Remember the first time you saw a comicbook? The thrill you had discovering it and all the subsequent others that followed. If you were under 16, I think it had a completely different feel; because you’re less touched by worldly cynicism before you can leave school.

Frisson is a great word; it’s a word that, I feel, really sums up the feeling that true lovers of the art get when they buy or read something that really gives them the horn – hopefully, metaphorically speaking. It can be a tingle down the spine, a broad grin or just that sweaty palmed urgency that is difficult to explain to people who have never experienced the joy of… it.

Over the years, I’ve made it quite clear that I wouldn’t piss on most of you if you were on fire and I was offered cash; but, and it’s a big BUT, I have come to realise that a lot of comics fans have actually got really good music taste – not all of them, mind, but enough to make being in your company more acceptable and less likely to be fuelled with discussions of the latest Spider-Man or how you’d consider becoming gay (or straight) just to sleep with Neil Gaiman. Music is, as we all know, probably the first great entertainment leveller. People from all walks of life and classes can sit and discuss music on an even par – even if one knows much more than the other; a love of music installs in us a desire to make others want to appreciate and enjoy what we are personally listening to. I know many more people with a musically inquisitive nature than those who are blinkered by what they think they will like.

The wonderful thing about being a bit of a muso – regardless of what tickles my fancy – is that the frisson I once got from a new comicbook or a massively hyped relaunch remains in my being as far as music is concerned and its always a little more than just a frisson, because comics are a monthly fix and nowadays a new album can take a long time coming (eh, G&R fans?).

There are a couple of drawbacks as you slowly become your parents though; you begin to realise that no band or artist stays brilliant forever; as they grow older with you, you’d expect their music to change the way you are, but it usually ends up losing its bite long before you’re ever likely to lose your teeth. So, like comic fans, music fans are constantly on the lookout for new things; something to create that frisson, but initially transform it into a tsunami rather than a trickle. What I mean is, like when someone says, "Have you been reading so-and-so? It’s by Blah and Blah now and it’s right up your alley" and you go and buy a couple, love it so much you have to have the full set despite the umpteen fill-ins that suck big time. Well, discovering new music is like that, but probably easier to find – getting into new music nowadays is easier than becoming addicted to crack and if you’re unscrupulous, a damned sight cheaper too!

I remember recommending certain comics during the 1990s that I knew gave the people I suggested them to as much pleasure as I derived; but I also recommended a lot of music to people and subsequently they recommended stuff back. That’s music for you.

The beauty of music over just about anything else, is man’s propensity to turn it off if they don’t like it – whereas TV watchers and comics fans persevere with shit because they just can’t be arsed to pick up the remote or cancel a standing order. Because there is so much choice on offer, it is highly likely that you will hate much of your friends’ choices; but you accept it as a given – there isn’t that underlying resentment that goes with other entertainment mediums when a recommendation proves to be rather shit.

Which brings us to today’s topic (yes, my preambles are getting longer). Readers of my personal blog – http://farkynell2.blogspot.com/ – will know that I recently went to a festival, on what turned out to be the closest July has been to a January day in living memory. It was my first festival for 24 years (I miscalculated the year on the other blog) and I was there to see just one band. A band that have delivered that feeling, I mentioned earlier, with the most intensity I’ve felt in decades and a band I mentioned here briefly a few months ago in one of my sign offs.

Now, my first love has always been rock music, I’ve got a huge record collection that encompasses many genres – it is eclectic, a bit like my comic book collection was. There’s also indy, new wave/alternative, swing (the real 40s swing), ambient dance, electronica, reggae, avant garde, space & post rock, classical, jazz, blues and soul, to name but a few; but rock and prog are the two genres I get the most kicks from. There’s something primordial about men and rock music that probably equates to why some of them ended up reading comics; which is why Amplifier fit the bill perfectly for any comic fans out there that is partial to anthems, hard rocking beats and with lyrics that are both bombastic and brilliantly ambiguous.

When I heard Queen’s It’s a kind of Magic album and listened carefully to Freddy Mercury’s words, the first impression I had was – what a bunch of totally pompous twats. Songs about being born to be kings, masters of the universe and other overblown bollocks that made Bohemian Rhapsody seem positively modest. But then I saw Highlander and realised that it was actually a brilliantly done soundtrack to one of the best fantasy films of the last 50 years. Some of Amplifier’s lyrics (all written by lead guitarist and singer Sel Balamir) make that 80s album seem understated and modest; yet unlike Queen’s ode to the clan McLeod, listening to Amplifier didn’t have me reaching for the sick bag!

Amplifier are difficult to categorise; they are a rock band, but just what kind of rock band are they? You can find entries for them in the ever useful Prog Archives website and yet their concerts are crammed full of metal fans, all making those weird shapes with their hands and arms and moshing at the first opportunity. Oddly enough though, the concert I was at was also full of people of the same or similar age to me! This was a relief.

For a three-piece, Amplifier create a wall of sound, using just bass, lead and drums, but with a bundle of effects pedals thrown in and a singer who conveys power and confidence without sounding like he’s been gargling broken glass or had his balls in a vice all through puberty. Their songs are huge and sweeping, with enigmatic lyrics and lines that leave you wondering just what the fuck are you listening to and how the hell did this man come up with such words. You can understand why the yoof think they’re a bit metal, but it also shows their naivety; Amplifier cross many genres and one suspects that Balamir’s influences are even further reaching; but at the moment you can feel the sense of fun and adventure in their music.

Sadly, while I’d like to see them become stadium fillers, because their music deserves a huge stage, I also realise that this is one band that I’ve gotten into that may well spend their entire career under the radar of music lovers, a talented musician in his own right and follower of the band, Charlie Barnes, echoed this, "It would be nice if [Amplifier] had the pulling power to take the headline, but sadly it's just not going to happen when you play music like they do." And while Charlie is making a fair and honest appraisal, that’s the thing I can’t understand – the music that Amplifier perform is the rock music I’ve waited most of my life for!

Why shouldn’t they become huge playing the kind of music they play?

So, there’s this band; I think a lot of you would like them but what’s to stop this from becoming an off-topic piece of fan wank? How about chatting to Amplifier’s Sel Balamir himself and finding out what links Amplifier have to comics?

I contacted the singer/lead guitarist a couple of weeks ago and we chatted about music and some other interesting stuff.

PH: What are your main themes when writing Amplifier lyrics? I see strong themes in there about power, the universe, music, but obviously I'm an old git and I may well be off the mark.

SB: Well basically my lyrics are generally nebulous concepts that have trotted through my head at some point.  I link them together with resonant phrases out of my excerpt mill which is my catalogue of word riffs that I've collected over the years.  These come from everywhere:   Conversations, dreams, magazines, adverts, postcards, letters, thoughts, mistakes - nothing escapes the excerpts mill...

Insider was basically about being a human being.  That's why our record label hated it.  I think they deemed it too intellectual for rock music.  Fuckwits.

The Octopus is basically about a race of hyper-dimensional super-beings that have bred and farm humans to feed off of their psychic energy.  Awesome. 

PH: Awesome, indeed. Are there any influences from the world of comics and graphic novels that inspire you?

SB: Well, not really, although I am scripting a GN to go with The Octopus to make its themes clear.  I like Alan Moore’s scripts. They are thoughtful. I used to read 2000AD when I was growing up.  This is a pleasure I have recently got back into. It's amazing how prescient a lot of the details of MegaCity are... 

PH: Who are your biggest musical influences? This is something I don't see on your MySpace pages; I'd like to think while I see influences that you're trying to do something different.

SB: Dunno - we've never really bothered to think about this.  When we first started Soundgarden was always my template for a perfect guitar band - but I think that was only because they sounded a bit similar to how I played guitar and it gave me confidence to do what I liked.  I still think Loud Love & Badmotorfinger are amongst my fav ever records - but that's probably related to my age...

PH: Obviously, if you're working on a GN at the moment, can you tell me anything about The Octopus; like who's drawing it?

SB: My mate Jacky is drawing [most of] it.  She's a very talented Aardman animator.  Neither of us have done a GN before - which is cool because we'll just make it up as we go along....

PH: Comics and music, what are your thoughts on the two. Despite the similarities in the fans, the two have never married very successfully?

SB: Ahem, KISS - with the actual blood of the band in the red ink!!!!

PH: Nuff said.

Sel told me that because of work commitments, his preferred artist on the graphic novel might not be able to complete it all by the time the album comes out, so he has been on the lookout for a new artist or artists who could help finish the project. I’ll send him a few tips. 

But essentially, there’s bugger all link between Amplifier and comics, despite such wonderful lyrics as ‘Me and Monsterman came crashing on down’… this is just fan wank. I like this band and you should too. Or at least give them a chance, you might find them as interesting and frisson inducing as I did.

You can access Amplifier on Myspace by typing: Amplifier, ampcorp and Eternity by Amplifier into its search engine and you’ll come up with various interesting examples. They also have their own website at http://www.amplifiertheband.com/index.html or you can just access a huge amount of their stuff through Spotify.

…I’d just like to assure those of you who regularly tune in at this time of the year for the annual mushroom report that this dry and warm late summer has meant that there’s been bugger all to write about; even a day trip to the New Forest only got ONE poxy cep. So stay tuned for another 2000+ words of completely non-comics related educational bollocks. Now go and rock!

Phil Hall