It’s my shitty blog, I’ll post whenever I damn well feel like it

What’s the best cure for a smashed-up knee? Why, a powerful metal gig of course! I skipped out of my last class early on Tuesday to jet off to Cardiff with Terry and The Boy. Destination: Clwb Ifor Bach (not a typo; stupid Welsh language…). Band: The mighty Will Haven. But before they took to the stage, there were support acts to contend with…

First up was Shaped By Fate, who had some good song titles (“The Count of Monte Fisto”), but bad everything else. It was like they’d read the How To Be Totally Metalcore handbook, but chosen to ignore the bits about intricate riffs, melodic vocal parts and technical drum fills. Which leaves nothing but beatdowns. Beatdown after beatdown after beatdown… every one of their songs was the same seven beatdowns in a different order. And just when it seemed like they were getting to the end of a song… hell no, a poorly executed timing change followed by more beatdowns. They smoked cock. Then played more beatdowns.

All of which simply conspired to make The Mirimar Disaster’s set even more splendid. They pretty much just plugged in and started playing; and after an entire song’s worth of tectonic riffing, it was clear that the absence of vocals (they parted ways with their singer-guy just before the start of the tour) was not going to hinder them in the slightest. It seems quite likely that they won’t bother trying find a replacement vocalist, and will simply carry on as an instrumental band… I’m inclined to think that they would do well to have some vocal parts, but to use them more sparingly, in the same sort of way as Taint or Keelhaul. Not that anyone’s going to care what I think; they’re all going to be far more interested in The Boy’s opinions, methinks. Check out her blog to find out why, if you can be bothered to try and find it…

And then it was time for Will Haven to lay waste to all before them. Despite the fact that they are touring to promote their new album, the Sacto behemoths played a set that spanned the whole of their ten year existence; much to the fist-flailing joy of the modestly sized, yet rambunctious, Welsh crowd. Thanks to the healing power of Will Haven’s immense downtuned-nu-post-rock-metal stylings, every other bit of me now hurts as much as my knee did; so in relative terms, it’s all better.

The week should have been even more gig-tastic; on Friday, we should have been going to The Bristol Carling Academy for the most amazing techy-mathcore-metal-wankery co-headliner gig ever; Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan. Unfortunately, the gig was cancelled when Meshuggah pulled out due to delays in the recording of their new record. Fortunately, the gig was un-cancelled when The Dillinger Escape Plan decided that they would just bring a bunch of other bands over with them instead. Unfortunately, the gig was re-cancelled just two weeks ago when, in a catastrophic guitar-toss-gone-wrong video shoot, their guitar player broke his foot.

So no more gigs for us… for at least a week, anyway.

In other news, I was visited this weekend by my old old old friend Dave. I’ve known him since we were littl’uns… technically my dad met him first, when he caught him running away from home on his tricycle. Dave was never going to get far, since he wasn’t allowed to cross the road; but my dad took him back down the road to his house anyway, where Dave got a damn good hiding from his father. My dad (who happens to share the same birthday as Dave) has felt slightly guilty ever since… Anyway, Dave had a bit of holiday booked, and so chose to spend a couple of days in sunny Bristol getting very, very drunk with the rest of us (hence the lack of a new post yesterday). It was good to see him again; we don’t talk often on account of the fact that he lives 100 miles away, and although it is theoretically possible to call him on the phone, that phone call will almost always devolve into at least an hour of him telling me about all the arguments that he won in the last month, interspersed with the occasional Family Guy quote. But despite all that, he is one of the very, very few people in my life that isn’t completely transient; and all in all, I think I’m pretty lucky to have such an unconditional friend.

In other other news, I shall be moving house soon. In fact we all will be. In an entirely improbable turn of events, Dozer (the hard-drinkin’, hard-fightin’, bike-ridin’, people-stabbin’ Mr Plough) has become manager of The Pub, where he has been doorman for a year and barman for a couple of months. And so he is now the undisputed lord and master of the entire pub, plus the four-bedroom flat above; in which we shall all be living more-or-less rent free.

Sounds too good to be true? Yeah, I reckon so too; but at least we get to move away from Horfield; where it has been bonfire night for two weeks, and the line between trick-or-treating and mugging is blurred at best.

And finally… I know you’ve been dying to see it, so here it is; my shiny Chaos Dragon o’ Doom.