Summer is a'coming in....

For a short time back in late 2001/early 2002, i was at a bit of a loose end and found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands. xCanaanx was going through some line up difficulties, Darren and Simmons had decided to split and form another band. So Dargs, Rich and I were involved in the laborious process of training up a new bassist and drummer. Anyone in a band will tell you that the loss of momentum, just when things are starting to pick up is one of the most infuriating things about being in a band. So I sulked off to lick my wounds and ended up hanging out with a few guys from Margate who were into black metal. We had a shared interest in maudlin, miserable music like Low, godspeed etc and a mutual fascination with The Whicker Man. They had a band called Like Herod, some great tunes but but no vocalist, and it wasn’t long before i stepped in to have a crack at it. The band had a few line-up changes but it was me singing and this dude Tom from local post rock band North By North West on guitar, a guy called Jimmy The Raven on the other guitar, Wilf on bass and Anton on the drums. We practiced out at this desolate garage facility in Margate. Anton was working for his Uncle on a small fishing vessel at the time and would come to band practice straight from work. The stench he bought with him was indescribable but it was akin to what i imagine Bigfoots dick to smell like. Jimmy had no real personality and it wasn’t long before he left and was replaced by Luke Hornus. Funny bloke, had some riffs, and he fitted in way better. Those guys wanted to sound like a blackened At The Gates or something and that was fine with me, i just wanted to scream my head off about something else other than straight edge for a while.

We practiced often and we soon wound up playing some local shows at the shitty Lido Bar. We opened for Darkest Hour a couple of times, though i think in total we played barely ten shows. Like Herod never really had it together live, and were sloppy no matter how good we got it sounding in practice. But it was fun and liberating to be playing new music with different people for to a more open minded crowd. Wilf had some crazy shit go down in his life and he and the whole tribe literally left town the night before we were due to record our EP. After that Burrows filled in but we were treading water. The band finished one night after a Bane show in Canterbury when drunken antics involving someones girlfriend went too far and a fist fight ensued. Someone got sparked out on his doorstep and that was that. It was a shit way to end things and i’m still bummed we never got to record our songs, because despite how this video portrays us, the songs were pretty good. Tom moved to London, Luke went to study somewhere, Anton formed The Break In and I went back to Canaan like a cheating husband returning to his long suffering wife after a grubby affair. I found this clip on youtube, go easy eh?