WOEBOT

What is it with people and the archiving of these shows? Every other email I get is gently chiding me for not making them available. I fibbed recently when I said I was worried whether the bandwidth could support having them all available at the same time. It'd probably be OK, even though since January we've traded 1.5 terrabytes. The truth is I don't want everything laid out on a table. I don't want people to be able to own them just yet. I actually went the Flash route because I didn't want people downloading QuickTimes and storing them on their hard drive. Remember all those mp3s you downloaded which you said you'd get round to checking out one day?

Of course they could still be available to watch without them being downloadable, and here's my other reason for not having archives. If I ever do manage to get a TV channel interested in giving me a graveyard slot, like 2 am on BBC4, then the shows I've already made will be an asset. That is except if everyone in the universe who might be interested in them has already seen them. I know this might appear to be a insanely vain fantasy, but TV is what I do for a a living. And having a show like this is, well, it's been something like an ambition.

If I don't get anywhere at all with commissioning editors (surely the likely outcome?) then either I'll package up a cheap DVD of 10-12 episodes, a season, lol or I'll make sure everything is put up for people to see. If you're at all anxious at missing out an episode, simply subscribe to the mailing list.

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Original drawings.

I had the idea for the Methuselah show three years ago, it came as one of those appalling sitting bolt-upright, sweat-on-the-body, eyeballs-bulging out nightmares that one has from time-to-time. My fevered brain had them as a combination between Aum Shinrikyo (that Japanese Cult who released the Sarin nerve gas into the subway) and every band of shock-rockers you ever knew- Joy Division, Marilyn Manson, Throbbing Gristle and The Sex Pistols. In my dream they actually gigged on top of towerblocks, though this is one thing I left out of the animation. Just a little too tasteless I thought. The music was to be a totally crass irrelevance, my notes from the time say: "Rod Stewart, China Crisis, T.Rex and Mud's "Tiger Feet".

I did a load of research into Glam Rock and Glam-related-rock, the fruits of which will emerge here later. I checked out Slade, Mud, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Alvin Stardust, Mott the Hoople, Angel, Steve Harley, Cherry Vanilla, Wayne County, Girlschool, Hell, Iron Virgin, Kiss, Renato Zero, The Rubettes, The Runaways, Sailor, The Skyhooks, Smokie, Suzi Quatro, Sweet, Wizzard and Jobriath. So, amazingly cheesy stuff. I don't want to give too much away on my thoughts about Glam cos I'll definitely be coming back to this. For the film I decided this just wasn't right. Glam just has too much warmth. I really needed something bleaker, empty like a US suburban shopping mall, so I turned, not to Heavy Metal, but Hard Rock.

Simon, who has been firing on all cylinders in his pieces at Blissblog on Metal was suggesting we might perhaps be on the same page with regards to looking at Metal this February. I don't see Methuselah as being a Heavy Metal band actually. I see them as being the definitive *Hard Rock* band. What's the difference? I'd be very hard pushed to say actually, it's probably more of a case of where the band's cultural allegiances lie than to do with their music per se. For instance both Zep and ACDC strongly refuted being Heavy Metal bands. Ultimately though, Hard Rock is distinguished by never losing touch with the notion that it is amplified blues. Metal is actually a progression from that point forward. Metal actually might be a more interesting phenomenon for that very fact.

When examining the Hard Rock angle I explored a lot of band's work: Foreigner, Ted Nugent, Cheap Trick, Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith, Nazareth, Bad Company, Free, Deep Purple and ACDC. I also looked at two bands which people occasionally class as Heavy Metal: Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. My feeling is that neither the Sabs or Zep are actually Heavy Metal bands. They're both heavily blues-influenced and they both are "on the same page" as the rest of Pop/Rock culture. I think perhaps Metal becomes Metal when that schism is unavoidable, when Metal becomes a self-sufficient universe outside of and beyond the particular musical universe I live in. When Kerrang and Donington become the whole world for Metal fans. Of course, and here's the rub, Metal fans are actually quite catholic, they'll tell you they like Jazz-Funk and Zappa and Techno. It's just that everyone on this side of the great divide isn't open to their music. I think perhaps the crux is that there's some kind of conceptually different approach to the way Metal and non-Metal fans categorise music. On "our" side perhaps we are more comfortable with this rhizome, this plateau of inter-connection, while Metal fans are more open to digesting "in rupture", less bothered about reconciling competing philosophies to understand music.

For me Led Zeppellin are the one. To Simon's quote about Metal, elucidating as it does the mainstream critical view about Metal: "its inertia is its success is its intertia" I'd like to add the classic disparaging quote which was (by Rolling Stone?) appended to (I'd still argue Proto-Metal) Led Zep, that they were a manifestation of "internalised violence". S'funny because they're both extremely arch, po-faced, aspiring-to-be-intellectual put-downs aren't they. Giggles.

The great book on Zeppelin, and indeed probably the greatest book about a rock group, is Stephen Davis's "Hammer of the Gods". If you haven't read this, I urge you to get a copy as soon as possible. It's a veritable chocolate box of delights, that is until the current edition's appended afterthoughts kick in (the Unledded Tourzzzzz) and the tension drops palpably. Stephen Davis is an interesting guy because he also penned the fantastic "Reggae Bloodlines" book, the tenor of which reminds me a lot of some of the breathless "hip-outsider" discovery of Grime of a few years back. Obviously not your stereotypical metal hack though innit.

"Hammer of the Gods" is, of course the Ur-text for the Methuselah cartoon. Indeed I pieced the music together for the soundtrack partly from recommendations I got from it. Davis refers to Heart's "Barracuda" and Billy Squier's "Lonely is the Night" (why hasn't this been sampled to death?) as "little Stairways" so I chopped up loops from them and added my own vocals on top. I like the fact that they're cheesy suburban version of Zep, cos that chips away at the mystique. Much more suitable for the deliberately nihilistic tenor of the film. Other tracks I used were Deep Purple's Proto-Speed-Metal "Highway Star" and, for the airplane bit, Sailor's euro-disco classic "A Glass of Champagne".

I read this as well for research. But, written by the roadies (whose names I used in the animation), it's pretty dire. I know what Simon's referring to about the "idiotic and horrendous" behavior in Metal with this. I mean, Hammer of the Gods actually succeeds in making the debauchery queerly cosmic in its dionysian way.

And now, well, you're just going to laugh, cos I really pushed the boat on the research and skimmed this as well! I always remember my Maths teacher telling me how he respected Lemmy cos he was obviously an intelligent guy.

Ha! This is ridiculous! Well I can explain. I got this one and the Sabbath book, and the Quo book and the Bon Scott book for $8 in HMV. $8! I must be the only person alive interested in this shit! I haven't read the rest yet. But I may one day.

So why does this kind of rock'n'roll debauchery interest me? I suppose, truthfully, being a father of two, loyal husband and reformed drug-abuser (winks) there's practically none of this sort thing in my life at all. Though I hasten to add I don't miss it one iota. It seems surreal and hilarious to me. But equally this way of living has been discredited by the broader society as well hasn't it? Slightly off topic, Acid House seems the last time when kids went crazy. As for Rock groups, outside the 70s and probably some bits of the 80s they've never really behaved like this since have they? Sure there are bands who live quite dangerously, but they're quite a long way from the edge aren't they?