A Sad Song

From The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966). The scene where Tuco and Blondie are hiding amongst the POW in the Union camp. Lee Van Cleef is kicking the shit out of Tuco and a band of prisoners play this outside to drown the sound of his screams. Simply put, its one of the most achingly beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.



Allegedly, Mickey Knox, the man responsible for making sure the English translation synched with the Italian actors mouths struggled for days to find the words to fit when the soldier tells them to play louder. He needed two words to fit. He came up with "more feeling" as the young prisoner starts crying.

Canvas - Lost In Rock (2001)

Second Canvas post. First one below or here. This is the final release they put out in 2001 on Household Name. It was something that at the time, and even now, seems quite an odd release for that label. But what the hell.
Canvas pretty much stepped away from any hardcore affiliations with Lost In Rock. The style of riffs, the even more off-time drumming, the obvious post-punk influences and the even more left-field vocals. Somewhere between an Ozzy like howl before flipping into a high pitched shriek. The most notable influence (yet even only in a very weighty riff way) is Neurosis, but that is a very loose and obvious reference. Its a bit to difficult to describe this album fully, so a better way would be to list the instruments used, which can be found in the linear notes.

Electric guitars
Bass guitars
Acoustic guitars
Electro acoustic guitars
Drumkit
Voice
Analog synthesizer
Turntable
Effects unit
Drum machine
Samplers
Keyboards
Fisherprice Activity Centre
Dictaphone
Violin
Flute

Canvas - Lost In Rock

The band called it quits not to long after this. Since then they have all moved on with quite different musical careers. Members have been involved with Humanfly, Born From Pain, Hood, Tigers, Beecher, Tangaroa and quite a few more that I can't recall anytime soon.
To end. I loved Canvas. Still do. Certainly opened my young eyes to experimentation and progression within music. Godbless.

Canvas - S/T (1999)

Long forgotten about except for people in the know at the time. Canvas where the black sheep of UKHC back at the turn of the millennium. Based on Household Name Records ( back before they jettisoned the whole metal/hardcore angle and pursued easier listening avenues) and possessing a sound far harsher and ear shredding than any of there peers, Canvas progressed from the early Unborn, Slayer and Catharsis influenced screeching metalcore to something altogether different. But more of that later.
For now is the first full release they ever did. Released back in 1998, this self-titled release collects together the first 2 years of the bands adventures in recording land. Culled from demos, splits and releases that never got um...released. Its rough in places but I still love this album. Canvas took metallic hardcore and combined that with death metal, black metal, noise and power electronic influences and threw the results onto tape. It didn't always work but when it did it was pretty forceful and gave you a hint at what was to come.

Canvas - S/T

More to come soon.

D-rail - 3 Track (2006)

D-rail where the bullet proof band from Leeds that did what they did before anyone cared about them or started following the same trends. If you ever saw them live you will completely understand how good this band where. If you where ever on tour, you will have stayed and partied at the D-rail house. My old band shared a label with them for a while and played with them on so many different occasions. Here is a 3 track sampler that came out before there first album "The Kinetics Of A Decaying Structure". It contains different versions of the album tracks.

D-rail - 3 Track Sampler

Much missed but its still possible to get there final recording from Thirty Days of Night Records. Since they split the members have been sighted with The Lock & Keys, Death Hand Approaching and Black Fang.

It makes sense if you where there.
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Gatechien - S/T (2004)

This comes from my very lax attempts to put gigs on years ago in Liverpool. It was more really helping out some friends who already did it. It was pretty fun. Saw some awesome bands. One of those bands was French drum/bass duo Gatechien who we put on. Really surprised me at how much I enjoyed them. Its pretty common nowadays with the whole 2-piece/bass + drum setup, everybody is doing it. Gatechien stray away from the loud/distorted nature of a lot of that stuff, instead they have this whole Joe Lally crossed with math rock crossed with an almost pop-like element of melody. I believe this is album number 2. They are onto the fourth one at the moment. I do really love this album, download and have a listen.

Gatechien - S/T

Chronicles Of Adam West - Demo (2006)

Gonna post something every day this weekend. First up is self proclaimed "hardcore kids gone tech" SW based Chronicles Of Adam West. They existed for a few years, toured quite a bit, fell out a little and changed a few members. Not around anymore. After this demo they released an EP on the awesome Holy Roar Records ( which you can still pick up really cheap) and then decided to split up. I drove them on a tour with D-rail ( Who I will post about later) and it was blatantly clear how stupidly talented they where. This is the 2006 3-track demo they released to coincide with the afor mentioned tour.

Chronicles Of Adam West - 2006 Demo

Since the split the guitarist Theo has been playing even more technical music in Antares. Which if you know him is no surprise whatsoever.

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What I watched this week....

Uhf.....



It made me realise the genius, physical comedy talent of Michael Richards and shed a little man tear for Trinidad Silva. God rest his soul.

The Punisher War Zone + The Punisher kills the Marvel universe

My love of the original, 1989, Dolph Lundgren starring Punisher film has been well documented on the old blog. It is a far superior version than the shoddy-as-a-shoddy-thing, 2004, John Travolta cursed turkey. They tried, but the softening of the Punisher character just didn't fly with me as did neither Travolta's lumpen acting or Thomas Jane's far to chirpy Frank Castle.
So a further Punisher film was made. The Punisher War Zone followed in 2008 under a cloud of studio intervention, rumours and general on set trouble.
I did nearly miss this one. No cinema release over this side of the Atlantic meant it slid onto DVD pretty slyly and I kept noticing it for about a year before finally grabbing it up ( at a bargain price of 4 queen heads!) and I regretted not doing so sooner after viewing.
It knocks the 2004 version apart from the off. Death, gore, guns galore and in Ray Stevenson a much better suited and believable Punisher than Thomas Jane. He lives in the sewers and actually kills folk with guns! Instantly better.
Dominic West is a superb, cartoon villain and the action set-pieces are full of as much gore and bullets as Punisher fans expect. Every aspect of this is infinitely better than the 2004 version. Its actually an 18 Cert as well!
I would ramble on about the film but I ain't the best about writing/talking/explaining stuff so I have uploaded this interesting addition to the Punisher library of original stories for download.
The Punisher kills The Marvel Universe was a one-shot from 1995 that changed various details about Frank Castle's back story to accommodate the plot. A plot that was pretty off its head but also pretty unintentionally funny. Basically, the Punisher spends the story tracking down and exterminating the entire, super powered, Marvel universe characters. That's right, he shoots them all dead, or blows them up, or melts them, or executes them. Superbly funny stuff.

The Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe

You will need the Comic Book Reader program. But its free and mega easy to find on the Internet so I won't link you to it or anything, you should be able to manage that one yourself.
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