End Of Days

Well the heating is on, the street looks like an epileptic's nightmare and the neighbour has been singing Christmas Carols since October so it can only mean one thing really, it's the end of the fucking year already.
So I invite you to pull up a glass of mulled wine, help yourself to a mince pie and shout 'Bah fucking Humbug' to all as we look back on a year that can only be described as a mixed bag of nuts here at History Towers.

Before I get into what I thought was hot or not, I'd give an overview of the year from my perspective.
I began the year looking at the New Year news and Metallica had topped the Neilsen Soundscan charts with The Black album 20 years after it's release.
Well we end the year with news that 21 years after it's release they are going to play all of that album at festivals around Europe. At the behest of Download festivals organisers. Yes folks, that desperate attempt to win back fans and credibility was actually not even their own idea and now seem to be pimping themselves out to whoever feels they can pay 'Tallica enough to dictate their setlist.
Given that the only song I want to hear by them is 'Dyers Eve' these days I might find myself down the front at Donington on June 9th next year waving a stack of cash around like a pervert trying to stuff dollars in the waistband of a poledancer.
Let's face it, it's pretty much the same thing now and with only 20,000 units of Lulu sold to date they could probably do with the cash. Honest.

I also briefly appeared to have mislaid my copy of Monster Magnet's Mastermind that was so cherished last Xmas for a week and found it in the place I was looking proving that age is doing me no favours... Alter Bridge released Alter Bridge 3.5, although God knows what that is as 3 was boring enough.

I  talked about Killswitch drummer Justin Foley standing/sitting in the vacant Unearth drumstool before opining that they need to really deliver this time out...
Well they did okay; 'Darkness In The Light' is a solid album that is not good enough to grace my top of anything, but neither is it bad. If I extended the category to a top fifteen it would probably be in there, but for a year to produce over a good album a month (or slightly above on average) is highly unlikely these days and this year was no exception.

 Elsewhere in the year the following also happened:

Original Iron Maiden singer and gun toting, wife beating, drug addled nutjob Paul Dianno  has been charged with 8 counts of benefits fraud of £45,000. He claimed to have nerve damage in his back and the Department for Work and Pensions got a tip from an anonymous tipper who said he was jumping around on stage. The Department for Work and Pensions gave him four and a half months in jail and took his property. He was released in March.

British metal legends and aging fossils Judas Priest embarked on their final world tour this summer, entitled Epitaph World Tour. Despite this, the band insist that they are not going to break up.However, founding member K. K. Downing later retires from the band allegedly to concentrate on running his 18 hole Golf club. Judas Priest also stated "Having thought long and hard about how to proceed, Rob, Glenn, Ian and Scott unanimously agreed that they should go ahead with the tour and not let the fans down around the world". 31 year old British guitar player Richie Faulkner was announced as the replacement, but the press release did not state if it is on a permanent basis and by all accounts it now seems likely they will record again.
Having seen Halford on the tour before last I would say he should have been retired as well...

The Voice Of Doom endorsed and not at all homoerotic Manowar caused a blackout in Cleveland, Ohio while performing a sound-check on March 11. A whole city block lost electricity and was not back in service for another 24 hours. Manowar had backup generators so the show was able to continue which was lucky for any fans of oiled men in loin cloths playing chest beating macho shit.


Lead vocalist Keith Caputo of alternative metal band Life of Agony changed his name to Keith Mina Caputo, and his gender from male to female. Seriously...
Now I am not ragging on transvestites, transgender people, but the fact is that Keith was one of my childhood heroes and I am actually friends with him on Facebook.
If you ever get the chance to do this for one of your heroes, don't.
Fragile flower and renaissance (wo)man Keith is an eye opener on the net... frankly I couldn't care less that he looks like an ugly Ozzy Osbourne in drag I struggle daily with the fact that when I cull my virtual friends the man whose moving words helped get me through my late teens/early twenties is second on my list.


Been a shit year for rockers shuffling lose the mortal coil as well:

• January 7 – Phil Kennemore, 57, bassist of hard rock outfit Y&T died of lung cancer.
• February 6 – Gary Moore, 58, guitarist died of heart attack while on holiday in Spain.
• February 23 – Phil Vane, 46, former vocalist for the crust punk/grindcore band Extreme Noise Terror, was found dead in his home.
• March 8 – Mike Starr, 44, original Alice in Chains bassist was found dead in his home.
• March 22 – Frankie Sparcello, bassist of Exhorder.
• April 4 – Scott Columbus, 54, former Manowar drummer died due to unknown causes.
• June 11 – Seth Putnam, 43, vocalist for Anal Cunt died from a heart attack.
• July 9 – Michael "Würzel" Burston, 61, former Motörhead guitarist.
• August 3 - Andrew McDermott, 45, former vocalist of Threshold died from kidney failure after being in a four day coma. 
• August 11 – Jani Lane, 47, former lead vocalist of Warrant.
• September 9 – Jonas Bergqvist, also known as "B", guitarist and vocalist of the Swedish band Lifelover died of unknown causes.
• November 2nd – Cory Smoot, also known as "Flattus Maximus", guitarist of the American band Gwar died of unknown causes.
Obviously some hold more gravitas than others in terms of musical influences but never-the-less a loss is a loss and no less tragic so RIP to all.


Elsewhere Rex 'Rocker' Brown got kicked out of Down for his extra-curricular activities; foot in mouth merchant Anselmo made up with Dimebag Darrell's girlfriend Rita Haney who in turn fell out with Vinnie Paul as the two of them bicker as to who loved him more.

Bored of waiting for Pepper Keenan to stop having a more successful career in Down, disgruntled Corrosion Of Conformity members reunited the Animosity line up and toured with promise of an album.

Bruce Dickinson's day job as Astreus airline pilot was axed as the company went into administration. Not exactly leading the queue in rushing down the job centre, the Air Raid Siren was last quoted as going to resurrect the airline amongst other plans for aviation, world domination and maybe even going back in the studio with bit on the side, Iron Maiden.



Finally this month we said a fond good bye to British Doom stalwarts Cathedral who played their last live show on the 3rd December. I must confess to never having listened to as much of their music as I should have and it was an excellent night curtsey of my darling girlfriend and my companions, even if it has left me with a tinge of sadness that Cathedral will release just one more album and then shuffle off into the annals of history.
Lee Dorrian's contribution to music both with Napalm Death, Cathedral and Rise Above Records is undisputed.

As for the rest of the year it can fuck off with it's riots, recession, tsunamis, tornados, Lulus, relegation, broken houses and general bullshit. There has been some great music released this year amongst a lot of shite, but I'll get to that next time, because let's face it, it's more fun.