He's just another scripture-thumping hack from Galilee

EBM

Synthetic Culture dropped the hard house from the loft and had old skool Goth and EBM all night on friday.

http://www.syntheticculture.com/

It was really good - really full on and the crowd loved it. A very different, darker vibe than the techno and darkwave on the middle floor.

I hadn't heard much EBM before - it's all the dark stuff in between Kraftwerk and New Wave, basically, although there is a lot of nu-EBM or nu-industrial stuff about that apparently gets it in the neck (and where else?) from all the old skool purists. I think there's only 3 or 4 'real' EBM bands, who all seem to be from Belgium in about 1982 - but fortunately the DJ wasn't too much of a purist.

They put some NIN on, as well as some Laibach and German synthcore. Which probably isn't even industrial, let alone EBM, which apparently stands for 'Electronic Body Music'. But it was all good to dance to. There was, perhaps, a slightly high level of crypto-fascism in the air - too many pasty goths wearing tight, post-cold war military uniform and looking pained. But I guess that's the scene.

Dave and Phil both seemed to have a damned good time. I loved it - I'm happy for them to drop the crappy house for ever. The three floors now work really well and the summer should be even better, when you can actually stand outside for more than 5 minutes without freezing.

Rock and Classic Metal (and nu-metal, sadly)
Darkwave, Techno and Goth
Goth, Indstrial and EBM

Not bad at all.

Apparently there are two other nights playing music on the goth-rock-techno line, from the same stable as SynCult -

http://www.turbulentsoundscape.com/clubs/lowdownanddirty/default.htm
Low Down and Dirty in Old Street

http://strengththroughjoy.org/about.html
Strength Through Joy upstairs at the Garage

I should check them both out.

An i Cala i Aldallon - For the Light of the Trees

I had a very Tolkien-heavy weekend. Friday night I went out to Synthetic Culture at the Egg club - see www.turbulentsoundscape.com and there might even be some pictures up eventually.

But then Saturday, Sunday and even Monday night were all solid LOTR or other JRR games.

Saturday afternoon - CLWG games weekend - I ran my Elven political game for the bigger Silmarillion game Trevor and I have been working on. Got 4 players, and it worked really well - the humans stole all the land and the Elves looked pretty worried by the end of the game.

Saturday evening - Trevor and I played War of the Ring for hours on end - he won with a Ring victory for the Free Peoples.

Sunday morning - CLWG games weekend - Trevor's Pelennor fields figure game - I commanded the Rohirric cavalry charge on the Orcs and Haradrim. Theoden and Eomer both died, though, and we took heavy losses but annihilated an entire Orc tribe before heading for Druadan. We were about to start an English Civil War game but were cut short and headed for home.

Sunday evening - Dunc and I played War of the Ring, but had to leave it out as we hadn't finished by 11.30.

Monday evening - finished the game - I won a military victory with the Free Peoples - my second in a row against Dunc. Grimbeorn took Mount Gundabad and Legolas took Dol Guldur on his last attack. Aragorn and Boromir took Umbar, but had to run away. Was pretty pleased, though. Key seemed to be putting pressure on the Dark player in many areas at once - Aragorn was outside the Morannon at the end with the last of the Gondor forces.

Brilliant weekend if perhaps a little narrowly focused.

Together we hold to our vision of corporate strategy

I found this whilst looking for Laibach lyrics on the web this morning:

http://www.wired.com/news/audio/specials/2001/11/kpmg/kpmg.mp3
KPMG Corporate Anthem

It's hideous - don't listen to it!

Hey! On why?

ACSS (the Afro-Celt Sound System - www.afrocelts.org) are playing on the 5th June to close the Hay on Wye festival (http://www.hayfestival.com/2005/index.html) in the Black Mountains.

I'm well up for it but it's miles away. It'd be a bit of a pilgrimage but that might make it all the better. I've always wanted to go and see Hay and all the books. And what better excuse than my favourite band. I might even get to hear some of volume 5 ahead of time. Actually, they might even call the album that if I'm lucky.

I think it'd be pretty good - if lacking in dancing nutters.

I've been told who to vote for, it seems

I did an online quiz:

-37 Conservatives

2 Labour

Liberal Democrat 64

UK Independence Party 36

Green 59

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Should You Vote For

Feasting on your Flesh

I listened to 'Bloodline' on friday night. First time I'd put the album on since I left the band. Sounded worse than I remembered, but still pretty good.

I thought I'd be more upset when I heard it but it was surprisingly easy to distance myself from it. Seems like a long time ago already.

My curse upon you
My curse upon you
The first curse upon you

I think there are two main problems I've encountered since.
1) I clearly am not getting enough singing time - I've been wandering around singing to myself much more often than I used to. At work, on the tube, generally.
2) I think I'm storing up much more stress and tension than I used to, now I don't have the mega-catharsis of screaming for 3 hours at the weekend.


AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR

H****on

Back to the trenches today after a nice relaxing weekend. Although I certainly didn't expect to be shopping for a dress with two ladies and a baby on Sunday.

Wrote a massive deconstruction of H*****n this morning and am now fending off discussions on the ba&tarding Royal Wedding. Which I thankfully managed to avoid along with the Pope's funeral.

Got some good work done on For the Light of the Trees on Saturday. I might even publish it on the website if you ask nicely...

Suffer

In the Empire spawned from the evil...

...Seed

Never mind the Sock Puppets

We did our sock puppet show today in the Boardroom, as well as our 'building the database' set. Went down very well and we won the 'First Prize' for our presentations.
Nice lunch and all.
Sometimes it's not so bad being a servile servant.
Now off to the pub.