200 OK

• Reign in blood: Slayer
• The empire strikes first: Bad Religion
• Music for the gilted generation: The Prodigy
• Killswitch engage: Killswitch engage
• So Far: Alex Reece
• Greatest Hits (acoustic): The Cure
• Static Age: The Misfits
• Illusions Live: Michale Graves
• Almost Famous: Living legends
• The Sinister Urge: Rob Zombie
• Burn my eyes: Machine Head
• Toxicity: System of a down
• Life won’t wait: Rancid
• Paranoid and sunburnt: Skunk anansie
• Greatest Hits: 311

Posted this on the FB a little while ago, thought i’d put it up to add in a cheap blog post! Not a huuuge fan of the band but i like this song and more importantly this is by far one of the coolest music videos i’v seen in ages.

Bit of a musical post today as I thought i’d mention these guys since I spam them to people so much I might as well do a blog post about them.

Bad Religion are a Punk band from America who have been around since the early 80′s. I’v always known ‘of’ them but never really listened  and whoa was i missing out all those years.

It’s a great feeling to discover or get into a band as I did with these guys last year, despite how I look I have quite a varied interest in music, punk being one of my favourites.

The thing with these guys is that they are not your typical rock’n'roll Lemmy like drugs and alcohol binging nutters, they are bizarrely intellectual.

For example the leader singer Greg Graffin has a PHD and teaches life sciences at UCLA in the US, not your average punker no doubt.

As you can imagine this is reflected a lot in the band’s lyrics which often as you can tell by their name are related to religion or more so how silly it is. They have some duff albums (being around 30 years ye gonna have a few) but for me two of their later albums are actually their best, which is strange for a band but as we’v established these chaps are fairly atypical.

I suggest you at least grab this album and give it a listen, i must play it at least once a week if not more.

BR are firmly rooted now as one of my favourite bands evva

And i’m only posting this to see how high it gets ranked on google. sick

Just to confirm, Michael jackson is dead. ’E's a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig!’E's kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!!

At least all those impersonators who had surgery and fuck knows what else are gonna rake it in in the years to come.

So i’m back from this year’s Download festival and have now done all the essential post festival activities such as having a very long shower!, eating much warm food and tea and having a good sleep in a warm bed. I still feel/look like something out of a George Romero film but i’m steadily recovering.

I’ll break this up into sections, hopefully it’ll make some sort of sense.

Note: I’v left this post for a few days due to the onset of a chest infection and crazy catchup at work!

Weather Reports Fail

So it looked like the entire festival was going to be a complete mud bath and from the start it really did begin to look that way. When we got there on Wednesday the sky opened in the night and much rain was pissed down upon us. This didn’t really effect our campsite as not many people walked through it, the village/market area of the festival however was a different story and I made the trek on Thursday morning to grab my self some wellies, nearly slipping over in the mud several times.

A strange thing happened as soon as I got back from lugging those bastards through swathes of mud, the sun came out and it hasn’t gone away since! I’m never gonna trust 5/10 day forecasts again they’re complete bollox. Now this sun in a matter of hours dried the village area out and from there on things got a little hot, I say a little hot as whatever cruel bastard runs things up there in the heavens,,, they swapped sodden mud torture for blistering heat. I wasnt joking when I said the Romero thing above, I’m rather burnt and really could pass as a fuckin Zombie if you gave me some contact lenses and a ripped shirt.

I can’t complain too much though, i’d much rather be burnt to a crisp then covered in mud! It seems the Download festival has some kinda blessing when it comes to weather.

The Campsite

Normally at these kinda events you go up with a few folks you know quite well and chill out and make chums with ya neighbours and then if they’re not cocks you chill with them too. This year was a little different. There was a convergence of many folks from in and around Bedford some who knew each other well and others who’d never met before or in passing but  all met up and camped in the same spot.

Great it was too! It was nice having that kinda meeting new people feeling but still having a shared location and background. One thing I learnt and am glad I did is that youngens are OK. You see i’m in my mid twenties now, i’v done all the crazy shit and been around the block a few times. As you get older you do seem to develop a natural dislike for people a lot younger than you, just assuming they have nothing to say or are immature etc… A fair few of our camp peeps ranged from 17-20ish age and it must be said I was shocked. Not only did they conduct them selves well they had some really interesting ideas on the life the world, music and everything, I was impressed. I think i’ll have a bit more time for youngens when i’m out drinkin in future instead of just ignoring them.

That said it was welcome to chill out with people more my own age who were in the camp too and I wanna thank Stu Chris and Dais for always being there in the next tent and just being awesome guys I’m glad i got to know ya’ll a bit better (let it carry on!) and Mr Chris for his late evenin teas and just being great and of course Dave for being Dave even thou he was camped off somewhere else .. heh.

All in all a great bunch of folks and the length of the festival was just enough time for personality clashes and irritations to not be an issue, big brother this was not.

The Bands

Funilly enough this might end up being the shortest section of this blog post. 1. since i’m writing it last and i’m bored and 2. bands and performances always tend to be such a personal thing that its not really worth going into in great detail. If you’re after a non biased opinion on the bands then you can read all the Internet reviews and watch who played on youtube.

For me the highlight had to be being really close to see the Prodigy for the first time. I’v been a fan of them since I was quite young and to get to finally see them and in such great form was epic and I’ll remember it always.

Limp Bizkit shocked me a bit. I was expecting to stand there and have a good giggle but in the end found my self really enjoying their show. I’m not a huge fan of their music but the show they put on was really full of energy and done well.

I really enjoyed Static X since i’v not really been into them for a long while and not really liked their last couple of albums but the show they put on really brought back all those memories of their old stuff and why I liked them.

All in all rather good spread of music.

The Swarm!

So we were sat down chillin waiting for Static X to come on and all of a sudden the crowd starts to do something other than cheering, more a kinda ‘ahhhhgh’ sound with the occasional girly screech (you gotta love those girly screeeches, ugh). The sky gets a bit darker so we look up….

Wasps! thousands and thousands of fucking wasps swaming just above us! Now i’v never been stung by a bee, wasp whatever… call me boring I call it playing it safe! I normally nuke those mother fuckers from a distance with whatever aerosole can I can get my hands on. In this case I was caught a bit short and instead took to the ground and pulled out the trusty pac-a-mac and covered my self with it.

After a while the swarm moved over and hovered at the front of the stage as worried festival organisers barked into their walkie talkies on stage. After about 20 minutes or so the swarm all kinda landed in a ball on this railing near the stage which you can kinda see in the photo below,  it was a very strange sight. By this time I think a lot of people had bricked it as there was a clear path to the front of the railings which we took full advantage of and with the Wasps safely tucked up in a cardboard box we watched Static X with a nice clear view of the stage.

Click to enlarge

…the wasps, we solute you.

I’v fuckin lost my phone and they stole my fuckin wallet!

Catchy heading eh? but not to do with me, My wallet was zipped up to buggery and my phone in a box in a zipped compartment in my bag!  This is a tale about my mate Chris and Pete from Bedford and emphasises the good and the evil extremes you get when you stick 70+ thousand people in a field.

When we were at the front of The Prodigy Chris’s phone fell out of his pocket in all the commotion and fell to the ground amongst a sea of pissed up crazy jumpy download festival goers. If it were me i’d of fuckin freaked out by such an event (hence why i kept mine in a a box in a bag zipped up) but when I hooked up with him after they finished he didn’t seem too shaken up.

So we went back to the front of the stage after everyone had headed off and were met by a staggered few miserable types sifting through plastic bottles and dead grass obviously looking in a vain attempt for shit they had also lost.

I decided to give his phone a call at this point not holding much hope for it ringing, never mind an answer! but an answer we got!

It seems in the brief 15-20 minute period between the Prodigy finishing someone had picked up the phone and handed it to a bloke called Ian at the lost property tent about 400 metres away! So we walk over an queue up, more miserable panic ridden types and after a bit of confusion as to who Ian was we got the phone back. The weirdest thing was that there was very little damage to it! a bit of a scratch and some mud! not to shabby for 500-1000 people at the front jumping up and down on it for the best part of an hour.

For every blind bit of luck it seems there is always a story of the not so lucky. Pete a really nice guy I got to know a bit better from Bedford had his ass pick pocketed in the crowd for another band, taking out 80 quid and just chucking his wallet next to his feet! This was after  a day or so before he had found a wallet ditched while walking through the camp site and took the time to hand it into the Police on site!

Just goes to show the world has decent,  nice people and your life can be touched by those lucky moments but then in a heartbeat some cunt dicks on you and ye lucks all but run out.

Shout out to the CC crew

The comfy crappers tent was there again and it must be said these people are true heroes. For those not in the know, the comfy crappers is like a group of sheds you can pay £2.50 to use to do your business. They’re cleaned each time and everything is just awesome. How people can use festival portaloos to crap in is beyond me i’d rather stick a coke can up my arse they go anywhere near those filth cabins. Some may say it’s hardy very rock’n'roll to pay to take a nice peaceful poop but to those people, I dont give a fucking shit (heh) as far as my health is concerned I’ll be as pussified as I like, I’m not the one who’s gonna die of some nasty disease.

So I am going to the Download music festival next week with people, if you are coming and I know you and we have not arranged a meet up then make sure you drop me a message before you set off or be a bit more rock’n'roll and text me when you get there, I guess you could be stone cold rock’n'roll and just think you’ll bump into me on the off chance, amoungst 10′s of thousands of metallers (I don’t quite know how phil managed this in 2007 in the queue but he and ruth did!).

The lineup isn’t my ideal one this year but I am really looking forward to seeing Killswitch Engage again and The Prodigy whom despite being one of my favorite groups of all time, I have yet to ever see live! The return of Limp Bizkit is going to be entertaining, there does seem to be a numetal revival going on at the minute, which is bizarre when you think about it… all those people into Korn, Coal Chamber etc… back in the mid-late 90′s to the early 2000′s are all much older now and must think back on such times with the same nostalgia many older music fans have for groups from the dreaded 80′s.

Everyone always goes off on a rant about the lineups at festivals and I don’t want to really start. For me, as long as there are a few bands I love, a couple I wouldent mind seeing and some surprise gems that really get me listening to them for the first time then i’m happy. Apart from Motorhead and Pendulum I don’t think there was one band last year I wanted to see, and Lethal Bizzle,,, yea he’s not the worse musician on the planet but WTF!

What I really wrote this for

I really wrote this post to share my festival checklist with ya’ll in case you need some help on what to take to a festival like Download. Crossed out ones are previous choices now disregarded.

• Tent – You need one of these unless you are hardcore or just strange
• Sleeping bag – Again pretty essential unless you like the cold
• Ear Plugs – Hardly ‘\m/ ROCK METTTALL’ I know, but if/when you do decide to sleep and the tent next door has some shit black metal blastin away you’ll feel smug
• 2x Toilet rolls - Obvious reasons o..O
• Bin Liners – Totally essential, I split mine like this, 1 food, 1 toiletries, 1 in-tent bin, 1 dirty clothes. The rest you’ll need for ya camp site etc. Buy a whole roll! do it now. 
• mini First Aid kit – Fuckit live dangerously, and if you can’t make it to the St Johns medical tent then that means ya dead or soon to be in an ambulance anyway.
• Torch – Useful, if only for the fact it saves you from all those fucking tent ropes.
• RucSack - No brainer
• Mobile - Essential social tool for meeting people and getting the best out of the festival, dont worrying about batteries they have charge points everywhere. 
• Sun screen – All day in the sun takes it toll
• Hat - I look like a cock in a hat, you feel free to take one if you like.
• Toothbrush – Makes you feel civilised and refreshed in the morning.
• Alcohol gel  - Tottaly 100% fucking essential. They cost about 30p will last you for ages and give you peace of mind and keep you free from plague.
• Soap - When push comes to shove you don’t need this, its impractial unless you have bowls and towls and ugh forget it
• Wet Wipes - Another essential item, 1 maybe 2 packs will do the job of keeping you clean with no mess or fuss.
• Tape - If your tent gets mashed, or anything for that matter gets mashed… buy a new one at the festival.
• Booze - Yes, bollocks to taking booze with you is what I say. Download has a festival village where you can buy beer and its not as expensive as you’d think. Plus you wanna remember the event, you can get royally fucked up at home when you get back. 
• Cup – No brainer
• Mess Tin - No brainer
• Lighters – The ability to start fire is always good, humans have known this for thousands of years
• Pillow – Blow up one will do
• Fags – Even if you don’t smoke you never know when they might come in handy, to give to me if i run out hah.
• Food - Yep, fuck taking food with you as well, I’m loaded and there are loads of places to buy food. I’m taking maybe a box of cereal bars and an apple or two.
• Money – Expect to spent lots of money, if you have none then don’t go.  
• Tooth Paste – works well with the brush.
• 5 Pairs Pants – 4 nights, 1 for emergencies.
• 5 Pairs Socks  - 4 nights, 1 for emergencies
• Deodorant - People who forget this are called cunts and should be executed at the gate.
• Brush – Unless you have no hair
• 2 Pairs Shorts - For wearing
• Jeans - Also for wearing, when its cold
• 4 T-shirts – go on the wed its 5 days, you should without fail buy a festival t shirt so wear that on the last. 
• Jumper – It gets cold
• Small Bottle 500ml – Fill with water when ya out an about
• Large Bottle 2.5 – 3ltr – Fill with water and keep in ya tent so you dont have to make many trips
• Towel - Waste of time
• Day Carry Bag – For phone, bottle shit like that. 
• Sun glasses - It gets sunny, plus sunglasses make everyone look badass. 
• Seat - Easily forgotten but majory essential. 
• Floor Mat - Floor gets very cold in tent
• TICKET – If you don’t take this then you’re a moron and dont deserve the fun of a music festival anyway.
• Tin/Bottle opener  - Glass is banned and you’re an idiot if you take tinned food that isnt a ring pull.
• Pain Killers – Listening to loud metal in the day and teenages screamin ‘TIMMAY’ till 6am takes its toll. 
• Torch Batteries  - Torch should last long enough without more battery’s. If it don’t buy more there. 

The above looks like a big list but its actually mainly essentials. You can get carried away with packing for something like this and end up not being able to walk. You have to remember you’v gotta lug all that shit for at least 2 hours in a queue which being June will probably be blisteringly hot. One person can easily carry all of the above pretty comforably for a long period of time and with the combination of plenty of money the above list’ll do you fine.

Anyhoo hope this post is useful to someone and i’ll see you all at the front going mental with Maxim an Keith!

Bit of a musical post. As people who know me know I am a rather big fan of the Misfits whom are a horror punk band and have been a big influence to many other bands over the 30 or so years they have been about.  There have been two incarnations of the Misfits, the first being the original lineup with Glenn Danzig as the front man and many years later Jerry Only recreated the Misfits with a new young front man named Michale Graves.

These two periods in time are funnily enough known as old misfits and new misfits heh. Anyhoo this incarnation of the Misfits didnt last for too long and Mr Graves was gotten rid of due to some rift or whatever. Now many fans hold onto the old misfits lineup and albums and spit at the new stuff they did with Mr Graves, this is mainly because they are old and stupid, I am not one of these people. The Misfits are still about but Jerry Only sings now which is  just funny to watch, i dub this current period as ‘the shitfits’.

So what happend to Michale Graves I hear you scream as the fascination of this post grips your neck heh, well i shall tell you. 

After doing a few solo projects he mainly now tours about doing acoustic sets playing all the songs he wrote in the misfits and all his stuff since. Now Michale Graves is not the best guitar player in the world, nor is he the best singer but he hits a nerve with me. Sometimes you just click with an artist or band and they have an effect on you, Michale Graves is one of these people and as a song writer he should be a hell of a lot more well known than he is. 

I urge you to buy this album and give it a listen perhaps he wont shine any light for you but maybe he might,,,

Here are some of his songs: