Local mental

I had a pang of pride this week as I witnessed some local talent destroying the stage as support for Malefice. Local boys Gokken opened proceedings and whilst the singer's voice was nothing extraordinary, they were musically tight and a decent start to proceedings. Incidentally, 'gokken' is the Japanese word for 'gulp' and is essentially porn in which women (or men) drink large quantities of semen. Found that out through Google. At work.

Gokken were followed by Avarice Rising. This local six-piece have two lead singers which although not particularly rare, one of these guys really blew me away. Chris stands about 5ft 6inches with terrible salon hair, a plaid shirt and white flesh tunnels. This mellow-voiced fellow opened his mouth the unleash one of the most brutal live vocals I've heard. From horrific screams to full on death grunts, the guy was amazing. Once off stage, I asked him where the fuck the voice came from, to which he just cocked his head to one side, smiled sweetly and said "I've just got demons inside me", before walking off. An intriguing dude.

Final band Reasonable Doubt brought a nice slab of metallic hardcore to the table, particularly drummer James who was a complete animal. Fantastic double kick work and impressive blastbeats, all in all tight as fuck.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Dale Butler from Malefice before the Reading boys the stage. He was milling around, manning the merch stand and watching the support bands intently so we grabbed a few minutes to chat. The full interview and review will be on MetalasFuck in the next few days but the general gist was that Malefice take what they do incredibly seriously and when they take the stage, this is pretty bloody obvious.

In other nooz, Iron Maiden have confirmed their North American tour with Dream Theatre which quite simply has to come to the UK or I shall start crying and go on a rampage. I've never been an enormous Dream Theatre fan but having seen them at Download (either last year or 2008, can't remember to be honest) I can fully appreciate their progressive musings. I hear Maiden are good live too...

A major criticism I have this week is of BBC 6Music. Last week I was singing it's praises and encouraging it's survival; this sentiment remains but I also think it's important that they get a little slap. They compiled a survey to decide on the thirty best guitarists of the last thirty years. I know this kind of survey is always contentious and people will always bitch, but if your going to include Kirk Hammett, how in the name of my low-hanging left bollock can you omit Dave Mustaine? That's like Jerry Springer being ahead of Oprah Winfrey in a 'Best Rich Chubby Black Female American Talk Show Host' competition. And I must have missed something for Jack White to be there so if anyone could explain I would genuinely appreciate it.

Plus, no Yngwie Malmsteen? Have a word!

Time to go. Check out the three local bands in my Cool Shit list, you won't be disappointed. Well, you might but that really is no concern of mine.

M
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