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Below are the most recent 16 friends' journal entries.
| Monday, December 14th, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
10:24p |
 VARIOUS ARTISTS
THE BEST OF FRIED EGG RECORDS (Bristol 1979 – 1980)
Bristol Archive RecordsI think I may well have to interview Mike Darby about this ceaseless flotilla of Bristol memories his label are releasing because I am not aware of any other town-label existing in the UK (Hyped2death in the States do better than labels here), which is doing what they have. There are towns which merit such attention but I don’t think anyone has got round to it. This time they’ve re-released an old compilation, and added extra tracks. I recall this vaguely from first time around, as I do ‘Avon Calling’, although I recall thinking at the time they weren’t a patch on Brighton’s ‘Vaultage’ series, so let’s see if I was a callow youth and hideously wrong. ( Read more... ) http://www.bristolarchiverecords.com |
mickmercer
|
3:48p |
Something really suspicious happened yesterday and I wonder if anyone else has had this happen recently? I was at some site, which I failed to recall afterwards as I’d been visiting loads in one go, where I was asked to reaffirm the details logged on it, so it was obviously a place I’d been before. I basically rejected the need to update anything and moved on, logging out, then onto somewhere else. Then I realised that on the form of personal details the post code showing was for an address I hadn’t even been to since the late 1980’s, but had spent a lot of my youth at, which is why I remembered it. Although I had used the internet for searches since machines first became available in bookshops during the early 90’s, I didn’t even have my own internet account until 2000, so wouldn’t have ever given detailed personal info relating to my earlier addresses, so why on earth would that postcode suddenly become visible, and not some of the London-based ones which succeeded it? You hear about all sorts of info becoming available and being shared secretively between companies, but going that far back, and accidentally leaking onto a site? It’s very weird and actually incompetent too, because it can't possibly serve any useful purpose. |
| Saturday, December 12th, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
6:16p |
 LOVE JUNGLE
Welcome To The House Where The Extras Are Free
Bristol Archive RecordsLove Jungle brought out this cheeky album and a decent 12” EP with a lot of other stuff unreleased, which was a shame as they had real potential during the late 80’s indie whirlpool of colliding opposites. Sadly the labels were all looking for dance crossover bands at the time and something like this curiously gritty pop quartet missed out. They’d come out of the excellent Fear Of Darkness where Neil Darby was the guitar lynchpin and Angela had been an interesting addition on backing vocals, and that sense of ebullient melodic control continued here. ( Read more... )http://www.bristolarchiverecords.com/bands/Love_Jungle.html |
mickmercer
|
6:04p |
That advert on Myspace is really annoying me: ‘PERSON’S NAME (dismal looking major label fare): What Music Are They Into?’ I couldn’t care less! Why don’t they just fuck off? |
| Friday, December 11th, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
1:26a |
BIG CAT photos for sale. All profits from the sale of these exclusive prints go to the Phoenix Marie fund to help her with her vital medical bills. Full details here: http://helpphoenix.teapoweredphoto.com/10 x 8 inch prints will cost £10 each. If you buy just one you will have to add £2.50 P&P. Buy two or more and postage is free, worldwide. There are photos of lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, snow leopards, serval, lynx and the ultra-mysterious and cute Pallas cats. There is a total of 70 different images available, all of which will be shown in the next issue of THE MICK due online next week. In the meantime further examples are shown behind the cut (slightly reduced in quality so they load reasonably fast), along with my email details. They’d make a lovely gift to anyone, and you’d be helping a great cause. (Should you want to have larger prints done I will have to look into that, please email me on that.) ( Read more... ) |
| Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
11:50a |
All being well THE MICK 50 will be finished this weekend with La Peste Negre, Collide, (((S))), Zeitgeist Zero, Phoenix Marie, Deathcamp Project, El Clan, Philip Butler, Will Dance For Chocolate, Action Directe, Screaming Banshee Aircrew and Zombina & The Skeletones. A classic! (Scarlet Leaves sent me their answers and pics as a .rar zipped file. I did try changing the .rar to a .zip but that didn’t work. Can anyone do .rar files if I sent it to them and you sent it back as docs and jpegs?) And THE MICK 52, also up this month, will have at least The Last Cry, The Eden House, Adoration, Black Tape For a Blue Girl, The Exploding Boy, Mark Sinnis, Hanging Doll, UK Decay and about half a dozen more who can’t be accurately confirmed as I am also sending out the interviews for two issues in January so it’s all happening. I can reveal I am looking at Resist, Dead Guitars, Fixion, In Auroram, The Spiritual Bat, Rising Shadows/Fredrik Klingwall, Tot Licht, The Dirge Carolers, The Ghost Effect, The Silence Kit, Another Species, Feeding Fingers, Tenebrarum, The Common Men, Ad Ombra and Life In Sodom. But I still want more LJ readers to add their own contributions to the Xmas Issue, THE MICK 51. Reaction to that has been too slow so please do contribute. Send your answers (with a jpeg of yourself if you have one, although that isn’t essential) by Friday (I have extended the deadline) to mercermick at hotmail dot com and here are those questions again: XMAS PAST: What are your favourite, or least pleasant memories of Christmas past – what do you love best about the period, what do you shy away from? XMAS PRESENT: What do you remember as your best ever present, and the weirdest or most unwanted? XMAS FUTURE: What are your plans this year? XMAS GHOST STORY: What is the spookiest thing ever to have happened to you? (The more revelations the better, as the Ghost section always proves to be the most unusual). It will only take you ten minutes, unless you have a particularly juicy ghost story. Either way, it’s a good thing to do while you’re at work. Cheers! Mick |
| Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
11:50p |
|
mickmercer
|
10:51p |
 ANIMALS AND MEN
SOME SONGS
WFMUIt’s not actually called ‘Some Songs’ I don’t think it has a title. Ralph sent me these and they’re ridiculous charming songs which have been placed online free with the ‘Convulsive’ EP from earlier this year. So head off to the Free Music Archive and you can have them, gratis. ‘Just A Dot’ is pure string-thin punk, with flyaway bass and some cheekily brilliant clipped vocals. ‘I Never Worry 09’ is wonderful, gently vibrant but also steady as a truculent rock. Susan sounds about eight but can’t distract me from that harmonica being Beatlesish! (‘Love Me Do’, or whatever it’s called?) ‘(I’ve Been Bitten By The) Bug’ is hilarious. I think the spoken intro has that deadpan effect of Peter Cook as a judge reading Beatles lyrics, although it may be unintentional. The band were doing a gig in Lyon and had a chance to try a few things, which is why these six songs got recorded. ‘Oh Death!’ is something traditional, or was until they do their par-boiled, somewhat detached version which at times makes the grim experiences within the lyrics sound curiously cheerful. It’s weird. ‘Dragon Fly’ is rangey and well mannered, chirpy punk, like they’re tight-ropewalking simultaneously. ‘Easy Riding’ keeps the vocals bright, the guitar sedate but busy and the rhythm a bit grumblier. You need to get the punk simplicity of their work, but surely only some muso covered in moss wouldn’t? Then away you go. http://www.myspace.com/animalsandmenterraplaneshttp://freemusicarchive.org then search for Animals & Men (not Animals And Men). |
| Sunday, December 6th, 2009 |
banshee_aircrew
|
2:16p |
|
| Saturday, December 5th, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
9:34p |
No review tonight, too busy on THE MICK. All being well it's three issues this month, two normal and the Xmas one. Due to the year being so shite, due to reasons not worth going into, I know I'll finally be on track for a proper monthly schedule next year but I want to ensure I manage to interview all the bands whose records I enjoyed most this year, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's two issues in January as well, just to get everything up to date. That's all being dealt with right now, but the XMAS ISSUE needs some fresh input. So if any readers of this journal have never contributed to the Xmas issue before, or have new contributions they wish to make for certain questions then please feel free to send me them. The questions remain the same, or it wouldn't be a tradition. They are: 1) XMAS PAST: What does Christmas mean to you, what do you cherish most about it, what do you look forward to, or want to hide from? 2) XMAS PRESENT: What's the best, worst or weirdest present you have ever received? 3) XMAS FUTURE: This year's plans? (The issue comes out before the great day.) 4) XMAS GHOST STORY: Please share your spookiest experience(s) ever. The more detailed the better as that section always yields some odd surprises. Please send to my email (behind the cut) making it clear how you wish to be named, and attaching a jpeg of yourself if you have one you like, but a picture isn't essential. ( Read more... )And in case no-one's said it yet, Happy Christmas. |
| Friday, December 4th, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
11:33p |
 LOS CARNICEROS DEL NORTE
POE IS DEAD EP
Zorch – free downloadNeither a hunter nor a gatherer be, my old gran never used to say to me, and yet I gather this free download is available as a limited edition CD too, details of which can be found nestling in the band’s myspace blog. For the rest of us freeloading bastards there’s the download. ‘El Gato Negro’ is as sober as it is sombre Goth with some twilight twinkles. Very steady, very pretty and vocally mysterious, with a swilling rhythm and subtly thrilling guitar. Sensitively seared ‘El Cuervo’ scuttles around dementedly, a bit like Theatre Of Hate in an asylum (may contain nuts), and you have to love that heartbeat bass. ‘La Mascara de la Muerte Roja’ is less interesting being too relaxed and strolling to little effect, but the lugubrious drowning carnivalesque ‘El Pozo y el Pendulo’ works well, the doomy piano and angry guitar anxious behind the straighter vocal and the end is very strange. No idea what they’re singing about, but it’s well worth nabbing. http://www.zorchfactoryrecords.com/loscarnicerosdelnortehttp://www.myspace.com/loscarnicerosdelnorte |
| Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 |
banshee_aircrew
|
3:56p |
|
mickmercer
|
3:51p |
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| Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 |
banshee_aircrew
|
6:16p |
Nemesis To Go
A quick thanks to everyone who turned up to our Leicester and York gigs.. and to all the venue peeps and staff for their sterling efforts :) In other news, the rather splendid latest issue (8) of Nemesis To Go is finally live and online.. This issue features many splendid gig reviews (a good many of which I seem to have attended myself.. go me!), including a live review of SBA at the Purple Turtle in London and an album review for our latest baby, Sugar. It's free.. it's online.. go look at the goodness :) Ed. |
mickmercer
|
6:05p |
Chris Limb has re-designed my website, go see! - http://www.mickmercer.com – where there’s now a total of 29 exclusive books available (to make that perfect unwanted xmas gift), with details of their contents and a direct link to Lulu. I also have a basic Links section to which I will add people who have actual websites (not just a myspace page) who pop me in theirs. That seems fair. |
| Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 |
mickmercer
|
10:11p |
 MOSKOW
CRESCENT STUDIOS DEMOS
Bristol Archive RecordsHere’s a weird one, and it is odd, when you check the biog details and somewhere Dave Luckhurst seems to have vanished, who I know was in the band and should still have been there when these demos were recorded, during November 1978. Also in this picture you will see Trevor Tanner (then Trevor Flynn) and Jan Kalicki, both bound for The Bolshoi. ‘Man From UNCLE’ was always one of my favourites of the perkier post-punk no hit wonders - I still have it somewhere - but here it’s a curiously joyless exercise, brash drums, droll bass and bunged up vocals with a few subdued guitar sprays. ‘Where’s Daddy’ has some very unusual, cheeky lyrics between spells of nimble guitar and certainly keeps you guessing. “And again fatty…” introduces ‘Dining Is An Emotion’, which does appear weight-related as the constipated song lolls quietly. ‘Name, Rank And Number’ is a drab spot of anti-militaristic tonguery-pokery, and that’s it Weird. http://bristolarchiverecords.com |
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