Rottendam and other stories…

On Thursday I went to Rottendam and finally saw Oxbow, supported by Harvey Milk, in a place called Worm, which is in the middle of building site. Actually, much of R'dam is a building site at the minute and it's fucking horrible. (I actually visited the place before and thought the same thing. There's a short note about it HERE.)

Anyway, there we were in Worm, Liz and I, looking for the amenities, when we spied the merchandise stand and a familiar looking bloke shuffling in behind it. "There's Eugene!" We gasped, because it was. So we scurried over to the array of t-shirts and CDs and Eugene and instead of the stunningly intelligent and witty conversation I had planned to strike up with the man whose twisted screams have been making my eardrums wiggle a lot of late, we had some sort of weird exchange regarding the trains and my wallet. Which he thought was cool. So, a little bit disappointing on my part, but what chance did I have? There he was, the fucker, casually strolling about selling shirts like a gypsy carpet-dealer and behaving for all the world like just a really nice bloke who smiles a lot.

I ended up buying The Narcotic Story on vinyl, making a dumb and possibly incomprehensible comment about already having the CD, but being a nerd. ("Yeah," thinks Eugene, "a real fucking nerd…" What is it they say about not meeting your heroes cos they'll disappoint you? I think what the inventor of that ol' saw meant was never meet your heroes because YOU will disappoint THEM.) I also got the "Every man an island" t-shirt I've been coveting remotely for about a year. I now have it — hurrah!

Anyway, it was soon time for Harvey Milk to play and they were pretty good in a sludgy doomy kind of way. I was losing them part way through the 25-minute opening song, but they pulled it back and it was all over far too soon. Liz seemed to think there was disharmony onstage after someone fucked up, although I barely noticed, being too busy going — Look! A Melvin! To myself…



Then came Oxbow. Wow. I will confess to being a bit wary and nervous about seeing the show, having heard tales of violence and cruelty — and not really knowing how I was going to respond to the heaving mass of angry, sweaty flesh that nice man from behind the merch stand was about to turn into. I needn't have worried, it was fucking great. It was interesting to see how the guys in the band interact with one another and how the songs work live.

I was delighted to see that no matter what kind of band it is, there are certain constants. Constant Number One: Bass-players always seem to be enjoying themselves more than everyone else. Of all the bassists I've met, never I have I come across a surly one (well, not entirely true, I have met guitarists playing bass who were surly, but only because they weren't the centre of attention). Surly/surely/surly/wurly. Cof.

Anyway, Dan Oxbass was the one going, "Hey, will we play this, or this, or we haven't played this in a while!" Meanwhile, Eugene is standing to one side of the stage in a trance — in his pants — seemingly not noticing the discussion around him, but launching into the songs without ado at all.

From my vantage point, hiding behind Niko's Ox(key)board, I had a perfect view of all the guitar stuff and all, but was unfortunately too overwhelmed by the fantastic noise these four were making. Oh, well, I guess the Oxbow tribute band (Ox-No?) will have to wait. For now…

Yes, I will go see them again and Pity The Fool who tries to stop me (if it's anyone but The Fool, I may be fucked…). Next time I'll take more pictures, with a decent camera, but this time I wanted to enjoy it for real and not through a lens, hence only a couple of (shitty-looking) snaps from the encore. Taken with my phone. Technolorgasmic!



And what else? Oh, we stayed in a houseboat in R'dam. That was kind of fun, sitting there reading a book and suddenly noticing that the world beyond your window was bobbing up and down. Cool. It was in that houseboat that I read the last of Sherlock Holmes. There is no more Holmes? Weep. It's been fun, though.

On the subject of detectives, I came across the first slew of Batman: Dark Knight reviews. So far Rotten Tomatoes has a 100% rating — which is reassuring. Been looking forward to this for a long time… BUT! I object to the terms used to describe it in some places, such as in the TIME review, which is extremely positive, but which contains this line: "The Dark Knight is bound to haunt you long after you've told yourself, Aah, it's only a comic-book movie."

I am getting really fed up of reviewers, movies types and people in general belittling the the comics medium with words like 'only' or 'just'. How many fucking great comics will there have to be before people stop associating the word with Dennis the Menace and Garfield?

The worst thing about all the vaguely sneering talk about 'only a comic-book movie' is that the films invariably fall far short of the original book in terms of complexity, scope and general level of intelligence. Take anything by Alan Moore which has been filmed, lay it alongside the book and you will see the extent of the dumbing down.

So, if comics are only for idiots and the immature, why is it that when it comes up for repackaging for 'the mainstream' the stories get gutted of all their nuance, commentary, social criticism, etc, and get turned into the same old Hollywood pap? If they're 'only' comic-books, why do they have to be ruthlessly declawed and simplified before they can hit theatres?

Fuck you and your superior attitude, General Public!

It makes me mad…