Brace yourselves, the end is nigh! Metal is close to being completely destroyed! Evil corporations are to blame; the technology they invent is breeding a new generation of lame bands preoccupied with social media and other fads!

I remember once back in the 1990s my Dad of all people told me that all home entertainment in the future will be stored in centralized locations and consumed when needed by the viewer. Once I finished laughing in his face for being a stupid old man I plugged in my walkman, cranked up my latest mix-tape, rewound my rented video and rollerbladed into town to drop it back to Xtra-Vision.

Needless to say old Pop’s prediction is coming true, but it could have been a firm reality sooner had there been less resistance to technology in the music industry.

The metal community has a vocal conservative caucus that, in addition to still ranting about posers despite being in their late 30s, criticize bands who are willing to use modern technology to promote themselves. Bands that utilize iPhone apps, Facebook competitions, mobile websites and MP3 releases are slagged for being commercial whilst those that release vinyls of rubbish bedroom recordings are hailed as underground heroes.

Internet based technology and media is no longer the future, it’s the present. Today’s generation don’t buy fanzines or records, they watch more video online than on TV and phones are becoming the internet browser of choice.

If all you granddads out there have a problem with your favourite obscure metal subgenre dying a slow death then embrace the ability to connect with new fans on a global scale. Either that or resume your position in the rocking chair by your gramophone. Rover will be along shortly with your slippers.

This time last year I promised myself I’d do something class at least once per month. I think I’ve achieved this and more. The aim is to make this list bigger for next year.

A big thank you to all my friends and family who have shared these experiences with me!

January

• Moved back into Belfast.

February

• Recorded Mental Deficiency’s debut album, ‘..And Now For Something Completely Deficient,’ with Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together Studios.
• First Mental Deficiency show in Derry.

March

• Mental Deficiency – Management deal
• Trip to Brussels.
• Saw Warrior Soul at the Diamond Rock Bar.

April

• Saw Earth at Auntie Annies.
• Triumphant return for Mental Deficiency to The Ivy in Newtownards.

May

• Another packed out stage for Mental Deficiency at Pigstock.
• Saw My Dying Bride at the Spring & Airbrake.

June

France:

• Travelled to Paris alone, met some cool Americans and visited the Eiffel Tower with them. Met more cool Americans at the top.
• Travelled to Clisson, met some cool French guys on the train who shared their wine with me.
• Arrived in Clisson, met some cool Dublin guys at the train station. Went for pints at nearby pub.
• Went to Hellfest – three days of insane partying and metal with the Mid Ulster Hallion Battalion and friends.

• Saw Def Leppard and Alice Cooper at The Odyssey.
• Saw Bon Jovi at the RDS in Dublin.

July

• Mental Deficiency – Album launch at The Black Box.
• Supported The Rubberbandits at The Stiff Kitten.
• Went to Glasgowbury.

August

• Mental Deficiency – Played at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
• Mental Deficiency – A packed out performance at Sunflowerfest.
• Mental Deficiency – Helped launch Molten Magazine at The Limelight.
• Saw Iron Maiden at The Odyssey.
• Saw Henry Rollins at The Empire.
• Met the lovely Michelle Mandipira, removed myself from the market.

September

• Saw Warrior Soul at Auntie Annies.

October

• Mental Deficiency – Played a great Halloween gig at Love & Death.

November

• Mental Deficiency – Supported Electric Six in the Spring & Airbrake.
• Started writing a column for Molten Magazine.
• Saw The Answer and Therapy? at The Ulster Hall.
• Saw and met Devin Townsend and Turisas at The Spring & Airbrake.
• Saw Manowar at the Mandella Hall.
• Saw The Sisters of Mercy at the Olympia in Dublin.

December

• Saw Reckless Love at The Limelight.
• Saw Skrillex in The Mandella Hall.
• Went to Manchester to see Steel Panther, Motley Crue and Def Leppard.
• Saw Saxon and Hammerfall in The Mandella Hall.

Other Highlights

• Shifted another stone in fat, that’s two in total since I started eating healthily and going to the gym.
• Edited Darkest Era music video – to be released soon.
• Appeared in Mental Deficiency music video – to be released soon.
• Successful year for my department in the day job.
• Got ongoing nasal health problem fixed(ish).
• Several successful magic performances.
• Helped establish The Monday Night Gentleman’s club a.k.a. The Merrigle.

2012 is already off to a busy start – just the way I like it!

When those handsome chaps at Molten asked me to write a rant column it took an hour for my already over-inflated ego to calm itself before I noticed a problem.

I hate rant columns.

Actually no, it’s not the columns themselves that bother me. There are however a number of arguments that frequently pop up in metal columns, magazines, and blogs that I’m sick of reading. These views are quickly joining such clichés as excessive beer consumption, substandard intelligence and long smelly hair in the metaller stereotype. Over the next few months I’ll paradoxically be ranting against rants. This month…

The Pop Machine Rant: I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read scathing attacks of the, ‘sheep,’ that follow The X Factor, Justin Beiber and other pop music products. If only these fans knew about REAL music by underground rock artists! They’re all unwillingly being brainwashed by Simon Cowell!

Sorry metal journos, but what do you hope to achieve by attacking X Factor fans? Yes I’m sure my middle-aged Mum, half the punters of the Kremlin and my neighbour who goes to the corner shop in her pyjamas are going to really dig Slayer if they were on prime-time instead. I’m also sure they’ll put down their latest copy of Heat, pick up a music magazine, read about how they’ve been wrong all along and purchase a ticket for Wacken.

Unless Derren Brown is somehow involved this is NOT going to happen. A column should challenge the readership, not be an outlet for a good whinge.

I’ve just realized I may have inadvertently done both. Balls.

1. Avoid listening to the radio or watching TV, both of them overplay Xmas songs and dilute their importance. When I hear a classic by chance when I’m out or at the shops it’s often the first time this season. The surprise of it gives you +1 Christmassy feeling.
2. Christmas is often associated with hassle and stress due to the never-ending shopping involved. Do it all online to save time and avoid the negativity.
3. Avoid seeing your family for too long on the run up to Christmas. This makes you more excited to go home and see them again over the festive period.
4. Pre-occupy yourself with lots of work on the run up to December 24th/25th so that you value the little time you get off to enjoy Christmas.
5. Don’t put the tree or decorations up too early, you’ll get sick of them by the time the actual day rolls round.
6. When possible avoid home cooked meals during the weeks before so that the anticipation of a proper home-cooked Xmas dinner is equal to that of the anticipation of the next Batman film.
7. Have it in your mind what films you’re gonna watch and what day over Christmas you will watch them. This again builds anticipation for the simple pleasure of chilling out in front of the fire whilst watching your favourite movies. Double points if they remind you of Christmas. I first saw Goodfellas on Christmas Eve; as well as being a favourite it also reminds me of the Holiday season.
8. Buy yourself a present.
9. Think about all the Shloer you will be drinking. Don’t drink any in the week before the 25th.
10. Be a bit reckless with your friends and have a great time being merry on Christmas week. Looking forward to partying with them again after family time gives you more to look forward to.
11. Book more than just the standard public holidays off work.
12. Be spontaneous like you would on a holiday abroad, then use the excuse, ‘it’s Christmas!’ to justify unusual actions.

I realize that it may be too late for you to implement these steps, but if you need them they’ll still be here next year to read! Have a good Christmas!

These venues are and should continue to be a mainstay of Belfast’s nightlife. Hundreds of great live bands from around the world have played there and the general ambiance of Katy Daly’s and the club nights is a welcome alternative to the vapidness of the larger nightclubs like Box and The M Club.

Although it will come as a relief to many that no major changes in entertainment are planned for the venue, this is the perfect time to tell the new owners what improvements you do think can be made. Any criticisms I make are intended to be constructive, I’ve had many great experiences in The Limelight Complex both on and off-stage and I want to see it continue to be a success.

Here’s a few suggestions I would have:

Sort out the heat in the Limelight – I don’t know if they have air-conditioning in there but it definitely doesn’t feel like it, especially during summer. This may require some sort of wind-turbines to be built into the walls like in Total Recall’s Mars Colony.

If the heat can’t be reduced, pump a nice smell into the club – The smell of sweat and beer farts can be pretty horrific now that the sweet aroma of tobacco is no longer there to cover it up.

Mix up the playlists on club nights – I’ve been going to the club nights on and off in the Limelight for 8 years and the lack of variety in the music played in that time is ridiculous. The main problem appears to be that the DJs only know one or two songs by any given band. From the many times I’ve attended club nights there I have arrived at the following conclusions:

1. Alice Cooper has only written one song, it’s called Poison.
2. Rage Against The Machine have two songs, Killing in the Name Of and Bulls on Parade.
3. The Smiths have one song called This Charming Man.
4. System of a Down have two songs – BYOB and Chop Suey.
5. The Prodigy have one song – Smack My Bitch Up.

The list could go on. I know you can’t please everyone and that a lot of rock sub-genres need to be included, but would it hurt to play different tunes by these multi-million selling artists?

Remove the pillar on the Spring and Airbrake stage – I know that this would require major construction work that could cost more than the building itself but you have to admit, that pillar is sooooo annoying.

Give James Loveday from the Distortion Project a full time job – He’s a one-man promoting machine and puts on dozens of great gigs every year, all around his regular job. Imagine what he could do if he did it full time!

Widen the selection of beers – This is a suggestion I would actually give to most bars in Belfast. Even if it was just in Katy Daly’s it would be a good start.

Hopefully the new owners already have plans to improve the service and entertainment provided by the venues whilst maintaining the aspects that make The Limelight Complex great.

What improvements would you suggest?

My main feed on Twitter is going mental at the moment with steam flying out of people’s ears all over the show regarding The Northern Ireland Music Awards. The ensuing flame war has proven to be some entertaining lunchtime reading.

I’d raised a few concerns I had about the naming of the awards on local music sites Metal Ireland and Fastfude. It was, on my part anyway, friendly debate that’s essential if public money is being used for artistic purposes.

Chris Wright from PanicDots.com asked me for a quote about the awards for an article he was writing. As I am a long-winded git I instead wrote half a novel that took bits of the various posts I made online and compiled them into the piece you shall read below.

His article was entertaining though quite incendiary and not in the same tone as the opinion I provided him. He also did not mention my name in the quote so in the interests of openness I present it to you here in full.

That’s right mofos, more ammo for angry tweets on both sides of the argument! Alternatively you can take a chill-pill and read this as genuine constructive criticism.

My Original Quote

(the part used in the Panic Dots article is in bold)

The nominations in any award ceremony will always raise controversy; fans will inevitably be disappointed if their favourite band/actor/film etc isn’t nominated in their relevant category. If you are in this position I feel you need to accept it and move on. However if the title of the awards ceremony doesn’t reflect the scope of the categories then there is a genuine reason for criticism.

There’s a new NI music magazine called Molten that specializes in metal. Imagine they had an awards ceremony called THE NORTHERN IRELAND MUSIC AWARDS and only covered music enjoyed by their own readership (mainly metal, hardcore and hard rock). Then imagine when non-readers of the magazine complained about the narrow selection of nominees, only to be told that the industry professional judges could vote for bands of any genre. After asking who the judges are, think about what their reaction would be when told that the judges’ identities are a secret.

Would that be as deserving of the title of NI Music Awards? Clearly the answer is no. A better title would be the Molten Magazine Awards, in the same way NME have the NME awards or Metal Hammer have the Golden Gods.

This doesn’t sound like a good foundation on which to build a new awards show. The presumed authority Molten would appear to have to determine the best in all of Northern Ireland would very rightfully anger those not involved in the metal scene.

The NIMAs appear to be doing this, only it’s not metal; it’s a harder to define group of which a lot of the bands are regularly featured in AU Magazine.

90% of the NI music scene isn’t actually a music scene, it’s a social scene with bands playing in the background. The bands playing are dictated by the people involved in the social circles, a general interest in the genre and by the media consumed by the members of the scene.

The problem is not about genre, its about social groups. Even though there are bands for many genres up for awards, they are all bands that have featured heavily in the magazine and there are no nominees that are not regular AU material.

The metal scene is frequently being brought up in this debate, and with good reason. An example I always use is the metal band Gama Bomb from Newry. Over the last few years they have signed to Earache records, released two acclaimed albums, toured all over the world including the USA, played dozens of festival dates and secured high profile support slots for bands such as Trivium and Sepultura.

After so many amazing achievements by Gama Bomb as well as other NI metal acts why are they not nominated? It’s because both their fans don’t move in the same social circles as AU fans, therefore they won’t be featured in that magazine. In fact they’re barely known in NI unless you’re an underground metal fan. Radio play, magazine coverage and NIMA nominations are non-existent despite their incredible talent and hard work.

It’s not just those who follow metal music who have made this point. Well-deserving artists in Jazz, Blues, Hard Rock and Punk have all been neglected.

If the event had been called something like, ‘The AU Magazine Awards,’ or, ‘The AU/Oh Yeah Awards,’ the nominations and live performers would make total sense. Let me be clear, it’s totally normal for magazines to only cover the bands they and their readership are interested in. AU knows it’s audience and should be applauded for its talented writing and design staff. I read it regularly, mainly for the film and games features.

The implied wide scope of the event title however, coupled with the obvious ties the nominees have to the magazine, give other musical social groups ammunition to label the whole process as rife with cronyism and ignorance; even if this isn’t actually the case at all.

Added frustration ensues when people realize that they are partially footing the bill for it, since the event is sponsored by The Tourism Board, Invest NI and Belfast City Council; and organized by AU and Oh Yeah which rely on government funding to maintain their existence.

So there you have it folks, my eagerly awaited (by 3 people) take on the NIMAs with a few opinions/generalizations about the NI Music Scene(tm) thrown in for good measure.

Now please excuse me, I’m away to work on some new Mental Deficiency tunes so I can try and get an award next year