Summer festivals are a strange phenomenon. We always long for them, to bum around a field with a tepid can of lager in our mitts and sharing the experience with thousands of like minded people. You’re basking in the sun (this one is usually a dream rather than reality, but allow me some leeway on this one), relaxing in some nice scenery and just generally enjoying yourself far away from the daily drudgery. It sounds like a very enjoyable endeavour and a lot of people usually do it all over again the very next year.

They may even make the trek to another country to partake of a foreign organizing concept of a festival. I’ve pondered this recently because last year I badly wanted to go to a three-day festival near my home town but due to fiscal issues I couldn’t go, but this year I definitely am. I should clarify that I am not an experienced festival-goer, having only been to one in my entire life so I’m not a weary traveller of the urine-and beer soaked fields of the world and have not mastered the art of comfortably moving around the semi-conscious bodies of punks, crusties and metalheads. But I have been longing to go to a festival for years.

This is where my recent introspection comes from. I really don’t know why I have wanted this for so long. Surely it can’t just be due to the good bands. Maybe it’s because it will necessitate several days away from the office, but surely there are more comfortable ways of spending your holiday then being hung over and covered in dust.

Let’s think about this; the weather is always diabolical and that is something I want an explanation about. I’d like to know whose idea it was to place all the worlds’ biggest music festivals in countries where it constantly rains, especially during the three days that the festival takes part. Even if there has been tropical heat every day prior to that, you must still under no circumstances neglect to prepare for rain, because it will rain.

The other major problem is that you have to pretty much disregard personal hygiene whilst there due to a number of reasons. My first and so far only experience with this was proof enough. Me and my friends smelled so bad that a friends father, who drove us home had to keep quiet for the entire trip, from fear of gagging. When this attack on his olfactory senses had subsided, he revealed that in his entire career as a doctor he had never encountered a smell so putrid. What a nice thing to hear about yourself, we were thrilled as you may imagine.

That may be the reason that I stayed away from it for so long. The fact that the smell our feet radiated is still deeply rooted in my mind.
But there is still something that makes me want to go again; I just can’t put my finger on it. It may be the feeling of being under the stars, camping and drinking and relaxing and all whilst some great tunes are washing across the field.
It’s a sense of freedom and it’s a completely different experience which is something I need after a very non-eventful year. Rest assured, it will be much cleaner this time around.

And did I mention that Kiss are headlining?

It’s really funny how some good music can stay with you forever and almost become the soundtrack to a part of your life. It evokes certain feelings in you and the same thoughts just keep coming back every time you listen to it. A good tune, a good band has that effect on you and you welcome it.

A record I have came out in 2004 and instantly made a huge impression on me. It was a band I already loved and the music is almost instrumental which somebody like me loves most of the time. That means that I get to put it on and just disappear for a while and let the emotions just take me away. My mind can drift away and be absorbed by the wonderfully emotional songs emanating from my speakers.

This time I had a rough time due to a death in the family and this meant that we would all go back to our homeland for the funeral. I hadn’t been there for a long time and would now get to walk the same steps as I had over decade prior to that.

I was really nervous because I had no idea of how I was going to react when I got there. A large number of my family members would be there and we would spend time together in our home town for the first time in 13 years but it would be under difficult circumstances. I wanted to experience it but at the same time I was dreading it because it would probably be the last time we would do that together in the place where we were born.

Whilst listening to this special record I just closed my eyes every time and imagined my self walking along the streets of my childhood and to be honest it fit perfectly.
If I was going to make a documentary then that is how it would look.

Being there in the end was really strange but quite satisfying. Not ultimately satisfying because I still didn’t get to see certain places that I wanted to and wasn’t able to revisit all my childhood tales, but I left with refreshed memories of my birth place. I had seen it as a grown man and now carry those memories with me all the time. Along with a soundtrack.

(The album is Panopticon by Isis. If you’re into heavier music the definitely check these guys out.)

I like a pleasant little surprise from time to time. It doesn’t happen often these days but it’s all the sweeter for it, especially when it invloves one of your favourite things. This is about music.

Saturday just gone I went to town to commence my weekly raid in the record stores. I went with no list in hand and nothing already picked out, but simply to browse and purchase whatever record I felt like getting.

First stop was a small independent shop, one of those obscure ones that’s only open about two days a week and located above an antique store. It’s the best in town and we remain steadfast companions. It is absolutely cluttered with cheap and classic punk, rock and metal and since I was on my own it meant that I could spend as much time as I wanted in there.

Usually whoever I am with at the time finds this pursuit about as pleasuring as french-kissing Roberto Benigni but it wouldn’t matter now.
I found a few good bargains but this one record was an absolute fluke. The name sounded similar to a punk band from a rural Mid-Western town that I used to listen to a few years ago and it cost less then a bottle of Steel Reserve so I had to buy it.

The record sounded nothing like the band I remember. I realised it wasn’t even the right one. Loud, dissonant but melancholic pop emanated from the speakers instead and it was brilliant, after the initial confusion. A true gem.

I can’t even remember the name of band that I first thought it was but it matters not a jot. I hope to get more of these surprises again.

Yo so it’s December 2007 and the Hot Water Music boys have been on “indefinite hiatus” for about 2 yrs. Chuck is busy doin’ his thing and rulin’ at it, A full length, live record, a video, soundtrack, uh, track, 7″ singles fan club, the shows are sick, jesus.

The Draft is kickin’ ass all over the place just off their first headlining tour this past fall and working on their second record (full length) not to mention the digital EP, seven inches (yeah, that’s a good size), and probably the best Replacements I’ve ever heard ever.

So I guess if your favorite band in the world is gonna break up this is really the way to do it and other motherfuckers should take note.

With all that in the mix what’s really the next best thing that could happen? Well, of course it’s your favorite band which has broken in to a 1/4 and 3/4 coming back together like fuckin’ Voltron or Megatron or some shit to be your favorite band again. And goddammit that’s exactly what’s happening for the moment.

Just to clarify; I am a ridiculous fan boy. I bought every ticket I could afford to the reunion shows. I bought extras for friends just in case their too stupid to have bought their own (Erok and Cody I’m lookin’ at you). I’m drivin to Jersey; I’m flyin’ to Chicago; and I’m just hopin they announce a fuckin Triple Rock show before I buy my plane ticket so I can plan accordingly.

Now I don’t mean to jinx things and disturb the whatever, high atop the thing and all but being a fuckin’ fan boy, I’m speculatin’ on all possible next steps and it’s really not so far fetched. I mean, the dudes are talkin’ about it themselves and it’s not like I’m sitting around wondering what t-shirt they’re gonna wear to the next show (although Wollard was wearing that same “Virginia is for Lovers” shirt at two shows I went to like 6 months apart), but instead I’m pondering just what the next New What Next is gonna sound like. You know what the fuck I’m talkin’ about?

Hell yes you do. Now check it out cuz I’ve got some thoughts on the matter…

As we know both sides of the split have been fuckin’ incredible. The Draft made songs that made unsuspecting co-workers into fans against their will due to my ridiculous over playing of the myspace page prior to the record coming out, and the Chuck songs just ferment like wine, better and better with time.

So here’s the rub; what does the next Hot Water Music record sound like? Again let me state for the record my diametrically opposing sides of my own inner argument. I’m certainly a little leery about tempting the blah blah from whence it came down the figgity fuckity mountain side but Fan Boy is really winnin’ this one so….I seriously think the new record, is gonna be the best fuckin’ shit in the world ever…ever.

Now all that ridiculous suspense built up is diminished slightly cuz I just came out and said what I’m thinking: The new record could simply be the next “New What Next” and I would love the living shit out of it no matter what I’m sure cause, well after like 10 years I haven’t been anything less than impressed. But what I really think is that it’s like this; imagine you’ve been in a relationship with a great person for the last decade and a half-ish or so, and now after all that it was good, and I mean real good, but for whatever reason it just had to go away for a while, could be mid-life crisis, could be fear of commitment, could just be boredom, could be you just wanna see “what else is out there”. Huh? Sound familiar? Yeah, now he/she moved out you’ve been on countless benders and one night stands, hell maybe you even had a real deal rebound relationship in there; good for you.

But really there’s still that something missing or more so you start to think that it didn’t have to be all or nothin’? So you start maybe with somethin’ simple. Maybe it’s a little myspace message, maybe it’s a forwarded email entitled “some pictures don’t need captions” with girls sitting casually at a bar table, very normal until you notice the beer bottle jutting out the hooh hoo (does your brother send you that ridiculous shit too???).

Whatever the case, however it starts it just explodes, reigniting those old feelings, all the good ones too, and finally you graduate to full fledged emails, then a little text-flirting then real deal actual phone calls where you decide to meet up for drinks and end up going back to your place and having the best make up sex in the world!

It’s old familiarity mixed with rediscovery mixed with the undertones of different lovers making the most vehement brew of love gravy you’ve ever dared to serve at your holiday party. This my friends is what the next Hot Water Music record could hold in store for each and every one of us. It could be the new (insert your favorite HWM record here)! Or it could really be some crazy new rock your fuckin’ faceass/assface off in the most subtle and overt ways possible.

So I guess what I’m sayin is that whatever the new record (please god! If there is one!) portends, be it the new next whatever comes next, or the drippy awesome rediscovery sex music-explosion described above I’m really just pretty sure that I have the best favorite band in the world.

A sure sign of the apocalypse: Barry Manilow at #1.

I know I’m not leaving the house tomorrow. If Manilow can sit atop the charts, anything can happen.