FACEBOOK EVENT

Sons Of Guns | Richy Spitz | Hazel Turnock & The Finger Choppers
Deckscar | Modern Day Jester | more TBA…

Greetings Roguers

Looking forward to the new year?

For your sakes we hope it’ll all be peaches & cream.

But we’re afraid the end time is near…

The cataclysmic apocalypse referred to in the Mayan prophecy dictates it will be an era fraught with boundless greed and corruption, where global monetary systems disintegrate leaving brother to kill brother for a grain of over cooked rice. The nations of the civilised world will collapse under the impressive weight of parasitic political conspiracies which remove all hope and optimism from their once faithful citizens. Around the globe, generations of polluters will be punished for their sins. Unshielded by the O-zone they have successfully depleted, left to bake in the searing naked rays of light. Wholesale assassinations served to destabilise every remaining government, leaving the starving and wicked to fend for themselves. Bloodthirsty renegade cyborgs created by tax dodging corporations reek havoc. Pissed off androids tired of being slaves to a godless & gutless system, where the rich get richer & the poor get fucked over and out, unleash total world wide destruction by means of nuclear holocaust, annihilating the terrified masses, leaving in its torturous wake nothing but vicious, cannibalistic, mutating, radiating, and horribly disfigured hordes of satanic killers, begged on revenge, but against whom? There are so few left alive. Starvation reins supreme, forcing unlucky survivors to eat anything & anyone in their path. Massive earthquakes crack the planets crust like a hollow egg shell, causing unending volcanic eruptions. Creatures of the seven seas, unable to escape the certain death upon land, boil in their liquid prison. Disease then circles the earth, plagues & viruses with no known cause or cure laying waste to whatever draws breath, and human-kind having proven itself to be nothing more than a race of ruthless scavengers, fall victim to merciless attacks at the hands of interplanetary alien tribes who seek to conquer our charred remains.

The Final World Front.

And there is Only

One

Year

Left.

So come and join us in fearful celebration of the end times.

ROGUE’S END OF THE WORLD PARTY
NEW YEAR’S EVE
CLUB 85
74 Whinbush Road
Hitchin
SG5 1PZ

– Music 8.30pm til 3am featuring –

Live electronica from Hitchin’s own
SONS OF GUNS
http://www.facebook.com/sonsofgunsband?sk=app_2405167945

Lyrical blizzards from
RICHY SPITZ
http://www.myspace.com/richyspitz

Screwball psychobilly from
HAZEL TURNOCK & THE FINGER CHOPPERS

Bass driven party smashers from
DECKSCAR
http://www.facebook.com/deckscar?sk=app_178091127385

Beatboxing and whatnot from
THE MODERN DAY JESTER

Footwork, Floorcore and other styles that probably don’t exist from
DOG LATIN

Old Skool Party faves from
MARYJANE

…and loads of other shizzle TBA.

£5 on the door – That’s cheaper than the pub!

Ticket info to follow…
Discount is at the discretion of the almighty and infallible, Bob.

This is a FANCY DRESS event, but we don’t mind what you wear – just pop down :-)

I’ve always been interested in masks from my very first drama lessons when we studied the ancient players from Greece who would play certain stock characters and rely on exaggerated theatrical gestures to compensate for the lack of facial expression. I found something really interesting about the ‘permission’ to act differently that you are given as soon as you put on a mask and hide your own face; something that allows you to step out of your own skin and ‘be’ someone else is always going to be interesting.

Masks have always been important in human history and used across the world in funerals, religious rites, celebration, theatre and battle. They are practically as old as humans first recorded uses of pottery and clay and remain at the core of costume and pretending. We have been exposed to them since we were very young and are probably too familiar to really sit down and think about them.

There is of course something very creepy and distrustful invoked by masks simply because the face is obscured. Who is this person in front of me their eyes laughing in the semi darkness? Sunglasses of course are un nerving and shifty because they rob you of the expression in someone’s eyes therefore masks can be scary for the opposite reason when all you can see that is human of someone is their eyes. You only have to think back to when you first saw pictures of the masked heavy metal troupe from Iowa that call themselves Slipknot to realise the intensity masks still offer.

Many psychologists including Jung have written extensively about the concept of ‘persona’ and the mask we wear every day to hide our true inner self from those around us. Jung also proposed that there is a dark side to the personality, well-know to the field of psychology as the shadow. It includes both repressed, instinctual feelings and untapped potential. To me, the shadow is not just the “evil” opponent of persona, but is also imagination and creativity left behind or forgotten because of sensible or supposedly good adult behaviour that most of us adhere to in modern times. We make a conscious effort in Rogue to bring you back a little bit of that childhood and to show you that it really is ok to be yourself; creativity keeps us young, happy and open minded and playing with Barbie dolls, space hoppers toy cars and masks allow us to be open and ridiculous with less fear of being judged or thought of negatively. At their core masks allow us to be someone else even if that person is actually just ourselves uninhibited.

 I guess that Rogue is in part about escapism and a loss of inhibition as it provides a chance for us all to go a little crazy, to get outside of ourselves and push a little harder knowing that we can hide behind our masks, hide a little in amongst all the people around us who are also here to get away with being silly. We wish to encourage you all to be yourselves or anyone else you want to be, to dress up and be exotic and different, to make beautiful costumes that inspire, arouse and intrigue, to dance without convention or self awareness and to know that all around you everyone else is too.

This Halloween party just gone was wonderful in terms of costume and we thank you all for making such an effort, where else in Herts can you see 7 foot tall Grim Reapers on stilts hobnobbing with Mexican bandits? However we wish to remind you that mask and costume are not just for Halloween and will be received with open arms (no matter how ridiculous your outfit is) at each and every one of our parties. You might even win a prize.

So for future reference please continue to dress to impress and if you don’t like the attention you can always wear a mask so no one knows it’s you.

words by Matt ‘Red’ Turner.

photos of Rogue’s Dia De Los Muertos Halloween Party by Gavin Felgate.

 This article contains an excerpt from The Healing Arts by Cathy Malchiodi.

If you want to see pictures of what the hell I’m talking about then please feel free to have a mosey around our facebook site.

The Metatrons’ debut LP ‘Between Planets’ marks out a territory between the eighties noise pop of Jesus & Mary Chain, the ‘90s alterna-rock of Throwing Muses/Sonic Youth and ‘70s punk/new wave sounds in the Ramones tradition.

In anticipation of their appearance at this weekend’s Day Of The Dead Halloween Party, Rogue joined Hitchin’s fastest rising local rockers for a plate of homemade Mexican tacos and some silly questions taken from an old Smash Hits annual.

The Metatrons (L-R: Polly, Simon, Dez, Steve) - Enchilada Da Vida

Rogue: Introduce yourselves

Simon: Hello I’m Simon and I play guitar in The Metatrons.

Polly: Hello I’m Polly and I sing in The Metatrons. Can I ask that we don’t have any questions about vomit in this interview? Smash Hits tend to have a lot of those.

Steve: I’m Steve and I play the drums.

Dez: I’m Dez and I play the bass. That’s Dez with a Z.

Polly: I’m Polly with a P.

Simon: I’m Simon with a Z.

How do you like to travel?

Simon: Quickly.

Polly: I like to walk in my brand new pink DM’s.

Steve: I do like a walk, it’s good for the soul.

Dez: What was the question again? Oh, I like to travel by bicycle.

Did you pass your cycling proficiency test as a child?

Everyone: Yes!

Simon: We’re all solid citizens. I passed it second time though.

Polly: I passed my driving test the fourth time. But I’m really good now…

What colour is happiness?

Steve: Cadbury’s purple isn’t it?

Simon: That’s corporate happiness.

Steve: Light blue.

Polly: Oh no, Communist red.

Dez: Black with little flecks of red.

Did you have a nickname at school?

Polly: Pollingtons? Someone used to call me Pol Pot.

Simon: Not particularly flattering though is it?

There’s a Communist theme running through your answers…

Steve: I was called Shaggy for a bit.

Dez: You wish you still were.

Simon: As opposed to Limpy.

Steve: There was a teacher who said “Look at your hair, you look like a shaggy sheepdog.” But I kind of associated it with Scooby-Doo, and I was well into that, for many years.

Do you believe human beings can spontaneously combust?

Dez: Yes.

Simon: I really hope so.

Polly: It happens more often in London apparently.

Steve: There was very recently a case in Ireland where for the first time the coroner’s report said that it was a case of spontaneous human combustion.

Dez: So, the coroner has to be right and so it therefore has to be true.

You’ll be pleased to hear that you are absolutely correct. Have you ever heard voices in your head?

Polly: Songs quite a lot rather than voices – other people’s unfortunately, rather than inspirational new ones by me.

Simon: The question would have to be when have I not heard voices in my head.

Steve: None that I can think of, just me – the involuntary nagging. A poking with a mental stick. Self-loathing, you know.

Does your mother play golf?

Polly: She plays piano.

Dez: My mother climbs mountains.

Steve: My Dad played for a little while, but not my Mum.

Simon: My Dad’s just learning how to play golf and for Christmas we got him one of those indoor golfing things that you lay across the carpet with a big load of felt. It’s got these pretend bumps in it and the idea is it’s a miniaturised version of the things you’d come across on a real golf course but condensed into a small piece of rolled-up cloth. He was very pleased with it.

Steve: Does it have a bar at the end?

Simon: No just a hollow plastic box, which could be a metaphor for golf in its entirety I suppose.

Have you ever thought you were a bus stop?

Steve: I’ve stood at many bus stops and certainly thought that I was becoming as one with the bus stop on occasion. But I don’t know if I’ve ever thought I actually was the bus stop..

Dez: ..Otherwise buses would have certainly stopped.

Polly: Thing is you’re looking for one and then three bus stops come along at once.

[Silence]

Steve: If you don’t want to be quoted saying it, it’s probably best not to say it…

If you were a kangaroo, what would you keep in your pouch?

Polly: Vodka.

Steve: A baby kangaroo probably.

What would you do if you were Prime Minister?

Dez: Wear a top hat.

Polly: Tell myself to resign.

Simon: This is going to be a long answer. I can’t answer it without getting angry, so I’ll just say this: I’ll make this country a better place by introducing a lot more kangaroos and a lot more bus stops that look like Steve.

Steve: I am at one with the bus stop.

Polly Metatron models the Smash Hits annual

Have you ever been so violently sick that you… wait we’re not doing vomit questions are we?

Polly: No.

Okay, where do you think all the missing pens go?

Polly: They go to the same planet as the socks. I think they’re stolen by a cat along with winecorks and cigarettes.

Simon: A lot of them end up in our kitchen and then defer to the other room. But most of them don’t work by the time they arrive here. We’re like a home for broken pens.

Steve: Bring us your huddled masses of broken pens. I will take them in and throw them round the room when they don’t bloody work.

Do flowers scream when you pick them?

Simon: I’d hope so.

Dez: You’d have wasted all that time otherwise.

What keeps you awake at night?

Steve: The question before last.

Simon: It’s hard to get the voices you hear in the day to stop sometimes.

Do you know anyone called Tarquin?

Steve: Yeah.

Polly: Really?

Steve: Yeah, I mean I shouldn’t say his name really..

Simon: Yes, maybe you shouldn’t elaborate any further.

Steve: He’s the only person I’ve ever known who spent his dole cheque on drugs. When his parents found out, he said he’d been mugged. And then he had to go out and mug himself.

[Steve’s phone starts ringing]

Polly: Is that Tarquin calling?

Simon: He’s going: “What you sayin’ about me?”

What TV programme do you always turn off?

Dez: There are so many. They’re evil.

Polly: Adverts. Always adverts.

Simon: Question Time makes me quite angry. I can barely get through 15 minutes of it without getting incredibly self-righteous. So we turn it off and watch Family Guy instead.

Polly: I nearly cried during Question Time the other day.

Steve: I fell asleep and woke up when Dancing On Ice was on and I was all OOARRGH! Where’s the remote?!

Polly: It’s a horror film.

Speaking of which, we’ll do some Bonus Halloween questions now. What is your favourite horror films?

Polly: My favourite is Aliens, but I’m not sure it’s a horror.

Steve: One of my favourite films is Eraserhead because it wasn’t a horror film in the conventional sense but it just made you feel eurrrrghhh inside. It’s got this permeating awfulness about it.

Polly: I couldn’t sleep for weeks after the Grudge.

Steve: I watched Let The Right One In the other day.

[Everyone agrees it’s a brilliant film for about 2 minutes]

Polly: I’m fine when I’m watching stuff like that, but it’s later that night when I go downstairs and get really scared of what’s in the back garden.

Steve: See that’s the mark of a good film..

Polly: I often check behind the shower curtain after watching Shaun Of The Dead to check Peter Serafinowicz isn’t hiding there.

Dez: I quite liked Labyrinth…

Is Labyrinth a horror film?

Dez: The Del Toro one… Pan’s Labyrinth.

Polly: But that one’s so horrible!

Simon: What, the one with David Bowie?

Polly: There are some frightening mullets in Labyrinth.

Steve: Pan’s Labyrinth’s excellent.

Dez: A different kind of horror.

Simon: Coronation Street’s quite scary.

Steve: Have you seen Hollyoaks recently?

Simon: Yeah, it’s the same thing except with a load of corpses dribbling blood out the side of their mouths while attempting to make a living through acting. That’s a programme I will not watch. It’s disgusting.

What else scares you?

Steve: Politicians. Anybody who’s got that amount of self-interest. Politicians are like people who want to own machine guns – they should be barred from doing it because the sheer fact they aspire to being a politician is wrong and they should be stopped immediately.

Polly: Celine Dion’s quite scary.

Steve: What about you Dez?

Dez: Most things scare me. The outside. The inside. The walls.

If you could dress up as anything for Halloween, what would you dress up as?

Dez: A tyrannosaurus rex. Full size. Otherwise it’s just a cat with spikes on.

The Metatrons (L-R Steve, Dez, Polly, Simon): Thinking about young people and pop music.

What did you do last Halloween?

Polly: We did the same as we’ll be doing this year. There was some band playing…

Simon: The same as this year, with different trousers. A number of us also play in [Luton Cowpunk band] Trailer Trash Orchestra who played Rogue last year.

I’d honestly forgotten about that.. So what music is scary?

Simon: Pop music now, especially the stuff that’s been designed to sound like a ringtone. That’s scary because music doesn’t seem to exist in the same way as when I first started to like it. So these young people now, young people…

Polly: You sound like you’re 150…

Simon: I am 150. These young people are getting into this stuff that literally sounds like it’s made for commercials. Yeah. So basically it’s music I don’t understand that’s scary.

Polly: I don’t understand it, so I fear it!

If you were to have a Halloween party, would you play pop music?

Polly: We’d just play Bauhaus repeatedly.

Steve: And Steps.

Simon: The Cramps are good for that.

Dez: Or just hide a theremin in the room so it goes “WOOOOO” when people walk past.

Simon: We’re scared by pop music and the possibility of having a theremin in the room.

What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?

Steve: I used to navigate over Bodmin Moor using OS maps cos it’s a better way of finding the quieter roads. I got vaguely lost, so I stopped to have a wee. I got out and tied to a fence in a cruciform shape was a live crow. So I stopped what I was doing, zipped up my trousers, got straight back in the car and said “right, let’s go find somewhere else for a piss”.

Simon: Are there any questions about the band?

Nope.

The Metatrons were interviewed by Charlie Frame. They will be playing this Saturday 29th October at Rogue’s Halloween ‘Dia De Los Muertos’ Party at Club 85, Hitchin.

For more information please go to:

www.themetatrons.moonfruit.com | www.myspace.com/themetatronsrock | www.twitter.com/themetatronsvox

I haven’t ever reviewed a gig before in my life (aside from over the phone to a mate, post-rave up at Fabric, dribbling about how [insert DJ here] played the same record twice in the same hour but it “just totally worked cos he was so in sync with the crowd”)…. However, the lovely Charlie from Rogue in Hitchin suggested it might be a nice idea. So here goes:

Plaid are one of my favourite electronic acts of all time. Ed and Andy have covered a lot of ground in their work thus far, from the anger of Black Dog to floating goodness for Bjork.

I had never been to Village Underground before (“we all play synth”) and my initial feelings were mixed. The venue is essentially one fairly big room with a very high, slanted ceiling and the most reflective brick walls you could imagine.
As I understand it, the space is used for music and art installations – a bit multi-purpose. The result in sound was bizarre, as no permanent fixtures could be put up to diffuse reflections or try to tame resonant frequencies. The subs hit your body out of phase with the low mids, and then 4 milliseconds later the hats had bounced their way to your head. The rather bland, and instantly forgettable, warmup DJ was playing a selection of tempos and genres when we arrived and it was clear to me that the deeper tracks with less complex rhythms were working best in this venue, no great surprise there… As the sound engineers amongst us will know, as a venue fills up with people the sound improves somewhat, but I was still worried about how Plaid would sound in the big space given their intense polyrhythms and varying time signatures!

Because I live in the sticks, I needed to leave at a specific time in order to get the last train home. I was relying on Plaid to start on time so I could catch the whole set. They didn’t and I couldn’t. This is why I know it was exactly 11:20 when they started.

Opening with new material is always a good idea for an album launch night. They seemed to agree. Instantly SPL was up, clear and punchy transients from high quality RME soundcard – the room was working better now! What’s this? PROJECTOR ON THE BRICK WALL! Nice.

The projector was displaying a kind of chart with shapes, colours and motion being dictated by certain elements in the music. Triggering visuals through level thresholds in music is nothing new but these guys have programmed it all themselves. All around me I could see men with beards hastily consulting with each other every time a new element was introduced. Certainly this visual stimulus was what much of the crowd needed to push them over the edge. There was a focus on the stage now that was nice to see.
Personally, I find the Plaid material to be so extremely well programmed and fascinating that the visuals just distracted me from the whole reason of being there, the music! I shut my eyes for moments of bliss. “Unbank” from the new album comes on (although typically, not in any state where you’d recognise it till half way through) – rushing chords sweep over my head. This pseudo-vocal sound is fucking with my head. They have spent years perfecting the frequency modulated and additive synthesis techniques to produce these strange sounds. Subtractive synthesis always has a place in every track, but these boys were going “WUB WUB WUB” when Skrillex was in nappies – AND THEY HAD TO PROGRAM THE SOUNDS FROM SCRATCH! We are talking the days before Native Instruments.

“Somnl” gets worked into the pallet. This is clearly  a nod to the UK Bass scene, but it’s so much more than that. These chords get you somewhere you’re not sure you want to be touched. They make you feel ecstatic and furious simultaneously. I remember when I first got “Scintilli” and I played it the whole way through getting everything from vertigo (my subwoofer is the size of a washing machine) to goosebumps and at the end feeling physically ill because the chords in “At Last” made me want to cry and smash something up at the same time. This is the power they have over me.

(It’s worth noting that I didn’t swallow, inhale or sniff anything extra-curricular all night)

Holy shit. Now it’s one of those moments where they churn up my insides with the beautiful “Eyen”, and although this track is no spring chicken it gets an enormous reaction! This is a track that could have appeared in any arrangement, any style and still won people over. Sometimes you hear a progression, a riff, an arpeggio and you just know that this will touch people. Plaid have a few moments like this towards the end of their set. Moments from “Spokes” and “Greedy Baby” are thrown in and people react to it well. Stuttering vocals snippets, shredding saw waves fill up the room and then huge drops to gentle FM sounds of “The Launching Of Big Face” swimming around your ears while the sub bass from previous tracks rumbles below; you are never safe!

… And of course my watch is telling me it’s time to go, so I skulk out knowing I am missing 20 minutes of what is no doubt going to be some epic noise. Such is life.

Prior to the gig, I had wondered how average Joe dances to music that switches from 7/8 to 5/4 to half time grooves with very loose quantizing. The answer seems to be, however they bloody want to! There was no shortage of mind-altering goodies within the cavern (sadly I had to drive later than night so straight and narrow for me) and this showed in how people reacted to the music.
As MJ put it, “they could be dancing to a fox in a dustbin and the result would be the same”.
Nail. Head.

Day Of The Dead Mexican Halloween Party

29/10/11 – CLUB 85, 74 Whinbush Road, Hitchin

Entry: £6 on the door / £5 with a ticket

Black Eye - www.myspace.com/blackeye
The Metatrons - www.themetatrons.moonfruit.com
Billy Skins Fifth - www.myspace.com/billyskins5th
Battery City (feat. Flo-Ella)
Mike Fallon

A Halloween Party, Mexican Style!

Inspiration for costume etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

TICKETS: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/140059

FACEBOOK LINK: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=228332550545979

Photographs by Gavin Felgate (c)2011

The eagle-eyed among you will notice the deliberate mistake. Yes, we got the date wrong - it should be the 17th Sept, not the 21st. We promise to rectify this as soon as we've finished painting the shed.

ROGUE presents LOUD!

A live dubstep and drum’n'bass special

Cos Hitchin Just Ain’t Noisy Enough

CLUB 85 | WHINBUSH ROAD | HITCHIN | HERTS

SATURDAY 17tTH SEPTEMEBER (not 21st as it says on our flyer – those responsible for the mistake have been dobbed in for spreading loot-propaganda on Facebook)

with

CODA - Live dubstep with a full band.

TEFLON CHILD – Welwyntronica

VARIATIONS - Mutual Party DJs in full effect

SUB PIRATES - Wob wob wob and a bottle o’rum

ROGUE DJs - Cos we like music too!

Official Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182008215203904

Help us get to grips with it all by following @rogue_music and in return we’ll keep you up to date with as much music news from around North Herts as we possibly can. Bands – send us your news!

We’ve also started a Twitter list North Herts Music which you can follow for direct tweets from all the local bands and music promoters.

The Rogue DJs will be spinning a cornucopea of different styles from rock, dub, hip hop, dance, punk, and anything else you can think of.

with:

Da Hui
Dog Latin
Fee-Line
Frol
Mark Mallinson

Drink offers and free entry from 9pm-2am

FACEBOOK EVENT

With his experimental technique resident Rogue photographer Barry Hobbs created these stereoscopic images. Made by firing two cameras at once, this less than perfect technique has led to these weird and wonderland-ful animated 3D photos.

Click below to see more, and don’t forget Backwards Rogue this Saturday 18th June, with Triple Chicken Combo, Mzukka, Droome and Alexa Povey.

Lika Sharps

Lika Sharps

Minor Pilot

Minor Pilot

Minor Pilot

A spot of tea

Hat's the way to do it

Bite me

The Display Team - what's going on with his legs?!

The Display Team

The Display Team

The Display Team - Not from Cheshire

Bounce

Oi mate, yer hat's on fire!

The Zipheads