Random catch-up stuff. Part 1.
In no particular order: things which got missed during the accidental hiatus, or were only written about in comments boxes.
1. Whack-a-doodle-day:
the least successful Troubled Diva meme EVAH, producing the frankly PATHETIC total of
just ONE doodle (my thanks to VermilionX; see the June 7th entry). This means that either
a) my memetic powers are fading (
aiee!) or
b) that my original thesis has been proved: computers, and blogging in particular, really
have killed off the gentle art of doodling on scraps of paper.
2. Loads of gigs.
Ulrich Schnauss: another sombre looking dude (from Berlin this time) twiddling with his laptop in the name of entertainment. Except that his music was so beautiful, and the venue & atmosphere were just right, as was the company, and my mellow Sunday evening mood was completely in synch with what he was doing - and it all just
worked, somehow, slightly against the odds. My "we listen" mouseover text has this to say about Ulrich:
Insides-era Orbital meets the first Boards Of Canada album, with the merest hint of shoegaziness (see also Hermann & Kleine) - lush, dreamy, melodic, slow-moving soundscapes which somehow avoid the cliches of bland chill-out-dom. Oh shit, I actually said 'soundscapes'. There's a new album, which I haven't heard yet, and a (rather unrepresentative) track on the free CD that comes with the current
Jockey Slut magazine. The next time I open up my Old Curiosity Box, there will be a rare-ish Ulrich Schnauss track nestling in there somewhere. Finally: the lovely Elisabeth of I'm Hip To You was there too, and has a write-up and a photo (
see the entry for June 3rd).
3. Loads of gigs.
Mark Gardener, former lead singer with Ride: now shorn of his flowing tresses, making him quite unrecognisable (actually, he could have been
anybody). Indeed, I was expecting a fair measure of mane-tossing moody poutiness - probably because I've been mentally mixing him up with Tim Burgess and Ian Brown - but instead, he was all matey
bonhomie. Which, especially in the confines of a small venue like The Social, was definitely preferable. (Incidentally: why
was the venue so under-populated, almost to the point of embarrassment? This guy had a Top Ten single, music press front covers, the lot - there was even a piss-take of him on
The Mary Whitehouse Experience, fer chrissakes...) In the early 1990s, Ride were one of my "I'd like to love them, but I'll have to settle for respecting them instead" bands - an undeniably glorious sound, which I could still never quite connect with. Thus, and despite owning their first two albums and a couple of singles besides, I barely recognised any of the old songs that Gardener played (starting off solo & acoustic, before being joined by his support band, Goldrush). No matter: it was a decent little gig which steadily built in intensity, reaching a peak with the encore (an old one, I think) - at which point I could happily have listened for another half hour or so. I hate it when that happens.
4. Loads of gigs.
Yes returned to the Royal Concert Hall, and so did we. Long-standing readers will remember
my ecstatic review from December 2001, in which all my prior worries about the band being ponderous, preposterous, anachronistic embarrassments had been joyfully allayed. Unfortunately, for the whole of the first half of this gig, Yes (now reunited with Rick Wakeman) were all four of these things. Actually, they were atrocious. Sloppy, sluggish, under-rehearsed (this was only gig #3 of their 2003 world tour), with next to no collective dynamic between the five monstrous egos on stage. Hearing them opening the show (over 45 minutes late, to a restless crowd) by murdering
Siberian Khatru in such an offhand manner was borderline heartbreaking; following it with two crap songs off the last album and
Don't Kill The Sodding Whale (me to K: "Where's my f***ing harpoon?") was borderline unforgivable. Thankfully, things picked up dramatically after the interval, with the Chris Squire/Alan White partnership taking prominence, and the material concentrating more on the classic
Fragile period. Indeed, Squire was the star of the night, leaping about the stage and valiantly trying to get some semblance of rapport going with the other band members. In contrast, Steve Howe was distinctly off-form all the way through: slow, lumbering, and eventually rather a marginalised figure. Still, we had a good
Roundabout and
Starship Trooper for the encore, so went home tolerably happy.
(N.B. Compare & contrast with
the review in the Nottingham Evening Post. Looks like we are approximately
ad idem, then.)
5. Loads of gigs.
Tindersticks came back to the little-used Albert Hall in Nottingham, playing their first home-town gig in years (ten years, someone told me). What a shame, then, that they couldn't find it in themselves to play a few more familiar numbers (
City Sickness,
Rented Rooms and their cover of Odyssey's
If You're Looking For A Way Out would have been nice) - concentrating instead on their new album, due out on the day after the show. It all sounded as lovely as you'd expect (they're great musicians, and work together wonderfully well as a whole), but there was no focus, no communication, no sense of show, and not nearly enough variety of tone. As a result, it became difficult to sustain any level of concentration on the music, which merely became the backdrop to amiable daydreaming on my part. Nothing necessarily wrong with that of course, but there had been a real sense of occasion surrounding this event, which the band were casually tossing aside. More than anything else: it made me long to see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Really must
do something about that.
(N.B. Compare & contrast with
the review in the Nottingham Evening Post. Looks like we are approximately
ad idem, then.)
6. My gammy leg. Ooh, the pain. Later, OK?
(via
Groc)
Photo Friday is the
Friday Five's classier cousin: more creative, more interesting, and certainly more socially acceptable, darling. Each week, there's a theme (the most recent being Multiples, Packaging, Transportation and Overlooked). People post a relevant photo of their own creation, and submit the link to the Photo Friday site. Some of them are really quite good.
Ever the eager little Joiner-In, here's my submission to today's theme of Multiples (which you might have seen before).
Not only Peter of
Naked Blog been working as a radio presenter this week (and writing about the experience on his site) - but now we discover that Olav of
It Makes No Difference is going to be on prime time Channel 4 tonight at 8pm, in a new game show called
Grand Slam, going head to head with someone who is both a former
Mastermind champion and the second winner of
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Olav has
written about the experience in today's Guardian - but beware: the article gives away the result towards the end.
HALLELUJAH! The powers of darkness have finally been routed - and peace, harmony, and attractive template design once again reign throughout the land.
I am ascribing this
MIRACLE to three causes:
a) The power of collective prayer (thank you one and all).
b) The infinite mercy of the Care Bears and Kittie-Witties (peace be upon them).
c) The personal intervention of the Blessed Esther Rantzen (
via her representative in the Blogosphere, Vaughan of Wherever You Are). Yes, the lady has come through for me. How could I ever have doubted it?
(
Click here for a grisly reminder of what I have been stuck with for the past seven days.)
My karmic lesson is learnt. There are powers out there which are greater than we could possibly understand. Don't f**k with them.
A short period of national rejoicing may now be permitted.
