>Originally posted December 31, 2006.

UPDATE Nov 2007: I posted a list of my fave albums of 2006. It’s too tiresome to redo that massive post again, so here’s the list without comments and album covers. If you want it all, click here.

Antaeus – Blood Libels
Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
Bestial Holocaust – Final Exterminacion
Boris – Dronevil FINAL
Celtic Frost – Monotheist
Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words – Old Ghosts, New Ghosts, All Ghosts
Death Breath – Stinking Up The Night
Dissection – Reinkaos
Edwige – The Inconsolable Widow Thanks All Those Who Consoled Her
Fingerspitzengefühl – Happy Doomsday
General Surgery – Left Hand Pathology
Gorgoroth – Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam
Heresi – Psalm II – Infusco Ignis
Iron Maiden – A Matter of Life And Death
Katharsis – WorldWithoutEnd
The Knife – Silent Shout
Krux – II
Krister Linder – Songs From The Silent Years
Massgrav/Diskonto – A Blaze In The Northern Sky
Mastodon – Blood Mountain
Mogwai – Mr Beast
Mono – You Are There
Negative Plane – Et In Saecula Saeculorum
Joanna Newsom – Ys
pp7 gaftzeb – pp7 gaftzeb Kastar Första Stenen
Regurgitate – Sickening Bliss
Repugnant – Epitome of Darkness
Skitsystem – Stigmata
Sunn0))) & Boris – Altar
Svarte Greiner – Knive
Anna Ternheim – Separation Road
Tom Waits – Orphans – Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
Scott Walker – The Drift
Witch – Witch
Woven Hand – Mosaic

And that’s just the full lenght albums. I didn’t have the time to write about tapes, EP’s and stuff.
And I skipped all rap records…

>Originally posted December 10, 2006.

Holy hell, what a glorious evening, this Friday 8th of December 2006!
Fuck “No Fun”, this was the total opposite – total fun.

The Segerhuva scientists had arranged this evening in the name of noise (no, not Melt Banana/Boredoms-style as the local fuck-ups (journalists) wrote in Metro), and we were honoured by the presence of the almighty Government Alpha straight out of Japan.

The venue, Sugarbar at Kammakargatan in Stockholm, was the smallest ever (my living room is twice the size), and when 30 people had arrived the place was overcrowded. Cool thing, since you were forced to be in the front no matter what. Hail bar gigs!

Sewer Election and Treriksröset (Dan and Tommy) were up first, Tommy introducing his companion as “Sewer Erection”, which was quite funny knowing that the local fuck-ups (journalists) wrote “Sewer Selection” in the paper.

Unfortunately no sound at all (to my knowledge) was heard from Dan’s equipment due to speaker failure, so Tommy’s stuff was all we could hear. Dan had brought these cymbals and metal sheets and various metal junk all clamped together, and that is what he used – banging that shit hard straight into the table. Being in the front it was fucking dangerous with that metal shit flying around. If he´d hit me in the face I would’ve killed him. But it was cool as hell at the same time, and I immensely enjoyed it.

Noise gigs need to be more on the physical side or else you’ll yawn yourself to death. This gig was a perfect example of how to keep the audience on their toes, always paying attention to what was going on so you’d be ready when that kamikaze cymbal came flying through the air aimed at your throat… Bring danger back into noise!

The gig was aggressive without being macho (hello Macronympha!) and in the end Tommy freaked out screaming like a father figure and hitting his pedals with all he had. Dan destroyed that poor table. Government Alpha stood by my side screaming. It was all good, but the sound failure was a big disappointment.

Yasutoshi Yoshida (who is Government Alpha) had brought a friend and his stage name was Montage. It was kind of funny seeing him unload his super high tech hardware from heaven when Sewer Election/Treriksröset had used just a minimum of equipment, but the guy’s japanese… Nuff said.

He started his set with some rumbling dark loops which sounded quite ok. He added some speech samples (in japanese) and continued this way for a while. Nothing spectacular, really. It seems he had problems with his mic, and all I could think of (like with the SE/TRR-gig) was that mic not working properly and it distracted me from hearing what was actually going on. Fucking bad. At gigs like this the sound is extremely important. It should be insanely loud and it should – above all – work! Unfortunately the sound was way too low, and I even stood in the front close to the speaker.

Montage didn’t impress me that much, so I looked forward to GA blowing my brains out instead. And for sure he did! This mini-man was totally amazing! I’d like to put one thousand exclamation marks here, because he was the absolute shit!

From the first shriek he was totally into it, mastering the controls like a rocket scientist, producing the harshest and most varied noise I’ve heard in a long while. Fortunately the microphone worked this time so he yelled his lungs out rock’n’roll-style: “ONE TWO, ONE TWO THREE FOUR!!” and then BANGBANGBANG full throttle chaos.

The small crowd in this jam packed little venue went berserk, screaming, fistbanging and worshipping. Tommy did the only reasonable thing and picked up one of the speakers, lifting it up and down like a fucking Samson-maniac. Palle from Sanctum helped him out and together they held this speaker on their shoulders while Government Alpha churned out the most vicious noise known to swedish ears. I was laughing out loud because it was just so damned good.

The gig lasted ten minutes. Pure genius.

Despite the weak sound, this evening was pure fun. Cool people showed up and the mood was perfect. No bitter, grim-looking neonazi faggots (well, I bet some of them were there…), just cool people having a good time.
Because let’s face it: Those neonazi faggots tend to look upon industrial/noise/extreme-gigs as some sanctuary; the only place where they dare to raise their right thalidomide child arms in a nazi salute in “public”. Pathetic cunts, I just laugh at your so called “conviction”, your feeble attempt to instill fear. Go home and comb your hair that you’ve dyed black and cut in the formation of a cunt, listen to your weak synth shit on your weak stereo and just wank off in front of your weak computer. Hitler would’ve pissed on your worthlessness and lack of pride.

Mind you, I find it totally ok sieging heil and all that crap when it’s done for fun, but when those priceless fucks who claim to be true do it on gigs I just wanna fuck them up the ass with a jack hammer.

The European scene has its nazi shit, the American scene has its serial killer shit… Japan, on the other hand, just blast without no lame image. And that was what this evening was all about; no lame image – just blast. Punk as fuck.

>Originally posted December 06, 2006.

They weren’t meant to be. They were the ultimate contradiction in terms.

Bad Brains – black as night and bad as hell. They formed in Washington DC in 1977 as a jazz fusion ensemble, but then out of the blue pioneered the whole american hardcore scene being the fastest and most extreme band for years to come. Even today their old stuff kicks the shit out of most bands’ so called ‘hardcore’.

The intensity of their shows is still unmatched.
Proof:
Click here to watch the Live at CBGB 1982 DVD in its entirety online!
It’s so good you’ll be a complete fool forever if you don’t buy the DVD right away.