Black Metal Crew Sataninchen Sing About Cats And Stuff

I wish I knew why Metal attracts so many strange and ...unique... bands.  The scary part is, you are never quite sure whether they're a parody, genuinely nuts or skipping back and forth over the DMZ dividing the two.  Take Manowar.  After 30 years people still aren't sure if they're tongue in cheek or not.

Luckily there are some clues that German Black Metal band Sataninchen are playing for laughs.

There's the cover of their latest album for starters. 

  After I stumbled across the memorable artwork above I knew I had to go check out some of their music and that's where I found this 2016 promo video.  It's in German, a language I can barely order a beer in, so the subtleties of the lyrics are sadly lost on me.  There's a bit about cats and I'm sure there's something about dicks in there too. 

  Why? Buggered if I know. 

   Either way the end result is rather catchy. See for yourself.

 if you want to hear more, pop over to their bandcamp. : https://sataninchen.bandcamp.com

That's All Folks. 

Giant Ass Cuttlefish

   I can't remember when I first noticed something different about one of the old buildings on Museum Road, Portsmouth. I do remember that I kept forgetting to take my camera along to capture  what I found.

   Eventually I managed to arrange it that I was walking down Museum Road in daylight, with a fully charged camera in my hand and i proceeded to take some photos of Pompey's newest bit of wall-art.

  A really, really big Cuttlefish. 

This might give you some idea of the scale.

  The building is part of the Portsmouth Museum complex although as far as I know, this block is unused. 

(Which, by the way, means I am dying to see what's inside. D'you think if I asked nicely they'd let me have a poke about?) 

  A quick Google turns up this piece from the Portsmouth news, explaining that the local wildlife Trust asked wall artist ATM to paint something commemorating the  Portsmouth area's marine life. 

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/giant-cuttlefish-mural-unveiled-on-city-museum-wall-1-8079088

 

 I didn't actually know that you got Cuttlefish round here, let alone that they bred locally so that's a nice surprise.

 I like the painting. I'm all in favour of anything that makes blank walls a little less blank and city spaces a little more colourful.

 Here's some more pics. 

If you get up close you can really see how many intricate brush strokes ATM used. 

Shame there's a bloody great pipe in the way but it's impressive how he managed to work around it. 

   So there you have it. I'm hoping this big cephalopod stays up there for a nice long time and causes great confusion to passing tourists for many years to come.

   That's all folks. 

A Surfeit Of Bags

  When the UK Government introduced the Carrier Bag Charge in 2015 I think I ended up doing what a lot of people did.  Given the option of a flimsy bag for 5p or paying a little more for something that could be reused, I naturally went for the reusable bags.

 And this would have been great if I'd ever remembered to reuse them. 

 What tended to happen was that I'd decide to do some shipping on the spur of the moment, realise I'd forgotten to bring the damn bags once again and pay for yet another reusable bag which ended up on top of my kitchen cabinets.

 After two years, that sort of thing really mounts up so when I went on an uncharacteristic decluttering binge I pulled all the bags down from the tops of my cabinets and ended up looking at this.  

  Well crap, That's a lot of bags, isn't it? 

 I shudder to think how much all this lot cost me. 

  There isn't really a punchline to this post, except to say that once upon a time I had a stockpile of cheapo carrier bags. I still have a stockpile of carrier bags except they're bigger, more expensive and more difficult to slip into my back pocket on the offchance that I decide to nip into Iceland.   Oh joy. 

Terrible Metal Album Covers- Chapter XXVI

Hello and how has your weekend been?  Mine's been mostly OK although I really wish the seagulls that have been squawking non-stop since 4AM would pack up and sod off to somewhere far away from me.

Tell you what. Let's have a look at some album covers that are a bit shite, shall we?

Some bands have a good concept but do it badly, some have a bad concept and do it really badly and some just threw a handful of crayons at the wall and used  the result. I leave it to you to decide which is which.

 Before we go any further I'd like to issue my usual disclaimer.

Bad cover does not equal bad band. 

Now read on. 

Chaos Injected - S/T 2016

There's a man surfing in a toilet. 
That's the not even the most bizarre thing about this cover.
Ho Boy.

Roctum - Nothing To Do With Hell EP (Finland 2017)

These Finns make it perfectly clear that they aren't Satanic.
Still not exactly people you'd invite around for milk and cookies though.
They seem entirely too keen on stabbing dudes for my liking.

Demon - Blow-Out (UK 1992)

Question: If you didn't know this band, what do you think they'd sound like based on this album cover?
Dodgy Teutonic Speed Metal?
Raucous South American Thrash?

Here's a perfect example of a band being let down by their artwork because this Staffordshire
crew have been delivering sophisticated, intelligent hard rock since 1980 and
sound more like Magnum than whatever mental image that cover brought up.

Great band.
Terrible cover.

Dark - Sex N Death (Cz. Rep. 1992)

So what does this cover have to do with "Sex", exactly?

Dark have a song called "Sex Shop of Doctor Fuctor" which amuses me more than it should.

Harrow - The Pylon Of Insanity (NLD 1994) 

The pylons are apparently made of  turds so that's pretty insane.

Sticking with giant-ass eyes... 

Dizziness - On The Rocks (Sweden 2013)

 The artist is trying to be clever, isn't he?

He also seems to think it's still 1984.

Dawn Hawk -S/T (1990)

I'm going to have nightmares about giant, clutching pink claws tonight, I just know it.

Time for me to go shout at some seagulls so I'll knock it on the head.

That's All folks. 

The Osborne Road Gallery

 While on my way down to the seafront to snap some ships I took a moment on the way to document some of the current artwork decorating the defunct Grosvenor Casino.  Hope you like them.

  One of the trademarks of this artist is birds looking pleased with themselves. 

The seagulls round here are even more arrogant and, sadly, nowhere near as charming. 

  A pair of surly looking dogs. I think they're dogs. Definitely scoring higher for "muscle" than brains though.

  I don't really understand this one but that's OK. It's still pretty cool. 

  Another satisfied bird. This one has wandered over from France and is enjoying his day out. 

 I find this picture to be interesting. The combination of skull faced guy and birds works really well.
Again, I only have the vaguest idea of what the artist was trying to say but I've never been good with that kind of thing. Something about a scary visage not being a clue to the man inside?   Comment below if you feel differently.

  All credit to the artists involved and I look forward to seeing what you're going to do next. 

HNoMS Helge Ingstad in Portsmouth

  Yesterday was bright and sunny so I decided to wander down to the seafront to see if I could some pictures of the American carrier that's been parked in the Solent all week.
  This means that there's been several thousand American sailors wandering around Portsmouth looking a bit bemused and no doubt complaining about all the rain.  Still, the pubs and clubs did good business I'm sure.

 As it turned out the USS George W Bush had already pulled up her anchors and was heading out to sea by the time I got there but even as a silhouette on the horizon, she's still a striking sight.

 

  The George W Bush cruises past one of the Palmerston Forts protecting the harbour.  

    Sorry about the haze. I couldn't see shit in my camera screen so I was pointing vaguely and clicking.    

  I like this pic. Sea, Sky, a bit of Southsea seafront and an American supercarrier all in one shot.  

  But while I missed the a carrier I did manage to get something else instead.  As I was ambling across Southsea Common I spotted something over the top of the Arcade: An angular grey shape slowly moving seaward and starting to pick up speed.
   
   I picked up speed myself - or as much speed as I can manage these days - and got to the seafront just in time to catch the Norwegian frigate HNoMs Helge Ingstad heading back out to see.

 

It's a very cool looking ship, isn't it? 

 You can see why I recognised that superstructure immediately, can't you?

 The Norwegians had been in harbour along with a brace of US cruisers. Escort to the USS George W Bush I'm guessing. I wonder if they got annoyed at people assuming they were Americans?

As I mentioned earlier, I was mostly aiming by guess work so this is one of many shots where I missed entirely. 

Bugger. 

After the Helge Ingstad headed out to sea I caught a few pics of the Isle of Wight hovercraft coming and going.  

 Word of warning. If you ever decide to watch the hovercraft coming in, make sure you stand well away because the bloody thing kicks up a ton of spray and you will get absolutely soaked.  I speak from soggy experience.

  And there she goes. 

 I would love to have a go on that one of these days. I think I'd need to win the lottery first though. 

 I took some more pics but since there aren't any ships in them I'll save them for another day.

That's All Folks.