The machine rages on with Million Empire

'Its a sweat box down there' I'm told, but at the moment as I'm nursing a poorly self advised coke with ice that doesn't seem all that bad. The sweat box is infact as the  rip off Vegas style sign reads the fabulous Sunflower lounge. Now the fabulous statement might be questionable, the lounge is small, not tiny, you could swing a cat, if you're under 5 foot and the cat is a kitten. I look down at the floating ice as a cool breeze sweeps up the road, someone mentions going down stairs and the cups on the floor and I'm moving before they finish the sentence.
For a live music venue its small, but has a nice punk feeling to it. I'm here to watch a band called Million Empire who are second on in a three band bill. The first band take to the stage and there's a moment that I prey they are not to bad as the thought of returning to the cold outside sends a chill through me. The singer reminds me of someone I used to work with, and the musics not exactly to my taste but I'd stood through a lot worse only a few week earlier. By now the place is full and it feels nice to be squashed into a small basement as overly loud music assaults my ears. That might sound strange but to people who go to unsigned gigs this is our bread and butter. The band like the sound of their own voices between songs and we are treated to some 'humour' but it feels like we've all been left out of the loop and maybe its a band thing. They finish and the shift starts, these are those manic moments between bands when music equipment is moved onto the stage and used stuff is moved out. For us its the moments where the lady's go to the toilets and the men head to the bar. Me I'm fumbling with a camcorder and feeling lied to, I'm still bloody cold. After a few moments and more people flooding in Million Empire take to the stage. The first song is 'Hunt with desire' its the perfect song to start, hitting the captive crowd with a wall of sound that leaves you unable to do anything but watch. The set thunders through and I here someone singing in the crowd which brings a smile to my face. The temperature thankfully starts to rise as the band thrash out the songs, by thrash I don't mean they play 80's style thrash music, I mean they play with a lot of energy and as they put it 'balls to the wall'. I shift a little to get a better view with the camcorder which by now is the main and only reason all the blood is rushing from my hand. With the fear of fluid collecting in my elbow and ending up with some kind of hideous elephant man type extremity I carry on. The set comes to a loud energetic end and as the hum dies there are shouts of more. I thankfully press stop and check for a football sized elbow, I'm ok I'll live to see another Million Empire show.

Additional content: A video from Million Empire's show at the Flapper Birmingham:
Million Empire live: 'My Honour'

PS3 vs Xbox 360 (the great war like thingy)

There's a bitter war taking place right now as you read this nonsense. Out there in the homes of ordinary folk like me and maybe you. A long running battle that has seen many casualties, many names called and even a stick, a really big stick. For years now there has been absolutely no room to sit on the fence and if there was it would only result in a case of splintered arse.

Its either PS3 or Xbox 360. (and I bet even now there are readers who are saying Xbox should come first). The two gaming giants have been going head to head since the infant years of the original Xbox and Playstation. I started with the big old white Playstation (1) mainly on the back of the then amazing Destruction Derby. This was a huge step in home gaming, and the price showed it, but we bit the bullet and emptied our piggy banks to bask in the new gen' greatness. This was worlds apart from the likes of the SNES or Megadrive or even the amazing Atari 2600 (baby) which I still have minus the power and TV connection. From that point I set up tent in the Playstation camp.

In those early days a Playstation could be 'cracked' or 'chipped' very easy and most just involved the comical 'hot swap'. If you did this you could get games for about £5, but I never partook in this non-parrot boat-less piracy, and still managed to build a good library. For many years I went through the Playstation's. The 1^st (big white), 2^nd (little white), Playstation 2 (big black) and finally Playstation 2 (little black). I loved the Playstation 2 and had tons of games, some good, some bad, and some that carried the label 'what the hell was I thinking' and a few carrying the label 'what the hell was the game maker thinking.' (Backyard wrestling I'm looking at you).

Change was coming and time was not on the side of my old friend the Playstation 2. New Tech' was being built and suddenly on the horizon like the monolith in 2001 a space odyssey stood the mighty PS3 it sounded too good to be true. But the line in the sand had been drawn and Microsoft rushed out their next gen machine the Xbox 360 and boy did it make an impact. Wireless controllers, eye watering graphics and online play that had never been seen before.

After many years of Sony I gave in to the Xbox and brought a bog standard 360 telling the women in the shop, who I thought was a little bit pushy (I never did get on with the staff in Game) 'that I wouldn't go online'. Not a long time after I was talked into buying a used copy of Call of Duty: Modern warfare and 'jacking in' and from then on my Thursday day off from work became game day. Armed with my headset and a few friends on list, it was shouting, laughing and shooting fun and the DucK clan was born (worst game clan ever created and proud of it). But as with everything like that it was going to end ...and it did with the horrible red ring of death. A fault with over heating and some screw thing, I don’t know the technical side and don’t care, as far as I was concerned 'game box no play no more!' I sent my 360 off to get it fixed in Germany, but my eyes had strayed to the new 'slim' version PS3 which had just had a big price drop. So still 'burned' by my red ring encounter (that sounds so wrong) I packed up my 360 games and plastic bits and bobs and headed off to my local Gamestation.

£183 that's how much I got for the little stash, I was over the moon and out the door with my shiny new PS3 with a couple of games.

So what about the fixed 360, well I've still got it but its in the box it came back in. I haven't wanted to buy the new 'slim' 360, I'm happy with my PS3 and have already built a nice collection of games.

So where do I sit (apart from the sofa) well at the mo' PS3. So whine about all the plus points of your Xbox, or just shout 'Xbox rules' over and over again. All I will say is I have been there and done that.

Splatter that punk?

After reading some non horror as of late, I have decided to jump neck deep into the gore and piss by searching out the cult like writing style of Splatterpunk. This extreme style of horror first come to the public eye in the 80's. The name Splatterpunk was coined by writer David J. Schow, at a convention describing a movement in writing at the time that went far beyond anything else that had come before it. It was hyper intensive horror with no limits. After a search on the internet I found a few books that were 'classed' as Splatterpunk, and more importantly these were books I might be able to get hold of. Now its unsure what really makes a novel extreme enough to be classed as Splatterpunk as the phrase has died out over the years so some might see these book as the real thing and some might not, its up to the individuals sense of gore and violence.

The first book I got was 'The Cellar' (1980) by the late Richard Laymon. Laymon built a following by cutting straight to the gore and sex. Unlike writers such as Stephen King. 'The Cellar' was his first novel and the first book in the Beast House trilogy. The book tells the story of a house that has a history of beast attacks and is opened up to the public as a museum of the macabre. We follow a mother & daughter on the run from an prison escaped lunatic husband and a couple of men who set out to tackle the house head on.

This is a short book 256 pages (paperback) so Laymon doesn't weight his writing down with character development. The whole book reads like a B-movie horror. Now that is not a bad thing, if you like your gore and sex upfront. The problem I found with the book was the balance of the two. Laymon focus's on the lunatic husbands actions, but its not the violence that he describes in detail but the paedophile acts he does. This was done to shock, and it does. But when it comes to the climax of the story and the downfall of the husband the reader is left feeling let down. The whole end seems rushed and the husbands demise is very poor as throughout the book you really want him to suffer the most horrible death imaginable.

I have also read the 3^rd book in the trilogy called The Midnight tour this is considerably longer then the other two books and its clear that Laymon had developed as a writer over the years. This time he tries his hand at character development but never really pulls it off as the characters seem hard and unreal. The horror is typical Laymon but again the end seems a mess of ideas and some of the action seems rushed.

I am at the moment reading The Woods are dark by Richard Laymon and I have to be honest I'm not really enjoying it. I can see how back in the early 80's this may have been a shocker. The trademark sex and gore of Laymon is there and I didn't expect anything less as this was his second published book and the one book that nearly killed his Career as a writer due to very poor editing by the publisher and very dubious cover art (see picture) 

These books may not be Splatterpunk but they do indeed contain some very gory moments. There are a number of other authors that have been put in the same vain, Shaun Hutson's Slugs and Jack Ketchum's Off season. Personally I don't find these books that shocking, mainly due to the fact that they were written so long ago and most haven't aged well. Much of the shocking material has now become a common occurrence in horror movies. If you really want a disturbing read that will entertain and is balanced look no further then the vampire novel Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Boot the reboots

Since the first time early man made fire there was another man stood looking over his shoulder grunting. If we could build a translating machine strap it to a time machine, pick that exact point in time and translated those grunts it would go something like 'I could do better than that and I would have made it blue'. Jump back in said time machine and travel to now and the same thing is happening in the movies. Every week there seems to be a remake or as the studio suits are calling them 'reboot'. In 2002 Spiderman was released, it was ok, directed by Sam Raimi it told the story of Peter Parker and his journey as he becomes the web slinger. Ramini went onto do two more movies including number three which was a waste of the Venom character. But now they are 'rebooting' the series with what looks like a darker story much in the vain of the Batman movies made by Nolan. My question is do we need these remakes or reboots? One remake I could of done without and even now makes me sad was the remake of Rollerball. The original Rollerball starring James Caan was a great movie, set in a future dominate by a violent sport called Rollerball. The remake was to put it plainly shite, nothing seemed right and the sport didn't have the impact and what the hell was all that night vision crap about. Then there was the horror remakes that became the fashion, we got Friday 13^th it seemed pointless and brought nothing to the story. The remake of A nightmare on Elm street did much the same just a few more CGI effects. Then there was the remake of Halloween now this was a different animal. Director Rob Zombie decided not to just update but tell the story from a slightly different point of view. For me this worked and I enjoyed it. The second movie was a bit hit and miss. They even remade Day of the dead which from start to finish had me asking only one question how did they con some poor shmuck into paying for this tripe. And then the remake of The Wicker man, oh my god the original was a horror masterpiece, Woodward played a man of strict Christian faith on a pagan island and the end was all the more horrific because of his unshakable love for his god. The remake with Cage in the roll just seemed lack-lustre and boring. Now there's news of a Second Blob remake Surely this is a sign that the movie machine has run out of ideas, maybe they have shot them selves in the foot by making it increasingly hard for new talent to come through. There needs to be a shift in the business or we will only have the remake of Avatar to look forward to..I give it a year.

Recipe for deep fried TV

This blog is a collaboration with Kerri's Kitchen. kleighskitchen.blogspot.com

God forbid and this is only a hypothetical situation, don't panic, but what if the battery in your TV remote control ran out and no matter how hard you pressed the button or hit it it just wouldn't work. Crushed by the notion of trying to lift your mass out of the chair. What would happen? Well you would end up watching a TV cookery show. There are so many cookery shows on the box these days that it is literary imposable to not be watching one at any given time, and I am, its a hideous cross between Come dine with me and Blind date, called Dinner Date. It seems that if you can open a tin of beans without blood shed and lose of a finger a TV channel will throw a gravy covered contract at you. No oversized chocolate chip cookie is left unturned, everything to do with cooking is right there on the old picture box, just a click away. From the informative how to shows that actually instruct you step by step how not burn down your house while baking bread to the ever popular elaborate 'cooking' shows. These are the shows that take one cooking skill and push it to the extreme. Take Ace of Cakes a program about a Baltimore bakery called Charm City Cakes. The opening credits inform us that the bakery is run by Duff who doesn't bake by the rules, they make it bigger, better and more extreme. These are cakes that might come with moving parts and even fireworks. Then there is Man vs Food a kind of road-challenge-eating show where a man travels across America taking up the elaborate and most of the time sickening food challenges dinner offer. From eating a stake the size of a body board in 20 minutes to woofing down enough sea food to repopulate a fishing port. The list is endless, like chocolate then these choccywoccydoodah a show based in a chocolate sculpting shop which is as camp as the title implies. How about a middle aged man swearing and spitting out deep fried spiders? then there's Gordon's Great Escape where the UK's own Gordon Ramsay travels to the corners of the globe and eats bizarre local meals. Or would you like a British guy telling the Americans that they are killing their kids with the 'food' they serve up in the schools. Then you will be right at, too much sugar, mystery meat home with Jamie's American food revolution, where the cockney lad makes much needed demonstrations using tons of sugar and pink slim. My point being is, it seems now more then ever that people are thinking about and learning about food. So next time you take out that frozen curry and throw it in the microwave, maybe turn on the box, skip past The Simpsons (blasphemy) and get the recipe for boiled spider with chocolate rice followed by a ton of mustard flavoured ice-cream

Play it again (or not, its up to you)

There is this group on Facebook called the '30 day music challenge.' I love music, but after reading the rules I decided not to participate. Because I'm too indecisive and the day 1 rule caused a impulse of neuron feedback only experienced by kids stupid enough to try and get their kite down from a power pylon. So here is my version, its shorter, unstructured and I might sneak in a few swear words.

I just can't pick one singular song as my favourite, its like trying to pick your favourite strand of hair or ass cheek. So here is a few I will always grab to break the silence. 'Everyday is exactly the same' by Nine Inch Nail. NIN will probably pop up a few times in this list but I love this song because we all can sympathies with the lyrics about a life that seems to repeat it self. 'Frances farmer will have her revenge on Seattle' by Nirvana. Like most spotty, moody teen tear aways I found my angst perfectly transformed into music in the form of the album in utero. This song often gets over looked but I love the fact it sounds like a practice there is such a thing as over producing. And 'I am the walrus' by The Beatles a song of complete nonsense with almost Dali style lyrics, again this gets over looked well the whole album gets over looked because of it being more of a sound track for the film then an album but I love it, and even with the possibility of being stoned to death, dare I say I like this album more then 'Sgt peppers.'

One song always manages to put a smile on my face even when its a really shitty day, and has me singing out loud is 'flagpole sitta' by Harvey Danger. If you read the lyrics, this song is very depressing but the delivery of those lyrics is just the best, very up beat and its the theme to Peep show.

Back in the day I used to spend a lot of time in Cornwall body-boarding and there is one album that reminds me of those hazy days in the sun sitting on the beach or around a BBQ burning sausages while waiting for the swell or driving the coast road from Newquay to Padstow. 'Glow' by Reef. Every time I hear 'Consideration' I can almost taste the salt water. Not to sound like Neal Smug from Smug town USA but I've seen more bands live then I can recall one that stands out is Damien Rice. Ok so he's not a band but when I heard the song 'Me, My Yoke and I' live I was blown away this singer song writer had more intensity then most heavy bands I have seen, real hairs standing on end time. The song is not one that gets played a lot like 'Cannonball' or the 'Blower's Daughter' but I love it, I'm also partial to 'Rootless Trees' and 'Coconut Skins'.

There are hundreds of songs I could mention but I don't want to turn this into a bloody epic so I'm going to condense the rest into a quick blast few lines. Nine Inch Nails, 'Hurt' because when everyone in Birmingham Academy was singing this soft confession of a song it was simply amazing. 'The End' by The Doors no big reason I just like it same as 'Paint it Black' by The Rolling Stones, 'Transmission' by Joy division, 'Can't dance to disco' by Feeder, 'The Passanger' by Iggy Pop, 'Pure' by 3 Colours Red, just really well written songs. Etc, etc, etc, (the list is never ending).

Writing or: how I stopped wasting time and learnt to love the cattle prod.

I stare at the computer screen like a moron trying to decipher the tear here message on a packet of digestives. The courser blinks mockingly as my brain slowly comes to a stop. This happens to me all the time, because for a while now I have wanted to be a writer. Not for the fame or even the money, even through I could do with the money. I just want to create something, something I can sit on a shelve and let it gather dust, something I can look at in years to come and think, at least I didn't spend all that time on Facebook. But I have a problem, I lack self motivation. I can have a cracking idea, have it all planed out in my head, characters, locations, plot twists, even the name of the dog. I set about writing but something goes wrong. The saying goes 'we all have one good book in us'. I believe I do, but at the moment the only way to get it out would be to crack open my head and feed on the sweet nectar inside. There are novelists like James Patterson who quite possibly cough up books on demand. I think he has a team of writers locked away in a basement, rewarding them with sun light for every 100 pages, just check out his back catalogue. I have tried this but it does come with a few draw backs. Apparently the writing zombies do need food and water and sometimes they do fight back in horrible, horrible ways. I digress, I think the problem comes when I over think what I am writing, not in the plot or the story it's self but I can and have sat in front of the computer deciding what style to write in and get nothing done. So what do I need to do? Well I could get someone to transcribe from tapes, but who has the time and patients to do that or and I think you will all agree this might be the best and most productive way, is to buy a bloody big cattle prod and have someone sit behind me jabbing away everytime I take my hands off the keyboard or avert my eyes from the screen. I could even go as far as install eye clamps like A clockwork orange. Maybe just maybe I would finely get the story I've had in my head for years about the isolated small town that gets cut off by a snow storm and discover something very strange in a field. Or the story of a man who's in a horrendous accident and ends up trapped in his own bloodline, I would love to get these out into the real world and onto paper, I could go on but I won't, I've called Jenkins to fetch the car, I'm going shopping for a prod.