Melvins @ Manchester Academy, 13th December 2006

I am a bit delicate right now, so this will be a short post today. Melvins last night was great stuff, me and Patchie got absolutely hammered on Guinness and we managed to get right to the front at the gig and leaned on the stage with slack jaws watching 2 drummers keeping it together and performing some excellent tunes. King Buzzo kicked me at one point for grabbing at his feet like a drunken fool.

They had been playing with 3 other bands on the night - PORN (The Men Of), Flipper and Big Business. I remember seeing a bit of the Flipper set (we showed up to the venue really late, blind drunk) to see Krist Novoselic (ex-Nirvana) jumping up and down on stage with people from the audience up there on stage surrounding him.

Earlier on in the evening we sat listening to Darkthrone in the Grand Central pub in Manchester. They have got the country's best pub jukebox. Oh and we borrowed a bike and I got a mogger down Oxford Road. Scousers on tour.

God my head is sore today, and I can't hear either. I think that I dropped my phone in the back of the car on the ride home. I hope I did anyway otherwise its gone forever.


Melvins setlist for this gig:

1. The Talking Horse
2. The Bloated Pope
3. Civilised Worm
4. Oven
5. Set Me Straight
6. D.C.H.
7. Sky Pup
8. Blood Witch
9. Let It All Be
10. A History Of Drunks
11. Rat Faced Granny
12. The Hawk
13. You've Never Been Right
14. A History Of Bad Men
15. Revolve
16. Hooch
17. The Bit
18. Lovely Butterfly

Sunntastic

Back from Ireland now, the drone was excellent. But at present I have been awake (kind of) for about 30 hours and my body is starting to show signs of neglect. It's time to go to bed, at last. I love bed, me.

Dublin is now one of my favourite places. It has got the highest percentage of fantastic looking women for any city I have ever been in, everywhere I looked the ladies were stunners. Seriously, after a while it wasn't even funny anymore... what has Dublin done to deserve so many supermodels all in one place at one time?

The drone was *so* good. We got there early and sat off on some couches, I even got 5 minutes shut-eye before the concert started. Then we got SEATS and watched a 7-piece SunnO))) play an hour set. Whoa, it was special! It started off like their White phase (very ambient and gentle pitch bends) then the vocals started and the guitars flared up. That's when they went into a patch of sound that was more like their Black phase (roaring single guitar chords and screeching vocals from Attila Csihar). Then - about 30 minutes into the set the guitars stopped and it went into a mad "acapella" section fr about 4 minutes, with Attila doing an awesome layered vocals thing. I am sure that I even heard some drums in the about 3/4 of the way through. It was truly supreme stuff.

I can't think of anything more right now, the need for sleep is great. Check out Patchie's page, I am sure he'll have a bit to say about all this Irish fun.

Thee Birth of Thee Claw

Or... the day that we decided this was what we wanted to do with our lives.

It came, quite fittingly, on 06/06/06, the first time that we had been to the Star and Garter in Manchester, and surprisingly, it was at a jesu show.
I don't know what has made me think of this; maybe it's because that was a really hot, sunny, lazy day, just like today.
Anyway, here's a copy of the post I did on my old blog back then, before we realised that Thee Claw would take us all over the globe and get us into some amazing situations and scary scrapes.
Enjoy.

silver's just another gold... when you're bitter and you're old


Had a fucking boss time on Tuesday, St Satan's day.
Met StevO))) early on, and Little M took us to Manchester (via St Helens, but that's another story).
Doing Irish impressions all the way there (I met your man when he was six yors of age, and he invented the forst loighter to born down the forst church in Christendom, then I met his auld feller, qaure lookin bloke he was, so.)
It was a glorious day, and we arrived in Manchester about six, due to the nighmare of trying to navigate using the worst map ever made (I liked it though, it had an inverted pentagram on it), and the fact that it's all a one way system with fucking roads off roundabouts closed off and a fucking motorway right through the middle.
So anyway - we get there and I'm like "That looks like it but it can't be. I don't think it's been open for years that place".
But no, lo and behold - the Star and Garter.
So - Little M drops us off, and we scooted off into the Manchester sun.
(the sun will become an almost as important character in the tale that follows as either me or StevO))), in fact; it was all the Sun's fault).
We walk past the venue, and I'm inspecting the windows for any sort of flyers because I am convinced this is a joke, when StevO))) says;
"Is that what I think it is?"
I look up, not quite sure what to expect (It is the 06/06/06 after all) and see the skinniest, creakiest, smacked up prossy you'll ever see in your life.
So, like the pilgrims in an unholy land that we are, we decide to walk past and "have a blimp".
We're only smack (pardon the pun) bang in the middle of the red light district.
(It wasn't her who snobbed us by the way Ste, it was the one when we left the gig, who decided we must be gay and told us to go to Canal Street because we asked her for directions instead of asking her for the chance to contract AIDS.)
So, as Ste's pointed out the first boozer was sidestepped (this is a trick I learned a long time ago going away to watch Everton - you never go in the first boozer in a foreign city, I just do it automatically now)
So, like the beginning of a joke, Two Scousers walk into an Irish pub in Manchester....
... and the rest goes down as legend.
I haven't drank Guinness for years, (and I don't think I'll need to drink it ever again)
It was like lemo on this day of St Satan.
We walked around for a bit after that because the alehouse only had some stockbrokers in it and it seemed to be made for giants and we were becming more and more comedy Scouse as the ale flowed.
By the time we found our next pub we were in full flow.
Everyone who deserved it (and probably some who don't) were taking a pure ripping (that's scouse for having the piss taken out of them) and the pub had Napalm Death and Iron Monkey on the jukebox.
Our apple cart had arrived, and we were well and truly in the fucker.

So we arrived at the venue, and like I say, we were on top form.
Witty, urbane and well dressed, we took over the alehouse like only we could.
First, we positioned ourselves at the bar, when these two quick witted and sharp tongued lads from Liverpool were soon the attention of every lady, and the envy of every man.
At least that's what we thought; in reality we were sat by the bogs in a boozer that had been shut for ten years and had been burgled just to put this gig on before being knocked down in the morning to make way for a car park.
We tried to bully the promoter to give us a ticket or a stamp so we could go back to the Napalm Death pub, but I think we were the first people who'd talked to him for 5 years and he shit himself a bit, saying that when the doors opened at 730 we could get a ticket then.
"But it's quarter to eight lad what are you on about?"
Anyway - Atavist went on a bit, and a funny thing happened when everyone was too polite to buy any merch.
Not us though.
"Two of them, one of them, and one of those, and two vinyl, wack. Cheers Ace"
(Comedy scouse in the house)
Jesu were absolutely amazing.
The lack of lights meant that I had to use the flash to take photos, and as such they aren't as good as I'd normally like, but I didn't go to take pictures.
A sweltering night in a dark, tiny venue with less than a hundred people there, right at the front, watching my favourite band, as nights out go, this was probably the best thing for a long time.
Only moan I have is that they didn't play "Star", but fuck it, they played "Friends are Evil".


photos here
Saw loads more prossys on the way out, came home pissed and skint, but what a night.
We'll have to do it again soon.

Ramesses / Sourvein

MASTER.....DEMONS!

Fucking Ramesses and Sourvein Ruled last night.
I only had one EP by Sourvein, the "Emerald Vulture" EP and I now need to seek out the rest.
They had stuff on sale but with it being the end of the month I only had enough for a Ramesses shirt and a few bevvies.

Let down by the appearance of posers once again.
Ramesses were boss, about halfway through I noticed they didn't have "Master Your Demons" in the setlist, and Adam (who me and Skum were talking to later, hes a really nice fella) introduced the next song, and I shouted for "Master" instead - he says "OK then this is Master Your Demons" and played it! Woo go me!

Photos here.