Is anyone else sick of the internet yet? I mean, I feel like I’ve seen the whole thing now. I’ve spent too much time working, too much time watching videos and streaming and helping my kids get onto Google Meet for school and last but not least – live gigs and shows from lounge rooms and rehearsal rooms the world over.

I mean, I’m obviously overjoyed that we have the internet and that it’s serving as a lifeline for bands and artists at the moment; without it we would have gone dark. But my point is, I REALLLLLLLY need to have my head taken off in the throw of a stack of speakers in a wonderfull smelly pub with a bunch of real life, in-the-flesh mates.

Thank God for Lance, Ralph et al and The Basement.

A couple of weeks back they took the initiative and got in touch with my homies Witchskull and offered two shows for 10 folks at 106 bucks a ticket with food, alcohol and the set included.

At first I balked at the price, but thinking about it for 10 seconds, 20 bucks for a band, 20 bucks for dinner, 60 bucks on booze is not all that out of the ordinary for me, and my initial concerns were crushed when the first two sets sold out in under and hour and quickly added were two more sets the following day.

The boys played a great set and the initiative has grown already to 20 people shows and a whole bunch of other bands coming up to drip feed us riff pigs until the shit (that’s COVID-19’s actual name in Australia – the shit) is over. Have a squiz at March of Winter from the lads at one of the shows.

Big shout out to Rusty at Vance Custom Guitars for Marky’s new silverburst flying V; it’s a thing of wonder that you can see and hear in the above clip.

So well done to The Basement for finding a way to get a claw in with an industry the government has utterly failed through this terrible time. I know Glitoris have a show coming up in a week or so, get along and give them bad bitches (and I say that coming from a place of fealty and respect) some support – they’re worth every penny.

Lucifungus are doing a live video streamy thing this long weekend Saturday June 6, here’s the link to the stream to tune in and cop some songs of their killer new album Derek https://www.facebook.com/events/630995857488815/

Dog Eat Dog and Pilots of Baalbek are also going to the interwebs on Saturday, 13 June at an event you can access through this link https://www.facebook.com/events/172812650724180/

Speaking of watching too much streaming, one good thing I did was sign up for a month of Amazon Prime – which you get for nix – just so I could catch two killer metal docos you should all check out.

The first was the excellent Murder In The Front Row: The San Fransisco Bay Area Thrash Story. Here’s the trailer:

I really enjoyed it for some of the first hand stories, tales of mental shows at the legendary Ruthies Inn in Berkley, and a tonne of footage and great old photos from most of the big 4 and a bunch of others from when they were very young and growing a scene all of their own.

Obviously a few of these bands went on to change the world and become one of the biggest bands on the planet.

For me the film was near perfect until it took a detour to cover Metal Allegiance right on the tail of the film’s more emotional sections covering the death of Cliff Burton. There was just something about the editing of that moment and the coverage of a band that didn’t even start until 2014, despite its supergroup status, that sorta dispelled some of the magic of the movie. But it was still very, very good.

Arguably a better film, Death By Metal covers the tale of the storied Floridan pioneering Death and the tragic figure and main man behind the band Chuck Schuldiner.

One of the first extreme metal bands to get a major record deal out of the flourishing tape trading days of ’80s extreme metal, Death had a revolving line-up around Chuck and without overtly saying it (and once watching the film) could more diplomatically describe being in a band with Chuck as “difficult”.

I revelled in the interviews with his former band mates, especially Autopsy (as far as I am concerned, the greatest death metal band of all time) main man Chris Riefert, bassist extraordinaire Steve Di Giorgio, drum god Gene Hoglan and, of course, many more contemporaries and former band mates.

The film seems to say, through its interview subjects, that the reason behind so many disastrous tours and line-up changes was Chuck’s uncompromising musical vision. But like the other fantastic non-metal documentary The Last Dance on the fabled Chicago Bulls of the 1990s and the GOAT (sorry Lebron) I think one undercurrent theme came through both documentaries – and I do not want to speak ill of the dead – but it seems sometimes to be the best, you need to be a bit of a cunt.

I honestly think a lot of people want to say this in the doco at some point, but don’t because they are classier than me. But I say it in a way to denote respect to the man as well – he was uncompromising and he was a once-in-a-lifetime talent that saw Scream Bloody Gore on the shelf in record stores next to Def Leppard in the metal section in 1987! It was incredible at the time, believe me!

Here’s the trailer, and again both these docos are on Amazon Prime if you can’t get a hold of a physical copy. For the record, my favourite Death album is Leprosy if only because Pull The Plug is my favourite song and as much as technical drums are impressive (yes Human fans) I just don’t care as much.

Tonnes of new music has been through my speakers of late. I won’t get too deep here but for your listening pleasure, here’s a quick playlist I recommend you check out if you’ve not already:

Abremelin – Never Enough Snuff – Melbourne death metal boys 20 years + on from Deadspeak top anhything since Acheron days for me.

Horisont – Sudden Death – Swedes switch from 70s prog majesty of their last album Odyssey and drop a lot of the prog and up the 70s with big Queen and ELO vibes for an uplifting excursion into flares-rock.

ACxDC – Satan Is King – When the kids are running amok and I just need a breather I go for a quick drive and blast this, its aggressive as hell and rather bloody good.

Keep survivin’ folks!