FURTHER READING

This was always going to be a hit or miss night, we scored the gig late in the day and would be playing with a bunch of very un-metallic punk bands.

Despite grind having basically come from the punk scene, these days it seems the UK populace places it firmly in the 'metal' column. Add that to the fact we are already at the metallic end of the grind spectrum and you can understand why we rolled into the venue with some trepidation.

This was not helped by the locale being a soccer-friendly pub, complete with England flags and lager lout looking guys who were asking me why I had long hair within 15 mins of being in there. CRIPES! Also I was afraid to have my camera on view and stuff so there's nary a picture.

The Atomck members began to feel a bit more at home as the promoter and audience arrive- they are a bunch of crusty squat types (those are the types we like) and the bossman even had a 'afternoon gentlemen' patch so things were looking up.

First band on are We Fight Tigers who dole out upbeat and energetic HxCx sounds, whilst not this writer's cup they are tight and dynamic, and go down really well.

After this fine start it's our turn and still doubting anyone is going to care we begin.

All I can say is you shouldn't label people as this crowd go crazy, slamming each other into the ceiling and jumping about like possessed idiots. This is very encouraging and we get faster and faster, beyond what is particularly playable.

ICH play a kind of more melodic punk style, almost becoming a party crew in places. This begins to work wonders on the (now very drunk)

local football guys, who are coming ever closer to the gig crowd.

Fellow Cymru residents global parasite do a great job of combining angry political attacks with fast-but-catchy songs. They chuck in loads of proper gang choruses and by this point the football guys are moshing out, shirts over their heads and hoisting amazed punk kids up into a meeting of cultures crowd surf.

After this carnage one of the locals confesses to me that when we walked in he thought "who are these fucking assholes" (which was, in all honesty, palpable) but now he's had so much fun he is going around apologising to everyone, and that he never knew how good "rock music" could be.

Considerable win then.

This night we drive onto London and stay at our pal Tim's place (which I do have a photo of) meaning we have access to stuff like showers and carpets and internet.

ABOVE: Tim's house, made only slightly messier by our presence :)

In the balance this was a superb night, not only did we leave the venue unstabbed by hooligans, but the crowd were genuinely responsive and friendly.

The poster looked like this: (note, regimes pulled)

WOLVES: IN THE THRONE ROOM

I'll begin by justifying that pun title with the following image of Linus, take in the bar area of The Giffard arms, Wolverhampton.

So we roll up to the

back of the deeply goth Giffard arms and are met by a glamorous vampire lady who informs me that no matter what happens we are to avoid damaging the luxurious velvet curtains that adorn the stage.

Even this portent does naught to quell the surprise when we load into the stage area and discover our performance will take place on the set of Twin Peaks.

The set-up was very professional, with a good PA and engineer team who knew their brutal from their bleak.

We set up quickly and go for a wander around Wolverhampton town- don't forget one of our number is from the Czech republic and is keen to see as much of the UK as a short tour will allow. We take some silly photos outside the big Church and enjoy not being in a van for a bit until It's time to head back to the show and catch the opening act.

Macho Insecurity who played with us the day before are on first (all thanks to me recommending them to Burned Alive promotions) and repeat the adjectives I have used to describe them before etc etc.

Selfless cook up very tasty black-tinged crust, all quality squat tropes and anthemic slogan-choruses (i.e. ........RELIGION!...........FUCK OFF!!!) that hark back to good and proper angry-with-the-world anarcho.

Vicious Bastard bring similar vibes arranged in a more grind fashion, fast-nasty and venomous. As with all the bands tonight I'm very impressed with their sound

, made all the fuller by having five members blasting it out at once.

We roll though our set and bask in the sympathy applause.

This gig was well attended, despite there being world-cuppage available, and a good time was seen to be had by those in attendance.

We didn't bust the curtains up either...

ABOVE: In heaven, everything is loud.

After the show I thank promoter Paul for the fine job, meet the guy from Police Bastard and try to deal with the fact that we must now drive to Warwick services and sleep in the back of the van.

The poster looked like this:

BRUM LIKE IT HOT

After breaking down in the morning due to somehow having a ESCOURT BATTERY IN OUR TRANSIT and suffering rather mean sunburn due to the many hours spent on the side of a off-ramp waiting for the man followed by a quick mini-tour of B'hams finest car spares shops to procure a proper one we finally roll up the mighty Scruffy Murphy's and begin unloading.

Now what was very good about this was the sound engineer actually helped us lug our cabs and shit into the venue. Dedication's what you need and all.

This eve's romp was organised by the very fine ILL-NEGLECT who always put us on with proper bands form America and stuff, and are basically safe as fuck.

The first band were are GEHENNA from Bristol, and due to the fact that the singer of said band is actually a brummie himself they

have drawn quite a crowd. Alas same crowd and band don't watch any of the other acts that night because they were more forcefully engaged in standing outside the venue and imbibing liquid and gas. Oh well it won't be the first time we've played to a sudden no-one.

MACHO INSECURITY are up next and they are great, fast becoming one of my favourite UK bands due to playing proper fizzy and harsh grind which is very fast and very raw, like a less-tuneful Discordance Axis. I.e. really good.

London's NEBUKADNEZZAR were much deathier than thier 'thrash' reputation led me to believe, a fact that singer Antonis spoke to me at length about- they've been lumped into the general thrash scene in London. Anyway they played like proper musicians and we all enjoyed it so who cares what genre it says in one's myspace page eh? EH? EEEHHH??? Exactly- riffs and blasts are riffs and blasts.

ABOVE: Yours truly about to be heckled by an old lady, whilst no-one watches.

By the time we are set up almost everyone except the other bands and a few brum pals have gone, not that this really matters as the other bands are all better anyway. The absolute highlight (pictured above) comes in the form of a small old lady who nodded along for 90% of the set, then suddenly took some kind of exception to us and began waving, slow clapping and thumbing down. Hilariously Linus thought she was the venue owner and just looked on in a bewildered fashion. GRIND.

After some much-needed hot grease from round the corner we all load off to MI drummer Dooley's place (actually his aunt's place) and crash out. In the morning I walk the dog.

The poster looked like this: