Angelusnoctis - Bats inside my head

Everybody is talking about the crisis these days. Petroleum seems to be so expensive that everything is increasing prices. Besides, people in the Third World die as we have used their food to make ecological fuel…

These are really important problems, and of course I’m worried about it, but today I’m just writing about how that affects me in my everyday habits, and in one of my favorite hobbies: the music.

I usually search almost everyweek for the the upcoming concerts in Spain. As I posted some weeks ago, some interesting bands are coming next autumn: Elegant Machinery, Suicide Commando, Project Pitchfork, VNV Nation (for Christmas), etc. The majority of the concerts are in Madrid and Barcelona, the biggest cities in this country.

I was used to check the prices of the flights to go to every event I’m able to. But now, I’m quiting from it. It’s quite exasperating looking how the prices have increased so much in less than a year. I was used to pay 40€ for a flight to Barcelona and the back to Málaga, plus the taxi or bus to get the airport. It was perfect, it was affordable. For example, the Dark Christmas Festival 2007 was that cheap for me.

But now, the cheapest flight is 60€. 60 is not a big amount of money… But that means that in less than a year they have increased their prices 50%. On the other side, my salary has increased just a 2,8% in the begining of the year…

So if I used to spend around 75€ for the whole trip, including the ticket for the concert, now I will be spending around 100€ (taxis and buses have increased prices too!).

So… For every 4 concerts I would have gone to, now I have to rule out one in order not to spend more…

(move up) (move down)

I was boring tonight and I entered youtube looking for something to entertain me… I just found three videos specially selected for me at the index page. After watching them I think there is a problem on the system that creates our “Recommended for You” videos list… Here you have them.

1st. A curious and quite boring selection of ‘goths’ with a song of Marilyn Manson (’Rock is dead’)

2nd. Quite long but funny xDDDD. What is an emo?

3rd. Another SpongeBob SquarePants video…

That could be a good title for a terror movie, as publicity is more and more present in our lifes. But today it stands for a post related to free 2.0 sites and advertising.

I was updating my myspace account and I found an ad of sanitary napkins, a Flash horizontal banner that grows up when you roll over it. It includes a video and some animation to show the offer and links. Also, as you can see in the image, you find another ad in the right column.

Usually I don’t care about that kind of big animated banners, unless they have some noise: then they become irritating, so I always leave the page. But this time, with this napkins advert, I had a little problem. The main admin page of myspace is a place where I spend a lot of time, checking the news of my friends’ profiles. At some point, the big banner expanded and the video begun. And for some strange reason, just in some cases, if you roll out of it, it doesn’t disappear.

I tried to find a “X” to close it, but it doesn’t have one. So I had to reload the page to continue “working”. I suppossed it was caused by an strange behaviour of my browser (Firefox) in some circumstances, but I think that these kind of things should be tested before by the designers. As you see, with the expanded add you almost get a 50% advertising page! If I would have been browsing in other kind of page I would have left it inmediately. They forgot the “close” button!

That makes me think about the ads in my blog. Are they intruders or they actually contribute to enrich the content with interesting links? The ads in my site have another function too: they teach me about internet marketing and advertising. That’s the main reason I have them. But, do users feel disturbed by them till the point they leave my page?… Time to think…

I was browsing the galleries of the DDT and I’ve just found us there! Check the www.poisonbytes.de gallery of the 25 Dark Dance Treffen, they have lots of photos not only of the bands, but also photos of the people. Nice work!

Since I came back from my holidays in Berlin I’ve been searching for an reason to go back to Germany… And some days ago I found it! The 25 Dark Dance Treffen.

In Lahr, next to Karlsruhe and Strassburg, the Universal DOG is the venue for a great night of live shows and DJ sessions. For the first time in my life I’m seeing Hocico!!! And Xotox…

I didn’t know this fest existed, but latelly I’m in a “searching mode”. I let my boyfriend search for new music and I’m allways looking for events! The thing is that they don’t have any english info in the DDT website , so I have to guess almost everything with the google tanslator… I’ve gotta say that the fest organization has been really helpful answering us the most important questions.

So, the crazy weekend plan is like that: taking a plane on Saturday, arrive to Stuttgart, rent a car and get to Lahr by the time the fest starts. And the same to come back home on Sunday… I know it’s gonna be a hard weekend, but I know how I’m gonna feel after that: extremely happy.

Last week I bought my flight to Berlin to stay there a couple of days and then go to the Wave Gotik Treffen!! I’ve never been there, but as my friends tell, it must be an incredible experience.

It is supposed to be something like a huge meeting of goths from all over the world, something like a big family. When I search photos of it I allways find every style in people: the after-punk ones, classic goths, electro and cyber ones, the fetish looks… The great thing is that the whole city becomes dark. A friend of mine told me that in every corner of the city, every shop or restaurant they prepare something “goth” for that days. I’m afraid of feeling so comfortable these days that maybe I’ll get depressed when the festival is over.

Check the official page gallery where I’ve taken the nice photos for this post. You’ll find not only a lot of photos of people, but also live photos of the bands. The thing that still impresses me is to find families with their children! It’s nice to find kids there, I suppose it has to be funny for them, as their parents dress them up in those black and goth clothes, they make up them… Girls even look like little princesses!

We don’t know the line-up yet, but I have my wishlist:

• And One
• UnterArt
• London After Midnight
• Combichrist
• VNV Nation
• Cinema Strange
• The Sisters of Mercy (incredible, but last year they played in the South of Spain!)
• Covenant
• and many more…

Every year I come to Vitoria to stay with my family and friends again during Christmas. Vitoria is a quite cold place, I think I forgot my days in Finland, where winter made us deal with -5 to -15 degrees almost everyday!

Anyway, it’s nice to meet everybody again. But as years pass by, I feel more like a foreigner here. It’s strange to read signs in Vasque, to see how people is really different here… They talk different, they wear different clothes, their faces even even look different!!

Maybe I’m becoming an andalusian… xD Yesterday my father didn’t stop telling me that it’s a pity that I speak this way, that I’ve lost my good pronunciation… :S

The thing is that I love this place. Vitoria is a really nice and comfortable city… If you don’t know it you should come and visit it!

Las weekend I flew to Barcelona to the “Dark Christmas Festival”. Covenant + Reaper + (I+).

I was really surprised with Reaper, as I’ve never seen their live before, and it was really good. I like their music, but their show was really energetic. I loved their song “She is a Devil and a Whore”, which I listened at least three times that night (the concert and the after party in Demonix).

Covenant was great, it couldn’t have been in other way. Eskil told us that they had some problems with their lugage, and the main synth didn’t arrive to the airport, so tey have to use a”smaller” one. It was almost funny to see that small keyboard, as big as a shoes box. xD Anyway they sounded great., and the frontman didn’t stop telling us “Hit me with your love!” (that was quite funny for me)…

I forgot to take my camera with me, so I couldn’t take any photos. I would have taken some with them in the afterparty as both, Reaper and Covenant, were there, among us taking some beers… That’s a thing that I love of this kind of music: you always have the oportunity to talk with musicians to tell them they’ve done a great work!

Like a record, baby. But I already know your name ^^.

Our underground stop was Frankfurter Allee, we were staying at Dark Hostel, next to the K17. Our holidays in Berlin.

I love Berlin, this is the second time I go there. I love the variety of things you can visit or do. In the center, besides the Bundestag, the Museums and Alexander Platz, you always find markets in the streets, original shops, hot dogs sellers everywhere… I particularly love a bar called Barato, in Friedrischain. It’s a place where you can have dinner or a cocktail while you listen to good music (futurepop, ebm, electrodark, industrial…). Comparing to spanish prices it is quite a cheap place, and food is super! And the K17, which is three streets far away from Barato, is one of the best discos I know. They have 4 different floors, with different styles of music: 80’s, metal, electro… And they open almost everyday!

During my holidays this year I had the opportunity to meet Steve Naghavi, the singer of And One in the K17. It was quite a surprise, and I almost talked him as a crazy fan… But he was very nice, and told me they were coming to Spain in May… That night we also met a couple from Valencia (that guy on the right in the photo). Everytime I go to Berlin I meet some Spanish people who go to the K17! It seems to be quite famous.

Another thing I love from Berlin is the Out of Line Shop. Here in Malaga is really hard to find any electro music CD, so when I get to a shop as the one in Berlin I can spend more than an hour trying to decide what to buy. I know you can buy everything from the internet, but I love going to a shop where I can find everything I like, even special editions and other stuff.

I hope I can get to Berlin soon again. Now it’s time to learn some german words…