The Arteries - Dead Sea

Dead Sea is the second full length from the hardest working band in Swansea, The Arteries . In between playing shows with Fucked Up, The Bronx and Propaghandi, studying for degrees, recording and releasing splits with The Cut Ups, Bangers and others, they found time to record the follow up to their (awesome) debut Blood, Sweat And Beers .

If you have followed the band over the last few years, you'll be familiar with their Minor Threat (with more drinking and partying) meets AC/DC worship. Dead Sea is full of what you have come to expect from The Arteries ; big riffs, fast drums and songs about girls, friendship and finding your way in life.

Anyone who has picked up a copy of the split 7” with The Cut Ups will already know Shitty Band and Mutual Friends, (arguably two of their best songs) that have rightfully been included on this album. Without a shadow of a doubt, Acoustic Associations is destined to become a new fan favourite. It’s pretty much the best pop song that I’ve heard in the last few years, with it’s lyrics about falling in love with someone at a show, and it’s hooks that Paramore would kill for. So what? I like Paramore . Big deal, wanna fight about it?

But, it’s the other stuff on Dead Sea that is more surprising. I hate to use the word, but it’s more of a mature sound for the band without dropping any of the fun or urgency of their earlier material. Rather than starting every song flat out, speeding through it at the same pace and ending in a sweaty heap at the end (which isn’t a bad thing), you can tell that a lot more focus has been given to dynamics and atmosphere.

Doing The Rounds starts off quietly before letting rip with a massive riff that wouldn’t sound too out of place coming through a wall of speakers in a stadium rock gig. Hey Mister treads more of a post-hardcore path and is pretty reminiscent of Fugazi, giving Miles the opportunity to take a breather from busting a gut with his vocals.

There are a few more surprises on the album in the shape of New Noose and Sick. The tone of the songs is quite a departure from the more lighthearted songs about getting in the van, partying and hanging out with your friends. Even though these songs are more grown up, they’re still dripping with passion and conviction and it’s not hard to imagine singing along to every word in a sweaty venue near you soon.

Basically, this album rocks in a big way and you could do a lot worse than picking up a copy. If Blood, Sweat and Beers was Minor Threat, Dead Sea is Fugazi. This record is the sound of a band that has put the time and the effort in and knows exactly where it’s going with it’s sound.

You can pick up a CD/Digital copy of the album through Specialist Subject Records and if you preorder the CD, you get the Mp3s straight away. Pretty sweet. If vinyl is your weapon of choice, rumour has it that Paper + Plastick will be giving the album a vinyl release early next year.

Whether you buy the album or not, make sure to check out The Arteries in a town near you soon. No excuses.

Trains Of Rage

A girl in work asked me why I had to be so negative all the time. I told her that it's hard not to be negative when everything sucks.

I've come to the conclusion that no matter how good or bad my life is, I'll always find something that will enrage me to the point of wanting to stab myself. So, before I reach middle age and the inevitable high blood pressure and heart attacks, I'll vent my spleen at the Internet.

The last time I was angry enough to bother writing anything on here was related to a train based rage, and this time is no different. A weekend or two ago, I was going to Cardiff to drink some beer with my friends and had to get the train. The ticket office was closed at Neath station when I went to the platform so I didn't buy a ticket. Nothing different there. The train pulled up to the platform and I got on.

Everything was going pretty well for the first ten minutes. There was a woman with a gigantic rack sitting facing me and an old woman who had a moustache that put mine to shame. Can't complain about any of that. It all started going awry when the ticket guy came shuffling through the carriage after leaving Port Talbot. I got my legitimate, unexpired 16-25 railcard and money out of my wallet to pay the guy, then he said the five words that would send me spiralling into a rage equal to that of your standard Swansea smackhead unable to scrape together enough for a can of Special Brew... 'You can't use your railcard'.

Me: 'Sorry?'

Fuckhead: 'You can't use your railcard on the train!'

Me: 'Why can't I? I've used it on the train hundreds of times before. The ticket office wasn't open and now I'm using my legitimate railcard and I want to pay you with my discount'

Fuckhead: 'On the ticket that I'm about to sell you at full price you'll clearly see that you can only use your railcard when you purchase tickets before getting on the train.'

This dialogue continued for a while longer, all the time with me getting more irate. I asked to speak to the guy's supervisor. Nothing. Asked to speak to his boss. Nothing. Asked him his name. SIMON (Fuckhead). Now that I knew his name, I realised that there may be a slim chance of finding him in a different situation and ramming a stool down his fucking throat.

Fuckhead (Simon): 'You're either doing one of two things; buying a ticket from me at full price or getting off at the next station.'

Me: 'I'm not buying a ticket off you'.

Fuckhead (Simon) : 'Well what do you want to do then'?

Me: 'I want you to stop being such a scumbag'.

At this point there was a lot of Simon being a fag, shouting and screaming at me to get off at the next station, telling other passengers that I was abusive and threatening, and that I wouldn't be allowed on the next train. I took it in my stride and annoyed him even more by replying 'Alright, twat'. I realise that this would have been the perfect time to whip out a 'Sorry, God', but I wasn't thinking straight. The woman with the jugs and the granny with the 'tache didn't come to my aid and help defend my rights, so I decided to get off the train at Bridgend.

When I got off, Simon pulled the window down and told anyone who would listen to him on the platform, that I wasn't allowed on any trains, that I was aggressive and threatening and blah fucking blah. I just sat there, imagining pulling his eyes out, putting hot coals in his eye sockets, then sewing his eyelids shut. I had no doubt in my mind that this twat had nothing to back up his allegations, so I was pretty confident that I would get straight back on the next train, that was arriving ten minutes later.

I was sat down on a wall on the platform, jigging my legs up and down and twiddling my thumbs to suppress my urge to kill, when the train set off. The window came down a couple of carriages over from where I was sitting, then the stupid fucking ginger headed nonce face of Simon popped out. Clearly he must have thought that he was big and clever to taunt me from the train, he couldn't be more wrong. As the carriage slowly rolled past me, he stuck his head out of the window, looked at me and said as smarmily (I don't care if that's a word or not) as possible, 'Who's the scumbag now? I'm on the train and you're on the platform. Yeah.'

In that moment, I felt as if time had slowed down. My life flashed before my eyes, I thought about everyone that had ever pissed me off (time had slowed down a lot to fit that in to a couple of seconds) and used all of my power to convey my feelings towards this jumped up little prick in an action combining a carefully put together sequence of words and body language... I stuck my middle finger up at him and said as slowly and loudly as possible, 'Fuck off and die'. I swear I had a boner after seeing his reaction of powerlessly swinging his arms about trying to get someone to listen to him to ban me from the train while it sped him away out of my sight.

After that, I went over to the ticket office and calmly asked for a return to Cardiff, paid full price without arguing and got on the next train 5 minutes later. It wasn't about the fact that my railcard would have saved me three quid, it wasn't that I couldn't afford to pay full price for the ticket, it wasn't that I had no idea I couldn't use my railcard on the train. It was about getting one over on those twats who work for the railways who are so bitter about their pathetic job spent herding drunks around, not seeing sense and generally abusing what little power they've got to make their lives feel minutely less pointless. Gareth 1, Simon 0.

The night out in Cardiff was fairly average, but I was drunk getting on the train home at 11:40pm and still fucking irritated. Guess who was on the train taking tickets on the way back? My favourite neighbourhood train scumbag, Simon. I made the rational decision of hiding in the toilet all of the way home because I would have thrown the fucker under the train if he so much as looked at me. I didn't really feel like going to jail, getting banned from all train journeys and not having the opportunity to go and see bands play and get drunk on a regular basis, so I avoided the situation.

I guess you can change the score to Gareth 1, Simon 1. But I still won because I know where he works and I've got the opportunity of stalking him to his home and filling up his house with rats or murdering him or something. So if anyone sees a little ticket twat called Simon on the London Paddington to Swansea train anytime soon, please abuse him in any way you see fit.

Urge to kill, rising...

'Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant for you. Hate. Hate.'

I would consider myself to be an extremely angry guy. 99% of the time, I stay away from any trouble and usually don't act on being angry by doing something violent like absolutely smashing someone to pieces. Usually, I just drink a few beers and talk about how pissed off I am, or in extreme cases I have been known to take an impromptu ten mile walk.
A few days ago, I had to do everything in my power to fight the urge to kill someone. I had been out to meet some friends for something to eat and had to leave to get the train back to my house, which is about a fifteen minute journey. After sitting down in the carriage and listening to some music, my aural experience was interrupted by a whining, sickening, brummie noise coming out of the mouth of some inbred, cuntrat excuse for human life sitting a couple of chairs behind me. This guy was with a girl who I have to assume was his girlfriend and a kid in a pram who couldn't have been more than two years old. He basically made me ashamed to be a human.
I don't know exactly what he was piping up about, but his annoying fucking voice just kept getting louder and more irritating by the second until I wanted to pull one of those stupid little train tables off the floor and stove his head in with it. It became clear after a couple more minutes of noise coming out of this guy's mouth, that he didn't have much respect for women. Then he actually started getting a bit physical. By this point, everybody was getting pretty pissed off with this guy. It was then that I was going to tell him to shut his fucking noise, but my knight in shiny tracksuit appeared from a couple of rows in front of me and asked the Brummie rat to pipe down.
Instantly, Ratboy took offence and started attempting to speak like a black inner city youth, when he was just a chavvy, white guy. The results were sickening and made me want to rip his eyes out and fill up his sockets with my piss. I'm going to try and transcribe the exchange between Ratboy and The Knight In Shining Tracksuit (who was called Mike).

Mike: Do me a favour and keep the noise down, mate.
Ratboy: Fook off, yoo don't know nuffink about me. Fook off, yoo little fookin' faggut.
Mike: What I do know about you is that you're a bullying twat and you don't speak to women like that, you fuckin' prick.
Ratboy: Whoooo da fook are ya? I'll fookin' batter yaw.
Mike: Come on then, you fucking prick.
Ratboy: Fook off yaw faggut, yaw don't even knooooow me. Where's your fookin' missus, you faggut?
Mike: You don't know what I've got, and I definitely don't treat my missus like you do.

At this point, Ratboy just kept telling Mike that he was a faggot all the time and that he would beat him up, knowing full well that the ticket guy was going to stop Mike from battering him to death. This went on and on for a time that was far too long, where Ratboy kept winding Mike up by threatening him and calling him names whilst the ticket man stood between them. Here is another attempt at documenting the exchange between these two.

Mike: What's your fuckin' name then? What's your fuckin' name, you fuckin' coward?
Ratboy: Steve...John...Tom. Tom Pull. Everyone calls me Tom Pull.
Mike: Tom is it? You're full of shit. Where are you from then? Where are you getting off?
Ratboy: What's your fookin' name, where are yoooo from you faggut?
Mike: My name is Mike fuckin' Jones from Swansea. Now where are you getting off the train, you little twat?
Ratboy: Briton Ferry is where I'm getting off and I'm going to fookin' stab yooo up. I'm going to put a fookin' knife in your fookin' head.
Mike: Come on then, show it to me. I'll still fuckin' kill you, you cunt.
Ratboy: I'm going to slit your fookin' throat you faggut.
Mike: Come on then, you fucking pussy. I don't need a knife, I'm going to fuckin' strangle you to death with my bare hands.

You have to take into account that this guy had a little kid in a pram with him whilst he was threatening to stab someone in the head and cut his throat. Great parenting skills, cunt. Mike even had the decency, whilst getting verbally abused by Ratboy, to tell his girlfriend that he was sorry for swearing and that she should kick Ratboy to the curb and keep him away from the kid. I don't care whether Ratboy's uncle bummed him when he was a kid or if his mother was a crackhead, it is not an excuse for him to be such a massive prick.
When I finally got to my stop at Neath and got off, I told Mike that he should do the right thing by kicking fuck out of Ratboy the minute he stepped off the train at Briton Ferry. I got off the train absolutely fuming with rage that I had been too much of a pussy to get up and just kick Ratboy in the throat, but felt some comfort in knowing that Mike was going to tear him apart. I have taken the liberty of illustrating the path of the train to highlight the point where Ratboy's life was hopefully cut short or where he was hopefully paralysed, shitting his pants in a wheelchair for the rest of his days.



That's the difference between people like me and Mike. I talk about wanting to batter someone for doing something that is extremely questionable by anyone's standards, but he goes out there and actually does it. I think I know who is the dick in this equation. I'll give you a hint. It's me.

Future Of The Left at Clwb 28/01/10

Last night was probably the third show that I have been to so far this year due to a lack of funds and generally trying to find new ways of getting drunk on the cheap. I had made the sensible choice of buying a ticket for the show a couple of days before because I thought that it would most likely sell out. A few of my friends who wanted to go didn't think of buying tickets for ages and when they got round to it, it was too late and tickets were sold out.
This wouldn't be the first time I've gone and watched a band play by myself so I shouldn't have been bothered. However, I had a horrible feeling like I could have shit my pants at any minute and wanted to throw up in the face of whoever happened to be sitting closest to me on the train. This problem was compounded by the fact that I decided to make and eat a vegetarian chilli before leaving the house.
On top of the fact that I was generally feeling pretty shitty anyway, I got even more angry by some fucking mongoloid at Neath train station who had decided to put up this professionally composed sign to customers.



Why the fuck do people have such a weak grasp of basic literacy? Why do people capitalise random words that don't need to be capitalised? There are obviously some exceptions to this rule. For example, if I wanted to say, 'The person who wrote this must have been a right cunt', it would be acceptable for 'cunt' to be written as 'Cunt', because you have to be a cunt with a capital C to make signs like this one.
After getting to Cardiff, I sat on my own in a classy Wetherspoons establishment for a while. There was some drunk, biker-looking guy who was generally in a bit of a state who I watched for a while. He dropped a pound coin then spent about two minutes looking around for it even though it was right behind him. I got bored of this very quickly, finished my drink and left. By the time I got to Clwb, Solutions had already played and Right Hand Left Hand were just finishing up their set. I have seen RHLH play at least a thousand times before and find their brand of loop based buffoonery to be interesting for a short while, but I usually become quite bored with it pretty quickly. I wish I had seen Solutions play because their album is pretty good and I haven't seen them before.
Future Of The Left came onto the stage, called everyone in the crowd a cunt and set the tone for the rest of their set. For anyone who doesn't know. FOTL are made up of ex members of defunct Cardiff legends mclusky and Ammanford's Jarcrew. The band has been touring constantly since releasing their second album and this really shows. They tore though songs from both of their albums with a couple of highlights being 'Small Bones Small Bodies' and 'You Need Satan More Than He Needs You'.
Even though the band and the songs are awesome, a huge part of their set is abusing people in the crowd who leave themselves wide open to it. One guy got told that he looked like a fat version of Kelson's brother and got referred to as 'my fat friend'. People wearing hats indoors were also mocked and lots of other stuff I can't remember because I was drunk and my memory doesn't stretch back to remembering all of last night. Some guy from the crowd kept shouting stuff at the band between the songs that made little or no sense and eventually he decided to get on the stage and get in their face.
This went on for a short time before he got back into the crowd and literally got his arse kicked before being escorted out by the bouncers. What a fucking mug. He got marched straight past me on his way out, which gave me the chance to get a better look at him and realise it was the drunk biker-looking guy from the pub earlier on. How exciting.
I had to miss my train home because the set ran on but I didn't really care because I would rather be drinking and watching a band than sitting at home arguing with my parents over what to watch on TV. Yes, I'm 25 years old and I have to live with my parents. Overall, a pretty good set from FOTL and to anybody who reads this and doesn't already know, the band has announced another show downstairs in the same venue tonight (29/01/10) and you can get in for a fiver if you saw them last night. Also, I managed to make it home without shitting myself, which can only be a good thing.

Diet Pills, Smiler and Brandyman at Buffalo Bar Cardiff 19/01/10

Last night saw the first show put on by Lesson No.1 of the new decade and they set the benchmark pretty high.
Brandyman were first to play and anticipation for them was pretty high as the room had filled up early on in the evening. There aren't any recordings available for this band but I really wanted to see them because they are something of a Cardiff supergroup (I know, I hate using that term too). One of their guitarists has been involved with a few different bands over the years, most recently Truckers Of Husk and most notably, FTSE 100. Their other guitarist played for Joy Of Sex and their vocalist is none other than Cardiff publican, northern lunatic and Gindrinker vocalist, DC Gates.
With the calibre of musicians involved I was expecting good things but had no idea of what they would sound like. After seeing them play I'm still finding it hard to put my finger on how to describe their sound. The general consensus is that they rocked and there were lots of big riffs, some tricky time changes and some surprising vocals from DC. In Gindrinker, he talks in an angry northern drawl but with Brandyman he was closer to singing. It was definitely good to see him freed up from some of the restraints that come from being in a band with a minimal set up (Gindrinker) to try something quite different. There were some technical issues after the third song involving a destroyed guitar amp that stopped the pace of the show a bit so when the fourth and final song had started, some of their energy had been lost.
I still think that it was a really good set and some comments describing the band as being similar to ZZ Top made sense in the respect that they rocked hard. I thought they sounded kind of similar to Helmet in parts but I'm sure I'll be hearing a lot more from them over the next few months. Definitely ones to watch.
After a short break where we went out to the beer garden and discussed cheap ways to get drunk, (mainly involving sucking urinal cakes covered in drunk people's piss, which we decided to name 'Piss Jubblys') we headed back upstairs to watch Smiler. They are a band who have some members who have been involved in other bands such as George Annihilation And The Legion Of Hate and Makeshift Truth. After the relative complexity of Brandyman, Smiler were happy to just play as fast and hard as possible at high volume.
The band was pretty basic, flat out punk/powerviolence that didn't disappoint me. The songs mainly clocked in at a couple of minutes each and followed the same sort of formula: All play very fast, shout a lot and be angry about stuff in the world that is shit. One of the songs that stood out was about hating the BNP, which every self respecting human being should do and the lyrics were something about not being a 'racist cunt'. Haven't really got anything bad to say about the band, they sounded exactly as I would have expected them to and even threw in a cover of 'Rise Above' by Black Flag.
Last up were Diet Pills, who are a band who I didn't really know anything about apart from that they come from Leicester, which is probably one of my least favourite cities in the UK and that they had been compared to Neurosis and The Jesus Lizard.
From the minute they first started playing there was a menacing amount of volume and density and I knew I was going to like this band a lot. Their sound was really sludgy in parts and very bass heavy, which is never a bad thing. Their singer was a small guy who seemed pretty unhinged and threw himself around at the front of the stage keeping the first row of the audience at a distance with the threat of being smashed in the mouth by a swinging arm or head. Vocally, he reminded me of Mike from Racebannon or David Yow from the Jesus Lizard, with a high pitched screaming and tortured style.
The songs worked well from being a combination of slow, sludgy parts that felt like they were repeatedly hitting you with a hammer and other quiter and more eerie parts that actually reminded me of some parts of the first Khanate album. The set did seem to be over all too quickly but the band really blew me away by being a pretty unique prospect. I picked up their demo CD, a split CD they did with The Ergon Carousel and their 7" that was put out by Force Fed Records for less than a fiver. Unfortunately, I dropped the demo CD on the train home and somebody stole it rather than giving it back to me. At least I can take some comfort in knowing that some retard from the valleys may have gone home drunk, put the CD on and got his mind raped.
Here are some links to everyone involved with the show.
http://www.lessonnumberone.blogspot.com/ Who regularly put on most of the gigs worth going to in Cardiff and Newport.
http://uhoh-watson.blogspot.com/ Ian Watson, who made the awesome flyer for the show.
http://www.myspace.com/dietpillsband Listen to Diet Pills here and order stuff from them.
http://www.myspace.com/smileruk Listen to Smiler here.

What's the point?

I have no idea why I have decided to start this blog or what is going to be written on here but I'm sure the next time I leave the house I'll get angry at something and hopefully it will amuse, entertain or sicken you when I detail it on here.

I will probably put up some reviews of shows I have been to see and possibly some album reviews or stuff I think people should listen to when I figure out how to operate this new fangled technology.

Good day.