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MAY  2006 - How Far Can You Run?????

Sat 3 Jun - Upstairs @ OPIUM in the Cowgate, Edinburgh:  MY ELECTRIC LOVE AFFAIR, THE WILDHOUSE, SHOCK AND AWE and maybe ELECTRA.. but in the last minute she might be doing a 'Roz'.. i.e. having some trouble 'gettin' there. but it should be a GREAT gig.. M.E.L.A. are Magnificent and WILDHOUSE pull out all the stops..

Tues 30 May 06 MGCK Music 'E' is for 'Enhancements' 

a story to follow

Sat 27 May 06 MGCK Music "Doctor 'Fuckenstein' I presume???" 

'Some Kind Of Monster' (Metallica's self-styled, self-inflicted angst-fest and money spinning biopic) has made me SO GLAD I haven't been in a band for 20 years.  There is nothing, apart from the grossly swollen bank accounts and Christie's auctionable art collections, to recommend it.

Watching their male-into-midlife crisis (the 38-43 year-old meltdown) of chest-beating while trying to produce yet another palpably saleable slab of CD; I found it as airbrushed as a well-waxed Playboy centrefold's pussy.  Here are these 'guys' (they're just,uh,  'GUYS' aren't they?? Just GUYS doin' a GUY THING! Hey dude! fuck yeah!!!) - always immaculately, yet deceptively casually dressed in pristine jeans and t-shirts (you'd think they hailed from Essex!); skin smooth and buffed as a baby's behind, hands massaged and manicured - hair freshly trimmed (coiffed, gelled, highlighted, ringleted) ; bodies personal-trainer perfect; odorless, sweatless... polished-to-gleaming for hanging the casual jeans and t-shirts on... yet.. we never see the armies of trainers, manicurists, pedicurists, stylists, chefs, nutritionists, make-up consultants or hairdressers - We don't even see their wives (apart from one small cameo appearance each) in case one of them does it all.  Even Hetfield's voice coach is on a cassette.  We hear much about James needing rehab (alcohol! other drugs!) and being whisked away to some secret location, but we never see him red-eyed and leering over a bottle of Jack or white spirit or even sneaking off to the alley to sniff some glue.  There's no needle marks on his arms or shit-stains in his underpants, (although I think Kirk Hammet's eye-balls just might pop out of his head at any moment!)

We just see 'the dudes' and the laconic, prosaic and iron-jawed BOB ROCK! (fuck yeah!) and one expensive analyst going through the tired motions of trying to produce another multi-million selling platinum album for Cliff Burnstein and ClearChannel, because, at their TOWERING HEIGHT IN THE INDUSTRY, single platinum won't do.

As someone who met these 'guys' many years ago when they were just cresting that magnificent Tsunami created by 'And Justice For All' and the 'Black' album, I think, they need to take a break from each other and 'the machine'..  And not just while the cameras are rolling.  They need to take a REAL break away from the expectation of 'the next big thing', if only to find some enjoyment, once again, in music.. which they seem to have completely lost.

[News on DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL... following the selling out of Metallica to ClearChannel.. it has come to our attention that the DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL 9,10 & 11 June @ Castle Donnington, is ALSO a Cle*%rCh!£nnel promotion.  We would boycott it, but we've already got the tickets..    Sh*t happens.]

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: ' Enjoy the bad times.. they won't last forever...'

from the MGCK Music Unoffishal Weblog

Thurs 25 May 06 MGCK Music    It takes a real man to say: "Pass the Shit Sandwich.. I'll have mine with fries!"

Some people are born and die and eat a poo sandwich every day their whole lives long.. and sometimes those very same people end up with not only the shit sandwich but a shit souffle for their puddin'.  Last night we watched, "ARE WE CHANGING PLANET EARTH?"  The pacific islanders wading down a High Street through rising tide and the Chinese farmer who on arriving home every evening, has to sweep the sand from his door or he can't get into his own house (and it hasn’t rained for 3 years anyway!).  A man paddling a canoe through an Amazon tributary carpeted with dead fish. Droughts, hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, forest fires, floods and species disembarking for Nowheresville at a rate of knots not previously documented.  Last night, Sir David Attenborough FINALLY broke his impartial silence about human effect on planet Earth and told it straight.  We are changing the planet's weather and health.  Period.  I've been waiting a long time for him to stop just hoping people were intelligent enough to figure it out for themselves.  When interviewed by BBC news yesterday he stated very simply that everyone has to stop doing, buying, having, anything that is not necessary.. stop taking unnecessary trips in the car, train or plane.. stop wasting commodities and splurging on consumables.  To actually look at how you are living, where you are going, what you are doing and buying and how you are BEING there.  I look around our culture and It's like a fuckin' free-for-all... everybody grabbing grabbing grabbing as much as they can.

Mon 22 May 06 - RED RAW @ The Stand:  w/ Hope Eternal and Others....

Mon 22 May - Re: last night?  We got stoned.. and we missed it.

Found a 'blog' I like: Deeply Shallow

Sun 21 May 06 - BABY SHAMBLES & The Dirty Pretty Things?? @ The CORN EXCHANGE -  'Access All Areas' passes via 'Robbie' who was in a band with one of the Dirty Pretty Things... Hate liggin' and arse lickin' so... might spend some time in the toilets doing Kate Moss impressions!

The thing about these gigs.. you're not going for the music.. so you might as well stay home and spend some time in your OWN toilet!

Tues 16 May 06 MGCK Music    "I want a God I can have Fun with!"

Last night at Cabaret Voltaire, the Handsome Family were smartly charming.. a kind of inverse hellfire and brimstone club in a 'welcome-to our-living-room' easy-chair atmosphere.. lyrics like gnarly old oaks, twisted with imagination, reality and darkness; lightened by in-between-song patter: as tight a stand-up routine as any at Red Raw, i.e. they were funny too. (and Oh so CHARISMATIC! That's really the clincher.)

In 10 years they'll still be putting out the same thoughtfully challenging and discordant little tunes, but that's what they're about.. it's not growing.. it's reaching down into the deep earth they so often sing about and coming up with something.. maybe a bottlecap.. maybe a potato.. maybe a rock or a root vegetable.. maybe a rough diamond to polish into light and dreaming.  All good.  Enjoyed it.. Don't want to 'be' like them.. but like seeing them be themselves.

Mon 15 May 06 - THE HANDSOME FAMILY bring the Bayou to Cabaret Voltaire

MAY 13-14 2006 Sat-Sun - This weekend, the very 'idea' of the Dundee Radio One Roadshow drove us to contemplate:

Existentialism: An anti-intellectual philosophy of life holding that man is free and responsible, based on the assumption that reality as existence can only be lived but can never become the object of thought. -   The Jean Paul Sartre Cookbook

MAY 11 2006 Thurs - MGCK Music  In THESE Shoes???

Andy G, (Mr Dead Earnest) kept talking about those 'shooooz' Electra was wearing at that Full Moon gig.. well here they are, a photo taken by Steve Wilson from the month before.. at another Bannerman's gig.  I guess the guys like the shoes. 

 ALTRES @ My Space w/ Electra.. Live Mills Observatory gig tracks www.myspace.com/altres

MAY 9 2006 Tues - MGCK Music  "I Heard It Through The Grapevine..."

It’s funny how ALL the questions you ever had over the years about certain people’s behaviour get answered eventually.  It's like the truth cannot be shielded from the light... and as I walked up the steps to the gym this morning.. on the ground was lying a folded sheet of paper.  In HUGE letters staring up at the sky it read:  "DOES FATE RULE OUR LIVES?"  I believe so and pay heed to all the talismans, omens, tarot readings, superstitions, yarrow roots and dead birds I find strewn along the path.  This has been a week of 'tests'.. you know.. the people who make you feel queasy.. who come outta nowhere with unsettling news or invalidating behaviour.. you know the ones.  Are there lessons to be learned?..like 'DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!!!" or 'DON'T ASK THAT PERSON FOR HELP!!!'  or 'DON'T Tell ANYONE Your GOOD NEWS!!!!'  I don't want to be paranoid.. but really... it's been quite a week.  Perhaps I can sum it up by saying, "There ain't no Mercury Prizes for trying."'

TOOL'S NEW OPUS "10,000 DAYS": Heard it on Saturday all the way through and bought it today.  TOOL.. older, wiser, cooler.. less angst.. more confident (if that's possible) and drumming to die for.  It's a high bar for up and coming bands/musicians to measure themselves against.  When you hear composition, execution and musicianship like this.. you think.. "Ok.. it's all been done.. I can just roll over and die now."  And the CD artwork...  the whole thing.. a work of art.  They're headlining the first night of the DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL in JUNE - We WILL be there for the full three-days of Metal, Madness and Mayhem!

Mon 8 May: LIQUID ROOMS hosting T-Break Band Showcases/Play-Off.. Our money's on UNDERBELLY.

MAY 8 2006 Mon - MGCK Music  OMNI-fied and the Night of the Naughty Nurses: gives 'mingin' a whole new meaning.

Yes... well... hmmmm...  Saturday night found us first at a wateringhole-cum-'disco' called WALKABOUT which boasted only a meagre 30 or so hen-night parties of Naughty Nurses, Naughty Playboy Bunnies and Naughty Cowgirls from as far away as Yorkshire and East Lancs! (according to the DJ)... followed by a coupla hours in MOOD.. which boasted ALL (and I mean ALLLLLLL!!!) the Naughty Nurses, Naughty Playboy Bunnies and Naughty Cowgirls to be found in the Midlothian vicinity on that particular night.. Of course.. a sweep of the Cowgate might have turned up another herd.   Never have I seen such a forest of scantily-fish-netted (trawlin fer luv!) but HUGE legs bursting like great oaks through the thin filament of their sausage-tight stockings!!!!  Of course.. no men anywhere... aside from the bouncers who look as dead-pan, bored and jaded as poker sharks in Old Vegas.  But really... what sane, thoughtful, articulate and/or attractive bloke would put himself in the line of fire; i.e. vomiting, torn knickers, blown up naked sailor dolls having their wee-wees sucked... lousy tunes, some drunken brawling, the odd catfight, hair-pulling and woman on woman tears, dancing and kissing??  And what happens AFTER they get married???   As a social anthropologist and spectator at this descent of young womanhood into a kind of vodka-driven tackiest ring of Dante's subterranea.. all I can say, is get me some LSD and a ticket to the Grizzly Maze.

MAY 3-6 2006 - MGCK Music  Birthdays and other releases????

This week saw not only the release of TOOL's new album, which I will hear tomorrow courtesy of Pete C.. but the DVD release of 'GRIZZLY MAN' - Werner Herzog's docu-biopic of Timothy Treadwell's life (founder of Grizzly People) and death in Alaska at the tooth and claw of some of the cutest lookin' and most magnificently ferocious creatures on Earth.  A sublimely surreal film.. We've watched it every night.. usually before going out to celebrate somebody's birthday.. Wed was Jimmy Miller's!.. Thurs was S2 from Leith FM; eponomously 'brated' at the Port O' Leith, last night was a downstair's neighbour and tonight is the irrepressible Fifi J... we'll be somewhere around the Greenside OMNI Centre.. why there??? I don't know.. but sometimes you just have to go where the people want to go. It's her party!

MAY 2 2006 - MGCK Music  Last Night: 'RED RAW' @ the Stand????

Comedy open mic night, standing room only at The STAND and yes.... 5 stars for all the performers whose names elude me (excepting Hope Eternal who I came to see! and who had the two best jokes of the night.).  Nobody died. It was funny as f*ck and 'Jamie the Compere' was kinda cute.  A new venue has landed in my list of places to be and see.  Yes.. THE STAND.. groovy bar staff as well.

MAY 1 2006 - MGCK Music  What Self-Respecting Pagan PAYS for their good times????

Ok.. I know it's a new month.. but I never want the party to stop.. and not the 'structured fun' with 'sticker price' of Beltane on Calton Hill, but the wide-blue wild-eyed open-eyed amazed wonder at how beautiful the world is out there and you don't have to PAY a FEE to ENJOY IT!!!!  Boycott all 'structured fun' events and live wild and free.

Other News: TOOL album released today and on the ALTRES My SPace.. www.myspace.com/altres .. the track 'Misappearance' (w/vocal contribution from Electra) recorded at the Mills Observatory gig on 13 April has cruised past the 1000 hits mark

If you're looking for last month's stuff (ALTRES @ MILLS OBSERVATORY, MY SPACE FINDS, SLEAZY CHEEZY BAREBACK MOUNTAIN NIGHT, DOT ALLISON, TRYPTYCH FESTIVAL, METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY and MOGWAI THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES MAKERS": go to Last month's blog: April 2006

Still smokin'!!!!

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  looking for groovy places to meet and greet on your travels through Miami, NY, San Fran, Spain etc:  Nightlife - Nightclub Promotions - Nightclub Clothes - Online guide to clubs, nightclubs, nightclub listings, bars, strip clubs and club promotions.

BE THERE...... or BE SOMEWHERE ELSE!  If you don't know how.. take lessons on COUNTERCULTURE.

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SPACE: The FINAL FRONTIER! Always an eyeful: The Universe Today

Sites worth a visit and support are: http://www.adbusters.org and Be an 'Antipreneur' - anti-corporate - self-motivated activist: http://adbusters.org/metas/politico/antipreneur/

http://www.indymedia.org.uk

as always www.clearchannelsucks.net  (note: this site WAS closed down in a court battle with the Media Giant who got awarded the rights to the website name.. but it has sprung up again in an Appeal.. gripping stuff..

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MGCK Music