A Brimham Triptych

The grit season that never was keeps on giving. Fresh WNW-erlies and plenty of cloud cover were providing conditions far better than still sunshine would in half the temperature, so Tris and I hit Lancashire and Yorkshire. Various potterings were done, the highlight of which by far was the following combination of contrasts from the bewildering yet sometimes brilliant Brimham:

MMS. The full name is bollox so that will do. I backed off this on New Year's Eve with Spraggs a few years back. The slopers over this bulge are particularly gritty and confusing, I was just more determined this time. It turns out this crux is fairly naff as the holds lead you almost into Desperation Crack before rocking back out. However the rest of the slab is quite a voyage and makes the route worthwhile - never that hard but committing with some pretty fiddly gear (shallow keylock wires, folded hexes, etc).

Rotifer. I backed off this once on the same NYE as it started drizzling, and again last spring with Hobby as the breeze dropped and there was a shower of insects instead of rain and equally bad conditions. I've remembered that gritstone is 70% conditions, 20% reach, and 10% willingness to break limbs. This time the conditions were great, the willingness to break limbs was alleviated by good micro cams in the seam (not even the smallest old alien / camalot size, so this has been a feasible option for 20 years, I suppose you could highball it if you were weird and overendowed with pads, but I preferred the lead), and the reach.....was just enough - fingertips on the top after the 3rd 5c crux. A very cool wee proper grit route.

Beatnik. In a change from tradition, I've never backed off this. It was only vaguely on my radar as a potential option being at least protectable. It turns out the protectable bit is probably the crux, placing the gear at my feet and baws in the photo being pretty brutal, whilst the climbing was good honest grating fun. Bonus star for the perfect Friend 6 on the skyline.

So there we go. An OCD-sating 3x3 of 3 wholesomely varied styles. I nearly made it 4x3 with a long overdue solo of Acme Wall but the 20% reach 10% limb-breaking were far too prominent so that will have to wait. Unfortunately I managed to put myself out of action in a much tamer but much stupider way than groundfalling - in the hostel after this day I sliced my finger pad peeling back a half-open food tin, after looking directly at it and thinking "This is stupid, I should wrap a towel around it" and then somehow doing it with my fingers anyway. COMPLETE FUCKING BELLEND. Still, it should heal within the week and I was training back 3 and core etc at TCA yesterday.

Hardcore Will Never Die?

Maybe The Daily Mash had it right all along (they usually do, I rarely trust anything unless it's been certified by Prof. Brubraker). It's now 27 years since the release of the first acclaimed hardcore track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL5xh-wt3Vc

Part of the retrospectively well-named Visions Of 2017 single. It's now 2017 and as far as I can tell hardcore is still around. About 22-24 years since old skool hardcore split into jungle and happy hardcore, and gabber (now called just "hardcore" - I'll use that term although I am very happy with gabber, and obviously the Daily Mash mean happier hardcore but I'm sure the extensive research at the Institute Of Studies takes into account all sub-genres) rose in parallel in Holland (and America, and the UK). 23 years ago since I first got into hardcore via the quite astonishingly good Technohead 3 compilation:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0UbPz5v8LVE

...and a similar amount of time since I first went raving to Rotterdam Termination Source at the Doncaster Warehouse. Raves and clubs around the country followed from Dance Planet in Cornwall to Rezerection in Edinburgh. I was always into the harder, darker, faster gabber so was strictly Room2 at Dreamscape / Helter Skelter, and had fun times at Bristol's legendary Death Row Techno and Rhyl's Steam (including a solo mission from Nottingham uni to see Australia's Nasenbluten and Xylocaine along with the UK's HMS and Loftgroover in a night billed as "music to make your eyes bleed :D). Those vibes were perfectly recaptured this last weekend with a French (yup, hardcore is international as well as persistent) invasion of Newcastle:

Excellent dark hardcore from Laurent Ho (who after banging out some industrial beats, hung around the dancefloor wearing a micro-skirt, tight black leggings and 6" heels), and merciless noisecore from the Michelson sisters. Great fun. The tiny club and sparse crowd pales in comparison to the massive Hardshock / Dominator / MOH festivals in Holland but still plenty of fun for the dedicated.

This brings the number of hardcore DJs I've raved to to quite a lot:
3Dom, Angel, Angerfist, Bass Generator, Brisk, Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo, Clarkee, Destroyer, Destructive Tendencies, Detest, Dione/SRB, Dolphin, Easygroove, Evil Activities, Fracture4, Hellfish, HMS, Jay Prescott, Laurent Ho, Lenny Dee, Loftgroover, Mad Tech, Madness, Manu Le Malin, Marc Smith, Mark EG, Mark Newlands, Mastervibe, Mikey B, The Music Maker, Nasenbluten, Neophyte, No Name & Mouse, The Outside Agency, Paul Elstak, Dr Peacock, Partyraiser, The DJ Producer, Rob Gee, Rotterdam Termination Source, Sei2ure, Scorpio, Scott Brown, Smurf, The Suicide Squad, Technotrance, Tieum, Unexist, Warlock, Wargroover, Xylocaine...

I still need to catch Dolphin (his recent output is excellent) N-Vitral (king of the kickdrums, and another near-miss at Twisted's Darkside), TOA again (just too good), and ideally m1dy (absolutely mental and cheerful Japanese speedcore). Unfortunately I'm not sure if Nordcore GMBH are still around as being creators of the consistently best atmospheric darkcore before the millenium, I've missed out if I never rave to this truly fantastic (in any genre, not just hardcore) track being played out:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/r39atbJkhPw

Anyway after a 4:30am bedtime in a cheap motel in Newcastle, partly deaf and with chronic pizza mouth, I headed on a long recce trip around Yorkshire (fantastic breezy and sunny Saturday with no-one around to climb with, grrrr). Dovestones is still very inspiring although Coin For A Beggar is stupidly reachy so that got sacked off. Baildon is also as welcoming as usual, and Wombling Wall looks very reasonable (comments on UKC indicate it might be wrongly graded?). And Hetchell has lots of leading potential rather than just soloing, but the evening was just too good so I had to do something:

 Livia. Recently cleaned by some bloke on UKC so cheers for that. Decent small cams protect the crux rocking into the groove and possibly the top-out too. 

Augustus. Easy technically, bold adjectivally. No real gear on this one. I backed off it a decade or so ago and I can understand why!

After that solo mission, I had a choice of two climbing partners lined up for Yorkshire grit on the next days, so of course Sunday it wanked it down and Monday looked showery so I sacked it off via Eden Rock which is still a great fun venue and I did slightly better than last time. Weather still looks pretty cool and fresh so I'm still dead keen for approx 5,000 different venues around Yorks, Lancs and Cheshire....not sure what the next hardcore rave is though, although there is a Prspct Records night in Bristol at the start of May....