mick mercer
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "mick mercer" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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11:50 am
[Link] | All being well THE MICK 50 will be finished this weekend with La Peste Negre, Collide, (((S))), Zeitgeist Zero, Phoenix Marie, Deathcamp Project, El Clan, Philip Butler, Will Dance For Chocolate, Action Directe, Screaming Banshee Aircrew and Zombina & The Skeletones. A classic! (Scarlet Leaves sent me their answers and pics as a .rar zipped file. I did try changing the .rar to a .zip but that didn’t work. Can anyone do .rar files if I sent it to them and you sent it back as docs and jpegs?)
And THE MICK 52, also up this month, will have at least The Last Cry, The Eden House, Adoration, Black Tape For a Blue Girl, The Exploding Boy, Mark Sinnis, Hanging Doll, UK Decay and about half a dozen more who can’t be accurately confirmed as I am also sending out the interviews for two issues in January so it’s all happening. I can reveal I am looking at Resist, Dead Guitars, Fixion, In Auroram, The Spiritual Bat, Rising Shadows/Fredrik Klingwall, Tot Licht, The Dirge Carolers, The Ghost Effect, The Silence Kit, Another Species, Feeding Fingers, Tenebrarum, The Common Men, Ad Ombra and Life In Sodom.
But I still want more LJ readers to add their own contributions to the Xmas Issue, THE MICK 51. Reaction to that has been too slow so please do contribute. Send your answers (with a jpeg of yourself if you have one, although that isn’t essential) by Friday (I have extended the deadline) to
mercermick at hotmail dot com
and here are those questions again:
XMAS PAST: What are your favourite, or least pleasant memories of Christmas past – what do you love best about the period, what do you shy away from?
XMAS PRESENT: What do you remember as your best ever present, and the weirdest or most unwanted?
XMAS FUTURE: What are your plans this year?
XMAS GHOST STORY: What is the spookiest thing ever to have happened to you? (The more revelations the better, as the Ghost section always proves to be the most unusual).
It will only take you ten minutes, unless you have a particularly juicy ghost story. Either way, it’s a good thing to do while you’re at work.
Cheers!
Mick
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11:50 pm
[Link] | http://www.myspace.com/thesingingman - careful now. That's The Shend in disguise.
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10:51 pm
[Link] | 
ANIMALS AND MEN
SOME SONGS
WFMU
It’s not actually called ‘Some Songs’ I don’t think it has a title. Ralph sent me these and they’re ridiculous charming songs which have been placed online free with the ‘Convulsive’ EP from earlier this year. So head off to the Free Music Archive and you can have them, gratis.
‘Just A Dot’ is pure string-thin punk, with flyaway bass and some cheekily brilliant clipped vocals. ‘I Never Worry 09’ is wonderful, gently vibrant but also steady as a truculent rock. Susan sounds about eight but can’t distract me from that harmonica being Beatlesish! (‘Love Me Do’, or whatever it’s called?) ‘(I’ve Been Bitten By The) Bug’ is hilarious. I think the spoken intro has that deadpan effect of Peter Cook as a judge reading Beatles lyrics, although it may be unintentional. The band were doing a gig in Lyon and had a chance to try a few things, which is why these six songs got recorded. ‘Oh Death!’ is something traditional, or was until they do their par-boiled, somewhat detached version which at times makes the grim experiences within the lyrics sound curiously cheerful. It’s weird. ‘Dragon Fly’ is rangey and well mannered, chirpy punk, like they’re tight-ropewalking simultaneously. ‘Easy Riding’ keeps the vocals bright, the guitar sedate but busy and the rhythm a bit grumblier.
You need to get the punk simplicity of their work, but surely only some muso covered in moss wouldn’t? Then away you go.
http://www.myspace.com/animalsandmenterraplanes
http://freemusicarchive.org then search for Animals & Men (not Animals And Men).
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09:34 pm
[Link] | No review tonight, too busy on THE MICK. All being well it's three issues this month, two normal and the Xmas one. Due to the year being so shite, due to reasons not worth going into, I know I'll finally be on track for a proper monthly schedule next year but I want to ensure I manage to interview all the bands whose records I enjoyed most this year, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's two issues in January as well, just to get everything up to date. That's all being dealt with right now, but the XMAS ISSUE needs some fresh input. So if any readers of this journal have never contributed to the Xmas issue before, or have new contributions they wish to make for certain questions then please feel free to send me them.
The questions remain the same, or it wouldn't be a tradition. They are:
1) XMAS PAST: What does Christmas mean to you, what do you cherish most about it, what do you look forward to, or want to hide from?
2) XMAS PRESENT: What's the best, worst or weirdest present you have ever received?
3) XMAS FUTURE: This year's plans? (The issue comes out before the great day.)
4) XMAS GHOST STORY: Please share your spookiest experience(s) ever. The more detailed the better as that section always yields some odd surprises.
Please send to my email (behind the cut) making it clear how you wish to be named, and attaching a jpeg of yourself if you have one you like, but a picture isn't essential.
( Read more... )
And in case no-one's said it yet, Happy Christmas.
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11:33 pm
[Link] | 
LOS CARNICEROS DEL NORTE
POE IS DEAD EP
Zorch – free download
Neither a hunter nor a gatherer be, my old gran never used to say to me, and yet I gather this free download is available as a limited edition CD too, details of which can be found nestling in the band’s myspace blog. For the rest of us freeloading bastards there’s the download.
‘El Gato Negro’ is as sober as it is sombre Goth with some twilight twinkles. Very steady, very pretty and vocally mysterious, with a swilling rhythm and subtly thrilling guitar.
Sensitively seared ‘El Cuervo’ scuttles around dementedly, a bit like Theatre Of Hate in an asylum (may contain nuts), and you have to love that heartbeat bass. ‘La Mascara de la Muerte Roja’ is less interesting being too relaxed and strolling to little effect, but the lugubrious drowning carnivalesque ‘El Pozo y el Pendulo’ works well, the doomy piano and angry guitar anxious behind the straighter vocal and the end is very strange.
No idea what they’re singing about, but it’s well worth nabbing.
http://www.zorchfactoryrecords.com/loscarnicerosdelnorte
http://www.myspace.com/loscarnicerosdelnorte
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03:51 pm
[Link] | In keeping with the real Christmas spirit, here is a more than worthy cause, helping someone you may already know.
http://helpphoenix.teapoweredphoto.com/
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06:05 pm
[Link] | Chris Limb has re-designed my website, go see! - http://www.mickmercer.com – where there’s now a total of 29 exclusive books available (to make that perfect unwanted xmas gift), with details of their contents and a direct link to Lulu. I also have a basic Links section to which I will add people who have actual websites (not just a myspace page) who pop me in theirs. That seems fair.
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10:11 pm
[Link] | 
MOSKOW
CRESCENT STUDIOS DEMOS
Bristol Archive Records
Here’s a weird one, and it is odd, when you check the biog details and somewhere Dave Luckhurst seems to have vanished, who I know was in the band and should still have been there when these demos were recorded, during November 1978. Also in this picture you will see Trevor Tanner (then Trevor Flynn) and Jan Kalicki, both bound for The Bolshoi.
‘Man From UNCLE’ was always one of my favourites of the perkier post-punk no hit wonders - I still have it somewhere - but here it’s a curiously joyless exercise, brash drums, droll bass and bunged up vocals with a few subdued guitar sprays. ‘Where’s Daddy’ has some very unusual, cheeky lyrics between spells of nimble guitar and certainly keeps you guessing.
“And again fatty…” introduces ‘Dining Is An Emotion’, which does appear weight-related as the constipated song lolls quietly. ‘Name, Rank And Number’ is a drab spot of anti-militaristic tonguery-pokery, and that’s it
Weird.
http://bristolarchiverecords.com
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08:48 pm
[Link] | 
FADING COLOURS
COME
Big Blue Records
A curious band, Fading Colours long ago left the flushed Goth sounds they did so well and, as the press release admits, have gone to investigate trip hop, trance, ambient and oriental styles, but who hasn’t, let’s face it? The cold edge is still there in their sound, no matter widely styles move, and it’s rarely still enough for trance/ambient, too electronica-rock for any triphop sensitivity. Instead it’s a bleary, gritty 2CD set divided into the two presumed states. The first is called ‘I Had To Come’, the second, shorter disc ‘Time Of Returning.’
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/fadingcolours
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11:34 pm
[Link] | 
VARIOUS ARTESANS
FRESH GOTH MESS
KS
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kid_sportswear knows a thing or ten about unruly, quintessentially nosiy bastards, and he’s thrown a variety together here in the belief it represents a gathering close to the finest Goth spirit, but without the social stigma, which is an interesting concept. He doesn’t realise that having veered off to investigate the Art-Punk-Indie (translation: tuneless timewasters)/Dance-Hippy (translation: Hippies dancing) vortex he is now slowly being assimilated, drawn back into the richer, darker world. You can jog, but you can’t hide.
It ends up as a 2CD set, and here we go. Eyes down for a haunted house. (Do bingo jokes work outside the UK?)
( Read more... )
http://www.mediafire.com/?qqjmlkyizzm
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10:38 pm
[Link] | LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
SPOILER!
( Read more... )
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01:12 am
[Link] |  
THE MUMBLES
THE DUST LEFT BEHIND
Mumbling Release
When I first wrote about this band I was shocked by the lack of interest, which bordered on derisive suspicion. They bravely announce themselves on their business card as Gothic Orientated Piano Rock, which is far more modern and interesting as a concept than the majority of bands around. It seems quite obvious to me that if a band is using vocals and keyboards without any reliance on familiar crowd-pleasing norms and forms they need to have great songs to even force their heads above the surface. The Mumbles have plenty of great songs and while it may seem a relaxing variant on Gawf with a drum machine, it’s not really that either. James Ward and Robert Cowlin are coming out of a different drainage system, as close at times to Cult With No Name as they are Goth standards, but in their weirdly modest way they’re close to the album of the year here. So I wasn’t going senile, thank you, you simply weren’t paying attention.
( Read more... )
http://www.themumblesofficial.vze.com
http://www.myspace.com/themumblesofficial
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01:08 am
[Link] | 
THE RESONANCE ASSOCIATION
CLARITY IN DARKNESS
Mrs Vee Recordings
They’re back again, the DD brotherhood of two, Daniel (Vincent) and Dominic (Hemy), with more of a noise catalogue for you to pick from, and it proves to be quite a challenging selection. ‘Dangerous Fantasist’ is quite the gutsy post-punk post-punk firmament and but for the guitar frag grenade dispersement of impact and the waywardly weird synth contributions this would rival anything Big Black did, which shows what a pummelling they can give your unworthy ears. And lo, the scene doth shift again, widening, and they have calmed the maelstrom.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/theresonanceassociation
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01:13 am
[Link] | Lynda has a serious Mac problem in that the screen froze and now there’s just a whirry driver noise, the screen remaining white except for a grey folder icon with a white question mark on it. The PC World bloke reckons the drive is dead and as she's covered it will be okay, but do Mac owners know if data retrieval from a dead drive is usually quite good? She has tons of downloaded music files she's bought as backing tracks for her SL concerts. We're hoping she can get those saved if nothing else
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09:58 pm
[Link] | A few bits and bobs on ebay this week. Check the Other Items at your leisure. Cheers!
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380179643907&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT
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12:19 am
[Link] | 
PHALLUS DEI
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF BRIAN WILSON
Big Blue Records
A delightfully absorbent album (as you settle into the curious company it provides), this is made by Mk. E, Richard Van Kruysdijk and Oliver St. Lingam, who I gather are from Strange Attractor and Sonar Lodge, aided and abetted by didgeridooist Alex Goebbels and vocalists John Walker (of the Walker Brothers!) and Clara Engel, who you may know (translation don’t ask me). Apparently they’re named after an Amon Dull album, but don’t let that put you off.
( Read more... )
http://www.phallusdei.com
http://www.myspace.com/phallusdei
http://www.myspace.com/claraengel
http://www.myspace.com/walkerbrotherssjg
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12:34 am
[Link] | 
THIS WINDOW
CASSETTE CULTURE 1989 - 2009-11-20
m4tr
Like father like son, he triumphantly assessed. Peter Bright, the This Window fulcrum, passes the power to his son Jake to remix! There’s trust for you! Of course if it gets screwed up Peter gets the chance to sneer, ‘kids today!’ with added authority.
( Read more... )
http://www.m4tr.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/thiswindow
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08:58 pm
[Link] | Firefox problem - advice please.
Trying to use myspace today it simply says, in that charmless way it has, Upgrade Browser and won't allow me to progress further. I run Firefox 3.0 as that still works with Windows 98SE, yet I gather Firefox 3.5 won't? (I downloadfed 3.5 and when I tried opening it I get a Setup box that says I have performed an illegal operation, like a backstreet abortionist of bygone days.)
Any other browsers out there I can use, which will accept 98SE and allow me into Myspace with no problem? Your bad news will be gratefully considered.
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11:26 pm
[Link] | 
VARIOUS
MESSTHETICS #107
Hyped 2 Death
Sometimes the links are quite weird on these brilliant compilations, and the geographical (London) and label (Dining Out/Eustone) structures are inextricably entwined. The hideous and almost pointless ramble that Stepping Talk provide with ‘Common Problems’, which is half-baked indie art strung between Raincoats and Scritti Politti, has something to do with a label that Methodishca Tune also appeared on, just as several of these bands have shared members. It’s a mad, mad world.
( Read more... )
http://www.hyped2death.com
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11:44 pm
[Link] | 
THE GHOST EFFECT
LIFE IS NO CABARET
Own Label
They haven’t found a label so they’re making this available themselves and it’s the sort of aggressively, itchily exciting noir record anyone should be proud to clasp to their bosom, while busily knocking the grasping hands lf envious friends away. Yes, it’s glorious. ‘My Black Regrets’ is brightly encouraging to begin with, Evil Moon’s guitar ascending, Herr Adler’s bass and drumming (allegedly courtesy of Arnolfo degli Arnolfo) firmly rooted, then the woe-drenched singer voices her concerns before they all tumble into a dizzy chorus which will have you delirious. Turin’s finest shroud.
( Read more... )
http://www.myspace.com/theghosteffect
http://www.myspace.com/radioeffectradiospace
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