venta

Argh. Blogging has fallen out of the to-do list again. I went off to Whitby, like I do in April, and forgot to write about it. This time it was a double-length affair to celebrate the festival's 21st birthday.

Today I've been trying to produce the sensible, grown-up reviews which I (along with

mrph) promised to

davefish for some mysterious web project of his. Sadly, it's a long time since I've tried to write sensible, grown-up reviews and I've left it too long. (Also, I made notes only on opinions, assuming I'd be able to look up details like line-up after the fact. Bloody hell, bands write a lot of crap about themselves, but rarely give you the actual facts. One band had a Wikipedia page (I checked!) when I was in Whitby, but now does not. Bloody disappearing curated free encyclopediae with standards.)

Anyway, for my own reference in future, here is a table in hyper-abbreviated form:

Band	What?	And?
Thursday
Ashestoangels	Gothy punk. With synths.	They'll be all right when they've had a bit of practice.
The Red Paintings	Batshit crazy space-rock with live art.	Wow. Also, eh? Definitely odd out of ten.
Abney Park	Weird-arse steampunk from the US.	Slick. Fun, Time-travelling gypsy folk troubadours.
The Birthday Massacre	Female-fronted rock (?)	I was suffering a lot from hurty knees and didn't give this band the attention they deserve. Read someone else's review.
Friday
The Last Dance	US darkwave electronica. Less po-faced than that sounds.	A lot of fun. What the hell were they doing as openers?
Sigue Sigue Sputnik Electronic	Singer of SSS's modern-day electronic rerun	Pounding electronic rock and roll. Surprisingly fun.
Bella Morte	Rock	I enjoyed these guys, I can just think of nothing to say about them.
The Crüxshadows	Electronic goth pop with violins	Fun as always. Sadly, the band has more or less turned into The Rogue Show these days.
Saturday
Jordan Reyne	Guitar, vocals, two loopers.	Flippin' awesome.
Manuskript	Massively cheesy goth pop	I have never seen a band have so much fun onstage. Bouncing occurred.
Chameleons Vox	Not espeically gothy late 80s guitar band	Marvellous.
Andi Sex Gang	Ex-singer of Sex Gang Children screams at a mic	Hypnotic. Considerably better than I expected.
Sunday
Pussycat and the Dirty Johnsons	Filthy, reverb-heavy rockabilly	Does exactly what it says on the tin
Doctor & the Medics	Horrible covers band	Talking to dmh about .NET was a considerably better plan.
William Control	Electronic rock aimed at teenagers	Excellent drums. A lot of fun. William Control himself appears to be a massive twat.
The Damned	Veteran punk rockers from Croydon	Like they always are. Although I think Vanian might finally be slowing up. Sensible still not.

The list of text messages I sent and received in Whitby seems to divide neatly into two categories. First, logical information indicating which pub, cake shop or location someone was or was not in. Second, non-sequiturs about cheese.

This probably sums up the weekend quite well.