A New Mix:Disturbia.

This week I put the finishing touches to a new mix born out of a need to create, experiment and the knowledge that it's been some time since I last made one.

"Cruel Britannia's Disturbia" is a combination of the more sinister leanings of a previous mix "Uneasy Listening Vol.1", random segues of noise & dialogue and the often ingeniously haphazard styles of music the late John Peel would air on his shows.

All the tracks in 'Disturbia' are of electronica, industrial and alternative (back when it was deemed 'properly' alternative music) genres, interweaved with oddments of noises & sounds from Brass Eye, Jeremy Kyle shows, ang god only knows what else. It's definitely not just another 'goth mix', it was never intended to be.

Whether it makes the grade of 'listenable' is purely a personal thing-it was certainly a bit disturbing when I played the whole mix back to myself (hence the name 'Disturbia'). At times it comes across almost like an amateur take on one of  P.Emerson William's Necrofuturist Transmission shows but with with a decidedly British sense of humour throughout.

Listen out for it on Nightbreed Radio in February. You'll either love it or hate it, but either way you couldn't ignore it.

RIP Mick Karn; 1958-2011

From Mick Karn's official homepage:

"Mick finally lost his battle with cancer and passed away peacefully at 4.30pm today, 4th January 2011 at home in Chelsea, London. He was surrounded by his family and friends and will be deeply missed by all."

Japan was one of my primary favourite bands during the 80's, and the almost snake-like sounds Karn's fretless bass made were so unique that almost nobody could imitate him. He was one of the main artists responsible for me wanting to play bass. RIP MIck.

Bye Bye, Myspace.

So...the much maligned and even more talked-about apparent 'Myspace update'.

It's been a bit like watching a family pet turn from a spritely, mischievous puppy into a elderly crippled, half-blind old hound which can do little more than sleep in front of the fireplace, passing wind occasionally just to remind you of its existence.

Finally it seems, after several unsuccessful attempts to navigate the new layout and fix what they'd done to my profile (which initially took bloody ages to put together), I face the unsavoury task of taking it out for it's last walk in the woods with a cocked shotgun over my arm at the end of the year.

At one point it was THE place to go to to explore new music, and back in 2006-2007 or whatever, I happily signed up, customised a page for myself and literally watched the new & upcoming acts roll in before my eyes, eager to communicate and spread word of their existence.

Nowadays it seems that the only bulletins & announcements that bands post on Myspace are to advise their followers to go and find them on Facebook.

It's not without a certain degree of hesitance that I'm to cancel my account on Myspace at the end of the year; I met a lot, and I mean a LOT of great people through it and it was almost certainly the main reason for the majority of my DJ bookings. But right now, I seem to talk to a lot more people who've cancelled their Myspace account than those who still possess them. These are the people I still clung onto my account for in the first place, so if they're not still battling the sluggish, bandwidth-hungry, non-musician friendly, graphics-intensive advertisement board that was once King of the Social Networks, why should I?

It'll be a clean account deletion-the worst thing I could do is simply abandon it to be a perpetually out of date board of information where only half the graphics I'd painstakingly designed show due to the new layout. It just looks awful; awful to the point where any attempt to fix it wouldn't be enough to rescue it. I did try; it just decided to throw errors up at me whenever I chose style templates for the bloody thing. Nice work...

So there you go. A new year, a new 'back to basics' approach to self-promotion. Just me, my website & Twitter.

Oh, and this blog & podcast of course. But definitely NO FACEBOOK, okay? Most of you know my views on that bloody thing already.

Interview with Jim Hawkins & Gavin Baddeley from May 2010

I came across this footage while digging around in the back of the World Goth Day closet this morning.

It's a recording of an interview I had with Jim Hawkins on his morning show on Radio Shropshire from May 2010 about the Goth scene, which also included renowned occult author Gavin Baddeley on the telephone.

Typically, I sounded like a clueless idiot answering the simplest of questions; clearly it wasn't a good day for my brain and tongue to be in cahoots with each other. However, it's not a bad recording and should be shared rather than lost.

A couple of interviews from November...

I found out that 4Shared has a great little player widget which allows you to stream audio. With that in mind, here's two shows containing interviews from November 2010 with both Rhombus & Pretentious, Moi? respectively that shouldn't be lost forever in the ever-growing archive pile.

Nostalgia, good people and the service station that never was.

At the time of writing this I am a mere 2 days away from my 41^st birthday; a good 11 years older than I initially thought I was ever going to live to. Like most people my age, I wish for little more than just a quiet day pottering about the house or in the pub. No socks, bathroom gift sets or humorous coffee mugs, just a bit of 'me-time' where I can relieve myself of the normal weekend duties I normally undertake. Also, like most people my age, I know I'm only going to accomplish about half a day at best of that, and will be grateful for whatever I can muster.

Prior to this non-milestone anniversary of the flesh, I was also breaking away from the normal weekend duties by taking a 4-hour solo road trip to Whitby, where I was to fulfil my guest DJ slot at Nostalgia, a goth night held around the Whitby Goth Weekend & founded by martin oldgoth (the lower casing of the name is deliberate and correct).

I quite like a long drive, though I'm not a huge fan of driving long distances without a companion. Circumstance dictated that was indeed going to be the case this time round, so my wife stocked up on large quantities of energy drinks for the trip. My companion for the journey was a three foot tall plastic skeleton who sat in the front passenger seat who didn't pay anything towards the petrol but was useful for hanging onto various wires & cables that were sprawling from the cigarette lighter socket into the iPod, mobile and sat-nav.

I managed to cover some serious distance before deciding that I needed to pee. Funny how long you can go before you see any service stops at all the precise moment you need to take a leak. Eventually a service stop emerged on the horizon the other side of the road, but had a slip road on my side which would presumably take me round to it. What it actually did was take me directly onto the same road back in the opposite direction, allowing me to watch the service stop disappear off to my left and add a whole bunch of miles onto my journey while still leaving me with a full bladder…

Anyway, bodily fluids aside, I arrived in Whitby at around 3pm and parked up at the Leisure Centre to the tumultuous roars (of laughter, it seems) emanating from the Whitby Gazette Football Stadium as Real Gothic were receiving somewhat of a ritual slaughtering from the Whitby Gazette team. I think the final score was 5-0. I know little about football but apparently that's not very good…

I caught up with Leeds based goth-rock combo Rhombus (minus backing vocalist Mya) for a long overdue and quite entertaining interview for Fadeout, which took place on the stands of the stadium. I've been wanting to get the dulcet tones of Ed Grassby & Co. onto the show for a long time, and I'm hoping to get that interview edited ready for airing as soon as possible, ie. next weekend.

The hunt for food was on, so after destroying a chip supper outside the Pavillion, I headed off to pick up Nightbreed Radio's DJ Wolfman who offered me a place to crash for the night while up in Whitby.

We arrived at the Raw Club to meet up with Martin, Velouria & Katy Kitten, whom I would be sharing the decks with for the night. Maybe I'm just lucky like that, but I do seem to get to DJ with the nicest people I could ever wish to meet (of course now that I've said that, the next person will turn out to be a complete arsehole or something…I hope not!).

Apart from the normal process of doing my set, popping outside for a ciggie and chatting, coming back in for a caffeinated beverage, listening to the other DJ's then taking my turn behind the decks again, I also managed to bag an impromptu interview with Tim Chandler & Gordon Young of Pretentious, Moi?, which only really happened by the magic of alcohol. Yes, they were quite drunk and would agree to anything. I supposed it was the journalistic equivalent of date rape in hindsight, but they put together a fairly cohesive dialogue which wouldn't even indicate that they ever been near a drink at all. 'Consummate professionals', and all that…

I also managed to chat to a few other people I hadn't seen for a while, not least Tron from Grooving In Green, who once again kept me amused with his drink-oriented tales of life in the moderately-paced lane.

After the evening/morning's proceedings, DJ Wolfman & I headed back home to eventually hit the sack at 4am Monday morning. Rock & Roll. Five hours of unconsciousness would pass before I was awoke from the bed with a cup of tea and a bacon sarnie (for which I will be ever grateful to Wolfman's other half, Mandy), followed by farewells then a smooth drive home to the family I was spending probably too much time missing.

It's still taking me several days to get over one late night. I must be getting bloody old…

Do you want to see the playlist from the DJ's at Nostalgia? Here it is:

Nostalgia @ Raw, Whitby 31-10-2010

Velouria Rose
Dead Can Dance - The Host of Seraphim
Cocteau Twins - Persephone
Dragons - Redemption
The Cranes - Adrift
Danse Society - The Theme
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Red Eyes and Tears
Blacklist - Poison for Tomorrow
The Opposite Sex - Turning Colours
Altered States - Tomorrow People

Cruel Britannia
Loud - D Generation
Torpedoes - Twisted Lovesong
Chatshow - Kings of Confusion
Marionettes - Like Christabel
The Cold - Summernight
Bauhaus - Spirit
The Last Cry - Haunting
The Cranes - Jewel

Katy Kitten
Rosetta Stone - Eye For The Main Chance
Nosferatu - Lucy is Red
Love Like Blood - Kiss and Tell
The Merry Thoughts - We Love To
Star Industry - Nineties
The Horatii - Daryll and Alicia
London After Midnight - Kiss

martin oldgoth
Lords of the New Church - Open Your Eyes
The Cult - Go West
The Cure - The Walk
Flesh for Lulu - Roman Candle
Chameleons - Everyday I'm Crucified
Joy Division - She's Lost Control (r)

Velouria Rose
Faith and the Muse - Sovereign
Fangs on Fur - F Boy F Girl (r)
Christ Vs Warhol - Paper Dolls (r)
The Cramps - Inside Out (r)
The Damned - New Rose (r)
The Stranglers - No More Heroes (r)
Virgin Prunes - Pagan Love Song (r)
Lords of the New Church - Russian Roulette (r)
Frankenstein - She Casts No Shadow
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Candyman

Cruel Britannia
Mount Sims - Grave
Anders Manga - The Last Alarm
Blacklist - Dawn of the Idols
Sisters of Mercy - Body Electric (r)
Bauhaus - Largartija Nick
The Cult - Resurrection Joe
Time Zone - World Destruction

Katy Kitten
Suspiria - Night Time
Corpus Delecti - Saraband
Sisters of Mercy - Ribbons
Garden of Delight - Shared Creation
Fields of the Nephilim - Psychonaut Lib III
Children on Stun - Sidelined (r)

martin oldgoth
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Happy House (r)
Rosetta Stone - If Only and Sometimes (r)
New Model Army - Poison Street (r)
Sisters of Mercy - Walk Away
Specimen - Returning From a Journey (r)
Gene Loves Jezebel - Desire
Japan - Quiet Life

Velouria Rose
The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again
Killing Joke - Sanity
Clan of Xymox - Loiuse
Chameleons - Swamp Thing (r)
Pretentious Moi? - Living Dead and Undecided (r)
Pink Turns Blue - Missing You
Alien Sex Fiend - R.I.P (r)
Vampire Beach Babes - Tomb Mau Mau (r)
Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles (r)

Cruel Britannia
The Cramps - The Crusher
Zombie Ghost Train - Step Into My Coffin
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cascade (r)
The Last Dance - Do You Believe in Angels (r)
Killing Joke - Kings and Queens
The Wake - Sideshow
The Marionettes - She Said

Katy Kitten
Suspiria - (Loved in) Emerald
Miranda Sex Garden - Peepshow
Manuskript - Rapscallion (coldheart mix)
Christian Death - Church of No Return
Rosetta Stone - ?
Emma Conquest - Such Pretty Things
The Horatii - Island of Zombie Women

martin oldgoth
Adam and the Ants - Zerox (r)
Sexbeat - Sexbeat
Ultravox - All Stood Still
Lene Lovich - Lucky Number
We've got a Fuzzbox... - XX Sex
James Ray - Texas (r)
The Ramones - Somebody Put Something In My Drink
The Cramps - Domino
Messer Chups - Music to Watch Zombie Girls By

New (ish) show on Nightbreed Radio

November. Not an unusual month by any means, and carries no particular highlights (apart from my birthday-send me anything you like as long as it's cash), so it seems a good idea to break the cycle of its mundanity for once, and of that which has been quietly niggling away at the back of my mind with Fadeout.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm on average, quite happy with how the show has been going for the past three years, but while I have the space and flexibility to try something a little bit different in the format and the motivation to try it out, I'll do exactly that.

From Sunday 7th November 2010, Nightbreed Radio will play host to a new monthly show which will replace Fadeout's weekly airing, though Fadeout will air as normal on Phoenix Radio in the usual weekly format. It's an exerimental move for me, and if it doesn't work out then I'll simply put Fadeout back on the roster for Nightbreed.

Having racked my brains & agonised at length about a new show name, I decided on...The Other Fadeout Show.
It was funny at the time, and I appreciate how it gets steadily unfunnier the more time goes on, but as working titles go, it's at least accurate.
If I decide to change the show name in the future (likely) I'll let you know, but I'm still planning to have it aired at 8.00pm GMT every Sunday evening, just as Fadeout currently is being aired.

"The Other Fadeout Show" if of course, will be quite similar in feel to Fadeout, except each show will be aired for a whole month because (a) uploading a new show to the Radionomy server every week actually takes longer than the show lasts, and (b) unlike Fadeout, you've got more chance of catching the show 'on air' which will be the only option you'll have of hearing it as I'm not planning on releasing the show as a podcast.
Musically I'll be broadening the spectrum a little bit, though I'll still be keeping the Goth/Dark Alternative spirit of Fadeout alive within it.

I also see the show playing host to some great interviews I've aired in the past, so if you missed out on hearing Rogue from The Cruxshadows, Toyah Willcox, Voltaire, Fields Of The Nephilim, Peter Murphy, you'll get your chance to hear it again in the coming months.

The first instalment of The Other Fadeout Show will be scheduled for Sunday 7th November (my birthday, hint hint) at 8.00pm GMT. Please feel free to tune in and feel even more free to give me feedback on what you hear-did you like it, hate it were'nt able to tell the difference from any other Fadeout show?

To a certain degree your feedback will dictate what happens in the future. Right now I'm playing with ideas and feeling a little creative & inspired, so God only knows what I'll come up with next...