‘If we could change the past/we’d make some moments last’
The Spac Hole
An Introduction
Manic Mondays – 9th September 2019
‘Well I got myself a song inside/And I got myself some full blown daylight.
Want to tell you just how hard it’s been/Trying to talk myself out of jumping’
Band Name Generator
Continuing this silly series, we make the inevitable leap to rock super-stardom. We all want to be rock stars, but to get there you need to have an exciting, game changing name. Like ‘Bob Dylan’ or ‘The Band’. For those future stars more interested in money and cars and boobs and who lack the creativity to come up with a name more addictive than a heroin flavoured puppy, I offer you a variety of hilarious options to choose from.
By way of example, Carlos Rudiger Nightman becomes Pueblo Friendly Twats, a sure fire rocket to the top spot after they release their first single ‘Fiery Turds’. Let us know what you come up with in the comments!
My Blog – September 2019
Ugh. It’s September again. I mean, it’s actually February when I’m writing this intro but by the time it gets to September you’re gonna be pretty pissed off. The nice weather is done – if you live in Northern Ireland or the UK like I do then May – August are generally sunny and the temperature sometimes tops 20 degrees C, and the rest of the year is cold, dark, wet, grey, dull, grim. It’s why we’re such happy people, yo!
What should we talk about to get rid of these early Autumn blues? I know – remember those hashtag lists that everyone did a while back – #thisisyourfilm. Everyone went through every year of their life and posted their favourite film or book or album or whatever. I did a bunch of them too, right here on the blog, so check those out if you haven’t. With my massive internet following and online influence, I’m going to get my own # going viral. As I sat in one of the traps in work one day, bemoaning the fact that I had to scale two flights of stairs to find a clean one, the idea of a mini musical biography came to me – the kicker being that you can only pick one entry for each year. Obviously for a lot of years either nothing, or nothing out of the ordinary happened, while in other years many monumental things occurred – but I pick the best. It can be the year you heard your favourite album, a year you bought your first single, a year you went to your first gig – anything you want as long as it is related to you and music. You don’t have to do every year – it’s a high level timeline. And with that, I present mine.
#mylifeinmusic
1983: Born. Cried. Crying is music.
1984: Filled nappy. Filling nappy is music.
1985: Walking, and probably dancing. Shaking my ass at the very least.
1986: Taken by my mother to her aerobics classes to hearing a lot of 80s pop
1987/1988: Start school – probably meet a lot of other people who listened to Top Of The Pops, and went to first School Disco.
1989: Already obsessed with Michael Jackson, having both Bad, Thriller, and Michael Jackson Mix (a four cassette remix collection) in my daily rotation
1990: Hear Sweet Child O’Mine for first time, opening the floodgates to a lifetime of metal
1991: Received first guitar
1992: Bought first album – Alice Cooper’s Trash and Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall.
1993: Attempt first band. I want to call it Bitter Type. No one else does. We had a keyboardist.
1994: Cobain dies. Childhood dies.
1995: Finally dedicate self to learning to play guitar
1996: Fully introduced to Manic Street Preachers, becoming my favourite band after previously being aware of them.
1997: Dedicated to writing first fully formed songs – lyrics and music.
1998: My early songwriting voice begins to take shape – slogan type lyrics a la The Manics and a sound somewhere between crappy punk and even worse ballads.
1999: Formed early ideas for future, much better songs such as ‘Powerwalk’, ‘So This Is Suicide’, ‘The Outsider’, ‘The Calming’, ‘Realationships’, ‘Epitaph’, ‘On The Piss’ etc.
2000: Dedicate self to listening to everything by bands I had always liked but had not fully invested in – The Doors, Led Zep, Pink Floyd etc.
2001: First time seeing Radiohead live
2002: Attended first Glastonbury Festival (97 notes per ticket compared to 248 last year, ya scumbags).
2003: Attended first Slane Festival
2004: Fully immersed in writing music reviews
2005: Begin DJing in rock and metal venues
2006: Recorded first demo
2007: Visit Jim Morrison’s grave
2008: Get married – Mariachi play at reception
2009: See Manics live for umpteenth time, this time in The Ulster Hall. Sister comes to, her first time seeing them.
2010: See Opeth live for first time
2011: Finally see Alice Cooper live for first time.
2012: First daughter likes dancing to Michael Jackson. And the South Park Theme Tune.
2013: Second daughter will only not scream in my arms when I sing ‘Shock To My System’ by Gemma Hayes.
2014: Begin introducing kids to music.
2015: Obsessed with Sia.
2017: Second visit to Slane Festival.
2018: Daughter gets guitar for Christmas.
2019: Sell 39 million copies of first album.
There you have it – what is #yourlifeinmusic? Or film, if that works better? I’m running out of ideas for these monthly blog posts, so here are some jaw-dropping pictures of my recent trip to Menorca:
Until next time!
Ork Name Generator
I thought I’d try something different today. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an absurd and usually absurdist creative streak. In my half-awake state I’ll latch on to some ludicrous premise and spin off a hundred ideas, laughing my head off before slipping off into unconsciousness again. Of course, when I wake up in the morning, ready to write down all of the game-changing thoughts, I’ve forgotten 80% of them and what’s left doesn’t seem as clever or funny any more. It happens me every so often and I try to jot down in a wordpress draft what I remember. Last night (at time of writing not posting) I was in one of these jumbled half-delirious, half-lucid states and a batch of such silly imaginings were tormenting my blighted mind. This time it was more premise after premise after premise rather than me giggling and listing examples for one single concept. Here is the result of one such scheme.
I know there are things like this out there already – I have seen many of these over the years for a variety of topics, and I know there is likely an example of an Ork Name Generator online too. I promise I didn’t go and check any of those out when coming up with my A-Zs, though I fully expect there to be some crossover. That’s just the way these things go. Plus,you can tell this is mine by how shoddy it looks. Remember, most good Ork names should have a double-barreled surname, that’s why the middle names have a hyphen at the end. Sadly, my fevered sleeplorn brain can devise much more impressive adjectives than my woke mind can and I didn’t put a lot of effort into this. Still, you might enjoy it. Share it with your friends. Stick your results in the comments. Actually, Fevered Sleeplorn isn’t a bad name….
For reference, lets say my full name is Carlos Rudiger Nightman. That means I am The Almighty Hymen Nasty-Stench! Who are you!?
Manic Mondays – 19th August 2019
‘I’d show them the stars and the meaning of life/They’d shut me away/But I’d be alright’
Subterranean Homesick Alien
Manic Mondays 12th August 2019
‘I wish I knew you/Your fit of insanity makes me sad/I wish you knew
/your music was to stay forever’
Manic Mondays – 5th August 2019
‘Little boys with dangerous toys/all bow down to the Beastie Boys’
Freedom Of Speech Won’t Feed My Children
Manic Mondays – 29th July 2019
‘People are strange when you’re a stranger/faces look ugly when you’re alone’
People Are Strange
Manic Mondays – 22nd July 2019
‘Black ash from the foundry/Hangs like a hood/But the air is perfumed/By the burning firewood’
Love Ain’t For Keeping
