I've rubbed my hands together, held them over my music collection and conjured up two new mixes for December's Radio Nightbreed playlist.

The first one is Darkest Sunrise; it's about an hour long and is a selection of alternative/goth/electronic music from Japanese artists and artists signed to Japanese record labels. In all honesty it was a bitch and a half to put together, but the challenge has pulled off and is waiting for your ears...

The second mix is called Winterborne; a mix of tracks designed to be the soundtrack of the winter season through the medium of gothic, alternative and electronic music.
If you need incidental music to accompany you whilst wrapped in a thousand jumpers and crunching through the snow blizzard in order to get to work, this is it.

Keep an eye out for download links to these two mixes in the future  ; )

I hope you enjoy them!
 

This weeks Fadeout (airing on Phoenix Radio at 7pm Saturday and Radio Nightbreed at 8pm Sunday 22nd November) features an exclusive interview with Fields Of The Nephilim's Carl McCoy recorded at the Hellfire II festival at the Birmingham NEC on November 8th.

Fadeout Towers despatched roving reporter Ted Stevens to follow the trail of dry ice and self raising flour to the dressing room and corner The Man In The Hat for a quick lowdown on his current activities and one or two words about where the Fields Of The Nephilim are heading with work on new material.

He doesn't seem to do a lot of interviews so don't miss it.

However if you do miss it, and let's face it, it could happen, you can download the podcast from http://fadeout.podomatic.com after the weekend.

DJCB

I've been invited into the studios of BBC Radio Shropshire on Monday October 26th between 10am -11am to talk to Jim Hawkins on his morning show about the Goth scene. Apparently he's severely gagging to get some old school goth classics played out on his show and I'm likely to be the nearest excuse to do exactly that.

Either that or they're short of a teaboy for the day...

Anyway, I'll be attempting not to sound like a complete tit on Local/National FM so please feel free to tune in while we dicuss how I found goth/it found me & what the subculture means to goths and to outsiders of the scene, as well as get out the goth music and give those regular listener's cobwebs a good blasting...

I'm sure I'll also find a way of plugging the hell out of Fadeout too somewhere along the line. ;o)


This is Jim Hawkins. Unfortunately, he's aware of the Treasure Island connotations, so I won't be able to sneak in a handful of pirate references without him noticing...



Use the links below to tune in if you don't happen to live within recieving distance on your FM radio's...

LISTEN LIVE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlive/bbc_radio_shropshire/

LISTEN AGAIN: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_radio_shropshire/

As I'd mentioned in my previous bulletins and what-not, I've been working on a new DJ mix for the Radio Nightbreed playlist. It's follows the two mixes I submitted for use in September and is quite simply named Hex In The City Revisited.





It's an hour (or so) long mix of tracks that to the best of my memory replicate the soundtrack to Hex In The City, the weekly goth night that I used to be the resident DJ of at the Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton.

Bearing in mind that 99% of the time, I was the only one spinning a 5-hour set every week (towards the end of things, Wild Bill Buttock would often jump behind the decks while I knocked back Sanatogen and espressos in the back room in order to keep up), it was very hard indeed to not turn it into a good 2-3 hour mix. So many songs were capable of conjuring up the magical times of that period, specifically the earlier half of it, that I had to be pretty harsh about what got left off to get it down to an hour.

Anyway, I just about managed it and in October you will hear it for yourselves on Radio Nightbreed.

It's hard to imagine unless you were there, but many great memories of the Hex In The City regulars came to light for me when I played the mix back to myself after finishing it. I suppose it consists mainly of the most requested tracks of the time, and those tracks which were to be expected of a night in Hex In The City.

Here's a photo I took of the 'Hex Bunch' when two of our original regulars, Wez and DJ Spooky Shaz (as she is now known) buggered off to Australia and spent their last Hex with us. It was a tearful moment for some of us, and not because I played some awful music that night...



Anyway, hopefully you'll enjoy the mix. A little later on in October, I'll make it available to you all as a download, so keep an eye on those bulletins next month, because I won't be posting it on the Myspazz page itself.

Cheers,

DJCB.

It's been ages since I even thought of posting an update, especially as I'm subconsciously updating you all the time with bulletins and twitterage...

The first and most important thing is-lump in throat-this weekend will be the last of Martin Oldgoth's Bit In The Middle! It's not as tragic as it sounds; for those of you who haven't been keeping up with his blog, he has finally taken the offer to host his own full show on Radio Nightbreed.

It's actually taken a lot longer than some might realise; he's been asked on three separate occasions to host his own show since around early 2007 and has politely declined each offer.

In fact, Fadeout came about as an actual radio show after he was approached at a Last Dance gig in Derby to do a show, he suggested to the owners of Rock 247 radio that I might be interested in doing it for them.
(For the long-winded history of Fadeout from its very beginnings go here).

The informal invitation to host 'The Bit In The Middle' on Fadeout came about somewhere around March last year and his first show aired in April 2008. Since then it's been a very sought-after feature on the show, not least by me :)

From October onwards he'll be on Radio Nightbreed with two one-hour shows a month under the name of Thirteen13 (like some sort of superhero I suppose), and they will broadcast them throughout the month on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 9.00pm (GMT), repeated through the month. The tracks from both shows will then be feautured in the consequent Thirteen13 podcast that you all know and love for the following month.

In the end, a small loss to the Fadeout format means a great gain to Radio Nightbreed; there were many times I didn't think that 20 minutes really was long enough for a Bit In The Middle. Now we can all rejoice.



The other update isn't really much of an update, more an offer of a download.

As you might be aware if you've been tuning in, Radio Nightbreed has been using a couple of mixes that I put together in their schedule; namely the 80's & 90's Gotherama and Uneasy Listening Vol. 1.
These one-hour mixes of music are a bit of a world apart; the latter speaks for itself; a lively mix of great goth from the 80's & '90's. The former is a far darker mix, probably suitable for those who enjoy road rage or happen to be a serial killer.

For a limited time only, probably until the end of September, you can download the mixes from here and here. After that it's bye-bye, as I'll be working on a new mix for the Radio Nightbreed playlist. So download it fast, because once it's gone, it's gone!


That's me up to date then I think. If any more stuff comes up I'll let you know...

DJCB.

In the same week that I was told that I peaked at 14752 listeners to my show this weekend on Radio Nightbreed (to which I nearly lost all control of my bodily functions whilst simultaneously performing the Superbowl Shuffle in my seat), I've also gotten curious at how much the subsequent podcasts get downloaded after the station airings (bearing in mind that Fadeout is broadcast from both Phoenix Radio and Radio Nightbreed on the weeknd, ensuring maximum saturation of the virtual airwaves...).

I effectively had to start again and pray my regular subscribers had followed me to Podomatic a couple of months ago. I mostly lost the lot, but these things happen. But this new hosting service has a brilliant little gadget that shows me where the people who download my show are on the planet.

This week, the downloaders of the latest podcast exist in these areas of the world, including the number of times they've downloaded since the podcasts were available:

CUIDAD DE MEXICO, MEXICO: 1
SOUL, JAPAN: 7
50 MILES OUT INTO THE EGYPTIAN DESERT FROM MANFALUT: 1
TROISDORF, GERMANY: 2
MAIDENHEAD, UNITED KINGDOM: 2
LEICESTER, UNITED KINGDOM: 6
MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM: 2
SKIPTON, UNITED KINGDOM: 1

I'm not quite sure how the system works because the 'ego map' changes each week. Previously, I've had downloaders crop up in the middle of a field in Ipswich, and a couple of downloaders appear in the North of England, specifically Sheffield & Rotherham (you know who you are :) )

I'm impressed that I have a regular downloader in Japan and a random goth in the middle of the Egyptian desert who took time out of whatever it was they were doing out there to listen to my show. I thank you all from the bottom of my black little heart :)

Once again, should you have a request or any feedback (good or bad doesn't matter, as long as it's constructive), then contact me at gothdj@phoenixradio.co.uk or here on Myspazz.

Cheers for all your ongoing support; it really does have a home here!

Regards,

DJCB.

TJ Nexus has been a partner in crime for many years; as a songwriting team in Nexus VI, a sharer of ingenious yet infeasible ideas, an avid music fan and occasionally, someone who's put me up for the night when I was homeless.

He is a gentleman, a scholar and most importantly, fucking nuts.

Check out the podcast page of a man whose mission is to force his huge collection of odd and obscure records on the world!

His show TJ's TWILIGHT ZONE is an hour of mashups, bizarre covers and musical oddments that rarely see the light of day. It's an Old Curiosity Shop of unfathomable proportions; you can browse but you can never leave...

Join him every Sunday night at 7pm(GMT)on Phoenix Radio.

This podcast page is the next best thing... Playlists for the show can be found on the www.phoenixradio.co.uk forum.

http://twilightzone.podomatic.com/

SO THEN, IT'S NEARLY HERE.

Here's how things shape up for the launch of Radio Nightbreed.

Below is the pilot timetable for Friday 31st July, or as anyone trying to put something of this magnitude together would call it, 'Operation Brown Trousers'...




From then on, the weekly Fadeout schedule will be every Sunday at 8.00pm GMT.

As for how you actually listen in, I'm unsure of that yet.
All I suggest is that you log on to http://www.praysilence.org/page/radio-nightbreed
 and keep an eye on details there.



Internet radio users; I suggest you do the same until you can get a URL to paste into your radio interface.

Obviously, I am also still alive and well on the good ship Phoenix Radio, and you should also tune in there at 7.00pm Saturdays to catch my show.

That's all for now, folks. See you soon.

DJCB

Well we missed all but the headliners as it happens last night.

What can I say? We got stuck in one hour tailbacks on the M1 caused by two accidents within 1/2 mile of each other which meant we got to the Corporation at 9.30pm. We could well have turned round and gone home at the first available turnoff but seeing as we were only 30 minutes away from the venue we thought we'd try our luck. It would have been a shame to have been turned away due to a lock-in or something, but what the hell.

So yeah, we missed Dyonisis, but that was inevitable due to the distance & time we had to get there. I thought I'd miss out on Raggedy Angry when we got there. It turns out that it was for the best that they were nearly done as they were f*cking shocking. I've no idea what they sound like in the studio but Crikey, avoid them live if you value your ears, sanity and the will to live...
 
Good to meet Will Flanders finally! I've met two WGW forum bods in three weeks, that's nowt short of a record for me!

This was the first time the wife and I had ever been to The Corporation since it was moved from Corporation Street, and had I known that it was going to be so stupidly bloody hot in that venue I would have would have taken appropriate measures. Not that turning up bollock naked can be deemed appropriate, but it might have helped matters...

Birthday Massacre put on an impressive set, although we had to cut our experience short at 11.30pm due to the drive back, thankfully coinciding with their last song, but we missed any encores that might have happened. Mind you, if they came on at 10.10pm like the info said on the wall and not 10.30pm, maybe we would have caught it.

Note to all bands: coming on late is not 'expected', it's just RUDE.

I'd missed their Whitby Goth Weekend appearance a while back, and nearly didn't go to this one, favouring a much-needed quiet night in over a two hour drive and ringing ears. I'm glad my wife practically dragged me out, especially as she'd been up North to watch NIN in Manchester the night before and was in clear need of sleep.

The proceedings kicked off with Red Star, an excellent choice I thought. Most of the Walking With Strangers album was recited, one or two off the previous two albums/eps/whatever and at least one song I didn't recognise.

To say that they possessed stage energy typical of most US/Canada bands would be an unfair understatement. This infeasibly sweaty venue was host to one of the most enthusiastic bands I had ever seen that night.
Guitarist Rainbow, resembling some sort of Deathrock Joker-cum-mime artist-cum-any bloke from Busted, jumped, contorted, grinned, gurned and grossly, occasionally spat water through the whole performance while vocalist Chibi came across like a thoroughly entertaining yet ever so slightly demented St. Trinians schoolgirl on crack. They're well known for their visual presence live, they earned their reputation in spades last night, soaked head to toe in sweat like everyone else in the audience.

This morning I'm wearing my Birthday Massacre T-shirt like a total fanboy (or fanbloke more like, I'm a bit too old to carry off youth convincingly). My ears are ringing. I'm knackered due to the sat-nav taking us into some forest in the middle of nowhere and literally dumping us in it, demanding we executed a U-turn and rectify the fatuous mistake it clearly blamed us for. As a consequence, it was nearly 3am before we got in bed.

I have come to realise that the several mile gridlock on the way there, a satnav with a sick sense of humour on the way back and the stark realisation that I have parted with a huge amount of money for the privilege of attending one hour live set a 100 miles from my house may give me more shakes and blurry vision than the caffeine I've overdosed on in the past 12 hours. I've really, really, got to stop doing this...

Not safistfied with Fadeout being available to download as a podcast and be heard on Phoenix Radio, I've also agreed to air Fadeout on the shiny new radio station that will be Nightbreed Radio.

It's due to launch on 31st July and will feature many DJ's & members of the goth community presenting there own shows.

Here's the official blurb from the Pray Silence community pages:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are proud to present Radio Nightbreed, a new online radio station that will bring you 24/7 the best music from the Gothic genre, specially from the artists roster of Nightbreed.

The full schedule will be announced soon, but we are pleased to unveil some of the radio shows that will be airing in Radio Nightbreed. Find below a description of those shows and their respective hosts.

More shows will be announced soon and Radio Nightbreed will start broadcasting in July 31 2009!

Radio Nightbreed - The Darkest Music in the World - Probably!

 

THE DARKEST HOUR

"The Darkest Hour", a show by Trev (The Darklord) Bamford covering all things from the world of Nightbreed Recordings, and Nightbreed Recordings connected! The first few shows will be a musical history of the label, after that I will be doing shows based on the description. i.e. like "The Nightbreed Alldayer" specials, "Canival Of Souls" tribute shows etc.

PRAY SILENCE - TRANSMISSION

"Pray Silence - Transmission", hosted by Dr. Manhattan brings you a quality show playing the best mix of Gothic, Industrial, Synthpop, EBM, Darkwave, Dark Electro and Dark 80Â..s.

Dj Po's PRAY SILENCE -TRINITY SHOW

Bringing to you the Classic's Past , Present and Future

SIDESHOW "New Music for God's Broken Toys"

Follow us through the dark alleys and side streets, past the graveyard, beyond the old carnival and let us show you what grim aural delights lay in store… Behold the Sideshow!

FADEOUT

Fadeout is a 60-minute show of hand-picked goth, darkwave, industrial, deathrock and alternative '80's music presented (in a fashion) by your not-so glamorous host, DJ Cruel Britannia.

Once a month, I'm joined by DJ Martin Oldgoth (Insanitorium, Nostalgia) with his 'Bit In The Middle', showcasing new releases and tracks that just don't get heard anymore.

BaTraX

Hosted by Rae VinLoon, BaTraX brings you dark-edged punk and death-rock with lashings of lovely goth served on a bed of ***Wave with a Electro tinged sauce.

Necro_{FUTURIST} Transmission

From my arcane and unwholesome researches I had determined that the Necro_{FUTURIST} Transmission was the work of mainly one man, if a mortal man he truly was, yet he had recourse to mechanical slaves, strange instruments of metal and electricity...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Links:

http://www.praysilence.org

http://www.praysilence.org/page/radio-nightbreed

Whitby Unplugged (taken from the WGW Forum)

*I couldn't be arsed to write out another one and was mildly surprised to find that I'd forgotten to blog about the event that I was asked to DJ by Mike of Manuskript. I've been more than a little busy lately...



"...Well Saturday was a blast.

The bands were amazing and I'm yet to go through all the recordings I made of the night from the back of the room, but on first listen they sound fantastic.

If anyone considers an unplugged session a rather dull affair, you couldn't be more wrong. There's something about the stripped-down setup each band had that night that enhanced the interactivity with the audience. A certain amount of magic must have been employed to turn an enormous room into a coffee shop in Paris at times, especially where The Last Dance was concerned due to the unique addition of an accordian player.

Grassby & Walker started proceedings with an almost effortless approach, with stripped-back versions of their own songs with one or two covers thrown in. This setup really suits them, and having caught the full lineup of Rhombus live once before, I'd be surprised if they couldn't pull off the Grassby & Walker Brass Ensemble too as part of a reputable arsenal (Bring On The Gothic Trumpets!) The slower numbers (especially the cover of 'Comfortably Numb') took on a much more sinister edge than you'd expect, probably enhanced by the blanket of stark blue light swathing the stage during the evening.

The Last Dance were as I'd mentioned above, accompanied by an accordianist (a member of the Hellblinki Sextet). Now this is where the whole continental feel of the set really kicked in, though occasionally a little low in the mix. I'm ever-so slightly biased about the band already, but this performace certainly blew me over (Glenn Psychosis was next to me and was looking nothing short of damn impressed himself!). They have done unplugged sets before but never in the UK, so in spite of Jeff's apologetic manner preluding several songs, they got stuck in incredibly well into songs normally dominated by synth lines and 'wall-of-sound' guitar solos, ending with a particularly sinister version of 'You Are My Sunshine'.

Headliners Manuskript took the stage and entertained both musically and comically, breaking into the set with one of their better-known songs, Rapscallion. I had popped out for a very necessary cigarette after the first song and walked back into a room being serenaded with the Cadbury's Flake advert! Their set was polished and I was particularly impressed with the almost tortured-soul cabaret cover of It's A Sin. The last time I saw them was playing the Spa so the addition of a drummer was a pleasant surprise. If for whatever reason their next gig was interrupted by a power cut, I really don't think that it would ruin the occasion at all as long as they could could quickly get their hands on some acoustic guitars. Manuskript have a formidable reputation for playing great live sets. They more than reinforced that reputation this weekend.

After Manuskript finished, I was left to DJ for the last hour to the handful of people who hadn't effed off to the Spa, which I didn't mind (if you've ever done a goth night in Telford you'd understand). As per usual with me, I didn't write down a DJ playlist. Safe to say though that I was required to play 80's & 90's goth stuff, so that's what got played.

Thanks to the ones who came up to me with good feedback about my DJ set (which thankfully didn't go all ropey on me despite having to use brightly lit, uber-tech CD decks clearly stolen from a Star Trek movie set & hardly resembling the usual sort of decks I'm used to seeing!)

What I will say to the sound guys is that next time, you'd better bolt your flashy looking expensive equipment down to the tables or me and Texas Dan'll have it away for a worthier cause, like some dishevelled Robin Hood types. We're like that in the Midlands, you know. ..."

I'll be a guest DJ at Whitby Unplugged at the Metropole Hotel on Saturday 25th April.

If the events get any bigger, the goths will have to hire the entire town for the weekend...

....

IMPORTANT NEWS REGARDING FADEOUT'S NEW START TIME. ROCK 247 ONLINE SADLY SHUT DOWN THIS WEEK SO PLEASE ONLY LOG ONTO PHOENIX RADIO TO CATCH FADEOUT! PHOENIX RADIO HAS TAKEN ONBOARD THE REST OF ROCK 247'S DJ'S SO AS A RESULT, FROM THE 18TH APRIL ONWARDS, FADEOUT WILL AIR AT THE SLIGHTLY LATER TIME OF 7.00PM DUE TO A DJ RESHUFFLE TO ACCOMODATE THE EXTRA PRESENTERS!

I can officially confirm that Rock 247 Online, the station that originally launched my show, is now airing Fadeout again as from tonight every Satrurday at 7.00pm.

Rock 247 has spent a while offline and then came back shortly after with an automated playlist, but now most if not all DJ's are back on board, including yours truly.

So now we're back up to plenty of ways to catch Fadeout.

Please spread the word to anyone who gives a damn!

Cheers,

DJCB.