I should have cut the crap there, but I was drinking too much.

Hello!

Longtime and all that gubbins. Anyway, let's get on with things:

Do you like music? I do, and I'm going to talk to you about it now. Happy? Good.

One of the advantages of having an MP3 player, is the rather nifty "shuffle" function. Mostly because now and then, an old track you haven't heard for ages comes on and you get all nostalgic/cringe that you used to like that band. Happily, it was a case of the former, when I heard the mighty Dark Star, one time prog-rock support act of Mansun.


Dark Star: Three men who liked to dress in black.

Dark Star were great. They were a three piece of rather talented men who liked to make bizarre prog/dub/rock music. They may have been on drugs when doing this. I first caught them when they supported Mansun at a gig. I thought they were pretty nifty, so got their album Twenty Twenty Sound.



The album was a mix of rhythms, electro noises and riffs, that all kind of made no sense to begin with, but after time made perfect sense. If that makes sense? The album is short, but sweet, with vocalist Bic Hayes using all manner of effects on his admittedly weak voice, but pulling it off well so it never detracts from the songs. They put effects on the bass, the guitar, in fact they pretty much put effects on everything.

Elsewhere there are lyrics about smoking Silk Cuts, getting lost, and getting lost while singing, liking yourself to Jesus, having an alcoholic Father, suffering from Vertigo, and trying to find out whats up with your mates. Drugs I suspect. Stand out tracks are: Ninety Six Days, I Am The Sun, Graceadelica, and What In The World's Wrong. So you really should check these out, if you're interested.

Also, if you need more evidence they were good, they used to have fairy lights all over their equipment on stage when performing live, and who doesn't like fairy lights?


Moody lighting, eh readers?

Annoyingly, due to lack of support from their record label, Dark Star split and it's members disappeared into musical lore. It's a shame, because they really were rather good. And I'd have liked to have heard more of what they had. You however can track down more info on the band at this fan site, their myspace and finally, good old wikipedia.

To leave things, here are the band performing I Am The Sun live



Stonking.