amw

After my rather woeful and pathetic Christmas day, of which we shall not speak, my vacation kinda improved a bit. I've managed to spend a reasonable amount of time sleeping, which was my goal for the Christmas break. I've spent a bunch of time on the phone (and videoconference) to this fabulous girl in Canada who i can't wait to see in February. Long-time readers, yes, i know, i've already had all "not again"s i can take... I've also been up and doing a lot more stuff than i planned, some of which has actually not sucked the gay.

The other night scatterbeetle, having not yet read my rant about people coming over, asked to stay the night here after going to see Assemblage 23, an industrial band she had bought an extra ticket to and very kindly offered to me. So i very kindly said sure, and proceeded to bite my nails for the next 24 hours freaking out about someone being in my house. But i figured this was good practice for when burning_angel_ and suupernorton come down from Brissy for almost a week (!) at the end of January. Having people over is something i need to learn to deal with without getting anxious, especially when it's my friends. And really once scatterbeetle rocked up i had nothing to worry about. She's a lovely girl and was very mindful of my neuroses :-)

We spent the evening chatting and ripping CDs before heading down to the gig. And what a crazy entertaining night it was too. I realized that unless you count NIN (which i don't), i haven't been to an industrial gig since the 90s. When i was 18, 19ish i went out on the Brisbane scene a little bit. Oh yes, i owned Front Line Assembly and Nitzer Ebb CDs and danced to Cubanate's Body Burn. It's true. For some reason i thought industrial died in the 90s when i stopped listening to it, but it appears to still be going strong. Not just the whole electro/EBM sound, but the whole guys-wearing-wumpscut-tees/girls-wearing-fetish-gear fashion scene attached to it too. The whole night was a bizarre throwback to my past, it really awakened a bunch of memories i'd forgotten about. Strange times, that.

One of the most hilarious things of the evening was looking at the scene through the eyes of a raver/clubber. If you took away the vocals, the music would fall squarely into the cheesy/girly hardtrance genre, which is a favorite of drug-addled raver kids. But then instead of some MC going "yeah yeah pick it up, yeah, where is the bassdrum" there's this big angry bald man singing about the miseries of the world. He even played a track that sounded like happy hardcore. I broke down for a little while there just pissing myself at the incongruence of it all. But then it was still a lot of fun to be there on the dancefloor bouncing around to this stuff. What a blast from the past.

Also of note was the opening band - Angel Theory - locals from Melbourne. A bit more traditional-sounding EBM than A23 and very driving and dancey. Nifty.

I've been really happy with all the ways i've pushed myself this year. I haven't just gone out to house music gigs - i've seen Guns'n'Roses and NIN in concert, i went to the War Of The Worlds musical, i've been to a museum, i've gone to lesbian events, gay clubs, straight/top40 after-work-drinks, visited loads of cocktail bars, i've done this industrial gig, eaten fucking chicken feet, jellyfish, soft shell crab, shrimp, beef tendon, pig tripe, whatever... I feel like i've been really experiencing a lot of different things. I haven't enjoyed all of it, but it's made me a more interesting person. Or i'd like to think so. Heh. Here's to 2008 kicking even more ass.