shoot would have been a lot more fun if I wasn't suffering with a killer bout of man flu which I am now just getting over. Here are some of the best shots from the shoot. About a week ago I was at Rock for Funds at Ivory Blacks for a night of rock and to pick up an interview with a band I've been eager to see for a long time, the almighty Kyrbgrinder. I also thought it would be a good idea to film some of the set for "Metal Outlaw TV". This is something I'd like to more of for the channel as I think it will garner more interest than just interviews. The problem with interviews is that it's difficult to set yourself apart. Having said that from a production value stand point Metal Outlaw is in a different league from 90% of what's out there, including some stuff I've seen on Scuzz. Typically though with an interview I'm finding I get around 150 views per video. Not really a lot to be honest. They are very easy edits so I don't mind. Gig tracks on the other hand I'd expect to get between 300 and a 1000 views depending on the band. Maybe more if I could get one with a biggish band like say Fozzy (hint hint to anyone who works with Triple G). So going forward I'm definitely wanting to film more bands live or maybe even in a studio environment. Anyone interested contact me through the channel or email me at metaloutlawtv@gmail.com . In the mean time here is the first of two tracks I filmed for Kyrbgrinder. Staying on the subject of Metal Outlaw TV, I have just been confirmed as providing the official video coverage for this years LesFest, Scotlands only rock and metal festival. There are a lot of names I fancy interviewing at this event which is shaping up very nicely and any festival that I can travel to in 20 minutes is a winner for me. As long as the weather is not typical Scottish fair it should be helluva fun couple of days where I'll once again get to see Kyrbgrinder, Dirty Rose, Fantasist, and perv on the Amorettes. Roll on the end of June.