Senyawa - Calling The New Gods

Many years ago, before the internet, you would have to stay up to silly-o'clock at to catch amazing gold that would be buried late at night by stupid television execs. Every now and then there would be a quite extraordinary find. Later, when videotape arrived you could set up a recorder to run through the night, and then see what, if anything, you had 'caught' at a more sensible time. This wonderful film took me straight back to those days.

It follows these two as they perform in all sorts of different places in Jogjakarta, from rural to city, and the music (just vocs and an incredible instrument called bambu wukir - bamboo spear) is semi-improvised to fit each setting. The filming catches each environment perfectly.

Fans of Popol Vuh and Magma will explode when they hear this stuff! Their influences seem to be Metal; local tribal styles and, clearly,improvisation.

Look, just watch and listen it's beautiful

See?

Hats off to the director Vincent Moon (he seems to work as Petites Planetes as well)

Ok now the good news is they're coming to the UK (well Newcastle!) this October.

We are Twisted Fucking Sister! - Film/Documentary

Finally saw the DVD version last night - what a riot. Unlike hipster fools, everyone in Heavy Metal knows it's all about delivering the goods. It's either a great show or the band AND the audience have failed. Twisted Sister knew it instinctively, and spent 10 years building a colossal steamroller of an act and huge live following in the States - in the REAL States outside of New York city - where "Disco Sucks". There's a great comment about NYC in the 70's...something like "the adults had moved out and left it to the children" spat out with contempt. This is a documentary about those first 10 years and, as luck would have it, everyone in the band and crew are born storytellers/auteurs so this is two and a quarter hours of great, and sometimes tall, tales. Because the story just falls into the era of videocams there's contemporary live footage to back up the claims to live awesomeness. The contradictions as to what happened behind the scenes are left in, which I think was a great decision as they were all about the schtick, and were clearly very savvy businessmen. To keep the steamroller going without any media/ record company assistance was a goshdarned miracle, and you will love them for it. The latter moments when England saved their bacon brought a tear to the eye because I was there and, whilst not a great fan of their music, live they simply destroyed. We had no idea of the disasters they'd been through to get to that stage, and they didn't drop their guard...as the Reading Festival (and poor Hanoi Rocks) found out. Dee even sprayed us with gunfire from a machine-pistol and we loved it. If you want a good show this film, and Twisted Sister, deliver the goods \m/

A trailer cannot really do it justice but...

Blanck Mass - Dead Format + UK tour dates

Well i'm not sure what happened there but it involved one of Fuck Buttons and what appears to be a cyber-tuber!

A tip of the hat to director Konx-om-Pax

The track is from the current album 'Dumb Flesh' which is on the excellent Sacred Bones label. Here is the album sleeve + current tour dates - how neat...

Wooden Indian Burial Ground - Burnout Beach + album/tour deets

I've been meaning to flag up this lot, and now is the time because they are in the UK and the visuals are all in alignment. The new vid is a tremendous freakout - stick with it...

They're from Portland but the new album 'How's Your Favourite Dreamer' is out on Belgian label EXAG' Records. It is a thing of beauty.

There are a lot of bands doing this stuff but they all tend to be generic sound-a-likes. This lot stand out, I think, because they really can jam. Here they are from a coupla weeks ago.

Phew! So, tour

The Finsbury in London; The Cavern Club Exeter; The Hope & Ruin Brighton; The West Indian Club Rugby; 1000FRYD Aalborg.