Deaf Terrorists @ Indigo

The first time I saw these guys was at a party, where there were about 50 people crammed into a little dark lounge entirely covered in black plastic. It was hot and loud; the crowd was slamming with the band as they played; they blew amps; someone collapsed, and as for the music: well, the drummer had drunk a 40-oz. of vodka and was playing about as slow as a dub drummer, but it still somehow worked. It was crazy, but maybe just because I was there with a schizophrenic who was tripping on peyote...

Anyway, I found out about this gig on the day, and a gold coin donation and something to do on a Wednesday night seemed like a good deal. Especially becuase they were the only band playing and I wouldn't have to sit through fuck-knows-what to wait to hear them play.

The gig starts. Right from the start it's total destruction. The band has an old photocopier on stage, and they start destroying it, and every one is jumping on stage helping them. They open some cans of creamed corn and start throwing it at the audience. The audience starts spitting back and everything starts flying and people are jumping everywhere and Dan from Fatal Error has the mic more than Blair does and everyone's yelling good-natured insults about people's mothers and through all this they're perhaps tighter than I've ever heard them, mainly because Little Dan is sober for once and is drumming up a storm [he just does this for fun, he's really destined to be a Jazz drummer].

And then about 40 energetic minutes later it's all over and everyone either migrates to the bar or goes home. And it's only about 10pm but I feel satisfied because it was practically free for all the entertainment I could wish for and I've had all the dancing and jumping I can handle. May Jesus smile on these guys and bless them with his goodness.

heavy metal apocalypse in the last days of the world feat. 2nd Nelsonian Black Metal Sabbat

Late December 1999 saw us [myself, Natas and Rorn; collectively (pretending to be) a band called Fellator] pile into a van and take the ferry across to the South Island. Our destination was the sunny city of Nelson; our mission was the second Nelsonian Black Metal Sabbat. For all we knew it could of been the last: the end of the world was fast approaching.


We arrived late afternoon on the day before the Sabbat, and of course it was dead sunny, so we asked the Nelsonian Black Metal royalty where we could find a beach. Now, if you know anything about Black Metal, you'll know it's a totally beyond Gothic, death-worshiping, Satan-worshiping, beyond-extreme branch of Metal. Consequently the responses went something like "A beach?" - "I don't go near water. Not even to shower." - "Do you want to go kill some hippies?" . We flagged it and went and pitched camp up the Maitai Valley, a green area on the edge of town with a river running through it, where all the boy- and girl-racers come to meet and burn-out.


We woke up the next morning and had hours to burn: the Sabbat wasn't until 20:44 that evening, the exact time of the Summer Equinox: the descent into darkness. We spent the day in town, shopping and frying in the sun. Why is the sunniest place in New Zealand also the Black Metal capital? We paused to laugh at some little teenager with Korn shaved in the back of his head. It seems that there will yet be another generation of angry white boys into Metal.


We cruised up around 18:00 and found no-one at the site: kept deadly secret until the day of the event [and even then only given out to those in the know, or as a set of map co-ordinates on the internet] so as to avoid lots of people just coming for a look. Wouldn't want to scare an unsuspecting public: these Black Metallers are dangerous.


Eventually the PA people turned up and Natas played roadie as no-one else was around. The fans started straggling in around about 19:00, and a sorry bunch they were too. A couple of fat, unattractive Metalheads and a couple of worried looking little teenagers who'd bicycled to the remote Smiths Ford site near the top of the Maitai Valley. I think they wished they'd listened to their mothers and stayed away from that evil music.


Around about 20:44 some people came running up the road: it was Dead BC from Daemon and Agramon from Goatvomit. The about 10 people who'd gathered by this time ran back down the road with them to the scene of a rolled car, and we helped them move it off the road. They were all buzzing about their brush with death, and couldn't help but wonder at its timing.


After last year's late start Xanataph, the ringleader of the whole Nelson scene, had promised that this year everything would be on time. He finally rolled in at about 21:30, and in style befitting such a king: he was riding on the bonnet of a Kingy [Holden Kingswood]. The cheers went up from the assembled crowd as they knew that now they could finally get started.

It was probably heading to midnight when the first band started playing: Bloodwych were in fine form, displaying that they were metal gods with a 90-minute set of gratuitous Metal covers: Venom's Countess Bathory, Black Sabbath's NIB, Van Halen's Panama... It went on for a long time and wasn't too tight, but the small crowd was mainly made up of friends rather than curious new-comers needing to be won over, so it was accepted warmly.


In between sets we got DJ Nightmare 666, a goth from Wellington with a large Black Metal CD collection who kept the crowd warmed up with such favourites as Satyricon, Emperor and Ulver: including, shockingly, the rather progressive (for a Black Metal fan) trip-hop sounds of their latest album «Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell». Me and Natas went up and asked if he had any Celtic Frost or Sodom, but it seems that this guy wasn't as metal as he was posing as, and couldn't produce the hits from the 80s.


At this time the much anticipated set by Fellator was cancelled. We decided that we were too misanthropic [too Black Metal] to be bothered playing, and went to sleep instead. I did wake up for snatches of some of the other bands though: after all, it was suitably loud and I wasn't quite dead. A band I believe were called Bentari had some keyboards and a female vocalist and sounded very Gothic and not so Metal. There was also a jam session featuring Kez Bizarre with her dark poetry which I found even more trippy than last year even though this time I was sober. It infiltrated my sleep like a knife in my brain. I think it must have been about 05:00 when I woke up to Daemon making some noise. Somewhere in there I managed to miss Goatvomit, who Natas assured me where very fast and heavy and cut the Black Metal picture in a satisfying manner. Beltane, Xanataph's flagship Black Metal band unfortunately didn't play because their drummer didn't turn up.


As dawn came the fires were still burning and Apocalypse Now was showing on a projecter, although the light made it very hard to see and the sound wasn't too hot. The people who'd stayed all night started packing up; the police turned up to ask questions about the fire and the wrecked car and the general feeling was more of disappointment at all the fuck-ups than of the celebration I felt last year.


Since it was all over, me and Rorn got the hell out of Nelson and headed down to the West Coast. Boxing Day saw a pattern emerging that was to become all too familiar: we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere. I hitched in to Westport to get some petrol. It was hard going to get a lift back, but suddenly I was saved. Out of nowhere came a black ute, and the driver stopped. He then proceded to drive me down the windy, narrow country roads at a ridiculous speed, all the while playing Guns n' Roses «Appetite for Destruction» at a loud volume. Such Metal things just don't happen to me anymore.


A few days later and the situation was getting desperate, so we headed back to Nelson. By this time Ramelia had arrived in Nelson, so we hung out with her and Natas. We were sitting around in town when suddenly this black Valient pulls up and six giant rednecks get out of it. Painted on their car were the words "Sloppy Hole Patrol Y2K Tour" and then their names [stuff like Macca and Dazza]. We were rather offended at such sexist and ridiculous redneck behaviour, so we chose the choicest pictures out of a gay porn magazine that we happened to have lying around and stuck them to the windows of their car. We then sat back and laughed at the reactions of all the rather conservative locals as they stopped to look and then realised with horror what the pictures were. Eventually one of the rednecks came back to the car and ripped the pictures off: throwing them inside the car for later viewing. We laughed.


Ramelia was in town for The Gathering, so the day before it we took her out to Takaka. On the way we picked up some hitch-hikers. The first two were a couple of resourceful lads who were planning to hike into The Gathering the back way: a good way to avoid paying for the $100 ticket, but requiring a good knowledge of the hill-country surrounding The Gathering site and the willingness to hike for the best part of a day through some harsh terrain.


When we stopped for the next one, it seemed like we may have made a mistake. This guy seemed really drunk. But then we saw the tell-tale look in his eyes and realised that he was wasted. He proceded to show us the large bag of pills that he was carrying around with him and made some really typically confusing conversation.


We dropped them off somewhere and then looked for a place to stop for the night. People were camped everywhere along the side of the road and in every park and reserve we passed. Eventually we settled on the rather amusingly named Pu Pu Springs, and set about drinking the mini-keg that we'd liberated earlier in the day. This led to a rather amusing scene with some German tourists a few hours later...


We woke up in the morning and didn't leave early enough. Consequently we ended up in the traffic jam on the top of the Takaka Hill. There we ended up parked beside an emu farm. One guy got out of his car and went over to pet them. He got bitten. Nastily. We turned the Madonna tape up louder and waited. Luckily we'd come early enough to only have to wait about half an hour. As we got to the gate of The Gathering we came upon our old friend Bernard: The Gathering afterall being run by The McGillicuddy Serious Party, a political party of very sensible and fun-loving quasi-anarchists that Rorn was a candidate for at the last election.


As we cruised down the other side of the hill and looked at all the people stuck in the kilometres of traffic jam, we were glad we weren't going. Most of the people were dressed conservatively and expensively: an indication of how mainstream and commercial this event has become. We laughed at the people sitting in the traffic jam in taxi-vans, their meters ticking. It all just seemed a little ridiculous, and we were glad to be away.


At a bit of a loss, we eventually found ourselves at Smiths Ford, and decided to spend New Year's there. There was not another person there, and no sign of civilisation at all. We were completely alone and isolated. It was quite a magical atmosphere: not knowing whether it was all going to go down in flames or not.
It wasn't until around noon the next day when a vehicle drove past that we decided that we hadn't been lucky enough to be the only ones left on earth. Still, there's still hope eh?