2 for the price of 1

Hot red chilli peppers

On Friday (25/01/2013) I went to see the Hot red chilli peppers at the Sitwell Tavern, Derby, they played some decent chilli peppers classics really well.

They put on a most excellent show and dressed like their counterparts which is always a nice touch with tribute acts sometimes they just don't bother and you just get some guys in their day clothes prancing about which is just plain wrong. No costume, no point. The band covered a wide range of chilli pepper classics such as 'under the bridge' , 'give it away' and 'Californication' which went down really well with the crow. The Sitwell really does just keep booking great bands every Friday and Saturday night and these guys were no exception so for anyone too poor in this current climate to see the actual chilli peppers then these are a decent substitute and not to be missed if they come to your area.

Rating: hot to trot

Dodgy Strawberry Promotions Acoustic Monday

These Acoustic Nights are (almost) a monthly occurrence at The Vic which is surprising as getting artist this good to perform for the joy of performing (and sausages) should take longer to organise, Dodgy Strawberry Promotions generally books small-medium time artists looking to get some exposure while not exclusively limited to acoustic acts, indeed some have to learn how to transfer to acoustic, this is the main staple for this promoter.

The first act on was Eric, I never did find out his surname, he was booked as a last minute replacement as the act that was meant to have played pulled out at the last minute. Eric who hails from France started out with the GnR classic 'Civil War' and played it excellently even though he had to put up with a bog standard Westfield acoustic which went out of tune regularly and often. At this point his phone rang so he did the decent thing and chucked it behind him then carried on with his set with 'Foxy Lady' which is a favourite of Dodgy Strawberry's as she was once described as looking a bit like Garth from 'Wayne's World'. I have no comment on that matter.

He played 'Foxy Lady' very well and it came across as well as it could've done he followed this up with another GnR song 'My Michelle' which was surprisingly good as not one to be expected to transfer well to acoustic so well done Eric . Next was a strange choice 'dude, I totally miss you' dedicated to a friend in France, and to show he's not a dedicated covers artists he followed this up with an original work called 'Come On' which went down really well with the amassed crowd. After 'Creep' By Radiohead it was time to finish, or so we thought for he had one more song to play the classic 'Knocking on heavens door' which was warmly welcomed and polished off this most excellent set in the finest way possible. This was indeed a great start to the evening.

Rating: Jack Black with a hint of decorum

Next came Retro Active a band formed for the occasion by Leenus Livingstone of Metalloid and friends, they consist of two guitarists and two vocalists, they hadn't had much practice and so only played 4 songs but each came out really well under the circumstances, They started with 'two steps behind' the well known Def Leppard staple which came out quite well the female vocalist sounded a little nervous at points and faltered whenever she checked the lyric sheet but did very well all-in-all. Following this came 'Sweet child of mine' a fine song and faultless, 'À Tout le Monde' came next and an excellent choice as they 2 singers worked together really well for this and Leenus seemed to give the guitar work a Spanish edge which worked really well. The last song was 'Sweet child 'o' mine' which wrapped this up nicely and I hope to see more of them in the future.

Rating: Senór Seven fingers

------Sausage Break------

Adequate sausages with some chips and buttered bread, normally the sausages are better and more plentiful but this was not entirely the venues fault and they are forgiven as we know this was just a one off.

------Sausage Break------

The headline act, sort of all the acts are generally equal and saying the last act is better than the first is usually incorrect, were regulars Crompton's Thresher a 'local' folk band normally consisting of a bassist from Fife (Banquo McDuff), a resonator guitarist from Chesterfield(Dred Roberts) led by a Bolton bouzouki player(Fingers McGraw) who all happen to live in Derby, though on this occasion Banquo is away experiencing major back pain and could not perform so he was replaced by accordionist Mitzi Willison.

Playing their own work they belted out 'Lord arran' and followed it up with 'Corsair ' a song about French pirates unfortunately Eric had left just befor this somng and didn't get to experience this belter or it's French corus, though this was a shade of itself without Banquo McDuff doing his stuff. Three more historical songs followed' Sodom and Gomorrah;, 'Black Galleon' and 'Persephony' about Sodomy, Slaves and incest respectively, each brilliantly put across and as clear and as powerful as you could ever want. 'Long ships' and 'Black Waterside' followed each setting the scene for the finale 'The Alchemist' really well. A brilliant end to an excellent evening and I look forward to the next one, no bands are booked yet but I assure you there will be some by the time it rolls around.

Rating: The illegitimate child of Donovan and Korpiklaani resulting in a something smack bang between the two.

Dave's Band names

Ok same deal as before, use these names at will, give credit to Dave Binns or Dave Repenter and all is well.

INSANEIAXE!
Chemical Warfare
NorseMann
Doenitz & the Wolf Pack
BattleDamage
Goliath Stomping
Belshazaar
Kaiserschlakt or Kaiserslacht
Mournful ballads

Remember, use original names, I don't like being confused, I mean a band called Skin (www.skinfreak.co.uk) are playing download but there not the same as Skin (www.skinmusic.net) from Skunk Anansie (www.skunkanansie.net) even though Skunk Anansie are playing download, how will people not be confused!

They should be informed of this great new resource for band names!
Spread the word people!

Band Names, for those who aren't original

All these are originally mine with a few picked from popular culture or place names (marked *), Dave is sending a few ideas soon.

Death to the Infidels
Steel Master
Iron Warlords
Mistresses of war
Ash Rat*
Neutron Star
Lord Berkeley's Knob*
Psychotic Crèche
Roving Mauler*
The Roving Maulers*

And below are obscure English words with interesting meanings that would make good band names:

Acapnotic (non-smoker)
acronychal (to happen at night)
Acidulous (sharp Tasting)
Acrasy (anarchy/Disorder)
zooerastia (another word for beastiality)
tedium vitae (literally 'tired of life)
taphephilia (the love of being buried alive)
tyrannicide (the act of killing a tyrant)
samogon (illicitly distilled vodka)
saprogenic (causing decay; produced in decaying matter)
also saprogenous
sapropel (ooze composed mainly of decaying organic matter)
sarmassation (love/sex play)
scaphism (death by being covered in honey and left in the hot sun)

Ok this is getting tedious and i'm missing the point, the point was that there are far too many bands with the same name!
All these names are unique, pick one if it happens you have the same name as another band, all I ask is full credit in CD/DVD/whatever releases in the "Thanks to...." section.

e.g Thanks to Martipar for the band name, it has brought us much success as we are no longer confued with ****.

Trawling through obscure word sites is hard work!

Bollocks to this/Airstryke+Evil Scarecrow+Powerquest review 08/05/2011

I Almost stopped doing this after the few days off (that turned into weeks) I had, Google also killed my Adsense account, which annoyed me enough to try and discourage users. After deliberating a bit and deciding not to move to another Blog site. I have decided to put up this new/old review and start being regular again, and sorry to you all loyal readers.

We're in Derby, the weather is very warm for the time of year and we're ready to rock, everything is perfect.

We enter the venue and see some familiar face, which is always nice, meeting new people with familiar music is good, but seeing a new band and meeting new people is a pain as you end up forgetting either the bands name, the name of the person you've just met or both. All of which means you end up spending time on the most awful website in the world (MySpace) trying to find info on the band and find that they're on of about 5 bands with the same name two of which are in the Midlands! It gets very frustrating.

Talking of which over the past few years me and a friend often discuss possible band names that could be used, I'm putting a list up soon, so that if you do happen to have the same name as another band then you can use one from our list. Anywho, We arrived at Redemption (Heroes/Brannigan's for all you old fogies out there), which is situated on Colyear Street, just off Macklin street in Derby and is owned by the same dudes as the Old Bell. After getting some drinks in Airstryke (http://www.myspace.com/airstrykeuk) started with Whiskey Legs, which I thoroughly enjoyed, though I was surprised as these were the band i'd gone to see and thought they were headlining, Phi corrected me and said Powerquest were headlining, I thought “Never heard of them, must be all right though”.

Anyway, I digress, the band played/sang well but were a bit stiff in their movements, the song is about coming home after a mighty drinking session (obviously) and was a good song to get the blood flowing. Next came Booze o'clock the subject of which is arguing about whether its too early to drink or not, personally I believe that any time after 12 is an acceptable time for a drink, Rock and Roll came next and by now the band had loosened up a bit, Airstryke are a glam rock band, this term of course doesn't just encompass the look of the band but their stage persona and overall sound Airstryke are a glam rock band in the same way Burt Reynolds is a man, Burt has no feminine side, Airstryke have nothing about them that isn't glam rock.

Next came Evil Scarecrow (http://www.myspace.com/evilscarecrowhome) who we'd seen mooching around in their stage costumes before they were on, incidentally they were selling CD's, Shirts and other merch at very reasonable prices and if you do see them I would recommend getting both CD's as they are very good. They started with War and Seek which set the tone for the band nicely, Vampyre Trousers came next and by now it was quite clear they were about as serious as Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura, i.e. not very. They are comedy melodic death metal, so they immediately become the worlds No. 1 comedy melodic death metal band, congratulations!

If you do see them at a venue near you then go see them, they played 66 minutes past 6 next, I forget the subject of this song as the next four songs blew it out of my mind, first came a brilliant cover of the Thundercats theme tune, which was full on and totally unrelenting, next was Blacken Everything a much slower song but a funny parody of emo's and they're self harming ways, when will they learn :-), incidentally the video is well made and available at their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Evil.Scarecrow) this was followed by Robototron which resulted in a brilliant set of synchronised dancing, the likes of which haven't been seen since those prisoners did Thriller, so far it had been an excellent night, assisted greatly by double whisky and coke at £2.50 (seriously!), I figured it was all downhill but then came a cover of a song by Sweden's most well known death metal band Europe, the song of course being The Final Countdown, I won't ruin the stage antics of Brother Dmitri Pain but I will say be prepared to see some epic Y-fronts.

They finished and Powerquest (www.power-quest.co.uk) came out, I figured they couldn't beat the previous two bands, but they did, with their lead singer looking like a tall, Asian Dio, they blasted the crowd with excellent power metal, they started with Find my Heaven followed closely by Crunching the Numbers which sounded very Manowar-esque, followed by some 90's power metal tunes (according to my RUBBISH notes anyway, damn that cheap whisky!) Better days was also very good with good twiddly bits and excellent riffs, Blood Alliance has an excellent intro and promised much, it is very 80's with it's heavy synthesizer but it slips into a very Dio like song but not as powerful, it delivers but isn't as powerful as the master, it does sound very good but also dated with the synthesizer, it is for people who don't care about music trends (me) or those nostalgic about older styles (me again). They finished with Another world which reminded me of a relentlessly hard game for the Mega-Drive with the same name, in that game you started under water and drowned if you didn't press up, it also used passwords to save the game and its save points were miles apart!! Anyway this song is brilliant and has a good length, as did all their songs actually, power metal needs time to mature it just doesn't work if the song is too short. In conclusion to tonight Airstryke - great, Evil Scarecrow – funny and great, Powerquest – Excellent. I'd recommend them all.

Sorry!

New review up this Sunday (8/05/2011) I was going to do a quick one to fill this gap but i've been ill, but I will be at the old bell, Derby reviewing the bands.

Appleby Surprise

So there I was walking past the Appleby in Burton and I notice a band setting up, odd considering it was a Thursday, I check the listings and it says 'TBA'. So here is a review of 4 surprise bands randomly watched at my local.

I find out from Kev that the first band is called Deadlight, their made up of 2 lead guitarists, a bassist, rhythm guitarist and a lead singer, they appear to be extremely young and very scream-core. They played well though and had a good sound, I would recommend a name change to something more original and for the vocalist to listen to himself more and improve on his clarity. Otherwise they were a fairly enjoyable band who could go far.

Next up came Propane the blues, a local 5 piece (lead, rhythm, bass, drummer, singer) they started badly and went downhill from there, the 2^nd song was terrible with low vocals, and each band member having to keep checking what each other is doing, next came a ballad but it was a totally unintelligible intro and the lead singer was accompanied by the lead guitarist, unfortunately on this song the female singer was actually audible and the male was low, this could be down to the venue rather than poor setup but that's what sound checks are for. They followed this up with a dreadful behind blue eyes cover I headed to the bar looking for booze, muscle-relaxant, before being served though I notice a mildly familiar face next to me, the bassist from Propane the blues, no less! It turns out the lead guitarist moaned at him for soloing, the band did 3-4 more songs before finally leaving us in peace.

Sins of the Father next, consisting of Raz (bass), Morgan (lead guitar), Brass (lead singer) and Billy (drums), the latter 2 are familiar Appleby regulars, they start with Breaking the law but Brass can't wail and without a rhythm section it sounds empty and unfulfilling, the next song was, I think called King, it was very Iced Earth in its style but as before felt empty, other wise it was a very good song. Next was a cover rip-off of Iron Maiden's Lord of the Flies, it was so close I almost sang along. I felt betrayed though the lead singer did sound a lot like Blaze Bayley during some parts of the last song aswell. Next was whiskey in the jar, not as good as the Thin Lizzy version, but it was the best they'd played all night and showed the bands potential. To finish they played another great tune called call of Valhalla, which was helpfully described as being “about Norse mythology”, I figured he worked in the department for no shit Sherlock during the day. Anyway this was yet another Blaze Bayley style track and he and Maiden did a Viking song this is what it would sound like.

Finally came Devil Down, who are extremely Killswitch Engage in their style they started off with come get your devil down, which instantly got the crowd going and an excellent mosh pit ensued. Holy diver next, as you'd expect they tried to do it in the Killswitch style but the instruments clashed all over the place, the lyrics were overwhelmed and it was complete chaos, Havoc was a good way of describing it and coincidentally that’s what they played next. This was still very Killswitch Engage, and also excellent. A few tracks later came The Devil went down on me, quite homo-erotic and the title explains it all, if a girl sang it, then it would've made sense, it reminded Phi of The devil is a loser by Lordi, they finished with a song called twisted which was yet another KE style song. Overall it would have been best if only Devil Down played an the others stayed at home, except for the rhythm guitarist from Propane the blues, he was actually quite good to watch and had some dexterity in those little fingers, he should go find a band as good as he is and join them.

Metal Slammer Review

So it was off to Scruffy Murphy's in Birmingham for a gig and drinks, the first band on were Hunted from Cardiff, now these guys looked like a metal band and acted like a metal band so when they started I expected them to sound like one too, this band did not disappoint Chris G on vocals has a great voice and the guitarists kept up a great fast pace the general band sound was very Iced Earth and fell smack bang in the middle of the NWOBHM sound.

Next came Dakesis, this 5-piece from Birmingham seemed promising and the lead guitarist/vocalist (Wayne Dorman) looked like he was straight out of a Maiden tribute act, the rest of the band (Matt Jones - Lead Guitar, Gemma Lawler - Vocals/Keyboards, Amie Chatterley - Vocals/Bass and Adam Harris - Drums) were played very well and having the girls as players/vocalist worked really well Gemma was a very fine keyboardist who's playing fitted really well with the awesome band who should go far.

After Dakesis finished their final song Kataleptic were on, these were a complete departure from the previous 2 bands power metal and were more death metal. Another power metal band would have been appreciated but these guys didn't disappoint and though they didn't fit with the vibe of the evening did actually come across with a raw sound that worked well, having 2 lead guitarists a bassist and a drummer isn't the best formula for a band but if you just want noise to head bang to they were perfect.

Finally the Head liners Derby's own Metalloid even though their drummer was absent due to illness (get well soon mate) which reduced the set to 5 songs and they had a brand new bassist (Matt Tomkinson of Aeterna, another must-see Derby band) and new Keyboardist (Andy Berry) they came across as tight and as polished as any well established live act, frontman Pete Morten got the crowd whipped up and managed to get everyone into a great vibe, even though I was one of only 2 people in the audience to have seen Metalloid before Pete had them singing along to Soar like an eagle and Power Drive like seasoned fans. Leenus Livingstone, who plays guitar as if he has 7 fingers, played as brilliantly as ever and unlike Hendrix he wouldn't need lighter fluid a match to burn his guitar he could do it by pure guitar solo brilliance. It was a excellent end to an excellent evening of (mostly) power metal. If you like power metal you'll like Metalloid, that's it.
Picture: Metalloid (from left: Andy, Pete, Leenus, Robert and Matt, Philippa is not in the band)