Thanks to you all for your thoughts (especially Hawk: I'm touched, man, really I am) - things are starting to look a little better now, so hopefully the clouds'll clear away and I can get back to being the annoying twat you all love. :D

I miss this.

Stay tuned; I'm on it.

The Music Banter Members Journals Monthly Update, May/June 2018
 

Firstly, apologies for the long delay in doing this, which means that once again you get two months for the price of one (special offer, new clients only) but I've had two main reasons for not being able to get the update done before now.
One bad:
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/MasculineC...og-max-1mb.gif
One good:
https://media.giphy.com/media/WW6icq2dkyXVS/giphy.gif
Which means we got a lot to get through, so let's get through it.

Blank gets us underway, as he does most months, as Blank Does Whatever He Damn Well Pleases, kicking off with the long-promised -if-not-awaited “Who the **** is This Artist?” which opens with Sienna Root. I think Batty says it best when he opines, “Well **** them then!” On to weird schoolgirl anime (and sure why not?) and then a review of Thou's The House Primordial and the new Kanye West. Feel like I've been on a trip after that, and I don't even do drugs! And if that wasn't enough for you, there's ICP too!

With his new dream job in the bag, Exo's Vinyl Room is open for business, with music from Kayodot and Piglet. No Winnie the Pooh as yet.

Another new journal, this time from a new member. Grungeaquarius' Playlist only started this month, but already he or she has articles on The Beach Boys, Joanna Newsom and Sopor Aeternus. Hey, I know that guy! Be interesting to see if this survives, thrives or dies over the next months.

MicShazam's Song Picks has “My Mind on Metal: 100 Great Metal Tracks”, including the likes of Waltari, The Agonist, Symphony X and of course (anyone?) Dir En Grey. Also music from Alice in Chains, Ihsahn, Lake Street Drive and Stam1na, among others. There's also a list of MicShaz's favourite computer games in https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...not-music.html

Vive la revolution! Or something. Anyway, check out Down With Spotify! Revolucion de Soulseek! where Goofle's listening to Snail's House, Sophie and Carmen.

Sounds From Innerspace has “An Echo of Nothing: Sounds from the John Cage Trust". Of course it does. Innespaceboy also asks “Will Pop Eat Itself?” We can only hope... And if you want to see him use a child's record player, well then, step right this way!

After over a year away JTF's Own Artistic Personal Hell Gauntletl is back, and it seems he's decided to settle this journal down into a movie review one, rather than the sort of “kitchen-sink-Batlord-lite” thing he looked to have originally intended. That's cool: focus is better than fuck this, right? Anyway, he's reviewing The Lobster and Under the Shadow, so what are you waiting for?

Kiii's Arcade comes storming back with Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Dungreed, Wizard of Legend, Grim Dawn, Borderlands2, a preview of Fallout 76 and a detailed article on E3, a look through his Steam library and so much more! Gamers check it out! Glad to see too that there's a more upbeat tone to the latest posts in Journey Through the Mind of a Loner as Kiii starts to maybe sort his life out. Rootin' for ya, guy!

More guns in Merit's Ramblings, along with schematics and of course, conspiracy theories.

Occulthawk is going to take us all to school about hip-hop, apparently, with B Pace , then there's Noel Akchote and Mary Halvarson together live in Strasbourg, Jean Michel Jarre, Willie Nelson and hey! If These Trees Could Talk! I have that album! :thumb: And, um, Merzbow's Venereology. Hey! I .. hate that album! And there's Suicide, Laura Canning, and, ah, the Modular Human Body. Look, as usual, too much to cover (though it will all be looked at in detail in this special I'm doing on his journal) so just check out From Freak Fighter To Lamplighter. You know you want to.

The Sane Psycho's ****posting Odyssey continues with Alice in Chains and Waluigi, while on a more serious note The Official Sane Psycho Hook Rock Extravaganza looks at the Ramones, Cheap Trick, Jimmy Eat World and the Get Up Kids.

Okay, JTF may have been away for eighteen months but that is a mere ten-minute lunch break to grab a sandwich compared to YorkeDaddy, whose journal Music Banterus: A Fantasy Epic resumes after ... three YEARS! Just when we thought he had gone away to live like a kermit in a cave (yeah, he got that one slightly mixed-up: took him ages to get all that green paint off!) back he comes with a new chapter! Harper Lee eat your ... oh. Well, you know what I mean. Check it out, dudes! And let's hope it won't be another three years before the next chapter. I don't have that many years left, you know!

Some of the awards are easy to hand out this time round.

http://www.trollheart.com/quillmonth.jpg
goes to innerspaceboy for this charming insight into his childhood...

while
Funny Post
https://cdn1.thehunt.com/app/public/...ea419579cc.png
of the Month
this time around could have gone to YorkeDaddy for his latest installment to Music Banterus: A Fantasy Epic. But in the end I decided to go with a crowd-pleaser and award it to the Clown Prince, for this zinger from Kiii's personal journal:


http://www.trollheart.com/workhorse1.png
goes without question to Kiii, for the amount of sheer dedication and effort he put into his gaming journal. Nice job, man!

http://www.trollheart.com/backfrom.jpg
Really thought I'd be giving this to JTF, but he was beaten back into the ground with the flat of a shovel wielded by YorkeDaddy, who may in fact now hold the record for the longest gap between entries in a journal. Three years. Beat that, anyone!

And so we finally return to
http://www.trollheart.com/classicj2.png
as we continue our journey through the weird world of OccultHawk.
Last time we left him it had just turned into October and Hawk was getting down with Sawako, Deerhunter's Microcastle, Philip Jeck and Bill Dixon. Then he got all religious with Sacred Rhythms of Cuban Santeria, his top ten punk songs and then he took us on a musical tour of Tunisia, spoke about the relationship between Philly Jones and Coltrane, and mentioned some women in the media that he'd like to, ah, discuss music with. ;) Music from Transcendence, Julianna Barwick, Daphne Oram, Alvin Lucier, Ivo Malec and Brian Ferneyhough.

Hatred for Tim O'Reilly followed, then we had a guest review from Oriphiel, looking at Slayer's Show No Mercy, and then Hawk began counting down his top forty favourite artists, kicking off with Olivier Messiaen, Luc Ferrari and Luciano Berio, then La Monte Young, Son House, Skip James, Burle Ives, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye and Aaron Schoenberg, which brought us to number 30. Up next: Erik Satie, Merzbow, Stockhausen, Debussy, Tim Hecker, Eno, Slayer, Floyd, Sabbath and Zep. Top 20 then included Dylan , Stones, Beatles, Sun Ra, Cage, Daniel Johnston, The Notorious B.I.G, Iannis Xenakis, Krzysztof Penderecki and Perotin. For his top 10 he had Beethoven, Don Cherry, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Robert Johnson, Sonic Youth and Hendrix.

And his top three? Elliot Carter, The Ramones, and at the very top of the pile, John Coltrane.

The brought us into November, with much of that month spent in his bantering back and forth with people like Grindy and Frownland about the abovementioned list. December then opened with Jazz Picks from 2017. We had Beyond, Sounding Tears, Vessel in Orbit, Recent Developments, Suite Salada and Obsession, then he wanted to talk about Jaimie Branch, Nubya Garcia, Peter Evans and Coleman Hawkins. Also Bill Evans and Jack Wright.

And that brought us to the end of the year 2017, which is probably a good place to stop for now. More of this when I can be bothered.

Again, sorry for the late and double update but hope it was worth the wait. What do you mean, no? Really, I don't know: you can't please some people!

Hopefully I'll be more together for the next update. I'll try to keep up with your entries throughout the month.
Till then,
Toodles!

I'm so happy this is back. And thanks for the kind words. My arcade thread has become more of a passionate project and it being a journal is just a plus. But I'm glad you're reading it! It's a lot of fun.

Thanks Trolls

That’s a **** load of work going through my journal like that. It’s fun to read about it.

Believe it or not, it was your "I miss this" that kicked me up the arse to get it together and finish the update I started last month. Nice to know someone actually does miss it. And you deserve all the praise you got. That's a whole lot of work you put in, and your E3 article was excellent.
Not that much work. I enjoy reading it.

Well thanks man. I appreciate the kind words. I always enjoy these and I find that you put the necessary personality into it to make it work. A nice welcome to the journal area for sure. And no worries, I'll be continuing to uplate my journal. I think of like 10 different ideas every day but mostly 1 or 2 make it through.

Thanks for the mention as always. I think my days of earning "workhorse of the month" are over. I'm not even sure I'll ever do another journal entry at all. If I ask myself why I should, I can't come up with any answer.

I'm going to just continue finding new music and listening music - but without writing about it.

Writing my journals helps keep me connected to the music I listen to.

It challenges me to keep exploring and to listen closely.

It helps me to keep my thoughts about music kind of organized. I spend a lot of time on it because it’s fun and it’s worth sharing. I’m proud to say my journals are worth reading. It’s something.

Yeah I know how you feel. This, along with concentrating on my actual writing, is one of the reasons I stopped my journals. Way too much work for way too little reward.
They/it are/is - don't you only have the one? You certainly put a lot of work into it, and your passion and commitment and interest shine through.

I've got things that I could do that feel very worth it. Even just posting a few youtube clips and writing a few lines for each takes time. Why do I do it? I'm not some hotshot reviewer with an audience. I'm just some faceless guy on the internet with no credibility. It's cool that Hawk finds some joy in writing journals outside of there being people who appreciates reading it, but that's not the case for me. I know for a fact that I have very little in common with anyone musically, so it's kinda important to realize that I'm mostly just talking to myself, and that's not very meaningful, is it? Totally a rhetorical question. Of course it's meaningless!

I consider 2018 drone and ambient and 2018 free jazz journals as well. The free jazz of 2018 is in my opinion the best thing I ever started on here in terms of you the you heard it here first factor. A lot of it beats the free jazz collective blog.

And the southern states is like, seriously- I’m proud of it-

It’s all a team effort but yeah those are my babies

Does everyone think my journal is this weird? I genuinely don't understand why it's so weird.

It’s... experimental

OK that's fair enough. I guess if I put enough effort into them my "Listen With Trollheart", "Trollheart Reviews the Music You Hate" and "Trollheart's Wonderful World of Prog" may in time be considered sort of journal-lite for me. Maybe. Hey, as long as you enjoy doing it, right?
and weird.

It's weird in that "We are such crazy chicks, we make grimaces and stick our tongues out in our selfies" way.

*whacks off*

I'm not sure how many hits I'm going to get either with my new journal. Ori is about the only other garage rock head here and he's usually busy being a lounge lizard. Anyhow, just because they may not comment doesn't mean they're not reading your journal. I always check out Hawk and Blank just to see what they're up to though I've only commented on Hawk's occasionally and I don't think I commented on Blank's at all.

But why? My journal is just me saying and talking about whatever plops into my mind. If you took all your journals and placed all your posts into one journal, wouldn't it be just a random series of posts?

So why is it weird?

As long as it's entertaining, who cares if it's weird?

It's not you just try way too hard to say **** that looks random.

Like I say to everyone, it's all about the views. Not that many people comment, but to see who's reading, check your views.
Cos you appear to be talking to yourself and having weird conversations, most of which make no sense. Nothing wrong with it, but it certainly is weird. With a capital Weird.
https://media.giphy.com/media/4xcT9ixrCh0yc/giphy.gif

.

And I'm glad John Candy is dead cause everything about him is like god damn Minnesota.

I love writing in my journal

What's wrong with Minnesota. Were you attacked by a Viking or something?

I'm just curious to know. He can feel how ever he wants.

Oh. That's what you see as weird. I guess. I could see that. They're going to a stop though because they're not entertaining for me anymore.

It's a cringey, boring stereotype of Americans that is no longer relevant because the Midwest is also no longer relevant.

Was the midwest ever relevant? Did anyone ever say "Go midwest, young man"?

When they still had jobs they were kinda relevant in an aw schucks kinda way. Now they're all dirt poor and voting for Trump which is the closest they've come to being relevant since John Candy ate one too many Twinkies or whatever the ****.

Well, when you have 10+ journals, the reward will never exceed the work. Just saying. I rarely get people posting in my journal and that hasn't stopped me from putting 100% of my effort into it. I never made a journal expecting replies because the point of the journal is for your personal interests and personal thoughts about things we don't talk about in the actual forum. At least not in depth. Getting replies and views is just a plus. That's my thought on it anyway. But again, I use my journal as more of a personal project so anything I put in there will usually get more involvement and effort than my usual posts on the forum.

Maybe other people see journals another way but that's how I use mine.

And I've never really looked at view counts for journal. More views doesn't necessarily mean it's full of stuff you'll like. Yes, I understand the irony as I used to write for views but whatever.

I like when people comment in my journal(s)

It’s fun to go down rabbit holes

Oh I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's always welcome and nice.

For me it wasn't necessarily the fact that nobody was commenting that made me stop, cos I did get a fair few comments, though usually from the same people. Sure, I did feel at times like I was writing for myself, but again, not the issue. It was I think just the sheer volume of work I was making myself put in, that then would perhaps seem not be have been recognised, and the idea that I could be doing other things. Look at the various Metal Months: I put so much work, effort and creativity into them that I was really proud, yet most of it seemed to just pass people by, and that was disappointing.

But eventually I had to make the decision to settle down and really try getting my writing going (which I have) as well as just, well, being able to enjoy the forum instead of making it a nine-to-five, which was what it was becoming. Ever found yourself turning off the TV and saying "better get working on that article now"? Or "I have to review this album before Tuesday" or whatever? Yes, all self-inflicted and nobody's to blame but me, but in the end I was putting too much effort into it, making it a chore and all the while thinking of the other things I could be doing. Had I got tons of comments, people asking when is this or that review up, would I have continued? Maybe. But the real writing was always waiting there, and I had to make a choice.

There isn't enough time in the day to read all your threads tbh.

True, true. I realised that after the last Metal Month. Too much content, not enough time. That's why even with the threads I'm running now, I'm not doing my usual ten updates a week or whatever, just taking it as it comes.

I do wanna say that when you do write in your journals, I have to give you credit for how much depth goes into them. I try to add depth but obviously not as much as yours. It's a compliment. I promise.