FEROCIOUS DISPLAY OF ULTRA PROG DEATH METAL AND SPACE TRIPPING PSYCHE
Last night, alt pop legend Edwyn Collins played Manchester’s Albert Hall – his last ever UK gig. In a few days, 90s indie stars Sleeper move through its arches. Sandwiched in between is Blood Incantation. The place is jammed.
It’s a magnificent venue: the former chapel brings a historic elegance that fully enhances the totemic props and cosmic-ancient energies central to Blood Incantation’s philosophical quests through their chosen medium of time-bending, mind-expanding death metal.
We get latest album Absolute Elsewhere in full from start to finish – The Stargate and The Message. We get The Giza Power Plant. We get Starspawn. Stunning, every last blast and beat. But what this whole gig really feels like is 75 minutes of death metal orchestra. We know from the albums that Blood Incantation are vast and expansive, but tonight delivers such a technical, visceral and telepathically locked-in performance of extreme metal and prog dynamics that you wonder if such intense heavy fusion can ever be repeated, never mind topped. Where can Blood Incantation possibly go from here? Has this path peaked?
When Paul Riedl introduces The Giza Power Plant as a track “…from our second album Hidden History of the Human Race“, you remember that they’ve only made four. The pace of the band’s development to this gig right now seems exponential, even though they started from Starspawn’s already high bar.
Writing here as someone who’s not really into death metal but who has gone for this band in a big way, this performance went beyond all expectations: a supreme mix of aggression, blast beats, DM churn, post-metal soar and speed metal hooks with Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream pushing through. Clear sound, crystal. Lasers and lights, a spectacle. It’s theatre without theatrics – a show where the body of music took centre stage as a massive, singular force.
Forgive the hyperventilating gush. Am still mesmerised, really. At their first ever Manchester gig, Blood Incantation damned near performed death metal levitation.
BERLIN BREAKBEATS, LONDON PROG, PHILADELPHIA SHOEGAZE – AND PULLED APART BY HORSES HIT BUXTON
Who’d have thought it? Pulled Apart By Horses, on stage, in Buxton.
Honestly, it’s a shock – but a welcome one. Being a Buxton newcomer (moved here just under a year ago), it was my understanding that noise-and-sweat-style rock gigs by name bands wouldn’t really be a fixture. So, Sheffield and Manchester have been beacons for riff-heavy fixes by the likes of the Melvins and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.
Then Pulled Apart By Horses posters started popping up around town. What???
And here we are at Buxton Trackside, gearing up for a Pulled Apart gig more than 10 years after seeing them rip it up in Oxford.
Having not followed the band since Tough Love, the line-up changes and recent albums escape me but, really, it’s the live Horses experience that’s the draw and one thing that time hasn’t dimmed is singer Tom Hudson’s willingness to get off the stage and into the crowd. This happens in the very first track and doesn’t stop all night. It sets the tone and ups the energy right off the bat.
The awesome V.E.N.O.M. gets cranked out early, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? catches everyone out and High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive pretty much shuts the set down before a final thrash through I Wanna Be Your Dog makes for a predictably raucous send-off. Job done. Very little has changed from all those years ago – whether that’s good or bad is up to you – but it feels great to be among some noise on a Buxton Friday and huge props to Buxton Trackside for making such an ace gig space. Let’s hope it becomes the venue for live action round here.
Right, what else has caught the ears this past month? New records by the godlike Robert Plant and in-shape Nine Inch Nails are the big specials but there’s always room for small curios. Here’s a just-heard new sound or three fished out from murkier waters.
THEY ARE GUTTING A BODY OF WATER – the chase
Lumbering guitar mass pounding, not a zillion miles away from Mogwai at their earliest unpolished, starts the chase. Then the clean breakdown and spoken storyteller narration. Then the return of the guitars, steamrollering everything. This – the oversized guitar fuzz and feedback – leapt right out of the radio the other night and set expectations of a band dealing in noise-heavy post-rock.
But their other tracks have undermined those expectations a little. Is there enough here to keep us hooked? Not sure yet. Curious, though. Next album LOTTO out soon and the chase is on it.
JASSS – It’s a Hole (feat James K and Alias Error)
Deep bass drives this dense, ultra shadowy soundscape by Berlin-based multimedia artist JASSS. Though not loud or showy, It’s a Hole is rich with information that slow-drowns you in disorienting intoxication … faint dread meets the hypnotic ebb of a dark Boards of Canada warping. Tense comforts.
THE ORCHESTRA (FOR NOW) – Hattrick
London prog, the band call it. Jazz-flamed rock with violin, cello and noise-prog ambition is a less pithy tag. Probably less usable, too. But you know how Maruja’s Look Down On Us climbs into a crescendo of communal euphoria that threatens to transcend? Hattrick kicks that kind of dust. Rage and beauty and loud and quiet and wild orchestral swings – and a drummer to drop jaws everywhere.
When Melvins take the stage at 9pm on Saturday 16th August, half the band have already played for an hour. It’s no surprise that Steve McDonald doubles up on bass duties with Red Kross supporting but Dale Crover behind the Kross kit? Bonus. I know zilch about Redd Kross beyond the name – I guess they hung out in a grunge-adjacent strand of the alt-rock rainbow in the early 90s but no tunes come to mind. Not like it matters – their alt-punk energy, power pop hooks, vocal harmonies and rippingly to-the-point solos are catchy and breezy. Tight band, great set.
FUNN FAKT: Sheffield is the first place in the UK that Steve McDonald ever slept. It was in 1992. He told us.
Melvins are a different animal – not just different to Redd Kross but different to every other band out there. This is not news. But seeing them live on such imperious form – which they definitely are tonight – is a reminder of just how potent and ingenious a one-off force they still are and we really, really shouldn’t take them for granted.
With Coady Willis setting up next to Dale Crover, Big Business-era killers like Blood Witch and Evil New War God land with all their original double-drum intensity and, for my tastes, are worth the price of entry alone. With Revolve and Working the Ditch also working their way into the set, it’s game over – Melvins win. Cannot remember now what else got played (did Kicking Machine make it? Hooch?) but that doesn’t matter. What we got was an hour and fifteen minutes of twisted, non-stop riffage that only Melvins can deliver.
And to watch Buzz Osborne is to watch a guy consumed by what he’s doing. Not once does he address the crowd between songs – that’s McDonald’s job, he’s the connector – and not once does he step off the gas. He rocks out, sings hard and plays hard. Ridiculously fckn hard. They all do.
Been on a Melvins binge ever since. Just how it should be.
MARCH REWIND: EXPLOSIVE PSYCHE JAZZ ON STAGE AND A SUPERNOVA SCORCHER FROM NUNO
Didn’t see that one coming. Extreme, creators of one of the most hated ballads ever to many a 90s alt-rock post-thrash industrial-crossover Seattle head (like me), flew in from nowhere and slayed the long-standing prejudice right out of us (er, me again). Their new track Rise is a killer, partly thanks to a stupendous Nuno Bettencourt solo that could just be a Moment for mainstream hard rock virtuosity.
But we’ll get to that soon enough. First, it’s a little late write-up of live new-jazz action that set a serious bar for all live music in 2023.
RUN LOGAN RUN – LIVE @ TAP SOCIAL, OXFORD, FEBRUARY 15
When you check Run Logan Run online, you’ll see the band listed as a duo of tenor saxophonist Andrew Neil Hayes and drummer Matt Brown. You’ll see they’re from Bristol and you’ll see tags like experimental, jazz, punk jazz, all that stuff.
None of this is untrue. Except that, on stage, there’s a guitarist and bassist too (don’t know the names of the players, sorry) so any mild trepidation you might have had as to whether drums and sax alone can hold your attention gets fully obliterated by the trance groove, transcendent voodoo and rock-band physicality served up by a four-piece. And they LOVE what they’re doing up there – improvising, smiling and connecting with each other while locked on free-flowing psychedelic trips.
Points of reference? You need someone better versed in this field than me, but if you’re partial to Colin Stetson/Ex Eye, Melt Yourself Down and the outer limits of Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters then you’ll find much to like. A couple of tracks – Silver Sun was one – feature Annie Gardiner on vocals, who did the night’s opening set. Billy Fuller plays on Annie’s latest album so that’s even more evidence of a deep Bristol/Beak/Plant continuum at work.
Tracks played tonight include Give Me Back My Slippers, Project Pigeon Missile, Caveman Disco and a storming Searching for God in Strangers’ Faces. Whether or not listening to their recorded music matches up to the on-stage incarnation is something I’ve yet to check, but the live show is without flaw. Adventurous, highly proficient musicians fully immersed in the moment, Run Logan Run pull you in to the eye of their creative storm. And it’s a thrilling trip.
And now for something completely different …
AUTHOR & PUNISHER – Drone Carrying Dread
Slow, luscious, machine-beats metal mixing doom tones with euphoric splendour – think Type O Negative hooking up with Deftones or Chino Moreno solo and you’ve got the mechanised bones of this goth fix, chilled by 80s ice (but no Vanilla). It’s been out for a year so it’s not brand new but never mind, we’ve saved it for a gloomy day. Check it here.
HOLY FAWN – Void of Light
Enter the world of atmospheric post-metals, made for cold grey skies. Slow, soft beginnings mark this out as an atmospheric venture, and it absolutely is, but a change of beat brings an attitude shift. Voice harshens, rhythm skitters, layers amass. No rocking out to this, not that way, because it’s not riff music. It’s mood music: nature’s bleak call. Listen here and file somewhere near Cult of Luna.
ELDER – Catastasis
Heavy ecstasy from Massachusetts’s Elder. Catastasis packs an album’s worth of hardened prog and hypnotic riffage into a 10-minute joyride that’s both free-flowing jam and crafted orchestration. There’s an airy propulsion that adds 3D-space to knotty riffs and ground-level bass – check those spiralling, looping motifs at the start – as do the Yes-alluding vocals and fleeting keyboard cameos. Classy stuff. And while we’re in the company of Elder, let’s not forget about Delving either.
OK, then. Shock of the year:
EXTREME – Rise
I’m sure we’ve all got an opinion on Extreme. Or a physical reaction to More Than Words, a tune that undid the exuberance of Get the Funk Out and positioned Extreme as a permanent Musical Enemy of the early 90s.
But this new tune, Rise, is something else. It’s a beast.
Kicking off with a straight-into-it riff that could easily be the opening bars of a 2023 Metallica track, it hooks you and you keep watching. The band’s in great shape, turning in one of those old-school performance-style videos and Gary Cherone’s voice is in top shape. Tonnes of energy and a Tool-ish riff fragment lurking under the chorus. So far, so unexpected, so good. And then…
…and then. Nuno Bettencourt’s solo.
And that’s where it all blows up. Honestly, the drop-jawed shock that comes from seeing and hearing this for the first time is enormous and it could be a re-defining hard rock moment. Then again, I’m no musician and maybe it’s a generation thing I’m feeling, wowed off-guard by a critical underdog. But something feels unexplainably BIG about this – some combination of nostalgia, big-name comeback, timing, viral potential, Eddie Van Halen tribute and Nuno showcase that lands like a celebration and a challenge. It’ll make a lot of others look tired in comparison. It’s exciting, it feels like it was needed. No wonder people like Rick Beato are all over it.
If you’re gunning for guitars and showmanship in a song you can sing along to, Rise delivers. Over and over.
LONDON O2 ARENA: MAY 10TH, 2022. TOOOOOOOL….. CAN THEY LIVE UP TO THE EXCITEMENT IN YOUR TOOL-NERD MIND?
A shade after 8:30, they’re on. Fear Inoculum is up first, a gently building Toolscape to set the scene and IT’S HAPPENING, it’s actually bloody happening. Then it’s a three-decade rewind to Sober, which is huge but with this unexpected diversion:
“….happy birthday dear Danny … happy birthday to you.”
Woven seamlessly into Sober’s bleak spell is Maynard’s singalong for the big fella Carey on the drums.
“Old as fuck. It could be your last.”
A couple more waspy barbs and a quick crowd singalong later, we’re back into Sober’s dark underbelly where Adam Jones’s original video plays out on the colossal backdrop. This is followed by Undertow and Pushit. Is this a start or what? The playing’s as meticulous, forceful and exceptional as the records so there’s pretty much no point describing it. Every riff, break, drop, surge, polyrhythm, tempo shift or whatever it is that knocks you out when you play the albums is right there.
Which leads to this: if the music’s beyond question (and it is), what’s the point of a review?
It’s to somehow share the spectacle – because that’s what this turns out to be. It IS a spectacle. Lasers and lights and the huge backdrop’s never-ending liquid flow of visuals sucking you into a psychedelic odyssey of infinite godheads, third eyes, altered states and more make for a meticulously staged art show, though it’s very much Tool art. Like their album packaging, the attention to detail is exquisite. And a silhouetted, mohawked Keenan on the risers either side of the drums, crouching and swaying like a predatory sex gimp, adds to the illusion. Total integration, full immersion.
Tool trip
Pneuma and RightinTwo maintain the prolonged ecstatic hit but if there’s a lull (sorry, don’t shoot), it’s 7empest. Felt a bit of energy leak away in its second half. Having played it again several times since the show, I wonder why I thought that – still sounds every inch the Tool epic, still works as a Fear Inoculum finale. Maybe it’s more an album experience than a live thruster, but Fear Inoculum veers a little that way anyway. Refined and reflective.
But that’s just a minor plateau in 2.5 half hours. The highs are harder to pick because of the ridiculous levels sustained throughout. The Grudge – slightly faster than on record? – is one, as is Aenima’s venomous Hooker With A Penis. Tool still hit hard. And Keenan revelled in that one.
A 10-minute breather with an on-screen clock counting down the minutes leads to an encore: Chocolate Chip Trip, Culling Voices (Tool-on-stools acoustic intro) and a storming, poignant Invincible to finish.
It’s a sign of just how good a gig is that the absence of some of your mostest specialest tunes (Jambi Aenima Schism etc etc etc) doesn’t matter one fucking jot. With volume and visuals like these, Tool’s already exceptional music is ultra enhanced. It’s the full trip. We know the guys on stage are regular, if ridiculously gifted, mortals breathing air and blowing snot like the rest of us. But it’s more fun to pretend they’re not. Not tonight, not on that stage. Tonight, they’re aliens, riding a hallucinogenic vortex and brainwashing us with musical divinity.
And if that sounds over the top, so what? If you were there, you know. If you get Tool, you know. London, the O2: a gig for all time.
LOVE. WAR. BECAUSE. VIRUS. Those are the first four tracks: Love Like Blood, Wardance, The Fall of Because, I Am The Virus. Funny how random words can sound timely.
Then again, Killing Joke track titles always do, and 2022 seems to be exactly the right time to see them. War, COVID, climate, hyper communication, they’re all fuel to the agitated perma-tension backdrop that is the KJ MO. Their time is now. Same as it ever was.
In Hammersmith for the last date of the current tour, it’s Love Like Blood that gets rolled out first, and even if we didn’t see The Big One being launched that fast, it’s a euphoric shot of unity to kick things off. Wardance cuts through next, then The Fall of Because. Which is, as ever, total psychosis. All rhythm and no groove, it tells you just how awkward and dissonant that early Killing Joke sound is.
Pylon beast I Am The Virus barks huge, and by this point you’ve got the hang of the gig. You remember what it is that defines KJ live: relentlessness. The volume, the swirling lunacy of Geordie’s guitar, the permanent static, drones and crackle (or is it tinnitus?), the bass and kick drum vibrating your sternum.
What you get live is a version of the band – the heaviest, least varied version. No spacious dub reworks, none of the recent dance-NRG uber anthems like European Super State or Big Buzz, nothing subtle like Primobile, no Ghosts of Ladbroke Grove ebb. It’s a one-dimensional bludgeon to the brink of the chaos.
Other tracks? Requiem, The Death and Resurrection Show, Mathematics of Chaos and Total Invasion are in there, as is The Wait whose tension-packed riff sounds more sinister and paranoid than ever. Best of all though is the apocalyptic This World Hell. Shit me. It’s heavy enough on Absolute Dissent, but here it’s a stop-start juggernaut in flames with a double kick that pummels from the inside out. And while we’re on that point, Big Paul Ferguson is end-to-end phenomenal.
A Bloodsport-Pandemonium encore wraps the night. Triumphant? Yeah, no question. It’s only in the dying seconds of stage time, just before everyone walks off, that Geordie’s face finally shows any expression – a huge smile as the band hug each other and thank the Hammersmith gathering. It belies the abrasion he’s concocted for the previous 90 minutes but this is nothing new. Effortless, expressionless force is his forte. Always has been.
How long can they keep doing their music live in this way? Don’t know, though the Lords of Chaos EP shows no sign of mellowing, not in the studio anyway. Bring on the next long player.
NEVER SEEN NAPALM DEATH LIVE? NEITHER HAD I. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET
Friday 11 March, 2022. Oxford’s O2 Academy. Upstairs, in the cosy bit – this is where Napalm Death 2022 are going to destroy. Ho-lee shit.
First, a disclaimer, just so you know where these words come from: I’m no Napalm pro. A handful of albums (Greed Killing EP, Enemy of the Music Business, Time Waits for No Slave, Smear Campaign, Fear Emptiness Despair) have spattered the past twenty-odd years and their obliterating Nazi Punks Fuck Off cover has been a pulverising favourite for even longer, but there are plenty of Napalm holes. Doesn’t matter. They’ve been a band for violent kicks more than regular listening and those albums, TWFNS especially, have more than done the job.
But what’s the reaction to the real thing right there, in your face?
SO. FCKN. HEAVY. It’s laughably obvious to say that but it’s all you can do when you’re in disbelief at what you’re witnessing. Napalm Death in the flesh at full pelt with even more density (how?) than the albums is unlike anything else. Precision, violence, intensity, a total revelation. A wall of noise. No tricks. Pure ferocity.
But that ferocity is shot through with friendship. No posturing, no machismo aggro and no barriers: Napalm Death are the people. Everyone’s welcome, which is all the more impressive given the musical hostility coming off the stage. Shane Embury, Mitch Harris and Danny Herrera are impeccably tight while Barney, aka the youngest-looking 52-year-old you’ll ever see, moves with an endearing, almost gentle eccentricity. But his vocal delivery is immense and full-on, song after song. Your only worry is that one night he’ll sweat away his entire body and be reduced to mist. A screaming, raging mist no doubt, but still: KEEP EATING, BARNEY.
Tracks played (identified here only because Barney announced them) include Contagion, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, Narcissus, Suffer the Children, Siege of Power, Scum and the epic You Suffer. Taste the Poison too (I did recognise that one, well done me). Nazi Punks Fuck Off, obvs. And a ton of other fast bastard cuts, none of them anything less than monstrous.
Odd as it seems, this Napalm Death experience has a lot in common with King Crimson. It’s all in the pre-gig giddiness and anticipation before the show, though it’s not just about seeing a band for the first time. It’s about seeing a certain kind of band for the first time – bands with next-level reputations, bands who are pioneers, bands that excel, bands whose live shows transcend but you don’t know how exactly because you haven’t seen them
And so are Napalm Death. Bit less orchestration and slightly shorter songs, but no less a spectacle. INSANE. Time to add more mass to the ND back catalogue.
FIRST GIG SINCE THE PANDEMIC. WHO BETTER THAN THIS LOT PEELING STRIPS OFF THEIR HOME TURF?
The Bullingdon, Oxford, October 21st, 2021
Never bought a ticket as fast after seeing a listing … first gig after lockdown/s is going to be Desert Storm? YES. Deep down, I’d quietly hoped the scheduling stars would align like this – surely the most dependably metallic way to break back into Oxford gig action.
But before they take the stage in The Bullingdon, it’s APF Records labelmates Battalions, straight outta Hull, whose sludge grooves and downer riffs hit the target hard. Tasty filthy, mmmm. Phil Wilkinson’s hostile screams belie his friendly manner so be warned if you’re a Battalions first-timer, like what I is: his zero melody style is harsh. But it’s a good set and the mood is right.
And Desert Storm?
Nailed-on quality, end to end. Simple as that. Black Bile, Vengeful Gods and The Machine are among the Omens tracks aired in this comically/pandemically delayed Omens album launch party, and soaring Sentinels anthem Capsized is a natural high. Long-term gig anchor Queen Reefer helps stir up a lively bit of moshing – how long since we’ve seen that? – but it’s the gig-ending double hit of Enslaved in the Icy Tundra and Convulsion (wasn’t it?) that vamps it up into something wilder. Colossal tunes, both.
And in the thick of that peak mosh action is Battalions’ Phil, who’s been slamming hard all night already so he gets the Undiluted Commitment to Metal award, no question. Doesn’t even lose his glasses. Or his beard. Respect.
There’s not much more to write because, really, this is a celebration more than a review. When I went to buy some merch – a 7-inch split single – after the gig, I got a “Thanks for supporting the cause!” from singer Matt Ryan.
A riff-heavy pleasure, obviously. Got to get out there and support our bands: we all need each other. But these guys make it easy because the records and the gigs are so damned good. Hope you’ve got a band or musician like this where you live – and if so, tell us.
WELCOME BACK, Desert Storm.
New Desert Storm album being recorded right now. Tour dates already announced for 2022. New line-up features bassist Mark Dennett who also plays with Battalions
Leave them wanting more. Is this why Masiro only give us 30 minutes of their virtuoso math rock attack? Nah. It’ll be a scheduling curfew thing in The Library, but the end result is the same. This is nowhere near enough.
Oxford’s Masiro forge a space/mathcore collision that’s loaded with proficiency, technical aggression and melody, but to see it hammered out in real time is a proper thrill. Where Masiro’s albums conjure a precise, sometimes detached machine-like force over a sci-fi backdrop, here we get to see it done with humanity and earthiness – the sweat, the dropped drum sticks, the heat, the body-rocking and the big fuzzy ballsy bass, all without missing a metallic prog beat. It’s why we come to gigs like this: the chance of witnessing a little underground special.
As for the track titles … search me, instrumentals are kinda hard to put names on, but Grand Trine is definitely the final one (isn’t it?) and before that we get ‘a new track that’s pretty complicated … so we’ll try not to fuck it up too much.’ If they did, no-one noticed. Mesmerising.
Masiro don’t seem to gig too often and have had a personnel change recently, but why they aren’t a bigger draw than this is beyond me. Twenty-something people down here tonight? This music deserves many more ears.
Check this short Geodesics album review, hit the Bandcamp link within and load yourself a juddering Masiro shot.
Because Oxford no longer seems to figure on Julian Cope’s tour roster, and because yours truly wasn’t up for travelling anywhere – not quite fired up enough after Skellington 3 (patchy good) and Dope on Drugs (erm ….) – it meant a Live Drude Experience was casually written off when the tour was announced. Some other time, eh?
But then, Self Civil War came out. Bastard. Seems this most vital of rock and roll forces still packs a ledded HB, which prompted a lengthy Archdrude listening fest and shit-shit-shit – are there any tickets left for Reading???
Yep. Panic over. Let’s go see Julian on tour. Exciting.
Was it worth it?
The first quarter hour answers that question: the first track is Jehovahkill’s Soul Desert, SOUL BLOODY DESERT, and then a few minutes later we get Autogeddon Blues, not just all-time greats but also big-time responsible for my own initiation into Cope’s alterna-world back in the day. So yes, already worth it, and shame on me for not being arsed enough in the first place.
Anyway, the gig. There’s nothing radical in the set-up, it’s the tried-and-tested No Band format, just Cope solo with a semi-electric acoustic, plenty o’ pedals and rich prickings from his vast body of song. My Facebook Your Laptop and Immortal are the Self Civil War airings, Drink Me Under the Table‘s lusty one-nighter is the Drunken Songs rep, and beyond that we get disparates like Greatness and Perfection, Out of My Mind on Dope and Speed, Culture Bunker, Passionate Friend, They Were on HardDrugs and Great Dominions.
And Cunts Can Fuck Off. Really. Childishly catchy, it’s a winner because of its explanatory tale starring Cope, a lost stone circle and an Irish saviour on a John Dere tractor. There are loads of barely-hinged tales like this. It’s why his shows always make for a great night out.
Back to the music and the home run: Pristeen crackles with Urthona-styled pedal mania overdrive, Sunspots is more raucous than fried, and the ‘too professional to be a folk song’ zinger World Shut Your Mouth shuts the door on a gig buzzing over with good vibes, as we’ve come to expect from this most on-it of performers.
Question is, will we ever see him with a band again, firing multi-instrument shots of widescreen musicality? Self Civil War’s unfettered axe breaks by Christopher Holman, who is Cope’s tech/support/accomplice tonight, tempted the idea that a band tour might emerge … it’s been a while since we had a gig like this, and maybe it is too late now, but a deep-cuts fully-plugged tour of his Head Heritage albums? Or something like? That’d be worth the travelling, no hesitation.
amplifier wordsmith 