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Black Atom to split


Joe Atom

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It is with genuine sadness that we make the announcement that Black Atom have decided to split up. Having spent the last ten years bringing our own particular brand of melodic progressive metal to Aberdeen and the surrounding area, it is going to be strange getting used to not having the Atom in our lives any longer. While we are still very much firm friends, it is difficult nowadays to find the time to dedicate to practicing and writing new material. Many of us have other projects, lives and wives and children - The success of My Mind's Weapon obviously takes up a lot of Dan's time, Mac is busy with Hot Mangu, Rass has been taking abuse as the bassist in Deadloss Superstar and I have Thrashist Regime to wreck my neck with. Len is now full-time teaching at the college and is always busy drumming for productions in the Arts Centre, and Erskine just has one of the busiest lives of anyone I have ever met. Over the last two years Black Atom have gigged less and less, and over the summer we have hardly practiced at all. With songs as complicated as some of ours it is tough to get back in a room and play them as well as we would like and the songs themselves deserve.

We take away many happy memories and experiences. From the early days playing at Mearns Academy in Laurencekirk and Drakes Dungeon on the Castlegate, through the happy times of getting to support some of our favourite bands such as Blaze and Thin Lizzy and playing stellar local gigs with the likes of Festr, Risactonia, Liber8, 7 Stone Under, Hot Mangu, Quik and all the rest, the famous twelve-man gig we played at Dr Drakes which required stage extensions and a flutist/saxophonist, to the more recent gigs at the Moorings where we have been greeted with an overwhelming audience response, we have enjoyed almost every second of it. We leave behind a body of work of which we are extremely proud, and we will miss the songs more than you will believe. I feel priveleged to have been allowed to sing on the creations of Len 'The Maestro' Wiltshire for so many years and to have worked with some of the best guitarists in town. And Erskine! :D

This is not, however, quite the end. They say it's better to go out with a bang than to fade away, and, as some of you may be aware, we have spent the last two years writing a 21-minute epic about an Antactic misadventure. Having finally reached the end, we are in the process of recording it and plan to release it as our swansong, alongside our other previously unrecorded song Cicatrix. We will also be playing three goodbye gigs, at which we will put the songs to bed and celebrate our tenth anniversary. First on the agenda we have Halloween at Drummonds on Friday with Thrashist Regime, Hot Mangu, My Mind's Weapon and Enrapture. Should be great, and a veritable smorgasbord of costumes and general Halloween related fun. It's an early gig, so come down and catch Thrashist Regime from 7.45pm. Doors are at 7.30pm.

Then we have a gig at The Moorings on December the 6th with Festr. This will be the tenth anniversary gig for both bands, as we began gigging together at Mearns Academy at the arse end of 1998. It seems that fitting that we played together at Atom's second gig and we are still together a decade later at our second last gig. Bound to be awesome fun, worth paying the money just for Spoonie's legendary banter.

Our final performance will be at Drummonds on Sunday December 14th at Drummonds. We can exclusively reveal that for one of the support slots the famous Risactonia have been coaxed into reforming for one night only. As one of our favourite ever Aberdonian Metal bands we are immensely pleased that we will be ending our career with them. We will have a whopping long set and it should hopefully be a brilliant final hurrah.

In an ideal world we'd like to think that every year or so we may get together and play the odd gig here and there, but knowing the way life goes we really don't know how likely that actually is, especially given the complexity of the songs and the fact that life is fairly likely to take some of us far from the gloomy skies of Aberdeen.

Also, in one of those ironies of fate, a Central American record label has approached us with a view to releasing The Tie That Binds in several countries across America. While the timing of this may seem somewhat inappropriate we are pressing ahead, and who knows, if it sells well and we go multi-platinum in Honduras or Brazil and they want us to go and play over there then it's possible that could happen.

Once more, I cannot stress how lucky I feel to have been part of such an awesome band. We have won the prestigious Fudge Award for 'Most Metal of Metal' every year since its inception, and will retire proudly undefeated! Thanks to everyone who, over the last decade, ever came to see us, put a gig on for us, did our sound, bought one of our cds or filled in for any AWOL memeber (in actual fact there is no-one on the planet who has attended every single Atom gig, not even me!). We have always had a phenomenal bunch of fans who have made us feel like Gods instead of the insignificant little specks of humanity we really are. Cheers to you all, we shall miss you.

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well sad to see another adeen band end, i remember seeing you for the first time about 8 years ago at exodus in a battle of the bands with Then Came Music (WHO ALSO SADLY ENDED!). and although i`m not a metal fan, i really enjoyed the set, (but at the time couldnt actually admit that i enjoyed it!)

all the best with whatever the future holds.

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Guest Bob Double Jack

Well lads, i can genuinely say it has been a pleasure having been involved in many gigs with you guys over the years. I remember when you used to come down to the Moorings on a Sunday afternoon and come up and do The Trooper, to playing at our respective albums launches, numerous gigs together at Drummonds and Drakes - the highlight by far being the support of Thin Lizzy in 2003. From a personal point of view, how you guys are even still speaking to us after the promotional disaster that was the Double Jack tour in 2003 where we were both let down badly by an alleged promoter is beyond me!

Although it was fuckin hilarious, from the gig in Newcastle (with Hooooooooooax), the sleeping banana incident in Berwick, Spoonie's "utter baws" applause, Del's 10 minute love affair with old samuel in Spoonie;s flat, our twenty minute sets in Bannermans, to a cracking gig in henry J beans, and constant mentions of "alexander the great was 33 years old etc, eric bristow was 29", and rewriting the words to Iron Maidens most dismal tunes "Invaders" (shopping!) it was probably one of the funniest 4 days I've spent in the last 10 years. How I can actually remember all that is beyond me, maybe I'm not really as old as I look and I got pretty fucked that whole week.

Seriously though lads, all the best for your respective ventures, and I will try my utmost to make it to one or more of your farewell gigs.

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i was gutted when i heard rumours of this, but being rumours i just ignored it.

much respect to atom and your epic amount of time in the scene.

good to see your not leaving music all together Jo, thrashist are brilliant and i shall see you, beanhole, rich and the rest of you at drummonds!

but as always sad to see a bad split up.

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Guest calumunderkills

I don't know Black Atom at all cos Metal ain't my thing. I did get some guitar lessons from Mac a while ago - great guy!

Sounds like you guys did some great stuff, and it is sad to see a band like this split up. Hopefully all the other ventures will go well. Wish you all the best for the future :up:

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I have some awesome memories and times with the mighty atom. Like Joe says, I'd love to think that every now and again we might get in the same room and jam out a song but you never know.

Highlights for me have to be the 12 man atom at drakes and our Lemon Tree album launch with Karloff - that show was rammed :)

I would advise everyone to come down to the Halloween show... we have a very special cover song lined up... ;)

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Heard the news a wee while back, though it's only that post that has made it sink in.

Some cracking memories from back in the day: the second St laurence Hall gig, the soaking wet gig behind the chipper where our vocalist didn't turn up, the first couple of Taiwan gigs in Aberdeen. And your album launch gig was responsible for one of the worst hangovers ever. (There's probably more, but I'm typing this in a rush at work.....)

Best of luck to you all, you have always been a good bunch of guys. Can't wait for the 6th December gig, massive AB3 knees-up in order there!

:up:

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dude i was looking forward to the 21 minute long antarctic misadventure epic...

Rest assured that it will happen and when it does, you guys will understand why we've been away for so long. I can't promise that it'll ever get played live, but it'll stand as a significant addition to our catalogue. I'm incredibly proud of everything we've done in the last decade. The guys have always supported my departures into the realms of mental and our swansong is, as far as I'm concerned, the pinnacle of my songwriting career so far. If all goes well in the studio, it'll be a fitting conclusion to this chapter in the life of Black Atom.

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Well lads, i can genuinely say it has been a pleasure having been involved in many gigs with you guys over the years. I remember when you used to come down to the Moorings on a Sunday afternoon and come up and do The Trooper, to playing at our respective albums launches, numerous gigs together at Drummonds and Drakes - the highlight by far being the support of Thin Lizzy in 2003. From a personal point of view, how you guys are even still speaking to us after the promotional disaster that was the Double Jack tour in 2003 where we were both let down badly by an alleged promoter is beyond me!

Although it was fuckin hilarious, from the gig in Newcastle (with Hooooooooooax), the sleeping banana incident in Berwick, Spoonie's "utter baws" applause, Del's 10 minute love affair with old samuel in Spoonie;s flat, our twenty minute sets in Bannermans, to a cracking gig in henry J beans, and constant mentions of "alexander the great was 33 years old etc, eric bristow was 29", and rewriting the words to Iron Maidens most dismal tunes "Invaders" (shopping!) it was probably one of the funniest 4 days I've spent in the last 10 years. How I can actually remember all that is beyond me, maybe I'm not really as old as I look and I got pretty fucked that whole week.

Seriously though lads, all the best for your respective ventures, and I will try my utmost to make it to one or more of your farewell gigs.

Dammit, can't believe I failed to mention that tour or Double Jack in the original statement. Agreed, it was one of the most amusing few days I've ever had. You seem to remember a lot more about it than I do!

Seriously, I remember seeing Double Jack for the first time at Old Drakes on the Castlegate when I was aged about 14 or 15 and Trev was still playing the bass and it was one of the most influential gigs I experienced in terms of realising that you didn't have to be famous to be a fucking amazing musician. I remember raving to Mac about you actually long before we ever played together! Feels like I haven't seen you in ages, and for that I apologise sir. Would be great if you could make it along to one of our farewell gigs.

By the way, what's so amazing about your sheep mate? Well just look at it... it's got a white body and a black head ;)

Cheers to all for your messages of support.

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Guest Bob Double Jack

By the way, what's so amazing about your sheep mate? Well just look at it... it's got a white body and a black head ;)

it's just a fuckin sheep, get off me show 8-)

Can't believe you saw us in drakes when trev was the bass player, he was the drummer before that in a previous guise. that must have been about 1997-1998, mental.

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It is quite a pity but I shall make an effort to check out some of the gigs you have lined up

Favourite memories for me are the Lemon Tree gig with Karloff, which was the first time I saw you guys. The 'An Evening wtih Black Atom' gig in Moshulu was also well and truely epic. Seem to recall the other bands that night were We Shall Be Blessed and Godplayer.

Thrashist Regime have been really good when I saw them but haven't heard any bands involving any of the other members (apart from My Minds Weapon, which isn't really my sort of thing although they are good at what they do)

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As you guys are aware I've never been a fan, I have a great deal of respect for you all as individuals and musicians but your music was never my cup of tea.

Your legion of fans will miss the hell out of you and I wish you success in any other ventures you have going....

I might even show up at one of your farewell gigs to shout abuse....

10yrs eh....well done.

G...(big bad)

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I think i'm well documented in my opinion of your musical direction... but, it's sad to see any band give it up. I do have nothing but respect for your musicianship and the guys who i have spoken to have been really sound.

Also, Bonesaw's debut outting was with Black Atom... we'd be chuffed to play one of these doo's with ye? honestly! haha I'll be sure to make it down to one of your last shows though. For the banter/abuse throwing.

METAL!!

Bazz

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