Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath from the album Black Sabbath.

Hear dis! OK, more old video time. I made V.I.P. Dubplate Selection Volume One in 1998 after Viewfinder 1 came out. It may well have been the world's first (and last?) purely ragga and jungle skate video, unless there's a thriving skate scene in Jamaica I guess. Anyway, it's pretty silly and amateurish with all the hallmarks of your average scene video - crap footage of locals you've never heard of, token random poached vert footage, demo and contest nonsense and as ever...visiting americans at Playstation park (groan!).

Anyway here it is in all it's steady-shot-on, toilet-roll-fisheye, Hi-8 grainy glory. Worth it for Ian's slams alone. Big file too so be patient. Permanent link to the right.


Oh and at the weekend I went with Rach, Bang, Gavin and their kids Nina and Grace to this hippy festival in Kent. We camped where we weren't supposed to, upsetting the druids or whatever they claimed to be, laughed at the white people with dreads and pissed in the healing circle - all in all time well spent.






No prizes for guessing who wrote that. It must have helped our popularity at the festival no end.



BLEEEEEEUUUUUURRRRGGGGHHHHH!! Fuck right off. These people don't fool me for a minute. They claim to be into nature and healing therapies but they stay up all night taking drugs. Maybe they wouldn't need so much fucking Reiki if they went to bed at a reasonable hour and laid of the damn Ketamine. I didn't see one person being healed in the healing circle but I'll wager it saw it's fair share of drug intake over the weekend.









OK, they weren't all bad I guess - one nice lady lent us her rickshaw thing to get our stuff back to the car. She said she'd drive it but she wasn't wearing any knickers.

Hove Warrior and gig special!!!

Here's what we were watching that 1st night - Krisun... French's tour shirts weren't on the merch stand which sucked.

Krisiun are way better live than on record and we were really there to see Immolation (who totally smashed it). Watch some video of them here!



The following night I went on my own to see Proclamation (above), Archgoat and Black Witchery (both below). It was the single best black/death metal gig i've ever witnessed (although the Goat Molestor, Necros Christos and Archgoat gig from a while back is a serious contender.) People had come from all over the world for this gig, the line-up was that good. Some video? Alright...

Proclamation
Archgoat
Black Witchery

No war for 5050.

I've been meaning to dig out some of my old bits of video and post them up on here for ages now. There'll be permanent links to them over on the right under Videos + Extras.

First up is the little seen (actually pretty much only by me and French) black/death metal version of the 5050 video that I edited for them back in 2003. When we first put this vid together it was begging for an alternative soundtrack version and so I made one just for fun. Not even Syd and Danny have seen this (hope you it gives you a laugh boys!) - Who couldn't enjoy seeing Zak Pitter skate to Fistfucking God's Planet by Marduk?

Both are big files so maybe put the kettle on or load up the bong or whatever it is that you do while you're waiting.

When the moon hits your eye like a big Pizza pie.

Last week I was in Italy with Rachel. We flew into Milan and drove to Venice, down to Tuscany and back up the Genoa coast. It was amazing.

The rooftop pool was empty in our Venice hotel.


The water bus into town at sunset was unbelievable.

The first night in Venice was crazy, we poled about through all the narrow streets and alleys until I plucked up the courage to do what I set out to do and asked Rachel to marry me.

It was on a little bridge like this. Unfortunately, we were swept up in the moment and left the actual bridge behind without taking any pics of it or even remembering where it was. I guess we'll never know exactly where it happened, maybe that's kind of romantic and makes the whole of Venice "our spot". She said yes by the way. Actually, at the time I didn't hear her and had to ask her to say it again, cloth eared fool that I am!


Venice is by far the most beautiful city I've ever been to and we just spent our whole time there walking about and sighing at the sights.



The best sign ever.

I was tempted by the Nike beer. For about 0.6 seconds. Then I realised it was a shit idea. Nearly as shit as the Diesel beer. Ecch!




There was all this candy floss-like seed stuff everywhere and while we were waiting for the bus these kids chucked a match into it and it burned up in this crazy wave. The little wall of flame went right under these parked cars and for a moment looked like it might get serious. Needless to say the kids scarpered and left Rach and I at the crime scene. Then the bus came and we used it as our getaway car.

After Venice we drove down to Tuscany to a an unbearably cute little hilltop town called Montecatini Alto. We pretty much had the place to ourselves for 3 nights.


There were bats flying around outside every night on the terrace. If you zoom on this pic you can see one.



Florence. We kind of fucked it up as we weren't really too bothered about queueing for hours to get into the museums or cathedrals and the city itself isn't really that pretty otherwise. It was my Mum's favourite place and I had high hopes for it but I guess if you're not super into the art side of it then you won't get much out of it. I'm a philistine obviously.





This place claimed to have made the world's biggest Doner. We didn't try it.

Pisa! There is a law there that says you have to take this picture.

It really does lean! Frighteningly so!

Climbing the stairs to the top is a weird off-balance kind of experience. And the feeling of the floor on the roof not lining up with the horizon line is very odd indeed. Psyched to have seen it though, can't recommend it enough.




Obligatory just-engaged-self-timer-sunset shot.




Last night. Portovenere. Beyond cute. Like St. Ives in cornwall but way better.

Anyway, best trip I've ever been on and only getting hitched to Rachel will be able to top it. I'm over the moon and when you see me in the near future you'll see I have a fixed grin! Apologies in advance for that. Sigh!|