|
Post by Steve on Feb 17, 2008 11:41:25 GMT
when they were putting me under, i had a fit of the giggles and i imagined steve's face looming over me; 'let me through, I'm a paperback fanatic' ..... (true!) I think that probably counts as a near-death experience... Get well very soon, my decaying friend.
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 7, 2008 9:13:02 GMT
I'm a natural born northerner. I grew up in Greater Manchester and lived in Whalley Range until about 1990. It's funny how people's perceptions differ, isn't it? I never had a problem with the chips but the Boddies is one of the reasons I left!
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 14, 2008 13:56:58 GMT
Is Coral doing a magazine? I thought this was the insult-pie thread...
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 12, 2008 19:44:08 GMT
Arm the lesbians with tickle dusters... That's your answer to everything isn't it, Craig? It's political correctness gone mad, I tell you... and possibly even the thin end of the wedge...
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 12, 2008 13:29:33 GMT
i liek 2 rite storeys 4 me and my m8s and scrow u if u dont liek it ive had you're mum Shouldn't this be in the "Tell us something about yourself" section, Troo? P.S. My mum says hello!
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 9, 2008 14:20:10 GMT
Are we going to have an argument about whether we're too nice or not now? What are we like? I'd just like to say that I have the greatest respect for everyone here... but having said that, you can all just f**K off..!
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 9, 2008 13:48:02 GMT
"a fucked registry" - that reminds me of the day I got married...
I don't think there's anything too serious here - certainly nothing more than perhaps a bit of a misunderstanding. I know that we all respect each others opinions and ideas, everyone here contributes something; I'm sure that we all respect Rog for the work he's done on Filthy Creations & I'm sure we all wish Coral the best with her new creation and will help and support her all we can.
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Jan 30, 2008 13:07:04 GMT
Any other Vault bods going? It'd be nice to put some faces to names here too. Not sure whether I'll make AltFiction, but there's a reasonable chance that I'll be in Derby as that's where I live. If there are plans to visit any of Derby's numerous haunted pubs either before or after the event, please let me know!
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 21, 2008 11:56:50 GMT
Charles - My copy arrived this morning. Thank you kindly, sir! Looks great, I'm glad to see you've 'made the grave' on the cover (nice idea, Rog). Once again I feel very proud to be involved with Mortbury Press & The Black Book of Horror series, alongside all the other contributors. I say The Black Book of Horror series - lovely to see this; "Also in this series: The Black Book of Horror The Third Black Book of Horror (forthcoming)"
All the best with this and all other Black Books to come, Charles & thanks again for Blackening my name!
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Jan 18, 2008 19:08:18 GMT
...birthday, Des!
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 28, 2008 11:24:33 GMT
as to the fellow on alt.books who speculates as to when baz 'died', he should leave the wildly inaccurate research to us. ;D Talking of wildly inaccurate research, (and I think it was Rog who first noted this), whenever I google anything related to short horror fiction or the like these days, I always seem to end up back here where I started (or the old board or the Vault website). I was just looking for more information on "Amber Print" and found myself, back in Nov 2005 in the old 'Walking Dead' days, saying much the same thing about Copper's story as I've said here ("One of the first short horror stories I ever remember reading was Amber Print by Basil Copper (in Christopher Lee's 'X' Certificate sometime in the mid-to-late 1970s). It really unnerved me at the time...") and then going on to talk about his story, "Better Dead", in Stephen Jones' Mammoth Book of Frankenstein. What a small, self-referential world the internet seems to be sometimes... and how depressing to see myself today - a couple of years down the road - a shadow of the lumbering, dead thing I once was and seemingly doomed to wander the internet endlessly repeating myself ("I'm 41, you know...") On a brighter note... it's heartwarming to see that, in just a few short years, Vault has become virtually a 'one-stop shop' for all the online community's short horror fiction needs. All roads lead to Vault.
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 26, 2008 0:27:58 GMT
I'm just wondering if I'd think of Basil Copper any differently if I'd encountered, for example, Not After Nightfall first and read a number of his stories together. I've always thought of him in the way I've described above - as an author whose stories are among those that tend to stand out in a particular anthology. I read almost no single author collections in my formative reading years (the only one that comes to mind is Manly Wade Wellman's Who Fears The Devil?), it was always anthologies. As a result, I tend to think of writers such as Basil Copper, who I discovered at that time, in terms of single stories. Whereas with say; Robert Aickman, I think of his work more as a whole because, although his stories also appeared in anthologies (and he's obviously closely associated with the Fontana Ghost Stories), it was reading his collections like Powers of Darkness and Sub Rosa that made such a strong impression on me. Maybe Aickman isn't a very good example because he escaped me for years and is perhaps a special case (Ramsey Campbell is another oft-anthologised author I still think of in terms of single author collections rather than anthologies). Anyway does anyone know what I'm talking about? I suppose this is the beauty of something like A Life In Books, which helps people like myself re-evaluate the work of Basil Copper and perhaps finally see it in its proper perspective.
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 25, 2008 21:46:39 GMT
No problem, Franklin - as you can see, my "unfeasibly large testicles" are as good as having your own built-in Space Hopper. I'll be there in no time! And if there's a build up of traffic round the Cockpitt Island (no pun intended, honest), I can always just sling them over my shoulder and run the last part of the way. I may need some help getting my 'equipment' on stage though... my Maracas are quite a bit bigger than Bez's!
One day in the 1970s, I came home from the local library with a copy of Christopher Lee's 'X' Certificate (I was a big Christopher Lee fan at the time, and I'd also noticed that there was a Robert E. Howard story in there - the first of his non-Conan stories I'd ever come across). Over the next few nights, I lay in bed and completely buried myself in that book. I loved every page but there was one story in particular that came off those pages so vividly that it lived in my head for months afterwards. Years later when I picked up another copy, I'd forgotten most of the stories Michel Parry had included but not that one story that had made such an impression on me - the first one I turned to and re-read with the same shivering anticipation I'd felt all those years before; "Amber Print". I had similar experiences with other Basil Copper stories; "Archives Of The Dead" in Peter Haining's The Evil People, "Camera Obscura" and others in The Pan Books, but "Amber Print", possibly more than any other, was the short story that planted the seed of horror in my head.
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 25, 2008 15:56:03 GMT
Rereleased on the original (scratched) vinyl - The Vault Gang's seminal debut - 'From the Depths of Harlequin Records to the Charity Shop Bargain Bins' (Decca Dent Records 1976) Side 1 Jack The Ripper Witch Queen Of Bethnal Green (surely New Orleans?) Monster Mash Louie Louie (impressive keyboard solo on this one) Wild Thing Paperback Writer Side 2 Mack The Knife Lil Ol' Guinness Drinker Me I Put A Spell On You Jean Genie There's A Ghost In My House Search & Destroy. In the light of the unfortunate incident involving the hole in my jeans and my "newly acquired pumpkin-sized bollocks", can I request that if we're doing a Stooges cover we consider either Tight Pants or C*ck In My Pocket?
|
|
|
Post by Steve on Feb 25, 2008 15:20:57 GMT
it was remarked by all how Steve's perked up no end since coral, caroline and troo showed up and the incorrigible rascal will no doubt be delighted to learn that he's been unanimously appointed vault's biggest flirt for those constant reminders of his illlegible bachelorhood. Just want to say how grateful I am to have been unanimously voted 'Official Vault Sex-pest' of 2008. I'm deeply touched (in fact I'm touching myself deeply as I write this). I'd like to thank everyone who voted... Caroline, Coral and Troo for agreeing not to press charges... and of course, my ex-wife, without whom none of this would have been possible... (bursts into tears and has to be helped back to his seat - via the toilets...) Obviously I'm gutted to have been overlooked for the prestigious 'who can look most like they crawled out of a skip?' award yet again, but there's always next year... best drag in muso's craig, sean and steve - and everybody else - to boost the orchestra/ choir. I'll augment the live line-up by adding tape loops and electronics to the more experimental pieces and providing freaky dancing on the funkier numbers - although I'd probably have to be helped off the stage again after a couple of verses... Like Caroline, I'm struggling to find words to adequately describe the souvenir photo of the proceedings. All I can say is that I'm now more sure than ever that I've come to the right place... 'The Vault Gang' is right - on this showing we're truly the outlaws of the British horror community (you'll notice I avoided the phrase 'unacceptable face'), sort of a cross between The Wild Bunch and The Bash Street Kids... you did us all proud, lads!
|
|