GARY GYGAX IS DEAD :(

Cue websites full of "failed saving throw versus death" jokes.

As I am sure you all know, G2 (as the kids on the street call him) was one of the chief creators of Dungeons & Dragons and therefore of roleplaying games as a whole. For all its flaws and weird quirks (most of them coming from its origins in wargaming), D&D was revolutionary in its time and still casts a long shadow over that hugely varied and much maligned hobby. It's been about 8 years or so since I handled any funny-shaped dice or plastic swords and tried to kill some goblins, but I have some fond memories of those times and the people I met through them. So I guess I owe Gaz for that. Thanks, beardy dude.

Meanwhile in the real world I'm still jobhunting and growing increasingly skint, which sucks. However thanks to the kindness of a friend I was able to go to the Maximum Black Festival in London last Friday. It wasn't really a festival, but rather a bunch of bands chosen by Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy to play with him for the evening. Overall it was an awesome night, what annoyances there were were due to the venue. For a start when we got there we were faced with a massive queue of people trying to buy tickets. No problem, we'd already bought ours. Except they were making people who'd booked tickets wait in the queue too, so it took us about half an hour to get in and we missed nearly all of Frog Eyes' set. Once we did get in I found out the place had a no readmissions policy, which they had kept despite the smoking ban. So you couldn't smoke indoors, and they wouldn't let you go outside to smoke either. I ended up puffing away on a cigarette in a toilet cubicle at one point in the evening, feeling like a naughty schoolkid. Entertainingly while I was sucking away at my deathstick I could hear a gaggle of London types in the cubicle next to me taking turns to hoover up cocaine. I bet anyone in the gents actually needing a shit must have been pissed off.

Maybe I've just been unlucky with the gigs I've been to but London audiences seem fucking terrible. I mean most gigs have people who seem determined to chat about their social lives in loud annoying voices all night, seemingly oblivious to the music being played by the bands they've paid to see, but London's the only place I've been to where people do it about five feet away from the actual stage. I suspect all that coke hoovering plays a part.

Anyway enough whingeing, the night as a whole was really nice and while I felt like I'd been on some Japanese endurance game show by the time I staggered to bed at 5am (having megabussed it back from London) it was all well worth it. Plus I had my opinion of the Dirty Projectors totally turned around, I hadn't been a fan of the albums I'd heard but was amazed at how good they were live.

In a weird coinkidink (well, not that weird I guess) the Final Fantasy set was Dungeons & Dragons inspired, with Owen playing the songs that he's based around the eight schools of magic that wizards use in D&D. All illustrated during the gig by a lady moving transparencies around on an OHP at the back of the stage.

In other news, I don't know if people have been pity-voting me in response to my last post on here but I actually now have first place in some categories on Compare People. I can finally rest easy, knowing I have achieved something in life.


Today's mp3 is from the 2007 Madonna tribute album Through The Wilderness.

Giant Drag - Oh Father