Rath, the Ghost of the Navigator

Saucermen! RUN AWAAAAAY!

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:48:33 GMT

(lj)oml404 told me this last night but I only just got around to checking the internet for details - Goteki have reformed! I am stupidly happy about this. Apparently, they had as much fun at their one-off show in London as I and the rest of the audience did. ^____^

New songs. More gigs! Gotekiiiiiiii! *strings self with party lights in celebration and races away to dig the CDs back out of the top of the stack, waving arms gleefully*

(Also, have the Myspace page open in the other tab and the onboard player just randomly spun up Shinjuku Lullaby. ♥)

Laters,
Rath

Forthcoming attractions

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:01:35 GMT

Mostly for zeldenthuis, but if you need a Navigatorsghost:

September:
Fri 5th - seeing Oliver
Sat 6th - Monk's party
Sun 7th - laundry and domestic issues
Mon 8th - collecting lookingforsigns, Mark's place for Unforgiven
Tue 9th-Thu 11th - unbooked so far
Fri 12th-Sat 13th - reserved for keeping Oliver company if he wants it
Sun 14th - Birmingham NEC for Games Day
Mon 15th-Tue 16th- unbooked so far
Wed 17th-Thu 18th - reserved for zeldenthuis and Hellboy II viewing
Fri 19th - Paradise Lost/Anathema/My Dying Bride in London with Oliver et al
Sat 20th - Mikki's birthday movie/poker party
Sun 21st-Tue 30th - unbooked so far

Note that I do have a copy-edit and a proofread to do in the next week to two weeks, so will be quite busy, but can probably spare the odd evening...

Laters,
The Navigator

Oh, what?

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:38:51 GMT

Further to this (pertaining to hexed weather), this (pertaining to frankly abominable weather).

Happy now, Carlyon? I hope your house floods and all that you love gets soggy.

Laters,
Rath

(PS For the atheists reading from the LJ feed, this is nothing to do with actually believing that there is a causal link between these events, and entirely to do with this demonstrating why I hate self-righteous pricks. He wanted this to happen and us all to be damp and miserable just because he's got a bee in his bonnet? He's a twat, regardless of whether his actions had any effect on the weather whatsoever...)

I can't get over the background detailing, sometimes.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:38:50 GMT

The world is so amazing.

I got caught in a magnificent, flash-flood rainstorm on my way from Downing to Kynesim HQ earlier today. That in itself would have been fine, only I was wearing heavy jeans and boots that are no longer watertight, and consequently I'm soaked and taking ages to dry.

I'm sitting on the sofa in KHQ, with the laptop on my soggy lap. The fronts of my kneejoints are cold, where a draught from the open windows is blowing across the wet denim clinging to them. I can feel the heat from the laptop soaking into my thighs in weird patterns depending on exactly how much pressure it's exerting on different bits of musculature. I can smell warm, damp canvas.

And when you think about it in terms of detailing, that's just incredible. I mean, an author who remembered to put in that level of accuracy about exactly what it feels like to be drying out in the office after a storm when you can't change your clothes, would be considered a great writer. A game designer who programs their worlds with that much passing, plot-irrelevant detail without sacrificing gameplay is deemed a star. And yet the universe just naturally has that much random gratuitous data in it and more, and when you think about it, isn't that awesome?

I love the world. I even quite like the smell of wet denim. ^_^

Laters,
The Navigator

[Magic] One for the pagan types...

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:59:17 GMT

Just saw this via (lj)nevla: Senior witch curses Ely's Cromwell re-enactment bash.

Is it just me, or is telling the local news that you're going to make it piss with rain on a local educational event setting yourself up quite spectacularly in several directions at once? Especially when you're a self-proclaimed White Witch? See, this is why I don't trust the forces of Right and Good. They think that as long as they're convinced of their own righteousness they can do anything and still call themselves Good, and that worries me because it's exactly the same thinking as led to the witch-burnings he's allegedly protesting about. *mutters* No better than the Christian priest (twat!) who I met once, who proudly told me how he'd sprinkled holy water in the venue before an Inkubus Sukkubus gig to "protect" the audience...

Laters,
The Navigator

Wait, what was that thought?

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:13:26 GMT

So I was walking through town last night and spotted a double-decker bus with an advert on the side, as you see around English towns. My brain registered black, white, gold; sleek, hard, action-movie lines; a title, the face of the man at the bottom of the image. Thought process that followed went something like:

"Ooh, Bangkok Dangerous, must make sure I don't miss that... heh, I like that tagline.^[1] And ooh, Nic Cage is kinda hot in that shot - wait, what?"

*headdesk* Seriously, brain. I didn't even fancy Nic Cage when he was playing Johnny Blaze, for gods' sakes! Why now? What IS it about me and asdfghj long hair on guys?!

[1]A movie about a professional assassin with the tagline "It's all in the execution" is always going to have me on-side from the word go. Me and most of the voices in my head, for that matter. ^_^

*** Meanwhile, in other much more important news, I have a mysterious silver shiny in the post! And evidence suggests that this may be the fault of princess_kessie - thank you hon! *huggles* It's beautiful. ^_^ ***

And now, to work, wishing all the while that someone would come round, sweep me off my feet and take me out to lunch. I'm feeling a little worn down at the moment, not to mention hungry. Where's my handsome Prince of Darkness when I need one?

Laters,
The Navigator

This is Death, and yet I live again...

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:09:12 GMT

It is... quarter to two, AM. Just spent a contented hour or so on my latest fic, "White Flowers" - which I will not be able to show to hardly anyone, because I know only a few people who would get it and most of them would kill me for writing it, but just working on it is making me happy anyway. Also been listening to the infamous Nordic Metal Euronymous tribute compilation and remembering exactly how much crystal-cold, razor-edged joy really good Black Metal gives me. The opening main riff of Dissection's Elizabeth Bathori makes me feel like I've just been punched in the chest from the inside and it's so glorious that it makes me want to leap to my feet and stand on the edge of a really high place and scream at the sky. This is Darkness, this is pure, this is slaughter, this is war: this is Life denied and stripped away and in Death I live again!

Actually it's only a day late for this post, then; since it was two years ago yesterday that Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection was found dead by his own hand in a circle of lit candles, having left, among other things, the explanation that he was going to Transylvania. I think I have an idea of what he meant, and where he went. I hope he found everything there as he wanted it to be.

So, *raises glass*: To the victorious dead! May they not so much rest in peace, but instead ride free to carry on with the battles of their choosing from here to eternity. See you on the other side I hope, you who I never had the fortune to meet on this one!

Hails,
The Navigator

The Navigator's Scrapbook, #2

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:00:23 GMT

I had a dream last night that I was in the middle of nowhere with a few people I know, and we were looking up at the sky and I saw what must have been a million million shooting stars all at once. It was as though the whole sky had always been one great dome of clear glass, and someone had smashed it and all the pieces were falling at once. I don't know why I dreamed that, but I'm just posting it because it's the kind of image you want to remember.

Having mentioned that... the rest of this post will now consist of stuff I want to show to everyone. In no particular order:

I've just discovered Tiny Ghosts. This is a strange little photocomic that isn't really "comic", but a sequence of little thought-provoking two-sentence stories. Mental jumping points, if you will. Some of it is a little too sentimental for my taste (the anti-war ones and the more mawkish romantic ones in particular sometimes cross the line) but the more macabre, weird or just plain leftfield ones are great. This one in particular struck me with some nameless sense of realisation, and left me looking round like I'd just seen the world slip sideways an inch; this one feels awfully believable; this one is sheer poetry.

I think my absolute favourite has, though, to be this one.

Meanwhile, also in the department of visual arts, I was talking to Koi while it was sitting with its graphics tablet the other night, and asked "draw me something Black Metal?" The result? This, which is absolutely awesome though you may have to adjust your screen brightness a bit to actually see it, looking at how it's come out on the work monitor. ¬.¬ Thank you Koi!

Finally, I've been haunted of late by a piece of music. I was in the cinema and caught the trailer for Babylon AD, and my ears instantly pricked up and I went "I know that piece, where do I know it from?" My brain distantly pinged a flag that said Sunshine, and, yes, it's the same piece of music that was on the trailer for that! It turns out to be called Lux Aeterna, and has appeared in about a million different guises on various movie soundtracks/trailers including Requiem for a Dream and, apparently, a trailer for The Two Towers. It's also on Youtube, where it's been used as a songvid piece for every remotely heroic/depressing fandom you can think of. Seriously, have a listen to a few of the versions. It's a gorgeous, spectral piece with a refrain that makes me think for some reason of the mirror scene at the end of Prince of Darkness - it sounds to me like a key, like a song that if played in the right place at the right moment could unlock our reality and create a gateway to another one. One where there's something that really, really wants to be on our side of the gate... and that we really, really don't want here, even if we don't know about it yet. I have no idea why this song affects me like this, but...

Okay, post long enough for now...

Laters,
The Navigator

[Screenstuff] 3:10 to Yuma, Fearless, and other strange things from the haunted fishtank.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:02:33 GMT

Just watched 3:10 to Yuma with (lj)oml404 and I honestly can't recommend it highly enough. It's a classic Western of the old school, beautifully shot, laden with character and that special kind of controlled emotion that the genre does so well. Short version of the premise: a crippled war veteran whose ranch is on the verge of repossession volunteers, in exchange for the money that can save his family, to help escort a captured outlaw to the "3:10 to Yuma", the prison train that will take him up to his execution, and the long and convoluted road there causes both men to reassess their own ideas of honour, courage and loyalty. Both Christian Bale as burned-out good guy Dan Evans and Russell Crowe as charismatic, blackhearted villain Ben Wade turn in magnificent performances, and the ending moved me to the brink of tears. I won't say more because it's one I'd honestly rather people saw than were spoilered for, but it's wonderful. See it!

We followed that up with Jet Li's Fearless, which while it doesn't grab me so hard as some of the Chinese epics I've seen is certainly pretty good. It doesn't quite have the emotional intensity of things like House of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - mostly, I suspect, because Jet Li's acting honestly isn't all that - but any great martial arts movie should stand or fall on its fight scenes, and in that regard Fearless delivers and how. (Although at a couple of moments I admit I was thinking "dude, this is actually just ancient and honourable Chinese version of the WWE, isn't it?")

And finally, while we're talking videology - Youtube blindsided me this morning with one of the more startling things I've ever found on it. This is an old bit of camcorder footage from a Mayhem rehearsal, back in 1990 when both Euronymous and Dead were still in the band. I clicked this with interest, having seen a snippet of the footage before, and for a moment I thought it was actually some kind of joke - because - oh, just click it and you'll see. The opening segment looks like one of those dream sequences from some feelgood family movie, or possibly a Timotei advert. Like it couldn't possibly have less to do with the lords of true necro Black Metal.

Except of course it isn't a joke, it's a real clip. Boys and girls, Per Yngve "Dead" Ohlin, singer for Mayhem and Morbid, suicide victim at the age of twentyone, legend of the Black Metal scene - and someone who got himself caught on camera, out of all the poses he could have been throwing, like that. Flowers in his hair, no less. Laughing in the sunshine and then ducking into the shade to join his friends and pick up the mic and sing his heart out like the world would never end. If someone had written that sequence into a Mayhem fanfic they'd have been crucified for OOC, and it's real. I love that.

(I know most of you won't know or care what this is about, or why it affects me so much - but for the two or three people who will, there you go. Inner Circle Kodak moment, just for you guys. *s*)

Laters,
The Navigator

PS - and for the one person who might want to know this, keep watching that Mayhem video if you've ever wanted a good look at Hellhammer's nipples. Seriously, I have no idea what was going on there. O_O

-N.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 10:14:40 GMT

I'm sitting on a Saturday morning, installing software on my laptop, downloading old Vond albums from Rapidshare, and listening to Mortiis's The Grudge while I wait for Koi to get up and watch Hellraiser: Hell on Earth with me. (Yes, downloading is the root of all evil; no, my chances of picking up proper copies of the albums in question are fuck-all and they'll be second-hand anyway if I do. I will if I can.) I'm decidedly unused to this kind of mixture of privacy and free time. Usually, these days, I'm either with someone else, working, or trying to sleep. Frequently all three at once. >.>

*muses* Late-era Mortiis is actually quite uneasy listening. It's always difficult to listen to something that raw when it's got that much pain and honesty screaming through it... it's like Nine Inch Nails or Type O Negative only a lot worse because I've always genuinely cared about Mortiis. There's not much more lame, I know, than wishing you could reach out to someone who's got far more fans and fame than you have, because you know you'd never get close to them without them thinking you're just another fan - but that doesn't stop me, however cliched it be, from poring over Secrets Of My Kingdom and the lyrics of the albums and thinking "yes, that, and I wish I could tell you to your face that I know it's all true!"

In other news, Koi has discovered to its amusement that I can be rendered absolutely harmless and turned into a ball of fluff by the simple process of picking up my plushie skeleton and animating it in my general direction. Try it yourself next time you visit me and watch the result, I gather it's extremely entertaining.

[Update: Koi has come down, flopped next to me, and glomped my arm. Typing this left handed. Laters...]

The Navigator

Can't - get - no - sleep.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:18:15 GMT

For once, I did NOT ask to be awake at five in the morning. But I am. Also I think I have found the song I want to slice my own ribcage open for so I can tuck it into the cavity of my heart and never be without it. Song in question is Goteki's Shinjuku Lullaby, as if everything they've already done to me over the years wasn't enough, now there's this and it's so much of the truth and beauty of this perfect fucking perfect world that... I don't have words, and I just typoed that as "I don't have worlds", which is not right at all because the problem is more that I have too many of those. Every time I think it can't get betterworsewhatever it does, and every time is one more step towards an ultimate mystery that's an infinite number of steps away and somehow, all the same, this is progress.

...oh, and then there's a remix which may actually be more beautiful and therefore hurt more than the original. I think I want to die. Please. Now, quietly, lying in a gutter in the grey before the dawn, with the sky turning silver-blue between the tops of the skyscrapers and the gulls calling above, and this song playing in my ears. Maybe that way I'd rest in peace. I almost think I would.

(Not suicidal, btw. Just want to die this way. Not the same thing. Don't worry.)

The Navigator, staring at the sky and watching the neons blinking...

Okay, bring on the Judas Priest jokes...

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:24:09 GMT

I usually don't have much (any) time for Christian metal, but even I have to sit up at the idea of a Capuchin friar, aged 62, fronting a metal band.

This is fantastic. The guy's not even preaching from the stage, or at least he alleges not to be. He's just a former missionary and member of a holy order who caught heavy metal and decided he had to be part of it. There are no words for how much glee I feel at this - it certainly provides good evidence for my belief that if you have metal in your blood you will find your way to it, no matter how long or circuitous or downright bizarre the route. ^_^

And, this? The fact that I'm amazed to hear something so open-minded from a Christian is probably a damning reflection on Christianity's spokespeople in general, but:

"I never did it to preach, I did it because music is beautiful ... If I want to convert people, I simply want to convert them to life, to welcome life, to enjoy life ... I am religious and I am a priest but I am not doing this to convert people to Christ, to faith or the Church, but for them to try to understand life, to be able to enjoy it. Nothing more." - Friar Cesare Bonizzi

Yes. YES. Because what the hell else are you supposed to be doing up on that stage? Amen, brother!

Incredulously but frankly delightedly,
Rath

Do YOU need a new secret weapon?

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:47:57 GMT

Are your enemies sneering at your setpiece superpowers? Are your evil plans getting you chased out of town every time swearing that you'd have got away with it if not for those damn kids? Are you so utterly losing your power to terrify, control and appal that even a bunch of dodgy internet types in V for Vendetta masks can raise the populace to laugh heartily at you?

Well... get some earplugs and then pay attention, because I think I've just found the ultimate weapon of mind destruction, courtesy of the video screens in Chili's and Koi doing five seconds' work on Youtube:

Ladies, gentlemen, strange androgynous things, and evil creatures one and all, I give you: The Power Of Seventies Disco Gone Horribly Wrong! (aka, the video for Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip performing "I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper". I don't know which is harder to believe - that this exists, or that the singer was later mostly to be famous for being in Phantom of the Opera.)

And with that, goodnight, and I hope very much that all of you will be humming this and then hitting yourselves in the side of the head as much as I am for the rest of the week...

Laters,
Rath (with stylistic and compositional support from Dr Werner Wildstrom)

Dust in the throat

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:34:43 GMT

It just opened up outside and rained so hard for a few moments. I think it's still raining, though not as hard, as I just heard a crash of thunder. Guess who came out today in shirt sleeves and without her jacket?

I can tell I need regeneration, on some level, because I'm quietly praying that it will still be raining when I go out to walk home. Walking three miles in a summer storm sounds welcome, today.

Laters,
The Navigator

So we spread like fire, like fire burns the land
So we rise like steam... assemble
Assemble and command.

Things you hear in gay bars that you wouldn't hear anywhere else.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:31:20 GMT

So I was out with (lj)oml404 yesterday, and quite by accident we'd wound up in the neighbourhood's new gay bar (replacing the one down the road that closed the other week, apparently there is some law that there must always be one gay bar on that stretch of Newmarket Road). While I was getting drinks from the beautiful, confident-looking lass on the bar, a grinning chap just round the side of the bar from me - who'd apparently just done something impressive on the pool table, I think - broke out in a gleeful yell of "Who's your daddy?!"

I smiled. He turned to the barmaid, grinning all over his face. "Come on, who's your daddy?"

The barmaid grinned right back. "My wife!"

You could've heard a pin drop. You could also, distantly, hear muffled Rathgiggles. PWNED.

***

In other news, I gather I forgot to mention that I have yet another new journal, this one on Livejournal because I realised I needed something easier to find (and less full of total nonsense) than this one, to be my muso/band journal. So, over at (lj)faithinfire, you will now find plugs for Fire & Forget, reviews of gigs/albums/other stuff, and life-type posts such as are not too incriminating and might be of interest to someone who only knows me as "'er wot plays bass in Fire & Forget". The only thing currently in there is my review of the Iron Maiden gig last Saturday, but there will be more soon.

How is everyone today? I'm bored now, someone entertain me?

Cheers,
Rath x

Ladies and gentlemen, our fish.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:29:33 GMT

Last night in the Triadhouse living room:

Rath: *peering at a strangely moving bottle* Why is my booze wobbling?
Koi: Cos your bra isn't working properly?
Rath: ...X_X BOOZE, Koi, not boobs. My boobs are not wobbling.
Koi: Are you suuuure...?
Rath: *looks down* Nope, all quiet on the... *momentary pause for thought* ...front.
Koi: *speaking simultaneously* BREASTERN front. *evil grin*
Rath: ... XD >.< KOI-OIIII!
Mikki: *helpfully* Actually, Brest was a major sea port of naval importance in World War Two...

[followed by as many jokes as we could stand about the Assault on Brest, the Germans holding Brest, ad mammarium...]

Thank you, I'll be here all week... ~~save me.~~

Love,
Rath

YO MAMMA BELIEVES IN THE EVIL RUG!

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:21:14 GMT

Saw Wanted last night. I have... absolutely no idea what I thought. It's completely insane. ^_^

I definitely enjoyed it, because it's slick and grimy and beautiful and filled with breathtaking stunts and gorgeous cars and highly charged gun and knife play and the kind of lush, hot, breathless over-visualisation that Bekmambetov does so well; but I'm damned if I can tell you whether it's a good movie or not. And also, the words "evil rug" are going to be a feature of my memetic vocabulary for WEEKS. >.>

Meanwhile, my PC at work has started making a noise like an ailing flying saucer about to crashland five miles away. Should I be worried?

...and as I started typing this post, someone outside the window started up a barrage of light electro/trance complete with symphonic bleepy effects on what sounds like a concert-size PA. It's obviously THAT sort of day today.

How is everyone?

Laters,
The Navigator

Whitby WGW

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:41:39 GMT

*slumps in chair in weary relief* Done it. Me and the rest of the Fired & Forgettables are going to Whitby this October for a whole week (assuming personal circumstances don't intervene). Our lair will be a cottage with three (count 'em!) bedrooms and one sofa, though I can see me and (lj)oml404 having a very ugly fight over the room with the four-poster...

However, my first priority at this stage is to buy my mum a box of chocolates and a pot plant, since it was thanks to her that we got anywhere to stay at all (its sooooo helpful having kin who live round the corner from Whitby, hehehe.) She did the necessary ringing round; I just called up now to confirm the booking and pay the deposit. Right through the conversation, I could hear the gulls screaming outside the office window of the lady I was talking to. 'm jealous, now. One of the things on my perfect-life checklist will always be "must be able to hear/watch seagulls without having to move from seat/bed/desk."

But it's done, now. I'm going back to Whitby. I'm going home. And home will be full of pretty people in black and music and laughter, and it'll be Samhain, and I'll be with my band, and Wayne Hussey's allegedly headlining and it doesn't get much better than this. So. Happy.

...dammit, why am I crying? *s*

Laters,
Rath

Tracking my descent

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:07:17 GMT

For the benefit of those who stood by me and of those who had to go to bed - I'm not dead. Hello people. *s* Thank you so much (lj)fluffymormegil, (lj)oml404 (hope you're feeling better mate!), (lj)lonescorpion raisedbymoogles, deepbluesquee, lookingforsigns and lupie_stardust for all being there for me in one capacity and another.

So yeah, I got out of work at two thirty yesterday. That is, two thirty IN THE MORNING. It's quite bizarre, my IJ posts show off the descent of my brain quite neatly. First post is a simple "oh bugger, have to work late," unlocked. Second is a panicked plea for help, locked down to a few close friends. Third, completely private, is the draft of a very ill-advised email that I'm really glad I didn't send, from sometime around midnight. Oh dear.

This is your brain on copy-editing...

Laters,
Rath

No Raths today...

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:56:06 GMT

Because Rath is stuck at work and going to be here for a looooong time. O_O

Ah, well. I have, lessee... Live/Insanejournals, email, A-ha, Goteki, Sneaky Bat Machine, Rosetta Stone, Alphaville, Psyclon 9, Elusive, all the tap water I can drink and a bakewell tart to keep me going. Plus a sofa to sleep on if things go really wrong. See you... later?

(Anyone who leaves me comments, porn, songs on youtube, or other nice things will, however, be much loved. Thank you.)

Love and argh,
Rath

(I do like the "busy" mood icon in this set. Cityscapes are great even in mini pixel form. I'm picturing Deathwatch working late in his Manhattan office now... actually, that's cool, he can come over here and keep me headcompany while I work too. *yoink*)

The evil that men do lives after them... the good that men do is chronicled on blogging sites.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:22:06 GMT

Remember my post yesterday about that CD I couldn't afford and should've bought when (lj)oml404 got his copy?

Well, he only went and GAVE me his copy when he saw me last night. O____^ Not only that, but he also threw in another even rarer EP that I also love and didn't own for the same reason! Thank you so much mate!

It's funny to think that this kind of impulsive act of human kindness could come from the same guy who was responsible for this video blog post. Warning: funny, in a very sick way, but NSFW, NSFbrains, NSFanything, really. Though anyone who's ever been annoyed by a certain badfic trope may find this deeply hilarious - I won't say more for fear of spoilering.

Oh, and speaking of spoilering (or not), The Incredible Hulk is good, go see it if you fancy a fun four-star superhero movie; it would have had to be as powerful as Ang Lee's old version to rate a five, but I can't point to any actual flaws that would take it below a four (unless of course you count Liv Tyler, who can cost any movie a point off its rating just by wandering onscreen and who was clearly only there to provide slashproofing). Though speaking of slash, for those who enjoy such, it does have one of the best "...you didn't just say that" slanted sequences I've seen in a long time, between Emil Blonsky (here excellently portrayed by Tim Roth) and a minor cast member. I will say no more, but I honestly couldn't stop laughing. ^_^

So yeah, today is a good day, although I still need more sleep. How's everyone?

Love,
Rath xxx

It's going to be that sort of day

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:24:23 GMT

I just resisted buying a rare album I really, really want[1], even though it was the cheapest I'll probably ever see it. Because if I did, I wouldn't have enough money to get to the next paycheque and still be able to go to the Midsummer Fair. Which means that dammit, I AM going to the Fair now I've made such a horrible sacrifice to be able to do it. Who's going and which days?

And last night I dreamed I was wandering around Whitby with someone I actually fancy IRL (dear brain, that was the height of self-indulgence) and another person who I know I knew in the dream but can only remember now as a huge, hulking, sinister figure who I'd have been afraid of if they weren't an old friend. However, even my nice dreams manage to be disturbing, as witness the recurring motif of brown paper parcels with suspicious white powder in.

Oh, and then there was the bit where I and unknown-friend had to catch the demon cat-thing that was crawling into people's mouths and eating their insides. The part where I had to hold the ends of this furry aberration while my friend cut it in half was possibly the single most grotesque thing I've ever had to do even in my sleep. O_O

Meanwhile, the staircase outside my office smells as though someone has been raising undead cabbages from the grave. I don't think I'm eating at work today. *gag*

Laters,
The Navigator

[1] Five years ago, I could have picked it up for a tenner, and I didn't because (lj)oml404 had it. The moral of this is: no matter how much you love someone, always buy your own copy. *headdesk*

(Also, when an album you remember glancing over on the merchandise stall at the gig has become a hundred-pounds-a-copy collectable? You're old. :p )

No Sleep 'til Slimelight; or, Why Rath Was Gone All Weekend and it's All Sneaky Bat Machine's Fault.

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:04:31 GMT

I wanted to write this review last night, ie before I'd actually had a break in the thirty-seven-hour period of not sleeping that formed most of my weekend. It would have been much more deranged and fun reading than the slightly (only slightly...) more coherent review you're about to get instead. However, by the time I got in last night I was so dead that (lj)lonescorpion had to force me to go to bed rather than do anything else. So.

How it happened was like this. I found out from (lj)matthewnorth, only about a day before the event, that there was a charity gig on at Electrowerkz/Slimelight on Saturday as a tribute to Goth scene legend Mel (DJ Lucy*Fur), who recently lost her battle with terminal illness. The bands who'd volunteered to play were all friends of hers: one (Novus:UK) I didn't know, one was Manuskript who I will gladly charge to the front row for anytime anywhere, and the third was Sneaky Bat Machine.

Now, I blinked and had to read that twice, but then I also had to stuff my own knuckles in my mouth to keep myself from flailing at work. For those who don't know, SBM (as I shall abbreviate them to save my fingers and your screenspace) were a cyber-pop-goth act from the late nineties, and I (unlike most sane people) absolutely adored them. I saw their later repaint Goteki at Whitby goth festival years ago, and they were brilliant (though I sadly lost track of what they were doing when I stopped being so involved with the goth scene) - but I'd never expected to get to see the genuine SBM. And there they were, reformed for one night only. My first and last chance ever to see them play.

But here, logistical considerations intervened. Obviously it would be the height of madness to drop all my previous plans for the night and spend a small fortune haring off to London (with a distinct risk of getting stuck in the all-night Slimelight club if I couldn't get back to Kings Cross for the last train just after midnight) and then still expect to be in any state to see my parents on Sunday morning. What sane person would do a thing like that just for a crack at seeing a years-old band who weren't even huge at the time?

...you know where this line of reasoning is going, don't you? *s* Of course you do. So there I was, at just before seven in the evening on Saturday, hanging around in Torrens Street (which is one of those streets that only exists because every building has to have more than one wall) and waiting for something to happen...

Good: I made it! Eeee!
Bad: Slimelight is dead intimidating even before it opens, if you're a little goth from the provinces who hasn't been there since nineteen-ninety-Idon'twanttothinkaboutit. Everyone hanging around barring me was clearly band or event people, and I was way too shy to do more than peek at them a bit - even the odd one who I actually knew.
Good: I was the first paying customer through the door, which is not only vaguely cool but also let me go up and chase round the dancefloor undisturbed.
Bad: Uh - where is everybody?
Good: The lovely girl in the green and black dress who bounced up and joined me on the dancefloor and said hello to me. That did a lot to make me feel less like I had a badge on my lapel saying "Country Mouse".
Also Good: The equally lovely red-haired girl who saw me dancing to A-ha's Take On Me and came up to me, grabbed my hands, announced "My boyfriend doesn't want to dance!" and proceeded to whizz me around in something halfway between a waltz and a tango. That was awesome. Thank you, stranger. ^_^
Bad: I forgot everything (lj)lonescorpion ever tried to teach me about partnered dancing and botched it totally when she tried to spin me. I got it right the second try! >.>
Good: Manuskript hopping onstage and crashing straight out into a glorious version of No Reprise, which is my favourite of their entire repertoire. Dancedancedance!
Bad: Looking over my shoulder halfway through No Reprise to realise that I was dancing alone in the dreaded Six Foot Space. What the hell was that about? It's traditional for support bands to always have a gap at the front of the audience, nobody ever comes right up and throws themselves into it at the start of a gig - but when the support band is Manuskript? Come on, people. You'd be fighting for the barrier if they were headlining. What gives?
Good: ...at least I had loads of room to dance, make a fool of myself, etc. And Mauskript were, of course, fantastic (and their closing cover of It's a Sin practically blew the roof off).
Also Good: Mike Manuskript dropped his literally-back-of-an-envelope setlist on the stage as he went off and I yoinked it. ^_^
Bad: Time passing. Two bands left to go and it's ten o'clock. The last train is just after midnight. Uh-oh...
Good: Running into Loki, one of both Slimelight and the Calling's DJs, who was absolutely lovely to me all night, perved cheerfully on my (admittedly revealing) top, and at one point gave me a rib-cracking hug that lifted my feet entirely off the floor. Thanks, Loki. ^_^
Bad: I didn't actually have the nerve to approach any of the other people-I-knew that I spotted. All of them were with their friends or bandmates and I didn't want to butt in. I really hope nobody thought I was blanking them - I'm sorry if any of you wondered why I didn't talk to you!
Good: Novus:UK turned out to be a female-fronted electro act who despite being missing all but two of their members, were very good.
Bad: There were only about ten people paying much attention to them. Poor guys. :/
Good: SBM up next! Eeeeee!
Bad: ...time passing. Checkcheckcheck. Eleven thirty. If they came on now I'd have to leave after three songs to get the train. No. No fair. Argh.
Good: Ooh, time for the charity raffle! So much stuff being handed out for good causes! Yay!
Bad: Charity raffle taking long time. Very long time. If I leave NOW I might make the train... and miss Sneaky Bat Machine. Completely.

Nonononono, bugger that. I didn't come down here to bottle out at the last minute. Yes, gentle reader, I watched the seconds tick away on my cellphone clock until the moment of truth had come and gone. Yours truly was now firmly stuck in an all-night goth club in Islington, without any backup and with no way to leave until six next morning. Bring it on.

Good: Raffle over. Shufflings onstage.
Bad: The sinking "what have I done?" feeling in the pit of my stomach as the reality of my circumstances settled in. Oh crikey, Rath. You're nuts.

However, thankfully, before I could get too worried, on bounced SBM and suddenly it was all totally worthwhile. I was in the front left corner (my left, band's right) of the crowd, leaning on the monitors, my head practically in the speaker stack, and I had a near-perfect view of lead singer Ross "Sneaky" Tregenza at the front of the stage. Cue doubletake, because he looked totally different to last time I saw him with Goteki (from cybergoth, to borderline indie) and I'd actually already spotted him earlier and not known it was him (along the lines of "hey... who's the pretty guy with the black hair/bandana/cyber shades?") So there was a brief moment of "whoa!" before they started up Disco 4 the Dead, and that was about the point at which I stopped making mental review notes and got down to the serious business of soaking up the awesome. ^___^

Good: Disco 4 the Dead. Laser Gun Music, OMG (so much fun bouncing up and down yelling "stay on target-!" along with the band, and knowing I looked silly and not caring). Yan Yan and Ali_Star of Goteki popping out to join SBM onstage - to ecstatic applause - for a quick run of Goteki numbers.
Shame-but-never-mind: No Fight the Saucermen or Do Not Listen To Goteki[1], both of which I'd have loved to hear one more time.
Comedy Gold Medal: Whoever that was who, in the middle of Wicked Little Girls, managed a perfect throw from the crowd that blindfolded and muffled Sneaky with a pair of frilly knickerbockers that had been a prize in the raffle earlier. His face was a picture as he emerged from underneath the ruffles and tried valiantly to sing the next line without cracking up. ♥
Absolutely Perfect: Of course they finished with Boneshaker, their biggest hit and a song I (and everyone else, apparently) have an enduring love for despite or possibly because of it being really really Wrong. The crowd started drooling - loudly - the moment they realised what was coming, leading Sneaky to scold "You dirty motherfuckers!" - his eyes sparkling with lascivious approval all the while, of course. And then they kicked off the song and everyone knew the words and it honestly couldn't have been better. Hell yeah. ^_^

And then it was over and I looked around me and realised, as the warm glow of nostalgia faded, that I was here for the next four and a half hours and my legs were already aching and oh man, it was going to be a long night. Whoops. ^_^

However, they had movies downstairs! So I got to sit down for a while, while watching the first half of The Chronicles of Riddick, which is even prettier than I remembered. I may need to get a copy just to watch without the sound when I want inspiration. After that it's all a bit of a blur and I'm fairly sure I passed out on a bench up on the goth floor at one point. And then I had to get home.

Good: I managed to walk the gauntlet of the Pentonville Road down from Islington to KX without getting mugged, despite Loki's worries. It's not a good road but at 6am most muggers are in bed anyway, frankly.
Bad: The rail services were up the creek and it took me two trains and a bus to get home instead of one train. Bah.
Bizarre: The taxi driver who took me home from the station explaining how he'd kneed a fellow driver in the groin earlier in the day for essentially bullying him, and how we was worried he was going to lose his license. All I can say is that the other guy must've really had it coming, since my driver seemed like the sweetest guy in the world. O_O I hope he was okay.

And then I had to grab a bath and a change of clothes (since I was coated in the mysterious slimy feeling for which I can only assume Slimelight is named) and meet my parents. I also took the Lyndon all the way up to Ely with Mum, Dad and (lj)lonescorpion as crew, but that's a whole post in itself.

So yeah. How was everyone else's weekend and please can I go to bed now? ^_^

Lots of love and cybernetic bats to all,
Rath x

[1] To everyone who knows that one: yes, I know you will now be hearing it on loop ALL WEEK. I'm just evil like that.

jsdfghjkjhklkj I'M ON THE BEEB!!!!

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:29:04 GMT

Look at me! Look!

In fact we're all on the Beeb! That's Fire & Forget, right there! YEAAAAAAH!

Admittedly it's only BBC Cambridgeshire's user-submitted section on Strawberry Fair. But that's not the point I'm on the BBC website oh my gods! WE'RE FAMOUS!

*breathes* Excuse me. ^_^ But, y'know, I'm patriotic enough at heart that being featured by the British Broadcasting Corporation in any capacity feels like a pretty special thing. Thank you Auntie! Many thanks too to (lj)karohemd who took that pic of me. Cheers! As you can see, it's now one of my icons. ^_^

Well. That knocked whatever else I was going to post about right out of my head... ^_^

Cheers,
Rath

Weekendliness [Strawberry Fair gig!]

kit_rathenar@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:18:55 GMT

...dude. WE PLAYED OUR FIRST FESTIVAL. ^_____________^

I walked into work this morning, and suddenly I'm a minor celebrity. I was over in the galley kitchen that we have for the offices on my staircase, and one of the senior staff from another office popped up at my elbow and was telling me how great Fire & Forget were at Strawberry Fair and how much her kids loved us, and I was standing there grinning like a total idiot. This is what this shit is for, this rock'n'roll business. It's for the moments when people come up to you and look at you with this new, bright-eyed, admiring respect, and tell you that you spoke to them, inspired them, showed them a good time... whatever. I went up there on the Strawberry Fair stage knowing that there were probably people in the crowd who only knew me as my boring, carefully restrained office self, and I put my heart and soul out there, and suddenly people are looking at me like they've never seen me before - but in a good way. And it feels fantastic, both from a personal self-esteem perspective and from a more selfless stance of "whoa, we made people happy!" It's the pay-it-forward factor of having been able to do for others, even on the tiniest of scales, what the bands I love have been doing for me all these years. And let me tell you, it's awesome.

We had the 3pm slot on the main stage, and they had us hanging around backstage for about half an hour to make sure we were there on cue. Which was kind of nerve racking, as it gave me time to get worried. To be honest, though, the actual process of being up on stage and playing was mostly an exercise in concentration, as it's always harder playing to a crowd than it is in rehearsal. So cool to be on a real stage, though. I had space to move, and the stagelights were powerful enough that I could feel the heat on my skin like a second sun when the big one above me flicked on, and there was dry ice swirling across my face and the wind was blowing my hair out when I headbanged, and I could even hear myself and everyone else which is always a massive bonus. >.> At the end of the set I was at once utterly exhausted (my tendons decided that Saturday was going to be an off day, because they do that sometimes) and feeling like I hadn't been up there nearly long enough to appreciate it. It was amazing.

I never thought, in my wildest adolescent dreams, that I'd ever really play with a band of my own on a festival stage. It was a dumb kid's pipedream, something I thought about while I curled up on the school bus with my walkman and ignored all the people who thought they were better than me. And now I've done it, and nobody can take it away from me. And the best reaction shot I can give you, the most honest summary of my feelings on the whole thing, is "Dude, when the hell can we do that again?!" It really is that cliched, that simple, and that cool. ^_^

I also stewarded afterwards, for what wound up being about five hours total, and caught a couple of other good bands in the process (names that stick in my head are Caimbo, The Alice Band (not my usual thing but good at a festival) and Talulah). Working front-of-house is a weird job, because being security staff of any sort gives you an automatic -4 to all Charisma checks. Everyone assumes you're there to stop them having fun. My take on it is that if I'm wearing that vest I'm there to make sure that everyone is having fun and no jackass spoils it for anyone else, and that nobody gets hurt - so I try to keep my manner friendly, be helpful, and explain the reason if I ask people to do something. This paid off this year, as I got plenty of grins and waves and laughter and thumbs-up from the barrier warriors down the front and I didn't have to yell at anyone even once. Tiring work, but not so bad. ^_^

...there was going to be other stuff in this post but you know what, I'm running off at the keyboard here. I'll stop and do another post later on.

Laters,
The Navigator

PS And lest we forget, (lj)blackmetalbaz texted me on Sunday to say we'd achieved the unthinkable... he had a Fire & Forget earworm. This aggravated accolade may, actually, be my favourite piece of feedback from the whole event. ^_^ Cheers Baz!