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We got to Creation at about 4.30, a big hall with a good size stage, just the right height. Unfortunately we all missed Scrotum as we were round the corner at the pub, but we got back to catch most of Human who I must say were impressive. Very tight and together, great riffs, nice and chuggy, and great voices. Alas all the bands were let down by the mix, what is it with these engineers, does Wellington have exclusive rights to a good drum sound or something? Meatyard were cool and I’m looking forward to hearing their CD. They do some great slow sludgy stuff that I hadn’t noticed so much before, and just seem to get better every time I see them. We had fun and mostly played pretty well. A few errors, it was our first time playing Scarification live and it must be said, its not an easy song, but it all went down real well and was generally good times. Fisting Mary finished off the night with their aggressive Exploited styles, a most charismatic band, particularly the vocalist, with sick jokes aplenty and classic Metal poses by Logan. After much debate as to what to do and where to go we ended up back at Logan’s for more drinking till it was time to catch the plane home. So an entertaining 15 hours in Christchurch, cheers to Chris Rigby for organising an excellent event, Nathan for his taxi rounds, Dan and everyone else that supplied gear, Logan for his hospitality, and all the rest of the metallers, goths and punks that made the night a success. Christchurch was also the first opportunity for people to buy our new CD, ‘Limits of Power’. The seven songs, just under 37 minutes, were recorded over three days in Auckland during December last year. The whole recording went smoothly thanks mostly to producer man Nich, who was totally professional throughout and made it a stress free and enjoyable time. With Nichs busy schedule and our own delays with advising the changes we wanted, the mixing and mastering took many months, but this gave us time to decide on the title, song order and finalise all the text for the cover. During this time I also completed all the artwork and managed to remaster our two oldest demos for rerelease, Demo 1 and Catalyst from the ‘Denial’ days. Cheers to Nich for his excellent work and Heath from Skuldom for the crash pad in Auckland. Rewinding nearly a year, the following is a summary of all the shows we’ve played since the last ‘news’ report. 'Another Turn of the Screw' was a goth type event, I remember that just as we were about to go on, Nathan had to go for a drive to get his pedal adapter which had been accidentally packed up with the Harlequin Cubes gear. I recall enjoying some of their set, an electro-industrial type affair, but for the most part not really my cup of tea. And I remember Maleficent playing Orgasmatron. It was a pretty good turn out for a Thursday and we were paid well, the proceeds going straight into out petrol tanks for our trip to Auckland for ‘World Downfall’. The Kings Arms is a funny venue, kind of like an RSA or some other old mans pub, and the PA was pretty substandard, as was the mixing. Bloodwreath sounded good, perhaps because they had no bass player to ruin the barely amplified drums. We played an ok set but as I understand it the sound was pretty bad. Graymalkin were most impressive, first time I'd heard Gareths top-notch voice which was mighty loud compared with the muddy gats. Great Suffocation cover too. This was also my first gig with Backyard Burial, and it was pretty rough really, I'd rather talk about the drunken antics at Gareths after, but moving right along... our next 3 shows were all at Valve with Backyard Burial who were still getting things together with the new lineup. Azure have broken up now but that’s probably for the best, still see some of them around sometimes, good dudes. Backyards CD release went well and ‘Repeat Offender’ is a fantastic piece of work but the most notable of these shows was the Chuck Schuldiner Tribute, which I recorded, and except for Backyard Burial it came out real good. Some songs from this will be posted in the Audio section soon. Shakhan played a bunch of songs off Symbolic, being Zero Tolerance, Crystal Mountain, Sacred Serenity and Empty Words and they pulled them off real nice. Backyard butchered Zombie Ritual and Open Casket, and at the end of that set the Falci gat men jumped up and played Trapped in a Corner with Mike drumming. Our set was mostly off ‘Human’, Secret Face, Together as One, Lack of Comprehension, Jealousy, Symbolic, Scavenger of Human Sorrow and Suicide Machine. If you want a copy of this recording e-mail me at jason@falciform.net. Following that gig we played with Epidemic who cranked out a good tight selection of Metallica and Slayer covers. They played for a couple of hours and the punters looked like they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. At Underground Arts we jammed with Gugonix and Saliva Twist, I missed Gugonix but Saliva were quite a lot better that I expected. Nice Stooges cover. Not so nice Janes Addiction cover. For our next event I'd contacted Chris Rigby and we had Meatyard from Christchurch up, along with GMC. I've always liked GMC since gigging with them lots in my old gay rock band, they're brilliantly aggressive and energetic hardcore. We played pretty well too as I recall, pulling off Infecting the Crypts better than most times, and Meatyard... well I'd seen them be an absolute drunken mess before, but this time they really slayed. Broodal! The post-gig drinks at Harlot Street were also quite amusing, a good crew of Levin people helping us drink through to about 6 am. MeatNathan didn't last that long, but I think we'll leave it there... Next gig was with Angel Hammer and Fire, who aren't really my style (Bay Area Thrash!) but they have elements in there that I do really dig. I feel much the same about Angel Hammer... although they have been slammed by some, I thought they were reasonably cool and entertaining, I've listened to their CD a few times and its quite enjoyable, although not something I'd hunt out. That brings us to ‘An Audience With The Devil’... which with 13 bands was trouble waiting to happen. The mixer was a total cvnt. We'd already encountered that when we supported 8" Sativa, but man, that band got longer to set up than we got to play. Funny, cos we were told we had just three minutes to set up?!?!?! The prick couldn't even supply us with two vocal microphones, which together with the absence of lighting basically sabotaged our set. Due to his incompetence the whole gig kicked off two hours late, two Auckland bands pulled out, and Backyard Burial and Refractory never got to play, although to be fair it was the bar that shut things down prematurely. The most memorable sets were Misadventures in Self Surgery, Ulcerate, Malevolence, Graymalkin and particularly Dawn of Azazel who totally ruled but that sound man should just give up, he sucked and ruined the night for a lot of people myself included. Drinks back at Rigel & Martins were most entertaining, MeatNathan in fine form again, but I was coming down by that stage and by 8am was barely a shell of a man. Still with us? Congratulations, you’ve made up it to our second most recent show, back at the Valve with Refractory who had the misfortune of playing last on a Thursday night… needless to say the place was getting pretty empty. It was weird, cos when we turned up the place was packed full of normal people listening to this pop punk band, but not long after we started most of the normals were gone and only black shirts remained. Cheers Refractory, their style is not my favourite, but I think they do it well. And Pig sure knows his Metal. They had a better time the following night I think, with a lot more people there to get into it. That’s it for now. Our next show will be the official ‘Limits of Power’ CD release on Friday 5 September with Fire and one other Metal band not yet confirmed. Come along, buy a CD and rip up the pit! Hail and Kill Jason 2002:07:10 Sometimes in life one must come to terms with realities
and deal with wankers. Not mentioning any names of anyone associated
with the management of any bar where metal bands in Wellington oft
perform, there is many a character who does not actually listen
to what you say- but merely wait, somewhat agitatedly, for their
turn to speak. Thrust upon the stage first, enraged and discontent after having been on the receiving end of unfounded and accusatory remarks from the aforementioned individual, we opened with our cataclysmic dirge ‘Illusory Chaos Machine’. Thus continued our mosh-inducing serving up of the brutal/technical combination fried carnage to the substantial crowd that had gathered. We noted many a new face to the Indigo metal brigade who were, by 11pm, appropriately intoxicated. This was clearly evidenced by the standard ‘humourous’ remarks of “Play some Skid Row!” and the like. Its amazing what some people think is funny. So we didn’t. We played ‘Cannibal Christ’. I think they liked that better than they would have had we played our rendition of ‘18 and Life’ that I recall we attempted in Kent’s garage one mid-winters evening back in the day when we were young, dumb and really shit. Finishing up with usual ending song ‘King of Kings’, the sweaty peasants were left screaming for more, but lo we had run out of time and had to make a swift exit – stage left. Our good friends and local heroes Shakhan were next to take the stage. If I didn’t know better I’d even say that Paul appeared almost sober as the Shakha-wipper-snappers rocked through their head-bang-abilly, melodic movements. Always a crowd pleaser, Shakhan’s devoted and assorted other stragglers slammed up a storm. A triumphant cheer was heard all around as Marty announced that the long-awaited debut release from Shakhan would be available soon. Snazzy. On the last date of their Hate Made Me tour of NZ,
8 Foot Sativa graced the humble stage at Indigo. It was clear that
most folks there were there to see 8 Foot (unsurprisingly), because
the mosher quantity and mosher quality increased significantly.
And why not? If you want some of that (triggered bass-drum) chugga-chugga
shit that makes you just want to jump around and bang your head,
8 Foot Sativa is it! And then there’s always the great camaraderie
of joining all and sundry in the anthemic chorus: “Step up
step up for 8 Foot Sativa!”. Sheer brilliance. We hope to
welcome 8 Foot Sativa back to our town one day because the more
grubby swines crammed into Indigo, the better. And cos we’d
be more than happy to play with them again. Big props to Pete from Shakhan for the use of the Shakha drum-kit of doom, Whare for doing the sound at such short notice and the metal-loving punters of Wellington. - Nathan
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