Oh. (Russ L going to and fro in the Earth)

Right, as you can tell from the last post, I’m back. It’s been less than a week and as such no more than the length of time I might have normally taken between posts, but following on from the nonsense in this one: I’ve been unable to transfer the stuff over from old computer to the new (the last post was a result of having the two on in seperate rooms and retyping the jist of it. I have one of those clever USB memory stick things but unsurprisingly it needs drivers to work, which I can’t get onto the old one because it’s not in a room with an internet connection any more; I can’t transfer the few Word files that were the urgent thing over to the new one via floppy disk because [I've just discovered] the new computer doesn’t have a floppy drive. Why can’t life ever be easy?) and I’ve thought about my blogosophy (oh yes) and come to no conclusions at all.

I was hoping to get more of the backlog of Stuff Wot I Done Did Do posted this evening, but the printer for the new ‘puter was delivered and needed installing and I’m still half-expecting a phonecall from an upset friend. It’s not going to happen and so - since I’m off to another boxing card tomorrow night - Friday morning (it’ll be my late night at work, so I won’t be in till midday-ish) is about the earliest there’ll be another update.

So there you go.

~ Russ L

Right then, boxing at Walsall Town Hall on Thursday the 18th of May. Five fights, there were, with the results to be found on this page.

The first fight was a corker, with Malik Khan from Blackburn stopping local Wayne Downing in the third round. Malik took the initiative for the first two, and forced Wayne onto the defensive. Whatever Downing’s corner said to him after this proved effective, leading to him to come out in the third significantly more fired up. Khan was knocked down, but this only served to make him more fired up, backing Downing into the corners and teeing off until the ref stopped it. A few boos attended the finish, but it looked like the right decision to me.

The excitement slowed down a bit as Leeds lad Peter Dunn was consistently outpointed over six rounds by Walsall’s Stuart Elwell (at light-middleweight rather than Stu’s usual welterweight, presumably to avoid any confusion regarding his title in the event of an upset). Stu didn’t look in trouble at any point (all six rounds went comfortably to him), but the sparks didn’t really fly at any point either.

The other dramatic finish of the night came in the third bout, with Stafford’s Rob Hunt stopping Stoke’s Ian Clyde in the first round (much to the loud delight of the horde of supporters there for him), knocking him down like a man pole-axed.

Darren Gethin (I’ve seen all three of the Gethin brothers box now, fact fans. Unless there are more of them) vs Birmingham’s Lance Hall was the fight of the night. Aggressive from the very start, Gethin really went for it and landed a lot on Hall, but his chin absorbed the lot and he remained game throughout. Great stuff, with the tiring Gethin winning the war in the end.

Finally, local Matty Hough (accompanied as ever by barely-clothed ladyfriends) looked a bit baffled at times against Sheffield’s Dean Walker. Right from the off it was obvious that the brawly northern fighter’s plan was to put his head down and charge Hough into the ropes, whacking him with single punches as he did so, and there were moments where our lad didn’t look like he knew how to deal with it too well. Matty never failed to hit a few while Dean was on the way in, though, and these swung it for him. I was surprised by the result - I (and I’d call myself a Hough fan by now) had it a draw at three rounds a-piece, but ref called it 59-56 to Matthew. Each and every round was very close and could easily have gone either way, to be fair, but I was still a bit surprised by the margin.

If you want to read a much better account of this card, try here.

~ Russ L

Let me preface this by saying I’m not arrogant enough to assume anyone particularly cares, although see the paragraph after next.

I’m about to hop onto the “I may not write for a while” trend that seems to be sweeping blogs worldwide, but like everyone else I have my reasons. First and probably foremost, I type this to you from a new computer. Not only does this mean that I now finally have a PC with enough grunt behind it to run Google Earth (I really am fascinated with that at the moment, and will probably be found fiddling about with it when I’m meant to be doing various other things, not just writing blog posts) but it also means a couple of half-finished bits were saved on the old one. When I get around to it I will plug that one back in and transfer them, but right now this minute I can’t be bothered.

I’m also having a bit of a crisis of blog philosophy regarding what I write about, what I don’t write about, what I feel I possibly ought to write about, and what I end up writing about without really wanting to.

This may all be sorted very quickly and I might be posting again by tomorrow. It may, however, be a little while. We’ll see. I still have a boxing card, a concert and a couple of restaurant trips to get around to; starting Saturday we’ll have four consecutive nights worth of stuff (assuming I end up going to all of them), so hopefully I won’t leave it too long.

~ Russ L

9:43, Walsall: It’s only just gone half past nine, and I’ve already had a dizzying number of songs in my head. So far we have had “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie, “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley, Fugazi’s “Song #1,” Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” and now back to “Three Little Birds.”

If this sonic whirlwind continues, I think I might be forced to update this post over the course of the day.

10:30, Walsall: We’ve since had “Beats, Bombs, Bass, Weapons” by The Bug and “Sound Check (Gravity)” by Gorillaz. I had to Google for the name of the last song. I was thinking “that ‘Gravity-y-y-y-y-y’ one.”

11:00, Walsall: “Hurry Up Harry” by Sham 69.

15:20, Walsall: It calmed down for a long time, but now we have Usher’s “Yeah.” Feel free to join in.

16:40, Rowley: From Dick Gaughan’s “Which Side Are You On?” through the Dropkick Murphys’ cover of same, and onto Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally.”

I’m going to put on some music outside of my head now I’m home, and that usually puts a stop to this. I hope it proved enlightening.

~ Russ L

Finally!

The first bit can be read here.

The second bit can be read here.

~ Russ L

On sunday the 14th of May it was time for Angrrr Management’s MMA card at The Glades Leisure Centre in Kidderminster. The night was entitled “K.O.”, but given the finishes of over half of the fights it would have been better off named ‘Submission from triangle choke.’

There were some long delays at the start and people seemed to be getting a bit ratty, but once things got going the atmosphere improved and became absolutely fantastic. There were nine fights, and the results can be found here. The Dan Korbely (who impressed me in one of his amateur fights in Walsall a couple of months ago) vs David Rushton match listed there was officially a semi-pro contest, but despite this was probably fight of the night. It was a great back and forth thing until Dan hooked in the triangle, and even after that David hung on for an inhuman length of time, refusing to give up. A really fiery performance from two young lads worth keeping an eye on. I may sound like a patronising tosspot there but my sentiment is good, I promise. My other favourite was the opening Ben Walker vs Lee Austin fight, with both men making their pro debut - a very brawly affair (with some massively entertaining fist-drop type punches into the guard from Austin) until the triangle choke ending set the tone for the rest of the night.

My jaw was led to drop by the demonstration bouts of ‘Black Eagle Stickfighting,’ somewhat randomly added onto the card. The first round saw the combatants wearing helmets and thick padding, leaving me a bit nonplussed. The second saw them removing the padding, provoking winces and murmers of “Ow… Ow… Ow…” throughout the audience as the crack of wood on bone resounded through the arena. That was mad enough, but the final round was brutal. It was, basically, no rules - like Vale Tudo with blunt instruments. They still wore the helmets while standing, but the ref pulled them off their heads when they hit the ground! I’m in pain just thinking about it.

Other highlights included a bunch of lads singing all the way through Tony Bentley’s winning effort against Hayden Buckingham (“There’s only oooooooone Tony Bentley, Only oooooooone Tony Bentley, Walking along, Singing his song…” - I definitely think there should be more crowd singing at MMA events), Danny Rushton’s sideburns (and his victory over veteran campaigner Paul Jenkins, but mostly his sideburns), Lee Sherwood triumphing over Vaughan Harvey in a tit-for-tat spin-kick-o-rama, and Matt Ewin’s clinical display of how to throw heavy elbows from the mount against Jonas Majauskas. Great night out.

~ Russ L

On Friday the 12th I went, for the first time, to The Planet in Wolverhampton. My old homefondueset Matt (who joined me) described it well by pointing out that the experience was somewhere between feeling like you’re in J.B.’s in Dudley (typical ‘rock club’) and expecting Peter Kaye to roll out in a wheelchair.

Una Corda (who are familiar to readers of this blog by now, I would imagine) were on first, and - hurrah! - it was one of the times I liked them. That’s understating it, actually, as they were bloody amazing this time, rivalling their fantastic set at the Med Bar in December. The build-up in that song that I don’t know the name of but I know quite well now ‘cos I’ve seen them six times (and… breathe) literally (literally) had me biting my lower lip waiting for it to let go. Superb. I have a theory, actually - of the six times I’ve seen them, I’ve found them to be OK/quite good/OK/brilliant/OK/brilliant. It seems that I find them to be better every other time I see them. Supporting this is the fact that my old homekettle Matt has seen the three times and found them great/OK/great. The theory holds water! Empiricism~!

Hands Of Hate from Cannock were on second, playing that type of metalcore that’s halfway between what a sensible person would call metalcore and what some silly people these days are calling metalcore. Imagine (say) Decimate with a lot more sung choruses and a few blastier bits. Perfectly OK-ish with some fun riffs here and there, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for them. In the name of silly little aesthetic objections, though, I couldn’t not say that firstly slip-on bowling shoes aren’t really very hardcore (or anything else anyone might be trying to be), and secondly I’m not sure what the point is of the guitarist having one of those cordless guitars if he’s not going to move about.

After that we had Mothertrucker (it has been established that this is the official spelling, and not ‘Mother Trucker’), also probably familiar to readers of this site by now. Mo’Tro were sounding absolutely balls-out rock-to-the-roll at this gig. I later found out that drum-commissar Jimmy The Gloves was playing faster for very specific reasons, but it really had a strong effect on the sound and made for a bit of a nice change. I wouldn’t want a Noisytrucker set from them every single time, but as a now-and-again thing it strikes me as pretty rocking.

Tundra were the headliners, but time was already cracking on pretty late and so we left. I’m sure they were super.

~ Russ L

Uuuurrrgh, I’m getting too far behind again. On Monday the 8th of May I went to The Medicine Bar for a Capsule gig.

I arrived to find that openers Haxan had already started. My initially thought was ‘just another ordinary slow doom band,’ but as their set went on they transformed into something more like a Godfleshian/’Streetcleaner’ type of rhythmic destruction thing. Good stuff, and they’d completely turned me around by the end of their set.

Einstellung were fab, sounding like a (post-)punked up Can and coming across as really dynamic and full of energy. One of their guitarists seemed to be having lots of trouble to begin with but that didn’t get in their way at all.

The sad fact is that I enjoyed both of those bands but over a week later I don’t remember enough to give me much to write about either. Sorry. They were both good, though. I will be seing both again when possible.

I remember a bit more about Tarantula AD, including the fact that they were fantastic. I really wasn’t sure what to expect beforehand - they claim to be trying to merge classical compositional techniques with metal, and on the basis of TheirSpace I wasn’t sure whether they actually meant that or they just included a few violins and cellos. As with everything in life, the reality turned out to be in between the extremes of expectation - there did seem to be a few moments where they explored themes and things (Kayo Dot are better for that in a metal context, really), but for the most part just a really good avante garde rock band. When I said ‘really good,’ though, I mean really really really bloody good. They used a wide array of instruments to create beautiful, textured songs, with a great degree variation throughout their set. I was transfixed.

~ Russ L

And so it came to pass that, on Sunday the 7th of May, my old homegenerickitchenimplement Matt and I headed into Birmingham in the car he’s just bought. It’s one nearby loud noise away from disintegrating before our very eyes, but bless its little internally-combusting heart.

It was to The Academy (bah. This year has been better than last in terms of gigs I want to see not happening there, at least), for The Streets. We arrived to find Professor Green already on stage. I didn’t know he was supporting but was happy to find him there, since he was the winner of the rap battle held last time we went to see The Streets. This happiness quickly faded as the fact dawned that the muffled sound meant I couldn’t make out a word he was saying. Hip-hop suffers from bad sound more than anything else, so that put the tin hat on that one really.

Sway was on second, who I was looking forward to seeing. The sound got a bit better (still not brilliant, though), but ambient background trouble continued as it began to dawn on me that it really was fairly hot in there. Sway’s actual set was a game of two halves (Saint); his tunes are ace, witty hip-hop delivered with no end of charisma, but the sheer amount of crowd participation bits got on my nerves. It felt like every second minute he was launching into a “When I say this and that, you say the other” bit, or a “Is Birmingham liver than Uzbekistan? (*cheer*) Is Birmingham liver than The Democratic Republic Of The Congo? (*cheer*)” bit. It really was overdone and killed the momentum. When he eventually got around to that unimportant music bit he was pretty good. Shame there wasn’t more of it.

By the time that The Streets were on, the heat was unbearable. Really, really bad. The whole set was a resistance trial, struggling to watch and listen while wanting to just melt into a puddle of goo on the floor. This is probably a large chunk of the reason why I found this one good, but not as good as the last time I saw The Streets.

Temperature aside, I’m yet to hear the new album so this was my first chance to hear quite a few of the songs from it. None of the new ones really leapt out massively other than the already familiar “When You Wasn’t Famous,” but then again Skinner’s songs quite often aren’t as instant as that, I find. The highlights were a spaced-out “Blinded By The Lights” and an absolutely lovely “Dry Your Eyes.” It could just be the presence of Leo The Lion as a sideman, but there seemed to be an attempt at adding a more soulful edge to a lot of the old songs - worked well on some of them, less so on others.

The heat was terrible, though.

~ Russ L

Hairy-arsed ignorant northern barbarians say ‘mam.’ Effete southern nonce-types say ‘mum.’ True and righteous Midlanders say ‘mom.’

Do not try and tell us we’re adopting the American useage. The American useage is coincidental - this is what we’ve always said.

~ Russ L