Politically Correct Bandwagonism

Over the past two decades, I could be forgiven for thinking that we are now living in ridiculous stupid times where we are no longer allowed to have any opinion on anything without somebody spitting their dummy out and proclaiming that it's somehow racist, or offensive or just not allowed for one reason or another.

Idiots and morons, both on-line and in the real world wanting to jump on a great big offence bandwagon, just because everything nowadays is bogged down in so much bureaucratic bullshit that you can't fart, can't piss, can't breathe, and can't do fuck all. Pointing angrily at whatever it is, flapping their mouthpieces spewing out such flatulent air over things that they really shouldn't be complaining about,

A ridiculous culture where common sense has gone out the window, ambulance chasing morons picking over extremely fine small print just to fuck someone over for a few quid. Bureaucratic dogma that is slow long winded, hugely complex and mind boggling that even its creators have lost the thread and find it very difficult to decode and demystify

Personally, I'm getting pig fucking sick of it.

Recently, a microscopic internet witch hunt was declared due to some tweets that I had made – where I made the jokey reference of 'Islamic scary beard' which as far as I'm concerned was a completely throw away remark. Whereby I then clarified further and noted that I was not in any way racist, and elaborated further – notably the fact that if I was racist, why would I have a hobby that involved making friends with and speaking to foreign lands using the ancient arts of Amateur Radio - just to demonstrate a point.

However, for some people my clarification wasn't good enough. Just a couple of words on a screen was apparently too much for them, which was completely absurd and the person in question just decided to read what they wanted to read and jump on a self appointed offence bandwagon. Which, I told them in no uncertain terms was pretty much pathetic and pointed out they just wanted to take offence for offence sake. Good riddance to them, basically – and I fully back up what I typed and I have no intention of backing down because that individual just wanted to have a random fight with a follower all over a simple collaboration of throw away words on a screen. At the opposite end of the spectrum I have a friend that laughs off being called a 'Paddy' and make references to potatoes who is Irish, while another guy who's Asian mocking calls himself a 'Paki' and takes the piss out of his own culture and ways. It's all banter, and all harmless. He even calls me a Goth twat and makes references to cutting myself and cry wanking in moonlight to The Cure albums. Shame they didn't have a sense of humour and weren't so fucking miserable like those guys. But, people are people.

Which leads me nicely to a story of a friend of mine, who once worked as school caretaker. He was responsible for supervising the staff that were cleaning up a primary school, but he had a couple of staff members that were clearly exploiting cigarette breaks and the clocking off/on system. I was over at my friends out that evening, and decided to pop over for a chat and a brew to discuss various things in our lives, music, work, basically the usual conversations you'd have with any friend if you popped over for a visit. Anyway, he had some CCTV footage of the school burned onto a CD-R and had mentioned that a couple of staff were (for want of a better word) taking the piss.

He agonised about laying down some disciplinary procedures, but was scared to do so.

Why? Because they were Black Africans.

He told me that they got very touchy if he was watching what they were doing, and for arguments sake played the racist card when he was contemplating docking their pay for clocking in late – and these guys had everything so crossed referenced up that my friend didn't even have a leg to stand on as they made things up that were very convincing and basically had him backed into a corner while they slacked off and threw the rule book out of the window.

Needless to say, he eventually walked out and they in effect, won.

The point I am making here, is that if people get onto it they will use any form of discrimination card (be it disabled, race, gender, sexuality) or whatever to basically just cause shit for no reason and over the years it has somehow grew upon us to the point where people are just too shit scared to do anything.

The worrying thing about it is – it's that messy that I don't even see a way how it could be reversed.

There used to be a British TV soap in the 1970s, the name of which escapes me. It involved an ethnic household moving into a street with a white Caucasian household and the basis of it was pretty much what I would call interracial banter done in a humerus manner that wouldn't even be able to be broadcast on the air. Similarly, Tom and Jerry has been snuffed out from TV due to the supposed extreme violence and a black housekeeper – and it's even difficult to obtain unless you ordered it in Region 1 USA DVD format (it may have changed, it may not – I'm not sure). A few supposedly violent computer games have hit the headlines, supposedly sparking off killing sprees and heavy metal has always been the poster child bad boy for leading people astray when they forget about all the gangster rap made by Tupac and Biggie Whatever-his-fucking-face is (I'm not into that crap, taking fast over a Bontempi keyboard plugged into an Atari ST never appealed to me).

Anything, and I mean ANYTHING appears to be getting censored – even common sense. I've heard stories of teachers not wanting to perform CPR on students for fear of being demonised as a child molester. In fact, my own father got funny looks all because he was parked over at a shopping centre and my (then) 10 year old niece came over to say hello, only to get a dirty look from a passer by – for him to bellow “She's my fucking granddaughter you paranoid bastard!”. If you see a kid lost in a shopping centre, nobody wants to help him/her for fear of the 'Nonce Police' to come out with pitchforks and burning you in a wickerman.

If people are injured, people tend to run the fuck away and not get involved. I've had a nosebleed in public, and people parted like the fucking red sea while I walked to a walk in centre to sort myself out. In another instance, I fell off my bike in the snow getting back home from work and I had some moron stop in a van, watch for several seconds and drove off as soon as I dusted myself down and continued on my way.

In essence, people need to wake the fuck up and take a long good hard look at themselves.

Think before you jump off the deep end onto an offence bandwagon. Don't be scared to stand up and say something is wrong. Don't shy away from things and leave it to someone else. Stop treating things like a hot potato and giving it a wide berth.

Don't be scared to have a voice. If people don't like it - fuck them.

Because, if shit continues on the way it does we'll all become like the moronic docile Eloi from H.G. Well's 'The Time Machine' and then it will be too late. Then they've had us by the balls once and for all.

The Cover Letter You Wish You Could Write

Currently I am out in the wilderness due to being made redundant approximately 10 months ago, and despite much effort and applying, have mostly been ignored; going through the bureaucratic firewall that is employment agencies – about as close as I got to an interview was 2 months ago. Seeing as it's summer (at the time of being published), I am treating this a lot like the way a student would do when they have a so called “gap year”, doing things of which employment would have got in the way of.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I may possibly elaborate further on this experience in a future blog. But, there are a lot of areas to cover and it would be difficult to get it all out of my system.

In the meantime, I have penned a satirical letter which displays exactly how I feel about the whole re-employment process. I'm itching to use this, to be honest – especially if it did actually land me a job where the 'powers that be' have a sense of humour and would have piqued their interest.

So, here it goes....

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing with regards to your job vacancy of Head Office Administrator, as seen on a poorly coded and generic job recruitment website littered with spelling errors and ambiguity.

I am a fully experienced administrator that once worked somewhere for the best part of a decade and a half, performing many administrative tasks – notably data entry, dealing with awkward customers over the phone who think that they know better, and working as a team digging ourselves out of bodges performed by management that can't even find they way out of a paper bag. How they became management material is a continuous source of bafflement, but I digress. Please find enclosed my CV – which I believe fully demonstrates my capabilities.

I'm a hard working, popular employee that not only gets the job done well – but in an exemplary manner that will probably embarrass the more incompetent individuals in your team that you are probably sick to the back teeth of. More importantly, due to not being married or having children I won't use this a 'green card' to be absent on certain days and use my family as an scapegoat. This also includes the blonde office tart that's continuously sat Instagramming pictures of her lunch and gawping at her iPhone all day, trawling through Facebook when she should be working; while you haemorrhage away £20k a year to keep such a work shy individual, clearly kept by management because she looks 'easy on the eye' and enjoy low level sexual harassment and horseplay.

I am now tired and sick to death of applying for many jobs, and being out in the redundancy wilderness. I wish that you would give me the opportunity to discuss this vacancy further in person rather than dealing with the allegedly sage advice of recruiters who can't even find their way out of a carrier bag or organise a booze up in a brewery.

Thank you for your time. Please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss this further, but you probably won't bother and employ some college leaving bozo that has no prior experience and not learn from prior mistakes of employing people that aren't good enough for the job.

Yours Sincerely,

The Armchair Anarchist

Fakers - Declaring war on 'Top Shop Goths'.

I've been into Metal (and over the past several years) Goth for the best part of two decades. As a result, in that time I have seen a lot of things come and go in the scene; a lot of spurious fads and five minute wonders that have disappeared into obscurity. I am very much a man that wears being a goth/metalhead mix on his sleeve, and will no doubt still continue to do so for many years – irrespective of cynics out there that believe I should be some beige cardigan wearing tedious bore “at my age”. Fuck them, and while they're at it – they can fuck off, come back and fuck off again some more as far as I'm concerned.

“But, why are you so defensive about it?”

Well, when you've been into it all for such a period of time and you see people call everything from Tim Burton films, vaguely dull coloured frilly clothing and edgy coloured shit haircuts and tattoos, and things in Primarni that have faded band logos on it – you're bound to get a bit pissed off with it all and get defensive. Rightfully so.

I remember when I first got into it all, and there was no way people would even wear biker jackets, Doc Martens, and band T shirts of bands that they know fuck all about. In fact, it was looked down upon even more than it is today and actually viewed with a sense of fear. People associated you with “Hell's Angel” type people and gave you a fair bit of distance. Also, the exposure of music was kept very much underground, and the notion of downloading films and music was still the stuff of complete fantasy; especially when the fastest internet connection speed was as fast as 56kbit/sec and the world wide web as we know it today was in a practically embryonic phase. Knowing about music was limited to tape trading, or scouring through album liner notes to find out what other bands to check out that they toured with, or were friends with. Exchanging mix tapes with friends, discovering new music in a completely grass roots level – that was fresh and carried a far stronger air of excitement that it carries today.

I could could elaborate further, but the basic consensus in those days that there is not a rat shit in hell's chance that the mainstream wanted to copy or emulate our fashion. To be honest, we liked it that way – it was an identity of our own; having fuck all to do with mainstream culture for the most part – until the occasional band like Guns and Roses and Metallica broke through, along with stuff like Nirvana to name a couple. Okay, the albums may have “charted” as such – but back then there was no way anybody wanted to emulate our lifestyle or how we looked in any shape of form.

Don't get me wrong – I welcome fellow metalheads and goths, that's all well and good. I welcome the newer generation of people who are getting into new bands, checking out the old bands, and flying the “freak flag” of being an alternative. It's good to see that people are still being a part of the subculture, who simply aren't pleased with listening to musical diarrhoea pumped out of tedious radio stations, such as the latest hits from “Bored Lambrini Housewife FM” and such. That's great – please continue and keep the whole culture alive.

However, due to the nature of today's people with fickle attention spans that change far quicker than they ever did before thanks to the internet – it has brought a load of fucking morons along that like the idea of being “edgy” for a short time period, until the bovine masses decide on the “sage advice” spoon fed by the media. Trend morons who have under shaved hair in fruity colours, “bad decision” tattoos and expander piercings – which was one the sole preserve of what I refer to as “my ethnic group”. Ironically, these are the same people who sneer at us for being alternative, having tattoos, or having fruity coloured strange haircuts. The same sort of people that done stuff to my friends like throw them down a flight of stairs, putting them in hospital for the simple crime of having a mohawk back in the day. Also, while playing things like Grand Theft Guitar Hero and liking the rock soundtracks on them with completely zero sense of irony. “Ah sweet! It's that song 'Enter The Sandman' and 'Welcome To That Jungle'” they squeal, deciding to shovel much of this down their ears and throats as possible until the next big thing comes along. While raiding charity shops for piss stained leathers to wear for a couple of weeks, and joining the hipster edgy Zeitgeist with shit beards, record players, and looking like they fell from the 1970s or 1980s – because looking like you came from then is somehow “the new cool” (or should I say “looking sick as fuck, bro” - or whatever fucking adjective they say now).

From my point of view (and I'm definitely sure I'm not alone), many of my “ethnic group” are getting pretty pissed off with it. A sea of Primarni branded morons, wearing Doc Martens and Ramones shirts, with fruity coloured shaved hair and shit tattoos of skulls and zombies – because somehow looking like the people you take the piss out of is “in vogue” this season.

So, is it little wonder that people like me get real sick of your shit – when you're doing it as a fashion statement?

Don't worry – the REAL alternatives can spot you fake twats a fucking mile off, and we're all onto you.

We will rightfully reclaim Goth and Metal, and we will fight to have it back and restore it.

Album review: Monolord  - Empress Rising (category: Doom Metal, Sludge, Stoner)
Release date: April 1st, 2014 
Easyriderrecords.com
Twitter: @MonolordSweden

** 01.04.2014 Errata: I have since noticed that the album tracks have been reversed on reviewing this album for some odd reason on my PC's media player program. Since putting the album on my mp3 player, the order was in the correct orientation. Apologies for any confusion with regards to track order. **

On the odd occasion, a band comes from nowhere – and I mean literally from out of nowhere and just kicks the living shit out of you sonically. On my Twitter feed, I had heard a lot of excited babbling about other doom releases – notably Conan's 'Blood Eagle' (a superb doom release that is highly recommended) and Slomatic's 'Estron'. (again, another very decent doom release).

One night, the editor dudes of Echoes and Dust sent me a direct message one evening telling me about a Swedish six legged doom machine called Monolord – and sent me the album to check out. It had already been reviewed on their own website so it seemed churlish to just have the album sitting there and to not tell the world about about it.

I have to say - God's fucking tits – WHAT AN ALBUM!

Monolord initially started off as a side project born from a band called Marulk – an interesting band in its own right that concentrates on 1970's 'Proto Metal' that reminds me of bands such as Budgie, Mountain, The Stooges, and Black Sabbath. However, some of the guys apparently had some pent up energy that they wanted to channel into something that if turned up high enough could destroy derelict 1970s council flats that you'd see in Liverpool, Birmingham or London. With this band, they have certainly achieved that by the metric fucktonne.

The opener 'Watchers of the Waste' bursts forth from the speakers with a slow cyclical riff that if turned up loud enough causes the windows to warp and small animals and furniture to judder around the living room, thus: “DOWWW WOWWWW! DOW WOOWWW! DOW WOWWW! DOW WOWWWW DOW WOWWW DOWW WOWWWWW!”. Imagine, if you will, the slowest parts of Black Sabbath with a pinch of Electric Wizard and shoved hastily through a special patented doom metal filter of their own insane creation and you'll have a good idea of how it sounds. Further elements in the song creep through, while Thomas Jäger's vocals float over the top of it with a lysergic warble that fits very well with the rest of the sonic bludgeon. Usually, doom bands can usually make a hash of the vocals and make them with too much of a growl of distorted incoherent scream that doesn't sit well – but the vocals are spot on in this case and coherent.

'Icon' continues into a path of deep low fuzz, that makes the spleen vibrate. Despite the low end fuzz, the bass is beautifully coherent and easy to follow 5 minutes into the track before bursting forth from the speakers once more at full attack. The composition of the track is brilliant; a lull of bass with vocals towards almost halfway through before a big 'jam off' commences and finally ends the track. 'Harbinger of Death' starts with a wonderfully distorted but clear bass groove before the guitar and drums come in with a thunderous chug capable of destroying buildings.

Finally, 'Adulhumba' is a nice chuggy instrumental that has a hypnotic riff underpinning the whole tune with 'Empress Rising' being a superb album closer lasting for 12 minutes – reminding me of the best bits of Sleep's 'Dopesmoker', 'Jerusalem' and Electric Wizard's 'Dopethrone' put into a sonic blender that while clearly influenced by such albums adds an identity of their own that can stand head and shoulders above pretty much most doom metal realeases.

To conclude, this album is nothing short of brilliant. Over the years, I've heard many things come and go and seen people get excited over things that were quite frankly bland or boring. I have to say it's deeply refreshing to encounter an album that just has your jaw dropping to the floor in amazement – and Monolord have definitely succeeded in doing this in spades. An essential release, and I will actually go so far to say that it's a doom metal classic. Buy it, or be a tone deaf root vegetable.

My Experiences With Vegetarians.

Greetings to all my readers. So, another year and I'm glad that Xmas is over – although to be honest I enjoyed the distraction over the past 3 weeks as I actually felt vaguely like my old self for once, instead of worrying about current employment circumstances, or lack thereof at the time this blog has been posted.

Anyhow, I digress.

Recent news about the lentil abusing ramblings of Morrissey have compelled me to write a blog about vegetarianism – which is in my top ten hates of all time (closely followed by Apple products and people's inane worship of them, that might be covered another day).

What is it I hate about vegetarianism? PREACHY VEGETARIANS – people like Morrissey. As much as I enjoy the music of The Smiths and Morrissey, I wish people like him would quit being preachy fucks and telling what to eat. Recently, he has decided to go off on one and declare meat eating to be as bad as paedophilia and Nazism – which is needless to say an extreme step too far. Like many people, perhaps he could do with actually making an album instead of trying to convert a world for the most part who doesn't give a fuck about vegetarianism; because in all honesty it makes people like him look like complete and total dicks. I dare say there's probably vegetarians out there who aren't preachy thinking “Oh for fucks sake, another vegetarian making us look like a bunch of whiny twats, like we need any more bad press as it is!”.

Anyway, enough about him. Let's cover exactly what pisses me off about vegetarianism as a whole.

The Eternal Life Fantasy:

Preachy vegetarians always go on about how long they will live for, due to their diet being ever so super healthy. Personally, I'm not that convinced; the human species is an animal that is designed to be an omnivore (the most notable feature is incisors, which are featured on many carnivorous/omnivorous animals). If you eat a load of crap and don't mind your diet (omnivore or not), you will no doubt suffer the consequences of heart disease, diabetes and many other problems.

To me, a human trying to be a vegetarian is like a car trying to run on the wrong octane of fuel – it will no doubt misfire and bound to cause long term damage. I'm no scientist, but even I know that vegetarians often lack iron, and this is usually obtained via meat – notably Vitamin B12 and Heam Iron to stop such problems like anaemia. Another example that shows humans are engineered to be omnivorous is the redundant part of the stomach called the appendix, which in a herbivorous creature would've been used to help process tough plant matter and seeds. For many people, especially in today's financial climate with food banks – vegetarianism isn't a lifestyle option due to expense of trying to maintain such a diet and is a choice of the privileged.

A typical case in point is the vegetarians that I know, always appear to be more susceptible to colds and other illness more than others who stick to an omnivorous diet. Not forgetting the fact they take that many multi-vitamin pills to supplement what is lost from their diet, that if you shook them they would practically rattle. A friend of mine (who I have referred to as 'Vegan Goth' on my tweets), actually went as far as purchasing Spirulina, which is a form of algae that is supposed to be some sort of super super multi multi-vitamin that if you read the internet would have you believe to be the definitive cure for everything including AIDS and Cancer. He went as far as to make (for all intents and purposes) what is effectively a pond water smoothie from the stuff, however – he forgot to secure the lid on the blender properly. Needless to say, his kitchen got a decorating in rancid green slime which he mopped up with a load of dish cloths and towels to clear the slimy aftermath.

A few days later, he was washing clothes in his washing machine and tumble dryer combo in his apartment. Curiously, after a couple of minutes the smell of rotted eggs and sulphur was prevalent in his kitchen which he couldn't figure out. He couldn't quite work out where it came from, but he eventually put two and two together and worked out the smell was coming from the washing machine. It turns out that the pipework for the washing machine and dyer is the perfect warm and moist environment for algae to thrive, and that the pipes were coated with his very own culture that were absolutely loving the waste water and hot air that was spewed out from the machine. He was left with no option but to phone up a plumber to try and cure the problem, which apparently was sorted using a lump of borax in the washing machine a couple of times until the smell and algae was cleared.

Just think – if he was an omnivore than this particularly messy incident wouldn't have happened (but would have probably made this blog a bit less interesting). Also, I don't think citing vegetarianism aiding longevity of life a bit of a shaky one – there are far too many variables involved that could influence the mortality of a person such as: Life span of your family, hereditary diseases and illnesses, lifestyle, activity, what you do as a job, and so on and so forth.

Take Yul Brynner and Jim Fixx – the former smoked, snorted, fucked and ingested anything and still lived until he was 65. Jim Fixx turned into a health nut in his mid 30s, yet jogging killed him off when he was 52. Also, my nan smoked woodbines and couldn't even understand the concept or definition of dieting and ate and drank what she wanted – to eventually shuffle off the mortal coil at the ripe old age of 86.

So, on that basis who exactly was living life the right way? Hmmmm?

Fuck Off! Stop Telling Me What To Eat!

This is by far the biggest problem that I have with vegetarians in my experiences, the preaching and telling all and sundry how to eat. I don't give a fuck about what you eat, as long as you don't lecture me on what I should and shouldn't eat – otherwise we will establish some very big problems.

I know a small handful of vegetarian people in person, and half of them are pretty much okay and the topic of vegetarianism never crops up or causes any arguments – in fact, one of the friends in my group is vegan and I was completely and totally unaware until it was mentioned one night on Facebook. Another who I know was vegetarian. but if you crashed over at her house on a night out she wouldn't mind making you a therapeutic bacon and brown sauce on toast when you had a splitting hangover, and had no qualms about having a summer barbecue which would make most vegetarians flinch (she would stick to Quorn burgers or something similar, or offer a veggie option).

Sadly, the number of vegetarians who won't shut the fuck up and keep their opinions to themselves far outweighs those who would normally respect the wishes of others and myself.

A particularly annoying person, is a poorly informed vegetarian who is the worst and most neurotic pain in the arse that you could ever meet. The type of person who over analyses the side effects of medicine and would often refuse to take something, even if it was life threatening. This person would also go as far to give me hassle as soon as I ate a kebab while drunk, informing me that it was made of dead cats, dogs, cows arseholes and whatever else (not that anyone would ever care while drunk and eating a kebab). However, due to a sharp sense and wit I am very quick to point out the holes and flaws in their theories and proceed to show them up for the ridiculous arsehole that they are. Because, basically – they fucking well deserve it in all honesty.

A typical case in point was a few years ago, when me and a couple of my friends had made a trip to Yorkshire for a night out at Bradford Rio's to see a band play, and a trip around the drinking establishments inhabited by the Goths and Metalheads that live in the Leeds area. Before we landed at their home, we had decided on a trek around Leeds before making our way over to a small Yorkshire village where my friend lived. Amongst my friends, was the ranty vegetarian I mentioned earlier. Would you believe, that said person made us walk around the long way while looking at Leeds Market due to the butchers and that they “don't like the smell of cruelty and murder”; this was a pain in the arse as it is while we were lugging around a small suitcase and rucksack for the weekend, especially when the suitcases had New Rock boots in them. As a result, I ended up missing a cool little Polish food market that sold some strange confectionery I particularly liked that I couldn't find elsewhere.

I decided to declare war all fucking weekend. This, had finally made my piss boil!

Throughout this particular weekend, I took every endeavour to ensure that I ate even more meat than normal just to piss them off. Whatever I could eat, had to have meat in it somehow – or a least more meat than normal. Just a Chicken Curry? Fuck it – Let's order a special curry with a least a few different types of dead animal in it (Prawn, Chicken, Pork, Steak, etc). A kebab? Yeah sure, let's completely skip on the vegetable garnish and just concentrate on the meat and chilli sauce, fuck it – why not? A sandwich for lunch, Bacon Lettuce and Tomato? Nah – Let's have an all day breakfast sandwich that contains egg, chicken and pork sausage – fuck it, why not? Especially when whiny veggie had the nerve to piss and moan about choosing an eating establishment. They even asked a bunch of Turkish guys whether the Samosa's had been cooked in a facility that had been used to cook meat, of which they couldn't answer or particularly care less – so guess who went away starving while we all had kebab and burgers while smashed off our faces?

This didn't just stop there. Oh no, we went around some Goth clothes shops and even then said person was asking if there was vegan friendly clothing. Yep, they even made a snide comment about a leather jacket that I bought saying something along the lines of “Yeah, nice jacket but it was a shame an animal died to make it”. Granted, there were some vegan friendly clothing (whatever the fuck that nonsense is) but it came at a cost – as noted with Mad Fish boots. They liked the look of New Rocks and Doc Martens, but didn't like the idea of them being made from leather. As a consequence, such clothing is dramatically more expensive due to the specialist nature. They had a range of Mad Fish boots, which were made of some form of synthetic material but were actually bloody horrible to wear and looked as if they were made from old deckchairs or something.

I didn't let it stop there after this shopping excursion. I decided to use even more extreme logic traps to trip them up!

My friends house had some pretty expensive and comfortable leather couches. They sat on them without any apparent issue – which to me sounded very hypocritical. After much drunken debate before going out the door, I had decided to declare that they should either sit on the floor, a fabric foot stool thing or a chair brought in from the kitchen. There was a land slide vote from everybody in the house that they should pick one of these instead of sitting on the leather couch – despite it being the most comfortable option – it was their loss due to their inane fussiness. If they wanted to piss and moan about food choices and ethics as an outvoted minority then they deserved all the shit they got for being preachy. If they kept their mouths shut about it, then perhaps the weekend may have played out a lot differently. In conclusion, a good weekend was had by all (even the whiny vegetarian), but since that point they have become dramatically less vocal and for the most part seen the error of inflicting their 'Veggie Nazi' ways.

Meat Is Murder!

Lastly, a particularly annoying issue with preachy vegetarians is the way they yammer on about animal cruelty, animal testing and such. This is a topic that really annoys me the most.

First of all, there is a definite hierarchical food chain whether people like it or not. To think that all animals are sacred is an extremely naive one. If we applied this to its logical conclusion, then people wouldn't kill off cockroaches, rats or mosquitoes or other vermin and disease would be rife. In fact, they would probably be the first people to complain and make a hypocrite of themselves. Oh, your house is invaded with mice? Oh, that's a shame. Send an email to who gives a shit dot com because if we sent out the exterminators to your gaff would surely be a double standard. Oh, they're the wrong type of mice and they're not the cute ones like Mickey Mouse? Ah, my mistake! 

People who put the lives of animals before themselves in my opinion deserve to be locked up in an insane asylum for such ridiculous beliefs. The likes of Greenpeace, PETA and other such organisations who think they are bang to rights for blowing up scientists that could lead to a cure for Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimers or whatever are extremely odious pieces of work that deserve maximum contempt. There are far more organisations and shelters that cater for cats, dogs, and other unwanted animals that people are prepared to throw any amount of money at. Homeless shelters are closing down, rape crises centres are poorly funded, women and children are fleeing from domestic violence with almost nowhere to turn to. While animal charities are practically a licence to print money, with lots of cute merchandise to keep the collective piggy banks overfed so the accountants can enjoy counting the zeros at the end of the bank balance.

I have often thought to myself that perhaps criminals serving life sentences for murder and/or paedophilia should be used for testing instead of animals. After all, they have thrown away their rights to living in civilised society and they would be a more accurate living template to discover the effects on new treatments and methods. However, the politically correct brigade would be frothing at the mouth piece, citing that these people have rights. Nope, they threw away their rights when they chose to commit such heinous crimes.

It's also worth noting that without animal testing to forward the developments of science, progress would still be in the stone age. Without animal testing, my eldest sister wouldn't be alive and would've left her kids without a mother, fortunately she was treated with Wharfarin to cure what could've been a fatal blood clot. My friends and my missus who have asthma would have a dramatically poorer choice of life if it wasn't for the research and testing for their medication. My own father probably might not have been alive it it wasn't for research done on beta blockers used for his heart tablets to regulate heart beat and blood pressure. This can be applied to anybody that we know with an illness, and they might not have been alive if it wasn't for the research gained from animal testing.

If any of these preachy arseholes were ill and their lives or family members lives depended on medication whose research depended on medication that was tested on animals, they would soon change their idiotic flat earth beliefs.

To conclude, this is why I feel strongly about vegetarianism, and the things that are linked to such a choice.

You're holding the world back.

Slipknot - A Sideways View (From The Outside)

So, another day and more people jumping onto what I interpret as another bout of what I call ‘grief tourism’.

By this, I refer to recent events with Slipknot.

I will lay my cards out on the table here - I'm not a fan of them. Now, before anybody starts to get on their high horse I did buy their so called ‘début album’ (which, was actually ‘Mate Feed Kill Repeat’ and not their self titled album) and I gave it a fair go. Granted, it was musically interesting for a short spell of time but to be honest I got bored of them very quickly - in fact, bored of the album in the space of a week and then sold it on. I give many bands a fair ‘crack of the whip’. and I've even checked out things like Bring Me The Horizon and Suicide Silence (which I also dislike) as I am a Metal fan who does give a new band I've never heard of a fair chance before I declare and out and out dislike of them.

The thing that done it for me with Slipknot, was the fact that the band appear to be a bit of a quasi-engineered gimmick; the whole thing of band members with a strange identity had been done before (like Kiss for instance). Also, at the time when I was into metal (which was a good few years by the time that album came out) the whole Metal world for me had changed for something that was worse - as I got into Metal at a time when Metal was (before Nu-Metal, Skater stuff and things like Blink 182, Green Day, Offspring, Korn and such); and this particular band (amongst a slew of stuff that popped up) was one that left me cold.

Metal had become a completely alien place in some respects, and so I dutifully carried on and missed this particular bandwagon. I use the term quasi engineered due to the fact that ‘Mate Feed Kill Repeat’ was a very individual and interesting piece of work, and Ross Robinson had heavily stylised their sound for the Nu Metal generation, effectively muting the guitar solos and making the band sound like a radio friendly unit shifter. This was made more prevalent with their later albums when they involved more dynamics and variety into their sound; and I always felt that Mushroomhead were far superior, pre-dated Slipknot and were often overlooked.

As much as I don’t like them, they appear to strike a chord and ‘the feels’ (as the kids say) for many people. One thing that I will acknowledge is the fact that they are clearly influenced by some of the more extreme areas of Metal and are nevertheless responsible as an important ‘gateway band’ that got more people into Metal and also gave people a thirst for this glorious form of music and got them into even more bands, made new friends, and became part of a collective they felt they belonged to when mainstream society had otherwise left a cold taste in their collective mouths with bland manufactured pop music. This, is also something worthy of commendation.

From what I interpret of recent news, the departure of Joey Jordison and the feelings about this is probably going a bit too far overboard; many bands have drummers or guitarists leave with randomly variable results; some bands it makes no difference, some bands it can affect them dramatically - for worse or for better. From what I understand, the band members have a lot of different things going on and naturally they are finding it difficult to progress due to the death of Paul Grey (as did Metallica when Cliff Burton died). Therefore, I believe that it won’t necessarily be the end of the band as of yet (at the time that this blog was originally composed) and people going as far to say they are ‘mourning’ the departure of a band member is somewhat overkill.

Sadly, in the ‘information age’ you could be forgiven for thinking that any polar opposite opinion is strictly ‘verboten’. Don’t get me wrong, I love my music and I love being a part of the alternative scene but I feel that there has been some over the top fanaticism that is lacking perspective which can ruin it for everybody else - which should be left to the likes of Justin Bieber fans, or whatever is popular this week to ‘The Normalloes’. I have genuinely lamented the departure of bands, band members and the death of band members, notably the deaths of Chuck Schuldiner, Terje Bakken, Quorthon and Pete Steele hit me particularly hard and I will actually go as far to lay my cards on the table and admit to shedding a tear about the news.

But there is ONE thing for certain - if somebody disagreed about it I didn't go shoving it down their throats and calling out the ‘Hate Police’ like some people on the Internet have done because I dared to challenge what I believed to be their ‘Tin Gods’; one person’s tin god is someone else's sacred cow - and not everybody can be expected to hold the same opinion. Therefore, as a consequence I will never fashion what I stand up for to suit anybody else. In fact, the more something appears to be a bandwagon the more that I am inclined to challenge it, as herd conformity should not be a default pattern of life.

Otherwise, we might as well become North Korea Jnr and be done with it. And that, isn't the best way of doing things, is it?

Sonisphere - Spleen Vents, Sideways Views (And Exposed Sinews)

Ah, it's back again, mentions on Sonisphere – and the year hasn't finished yet (at the current time of writing). A festival that is essentially no different than Download, which was probably why it was pulled the last time as (to my eyes and ears) looked pretty much like a mirror of Download. The line up of both festivals fails to interest me, due to the fact that I've seen 75% of the bands on their own; without the need to sleep in a field for a few days smelling of piss. The rest of the bands, are something I care little about.

What has amused me the most is people pissing themselves like an excited dog about it. I mean, come on – Metallica? Iron Maiden? Really? How are you all *that* surprised about them opening a festival event? They're pretty much standard generic fare. Not forgetting in the past 20 years all that both bands have proceeded in doing is musically treading water (notably, post 1995 Metallica and especially the Iron Maiden albums wrote when Bruce Dickinson pissed off – which I remember very well indeed).

Sorry, I'm not easily impressed. For the following reasons. Let us debunk everything about these bands once and for all shall we?

Iron(y) Maiden:
Okay – get ready for this, and brace yourselves

*drum roll*

Iron Maiden are BORING.

To me, Iron Maiden are musically flat and monotonous They are the musical equivalent of the colour beige. This said, they're far from being Nickleback or Bon Jovi terrible. I just think they're incredibly overrated for what they are. Every album to my ears sounds more or less the same, sticking to a tried and tested generic formula pretty much in the same manner as Status Quo and AC/DC (which I also don't 'get' either).

Yet, many of the bovine masses want more and more. Some bands can get away with peddling the same stuff for years and get away with it perfectly well, and this in many ways isn't a bad thing; a band can tip one way and alienate their fan base irreparably (like Paradise Lost – and no I didn't like their Depeche Mode emulating stuff either). To my ears, Iron Maiden albums are interchangeable and almost indistinguishable from each other; you could put 10 albums in a multi play CD player and you can't tell what albums they belonged to. I just don't get it.

My Iron Maiden hatred stems back to the dark mists of time in the early 1990s when I first got into Metal. The friend who got me into Metal, had played Iron Maiden over and over and over again, ad nauseum. I would call over to his house on weekends, and no matter what new albums he bought and got me into (such as Carcass, Brutal Truth, Obituary, Sepultura and oddly enough Metallica) it would always – and I mean ALWAYS go back to playing Iron Maiden, where he often got a bit to carried away tuneless emulating old Brucie boy and singing into a hairbrush. He also thought he was Axl Rose and wore bandanas; but the sad fact of the matter is that he looked nothing like him and more akin to your average shaved ape if he grew a mullet. Nice.

So – to conclude, I never have and never will understand what all the fuss is about Iron Maiden. Yes, they're a musical institution and they helped paved the way and influenced newer bands – but all I can think of is a middle of the road band that is too often heard on terrible music channels, and on that fucking Grand Theft Guitar Hero console game – or whatever the fucking thing is called.

Me(h)talllica:

I once liked Metallica. Well, in all fairness I only own their first three albums nowadays – Kill Them All (no, I won't call it Kill 'Em All as it looks grammatically annoying), Ride The Lightning and last of all Master Of Puppets. Again, like Iron Maiden there is no denying the fact that those albums are also a musical institution, greatly influential, and inspired many bands and got many people into Metal.

But, there are two things that quickly ruined it for me.

(1) The over-saturation of tracks played from '...And Justice For All' and the black album (self titled). Every fucking time I go on a rock night, 'Enter Sandman', 'Sad But True', and 'One' are played over and over. They were once good tunes, that I ended up growing to hate (much in the manner of being sick to fucking death of hearing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit').

(2) Their post 1995 output – with the worst offender: Load [of shite]

*Cue Dvorak's New Age Symphony*

I remember a time, when I was in college and there were proper Metalheads and proper Goths. None of these baggy trousered Nu Metal types, none of what I refer to as 'Art Quiff Twats', and Cybergoth's had yet to exist (mind you, a primitive form called 'Rivetheads' were around that listened to Front 242 and Skinny Puppy which was as far as it ever got – and were relatively rare). The music and times were great; Hair Metal had died on its arse due to Grunge (although some people argue that Grunge also killed off a lot of decent Metal bands) and there were many decent bands and a good crowd of people. At one point, the world had also been bowled over by an interesting young band called Machine Head and people were forking out £25 to import the début album from a supposedly ground breaking band called Korn.

Then – Metallica showed up out of the wilderness and released the God awful atrocity that was Load.

To my ears, Load was the aural equivalent of smashing a mirror and bringing along a spell of bad luck (If you believe all that superstitious bollocks). During the span of several years, what I refer to Metal as I knew it disappeared under the radar and a black cloud had descended on the scene. People started wearing combat trousers half way down their arse, with short spiky hair and a garbled form of shuffling morose dancing. Green Day, Offspring, Blink 182, and other such bands started appearing that was far too ear friendly – accumulating at a peak with the likes of Slipknot and the fucking awful Slipknot Jnr – more commonly known as Mudvayne.

Carcass had split up, Paradise Lost started emulating Depeche Mode, and even Machine Head jumped on the bus pulled by Nelly The Bad Music Elephant; and all my favourite bands were still releasing albums but not even getting a shred of recognition. Naturally, I still stuck up for what I listened to and disappeared underground with my preferences and shunned what I called 'False Metal'; naturally I wasn't alone with this and a fair few stuck to their guns or disappeared from the scene entirely, as if to roll over and die.

As a result, I now have a very passionate hatred towards Metallica as it was if it brought along an era of, to be perfectly honest – some fucking awful music. Everything after the Load album, has sucked the ferociously massive equine spam javelin.

However - all might not be lost!

There may be hope for Metallica – in the form of Robert Trujillo

Many Metal fans will probably remember his earlier work in Suicidal Tendencies and the spin off band Infectious Grooves (especially if you're in the 30 blah blah years age bracket, like me). Rob is an excellent bass guitarist, who performs some amazing bass lines with make the perfect foundation for many Suicidal Tendencies tracks (and the funk metal of Infectious Grooves). As far as bass guitarists go, he is certainly up there with the likes of Les Claypool and the much missed bass lord that was Cliff Burton.

I have sat through Metallica's post 1995 works and gave them the benefit out the doubt, just in case anybody out there tried to say I was just being curt and dismissive towards Metallica's newer works.

For the record, I have also checked out their most current release 'Death Magnetic'. This, is where it gets interesting.

I visited a friend who had, *cough* 'downstolen' the album (probably to piss Lars Ulrich off, as he hates that sort of thing). To be perfectly honest, I was quite stunned and surprised; throughout the album it was permeated with elements from the Metallica who I used to know, the Metallica that I loved so much with the first 3 albums they released. To my ears, the best way to describe the album is as follows:

Imagine, if you will – a good friend you knew in college. He was an awesome friend, a massive laugh, and you shared so many good times with each other. Until, that fateful moment in 1995 when he was involved in a near fatal car crash and remained in a coma for several years. He awoke after about a year or so, but he had to relearn everything all over again as if he was a small child; walking, talking, independence and developing all over again. Recently, he started recalling memories of the past and coming out with the sayings of old; the banter, the piss taking, and the twisted humour that made you such good friends – he was returning back to his old self.

This – is my perfect capsule review and metaphor for 'Death Magnetic'.

I hold the belief that the recruitment of Rob Trujillo could be a very good thing, as long as Metallica let him add some creativity with his bass guitar skills to make some awesome music. Also, it has been noted that over the past couple of years you could be forgiven for thinking that Metallica are distancing themselves from their post 1995 output; as they're playing a lot of tracks from their first 5 albums – and at one point (if I recall correctly) played the black album in its entirety at a festival.

What do I want from Metallica with their next album? A follower of mine suggested “How about stop being shit”. Okay, fair enough and humorously worded, and I fully agree. It was also suggested that Gene Hoglan should replace Lars Ulrich on drums (now THAT I'd like to see!).

I want one of Thrash Metal's leviathans to awake from their slumber, their musical doldrums and half-arsedness. With Rob Trujillo, I believe that if they let him have a say in the matter they could release an album that can lay waste to what I call this 'Neo Thrash Metal Renaissance' that the kids are very into at the moment (I'm looking at you, Municipal Waste, Trivium and SSS). An album that completely fucks up the 'Neo Thrash' program, pissing in the face of the pale imitators. To demonstrate my point clearly, try checking out YouTube and looking up 'Metallica – And Justice For Jason' to get some idea of what I'm talking about.

I really hope for a truly gob smacking Metallica album to raise the bar once and for all. The Metallica I got into, the Metallica that gave me the 'James May Fizz'. The Metallica that evokes a primal urge to stand on a desk in a library, windmilling and performing Alan Partridge Bass like there's no tomorrow. THAT sort of Metallica.

I live in hope.