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miss_squiddyI have exciting tales of danger, excitment, flashing lights, monsters and music for you from this weekend. With pictures. Oooh. So let's begin with Friday.
Lovely lobster Claude popped out of his shell and grew a whole 3 or 4 centimetres in one go. He is now HUGE and SCARY (and is spending most of his time curled up inside a coconut with just the tips of his claws peeking out. Aww.)
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lee_chaos arrived, and we went out on an adventure. First, into town to pick up some supplies - where we saw this sad machine:
And then on to Christmastown to have a peek at this year's lights. Unfortunately, they aren't officially turned on until the 14th, but we still got to see this beauty (complete with singing santa and animatronic trains):
On Saturday we made a last minute decision to head up to Leeds for the Amalgamation Festival. The drive up was horrible but we made it in time for the start and we ended up sticking around until about 1.30. SubCulture is a lot smaller than I was expecting (and looks a bit like a sex shop from the outside) but is nice and cosy and has a lovely atmosphere. First up were Acid tongue, who I haven't seen since they played Cardiff Uni somewhere near the beginning of their career. I was quite convinced they had a crazy guitarist but I may have mixed them up with someone else. Not what i thought but still quite enjoyable. Xykogen were next -markeris and amon_zero without the girls this time. It was strange hearing mog_warbeast singing along on the backing track and the guys pulled off a really great set - I didn't even miss 'Groove is in the heart'! I think Caffeine Kill came on next - the poor band had just lost their vocalist but one of the lads from Acid Tongue filled in and did a smashing job. I almost bought their album - and then remembered that I already had it. Then History of Guns - who managed to make the sound system explode, not that it really mattered because they managed to fill the time in with some quick impro and heckled themselves from the audience. I have to admit that I didn't pay much attention to Action Directe so straight on to Deathboy, still with super-loud drums. The backing track was kind of quiet for the first few songs and it was actually quite nice to hear them without it! Leech Woman headlined, complete with Hal Interlock. Three guitars, lots of shouting, hair flailing all over the place. Wicked!
We stuck around afterwards for the club night but a lot of the bands went home and things failed to pick up because even though half of LJ were in Leeds, they'd all gone to the March Violets gig and didn't come out afterwards (it was lovely to bump intoplushy who was looking fab!). The DJ played some good songs but seemed to pick them quite randomly and didn't really manage to get the dancefloor going. After hobbling round on a sore ankle all day, something went 'click' and I decided to give dancing a try - not a good idea really. Oh well.
We played alien pinball with the lovely Alex Leechwoman, lurked about backstage withmarkeris, skipped around with the freshly shaven maxrael and talked psychology with amon_zero. Lovely.
Backstage - like another (asbestos filled) dimension and instant Industrial band photoshoot backdrop.
maxrael
'Hypotonic for alcohol consumers' - the perfect mixer!
We had some exciting adventures on the way home - after leaving the services just outside Manchester, I noticed that I was having a bit of trouble with the car - I could only get up to 60mph when I floored it and the revs were very low. Shoving it into 4th for a while did the trick and we were soon on our way. Things still didn't quite feel right though and when I turned off the motorway we were feeling every single bump in the road. Pulling over, we discovered that we had a bit of a flat tyre, and with the RAC over 2½ hours away, we changed it ourselves in the freezing cold and pitch black at 4am. (lee_chaos is my hero!) In the past, I've seen a few people driving along on flats and signalled to them to pull in. I always thought they must have been pretty stupid to drive along without noticing the problem but the truth is that you just can't tell what's going on when you're going so fast. I was more or less convinced that it was a problem with the accelerator cable and didn't even consider anything else. Here's what we were driving along on:
You see those dark bits? They're holes. Oops.
So yeah, we didn't do much today. We slept, we had breakfast somewhere after three and we de-rusted and damp proofed the Chaos mobile. Not terribly exciting really, although I did manage to use my historical powers to brew up some awesomely effective sugar soap and now my hands feel lovely and smooth (and taste great).
Lovely lobster Claude popped out of his shell and grew a whole 3 or 4 centimetres in one go. He is now HUGE and SCARY (and is spending most of his time curled up inside a coconut with just the tips of his claws peeking out. Aww.)
lee_chaos arrived, and we went out on an adventure. First, into town to pick up some supplies - where we saw this sad machine:And then on to Christmastown to have a peek at this year's lights. Unfortunately, they aren't officially turned on until the 14th, but we still got to see this beauty (complete with singing santa and animatronic trains):
On Saturday we made a last minute decision to head up to Leeds for the Amalgamation Festival. The drive up was horrible but we made it in time for the start and we ended up sticking around until about 1.30. SubCulture is a lot smaller than I was expecting (and looks a bit like a sex shop from the outside) but is nice and cosy and has a lovely atmosphere. First up were Acid tongue, who I haven't seen since they played Cardiff Uni somewhere near the beginning of their career. I was quite convinced they had a crazy guitarist but I may have mixed them up with someone else. Not what i thought but still quite enjoyable. Xykogen were next -
markeris and amon_zero without the girls this time. It was strange hearing mog_warbeast singing along on the backing track and the guys pulled off a really great set - I didn't even miss 'Groove is in the heart'! I think Caffeine Kill came on next - the poor band had just lost their vocalist but one of the lads from Acid Tongue filled in and did a smashing job. I almost bought their album - and then remembered that I already had it. Then History of Guns - who managed to make the sound system explode, not that it really mattered because they managed to fill the time in with some quick impro and heckled themselves from the audience. I have to admit that I didn't pay much attention to Action Directe so straight on to Deathboy, still with super-loud drums. The backing track was kind of quiet for the first few songs and it was actually quite nice to hear them without it! Leech Woman headlined, complete with Hal Interlock. Three guitars, lots of shouting, hair flailing all over the place. Wicked!We stuck around afterwards for the club night but a lot of the bands went home and things failed to pick up because even though half of LJ were in Leeds, they'd all gone to the March Violets gig and didn't come out afterwards (it was lovely to bump into
plushy who was looking fab!). The DJ played some good songs but seemed to pick them quite randomly and didn't really manage to get the dancefloor going. After hobbling round on a sore ankle all day, something went 'click' and I decided to give dancing a try - not a good idea really. Oh well.We played alien pinball with the lovely Alex Leechwoman, lurked about backstage with
markeris, skipped around with the freshly shaven maxrael and talked psychology with amon_zero. Lovely.Backstage - like another (asbestos filled) dimension and instant Industrial band photoshoot backdrop.
maxrael'Hypotonic for alcohol consumers' - the perfect mixer!
We had some exciting adventures on the way home - after leaving the services just outside Manchester, I noticed that I was having a bit of trouble with the car - I could only get up to 60mph when I floored it and the revs were very low. Shoving it into 4th for a while did the trick and we were soon on our way. Things still didn't quite feel right though and when I turned off the motorway we were feeling every single bump in the road. Pulling over, we discovered that we had a bit of a flat tyre, and with the RAC over 2½ hours away, we changed it ourselves in the freezing cold and pitch black at 4am. (
lee_chaos is my hero!) In the past, I've seen a few people driving along on flats and signalled to them to pull in. I always thought they must have been pretty stupid to drive along without noticing the problem but the truth is that you just can't tell what's going on when you're going so fast. I was more or less convinced that it was a problem with the accelerator cable and didn't even consider anything else. Here's what we were driving along on:You see those dark bits? They're holes. Oops.
So yeah, we didn't do much today. We slept, we had breakfast somewhere after three and we de-rusted and damp proofed the Chaos mobile. Not terribly exciting really, although I did manage to use my historical powers to brew up some awesomely effective sugar soap and now my hands feel lovely and smooth (and taste great).