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

On the evening of Monday the tenth of July I went to The Academy 2 to see Flogging Molly. Not only was it sold out (after the last time I saw them I assumed their next gig around here would be in the main room of The Academy. Even after it was announced as being in the smaller annexe, I assumed it would end up being upgraded to big room. It wasn’t. Madness…), it was (yet again) too hot for words. I began to feel sick when people brushed against me in the dense crowd. Yuch.

I arrived in time to see the last three songs of Failsafe. They were an unexpected mix of ska-punk, emo/teen-rock and space-rock-ish synth bits (no, really). Bless ‘em for doing something a little bit different, but none of it came across as interesting to me nonetheless. You have to love (well, no, not ‘love’. ‘Hate’ is the word I’m looking for, really) the singer’s resolutely Northern Preston voice between songs suddenly turning all nasal-Californian during them, too.

It’s fairly obvious by this point in time that I think Flogging Molly are an amazing live band (an amazing band in general, in fact), and so ‘another great set’ doesn’t give me that much to report. They convey a hell of a lot of energy, inspiring the pogo and the riverdance in equal measures; they have a nice blend of traditional and modern instrumentation, without sounding in the least bit tokenistic; and (most importantly) they have an absolutely fantastic array of songs, with hooks-a-plenty and even some interesting lyrics at times.

Let’s be picky for the sake of it. I’m not at all keen on the “Let’s get a crowd of several hundred people to uniformly chant along about the fact that they don’t like being indoctrinated” stuff you see at most big-time punk (if that isn’t a contradiction) gigs, and Flogging Molly sure don’t shy away from getting people to shout expletives in the general direction of George Bush. I’m sure it all does strike a very important blow against Babylon and really raises awareness about the problems the world has (rather than trivialising matters to a level of something where teenagers can cheer for the naughty words then promptly forget about it all), but it still unnerves me somewhat.

Also, it was too hot.

~ Russ L, still heat-o-phobic.

Friday the 7th of July I went to Modern China in Stockland Green, with a few folk I know from work and some people that they knew that I didn’t previously know. Y’know?

They’d originally said ‘The Chinese’ in ‘Erdington,’ so to find out that it was what used to be a pub right near Josiah Mason College (I used to go there for half a day a week, fact fans) was a pleasant surprise. “Woo-hoo!” I exclaimed; “I can actually get home!”

It was quite nice, anyway. I wouldn’t call it a rival to The Big Wok or Wing-Wah (they all laughed at my mention of the latter, based on it closing down early on in its existence. It’s very nice now, ladies and gentleman. Admittedly I haven’t been in a good while, though; there’s something to add to the ‘To Do’ list) yet; an air-conditioning unit would be necessary first. I’m told that it isn’t as bad through most of the restaurant, but our table was horrendously hot. The typical ‘get the most out of the all-you-can-eat buffet’ strategy was curtailed, for me at least. Maybe this was the management’s plan.

The food was very nice. I can’t remember what I had, precisely (it was ages ago and there were lots of different things), but I do recall that the sate sticks were lovely. I think it was £12 per head for the buffet. It wasn’t noticeably better than either Wing-Wah or The Big Wok, though, and so it’s not somewhere for which I’m likely to end up travelling unless I’m with work-type people who live in silly places.

***

Lord oh mercy, I’m acting up (that’s what we call ‘playing at being management’ in the civil service, as in ‘acting in the role of someone up a grade from yourself.’ The first time I heard the phrase “She’s acting up” I thought it meant she was being naughty) at work this week. Yesterday, and then on Thursday and Friday I wasn’t/won’t really be, ‘cos Teresa will be here; today she wasn’t about for most of the day due to a training course, so I was in a sort-of sort of way; tomorrow she isn’t in at all, so I am officially the workflow EO on our section. This wasn’t supposed to happen until September.

~ Russ L, marvelling at a system that puts a goon like him in charge of anything.

Right, we’re on a ‘getting some of the stuff from ages ago that I barely remember out of the way so I can write about Supersonic a bit sooner’ tip. Dig it. Supersonic was amazing, by the way, even better than last year. We’ll get to that soon enough.

After London Called, and after arriving back home, there was enough time on the Second of July for a few hours kip and an ordered-in Indian takeaway (The Rowley Village has yet to let me down in this field) before heading out to The Flapper & Firkin for some metal. I gather that the good ol’ Flapper won’t be with us for much longer. This is A Very, Very Bad Thing, but there we are I suppose.

It was hot. I know you’re sick of me moaning about the heat, but first of all objectivity is on my side this time as (we’ll see shortly); and secondly - tough. There’ll be more heat-whinging to come.

I missed half of Out For Blood, but I was very pleasantly surprised by what I did see. I got their split with Organ for review a good while back and wasn’t especially blown away by their Speedhornin’-Ground-with-a-few-doomier bits mix, but live they sounded a hell of a lot more effective. Some huge riffs and an overall sense of giving it a bit of welly got my thumbs up, and I would definitely like to see them again.

I was really keen to see Decimate again, after a long lay-off and having missed their previous Birmingham gig. With their new album out (which I bought at this gig, and good it is too), this was mostly about the new songs. Their ultra-tough-sounding metalcore with Aggy Front style vocals has now been bolstered by some Swede-lead guitar and the odd deathly moment, but the good songwriting and energetic performance remain. Decimate are an awesome live band; it’s just a shame that they had to cut their set short due to the heat making their drummer need to throw up (I told you it was too hot).

Mistress were our headliners, playing a set consisting of the entirety of their upcoming album. I usually have a slight feeling of trepidation about new Mistress stuff before turning out to love it, but this time it’s all sounding really good from the off. Whether this is a good omen or not remains to be seen, but I believe it will be. Highlights struck me as being the mid-paced headbangy/chuggy one already mentioned, as well as an uber-doom-y slow one with some massive riffs. The actual performance, meanwhile was as reliably ace as you can expect from Mistress when they’re comparatively sober (you know. By their own standards).

~ Russ L, choosing to be happy that he managed to stay fairly concise in this without losing any insight, and refusing to acknowledge that this is only because he didn’t have any insight to offer to begin with.

Off to the capital we went on the first of July, where people talk all funny like. The purpose of the exercise was Cage Rage 17, at Wembley Arena. Originally this was going to be me old mucker Trigger’s stag do, but things happen and it ended up just being him, me, and his Brother Dom a-going (as part of his stag month). It was also the day of England vs Portugal, which didn’t really mean a lot to me but was something that neither of them would even entertain missing.

Things went about as smoothly as they realistically could, which is slightly surprising ‘cos Trig and I become absolute mongs and tend to get lost when you put us together (neither of us is that bad individually…). The train turned out to be cheaper than expected, and the Tube wasn’t a problem this time. It was HOT, though. Standing out on Wembley High Street was only slightly short of incineration, and I really do dread to imagine what those tube trains are like at busy times. It must be sickening.

We wondered around for a good while looking for Travelodge, only to eventually get a taxi. Please note, dear reader – if you’re going to an event at the Wembley Arena, the Travel Inn is practically on top of it whereas the Travelodge is a stretch outside the town centre. This knowledge will serve you well.

My God, it was hot. I want to make it clear just how hot it was. I saw a camel mopping the sweat from its camel-y brow (I didn’t, actually. We did see the biggest beetle in the world ever, though).

After checking in and then waiting unnecessarily long for another taxi (have I mentioned how hot it was?), we headed back into town and into the Wetherspoons to watch the football. I’m not really a football fan, but I enjoyed watching this about as much as can be expected and (as I anticipated) got caught up in the exciting bits. It’s just a shame that there are always so many long stretches of nothing in particular happening between the exciting bits. Unfortunate result, anyway. Portuguese players seem to be anti-Weebles – wobbling then falling down at the slightest opportunity.

Over to the arena. Lots of things I’ve seen online seem to be suggesting that the event was sold-out or nearly sold-out. I dispute this. There’s no doubt that there was a massive crowd and that it bodes well for the sport, but there were plenty of empty seats around. The section of the £35 seating that we were supposed to be in was practically deserted (and justifiably so, since it offered a terrible view – we went and sat in a few unoccupied seats a little bit further forward. We got away with it, fortunately, but I doubt a whole section could have displaced itself thusly).

Here are the results. We missed the first four fights, (including Mason vs Daley, which was one of the ones I most wanted to see and so made for a real disappointment), but were there in time for Jean Silva vs Abdul Mohamed. There’s been some complaint from some quarters since then about Mohamed getting the decision in this one. I did actually have it two rounds to one in favour of Silva, but you have to remember that A) I was quite pissed by this point; and B) it was very close, no result would have surprised me. Abby Mo got the most of Cage Rage’s ‘open guard’ rule with some spectacular jumping stomps, which make for a hell of a thing to see live.

Pierre Guillet vs Daijiro Matsui was a bit of a disappointment (despite Matsui being uncharacteristically active on his feet), with a cut stoppage giving it to Guillet in non-decisive fashion. Two nasty, brutish and short (I mean those things in a good way) heavyweight matches followed as Buzz Berry stopped Sentoryu Miller and Mark Epstein knocked out the comical Dave Legano (who adopted a religious-themed entrance, prior to the inevitable), both in next to no time at all. Zelg Galesic proceeded to impress the living daylights out of me (and everybody else) with a slick armbar win over the very dangerous Curtis Stout. Having now proved he has a ground game as well as the lethal stand-up we already knew about, I foresee Zelg going straight to the top and fast.

Fabiano Scherner’s submission attempts made little impression on Gilbert Yvel before he got a battering (no mad YVEL~! antics, though), but the fight of the night was to follow. The highly anticipated rematch between James ‘The Collosus’ Thompson vs Tengiz ‘The Barbarian’ Tedoradze was called off due to Tengiz getting knocked out in Holland a fortnight before, and so the largely unknown (and very unlikely looking) Rob Broughton was drafted in as a replacement. For two rounds, Thompson absolutely pasted Broughton, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him. Broughton had no answer for any of it, but absorbed the lot and somehow kept going. By the time the third came around James was looking exhausted, and (bizarrely - I really don’t know why) the crowd had turned against him after initially being strongly supportive. Broughton came out with renewed vigour, took the advantage standing, and finished the whole affair on the ground with a volley of hammerfists from side control. An amazing display and a huge win for him. What now for Bristol Jimmy, I wonder?

The main event followed, with Ian Freeman’s big comeback fight against the (downright scary) Melvin Manhoef. I (and practically everyone else there) was firmly behind Freeman, and we were hoping and praying that he’d be able to survive the initial onslaught that would surely come from the Dutchman for long enough to take advantage of his conditioning problems. It wasn’t to be. Freeman went down early and Manhoef wasn’t slow to finish him off. Such a shame, but there we are.

Not a good sporting day for England, all in all.

There was no chance for anything else the following day (needing as we did to return back to the Midlands early due to Trig needing to be in work) but this was a very fun trip. It’s just a shame that some of the wrong people won.

More accounts of this can be found here, here and here (some great photos in that last one), but I feel the need to state again that it definitely wasn’t sold out. James Thompson definitely isn’t a Londoner, either.

~ Russ L, who is still occasionally getting the “UL-timate, UL-timate CHA-llenge” jingle they were playing between fights running through his head.

The word ‘legendary’ is one chucked about far too readily (I’ll admit to being guilty of that myself at times), but Gladys Knight is as good a candidate for it as any. Off I went to see her at the Symphony Hall on Friday the 30th of June.

Bizarrely, as a support act we got a crap Scouse comedian and impressionist (I didn’t catch his name). I didn’t find him especially funny but he went down well, so perhaps I’m just a miserable git (the old couple sitting next to me did walk out, though, so I wasn’t alone). He did have one brilliant line: “The missus has been in a mood with me for about a month now, all because I didn’t hold the car door open for her. It wasn’t my fault… I just panicked and swam to the surface.”

Then followed a long wait. I stayed inside, but those who went out into the bar were called back far too early by the “the performance will begin in fifteen/ten/five minutes” announcements. Another long wait followed, and people began to get annoyed. A few started claps that were slightly too fast to be slow claps, but the intention was there. The band (the very impressive band, I should say – if I recall correctly there were three backing singers, two drummers, a guitarist, a bassplayer, four keyboards, and a fifteen piece brass section with a conducter) eventually took to the stage and we still had to wait while they handed out sheet music etc (that really was stupid – there’s no reason at all why simple things like couldn’t that have been set up beforehand. It was the first night of the tour, to be fair, but still…). More slow (-ish) claps, heckling (“Get on with it!” One level-checking bass note was met with a cry of “Encore!” How I laughed) and general rattiness issued forth from the audience.

It wasn’t the sort of atmosphere you’d expect at a Gladys Knight gig in the Symphony Hall.

Eventually Gladys took to the stage, and amazingly disarmed absolutely everyone immediately. She just seemed so charming and lovely. It’s standard spiel for artistes to talk about how grateful they are to their audiences for making it all possible, but Gladys came across as really genuine with it.

The bulk of her set was made up of jazz standards (it seems that she has released an album of such songs. Like the majority of people who were there, I have to confess my ignorance regarding what she’s been up to in recent years. I wouldn’t mind hearing it after this, though…) and unsurprisingly she delivered them really well. “This Bitter Earth” was absolutely heartbreaking, and “The Man I Love” really nice.

It was the classics everyone came to hear, of course. A combination of The Pips’ version and a cover of Marvin Gaye’s version (if you follow me) of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” had an almost showstealing guest spot from Merald Knight (I’d rather his comedy stylings had opened the show. I’d also like to announce that I absolutely love the phrase ‘comedy stylings’); “Every Beat Of My Heart” was lovely (a song that I think is definitely under-rated in Gladys’ cannon as well of that of this type of music as a whole); and “The Way We Were” and “Midnight Train To Georgia” (you were waiting for the mention of those two, weren’t you?) were absolutely everything you wanted them to be. No small feat.

~ Russ L, who will get this blog up to date eventually. Promise.

Thursday the 29th of June saw me heading off (with the lovely Nykilicious) to Dudley Town Hall for the boxing. The inevitability of missing some of the card due to having to work till 8 was removed by the fact that Nyki drives, and then returned by the fact that we couldn’t find anywhere to park and had to drive around looking for what felt like an age. Hadn’t that little clearing diagonally opposite the town hall used to be a car park? I’m sure it was. Oh well.

The results can be found here. We missed Portman vs Dunn and the first couple of rounds of Heagney and Marston’s scrappy affair due to the faffing about, but were well in time for Dean Hickman’s spectacular-if-scary KO of Tom Hogan. In the second round Hogan was knocked down and the fight should probably have ended (he was clearly on wobbly legs afterwards), but things continued long enough for Hickman to get a brutal left-and-right that snapped Hogan’s head back and sent him crashing down like a sack of spuds. This was one of those occasions that leaves you with mixed feelings afterwards – it was one hell of a dramatic finish and amazing to watch, but Hogan could’ve easily ended up going off in a stretcher. Nobody wants that.

Presumably this had some effect on the general mood of the officials, since the evening’s main event suffered from completely the opposite problem. Although short and completely one-sided, local hero (and Midlands Area Middleweight Champion) Darren McDermott’s win over Polish fighter Andrezj Butowicz was fun to watch for as long as it lasted, a brawly affair with little pretence towards Queensbury rules. It was all about McDermott, up to and including the point in the third round where the ref stepped in for no obvious reason. Butowicz (who was understandably livid afterwards) was against the ropes and getting hit, but had his arms up and was defending himself. Perhaps the ref just wanted to clock off early and get home, I don’t know, but it’s not like Macca particularly needed the favour. That’s professional boxing, I suppose. Compete outside your own country before you’re famous and you have to fight the officials as well as your opponent.

Elsewhere on the card Rob Hunt brought his huge contingent of supporters (just like last time in Walsall) for his match against the clearly intimidated Peter Buckley and easily walked away with the decision, although not without occasionally showing his relative inexperience (I still had it 60-54 nonetheless; the ref said 60-55), and Mark Lloyd prevailed over Tommy Jones in six rounds of fairly boring pushy-shovey clinch work. We had fun trying to figure out who Jones’ cornerman reminded us of.

Not the best one of these local boxing cards I’ve seen so far, but still a very enjoyable evening.

More detail can be found in this article, although I can’t vouch for the punctuation and grammar.

~ Russ L, slightly worried about the MC’s announcement that the next one in September will be one of these boxing and a meal and whatever else all-in-one efforts. I really don’t want to have to pay twice as much for a ticket as a result of all the other ephemera.

Right, after going to see the City Of Birmingham Space-Age Orchestra, I didn’t do anything particularly exciting for a couple of weeks. Well, as far as I ever do anything exciting. You know perfectly well what I mean.

I returned to action with an(-other) ignonimous defeat to James O’ Trucker on the morning of Sunday the 25th of July, as I’ve already mentioned. There has been talk about switching from Scrabble to chess next, but I haven’t played chess for years and wasn’t especially good to begin with so don’t hold your breath for a tale of my reversing fortunes. It’s all about patience, y’see. I don’t have any of that.

On the evening of Wednesday the 28th I went to TGI’s with Maxine, who’s currently gadding about on the continent and hopefully having a fantastic time. TGI’s was quite nice – very busy and noisy, even on a non-special Wednesday night, but the food was nice and the fajita towers were so much fun. We both had one. We could barely see each other.

Starting on the week of all of this and for the three weeks since then I’ve been doing a slightly different job at work. In essence, I’m covering for Pam, who’s covering for Teresa, who’s covering for Sue, who’s on holiday. Did you follow that? Good. I’ll be doing it for the next three weeks, too, due to either Pam or Teresa (adjust the chain as necessary) being off for all of them. I’ve really enjoyed it, being effectively half of my normal job and half doing things to do with organising the post that comes in and the work that people get etc. It’s a much more varied day than I normally have, and I’m going to hate going back to normal in a few weeks time. It’ll feel so boring.

~ Russ L, thinking it’s a bit mad that apparently there’s a week in September when both Teresa and Pam are off, and thus I’ll be ‘being’ Teresa. I’ll be management, for a week. They haven’t thought this through.

Writing one day short of being a calendar month late, I went with the parentals to Symphony Hall on the 9th Of June to see the CBSO and ‘Sci-Fi Symphony’. First we encountered The Steve Ajao Quartet playing in the foyer, as part of the free ‘Rush Hour Blues’ doings ever Friday (wherein a jazz ensemble plays a free gig in the ICC for the duration of the going-home traffic being heavy. A very good idea, and something I’m sure I’d take advantage of if I worked in Birmingham). I wasn’t especially impressed with this lot, though, having as they did that stereotypical ‘technique but not a fat lot else’ feel. Yawn. I’ve said this elsewhere, but I wouldn’t assume that a skilled plasterer would necessarily design beautiful architecture and I don’t think many others would either. Why music is seen to be the exception when it comes to craftsmanship equating to art and entertainment is beyond me.

Off we went into the Symphony hall for the point of the evening – the CBSO, conducted by Carl Davis and his spectacular coats, and playing various pieces that have been used in science fiction films and television programmes. Quite nerdy, yes, but so much fun.

There was an interesting selection, with both pieces that have existed for long enough and had been picked for use (including some I already adored – Straus’ “Also Sprach Zarathastra,” and both “Jupiter” and “Mars” from Holst’s planet suite) and bits composed specifically for the films. Who’d have thought that the likes of John Williams’ “Superman” and “Throne Room & Finale” (from ‘Star Wars’) would sound so stirring when divorced from context?

It wasn’t an entirely serious affair, of course. Having the audience chant ‘Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Thunderbirds are go!” at the beginning of Gray’s “Thunderbirds March” was fun, as was Howard Goodall’s Red Dwarf suite (I was expecting just the piece at the beginning of series one and two, but it progressed onto the main theme music and various other bits. I nearly burst into laughter when I heard “Tongue Tied”); but an unannounced encore and reprise of “Ghostbusters” (not quite sci-fi anymore, but it was just an encore) with Mr Davis shouting out “Who ya gonna call?” (and, even better, “I ain’t afraid-a no ghost!”) and the audience responding “GHOSTBUSTERS!” was hilarious.

So, yes, I can now say I’ve sung along with the CBSO. I couldn’t before.

~ Russ L, who ain’t afraid-a no double negation.

I saw this posted on The Communion. I didn’t know the lad in question but Deadsunrising were one of my favourite local bands ever, Spine were a band I thought were really good but only got to see twice, and it’s a good cause too:

Matthew Aaron Watkins passed away on 22nd April 2006 due to a terrible accident on Snowdonia.

£4 minimum donation, more is obviously welcome and all money made from merchandise will be donated also!

Thanks to Action Alex of Deadsunrising/D. Louis Baker & Friends for posting the above.

~ Russ L, urging everyone to spread the word to anyone who might be interested.

Right we are then, on the 7th of June it was over to the Medicine Bar with me. I’d thought I was going to see Venetian Snares, but he’d pulled out of his headline slot due to the Med Bar not having the right brand of CD player. I truly wish I was making that up.

As a result the door fee had been waived by those good Capsule folk, and thus I pressed on in. One DJ Bazooka was opening proceedings, and this gives me an ideal opening for a little bit of a solipsistic diversion (and the reason why this post has been tagged ‘Blogstuff’ as well as ‘Music’). If you’re reading this on the main page of this blog, towards the top left you’ll see my List Of Every Gig I Have Ever Been To. I keep this primarily because I just find it a nice thing to look back over. It is, however, a list of live performances. I’ve wondered before about adding DJs to it, but pulled back because it’d be impossible to keep it anywhere near the level of near-completion that it is at now – I obviously can’t recall every time I’ve been in a pub with a DJ playing, every family party with a mobile disco DJ in years gone by, and so forth.

This is not to say that I don’t consider the work of DJs less worthwhile, it’s just not what the list is about. There will be times when the boundary is blurred, of course, and in those I’ll just list it or not list it depending on how I feel at the time.

You almost certainly didn’t care about that, but I do feel a compulsion to explain this sort of thing. Yeah, you think it’s strange. Try living with it.

I think I spy the point in this paragraph, so let us return to it. I saw the start and end of DJ Bazooka’s doings, due to encountering the infamous John Matie and being persuaded to go for a swift pint in The Rainbow, an establishment I’d never been to before despite having heard many good things about it. I liked it. DJ Bazooka was from Luxembourg, spinning a set of typically Teutonic (forgive me for the generalisation, but I use it for the purpose of describing his runnings, not for defining them) (I’ve just realised that Matie used exactly the same phrase elsewhere. To be fair, though, I imagine DJ ‘Zooka probably gets called ‘typically Teutonic’ a lot) (I’ll stop with the brackets now) breakbeat and d’n’b, harsh and mostly straight-ahead but not without the odd moment of grandeur. Enjoyable for the top ‘n’ tail version I saw; I’m not sure I could have eaten a whole one, though.

PCM were the de facto headliners in the absence of Snares, and an act I was really keen to see. Obviously at this sort of event the visual focus (if you want such a thing) is on the crowd and their dancing rather than anything going on stage, and there weren’t a shortage of people giving it laaahrge and providing plenty to watch. PCM themselves conjured up an awesome sonic barrage – aggressive-as-you-might-expect d’n’b, with a nice mix of heavy basslines and squelchy acid sounds. Really strong ’stop you in your tracks’ type stuff, but danceable (well… you know. Grooving, -ish) at the same time. I’m looking forward to seeing them again at Supersonic.

I left before they’d finished for bus-getting purposes, and the thought occurred later that the sheer amount of gigs I was abandoning before the end lately was a bit over the top. Admittedly a lot of the times (like this one) it was for highly legitimate reasons, but still…

~ Russ L, worrying about how ignorant he sounds about this type of music in this post. He’s always said his main advantage in terms of attempted music punditry was that he isn’t an expert in any particular genre but does retain a sense of perspective about the world at large, though. He’s also well aware that he can just about get away with the tilde/sign-off/third person comment when it’s only one sentence, but begins to look like a proper tosspot after that.