Love and Memory by Milky Cooper

The first time I had knowledge of a woman was on a breezy coastal vineyard in southern Spain. We fell into each other at night time, under a warm, gentle rain that lovingly caressed our sun-kissed skin and dotted constellations on the clothes that lay strewn beside us.

We rolled all over the dull emerald hill, two fables of youth, wrapped in each other with wine-red lips, wearing nothing but the night air.

I said to her, "you are wonderful" in her native Spanish.

"..." she replied, because being the sole survivor of a honey badger attack that claimed her whole family had been so traumatic as to render her entirely mute.

But in her eyes I see her answer; "I love you, Milky Sam, with a heart burning over hell's fireplace - I love you."

"I told you not to call me that", I snapped, pushing her off of me, "My name is Milky Cooper."

I should have never stormed off that night. I should have stayed with her and watched the stars melt with the rising sun. But instead I ran over the hill and back to my cabin, two pendulous balls casting long, dreadful shadows over Maria's furrowed brow. Yes, I remember now, her name was Maria.

How often we are burned by the fire of our passions.

Now, I lived through the 60s. There was no such thing as social distancing back then. We adhered only to the laws of desire, which meant that our lives were a whirling hurricane of fists, fingers, mouths, and arses. Ten years of sweat and hair. A big, ten year-long wet, slapping sound. Over and over again. A horrible, wet, slapping, a little bit like velcro sometimes, sound. That was our decade and we were happy for it.

I feel sorry for the youths of today, whose courting customs are virtually identical to the process of ordering a taxi. All you do is swipe your finger and there you have it. Where's the chase? Where's the bared claws and teeth? The bearded, teary-eyed fury?

Courting in my day was the business of silken poets, barrel-chested, leering fishermen, and dainty woman-friends alike. We loved in the language of guttural humanity, which is as much animal as it is human. A digital app made by Chinese soldiers could not possibly communicate our searing want of each other.

I am no braggart, but I most certainly have knowledge of at least two thousand women, and that's not including the ones who, unbeknownst to me, crept into my lodgings to have a rummage inside my long-johns. Though it may be true that those women have more knowledge of me.

Anyway, where was I?

Among my peer group in the early 60s was a particularly silky poet named Nadine, whose fondness of the opium pipe was a sad and terrible thing.

I forgot where I was going with that story, but I also knew a woman named Maria, whose Spanish arms held me only once, but once was all it took to imprint on my mind forever. Like beautiful words on a page, never lost by their ink.

Thank you for reading.

Yours,

Milky Cooper

An Evening of Riff with Dublin's Flashpoint.

Heavy metal is the drunkest music possible. It is the music of bottle bankers and willy-proud vagrants. If pride and shame fucked in a bin and gave birth to a muscular longhair in a speed metal belly top – that would be the genesis of all metal that is true and righteous.

But metal is a simple kind of creature. Like the honey bee, it collects and it creates. But that doesn’t mean that the genre hasn’t stuck its fingers in many different pies, often claiming those pies as their own. Some of the best new metal bands are a hideous cocktail of their own antithetical influences or cultural quirks. Sigh and Abigail branded their black metal with distinctively Japanese themes and structures, while the entire nation of Finland is essentially one extended flute solo over blast beats.

Metal might stumble drunkenly, but it does not stumble down narrow alleys.

Putting your own brand on a well-established music is a dangerous thing to do in a community akin to leather-clad Trekkies – but Ireland’s own Flashpoint did it. And it works.

Originating from the street-dwelling Dublin Hardcore Scene, Flashpoint’s hardcore-inspired heavy metal (or New Wave of Irish Heavy Metal) is the result of man discovering fire, keeping himself warm for a while, before ultimately realising it can be used to immolate his fellow man. They’ve repurposed both hardcore and traditional metal, and it’s a lil’ sumthin’ sumthin’.

But above it all, at the very pinnacle of this mountain of crushed cans and sun-bleached skulls – is the almighty riff.

As connoisseurs of the riff, Dublin’s Flashpoint are here to share with us some of the riffs that never fail to make their heads bang and their balls go septic. They will also, quite naturally, pair off these riffs with their choice of accompanying beverage.  So sit your laptop on your coffee table, crack open a can (bottles are false) and be ready to push open the gates of heft.

Matthew

Matthew pairs off this mighty riff with ritually deconsecrated red wine buried underground for 50 years.

Ciaran

Ciaran begins most nights with this track and a scauldy bottle of Buckfast, as he says "no better way to start a night of madness."

Karl 

Karl, a minimalist like myself, pairs off his old school doom with a pint of Guinness in praise of the dark lord.

Kinch

.Kinch takes his Mercyful Fate with a double baileys, no ice - a drink The King himself couldn't refuse. 

Jake

A warm tin of Dutch Gold. No further comment.

You can listen to Flashpoint's skull-fucking debut 'Swing At The King' right here, you fucking cowards.

27 Things That Are Electric Wizard

1. Disregarding the law.

2. Wearing denim when denim is not weather appropriate.

3. Accepting The Divil™ 

4. Being Mike Logan from Cannibal Ferox.

5. Saying things like "groovy" or "bitchin".

6. Constantly referring to The Master™. That which is The Divil™.

7.  Riding a motorcycle into the void as the clock strikes midnight.

8. Using your magical powers for the purpose of great evil.

9. Standing atop a mountain, naked as birth, calling forth The Unknown™.

10. Just doing bad shit all the time.

11. Disregarding the audio spectrum.

12. Living forever.

13. Being Christopher Lee.

14. Being too stoned to act out evil compulsions.

15. Reading the works of Aleister Crowley backwards in a candle-lit dungeon.

16. Telling The Divil™ how happy you are that it is your master every day.

17. Shunning your community.

18. Having a deep knowledge of the fathomless.

19. Asking things like "You got the cheese?"

20. Knowing that 'Alucarda' is ' A Dracula' spelled backwards. Ooooo!

21. Not kneeling when you're supposed to kneel at mass.

22. Your entire social circle is comprised of people who look like the bullies.

23. Being in a cult that isn't one of those lovey-dovey cults.

24. Being the leader of a non-lovey-dovey cult.

25. Having a second hatred gland where your love gland should be.

26. Skeletons tell each other scary stories about your lungs.

27. The Divil™ is in your WhatsApp group.

BONUS

Miami Vice/X-Files/Harry and the Hendersons Crossover Episode Pitch

(Harry's lifeless corpse lays on a hotel bed, a syringe hanging from his furry arm. He is surrounded by a forensic team who are snapping photographs of the scene. Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs enter.)

Crockett

Okay, so who's the dead carpet and why did we get the call?

Tubbs

Mexican Brown. The kind being shipped by the Moreno family.

Crockett

And?

Tubbs

This 'dead carpet' was our man on the inside.

(Crockett inspects the body)

Crockett

Looks like he went in a little over his head.

Tubbs

Understatement of the century. Morphine content in his bloodstream was 6.50 milligrams per litre. 

Crockett

Enough junk to bury the Morenos four times over.

Tubbs

You said it, partner.

(Mulder and Scully enter the hotel room, flashing their FBI IDs to Castillo and other members of Vice, before inspecting Harry's body themselves.)

Tubbs

Looks like the G-force have arrived.

Crockett

And I ain't waiting to find out why they're over here making noise.

(Crockett approaches Mulder and looks him up and down)

Crockett

I'm guessing you didn't get the memo. This is our guy and this is our line. You run out of paperwork?

Scully

And I'm going to assume you aren't familiar with law enforcement hierarchy.

Crockett

This is our jurisdiction, sister.

Scully

And it's our business now.

(Mulder turns his attention away from Harry's corpse.)

Mulder

Scully, can I speak to you in private?

(Scully and Mulder walk outside of the apartment and stand in the hall)

Mulder

Scully, how much do you know about the sasquatch?

Scully

Please, Mulder. Please don't tell me this is why you insisted on us coming here.

Mulder

The sasquatch has been sighted most frequently along the Southeastern United States since the 60s.

Scully

And?

Mulder

We're in Miami, Scully. What if this Harry guy is the sasquatch?

Scully

Or, if you would humour me for just a minute - this is a case of hypertrichosis. A rare affliction, admittedly, but something far more credible to include in our report back to Skinner.

Mulder

Scully. There is an nine-foot tall bipedal creature with ape-like features and enough heroin in its system to kill seven men. Do you really think this is all comes down to a hairy back?

(Tubbs and Crockett enter the hall and confront Mulder and Scully)

Crockett

Now, I don't know what you guys plan on doing here or why you think you can just walk in here and run the show, but let me tell you something...

(Harry suddenly appears from the hotel room door, fully lucid. The room is stunned and silent)

Harry

Aroooghh!!

*Upbeat electronic music plays and opening credits roll*

Toilet Broccoli and Other Things you can Cook in Prison.

Food science in Riki-Oh (1991)

Prison life can be a hard pill to swallow, but that doesn't mean it has to taste bad. Even cop-killers have to eat.

Nothing nurtures self-reliance and resourcefulness like being locked in 6x8 cell with a twitching Aryan Brotherhood initiate. If prison is a university for criminals, then culinary arts is most certainly on the curriculum. The other modules might include burning razor blades into ballpoint pens and getting the shit stains off your wall.

To preface, I've never been to prison. I am a white male form a middle class family and am naturally invisible to gardai. But that doesn't mean I can't catalogue some cell-made meals in case I do happen to get caught with a few trays of Spanish willy medicine.

But if you are a young man whose all-encompassing mental illnesses grew inside you after years of deprivation and cruelty - here's some delicacies you can easily whip up from the comfort of your horrific living conditions.

Toilet Broccoli 

What you'll need:
Boiling water.
A bin bag.
Broccoli.
A toilet bowl.

Pour your boiling water into the bin bag, quickly adding in your broccoli. Burn tiny holes into the bottom of the bag and hold the bag over your toilet bowl. Boil for about 10 minutes and then allow the water to slowly drain from the bag into the toilet and voilá - you got some top quality toilet broccoli to power your next prison yard workout.

Toilet Chi Chi

What you'll need:
Boiling water.
A bin bag.
Whatever you can steal from your kitchen shift.
A toilet bowl.

Pour your boiling water in the bin bag and quickly add whatever ingredients you could stuff into your underwear while nobody was looking. This can include rice, sausages (diced), eggs, and preferably some kind of sauce to add a little gooey broth to the dish. Boil for about 15-20 minutes before draining the water into your toilet.

Prison Latte

What you'll need:
Milk (stolen from the chow hall).
Boiling Water.
Instant coffee (stolen from kitchen or traded for cigarettes)
Maple syrup (stolen from chow hall)

Run the boiling water over the milk carton until it becomes nice and frothy. Add in your instant coffee and stir. A teaspoon of maple syrup should give the concoction that thrifty Sex in the City bite.

Prison Toast

What you'll need:
Bread.
Toilet paper.
A radiator.

Wrap your bread in the toilet paper and leave it on the radiator for 5-6 minutes

Heroin

What you'll need:
Heroin.
Hypodermic needle.
A bottle cap.
Cotton balls.
A lighter.
A tie-off (A shoe lace)

Boil your powdered heroin on a bottle cap using your lighter until the solution begins to coagulate. Pinch a piece of cotton ball and place it into the cap and use your needle to press down on it until you feel the solution has been absorbed thoroughly by the cotton bud. Load up your needle, tie yourself off with your shoe lace, spend an hour trying to find a productive vein and voilá - heroin ala carte.

******

Did you find these recipes of any use? If so, for more information on how to cook in The Big House, just visit your local restaurant and wave a fully-loaded gun around until you're tackled to the ground amongst a maelstrom of violence and distress.

And Now I Must Go Off To The Shops.

I avoid high-conflict people when I'm like this. It's either a result of cowardice or a deep and excessive longing for calm. Whichever the case, I have chosen to use the self-service checkout at The Shops. There was a tension between the only free checkout assistant and I. This was a tension you could feel on your face and in your arms. Partly sexual, mostly active aggressive. I have come to expect this at The Shops.

The Machine poses its own kind of conflict, a more subtle kind that makes you look at yourself in the finger-smudged screen and confront your own inadequacy. 'Jesus Christ, why didn't I just go to the checkout assistant? Why do I sabotage myself like this again?'

I'll tell you why, you vomitous pig. It's because every single thing in your basket is either ramen noodles or some other kind of cheap and debased clone of an East-Asian delicacy. At least The Machine doesn't care how you live. The Machine is just a mirror, it calls it like it sees it. It won't make eye-contact with you as it scans the ten packets of miso ramen you spent close to five minutes staring at in a lonely aisle.

But let's not pretend this is all about the checkout assistant. She doesn't get to define you. She has her own problems at work and at home. She's been working here for four years to support an artist boyfriend who hasn't gone down on her since he started the Alex Jones podcasts. He just sits there now, plugged into his laptop, tongue thoroughly glazed with whatever shite the blogs are feeding him today.

BEEP! BEEP!

Let's cut off the grizzle and get to the lean meat of your problem.

You've been sleeping since November 13th, 2015. Just laying there on a loathsome bed, sweating out and soaking up all the vivid nastiness of an endless fever dream. Your almost Libertine consumption of ramen noodles is merely a manifestation of your true problem. The problem that does skitter in the shadows of your mind.

You're a shite hawk. It's that simple.

BEEP! BEEP!

Do I scan each packet separately or do I scan one of them ten times? Is anyone looking at me?

BEEP! BEEP!

You're a shite hawk, and that's what ails you. You've let the noise of the world in and it's too loud for you now. When was the last time you did something for yourself that didn't involve excessive and violent regurgitation later that evening? That kind of repetition nurtures a subconscious deadlock. Rise above it, you fucking hack.

PLEASE SCAN YOUR FIRST ITEM!

Incredible and crushing truth. BEEP! Deep longing. BEEP! Ten ramen noodle packets of the exact same unfamiliar flavour. BEEP!

I scan each packet of noodles separately. That's why they all have their own barcode.

UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA!

It's there. You love being busy. You were just deprived of a decent Protestant upbringing and the work ethic embedded in it. You should've been a Protestant, but here are noodles instead.

Self-love is the key to an ego that flies. Ego is something to be scorned in a self-flagellating world, but fuck them all arseways. Ego good. Ego saviour. Ego more real than god.

PLEASE TAKE YOUR CHANGE!

I've only gone and forgotten to bring a fucking bag with me again. And so it was time to reach down deep inside the charred corridors of my soul and find the rage and courage necessary to ask the checkout assistant for one of those expensive plastic bags. Or do I just carry the noodles in my arms? No, fuck off with that.

'Hey, can I get one of those bags?'

'Yeah, no bothers, that'll be 70 cent.'

'Ah, grand. Here you go.'

'And here's your change.'

'Cheers.'

And then I went off home with a bag of noodles. Stopping only once to tie my shoelaces when I was sure nobody was looking.

Here We Are Now Again Forever.

And here it is, the little pillow in which I sometimes scream into.

Like a terrible case of hemorrhoids, ThatMakesItNotInsane has returned. But unlike the absolute farce of my last attempt at reanimating the blog, this will be entirely loyal to its original purpose - a clean towel I can vomit on whenever the need arises.

We were sitting in my apartment, several sheets to the wind, when a good friend asked me about my old blog. Why didn't I keep it up? Why did I let it die off? We had a good thing going.

The truth is, I mercy killed the last incarnation of ThatMakesItNotInsane because it had become something totally alien. It was like a business. Something that had to be updated on a daily basis. A frail attempt at an Instagram-like influencer home page. It wasn't my terrible little corner of the Internet anymore.

I was writing for the sole purpose of marketing outreach. As if it was going to win me a career. LOL.

So when my friend asked me why I killed it, I already knew the answers. But I didn't know why I had to keep it buried.

Even the act of explaining why the blog was shelved is antithetical to the spirit of the thing, but here we are. I got the chance to interview some of my favourite musicians, I got to speak to some very interesting characters, and I got to pretend that my diploma in journalism was worth something in the very end. Why not indulge even further?

Why not just do this until I'm dead?

ThatMakesItNotInsane will be returning to its original format of nonsensical rambling, b-movie autopsies, and anything else that sounds like a good idea at the time.

Stay tuned.

30 Fun Alternative Facts for Alternative Thinkers.

1. Dogs can only hear James Brown, everything else is white noise.

2. 41.1% of the world's population have thousands of powerful nano-legs built into their skin so they can walk at incredibly slow speeds while entirely horizontal.

3. In 1871, a Scotsman named Pappalong McDurry broke the world record for sheep lamenting. He lamented 9 sheep in one sitting.

4. Lighting lemongrass incense in your bedroom will keep the goblins away.

5. It is physically impossible to talk to your father after that last argument at Christmas.

6. Only 10% of people can see the black smoke billowing from Piers Morgan's collar.

7. There's only one camel in all of Angola, and it doesn't even rep its hardcore scene anymore.

8. Aldi and Lidl went to the same college.

9. Before Douglas Hyde became president of Ireland, he was Jack the Ripper.

10. I have woken up masturbating at least twice.

11. If you hold a 20c coin up to the sun on its reverse side and close your left eye, you can clearly see C-3PO crying.

12. Climate Change is actually a really good band when you import the societal context in which their sound developed.

13. If you say "Flee now, enemies of Christ" while ordering Domino's Pizza on the phone, they'll give you money.

14. 'David Quinn' spelled backwards is 'Jack the Ripper'.

15. I once cut my knee open really badly when I fell off a scooter but I was really brave about it.

16. 97% of Irish teenagers don't know who Margret the Aztec is. Feel old yet?

17. Rain is God's tears when he thinks about all the innocent children he hasn't made suffer yet.

18. Ghosts don't wear clothes. Silly.

19. It's legal to scream into someone's toilet bowl in Sweden, but only if you are videotaping it.

20. You should definitely put that up on Bandcamp, man.

21. Sleep is a concept invented by the HSE to make sure no one is awake to see them burying the treasure.

22. If you stick a fork into an electrical socket, you'll see the angels.

23. Rob Zombie never graduated from Boner College.

24. Professional wrestling is ultimate reality.

25. Jayne Mansfield once successfully synthesized alcohol using her own underarm sweat.

26. The best selling record of 2010 was Granny Sideways' "I Eat The Flesh, I Worship At The Altar Of Beasts".

27. If a goblin can't match your command of the tin whistle, it must leave your home and promptly drown itself.

28. You can clearly hear Nina Persson sing the lyric 'I drank lots of tequila slammers/ now I'mma ride this bag of spanners' in The Cardigans' hit song "Lovefool".

29. Over 10 billion American dollars has been spent in the last three years on a mysterious project titled "Make Robocop Real 2k19".

30. People will think you're much smarter than you are if you are constantly cynical and vaguely hostile to others.

You Is The Good People, Them Is The Bad People. You Won't Believe Why.

Look at all this good people right here.

Why is the bad people always the bad peoples tho?

Why can't they be more like the good peoples?

The bad people needs to have more comprehensive self-awareness.

Not the good peoples tho, good peoples self-aware plenty already.

If the good peopol and the bads pepple alll had a big fight, the good people would win because

the bad peoplee shouldn't even be here. This is good people times now.

It's like they say in that new popular song, "Ging-gag Gooley", 'when the bad peoples come runnin/ the good peoples do good people good peoples/ Ging-gag gooley, ging-gag-gooley woo!'.

All the bad things is the bad peoples fault. Recent studies show that, in fact, 100% of bad ting comes from the bad peoples.

wow.

Good thing you're not a bad peoples tho. Phew! Good job!

Remember, next time a bad pople try to tell you that you aren't even a good peopl, make sure you give'em a big ol' bicycle kick.

And always remember, that bad people is the bad people, but you will always be that good people. good job, good people. bad bad people, bad self-awareness. self-awareness. self-awareness bad. wow.

wow.

Good thing you're not a bad peoples tho. Phew! Good job!

And isn't that  always the way?

Read again tomorrow to find out who is bads and 100 Reasons You're A Goods Person.

An Essential List Of Crimes To Commit While The Guards Are On Strike

We've nurtured a strange relationship with the Gardai. Sometimes we sympathize with the high-risk and low-paying job they do every single day, tackling knife-wielding psychopaths to the ground to secure the same living wage as someone who's in charge of keeping the office printer stocked. But most of the time we deplore them for robbing hash and protecting greedy rich people from angry poor people.

The Gardai are finally going on strike to protest their woeful salary. There will be no guards on every Friday in the month of November. Nothing of this implication has happened since a collective Gardai sick day known as the "Blue Flu" in 1998.

Ireland is about to experience the kind of disorientation and subsequent self-examination that comes when the previously unattainable suddenly becomes attainable. What if there are no guards?

The biggest question you may have to ask yourself is, where will you be when the guards disappear? Will you lock yourself in until Saturday morning, quaking in the corner of your room and strangling the hilt of a kitchen knife. Or will you go among the animals, reveling in the lawless moonlight?

If you identify with the latter, but are too stupid to think of any good criminality to engage in, I've went and done you up a list.

1. Dress up as a guard and sexually bother every single bin in your town.

2. Eat a spice bag off the prescription counter of a chemists. 

3. Ride your bicycle on the N11 and squirt a bottle of toilet duck at the cars stuck in traffic.

4. Slap a stone idol of Marty Morrissey's forehead with the sole of your shoe.

5. Write a self-help book titled "How to Make Your Dreams Come True" that contains only the words
"True Aryan Black Metal" on each page. Sell it for €5 from your car window.

6. Drive one of those mad bin trains on the right-hand side of the road. Be sure that you've rode each bin before you put the pedal down.

7. Obtain paints and canvases and charge people for 10 minute portraits of themselves. Paint every person to look just a little bit like post-orgasm Vladimir Lenin.

8. Publicly and violently flagellate any local musician who has performed the song "Wagon Wheel" at the pub. Let tattered flesh caution their ilk. 

9. Disperse a Youth Defence rally while dressed as a completely fictitious child-eating goblin from Germanic folklore. 

10. Hop Bono's fence, knock on his door, and explain to him in great detail how he will never again have the fortitude of character to write music as good as he did for the Batman Forever soundtrack.

11. Apprehend that overconfident bully 12-year-old that lives on your street and put him inside a wicker man. 

12. Speak ill of the Church of Scientology. 

13. Collect all of the golden rings.

14. Employ one of the thousand forms of Nyarlathotep in a horrifying blood-offering to his father Azathoth.

15. See how many lemongrass scented incense sticks you can fit inside your arse. Remember, there are no guards to stop you.

16. Create the conditions for a Lord of the Flies type scenario on the island of Inishmore.

17. Forcibly occupy Primark until they bring back flared jeans for men. None of this "it's kinda flared" arse jargon. I mean FLARED. Like a large cat could fit through the leg of it.

18. Find the off-duty guards and drink bottles upon bottles of Benylin Drowsy with them.

19. Slap the absolute skin off the chap that slagged your "side fringe" at the Porterhouse in Bray. It's called an 'asymmetrical bob cut', you horrible, thoughtless savage.

20. Start a new wave band called Le Petite Mort and record at least one monster single that propels you to the mainstream and into the hearts of the public. Use your newfound fame and influence to groom your fandom into an army hell-bent on shitting all over Rónán Mullen's car.

Live Review: Lindsey Stirling @ Electric Picnic '16

I couldn't afford to license an image from EP.

I went to go see the triumphant Mormon empress.

She danced and played lots of good songs.

You are so beautiful, please stand on me.

I'm not even Mormon, but I could be because I like The Osmonds.

There were some technical difficulties at one point, but she soldiered through them.

Purify me in your Mormon water.

Good gig.

The new album is good.

5/5

Take The TMINI Personality Test.

So it looks like you don’t know who you are yet. That’s wonderful, none of us do. Finding out who you are can be a scary journey that might unearth a whole universe of self-disgust and rage, but it needn’t be so traumatic, you silly moo. We at TMINI believe that abusing solvents is a fantastic way of hiding yourself from yourself, but if you’re more the adventurous type, then why not take our super cool personality test? We can put you in touch with the you that you didn’t know was you. Isn’t that so cool?

You’re about to answer a series of option questions, so be sure to keep a pencil or pen on your person so you can keep track of your answers! We can’t do it all for you, right? AHAHAHAHA.

You READY?

1. Would you consider yourself a nervous person?
A) No way, José! Where's the party at?
B) I'd prefer not to answer.
C) 'Some labels are better left in the closet'

D) Only when I spot the Jack Tar with me spyglass! Yargh!

2. Would you consider yourself creative?
A) If by 'creative' you mean 'windsurfing', then yeah, sometimes!
B) I am not required to divulge my talents or tastes with you.
C) 'It wasn't logic, it was love.'
D) I'll get woeful creative when yer kissing the gunner's daughter, ye bilge rat!

3. What kind of role do you take in team project scenarios? 

A) I'm the Il Duce of getting spookay.
B) I prefer to work alone. Don't touch my smartphone.
C) 'Maybe you're only alloted a certain amount of tears per man; and I've used mine up.'

D) I swab the deck handsomely or else I meet the keel barnacles. Yargh.

4. What is a conger eel, even?
A) No idea, but I wanna party with it!
B) A variety of predatory eel found in most regional seas. Don't touch my smartphone.
C) 'Was Miranda right? Were we enemies? Is there a secret cold war between marrieds and singles?'
D) Aghast! Give no quarter to that slithering sea devil, lads!

5. A rainy day with a book or a sunny stroll on the beach?
A) You've never rain beached before?
B) Either is fine. Do not touch my smartphone.
C) 'Here. Swear. Swear on Chanel.'
D) I leave the sand red with Navy guts!

6. What kind of music do you feel best describes you as a person?
A) Machine Gun Kelly and Kid Rock on a party bus!
B) I don't listen to music often. The opening jingle to Euronews. Don't touch my smartphone.
C) 'Oh, THAT guy.'
D) "The Coasts of High Barbary", a fine shanty!

7. What will become of me?
A) Stop harshing me out.
B) ...
C) 'One woman's Titanic is another woman's Love Boat.'
D) I'll see ye have the price for the ferryman, bucko.

8. Why does B) always let people buy him pints but never buys them one back?
A) Cardinal sin, dude. Cardinal sin.
B) I never asked you to buy me one. I never entered into a deal. Don't touch my laptop case.
C) 'Big wasn't a crush. He was a crash'
D) That landlubber never had a sip o' true grog.

9. What's your ideal job?
A) Hacky Sack Doctor.
B) I work in risk and compliance at a bank.
C) 'She'll juggle, she'll spin plates, but she won't give head.'
D) To captain The Busty Hornswaggle.

10. What do you think of this, wise guy?

A) Braaaain draaaaain, oh wow.

B) I'm finished.
C) 'Two hours and four chardonnays later, I was sleeping with the enemy.'
D) Shiver me timbers! That landlubber's crown is bewitched!

****** SEE YOUR RESULTS BELOW ****** 

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If you answered mostly A) YOU ARE FURIOUS FRED/FURIOUS FRAN!

You're so gnarly it makes people sick. If you were a colour, you'd be periwinkle. Everybody wants to party with you, but not everyone can hang with you. You dig?

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If you answered mostly B) YOU ARE A MISERABLE PEDOPHILE!

Whoa! God really fucked up when he made you, friend! Your intense materialism and entitlement issues are only the tip of your massive child-obsessed iceberg. You're the kind of guy that won't give your seat to a pregnant woman.

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If you answered mostly C) YOU ARE CARRIE BRADSHAW!

Uh-oh, here comes Carrie, getting all "Carrie'd away" again! Driven by raw emotions and a never-ending quest for dick, you can either be the life of the party or the total bummer, it all depends on how you're feeling on the day.

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If you answered mostly D) YOU ARE HAVING A SEIZURE!

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

An Interview with Mark Greening (With The Dead)

It is 7:45 pm on a Thursday evening and I am uncharacteristically nursing a glass of red wine as well as my mobile phone. I am gazing into the abyss, and have been for about ten minutes. An outsider looking in might think I've been stood up by a date and am currently in the planning stages of an elaborate masturbation ritual designed to tide me over, but this is not the case, tonight. In fifteen minutes I'll be on the phone with a man who has written some of the most titanic metal records of all time, and who is a little over a week away from unleashing yet another of his sinister creations on this poor, blameless planet.

If you aren't already in the know, Mark Greening has played an integral part in establishing the now-worldwide scene for doom metal, written and recorded some of its cornerstone albums, and has toured extensively with the créme de la créme of monolithic shit. If your favourite heavy band are truly heavy, it is because they have studied and mimicked the work he and Tim Bagshaw have left behind. Be it with Electric Wizard, Ramesses, or 11 Paranoias, Greening's lurching, crypt-dwelling percussion has been a highlight. Now returning alongside Tim Bagshaw and the legendary Lee Dorrian (Cathedral, Napalm Death, do I need to?) as With The Dead, Greening assures us that his latest offering is the stuff of nightmares, and you can believe that.

How have you been lately, man? Besides all of the current band-related carry-on.

I've not been too bad to be honest. Obviously I've been recording with my new band, With The Dead, but apart from that I really haven't done a lot of drumming. I mean, after everything went tits up with Electric Wizard, I've just been having a bit of time off playing. We recorded the With The Dead album and Tim (Bagshaw) and I jammed quite a bit, but because Tim lives over in the States, aside from the rehearsing and recording, I just haven't drummed much lately. I'm probably a bit rusty at the moment, but hopefully soon I'll get back to it. I've just been chilling out, riding my motorbike, listening to music, and work and stuff. Just the usual stuff, really. Nothing too eventful.

Do you get very much time to chill out? Especially after what happened with Electric Wizard. Did that whole thing put you off, or are you just taking this time to yourself?

I was put off a bit. It was a nightmare, the whole situation. I was so over the moon to be back with Electric Wizard, and it completely went pear-shaped. It just went wrong, really, - the outcome of the ‘Time To Die’ album and not being paid was very disappointing. It's still an ongoing process, all of that. It didn't put me off for good, but it did knock me back a bit. When you're younger and making music, everything is fun, nobody has an ego, and you're not worrying too much about getting paid or whatever, you’re just enjoying it. Drumming, for me, is a way of getting aggression out, but unfortunately it happened and there wasn't a lot I could do about it, really.

Well, I mean, you're bouncing back right now with With The Dead, and Halloween seems like the perfect time for a new record. Can you tell us a little bit about how With The Dead decided to get together?

Basically it happened pretty much around this time last year. I got the boot from Electric Wizard and everything sort of went to shit. I'd always been best mates with Tim and when he lived in this country, we always used to have a jam together in his bedroom. Not with a full drum kit, but with keyboards, bass, guitars, and occasionally I'd do the vocals, and we just had a bit of fun. We always thought it'd be great if we played in a band together. Even though we did Ramesses, we thought it'd be great for just us two to do our own thing, it was something we always wanted to do. When I got the boot from Electric Wizard, I was in contact with Tim about it because I was pretty gutted and it seemed like a good time to finally do something together, but it's a bit difficult with him living in New Jersey.Anyway, I was also in contact with Lee (Dorrian), and he could tell that I was quite upset about the whole Wizard carry-on, and at some point he asked 'what do you want to do?' I said I just want to play drums’ and mentioned that I'd spoken to Tim to see whether he'd be up for something, which Lee thought would be great and, after hearing some demos, offered to fly Tim over for us to record something. So that's what happened.

The original idea was that I'd do the vocals, and we were originally only going to record an EP. We recorded first of all in a studio in Wimborne, but didn’t have much time and had to rush through the songs a little bit. Lee came down to Wimborne, we'd sort of asked him about doing the vocals before, and he was thinking about it, but obviously he's busy running Rise Above, but finally said 'yeah, I'd be up for that.' A few months later, Tim came back out and we went into a studio in London with Lee and we recorded an album and that's it, really. That's how With The Dead got together. It was like it was meant to be, really. Looking back now, if I hadn’t been fired from Electric Wizard, there wouldn't be With The Dead.

That makes sense as well because there's that Cathedral influence on early Electric Wizard, does working with Lee feel like things coming full circle?

Definitely. Lee was there with Electric Wizard from the beginning, in the 90s. I remember going to a studio in Coventry and recording the first Electric Wizard album, and Lee was there then. He supported Electric Wizard right from the start, and in the early days, we'd do the odd gig with Cathedral. It did feel strange, as you say 'full-circle', us together with Lee. When we were first in Electric Wizard, we were signed to Rise Above and Lee was a good mate of ours.

So he's always been present in your camp?

Yeah, pretty much. When Tim and I left Electric Wizard after the ‘Let Us Prey’ album, we sort of lost contact with Lee. Then when I re-joined Wizard to record ‘Time To Die’, there was a kind of carry-on between Lee and Justin and Liz, I'm still not sure what that was all about, but Lee and Rise Above have always been there for me, and when I got the boot, I asked Lee for help. I don't think he ever thought he'd be doing the vocals in a band with me, but that's how it panned out. He was into the tracks, he wanted to do it, and we wanted him to do it.

You've said before that the new record makes you very proud of it already, but what about With The Dead stands out among the rest of your work?

Just the fact that because when we started out it was just me and Tim in the studio, it didn't feel like we were under any pressure. We knew we wanted to make this heavy record, and we knew we wanted it to be raw and nasty, what nightmares are made of, and because it was just the two of us, it was just laid back and easy to do. There were no egos, no 'you can't do this, you can't do that', it was all straightforward. I think we're all really proud of this record, really, the way it came from an idea to a finished product, it’s a great record. Usually I don't praise my own work (laughs) because I never listen to it, but on this album, the tracks, the structure, the heaviness of it, the rawness of it, everything from the band name to the whole package really. I'm quite proud of it, to be honest.

I can actually hear in your voice how relieved you are to have that kind of freedom.

Yeah, there's just not that much stress over it, it's really easy going. The only downside to it is Tim living in America, but you know, there's planes, so it's not the end of the world. We're all a bit older than we used to be, it's easier to just chill out with it.

And something else as well, sticking to the old school mentality, is that you've given us exactly 1:01 of sample material from the album, which is like dangling a fiver over a pit of crackheads. Was this going against the grain? Where so many bands are allowing people to hear the full thing weeks in advance?

We didn't want to shove it in everyone's face too much, but we wanted a bit of a slow build-up on it, I think. I mean, there was the track, "I Am Your Virus", which was played on a radio show, and then it was on YouTube for a couple of weeks. Then there’s "Living With The Dead" which is going or be premiered on a website tomorrow. Because the album only has six songs on it, we didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket and we wanted to get people interested. You know, you're a long time dead, so we wanted to ease in with the heaviness of it.

Well it's definitely working because there's a lot of people that seem starved at this point. They're ready to hear it.

Well I'm chuffed with some of the reviews we've had, and all the feedback, it's great. Everyone is sort of buzzing off it.

I think it's reinvigorating a lot of people's love of doom, and especially with Rise Above, the whole scene has been pulsating for the last few years and has been influencing people and getting them into things like reading occult texts and stuff. It's become quite a pervasive culture. The whole theme of the occult is something that's followed you around your whole career, is that an interest or mostly something for song writing?

I'm really into my horror films, and I'm also a big fan of ouija boards and stuff. I'm just a fan of things that aren't quite right, other dimensions and stuff. I've never really delved that far into it, I think it's just something that goes with the music and whole doom package. I wouldn't say I fucking do rituals (laughs), yeah I like horror, my ouija boards, and nasty things, but I'm not going to try and speak to the devil.

I actually downloaded a ouija board onto my phone last night. Like an app. I found it weird that they're marketing and mass producing these things.

Yeah, the ouija board has gotten really commercial now. There was a film that came out recently called Ouija, which was a terrible film (momentary audio overload as both of us attempt to express our distaste for the movie at the same time) it's literally the worst film ever, but that is actually where I stole the With The Dead name from. It was from the trailer, which had a voiceover saying the ouija board has been around for centuries and it's used to communicate, and it pauses, then says "…with the dead!", in this over-the-top American accent.

But yeah, the ouija board is everywhere now, really. It's so commercialised. There's kids wearing ouija board t-shirts and stuff. I think when that terrible film came out, one of the number one presents that Christmas was a ouija board. I've had a ouija board tattooed on my back for donkey's years, as long as I can remember. Like you said with that ouija board app, I read something the other day about someone being possessed through a ouija board app on their mobile phone, and I thought 'what the fuck is the world coming to?' You know, playing it on your goddamn phone? Luckily, it seems to have died down now. You know, when horror films come out and kids get into them. They just don't make horror films like ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ anymore. When you look back on those old films you see they're kind of cheesy, but when they came out, there was an impact. New horror films don't really have that impact anymore, all they seem to do now is try to fit in as much gore as they can rather than actually bothering with a story line.

Yeah, there's no memorable characters anymore, no Leatherface.

Yeah.

We're doing a bit of a Halloween thing on the blog at the moment, and it's definitely a cliche to ask at this point, but do you think Halloween has lost its meaning over the years? Do you still enjoy it?

Halloween has never been much of a big deal in England, it’s more of an American thing, which is a shame. Here you just go to a party, get drunk, stumble home, probably fall into a bush dressed a Michael Myers. I still go looking in party shops for little gems and stick masks on my walls, but in America, it seems they go nuts for it. It'd be great to be over there for the things they have in the shops. I'd probably waste a lot of money on junk. I still enjoy it though, no matter how old I get.

I couldn't help but notice the Ramesses Facebook page was updated recently, is there something going on there?

I don't think Ramesses ever really died, I just think it went back into the tomb. It may raise its head one day, it may not. We never sort of really broke up, so maybe.

And now the burning question, are With The Dead planning on hitting the road anytime soon?

I can't really give too much away on that.

I suppose to finish off, is there anything you'd like to say to any of the readers before we go?

Sometimes dead is better. Happy Halloween!

You can buy With The Dead's self-titled album at Rise Above Records from the 16th of October. It is suggested that you do just that.

With The Dead Facebook

Rise Above Records

Glow-Worm: Reality Television And The Paranormal.

The fingers of late capitalism have always sought out the throbbing pulse of American fear, and if a dollar can be made on an old enemy, it will. The Satanic Panic of the 80s wasn't just a call for good, wholesome Christians to be vigilant during a time of heavy metal degeneracy and bullet belts, it was a profitable subject of a number of documentaries and TV specials by the likes of Geraldo and Frontline. When you mix up a cocktail of morally loose goth types with allegations of widespread child abuse, and display it on television sets all across the shivering United States, you're guaranteed big ratings and mouths agape. 

The Satanic Panic went from a god-fearing public response to heavy metal, horror movies, and tabletop gaming to a massive piece of bait on the end of a television executive's fishing rod, and in the end, Satanism, or at least the facade of, became fashionable. Big money had essentially turned an irrational fear into something so tangible that it was capable of burning churches in Norway, for example.

That's the out of control effect that fear and excitement can have when played with by money. It's almost an American tradition to wear your fears on your sleeve and to buy it up like hotcake, and in most cases, this is actually a great thing. Even though the Panic was mostly shameless marketing, it popularized and allowed for further reading and participation in a lot of the fringe literature and art we enjoy today. This is especially true in the case of, and forgive the undetailed/undefined term, the occult.

TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files weren't real enough for casual interests, people wanted to witness the paranormal unfolding before their eyes. They wanted to literally sit in a TV studio and speak to the dead themselves.

Reality television was, if you ask me, the turd that took too long to flush. Its momentous rise began around the same time I became wise to the adult channels. I grew up with it and grew out of it and grew angry with it. Though despite the perseverance of audio/visual baby vomit like Survivor or Paradise Hotel, I will admit that I could hardly tear my young eyes from the complete sensory terror (I was 12) of Most Haunted.

This isn't about disputing the authenticity of these shows, after all. 

The Unexplained began airing in January of 1996 on the Arts & Entertainment network in the US and lasted four seasons before kicking the bucket in May of 2000. The show may have been the first to thoroughly explore the paranormal and occult without the lens of religious bias. The show began at a time when the Satanic Panic had fulfilled its purpose; Marilyn Manson's Smells like Children Tour had ended and Antichrist Superstar was about to debut at no.3 on the Billboard 200. Geraldo Rivera's talk show had begun to change its tune. Teenagers were openly defying their Christian parents with ridiculous sock gloves. It can be fairly guessed that, at this point, curiosity had replaced fear in the Average Joe, and The Unexplained was there to satisfy that demographic with the morbid tales they'd once shuddered through.

Eventually, case studies just weren't inspiring the spooky-wookies anymore, and this is where the "reality" in reality television began to gain weight.

MTV, or ground zero of "reality entertainment", began airing Fear in September 2000. This was a show with a now recognizable but at the time totally cutting-edge format; put cameras on people, send them into a paranormal site. The House on Haunted Hill (1959) starring Vincent Price had now become a "reality", regular people were now being sent to spend the night in real haunted sites for a cash sum, and in its brief two seasons of existence, it became the second most popular show of MTV's regular programming.

The success but sudden withdrawal of MTV's Fear gave space for FOX's Scariest Places on Earth and Living TV's Most Haunted and Most Haunted Live! While the former was based mostly on the format put forward by MTV, Most Haunted went in a different and more occult direction; the stars of the show would actively attempt to communicate with the dead. 

With the occasional and frantic "possession" of medium Derek Acorah, unsettling production effects, and sudden fearful jolts of its stars, Most Haunted courted both ratings and controversy for over a decade and succeeded in blending action with the occult and paranormal, and then delivering it to television screens all over the UK. Soon, shows like Ghost Hunters, Ghostly Encounters, and many, many more, began to spring up and capture audiences all over the west. It may have seemed like this was the post-honeymoon in the relationship between reality TV and the hidden arts, it should have been, but unfortunately it wasn't.

Medium John Edward began filming Crossing Over with John Edward in 1999, and he would go on to ride television's new found niche in occult practice until he had well and truly worn it into the ground. 

Where the haunted house shows had dealt with a mixture of reality and folk tale, John Edward would invite live audiences to experience, and even take part in, psychic phenomena. The voyeurism had been taken out of the experience, real people were putting their hope and trust in Edward's medium powers, and whether you are a skeptic or believer, the turning of profit on human relationships, especially to those of the deceased, was the very spittle on the tongue of talk show exploitation. 

John Edward would go on to become a very controversial and hated figure on American television, and his legacy would open up space for new shows of a similar vein. Perhaps his final moment of relevancy came when Kim Kardashian decided to consult him during the filming of Kourtney and Kim Take New York. That moment of television history can perhaps be seen as the death bed wheezing of paranormal "reality."

Despite Halloween specials and the odd sensationalist tactic, reality TV and the paranormal would never hold an audience quite as they could in the mid-00s. And while all the hoaxes and "possessions" played as much a part in its demise as that of John Edward, reality television brought the occult to a much larger audience who are now either readers, practitioners, or both. Countless websites supply free occult texts, there are Reddit pages dedicated to numerous disciplines, and paranormal vacations (and vacation packages) are now very real. Just as the Panic made vogue the fears of a Satanic planet, reality television played a part in growing our fascination with the frightful unknown.