I’ve been a little at a loss for the past few days. The translation project started so well that I was frustrated to run out of material this quickly. The tracks are getting cold and it’s always hard to pick up the pieces after a longer pause and try to continue in the same vein. I’ve always preferred to write the individual lyrics in as short a period of time as possible, to capture the frame of mind unaltered and have been hesitant to add anything later on because it feels wrong. Of course there are subtle differences between writing a single lyric for your own band in a precise state of mind and spewing out some 15 translations for someone others’ band, trying to keep the same spiritual focus but the main principle is the same. I wind myself up until I see where the text comes from and then I write it down while unwinding.

Since I haven’t been able to do what I’ve racked myself up to do I’ve been forced to look for other pastimes, like updating my data on ancient heavy rock singers.

THIS WEEKS’ SOURCE OF DELIGHT:
Ian Gillan! Seen here in a recent backstage footage, with a saucepan apparently stuck on his head. You can’t help admiring a man with a saucepan stuck on his head. Plus he’s been quite a capable singer at times, although mosly not for the last 20 or so years. I stumbled upon his webpage www.gillan.com and found a lot of interesting and entertaining things to read there. His writing is very witty and I’ve been searching for his autobiography for several years now, without success. I’ve always been a big Deep Purple fan and in my tender years also liked to listen to albums by his later band, called Gillan. I recently checked out some of them and found them to be horrible. I also checked out some of his earlier, more jazz-oriented Ian Gillan Band material and found these albums to be utterly horrible. The Deep Purple stuff is timeless, though. Here’s a decent take on “Child In Time” by the afore-mentioned utterly horrible Ian Gillan Band, filmed in 1977. After the pretentious intro they cease to be utterly horrible for a moment and give the song some new shades.



Here’s the only decent song from Deep Purple’s “House Of Blue Light”-album, the opener “Bad Attitude” with a kind of fat and greasy groove to it that makes me want to listen to it over and over again. I don’t know what is it that appeals to me in that guitar riff but I think it’s bloody great.



THIS WEEKS’ BOOKS OF CHOICE:
“The Last Coin” by James P. Blaylock. I’m two thirds into it now and it starts unveiling after a longish build-up. There exist 30 silver coins that were used to pay off Judas Iscariot. Judas became immortal as a punishment for betraying Jesus, and the coins were scattered around the globe, never to be re-united again. Their combined power is not yet very clearly explained in the book but it’s very distinctly suggested that gathering them together in the same place wouldn’t be a good idea. Then there’s the bad guy, reeking of evil, and the unsure and clumsy good guy, reeking of fish and unpainted wall of the house among other things. The coins are, of course, unstoppably coming together.

It’s been entertaining, reading this book, but it hasn’t actually sucked me in and I’m hesitant about reading further books by mr. Blaylock. I like the way he uses the language and find myself regularly reaching for a dictionary to find out what is the meaning of this adjective or that verb. So his sentences are rich, descriptive and sometimes very well built, but the overall storyline is quite silly and there’s no evidence of real warmth and depth in here.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
When I joined Sinisthra on 2001 (still called Nevergreen back then) I was initiated into new drinking habits as well as a new way to express myself musically. I had spent the previous five years in a punk band where the primary choice of alcoholic beverage was beer and anything with fermentation of grapes included in the manufacturing process was greatly frowned upon and loudly mocked at. Because people who drank red wine were scarve-wearing velvet-trousered bullshit-talking sissy no good fuckers who might, unexpectedly and without any warning, go ahead and quote poetry at you if you didn’t keep your vigil at all times.

I embraced this welcome change, swapped my bondage pants and extra large Ramones t-shirts for flared jeans and extra small t-shirts with no band names on them, started to write lyrics occasionally bordering on poesy and took a plunge into the world of red wine. It was always Italian, it was always as cheap as possible, and it was always drunk straight from the bottle until the bottle was empty. Many, if not all of those once-favourites are no longer available in Finland and their names escape me now.

Il Papavero Rosso is a new Italian red wine that got excellent reviews from a finnish wine-magazine so I went out and got a bottle of it, priced 6 euros. I would have loved this to pieces back in 2001 and guzzled it down by bucketloads. Tasting it now, I find nothing much to complain. It’s very easy to drink yet still maintains some character and boldness compared to, for example, some of the bland California reds in the same price range. Not very full-flavoured or heavy, this is a very good choice if you just want to get drunk and probably an ideal partner for pasta or pizza. Highly recommended.