Tag Archives: Margate

Nate Vs The Living Dead: Part 1 – Rise from your grave

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To celebrate the season of the witch, we will be posting a series of  themed articles every day for the next seven days. I have invited friends to contribute guest reviews for our Marked For Justice horror special alongside all the grim shit I am about to throw at you.

John Blanche’s Skeleton Horde

Margate. 1984.  My mother was called into primary school for that most  dreaded of events in a child’s young life.. Parents Evening. At this time in my academic career I was an ideal student. Punctual, attentive, polite, a voracious reader. Mother was satisfied that despite her claims to the contrary, she hadn’t actually shat into existence the Goat Of Mendes. She was however disturbed to discover that I had been given a nickname  by my teachers in primary school. ‘He’s got quite the imagination hasn’t he?‘ Blood & Guts was the nom de plume they saw fit to bestow upon my cherubim brow. Where did this name come from I hear you sigh wearily? Glad you asked mate…. Continue reading →

Jason Frye Of Harrowed – A Thanet State Of Mind

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10730867_816735798377774_5192776515379629312_nEarlier this year I resurrected my hardcore fanzine Harder They Fall. I had written the two previous issues back in the early 2000’s, when my involvement in that scene was far more active. In 2015 I felt like I wanted to flex some creative punk rock muscles that had cramped up and so I recorded some punk songs with my friends Jamie and Kieron which became the Severed demo and I interviewed some other friends  and Harder They Fall issue 3 became a thing. The issue sold well, certainly well enough for to convince me that doing a fourth issue might be a nice idea. And sadly that’s where we come unstuck. Life got busy again and my plans to publish another issue had to get dialled back. Anyhow, I DID manage to conduct a couple of interviews for issue 4 before I ran out of steam and rather than let them languish I figured I’d throw them up on the ol’ Hammer. First up is an interview with my old friend Jason Frye. We’ve been allies for over a decade, we’ve  played in bands together and he’s patiently endured more of my  belicose ranting than most. With a new Harrowed split EP with Art Of Burning Water on the horizon courtesy of Secret Law & Superfi Records I thought it was high time that the quiet man of Kent’s hardcore/metal scene had his say….
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Tales From the Darkwood Part 1 – A Fighting Fantasy Primer

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“The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness—a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild”

Jack London.

Regular readers of this here website will have no doubt noticed that in recent weeks I have been talking A LOT about Fighting Fantasy books. If that has been boring for you, tough luck, because here comes a bunch more. In the anticipation building up to the first ever Fighting Fantasy Fest held in London earlier this month, I got a bit carried away and kind of assumed that EVERYONE reading this blog would at least have an awareness of them, if not share the same love that I have for them. How wrong I was!

I posted a few pictures on Instagram of FF artwork and one of our younger followers quizzed me on just what the hell they were. Similarly, whilst sat in the pub after our Wednesday night D&D session, one of the guys in our group confessed to not knowing what on earth I was talking about when I was filling them in about my little trip to Ealing.

I reluctantly had to acquiese that despite the best efforts of the likes of Jonathan Green and the BBC, there’s still a lot of people out there who have no comprehension of the simple joy of Fighting Fantasy. So guys, let’s talk shall we? Continue reading →