Devin Townsend @ Rock City, Jul 3rd 2014

Back in May, some time before I was to embark on my summer visit to the Midlands to see one of my oldest friends, said pal informed me of a significant event that may be of interest; this of course being that Devin Townsend was playing live the day I was to visit.  Without a second thought the tickets were purchased and all we had to do was wait...for eight long, excruciating weeks.  Still, this gave me enough time to prepare for the event, in the sense that I got down to designing and printing some custom t-shirts so that we could don them when the time was right.

THESE.

Suffice to say we were aiming to get noticed that evening, which was exactly what happened.  Even on the way to the venue we were getting strange and sustained glances from passers-by and vehicular occupants alike.  We soon began making tallies of how many people did a double-take at our fluorescent tops with absurd designs emblazoned onto them.  Once we joined the queue at Rock City, the stares became more obvious and elongated. We even made a few people laugh, but overall I feel that most were likely thinking "what a pair of absolute twats".  I consider this a win.

Whilst in the queue, Ross and I discussed the strange concept of sticking out like a pair of tits on a badger, which in some awkward meta-manner served to quell our anxiety toward the situation somewhat.  Mercifully, the line began to shift after around 20 minutes; so our journey into the mouth of madness would begin.  

It was less the mouth of madness and more an extended wait through two bands no one had even heard of before the man we'd turned up to see was to emerge.  The bands in question, !Empire! and Thine (a band we didn't even know the name of when they wandered on unannounced), both local-ish talent of varying experience, were by no means inferior acts, but sadly their relative anonymity painted them in a noticeably less vibrant shade than the headliner. 

During these acts, a towering lass approached us and issued a positive comment regarding our flamboyantly absurd attire.  This sparked off an extended conversation with both her and her male companion; it appeared we had made some gig buddies completely by accident.  This social act served to distract us from the clearly talented but sadly forgettable support bands, drawing Devin's imminent appearance ever closer.

Similar to when I saw the band in 2013, the audience was treated to a bizarre opening reel entitled 'ZTV' which comprised of various YouTube meme videos and zany Photoshop entries involving Devin's face, not dissimilar to the t-shirts they inspired.  A few pockets of laughter emerged from the crowd but overall I believe everyone was just anxious to witness the awesomeness of the music unfold. 

After around 10 minutes of ZTV, The Man Himself finally sauntered onto the stage, to the sound of uproarious ovation.  He seemed overwhelmed and floundered into an opening speech about it being his first gig after 2 months of hiding in the studio, which was as endearing as it was awkward.  He went on to explain his process of transition, which apparently involved staring at the mirror trying to get past the version of himself that was terrified of performing.  He was well-humoured about it though, plus the pleasant cadence of his Canadian accent meant that no one seemed to mind.  I also feel it added more of a personal touch to the concert, as he revealed himself to be human after all, in spite of his exceptional talent. 

Around three minutes later, following a slight technical glitch regarding his guitar, the gig started proper.  To my pleasant surprise they opened with a very old track 'Seventh Wave' from Devin's Ocean Machine era (circa 1997), indicated by the Tennyson poem excerpt that served as an intro to the song. 

"O earth, what changes hast thou seen!

There where the long street roars, hath been

The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow

From form to form, and nothing stands;

They melt like mist, the solid lands,

Like clouds they shape themselves and go."

Source

Needless to say my excitement levels went from above-average to astronomical, where they'd stay for the entirety of his career-spanning, if a little short, set. Each song was incredibly tightly played, a testament to Townsend's perfectionism, made more remarkable by the fact that this was the band's first live show in a while. One of the highlights included an amazing performance of 'Deadhead' which just so happens to be a personal favourite of mine, cue me singing along like a pale imitation of someone that possessed actual talent, all with a huge grin plastered on my stupid face. 

The band also blazed through some more recent DTP material, which was uplifting, unsettling and unbelievably epic all at once. For a short amount of time, Devin jumped down into the photo pit, high fiving the front row and getting in their faces as he churned out his riffs. Ross and I were trying to make our way to the very front, but there were a number of even taller crowd members standing fast. I am 6ft tall and Ross is 6'2", so where these relative behemoths originated from was anyone's guess.

Toward the end of the concert, just before the encore, we did actually manage to bully our way to the front, filling the gap of a really enthusiastic fan who had prematurely exerted too much energy before the end of the set. It was at this point that the T-shirts of ours proved to be a good idea, as Devin turned to face us and said "Those are some awesome shirts by the way, is that my name on there?" to which I replied "ALSO YOUR FACE TOO YEAHH" in a manner that suggested I had forgotten how to conduct myself when addressing another human being and opting for rabid fangirl-esque squealing instead. In my somewhat feeble defence, Devin addressed us mere mortals and complimented our bizarre choice of gig fashion, so we were both a tad overwhelmed to say the least. 

Two words can sum up the encore succinctly: Bad Devil. To put it a less vague way, it is a swing-metal classic and a staple on his live sets, usually as the encore due to how much excitement it generates. I was singing at the top of my lungs whilst jumping up and down to the music; the picture of pure joy. Around halfway through the song, just before the 2nd chorus, Devin paused for just a split second, looked at us again and uttered a quick "Love the shirt!" before carrying on. This second acknowledgement gave us enough excited energy to push through the final part of the concert with every atom of our beings. 

When it was all over, I felt drained but in a positive manner, then decided to go out for some fresh air. We did decide to leave shortly after that, but later found out that Devin came out about an hour later to mingle and sign people's merchandise. I kicked myself for my hasty departure, as we could have turned what was already an amazing night into one for the personal history books. Still, we already got acknowledged by a rockstar, which is not to be sniffed at; all in all a great show. 

I don't rate things numerically, I rate them sentimentally; this one ranks high on the charts, but it was a shame the support acts were so obscure. 

As a reward for your reading/tl;dr scrolling efforts, here's the awkward intro in full:

 - Sam

Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works, Vol II

Today, I awkwardly touch down at the first actual music 'review' and, as foreseen, it is of an album that is probably older than most of the people that tend to read music blogs.  With this in mind, consider it a history lesson, or more likely the sentimental ramblings of a has-been that never really was anything to begin with.

So, this gem came out in 1994, back when I was a wee nipper and wasn't even aware who Richard D James was, mainly because I was too busy screaming and playing with toy dinosaurs.  It would take a further 10 years for me to be introduced to the wonders that resided on my friend's copy of the album.  I have to be honest I wasn't initially impressed with its incredibly sedate and dreamlike vibe, mainly because I was very much into heavy metal at the time and considered most other music a 'useless waste'; oh Sam, you fucking moron.

Fast-forward to 2008, where I had outgrown both the long hair and narrow-minded attitude of my teen years and was willing to give S.A.W II another try.  Suffice to say I was more enthusiastic about it that time around, possibly because I was quite hungover at the time and the repetitive soundscapes served to soothe me somewhat, whilst at the same time fringing on unsettling at points.  I used to listen to it regularly, usually in the evenings, when I wasn't going out and punishing my liver, that is. After a while it sunk into the background of my musical listening habits, possibly to make way for the increasing influx of new artists that I was subjecting myself to.

It wasn't until the other week, when I decided to put the album on purely because I had forgotten about it for so long; almost like a 'guilt-play' of sorts, that I finally came to appreciate it.  The album is quite long, as it spans 2 discs and contains barely any percussive elements, save for a couple of tracks, but even then said elements are muted significantly, leaving more an echo or suggestion of a drumbeat.  It was a long train journey so I had time to listen to every single second of audio that it had to offer.  It had me drifting off into my own imagination for most of the journey; I also recall feeling rather Zen and at-ease despite all the madness that had occurred the weekend just gone (no, I really cannot be arsed to visit that avenue of explanation).

Near the end of my journey, around halfway through the penultimate song 'White Blur 2', the only track I initially didn't like that much (mainly because of the deeply unsettling laughter sample that keeps coming back to haunt the listener during its 11 minute runtime), I realised that the album never once feels boring or drawn-out.  This is a strange thought to have, because all of the songs are quite long and revolve around a repetitive loop with some fleeting samples eased in every now and then; in a normal scenario that is the very definition of 'drawn-out'.  It is hard to explain what makes it so engaging, but Richard had somehow managed to give it the right amount of atmosphere without it sounding too self-indulgent, avoiding the usual tropes of waves crashing, distant traffic noises and nature.  Suffice to say I didn't once switch-off whilst listening to it, in fact it could be said that I did quite the opposite.

The artist has claimed in numerous interviews that the album was inspired by his ability to lucid dream, and that the songs were as close as he could get to replicating his dreams in an audio format.  Who knows how much truth there is to this, as he is also infamous for 'trolling' the press, but regardless of its authenticity, each track does feel very much like it was scooped right out from someone's subconscious and plopped right onto the disc.  It is something of a mind-bender that he managed to make such otherworldly and indefinable sounds from early-nineties hardware, but then again this is the same man who allegedly made a computer, that lacked the ability to emit audio, do just that when he was 11 years old.

The face of bizarre genius. (source)

 Credit where its due and all that; he made an ambient record from his dreams that didn't send the listeners to sleep.  To end on a sentimental note, the opening track of disc 1 entitled 'Cliffs' is easily my favourite piece of ambient music; entire worlds have been created by my imagination with the aid of seven-and-a-half minutes of aural brain-stimulation.

 - Sam

Oh For Fuck's Sake...

...I appear to have started yet another blog after all but abandoning the last, akin to a child that gets bored of  the toy you got them for Christmas which you had to sell your dignity for; it is likely this will not be the last.  On reflection, it does seem a little futile to keep writing blogs when the internet has long since descended into image macros and six-second long videos where users flock to slake their boredom, oh well.

Anyway, with that cheery intro behind me, this one will focus on music, because that dead horse hasn't been flogged until nothing remains but offal and chunks.  What's going to be so different about this one, is the real question isn't it?  I honestly cannot answer that, because the only real exposure I've had to online music publications is Pitchfork.com, but we all know the staff and reviewers are largely comprised of elitist hipster berks so I guess that statement is a little redundant*.

Over the coming weeks/months/however long this lasts you can expect to see me sporadically churn out reviews of albums that came out ages ago that no one cares about, recount concert experiences that will no doubt be exhaustively detailed and maybe even the odd name-drop of some more local bands; expect away, my internet chums.

As for now, it is too damn hot for my brain to function correctly, which is a wholly justified and very British excuse for laziness.

Don't bother watching this space; words will not magically appear; after all this isn't Buzzfeed**.  Here's an unrelated image to tide you over:

It is also my name, who knew?

- S.

*No apologies, I really do dislike Pitchfork.
**I do enjoy Buzzfeed though, sorry.