venta

This bit got written while I was away. No idea when the rest is likely to show - or, indeed, whether. I'm not sure the world really needs this much detail of my holidays.

Thursday

Thursday defied the weather forecast and was beautifully sunny and clear. This made for a pleasant drive up; well, nearly a pleasant drive up. The slight, faint noise of a suspect wheelbearing William had been evincing last week became a disturbing roar on reaching 70 on the motorway. Still, despite

snow_leopard's misgivings, we made it to Whitby in reasonable time.

In an effort to bolster Snow_leopard's theory that everything I own is comically dysfunctional, my CD player refused to work. Stopping at a service station we scoured the shelves for new tapes, hoping for bad 80s compilations or the like. I wasn't allowed B*witched, and we ended up with an un-heard-of Inspiral Carpets album (not bad) and a live Depeche Mode album (they do go on a bit).

Useful piece of information: Mackoni Chicken has cheese in it. Or at least it does when prepared by the Tandoori restaurant by the station in Whitby. Having successfully met up with

davefish and

keris, and distributed keys for our flat, I'd headed off with Snow_leopard,

mrph and some of their friends for a curry. Mackoni Chicken, according to the menu, is mildly spiced, and prepared with butter and cream. I was somewhat surprised to find it also liberally covered with cubes of hard cheese. Not that it wasn't nice, just rather confusing.

A slow amble up to Pannett Park gallery afterwards got us to the exhibition of ten years of Whitby photos, which were really rather good. A few black and white shots of the abbey, and a couple of montages of generic goths-in-action, but mostly stills of various of the bands who've played over the decade. Favourites of mine included a picture of one of Manuskript, almost entirely in darkness with just light on his hands where he held the guitar, and a picture of Mikey DUST-in-motion, the stage littered with fallen mike stands and suchlike marks of his passing.

After that, we established that the Elsinore was indeed full of goths, and still sells drinks. On closing time, Keris, Davefish and I headed home and partied til three. Rumours that we had a cup of tea and went to sleep are, of course, untrue.

Quotes of the day:
"That's not a shirt, it's a space station" (

surje observing a particularly violent turquoise shirt outside the Elsinore)
"How do you hang yourself with cowboy boots?" (A passing bloke telling a story about having his belt and boots taken away post-arrest)

Friday

Useful piece of information: the Renault garage behind the Baptist Church is very friendly, and agreed to fix William's wheelbearing on spec. I actually made it out of bed around tenish to discover this.

I got back to find the others up and raring to go on the fried breakfast front. A few plates of sausages later, we headed up to the stalls in the Metropole gathering Keris' friend

chron_job on the way.

Having had some money ear-marked for a while for a 'big purchase' at Whitby, I decided to buy some New Rocks. I tried on the smallest ones they had (Size 4), and rapidly abandoned that idea. And no, Cat, I am not "freakishly small". I faintly toyed with the idea of buying a corset, and was dragged off to American Thomas' stall by Davefish. Yes, they had a corset in my size, yes, I could try it on.

Now, when shopping for clothes it is never advisable to take my Dad along, because he will encourage you to buy expensive things by enthusing at you. I didn't have Dad there, but the role was filled more than adequately by Davefish and a passing

mr_flay. I now own a corset.

I also did something very brave. I had a go of the Wasp Factory bran tub. Whether paying a fiver to dip my hand into a large bin filled by the likes of Mr Chaos with things you can't see was wise is still debatable. However, I emerged with a Skinflowers album, a band about which I know nothing. Did I like Radiohead, asked the Wasp Factory guys. I conceded to quite liking earlier Radiohead. Well, I was told, Skinflowers sound a bit like that, and I'd like them. On a first listen, it seems they do sound a bit like that, and I do seem to like them.

Now, some of you may remember that a month or so ago on here Chron_job was defending American chocolate, and saying that we only ever get to eat the rubbish stuff in the UK. In defence of his theory, he brought a lot of chocolate over with him. Honour was at stake, so I popped down to the chocolate box and bought a couple more bars as evidence (one Belgian, one English, and one scary-looking 99% cocoa affair). So, for a couple of hours we sat in the Elsinore, drafting in

elise as an expert witness, and ate chocolate. Really, quite a lot of chocolate.

We sat in the pub, the table in front of us absolutely covered with chocolatey goodness (and, in some cases, chocolatey badness) and distributed it to various surprised friends, strangers, people sitting nearby, etc. I think the verdict was that some US chocolate is lovely, but that bog-standard Hershey's is really foul. (Someone (was it

failmaster ?) recently told me that US chocolate is made with off milk, for historical reasons. I could certainly believe that of Hershey's). However, others were really rather nice - in particular some mocca and almond stuff from San Fransisco.

Having thoroughly spoiled our dinner, we ate a small amount of pizza and headed down to the Spa. Halfway down the slope we spotted Maxine and Scooby and their gang (in disguise as The Polyphonic Spree) (except Scooby, who was in disguise as a fruit bowl) and bounced down to meet them. They were armed with daffodils and bubble guns, and ran round us screaming. At which point I noticed that sitting on the wall behind us was a thoroughly nonplussed-looking The Damned. Nice to know they can still be weirded out.

So, bands.

Zombina and the Skeletones

I spent quite a large proportion of the first 24 hours I was in Whitby enthusing, to anyone who would listen, about Zombina and insisting they make the effort to turn up in time to hear the band. If they didn't listen, more fool them.

Pulling a rather larger crowd than the first support of the evening usually manages, Zombina launched into their own particular brand of surf-horror with doowop harmonies. The songs are mostly cheerful three-minute rock 'n roll romps through B-Movie territory (as in films, not the nightclub), combining the woes of being unable to find a date on prom night with the woes of being dead.

On the face of it, a band dressed in skeleton outfits singing songs like The Grave and Beyond sounds like a really lame idea. But when that band are all competent musicians and singers, with a remarkably tight sound and a performance polish that, to be honest, puts the next band to shame, well... it just works. Try it, you'll like it.

As a side issue, I reckon that the most successful route to getting a crowd to shout for an encore is to have a three-syllable name. It just works better.

Earth Loop Recall

I wasn't familiar with this band at all, so wandered in as I heard them starting the first song. I met Snow_leopard already leaving with an aghast expression: not a promising beginning, then.

surje, who'd ambled in with me, lasted about half a song, and Davefish only slightly longer. I decided to stick with the policy that every band gets three songsworth of chance to impress me.

Suddenly, something sounded familiar:

Sign your name, across my heart
I want you to be my ba-by.
Sign your name, across my heart
I want you to be my ba-by.... so I can fuck you!

Well, hardly epic, but evidence of a sense of humour at least.

I stayed for the whole set, but I can't honestly say I was deeply enamoured. Snarly, angry vocals over a very muddy mess of guitar with, to be honest, no distinctive features at all. Admittedly, the sound might not be the band's fault, but it does make it difficult to enjoy music you're unfamiliar with.

Then, suddenly, for the last song, the singer whipped out a proper singing voice - the first evidence he could do anything other than shout, except for a rather lacklustre solo ballad mid-set. And everything appeared to come together, and they actually sounded like a decent rock band. If only more of the set had been like that, I... er, well, I probably still wouldn't have raved about them, but at least I might have been able to find something more interesting to say.

The Damned

The Damned were good. They played a long set, well-set with old favourites, and were entertaining as ever. Sadly, they weren't quite as good as the twice I've seen them in the past year, for reasons which I'm not quite able to define.

I liked them. I danced about like a loon. But I also wandered off to the bar mid-set and paused outside for a chat with Alien; that's not the sort of thing I usually do when I'm listening to a band.

The band themselves seemed in fine fettle, and having a whale of a time. My explanation for this was that, since it was Sensible's birthday, they'd all had a quiet half of shandy before coming on stage. Alan's alternative explanation was that, being temporarily without the restraining influence of Patricia Morrison, they've all gone a bit off-the-leash.

At times (particularly in Eloise)the sound mixing seemed a little odd, with the vocals getting rather lost behind the lead guitar. But there was energy, there was good songs, there was a slightly unnecessary amount of nuns in PVC and Sensible in a leopard skin. I'm genuinely unsure about why I didn't enjoy it more. Maybe I was just that way out.

Post-Spa, the three of us and a few others wandered back to our flat for a wild crack-fuelled orgy. Rumours that we sat around decorously drinking tea and chatting are, of course, untrue.

Quotes of the day:
"He taught me to lie and I taught him to burp" (Keris summarising her relationship so far with Davefish)
"That's not chocolate, it's explosive" (

olethros on being told I'd bought some 99% cocoa chocolate)
"We'd like to entertain you further by doing a Bob Dylan medley and maybe shitting on the stage" (Captain Sensible announcing an encore)