7 Seconds - Glasgow Art School

 I was pretty chuffed at finally getting to see 7 Seconds live as I had been listening to them since the late 80s when I picked up a copy of Walk Together, Rock Together on vinyl out of the old Avalanche in West Nicholson Street in Edinburgh, they played lots of classic stuff so was great fun to sing along to . I think this was in 2006.

Your time has come, for a Violent Response - Reunion at BYAF

Going to be fun.
Brush up on the songs here: Perth Chaos Collective
get tickets for BYAF here:makethatatakerecords

Bolt Thrower and Memoriam

Bolt Thrower were a special band for me, first band I saw live in a club as oppossed to a seated theatre (on the Grindcrusher tour no less with Carcass, Morbid Angel and Napalm Death) and I wrote off an interview to them for the first issue of ENZK and was surprised to get a reply (and ended up corresponding with Karl for a number of years and seeing them numerous times in the Edinburgh Venue and up in Aberdeen) so it was with a heavy heart, but not unsurprising all things considered, that I read the band's statement declaring their tour of duty to be over.
A bit sad that I won't get to see them live again and experience the aural equivalent of "being run over by a tank for an hour" as Gav Kidd described it when I took him to see Bolt Thrower in Glasgow in 2006.

So here is a bunch of photos I've taken of them set to a live version of All That Remains, thanks for the memories:

So what does remain?
Not much word on what Gav, Jo and Baz are doing but Karl has teamed up with his old BT team mate Andy Whale along with Frank Healy and Scott Fairfax (who have been in Benediction, Sacrilege, Cerebral Fix, Napalm Death...) to form Memoriam and got it together pretty quick in releasing a 7" The Hellfire Demos containing two songs; War Rages On and Resistance (a third song from the demo session, Surrounded By Death, has been released on a flexi with Decibel magazine in the states.
It's pretty much in the same vein as BT but the sound isn't as dense and steamrolling, feeling like there's a bit of breathing space in the guitar work instead of the wall of crushing death that BT employed so devestatingly.
Memoriam are by no way lightweight though, the riffs are slab heavy with creeping scales thrown in and Karl's vocals are still that mixture of growled out but audible style. Lyrics and song titles seem to deal with war as per previous Willets' work and I expect they work on dual levels as ever.
The 7" came out on Purple, Clear and Black vinyl, pretty much sold out except for a few copies on black so hit up Cosmic Key Creations if you want to get your hands on one before it's too late.
As you can see here the purple version was customised to match my ironing board cover...

The decibel flexi is pretty pricey if you're not in the US due to the crappy postage rates from the US but if you live over there you should snap it up as it's like $6. Follow this link to stream the song and order a copy:
Memoriam Decibel Magazine

Memoriam are currently in the studio recording an album so looking forward to that dropping in a few months and they are also going to play the Lord Of The Land in Scotland on 1st April which is headlined by Autopsy (who I saw last time they played here, 27 years ago!) and Acid Reign are playing too (who I also saw many times feckin years ago and also last September and they were still ace) so I'm fucking chuffed for that indeed, although it falls on the wife's birthday, oh bugger...

Donovan Wolfington and Caddywhompus - Conroy's Basement, Dundee, 19/09/2016

Another Make-That-A-Take gig and my season ticket with them continuing to prove excellent value for money. If your in the Dundee area you really should consider dropping some of your crimbo cash on one so you don't have to think about door prices for any gigs through the year (not to mention the records and BYAF entry)
Missed the first two acts, A Hopeless Cause and Stonethrower, due to adult stuff like getting the kid to bed, doing dishes and walking the dogs.
Arrived in time to catch Caddywhompus, a two piece indie set up with some widdly guitar bits, quite enjoyable.

Donovan Wolfington were more straightforward indie rock and were pretty cool too.
I'm sure they had Ed Byrne playing the drums for them but I could be mistaken...

Violent Pacifists - I Can't Skateboard

Senseless Things - London ULU 15/2/91

Here's another of James' Senseless Things live tapes, this time from the University of London Union

Senseless Things - London ULU 15/2/91

Senseless Things - Live in Manchester 1989

Senseless Things were one of the first tuneful punk bands I got into (as opposed to hardcore, grind or anarcho stuff) and I still play their stuff regularly to this day.
I saw them everytime they played Edinburgh from 89 onward and also caught them in Aberdeen. I did tape them live in Edinburgh but I loaned the tape to a friend before I made a copy and never saw it again (so if any one gets a hold of that hit me up please!).
Anyway, James Sherry had a bunch of live tapes by the Things but no way to convert them so I volunteered to convert these 20+ year old tapes to a string of ones and zeros so all who wanted to, could get a copy.
Here's the first of (not) too many...

Senseless Things - Manchester 24/11/89