Highlights of a ridiculously busy Summer

Much hecticness and busy-osity in the six weeks or so sinceI last posted, and mostly in a good way. Although I must say that I'm looking forward to next weekend when, seemingly for the first time in ages, I have nothing planned (this may change, unfortunately. I need to book another all-nighter for the voluntary thingy I do pretty soon if I'm going to get my August one in and thereby avoid the wrath of the frankly terrifying branch director (in her real life, she's a barrister. I don't what effect she has on the accused but she scares the bejesus out of all of us)).
Before I get into the highlights of my Summer thus far, I'd just like to take a moment to raise a couple of points:-
First of all, while I generally credit my younger self with having moderately ok taste there are some things that should really be left as a pleasant memory and it turns out that 'Into the Labyrinth' was one of these. I was 9 when it was first broadcast and the combination of time travel, mythology and magic had me hooked straight away. I loved it and it has remained a fond memory over the intervening 25 years or so. So when I discovered it had been released on DVD obviously I had to get it.
It arrived on my mat yesterday and, three episodes in, I'm rather wishing that I'd left well enough alone. The fact that one of the leads spends the first half of the first episode failing horribly to do an (entirely unrecognisable) regional accent before giving up and returning to Standard English should say something about the quality of the acting and even given the standards of the time the production values are awful. And the writing ...
I have 18 more episodes to get through and I'm wondering if I should just leave it before I ruin the memory of it entirely.

Secondly, having been tempted to check out Abney Park by a recent comment on sinbadsilk's journal and rather liking what I found on their website and myspace page I was eventually forced to order their new album directly from them. So, given that they're based in Seattle and, from what I can tell, post out orders basically whenever they don't have better things to do it could be weeks before I get my hot little hands on it. What I need to know then, is, given that I usually use the Resurrection Records website for non-mainstream stuff but it let me down in this case and has done so a couple of times recently (stock-wise, that is, the service for stuff they have in stock is excellent) can anyone suggest any decent online alternatives?

Anyway, on to Stuff What I Has Done Recently:-
Fields of the Nephilim - in modern online parlance, this can best be summed up as OMFG!!!!!!
I last saw them when I was 18. I'd only recently bought 'The Nephilim' and didn't know any of their other material. I was also depressive and found it hard to enjoy anything very much at all and, on top of everything else, the gig was in Southend, The Most Depressing Place In England. No really, I mean it, they've done scientific studies and stuff, honest. Even now, just the thought of it depresses me . Despite that (and despite being far too loud (I never did go with the 'if it's too loud, you're too old' party line. Certainly, I'll agree that if it's too loud you probably haven't done enough drugs, but, to be honest, you shouldn't have to take (as Jan might put it) a metric f*ckload of pills to make any music bearable)), the Nephilim (supported by Underneath What. The first and last time I ever heard of them) kicked some serious arse.
Fast forward 18 years. Elizium is, without a doubt, the most played of any album that I own. It is, amongst other things, my rainy Sunday album, the one that never fails to take me to my warm, safe place. The others don't have that same special place in my heart that Elizium does but Fields of the Nephilim remain, after all this time and everything else I've heard over the years, one of my favourite bands.
I would have been rather happy if they'd done Elizium in its entirety (it's very much a unity) but I knew that wasn't going to happen. As for the rest, I believe the phrase 'transports of near religious ecstasy' sums it up. And somewhere near the end, when the opening chords of 'And There Will Your Heart Be Also' hit me? The happiest little bunny ever :).
It was rather a shame that we only managed to catch up with sinbadsilk and sahra_patroness for a few minutes before the gig (it turned out that the tickets that I thought were for the ground floor of the venue were actually up in the seated bit) although looking down at the throng from above, I was rather glad not to be in the middle of it as I don't tend to do that well with crowds. But all in all, a fabulous night.

A quick shift forward to the present, or near enough, and my third Cruxshadows gig in as many years. My verdict was much the same as lareinmisere's, to whit:-
Novus Uk (what we saw of them) - entertaining and bouncy enough, and Sarah Jane is rather sweet but I'm afraid her voice still rather lets her down (my verdict when I saw her supporting Voltaire was that she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket but I'm not feeling inclined to be vicious tonight so let's just say that I may enjoy it more on CD). I was very glad that she got a warmer reception than the last time I saw her perform though.
It may or may not say something about me that when the angle grinder came out, all I could think of was the potential fire hazard. I think I may be turning into my father (or possibly that should be my mother) ...
Deviant UK - fabulous, even though I only knew one of the tracks. And the CD I bought turned out to be a very good choice.
Ghosts of Lemora - I remember these guys from Whitby as being fairly underwhelming and I'm afraid they lived up to the memory. There's certainly some musical talent there, but nowhere near enough for the massive arrogance that the front man seemed to exude, and which invariably puts me off (this was thrown into particularly sharp relief by Jay from Deviant UK who, despite his rather scary in-song persona, between songs was almost childishly enthusiastic and, clearly, was having a whale of a time. He may actually have meant it when he said we were the best crowd ever). I spent a large part of their set in the loos fixing my makeup, but that probably says rather more about me than it does about them.
Cruxshadows - in a spirit of pointless trivia, I can report that their lead singer, I recently discovered, glories in the given name of Virgil Roger DuPont III. I confess myself entirely unsurprised: anyone who, in all seriousness, styles himself Rogue, clearly has something to hide :). And I'm afraid that's as bitchy as I can find it in myself to be. For all their flaws (and I entirely agree with lareinemisere here that he clearly has a frighteningly large ego and probably a messiah complex to boot) and for all that I spent a fair part of the set making catty comments they have a way of entirely overwhelming my highly evolved sense of cynicism. Much like with the Nephilim, for the hour or so of their set I was perfectly happy to play the adoring fan.

It was also rather fab to have visitors in the form of corone and lareinemisere a few weeks ago, although I'm afraid my poor little home city doesn't hold a candle to London. I hope they enjoyed it all the same :)

I've just discovered it's a bank holiday next weekend. Here's to 3 days of doing absolutely nothing.