mick mercer
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "mick mercer" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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02:20 am
[Link] | 
JEFF WAGNER’S TUNNEL OF LOVE
AN ETERNITY OF BLOOD
Glorious Alchemical Co.
What better way to come back from a silent period than with an album that starts like David Bowie tenderising some Happy Days-era crooning, with a chorus seemingly based around a food mixer of some kind? Well if that’s what you’re after ‘An Eternity Of Blood’ certainly delivers. Capriciously melodic, making room for odd noises and humanising them, making them an exhilarating part of the whole, Jeff Wagner sounds like a man who just snapped up all outstanding mortgages in Twin Peaks and intends cracking the whip. ‘The Orchestrion Speaks’ is an engaging, positively whimsical instrumental, setting up the jaunty fear of ‘Shiny Claws’ with its furtive fairground organ and mischievous imagery, and we dip into some delightful instrumental power in ‘A Fright’, only to be thrown into the sweetly buffed-up chrome pop of ‘You Could Be Brand New’
‘The Electric Whirlitron’ takes us back to the frightful clamour of sub-Industrial groaning speculation, ‘No Sleep 2-Night’ is more agonising entreaties drenched in Americana of the elegant type Chris Isaak might manage if stuffed into a cupboard and fed hallucinogenics.
‘Social Anxiety’ is music with a perplexing mix of espionage patter and children’s TV simplicity, that leads into ‘Super-Naturalism’ which highlights how Jeff was doing things, as he still is, which others are now catching on to. This isn’t a million miles different to Flipron, just as the ‘Shiny Claws’ song is similar to what some Steampunk artists are now rejoicing over. It’s silky, but filthy too.
( Read more... )
http://www.insidethetunnel.com
http://www.myspace.com/tunneloflove
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02:22 pm
[Link] | I have had the mother of all weeks, computer-wise. Problems with the computer itself, my internet connection, as well as eBay, Photobucket and Paypal. A total nightmare! To counter this I have been listening to a lot of Bill Pritchard, and working on the Goth Archive series which will soon be books via lul.com. I used to do a Gothic History series of massive pdfs on CD for a bit, containing all my old work, and special photo bonuses, but those have been discontinued for quite some time. These books will be interviews-only, illustrated with exclusive pics, and they’re looking good, unless I cock up the pdf formatting, assuming that matters?
So, if I can work out to how to store images on LJ itself to use with reviews while my Photobucket problems get sorted, service resumes tomorrow.
In the meantime, please buy THE KITTEN Issue 2 (see below). Some people have admitted it made them cry!
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01:33 am
[Link] | THE KITTEN Issue 2
The story of our rescue cat Mack is now available and there is a free 14 page preview up at http://www.mickmercer.com/themick.html so please do have a look at that.
Mack is one of the lucky few. Many of the beautiful cats you see in the preview could be dead before the next tourist season arises unless money can be raised through this issue, as the collapse of XL airlines had an unforeseen effect. It turns out most of the apartment complexes in the village we always stay had exclusive deals with Xl (and their contracted holiday companies), and with many people leaving early, if they could, and nobody else coming, the resort has basically closed two months early. Jean who runs the local supermarket relies on the mature holiday makers, who prefer September/October, to donate food with which she feeds strays through the winter, and obviously those tourists weren’t there this year. Lynda and I have already made a donation but it would be brilliant if The Kitten can raise more as Jean and Helen (who both fostered Mack during the pet passport process) plan to feed the strays through a now extended period.
The full issue costs £4.99 and all money will go to the Haven animal sanctuary in Malia, near where we stay, and for the feeding plan. It’s a 118 page issue, richly illustrated with a 22,000 word account of everything, written not just by myself but Lynda as well. You’ll get the whole Mack story, which could prove useful for anyone wishing to do similar things, as there are pitfalls to be avoided when doing this! We are learning, slowly. It may also make you realise you can do it if you’d found the idea a bit worrying. (Once you realise it’s a precise list of pointers to follow it isn’t as bad as anticipated, although still very tense.) It covers the way we met Mack, what happened during the whole passport process, and the nerve-wracking time we spent out there overseeing his flight, then the aftermath as Mack casually brings mayhem home with him. (Seriously, he’s a total nutter!)
There are tons of lovely photos of the cats we met out there ~ you will even be reacquainted with the almighty Catman ~ plus there’s a couple of updates on previous cats we grabbed and took off to the Haven. There are also some sad, but at the same time heart-warming, pictures of animals rescued by the Haven. It disgusted us to find that this year they had animals actually injured by English and Scottish tourists! I think when you see how many amazing animals they have managed to save you will be glad to help.
I hope you’re interested in buying the issue, as money raised will make a difference, so if the preview whets your appetite please then go to my lulu.com page (url at the bottom of this post) and it’s the first item at the top of the list.
Click on the yellow underlined title ‘THE KITTEN Issue 2 (e book)’ and that takes you to its own page. When there underneath the yellow cover on the left (which won’t be included with the pdf you download, that’s just a visual requirement Lulu currently insist upon) you will see the ‘Preview this book’ button, and when clicking that you can actually go through the first fifteen pages of the issue.
Thank you from me and Lynda, as you know how much this means to us. Mack would say the same, but he’s downstairs annoying Mabel, who has now grown used to his ways, and terrifying Fred, who simply can’t work out what the Hell he is.
http://stores.lulu.com/mickmercer
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11:27 am
[Link] |  TWF Magazine Issue 10 ~ £3.95
Kev unwittingly points out something depressing in the opening editorial that with Unscene on hiatus and Kaleidoscope apparently nowhere close to a new issue, pickings are slim on the Goth front magazine-wise in the UK (Devolution being essentially Rock). This will keep you perky though.
Drawbacks? Well, the layout is poor at times, although I can hardly criticise anyone strongly for that, as layout is an art, of which I know precious little. With that point out of the way (which I am sure he’s aware of anyway), the rest of positive. The CD is good, the magazine content varied and interesting.
Interviews: 25men, which is very cool although the democratic answer approach doesn’t really work, and it’s refreshing to see a Christian Death piece. You’ll find Jesus On Extasy, with Leandra/Ophelia also getting her own piece, alongside the rumbly Lucy’s Drowning and a vibrant, upfront Uninvited Guest and a gloriously confident Voices Of Masada, with Ashbury Heights and Zombie Girl fleshing it out.
I think my favourite has to be an inspiring chat with Rodney Orpheus of punk-spirited The Cassandra Complex, including this bit about organising everything yourself: “I don’t believe in giving someone fifteen percent of my income just so they can be a dick to someone else, it’s just stupid and lazy – most musicians are lazy, and stupid, that’s why they’re musicians.”
( Read more... )
http://www.twfmagazine.com
http://www.myspace.com/twfmagazine
http://www.myspace.com/kev36663
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03:31 pm
[Link] |  I was genuinely shocked when I found this old photo of me last night, taken near the ZigZag Offices, just off Hatton Gardens in 1984. The occasion was a Jazz Butcher interview, fitting as I have the t-shirt on, and I had seen them off easily enough; Max Eider wandering away blithely unaware the Butch has stuck something on the back of his jacket, JB himself so out of it he’d collapsed onto some rubbish bags outside a Magic shop, and David J amiably staring around him, seemingly oblivious. With the prodigious alcohol tolerance I’d built up working in places usually right next door to a pub (where you then, understandably, conducted most of your business) bands usually left somewhat the worse for wear but in this instance clearly it has affected me too, and I mean deeply.
I am drinking bitter! For someone who survived the 80’s largely on a diet of lager and chips this is like sacrilege. (For those outside the UK unfamiliar with biter, it is like microwaved tea, flavoured with pencil savings.) Worse still, I am drinking bitter from a can!!!!!!!!!!!!
I honestly cannot think of any explanation for this. Now, see the badges? Behind the cut we play Name That Badge! I would be interested in a couple being identified.
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03:48 am
[Link] |  DENIS FRAJERMAN / ANTOINE VOLODINE
VOCIFERATIONS
Le Cluricaun
When the sparse weirdness of ‘Ouverture’ first started I wondered what it was with these new-fangled oblique composers that they have to make something so unnecessarily awkward, with a weird shuffling motif dominating the foreground before more orderly synth shapes flit in behind, but then I realised it’s because that’s what makes it all work. (Okay, so I’m a bit slow on the uptake sometimes.) There are actually different shattered segments slowly coalescing back into a consummate whole by the end, and what you are encountering is a journey, feeling your way along. Once you have appreciated the form you start to make sense of it on further listens. Your patience is rewarded, as though by a doctor spewing money.
So Denis Frajerman does the music, like dangerous soundtracks, and the text is from sci-fi writer Antoine Volodine, like a threatening interrogation. Denis is in other bands, notably Palo Alto, DAM (‘Jazz Punk’?), Polonium 84 and has his own string quartet. The press release speaks of exotic post-opera, with shamanic instrumentation. I think that’s more off-putting than helpful. It hints at the paranoia contained in the story which you get without understanding the French, but it doesn’t explain the ambient delicacy that is ‘Seizème Sanglot’, the rhythmic intent of the verbal tract so insidious, and utterly spellbinding.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/antoinevolodinedenisfrajerman
http://www.myspace.com/denisfrajerman
http://www.myspace.com/thedamband
http://www.myspace.com/polonium84
http://www.myspace.com/paloaltofr
http://www.rumbatraciens.com/paloalto
http://www.rumbatraciens.com/frajerman
http://www.myspace.com/lecluricaun
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02:49 pm
[Link] |  DEVOLUTION Magazine ~ Issue 18 - £3.00
The shift upwards in quality by going full colour ahs sensible happened with a fine line-up, which is no coincidence. They’ve timed it well and handled it better, making the transformation easy on the eye and tickling of the mind.
The reviews section naturally looks more attractive with a harmonious design with spot colour and full covers, and the live reviews look sparkier too, although the WGT review is far from vibrant, with Download 2008 bigger and lustier, but that’s some their thing, no? Fashion-wise you also see how the improve colour blooms delightfully, with Blackmirror Design the prime beneficiary, along with model Minxie Malone, photographer Matt Miller, artist Aly Fell, and Jane Doe Latex.The Vampress Girls piece also looks cute.
On the music article front Bon Jovi get the retro piece, and Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ features in the cover page, although that never really grabs me. Band-wise there’s three tiny looks at Birmingham bands Voodoo Johnson, Adust and Vix N The Kix, Saint Or Sinner? Profile falls upon Lisa Witch from Nemhain. Standard features go to The Shanklin Freakshow, Inkubus Sukkubus, Animal Alpha and Screams Of Cold Winter, with the two big interviews being Sebastian Bach and Wednesday 13 (the best piece).
A palpable hit!
http://www.devolutionmagazine.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/devolutionmagazine
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01:43 am
[Link] | Turned Out Nicely Humanitarian Again!
Unexpected George Formby revelations on the radio tonight.
( Read more... )
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09:14 pm
[Link] |  GAE BOLG AND THE CHURCH OF FAND
LIVE IN EHRENSTEIN 2000
Le Cluricaun
I’m not sure if a band can be quintessentially weird (although I expect it looks good on the cv), but if so then Gae Bolg probably enter this rare category. Here you have a CD in a dvd case originally released as a limited CDR of just 33 copies, of a live show which apparently included members of Hekate and Omne Datum Optimum, if that means anything to you.
‘During The Apocalypse’ begins like something funereal from a Horror soundtrack, the organ floating and gliding between male vocals hinting at a choral tradition, light martial drums sliding in behind high, mellow flute. It manages to be both stirring and eerie.
‘La Marche Des Mortes’ booms more ominously in that historical aura of some ethereal artists, like Ataraxia turned vengeful, and who’s to say Henry VIII wouldn’t have twisted an ample ankle dancing to something like this on the eve of any wedding? The flute or pipes, or whatever the damn thing(s) is/are, lifts the oppressive element and they stride happily over a sunlit late evening hill, singing lustily like lunatics. The scared audience applaud dutifully.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/gaebolg
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09:10 pm
[Link] | Too drunk to write a review, it being Lynda’s birthday. She had a big meal with friends the other day but today she’s been knocking back the Raki like no-one’s business, although that’s my fault for festooning the garden tonight with candles and glass cats. That said, her propensity for alcohol is scary. I try to remain abstemious, but what can you do?
This afternoon I even tried taking her somewhere ‘improving’, the collection of antique musical instruments housed at Hatchlands Park, near Guildford.
You’d think a load of old keyboards wouldn’t be interesting but you’d be quite wrong. The collection is truly charming. The house is within extensive grounds containing an alarming amount of dramatic dead trees, and you can’t take pics in the house, but as you walk around it’s curiously enthralling. I confess here and now to knowing nothing about classical music, so the news Chopin was Victorian as opposed to a 1700’s chap in a weird wig was shocking, but many of the instruments here have been played by the likes of Bach, Chopin, Liszt and Elgar, and were such weird shapes. One organ we mistook for a bookcase. It was seriously strange. Nice cake too, but that’s neither here nor there.
( Read more... )
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02:46 am
[Link] |  LA PESTE NEGRA
VOICES FROM THE BEYOND
Blind Dead
It’s been a while since I heard this wonderfully moody and abrasive band – wonderful, because they manage to make it fun, but also difficult, which isn’t easy – and they remain as fractious as they were on the sizzling “Dreaming Demons.” There have been some slight changes, as Allan Kardek no longer occupies drums, those being scared by Fernando Rodriguez, and they have David on various instruments and vocals, as there has musically.
There’s more consideration of atmosphere this time, with the guitar nibbling at ‘Es La Peste Negra’ seemingly starting among bats or in a busy sewer, vocals clear as a crazed bell, and there’s a neat union between a bulbous rhythmical assurance and fluid advancement of a mature but scathing sound, in a song which is almost catchy despite itself. ‘Desenterrados’ also has a chilled but frisky sound, where they’re dreamily demented, whereupon they scuttle around in ‘Blame’ as the Goth tingles multiply, the guitar softly spread, the bass agitated. ‘White Coffin’ is a taut affair, with some cool vocals glowing in a swirling annex complete with crying baby.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/lapestenegra
http://www.lapestenegra.tk
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11:54 pm
[Link] |  HERB PROJECT
ISARIA 2008
Own Label
Their emergence (to me) late last year was a delicious thrill, for here was a sonic delicacy, and a bizarre depth to music both restful and stormy, but not tied in specifically with other scenes, but floating above like a hotair balloon, its passengers no sense of direction, merely instinct. This extends, it appears, to their website, where there seems no blatant way for the interested viewer to buy a record, without contacting them first - can this be right? Or do they have a psychic arrangement because they know everything about you, and the record is coming through your letterbox before you have fully realised you need it? (Such trust!) I suggest you send them a message. So, as we have here souped-up, turbo-charged versions of the earlier demos, plus new tracks, all pulsating politely, what you need before going behind the cut, is to know that this is one of the greatest things you could imagine hearing all year. If plants had moods, this could be angry jasmine. It fills your room and seems to take on a different emotional hue depending on your own moods, so you don’t find yourself put off selecting it because you’re ‘not in the mood.’
Delphine (Herb) sings high and leisurely during the opening to ‘Ninety-Five’ while Bruno (Project) is draped patiently and penitently over the guitar. There is more than coy charm about their stillness, as it’s like imagined conversations or overheard thoughts, and musically it does rear up and surge, or should that be Serge? Oh, shush! ‘The Gipsy’ has a serene gloominess and is adorable, haunting in a blissful manner and in truth both that and a bruised ‘The Law Of Men’ are the cross-breeding of Radiohead and Bauhaus, given female components. It’s that good.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/herbproject
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10:27 pm
[Link] |  LISE N.
FAIRE CAILLER LE LAIT AVEC DU SAND DE CAILLE
Le Cluricaun
We’re in France, and will remain there for a few days, celebrating the revelation that is Le Cluricaun, a label in the same spirit as Projekt, but far more esoteric, far more Indie if you like. We’ll also be checking out the latest from the wonderful Herb Projekt tomorrow, but now we move away from the spellbinding unpredictability of Seven Pines yesterday and into calmer, spindlier fare from Lise N, whose music frequently reminds me of an intellectualised mystique that comes from the world of the Magic Roundabout, which did after all, have French roots. There is a childlike simplicity merged with adult abstraction that makers it a minimalist experience you simply can’t quite grab.
It could almost be seen as a spoken word album at times, the vocals dominating the sparse musical landscape and French as a language is like material, while English is perhaps wood. You can have polished English, or heavy English, or muted (for the most part), but the language doesn’t dance or flit across the air like French which seems ideally designed for expression, rolling and jutting. For all I know Lise could be singing about a blocked drain, but it sounds delightful, the words rising and circling like an aroma, luxurious or sheer, soft and welcoming, just as English can be austere and blocking.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/nlise
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04:05 pm
[Link] |  SEVEN PINES
Le Cri
Le Cluricaun
There is some niche marketing which is perhaps too ambitious for its own good, and this record, designed for Sidelined Scientists With A Grudge Who Would Gladly End The World Or, At The Very Least, Take A Few Thousand With Them is one such record. Only people who have given up all hope but burn with a resentment which can allow them to push their pain threshold through the roof could possibly withstand the final track on this record, and how do you reach that audience? Is there a Putting The Harm In Pharmaceuticals message board? I don’t think so! (He said, hesitantly.) I, being old school, refuse to be beaten by a record and while it sounded at times like I was buried beneath railway tracks as distant locomotives screamed through the night, I stuck it out for what must have been fifteen minutes of sheer torment, maybe longer.
I cannot and will not be driven from my own room by music. You have to take a stand. Gradually the fear subsides and you steel yourself to sitting it out. Realising this, the music resentfully takes on a less searing scalpelvision and starts to calm, to soothe, the synth pulse soon flimsy, the droning sounds almost pleasant, like whale song on a bass sax. But I will never forget! Into the black book go Seven Pines and my revenge, some day, will be scathing! For now, however, I need to lay down.
It wasn’t always like this. I remember happier times!
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/sevenpines
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11:24 pm
[Link] |  TRUBLION 23
Honer Et Gloria, La Geste De Graffen Walder
Le Cluricaun
I am indebted to Eric of Gae Bold for this extraordinary record, on his own enigmatic label, which I suspect could well be one to start collecting, and you’ll be hearing of more bands from that same deplorable stable over the next two weeks as he provided me with a clutch of warped beautifies, in this case the work of Gae Bolg’s own drummer who genuinely rejoices in the name Trublion 23 and also plays in Omne Datum Optimum and Seven Pines. Apparently; this represents an unexpected jolt of variety to the folk scene, although it seems a lot weirder and all-pervasive than that, as though lurking in a psychotic ward off the main corridors of Post-Punk. Then again Eric describes him as being adept at music of a ‘psychedelic, festive and symphonic folk’ bent. Symphonic folk? Lordy!
It starts with darkly echoing sounds like an electric storm in ‘Hurlezob’, followed by whinnying of horses and their hooves stamping in a rush, which then becomes an intoxicating rhythm all its own, with some whirling synth and stern brass stirred in; an evocative, volatile and delightfully unexpected mix. Clearly worried vocals are pitching in there somewhere and it ends with you none the wiser but hugely impressed.
( Read more... )
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04:05 pm
[Link] | Oh-oh! Is some anti-Goth hysteria coming to Russia soon?
“My son said he had Goths and Satanists among his friends. I wasn’t scared. I thought, ‘Well, let him spend his time sitting around a cemetery — there’s not much harm in that, is there?’"
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1692637.ece
(I like some of the more sceptical reader comments - if they were cut up and eaten how would they know they’d been stabbed 666 times? The journalists evidently missed that.)
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05:57 pm
[Link] | Grange Hill (R.I.P.)
( Read more... )
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12:53 pm
[Link] | “Nooo!!!!!!!” Lynda shouted, fleeing the kitchen with both hands up to her ears, leaving a bemused Mick behind her.
( Read more... )
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10:35 pm
[Link] |  SIIIII
EIN VERDAMMTES VERSPRECHEN
Outsider Party
I like this idea, limited edition releases from gigs and have never understood why venues and festivals haven’t had it as a staple part of their activities for years. Good for promotion, for offsetting general losses or dips in popularity, and a positive boon to any scene. It never happens, but here’s one Siiiii seem to have organised. A great sound, and a rich performance too.
According to the translation site I use the title means A Condemned Promise, which is nicely oblique. They set the atmosphere with a dark, rumbling ‘Iron Age’ and the sound is murky, but not polluted. The bass and drums thrash through the ground slowly, the guitar spinning in a feral beauty and the vocals move around like a giant in a short tunnel. ‘Instinct’ is positively bubbly! A rough and basic pushing sound, the guitar buzzes finely, the vocals stamp and seem to be singing about there always being a stink. ‘Dust’ is fidgeting splendidly, like a vengeful and learned professor slipped some dangerous substances, and it’s a shame there’s no audience noise on the recording. You want to feel the response, but that’s the only downside to a record anybody with their stunning ‘Ancient’ debut should want to have as a companion piece.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/siiiiimusic
http://www.myspace.com/outsiderparty
http://ole5eyes.livejournal.com/
http://www.myspace.com/babyturnsblueproductions
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05:45 am
[Link] |  GHOSTFIRE
DRUNK LULLABIES
Own Label
Here’s a band you may like to get into. More lines blur with a band like Ghostfire who call themselves Steampunk, with an inherent understanding of Goth, but also dark indie of the Nick Cave variety, with country blues storytelling also evident. In fact it’s weird I mentioned The Galley Slaves the other day who were the absolute masters of lovelorn emotional follies and jollies, with songs packed with characters, as here are Ghostfire coming on like angst-ridden cousins of Frank The Baptist or even a dark version of Flipron. There must be something in the air.
‘Vaudevillain’ captures a jaunty showmanship, with playfully harrowing intent, and a ricocheting joie de vivre as spindly guitar, anaemic bass and rattling drums scuttle beneath the scampering, seedy vocals. Also full marks for rhyming demented with tormented. ‘Masters Of The Sea’ is a more relaxed affair, as silvery guitar flicks around the heavy, vibrant singing, but the stylish, skimpy keyboards can do little to calm the dramatic lyrics and their delivery.
‘Ghostways Of Paris’ rolls sedately with nimble guitar stretched over the ticking rhythm and confusing words, and there’s a lovely mooching dignity to its odd danciness. ‘Barrio’ is another rousing number with tingling guitar and sturdy rhythmic support for the passionate vocals, which veers off onto a different topic this time, seemingly far from the ‘debauched decadence’ they swear by. I also didn’t quite get the Steampunk aspect, but regardless of such confusion these are pulsating songs and an indication of real talent.
Head’s up!
http://www.myspace.com/ghostfire
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