I posted this on my favourite forum - www.avalanchers.co.uk - some of it's specific to there but I thought I'd post it here too in case you need to waste some time ...

GO!

Yaasss. Didn't do the Friday night this time round, just the Saturday, so I missed the Metal Symposium (at which I hear one of our readers was very, very drunk) and Monarch

Here's what I did see:

Shit and Shine (outdoor stage)
2 bass players with a number of amps with one doing harsh vocals, one girl singing/spoken word in spanish(?), 5 (that I could see) drummers with various sizes of kit, one of whom took to manipulating a synth that appeared to be housed in a metal box that formerly held sweets. Heavy ass bass, fairly simple, but effective drumming and a nice noise to kick it all off.

Crippled lack Phoenix (Arches stage)
Featuring Justin Greaves (Iron Monkey, Leccy Wiz) on ... guitar and Dominc from Mogwai plus various chums. It was all sort of post and rocky and they had a front man who played acoustic guitar and looked like David Gray (not the Akercocke one). The chat is that this band got together to do Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine II and it turned into something much more approaching 70s rock from what I can see. Disappointing.

Migrant (Arches Stage)
Bullen and Simon from Black Galaxy plus sound artist Helena Gough. Now, I've bought a lot of noise/soundscape releases in the past 2 years and been to LOADS of gigs of this nature. Even allowing for the fact that Mr Bullen was involved I'd have to say this was one of the best I've ever seen. It was well considered, the players clearly took notes from one another on what to do when, the sounds produced were interesting, it was LOUD and the bass was ... nang. Definite contender for set of the day.

Miasma and the Carousel of Headless Horses (Arches Stage)
Featuring members of Guapo (whom the sounded very similar too) and including drums, bass, guitar, electric piano and violin. This lot avant-rock and music that would have made a very fitting sound track to the film of the original Wickerman that they threw up on the screens when they were playing. Improvised in places, structured in others, hit some fantastic Mahavishnu grooves and King Crimson uber-jams. Again, possible contender for set of the day.

Pharaoh Overlord (Arches Stage)
Basically Circle in another guise. They pretty much play one riff per song, with the 1 of 3 guitarist or the bass player plus one other sticking to the riff while the others embellish. Rock based with plenty of groove. Good stuf.

Qui (Arches Stage)
David Yow's latest. Caught a little, it was alright. Yow is a maniac.

Chrome Hoof (outdoor stage)
Leo Smee of Cathedral and his brother living out their disco rock fantasy with an extended band of many instruments and big black girl singing. Caught a short snippet, no bad.

Om (Arches Stage)
My friend Russell who I was down with was all about this set. I came in a little after they started and to be honest it was looking like I was going to leave. They were playing dubby, slow and not particularly interesting stuff. I bumped into Simon from BG so I hung about a bit. Later on in the set they played stuff off "Conference on the Birds" (?) anhd then it picked up considerably. If they stick to the harder stuff this band are well worth seeing. If they continue the space jam/dub trip they I'm going to leave it out. Had to split before the end as I needed to get past ...

Mogwai (outdoor stage)
Played like Mogwai do and were very, very good at it. I watched a little but I was on my way to ...

Jazkamer (Medicine Bar Stage, one of the smaller)
Noise, noise, noise, noise, noise. Late 30s baldy bearded man making a complete racket with electronics plus his partner who is of indeterminate age but looked about 14, playing a baritone guitar through a synth pedal and a fairly large bass stack. Excellent set, loads of variation, very, very harsh without over loading you. Things got crunched, mashed, bit, hit, smashed and generally pulled apart and made fantastic noises while they were at it. Top 3 of the day for sure.

Sunn0))) (Arches Stage)
O'Malley, Anderson, Attila (who was on the events hotel guest list as Ms Attila Csihar - awesome!) and Broadrick plus the guitarist from Miasma on keys. My feelings on Sunn0))) are "yawn" in the most. However, after making the effort to see them in Glasgow last time they were here, with JKB in tow and finding myself enjoying the set I went to see this line-up again. I'm not entirely sure what Broadrick adds, there were some parts that I spotted that were trademark JKB so maybe that was it. The main thing about this band that gets me is Attila though. The man is from another world, his voice - admittedly processed as it is - is quite incredible and the most interesting parts of the set were when the regular Sunn0))) took a back seat and allowed the extra players to take the lead of the band. Attila started off, played for a bit using a low and GRIMM vocal, went off and changed into another costume which resulted in a new vocal persona that was higher pitched and screamy and then changed back to the original outfit and lower tones. While Attila was off and the keys or Broadrick hung back the set dipped and was in danger of putting me off. When Attila was on the stage I was into it.

Let downs of the day:
Too much to see, missed at least 4 things I wanted to check out including:

Oxbow Duo (Medicine Bar)
The room was utterly packed, I caught a glimpse of Eugene before deciding to split, I wasn't going to see anything. This was a shame because I had heard that JKB was going to play with the band on their last song. WRONG! The line up was actually augmented by JKB, O'Malley and "Dirty" Dave Cochrane. Gutted

Other highlights:
Aurora Borealis stall, one clear vinly "Sundown/Sunrise" 12 inch bought.
Picking up some Esquilax CDs.
Mr Bullen handing me some BG and Migrant stuff - very nice packaging.
Simon telling me a story about Mr B at ATP - nice!
Bumped into JKB every now and then.
Lunch at the Green Room on Hurst Street as recommended by Mr B. Lunch was very, very tasty and in no way was made any less enjoyable after Mr B. told us that he and his good lady found it very funny that they had sent us to a gay bar.

Funny Moment:
Me in airport drinking my crushed ice fruit smoothy.
JKB - Kerr, where's the bar? I need a drink.
Me - round the corner Mr Broadrick.
JKB - cheers.
O'Malley - hey dude, where did you get that slushy?