Fuck was I ill yesterday. Spent last night from midnight till about 3 am in agony and had to ring the emergency doc who after a couple of hours waiting was fucking useless. Feel a little bit better today but still sore as hell. After maxing on all the medication in the house I've now added codeine to the cocktail. Doc reckons I should see some positive change tomorrow as the flucloxacillin finally kicks in. Needless to say I'm still in no shape for going back to work. Some would say that the timing has been excellent seeing as this is my last week in the bookstore but trust me I'd rather be at work. Plus I'm pissed off that I'm missing my last week hanging with my friends there. Fuck. So you'd think after that moan that I must have missed last night's 'Tomahawk' gig too huh? Fuck that. I am still pissed at missing 'The Rollins Band' last year when I pulled those chest muscles - nothing was going to stop me from being at the Astoria. Jess tried of course - in the end we settled on a compromise - we'd leave late enough to miss the support band and still catch 'Tomahawk' so that I wouldn't be out all night and under no circumstances would I go near the pit. Sigh. I was anxious to get going around sevenish but thanks to John Thaw we were later than that. Click here for my views on Mister Tom Vs Mr Bungle. So we arrived late and the place was of couse packed. We were forced to find a space up top (which I don't mind for spoken word gigs like Jello Biafra or Henry Rollins) which kind of sucked. Being very adult I immediately went into sulk mode complaining that "we may as well leave now - we can't see a fucking thing." Happily though we found a pretty good spot and had an excellent view of the show. About five minutes in and I was in much better mood. Patton came on stage wearing an American police uniform and took his position behind his array of microphones, keyboards and assorted noise-making equipment. The band ripped into 'God Hates A Coward' for which Patton wore his nifty gas-mask microphone and it just got better and better. As usual for Patton the banter was down to a mimimum - an opening "How's the weather, London?" soon descended into abuse of the best kind as he swore he'd teach us how to "suck American cock". He was pissed at the Astoria security who refused him entry early in the night and at one point began slapping the guys guarding the pit with a fake rubber hand belonging to bass player Kevin Rutmanis (from the 'Melvins'). Patton was a dynamo - at times he seemed to be trying to fist his own mouth either trying to rape the sounds out or keep them in. He used a lot of the same distortion equipment I saw him use with 'Phantomas' last year and any of the crowd expecting FNM like numbers would have been pissed off. By the time the whole thing finished with a real fucked up version of 'Laredo' Patton was really pumped up. As the song began to die Patton took out his cock and pissed all over the security guys! - they ran, he continued to piss over the crowd, over the photographers and over any security personnel who ventured back. When the reservoir seemed dry he started to beat off on stage in the direction of the rest of the band who backed off before he hunched over in front of the drum kit masturbating furiously - then he ran back to the front of the stage and finding a few streams of creative amber left, deposited himself over the first few rows again. He kept his cock out for the remainder of the song - flapping it around every now and again to the sound of feedback from Dennison's guitar... I had a crappy expendable camera with me and snapped off about 15 or so shots so as soon as I get those developed I'll stick 'em up. When we got back of couse I started to hurt again and was nursed by the everloving Jess. I get really ratty when I'm ill and I'm sure I've snapped at her once or twice which is pretty low. Sorry Jess! I'm a mean old bastard but I do appreciate all the TLC. Mike is blogging to: The Ataris - End is Forever