Terminates Here

This is one of the hardest years to write about in terms of my ‘man in the crowd’ perspective, as this was the era when my DJing and gigging schedules crossed over the most. I’ve already said that stories of those events will be told at a later date. Luckily, I didn’t quit being a ‘regular punter’ entirely, and hence there are a few live stories to be told.

Most of my 2012 live experiences occurred in small venues. I saw The Mission and The Cult in the Hammersmith Apollo (it was meant to be somewhere bigger and also feature Killing Joke, but wasn’t meant to be), and the next largest venues I visited were Bradford Uni (for Infest) and The Scala (for VNV). Most of the other shows I attended were in bar or pub level venues. In many cases, this featured bands ‘just starting out’ – plus (dare I say) a few cases of ‘has-been’ and ‘never quite was’, so the sparks of greatness were thinner on the ground than some years, but compensated for by the sheer variety and volume. Continue reading →

2010 was an eventful year, for sure. But nothing stops when a calendar gets chucked. And sure enough, 2011 was almost as busy. Gig-wise, the key feature of this year was the increased merging of my DJing with my gigging. Four times I played the role of support DJ at live music events. However, there’s a lot more to those stories than the memories of the live music, significant that it was. Those stories will be written later, in a separate volume looking into my Djing life.

One other fact – it was the third consecutive year where I attended no overseas festivals or gigs. This isn’t something I’d given up on, it’s just I had other demands on the money at the time. Infest, the low-budget indoor festival in Bradford, was still an option, however. Continue reading →

2009 might have offered a single memorable concert, but it was somewhat indicative of my life that year. Not bad, constructive in parts, but just lacking a certain ‘magic’. 2010 wasn’t like that. I’d put it on record as the most eventful year of my life. On a personal front, it saw the start of a new job, a house move, two relationships started and ended and a real growth in my DJing exploits.

Still plenty of time for live music though….. Continue reading →

2008 had ended not with a massive gig, but with my return to the DJ booth (successful) and an attempt at forming a band of my own (not successful). I didn’t know it at the time, but 2009 would see me attend no festivals whatsoever. Plans for WGT were abandoned in March due to having other uses for the money (the £-€ rate was really bad back then, worse that’s its been post-Brexit vote), M’era Luna was never really on for me and InFest (the most likely candidate at one point) had a year off whilst the venue was refurbished, though the recession, the lack of any big new scene ‘names’ and the cost of importing established stars (thnk ForEx again!) probably meant this enforced pause was a blessing in disguise. Continue reading →

2007 was over, having provided few gigs of note in it’s latter half. 2008 soon made up for it – on the first weekend, I saw Earth Loop Recall for the last time, and System:FX for the first time. The ELR story is already told in previous parts, whilst the definitive S:FX story comes in a later chapter.

Die Krupps came and went in style a month later, and the live show following my favourite album of 2007 (Star Industry – Last Crusades) arrived over the Easter weekend. But looking back, these two events were just very good shows without any real significance outside of the quality of the music.

No, the three tales I have for you now all reflect different aspects of my live music experiences. They are not all positive, but they all have to be told. Continue reading →

2006 was over and I was glad to see the back of it. Despite much effort and many enjoyable occurrences on the way, my life had gone nowhere and by the end of the year began to feel very stagnant, finding myself unable to change any aspect of my life, for better or for worse.

But what of 2007, the year which either delivered everything I wanted or led me to give up even trying, at least for a year or so. No more EOL-Audio. No more big house at the end of the Piccadilly line. And no more being single, a relationship began in March, although we went to relatively few gigs together, our musical tastes aligning only on occasion. Everything changed this year.

I didn’t exactly take a break from the scene, but I was never any less involved that I was in 2007. Naturally, things all changed again in 2008 such that I’d pick things up again and also restart much-missed activities such as DJing again, but that’s a story for a later part. I did still go to SOME gigs this year, and here’s the story of the best ones. Continue reading →

Having sorted out both EOL-Audio and my overall state of mental health during the dying embers of 2005, I went into 2006 full of optimism. This was to be the year where I began to make my mark – the site would finally get the attention I thought it deserved, and I could start DJing again, maybe get some guestlists and backstage access, in turn giving me access to interviews, starting a virtuous circle of promotion for my various activities. I never expected to actually make any money, that was too much to ask, but I was hoping I might get a little token something back in return.

The reality was not to be. The London Dark Scene was at it’s most political and balkanised in the mid 00s, and someone with no affiliation to one particular faction was never going to get anywhere. What my unaffiliated, fence-sitting self DID manage to do was see way more bands than anyone else I knew. My tale of Sunday at WGT 2006 is so ‘me’ it probably won’t be much of a surprise for those of you who’ve read this far. Continue reading →

After a promising start, 2004 sort of fizzled out live-music-wise. Into 2005, then, and time to scratch one of the biggest live music itches of them all. Back in 2000, I had tickets for an event called the ‘Lost Weekend’ with NIN headlining, a band I’d previously tried and failed to see, despite being the act that drew me to this whole dark-scene place initially.

They pulled out at the last minute owing to ‘illness’, though many believed this story was cover for some contractual/political reason, being a known music industry trick that the establishment will never admit to (get the band off the bill AND demand sympathy from the fanbase? Get out of jail free!). Anyway, my day-after-graduation party was cancelled. The festival went ahead, but I wasn’t interested in Ash and Groop Dogdrill (a band ever Metal Hammer thought were too obscure to headline a stage) and got a refund. No news of a replacement show thereafter, nor any action from the band at all, for that matter. Until now. Continue reading →

An ankle injury scuppered any hopes of a wild and crazy end to 2003, but 2004 started with a fresh and promising collection of gigs to look forward to. One short-lived but welcome venture was the ‘Pity For Monsters’ nights run by the Devlish Presley duo and a number of allied friends. Despite co-operation from members London’s deathrock revival scene, the bands they put on were varied in style and fanbase and it was one particular hidden gem that provided my first truly memorable gigging moment of the year. Continue reading →

The focus of the last part was my discovery of the wonders of European festivals. It may therefore come as a surprise that my one overseas trip of 2003 came as very much a last-minute thing. There were many other things to distract me closer to home, and the move to a London-based job meant that I was never far away from some kind of gigging action whenever I felt like it. And I felt like it a lot. Rather too often, in fact, as my first major gig of the year would reveal. Continue reading →