Loathe will be sharing the stage with their good friends Morgue Orgy and death metal titans TRIGGER THE BLOODSHED. Further bands will be added soon, so be sure to check out www.myspace.com/bridgefest2010

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The song he featured is This Respect, off Despondent by Design and which is also on the player here on this website. He also had some very encouraging words about Loathe and The Dark Design Tour, so should you want to check the episode out, the link is here! Loathe is the last artist featured on this podcast.

Nothing remains but to thank Toni for his help and support, and to remind you all that the 27th is a date etched in blood.

NB: The Podcast is presented in Maltese. I’m afraid that non-Maltese listeners will have to skim through until they hear a song they like. Sorry!

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The Dark Design Tour 2009 feat. SLAB and LOATHE finished a week ago now. Heads are starting to clear, aches and pains are disappearing  and before my brain wipes my short term memory of the tours glory, i’m gonna attempt to do a diary retrospective..

Sat 24th Oct:

First day of tour. Meet up with the other SLAB boys (Kimbo and Jim) and load the Vanowar. She’s pretty much at maximum load, but she’s used to it and steams us up to Leicester without a problem.

Meet up with the LOATHE boys! It’s great to see them, it’s been a good 6 months or so since we left Malta and we spend some time catching up, eating and drinking.

Great gig tonight, LOATHE start and hit the stage running. Straight off the plane they may be, but, as for the rest of the week, they are such a tough act to follow! The Leicester crowd love them, with windmilling hair and even a girls arse being bared to The Beast!
We’re up next and have a good show (i think?!) playing a nice mix of old and new songs.

After Spirytus bring the night to a very drunken (!) end, we head home. The LOATHE lads are knackered so it’s pretty much straight to bed..

Sun 25th Oct:

Everyone is staying round my house in Birmingham where i live with my ever-patient girlfriend Zoe and my ever-insane dog Benji. It’s not ’til everyone gets up that we realise our house is far too small and our dog is far too manic to handle this! Anyway we press on and Zoe starts as she continues for the rest of the week, by making enough food to feed ‘a nation’!

We head off to our favourite pub in the world. The Duke in Neath. Now, we’d warned the LOATHE guys that Wales is crazy, apparently some peolpe in Leicester had warned them too. But nothing prepares you for The Duke!

Tony, the landlord, greets us by opening up the doors and saying ‘Welcome Home!’ It just doesn’t get much better than that does it?

For a Sunday night the turn-out is okay, and LOATHE play a great set to a noisy crowd. we play to our local fans, and then get on with the real business at hand.. Drinking!

Got to say a massive thankyou to Tony, Nightmare and all at The Duke for a fantastic night. Tony even supplied us with 2 bottles of bubbly to finish the tour with! Awesome.

Mon 26th Oct:

Woke up on a stage. Everyone was snoring. My head hurts even thinking about it.

Shaky drive home to brum. Food.

Tonights gig is at Katie Fitzgeralds in Stourbridge. A great venue and one we really wanted to take the LOATHE boys to.  GODSIZE are playing tonight as well and we hadn’t seen them for a while so it was cool to catch up. We open up and the sound as ever is deafening and exceptionally clear. GODSIZE then tear it up in a draw-dropping gut-rumbling fashion. LOATHE headline tonight and do their best to literally shake the place to its foundations.

A great gig with a great turnout.

We head home happy and hungry. Eat. Beer. Sleep.

Tues 27th Oct:

Today is a day off essentially, but we lined up a couple of press things for us and LOATHE. First up is an interview from Chopmusic. He interviews both bands and takes a few photos. Great job. Next, we fly across town to Kerrang! Radio HQ for our interview with Johnny Doom. Really looking forward to this, and it’s fun to see everyone visually excited. Mr Doom interviews myself and Mark, he is very professional, puts you at ease and is also about the nicest guy you’re gonna meet.

Job done, we head home where Zoe has cooked for another nation. We feast and have a good laugh doing fuck all!

Wed 28th Oct:

Get up and fuck off to Wakefield via Sheffield to pick up Kimbo. Jim is meeting us at the gig later. Testament to the hard-working nature of this band, Jim and Kimbo are both working most days this week and still travelling on the nights to the gigs. Now THAT is dedication!

We get to The Snooty Fox in Wakefield and Kimbo realises he’s played here before with (legendary UK punks) Drongos for Europe. There isn’t many places he hasn’t to be honest! Great venue, cool stage, sound and lights, whatsmore the whole show is being streamed live over the internet.

LOATHE have had a nightmare journey from brum via Keighley to pick up their mate Dodo, so they unfortunately miss soundcheck. We go on first and really enjoy ourselves. I think the added pressure of the internet streaming pulled something extra from us! KO Kaine are up next and are great. Really original sound and nice guys to boot!

This is Loathe’s 4th show at The Snooty Fox and they have a great following here. They go down a storm with moshpits and headbanging all the way! The manager and sound engineer Malc, is a great guy with a great vision for his venue. Check out the link at the bottom of the blog.

I’m stopping at Kimbos in Sheffield tonight and after some awesome cottage pie hit the hay!

Thurs 29th Oct:

The drive from Sheffield to Manchester across the Snake Pass is awesome and really made me think that there is nowhere else in the world i’d rather be, and nothing else in the world i’d rather be doing! Sad? True!

All set to be great night tonight, playing with MWP from Manchester who we know through our best friend Lewis Atkinson. It’s all about the family y’know!

The Star and Garter is a great venue right in the centre of Manchester at the heart of the red-light district. Home from home haha! Hassan from MWP made a huge vat of soup for everyone to eat after soundcheck, it’s things like this that really lift your spirits and make nights go well.

It’s MWP’s first gig tonight, but you would not know it as they tear through a hardcore-metal set of extraordinary ferocity and precision. Paddy the bassist nearly broke his hand hitting his bass..Now that’s passion!!

LOATHE are up next and play a blinder to a rabid crowd. There are plenty of people who have turned out to see LOATHE, for they have played Manchester in the past and obviously gone down a storm. We headline tonight and go down well, a great onstage sound meaning we can really enjoy it. The gig was very well attended and there was a real sense of family and community. I stop at Lewis’ that night in the company of the MWP boys our friend Tracey and Mr J Daniels. LOATHE had to head back over the snake pass to drop Dodo home as did Kimbo, while Big Jim made another treacherous late-night trip home!

Fri 30th Oct:

Get woke up at some ungodly hour by a plumber. And thats all i’m going to say about that.

Drive back to brum with Tracey, get to spend a couple of hours at home with Zoe and the hound before heading out to The Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton for the gig. The Giffard is a great rock pub that hosts metal gigs every other Friday in it’s upstairs venue room.

It’s just ourselves and LOATHE tonight so no surprises and everything runs smoothly. The gig is strangely sparsely attended for the friday before Halloween but we make the best of it and have a good night. That is the thing with the LOATHE, they know how to turn even the most desperate of situations into a good laugh! The audience is small but noisy and both bands play out of their skins. ‘Every gig is Wembley’ as the old adage goes..

Pizza and 300 finishes the night off nicely. AWOO AWOO AWOO!!

Sat 31st Oct:

Halloween. Playing at the Unicorn in London. Wake up and hastily organise a Travelodge for the night. The LOATHE guys head off early to take a look around Camden before the gig. We set off around 1 and circle Camden for half an hour much to Big Jim’s amusement before finding the venue.

What can only be described as a ‘Chav pub’ during the day, inexplicably turns into a rock pub on the night, and initial worries about the crowd are soon forgotten as troops of Halloween attired rockers turn up to thrash out..

Nebukadezza kick the night off and are great. A three-piece (always wins with us!) playing Napalm vs Nailbomb-esque metal got the old blood pumping and a lively mosh-pit started. We’re on next, and because of time constraints we only get 20mins, equalling five songs. It’s quite fun just playing a short set, because you can’t fuck about, it’s just ’1,2,3,4 – meet you at the end’ as Kimbo says!

During our last song, Animal Faced God, a bizarre spectacle unfolded. The mosh pit was in full flow, but as the song changed, right on cue, we were treated to the sight of ‘Metal Rowing’!! Yep, as it was Halloween we had a dragon, a vampire, Mr Staypuft and others, sat on the flow in front of us, rowing as if there lives depended on it!! Only in Camden..

LOATHE were on next, their first gig in London. To say they played well is an understatement. Short set again, so they went straight for the throat and it was jaw-dropping. Mosh-pits and metal ball-room dancing erupted, while the rest of the place stood gaping at the fury emanating from the stage.

Great night after the show. Various cousins and old friends showed up, as did lots of LOATHE’s extended london family. Infact at one point more people were speaking Maltese than English! People split up towards the end of the night, Mark with his girlfriend, some back to the hotel for beer and sleep. Myself, Kimbo and Alan, LOATHE’s drum-monster, ended up at a great party in Hackney, attended by ghouls, dancing to drum n bass at extreme volume. Thanks Rachel!!

Sun 1st Nov:

Despite security’s lacklustre efforts we awoke in the hotel and had a horrible, wet drive back to Birmingham. It’s Scruffys tonight, where LOATHE have played several times before, and where we’re hooking up with our mates MORGUE ORGY.

Despite the fact that everyone in the place looks to have a huge Halloween hangover it’s a great last show. MORGUE ORGY kill it, and really impress the LOATHE boys, and why wouldn’t they? AWESOME! LOATHE end the tour on a high with a great set, and i realise i’m gonna miss hearing their songs every night! We finish, and despite hangovers and fatigue setting in we muddle through it, have a great laugh and finish strongly. Kris from GODSIZE made his third appearance of the week and sang his balls off on Yi Zi Er Shi!! Crowd seemed to have a good time so we’re all happy.

After loading our gear back to Hellfire Studios we head back to mine for a few beers, mugs of Tony’s champagne and farewells. LOATHE have to leave at the sickening time of 4.30am and amazingly they get up after literally no sleep and head down to Heathrow. Only Big Jim is alive to say goodbye but i think we’d said all that had to be said (and quite a bit more!) in the hours before. Sad to have them leave. It’s been a great week or so.

Thankyou’s:

One thing became abundantly clear as the week went on: Music, and especially touring, is completely about people. So huge heartfelt thankyou’s go out too:

LOATHE – Mark, Alan, Kurt, Beast, Karl – Our brothers in rock. We salute you!! See ya soon!

The SLAB WAG’s: Zoe, Sarah, Anna. Much love.

Tony, Nightmare and The Duke crew: Fantastic as always! See ya next time round!

GODSIZE: Brilliant to play with you bastards again! Kris: 3 SLAB gigs in a week is too much for any sane person!

MWP: Thanks for a great night in Manchester boys! See you again soon! Hassan: More soup please!!

Lewis, Deb and Richard: Hail the Atkinsons!!

Tracey: On holiday? On tour!!

MORGUE ORGY: Fucking class lads!!

KO KAINE: Great stuff, hope to play with you guys again.

SPIRYTUS: Jager-kings!

Johnny Doom and Chop: Big thanks for the interviews guys!

Promoters, sound engineers: Steph – Redeemer, Eddy – Katie Fitzgeralds, Malc – The Snooty Fox, Dermot – The Star and Garter, Paul – The Giffard Arms, Jamie Elton – The Unicorn, Spud and all at Scruffys.

EVERYONE who came along to the shows to check the bands out and friends who supported us along the way.

Anyone we’ve missed.. SORRY!

Personal thanks from myself to my two big rock brothers Kimbo and Big Jim. What a fucking week!

Next stop: ALBUM.

Jake.

Please check out:
www.loatheonline.com
www.myspace.com/totaloathe
www.myspace.com/godsize
www.myspace.com/morgueorgy
http://www.myspace.com/newmemberlist – MWP
www.myspace.com/kokaine666
http://www.myspace.com/spirytus
www.resiliencerecords.com
www.chopmusic.co.uk
www.myspace.com/000haxan000
www.myspace.com/thedukeneath
www.myspace.com/exileatredeemer

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The drive was as uneventful as all others, so as per usual everyone found their own to break the monotony. We got to Jake’s in Birmingham, discussed plans for the drive back and got set for the gig.

Scruffy’s is exactly as we left it. There’s a good vibe about this place, maybe owing to the fact that everyone here is very much into the metal, and so it should be too, given that this is Birmingham, home of all that is heavy metal.

Morgue Orgy, the first band on tonight are great guys and phenomenal musicians. Observed closely during their soundcheck, and looking forward to their set. They’re also a very humorous bunch, constantly ribbing Slab’s Big Jim with their nickname for him, Barbara.

We face a tough night after this gig. Celebratory drinks will of course be imbibed, but we do have to be out of Jake’s in Birmingham by 5 in the AM tomorrow so as to get to London Heathrow in plenty of time to allow for any shit we’ll get at the check in desk, plenty of which I’m sure will be available.

Update:

The gig went very well. Morgue Orgy are such an amazing band, very talented, and an extremely funny set of people. We’re really glad to have met them, and will keep in touch! Slab went down a storm, as expected, and after post gig drinks at Scruffy’s, here I sit now, at Jake’s with a houseful of people drinking and chatting. And we leave for London in 4 hours. No sleep.

Update 2: (written on an Airbus A 320 somewhere over France)

We dosed off from about 2.30 to 4.30 AM. Not enough. In pitch black darkness we left Birmingham for the last time on this tour, having bid our farewells to the Big Jim, the only Slab member of strong enough constitution to actually wake up. Well, we did have to heave our guitars over the top of his head.

Long drive back to London in darkness, stopping only for 20 minutes when we were an hour away. Massive hassle driving through London in Monday morning rush hour traffic to drop Karl off at a friend’s, and after that, yet another hassle with our kind car rental agency.

Loathe’s tip to traveling: DON’T. Airports and airport staff hate us. I am still boggled at how we left Birmingham with  7 hours to go until the flight leaves, and still, we managed to be the last ones on the plane, and the last ones to check in. Maybe it’s because the look we sport is not suited to international travel. Suffice to say that our hand luggages were taken apart by what was (at least) a very pretty girl.

Now we go home, and tonight we hit the Excelsior Hotel for the extraordinary general meeting of UKAM and PRS. We shall have many tour horror stories to regale to whomever cares to listen, but the vibe we carry down to Malta is, overall, very positive. We’ve met up with good friends, old and new, exposed our music to a lot of new people, exposed our bottoms to a huge number of bathroom stalls, and in general survived in the madness that is the band called Loathe.

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We got there with hours to spare, so we hit Camden Market. As per usual, the story unfolded with yours truly pretty much working himself up into a shopping frenzy, after which he also got lost, much to the amusement of the others who were by now waiting in the pub. Ah well, in the wise words of Beast, “Consider it an adventure”.

The venue was a cool place with a decent sized room. SLAB, eternal gentlemen that they are, ever so kindly swapped spots with us so we could get on stage third instead of second, and even sped up their changeover so we could have 5 extra minutes of set. Had we needed the clothes off their backs, I’m pretty sure we’d have seen three butt naked guys in a jiffy!

We played a fast and tight set to a very receptive audience, and they showed their appreciation with load roars and applause. Given it was Halloween, tomfoolery abounded. Suffice to say that at a point there was a crocodile and a huge teddy bear jumping around in our moshpit. Madness indeed.

After the set we all kind of went our separate ways. Some went straight to the Travelodge near King’s Cross, others stayed at the venue, some went to a party close by, and yours truly was treated to an Argentinian steak dinner near Tower Bridge by the girlfriend and a friend of hers.

Tomorrow is Birmingham, and also the last date on the tour. We can’t say we’re not relieved things are drawing to a close, but we’re happy to end things in good old Brum, as that ciyt, and Scruffy Murphy’s in particular have always been excellent in their response to us. After all is said and done tonight, champagne (courtesy of Tony from the Duke in Neath, Wales) awaits us, and we shall close this tour and chapter with a suitably drunken smile.

Check back tomorrow for details of how the destruction in Birmingham proceeded! See you all soon back home, and for those who’ve come out to see us on this tour, a big thank you is owed to you!

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The road from Keighley to Wolverhampton was longer than we though it would be, even though we had already taken the exact same route to watch Slayer. All in all it took longer this time, but the the M62 is a huge repairs zone at the minute, so it’s to be expected.

The Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton is the venue of choice tonight. It’s a cool place, and we’re occupying the room upstairs. It’s all decked out in Halloween regalia tonight, complete with undead nurse/bar tender. I’ll get a pic if I manage. There’s even a cool mural outside, a pic of which is below.

The venue normally hosts Death Metal nights, but it’s cool that they and promoter Paul of Fucking Burning have accommodated us tonight. Sound is great too and the atmosphere seems right for another neck snapping night of metal brutality. Bring it on!

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After that, we raced across town to get to Kerrang central! There we were met by Johnny Doom, formerly of the band Doom and a celebrity DJ for Kerrang. The guy was awesome and asked smart questions during the segment too. He spoke of the new album and the tour and in general was very friendly and very, very knowledgeable in his metal, obviously!

The segment will be available on the Kerrang website soon, but until that, you can enjoy some photos of us in the Kerrang building below!

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Morning came. Got ourselves some breakfast and talked politics for a while. Long drive back to Jake’s in Birmingham, during which we were treated to the spectacle of British weather, from rain to shine and back for around fifteen times in a half hour.

At Jake’s we relaxed and rested our tired bones for a while, showered, played Wii and got treated to some earthshakingly good soup courtesy of Zoe, Jake’s girl.

After a short drive to Stourbridge we got to Katie Fitzgeralds, the venue for tonight, and man, it is awesome. A small room, granted, but nice stage and sound set up, spotless clean and in general has a great vibe about it.

The Godsize boys walked in shortly after and they are a great bunch, entertaining us from the get-go with stories of Amsterdam later on in the night and MC Hammer in 1991. Awesome boys.

The gig was really good too! There was a good crowd for both Slab and Godsize, both of whom sang our praises, and in Godsize’s case, ‘greeted’ us in the vilest Maltese possible. The room was boiling with vapor from people breathing and pretty soon condensation formed on everything, making playing a little harder since our instruments became quite slippery then.

We played the longest setlist thus far on this tour and we had a really good reception from everyone there, although to be fair, by the end of it, we were deafened. Really good gig all in all, we were very pleased and will definitely return!

Short drive back to Birmingham and a stop at an all night kebab house for a midnight snack and then we hit the hay.

Tuesday is press day for, we have interviews scheduled with a few people, including Kerrang here in Birmingham. After that, we’ll just rest and prepare ourselves for the 5 gig sprint as of tomorrow! Wakefield beckons!

Will have photos up on this post soon, as soon as the batteries on the camera charge up a little! Details about our radio stuff will also follow shortly!

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So we got up around 10, for the most part still tired. Jake provided us with ample sleeping space, so any soreness we felt was due to our own indiscretions during the live show.

After a round of coffees, teas and bacon sandwiches, we showered. In turns, not sure what you were thinking there.

Wales is quite far away from Birmingham. Of course, yours truly dosed off most of the way, except for when he was buying coffee and muffins at some Services.

The Duke in Neath, Wales turned out to be a real pub, complete with day-after pub smell and punters. We had a good sound, and played to quite a few people who were really appreciative and showed it. Apparently metal bands that play in Wales are respected for taking the effort in doing so, which is cool.

We met a bunch of really interesting people, most with pseudonyms such as a gentleman ‘called’ Nightmare. The owner of the pub, Tony, is a real Welsh gentleman with a soft lilt to his voice and he is a great guy! Below are some photos of us with some people we met and SLAB doing their thing live in Wales. Enjoy!

Off to sleep on pub benches now. Let’s see about the smell of piss and farts.

UPDATE: It was tough to sleep on the pub benches. Especially with the yelling and generally drunken revelry still going on. That said, Tony was a great host and he gave the brave ones from us some very, very special shots of liquor.

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Awesome start to our tour so far. Apart from waking up ourselves and our loved ones at 4.30AM, getting to the airport by 5.30 and waiting for 45 minutes to be checked in, everything seemed to be going well. Of course, we didn’t bargain on running through Departures and having the plane wait for us, but it’s all in a day’s work for Loathe.

The flight was reasonably OK, but the screw ups had barely started. Upon getting to Manchester we phoned Budget, from whom we had rented and paid for a van. Long story short, the van was a lot bigger than we need it to be, and, it did not come with a GPS. Which is kind of a fuck up really, given we do have to criss cross a lot of England over the next few days. What I probably mean to say is, never, ever rent a vehicle from Budget. Especially if you’re looking to get to your destination post haste and with no hassles.

A very long drive all around Manchester and one new GPS in hand, and we were able to set off to Leicester. Upon arriving in Leicester and locating the venue, we unloaded our stuff and I went to look for a pharmacy. The long hours of traveling and last night’s cough had morphed into a full blown fever. No open pharmacies were to be found so I had to make do with panadols and vitamin C.

The show was great. Exiles @ Redeemer is a medium sized venue with split levels and a bar all along one side. We kicked the night off and had quite a few people going mental to our stuff. I played as best I could, even with blood dripping down my arms owing to an accident with Karl’s guitar in the first note of the first song.

Slab went on after us and they were a mighty bunch indeed. Their last song on the set was a ten minute trick pony, full of stops that made one expect them to really stop playing, but which didn’t happen. Spyritus, from Nottingham, also gave a very good show and played a very tight set. They’re awesome guys, if somewhat mad, and we hope to see them again soon.

Long drive to Birmingham after, and a good long sleep at Jake’s, who has been the epitome of kindness. Tonight we play in Neath, Wales, in a venue which has a tree growing out of the middle of it. We’ve been told lots about how insane the Welsh are, so we are expecting a night of pure madness.

Check back soon, more posts will be online in a short while

Much love from the Loathe boys on the road

Mark

UPDATE: 2 interesting things that happened yesterday

1. We hit a pigeon in mid flight. Made quite a thump on the windscreen, I’ll tell you that.

2. Saw the world’s most awesome sign for a car wash. It said “The best handjob in the North.” Memorable indeed

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