Londonward

Oh shit oh shit oh shit ohshitohshit. There is too little time and too much to do. I got my work schedule for the beginning of this term (as in, until the end of my exams) and I’ve been assigned way too many hours. I really don’t know how this will pan out. Everyone keeps telling me to take it easy and be calm, but it’s hard to be calm when you’re trying to decipher meaningless past exam papers for an exam that’s 3 weeks away while working 20 hours a week. And after that exam there’s another. And another. And yet another until, if I’m still alive when May 30th rolls in, I’m blissfully free and absolutely shattered.

How did it end up like this?

I wish I could say that my exam prep time was a matter of study hard and party harder. It’s more like “study some and party hard” but that’s what I feel like doing, actually. Just have to hope that it all pays off. In short, this message is intended to tell the two people that read this blog and I’m not in constant contact with that I’m all right, just not in a position to blog too much.

Met some nice people over the past few weeks. Last night an old friend called me up and asked me if I wanted to go and play some pool after work. I ended up an absolutely classic pool club. The entrance was in an alley lit only by a neon sign proclaiming “It’s a whole new ball game!”. It seriously was like something straight out of a movie. I bet they have fights in there on weekends.

At the insistence and untiring recommendation of a friend, I went to see a whole raft of metal bands play at the magnificent Koko last night. The place is really impressive, with high galleries encircling a small and intimate space and stage. Watching the place light up with upwards-pointed lights refracted off a giant disco ball felt magical. I hadn’t ever been before but I could see myself go even just for a club night. Of course, the impressive venue comes at a price - beer at £3.60 for a 440ml can for example. We arrived just as Tyr were starting their set, and watched them from the rafters. To me it seemed like the person enjoying themselves the most in the club during the set was the band’s bassist, a hulking walrus of a man with a big grin plastered on his face. Good on him. Me, I couldn’t really get a grip on the music. For the record, I prefer Eric the Red to Ragnarok which I think I’ve previously described to friends as “arbitrary time signature changes and syncopation”.

It was the beer that put a real damper on the beginning of my night. As the second band, Swiss folk outfit Eluveitie began their catchy amalgamation of Gothenburg-sounding death metal riffs and a host of pipes, flutes and mandolins the place exploded and I found myself swept into the pit. I tried to down the half-pint I still had left but to no avail. It all happened so fast, but I think I ended up slamming into some woman who quite calmly grabbed my drink by the rim and proceeded to pour it down my face in return. Looking like I had just taken a dive into a barrel, I stumbled back to where my friends had taken refuge from the pit and spent the rest of the set slightly dazed about what had happened. I did enjoy the music - the catchy melodies and folky bits are combined pretty amazingly with harsher passages very reminiscent of Dark Tranquillity or At the Gates. Definitely one I could go see again.

There had ben no let-up from the recommendations about Moonsorrow from my friend, so I was pretty excited about their set. Sadly, the festival-type schedule meant that they could only play quite a short set, and because of their long and rambling song structures it seemed like a fleeting moment. Starting with older material (off Voimasta ja Kunniasta) they then played Kivenkantaja and the amazingly epic Jotunheim. The mixing was crisp, with only the keyboard sounds getting slightly drowned out. That could be because of my (now beer-bathed) earplugs, though. I liked how the band genuinely seemed to enjoy being on stage, playing music to an appreciative audience who, though they could not sing along to the Finnish lyrics, did their best to chant along to the melodies. There was very little posturing and rock star crap that annoys me more and more these days. They mostly just came on stage, rocked out and left.

I wasn’t going to be in the brutal pit that accompanies Korpiklaani gigs, so we headed upstairs to watch it from behind the mixing table. The eclectic group looked like something off a Finnish summer humppa gig practice room mixed with fur-wearing metalheads. The bassist deserves a special mention, being immediately named among our group as the “Sad Times Mario” looking distinctly like the plumber fallen on hard times, dressing in slightly raggedy clothes, barefoot and with an unruly mess of hair. I did get playfully called “hyperliterate” for saying I feel the band’s lyrics (delivered in a thick Finnish accent more reminiscent of old guard politicians and sportspeople) and themes make them hard to appreciate. Oh well, we did do a bit of jigging and circle dancing up there, so you can’t say I was a total party pooper.

The headliner of the night, Ensiferum, took the stage in front of a burgeoning audience thoroughly warmed up by now. What a sad thing it was, then, that what was meant to be a killer opener of “Iron”, “One More Magic Potion” and “Lai Lai Hei” was ruined by godawful mixing and a thoroughly low volume. It was really those 3 songs I wanted most to hear, so I was a bit bummed out when audience cheers drowned out the music and there was no aural impact even without earplugs. After the first few songs, the yells of “Turn it up!” finally did the trick and guitarist/vocalist Petri asked the sound man in Finnish to just turn the volume the fuck up. He did, which was cool, but the keyboards and Petri’s own guitar were next to inaudible for most of the gig. A real dissappointment of a headliner. It was during the quieter bits of Ensiferum that I heard a girl just behind me shout “Runkkarit!” (”Wankers!”) at the band. A jilted ex-girlfriend or a psycho bitch nutcase, I don’t know. I had heard her yelling obscenities a few songs prior but hadn’t seen the culprit until then. Next thing I know I’m turning to face her and tell her in Finnish that they really aren’t that bad. She just stared at me with ashen grey eyes - hopefully confused as hell. Maybe that will teach her not to spout shit in a supposedly obscure language - I know I’ve gone through that experience myself. I turned back to face the band and enjoyed the best of the set before being commanded for who knows how many times to scream louder because Bremen and Belgium and whoever before had been louder a few nights ago. Rock cliches can be funny, but at that point in the night I think I just had had enough.

Out of the door into an unseasonably cold London evening, to the kebab shop for a strangely out-of-place eating experience and into the depths of the tube to get home. Waking up this morning to go to work was not pleasant, but I’ve got a suitably sexy and husky voice now. £15 plus sundries well spent.

I registered as a voter in the upcoming London elections today. This required printing and filling out a form and handing it in at my local town hall or posting it to them - not a hugely involved task but something that does take some dedication and effort. For someone used to the Finnish electoral system where the government knows exactly where you are and where you can vote it seems like a bit of a hurdle, though.

I knew I wanted to vote in the elections because mayoral politics definitely has a daily effect on life in London. The current mayor has certainly promoted the position as a cultural as well as political force, and whoever continues in the job will undoubtedly need to reinforce the “Mayor of London” brand further. Though the Mayor himself doesn’t have direct executive power, I have come to understand that City Hall does control what happens across London in many ways. In this way it matters who sits at the head of the table.

The LSE Students’ Union passed a motion mandating a campaign to get eligible students to register. However, as with a bunch of other supposed union campaigns I haven’t been confronted with much more than a feeble noticeboard on Houghton Street. Certainly there hasn’t been an awareness campaign that I’ve been made aware of. Good thing then that I was interested enough to go to http://www.londonelects.org.uk myself.

So, if you are eligible to vote in these (or any forthcoming) elections I suggest you do your bit to secure your right. I don’t give a toss about who you vote for. Well, for as long as it’s an informed choice that accurately reflects your opinions and desires, that is.