They say a week in politics is a long time, but over the last few weeks I have found that a week has been an even longer time when it comes to whats going on, in and around my life!
It probably started a few days before I went to London/Brighton to see Magazine/stay with Adrian. I stumbled onto some sort of fast track conveyor belt and it is going so quickly I have been unable to get off. But then I don't actually want to get off, so that is fine!
So I had just got a nice new phone with some birthday money so I made use of the train journey to London getting used to it as well as listening to some music on it. I found the sound is definitely superior to my iPod so this means my iPod is no longer getting used much and my last.fm page is no longer keeping up to date with my listening habits. I managed to work out how to get onto the dreaded facebook using the phone, so the jourmey flew by.
I was met off the train by Adrian and after a quick look around the new St Pancreas station, we headed off to The Bull and Gate, near The Forum, to meet up with Ashley and Jonny.
The gig opened with the stage hidden behind a black curtain while the strains of In The Thin Air made the hairs on the backs of our necks stand up. Then followed a short monologue, where Howard Devoto gave us a few of the reasons for them getting back together for these gigs. The main one seemed to be that there was this girl he wanted to impress.
Then they started playing and we were transported back in time. The playing was just as tight as it always was and the sound through the PA was superb. I hear they will now be recording a new album and playing some more dates over the summer. I will definitely be seeing them again.
Following the gig we had a nightmare train journey down to Brighton. crowded train, no free seats and over 2 hours for, what should have been, a 50 minute journey.
So - I slept well and we had a good walk around Brighton the next day with valentines day lunch out in a nice restaurant. I asked for a table for 4 instinctively, then when we sat down wondered why there was an empty seat. The fact that I was single had reared its ugly head again - and on valentine's day too of all days!
For Valentines evening Adrian and I met up with Julian for a quiet drink in a local pub. It was quiet until I decided the evening would not be complete without us getting heavily involved with some absinthe. So after drinking all they had left in the pub we wondered the streets of Brighton on a quest for more. Unfortunately we did find more and after staggering back to Adrian's at the end of the evening, barely able to stand up, I spent the next 4 days regretting I had even had the stuff and vowing never to touch another drop for the rest of my life.
So I got back to Leeds on Sunday and had to go straight into work - not much fun feeling how I was, but it passed the time.
Then it was back to work on Monday - and this is where I seemed to inadvertently step on that conveyor belt.
The days have flown by and I wasn't fully aware what was going on, but I do seem to have increased the rate at which I am turning back into the real me, so it can only be a good thing.
Before I knew it I had arrived at the day I was supposed to be going to see Snow Patrol. I had bought 2 tickets before christmas and felt sure I would have found someone to go with, but ended up going with my Dad (familiar story) but he really enjoyed it so that was great.
The show opened with If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It, which is what I was thinking they might open with, and it was a fantastic start to a superb show. The sound was amazing. as where the visuals which should have made it enjoyable even for those at the very back.
All the songs were taken from the most recent 3 albums so I knew everyone and all the ones people would have expected where in there. The encore began with the 15 minute The lightening Strike, which was definitely a highlight, though the whole show was fantastic.
It is quite strange that I even ended up going to this as it is only recently that I have begun to open up a bit to new bands (ok I know they aren't that new) rather than being stuck in the late 70s/early 80s.
I felt inspired to, not only get more involved in the music scene, but also to learn to play Run on my acoustic guitar - watch this space!
torsdag, mars 05, 2009
Day 1886: There's no patrol like snow patrol!
måndag, december 22, 2008
Day 1805: Happy Christmas to all our reader
So with the yule log season upon us once again it falls on my humble hands to provide the official 2008 Christmas message and final quarter summary.
This year in the lead up to Christmas I have been mostly playing:
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (Crystalcastlitious)
Kate Bush - Aerial (Warblitious)
Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi (Boardering on the Georgous)
Snow Patrol - Final Staw (Terminalitious)
Kent - Tillbaka Till Samtiden (Bra musik)
Joanna Newsom - Ys (My picture window produced a half-word)
At the beginning of December I went to see The Mighty Boosh. I had bought 2 tickets when they went on sale a year earlier and as December drew close I was feeling confident that I would be able to find a like minded soul to go along with to it with.
Still, it was nice having an empty seat next to me to put my coat and computer bag on. And the show was even funnier than I thought it was going to be.
Hope you have a nice Christmas and New Year!
måndag, juli 07, 2008
Dag 1637: It's That Time Of Year Again
Yes that's right, it is the season where most (if not all) of the British Minimal Synth Societies have their annual conferences and social get togethers.
So last Wedneasday members of the Harrogate Outlying Villages Minimal Synth Society descended on Blackpool for a short meeting followed by the rest of the afternoon free at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Yet again, we had a 100% member turnout, which was fantastic to see and just goes to show how populer this musical genre is becoming in the UK.
tisdag, maj 20, 2008
Dag 1589: The Missing Boy
As had happened on so many recent occasions he found his morning car journey to the train station was taking too long and he was in danger of missing the train. He had only missed it once in the last few weeks, resulting in an hour wait for the next one, but if it had been on time every day he would have missed it more often than he made it.
The journey was generally mostly free flowing but there were 2 potential bottlenecks that would determine whether his stress levels were going to rise or whether it would just be a forgetful journey where he could think of other things.
The first was a set of traffic lights near the start of the journey. Some days they would be on green when he arrived and he would sail through, other days the queue would be so long that it would take up to five sets of green lights before he got through and he would need to really put his foot down to get to the next one.
The second was a set of traffic lights near the station and, again, some days the queue of traffic here was as minimal as good synth music and on others it wasn't. The big stress inducer at this set of lights was the fact that if the driver looked back over his right shoulder he could see the railway track gently curving round on the magnificent viaduct. If the train should appear on this bridge he knew he had about 5 minutes to get through the lights, park the car and get onto the platform.
The journey on this particular morning started badly as the queue at the first set of traffic lights was longer than it had been for a long time. When he finally got through it was twenty past eight, which meant he had 18 minutes to get to the station. If there was no queue at the last set of lights he might just make it, but he didn't feel hopeful. The only hope was that the train would be late again.
He drove flat out and arrived at the back of the queue at the final lights with 5 minutes to spare. The queue was longer than it had been for a while, but there was no sign of the train so it looked like it was late and he had a chance.
Each time the lights changed about 4 or 5 cars got though and he inched closer to the front of the queue. By the time he got to the front the train still hadn't appeared on the viaduct and he could relax a bit as he knew he would make it. He switched from listening to Radio 4 to the cd player and listened to the track he was currently trying to write some lyrics for. He had recorded the basic backing tack and need to finish making up some lyrics for it. The song had originally been called On The Other Side, but once the chorus lyrics had been written it had to be renamed Half Life. All that was left to write was the second verse, but this was proving stubborn so this track was getting played alot during the daily car journeys.
As he drove into the car park his mind was still a blank and as he walked down the path to the platform he was relieved to see a fair number of people waiting so he knew the train had not managed to sneak across the viaduct when he had been looking the other way.
Most people on the platform seemed to congregate around the shelter in the middle of the platform so the extremities were usually empty. His habit had always been to walk to the far end of the platform and enter the train at the door nearest the front. He was usually the only person entering through this door and would usually find a free seat with ease, though lately the train had been more full and he more often found himself having to share a seat.
The day before he had entered through this door as usual and as he walked down the carriage he saw that there was not a single free seat. He had walked through the next, and only other, carriage and found it had many free seats so he had picked one and wondered if he would have been better getting in through the back door of the train in future.
So this morning when he noticed to his surprise that there was quite a crown of people at the far end of the platform he remembered what had happened the day before and decided to wait at the other end of the platform.
After a few minutes wait he entered through the back door of the train and was the only passenger to do so. He looked up the length of the carriage but didn't see any free double seats. He walked slowly up the carriage trying to scan for a free seat while also trying to think which of the partially occupied seats he would take. He stopped by a group of 4 seats facing a table on his right, noticing that the seat facing backwards nearest the window was taken but the other free were empty so he could take the one facing forwards nearest the central aisle without having to jockey for foot space with anybody else. He almost sat straight down, but instead spent some further moments standing by the seat while looking to see if there was a better seat further down the carriage.
He didn't see one and as his eyes worked their way back over the seats he suddenly realised he was looking at someone from his past sitting in the group of 4 seats on the left side of the carriage. She was sitting in the seat facing backwards by the window and was looking down into a book.
He realised that he wasn't sure what to do next. As he had been standing by that seat for so long a) she must have noticed him and b) it would look a bit strange if he suddenly walked off to find another seat. So he sat down in the seat he had been standing next to and took out his iPod, while deciding what, if anything, he should do next. It took him a lot longer than usual to decide what he was going to listen to. He knew he wanted to listen to something from that era, but he also wanted it to be something that reflected how he felt at this moment. He chose The Durutti Column live in Bruxelles and as the journey progressed and the music flowed into his ears it exactly complimented the way he felt at that time.
He then took out his PSP so he had something to focus on and played that while making sure that the only time he looked up was to look out of the window on his left side.
As the live version of The Missing Boy flowed into his mind the train began slowing down as it approached Leeds station and the sun suddenly broke through the clouds. A feelling came over him that at that moment all was right with the world.
As the train had filled up, as it stopped at each of the stations on its way to Leeds, he had needed to move to the window seat to make room for someone to sit next to him and when it finally stopped it was completely full of passengers.
He decided to wait until everyone else from his immediate area had left before he stood up and as he walked down the passageway towards the exit he got the impression someone was standing on the platform by the door as if waiting for somebody to the get off. He hurried a bit as he went, but then he came to a bottleneck of passengers. Someone was struggling to get an over sized suitcase down from the rack and it had become jammed. After a few agonisingly slow moments the suitcase became free and the passengers began moving again.
He was the last one to get off the train and as he turned his head and looked to the left and save for the people who had just got off the train in front of him, the platform was empty.
He wondered if she had any idea that a band she had once played with had released their debut single a few days earlier or that is was available for sale here.
måndag, december 31, 2007
Dag 1428: Mellan God Jul och Gott Nytt År
I thought I had better drag myself out of my sick bed to do one final post to round off the year - I hope my bed feels better soon.
This year I seem to have been getting more and more into listing things. This may be something to do with my age, or maybe it's just something that has been built into the very core of my personality since I first had one, but is only now beginning to manifest itself in an outward kind of manner. A bit like when someone suddenly starts making lists of various stuff.
In fact, I think I have always wanted to make lists of things, but its only now that I have discovered the tools that can enable me to do so easily. I remember once getting a free application for my Amiga that would allow me to create a database of the videos I owned. I spent quite a bit of time adding details of my video collection and then I replaced the Amiga with my first Apple Macintosh computer (a colour classic with 80Mb hard drive) and so that was the last I saw of that program. There is probably a dusty and cobweb ridden floppy disk in some dank, dark corner of an attic, in a house I once lived in, that still contains my video catalogue in some obscure proprietary format.
So, I made a major listing breakthrough a few months ago when I discovered last.fm, which enabled me to list the gigs I have been to and allow other people who were there to mark their presence and also add any pictures they may have taken. I first started trying to catalogue the gigs I had been to about 2 or 3 years ago and since I discovered last.fm I have managed to add quite a few I hadn't been able to track down as well as correct a few errors. The other good thing about last.fm is that you can also add events you will be going to in the future.
Next I bought myself a new scanner so I could start scanning things, thus creating a sort of list of images. I started off with some of the oldest photos I have, which for some reason is nowhere near as big a collection as it ought to be. I used to have an old Pentax SLR camera which had a separate light meter and I used to take loads of photos back in the first 2 or 3 years of the 1980s. I managed to locate a small number of these but I have no idea how the rest came to leave my possession, for, just as Mr Lewis is never knowingly undersold, I would never knowingly have got rid of them. So, I started off scanning old photos and then decided to scan everything I could find that had been signed. I discovered a few things I had forgotten about, but I also found that I had mysteriously lost a few things also.
In my garage I have 2 boxes full of cassettes. I raided this box some years ago when I was rediscovering all the music I had previously recorded in my old home studio, and I raided them again when I was looking for autographs. Once I had finished scanning the things that had been autographed I started scanning some of the more obscure cassette covers I have. I now intend to scan all of the cassette covers I have, though this is going to take me some time to complete (and don't worry I won't be publishing them all here).
Looking up some of these cassettes on the internet led me to the main feature that this rambling passage has been winding its slow and deviating way towards, and that is that I have discovered yet another site that lets you list things and that is www.discogs.com. Google searches had brought me upon it a few times before, but I just thought it was a database of albums, but it is much more than just that. After creating an account you can look up albums (CD, cassette and vinyl etc) and mark off the ones you own. In fact, its a bit like those old I Spy books only better because it's about music. If you don't find something you own in the database you can add it and upload a scan of it (so scanning all those cassette cover is not going to be quite the fruitless task it may have first appeared to be - in fact I have already added my first submission, complete with scan.
The ones you have marked can then be viewed as a list in your home area and also downloaded to a spreadsheet, should you so desire. As well as all this you can also rate items and even add things to a wish list so you can keep track of albums you would like to buy at some point. It also has a marketplace where people can sell albums and each time you view an album it has links to any that are currently for sale in the marketplace. The whole site is perfect for music collectors and if you aren't already one it will definitely make you start having dark thoughts about becoming one. I have already been toying with the idea of buying up all the records I regret selling in the past and I don't even own a record player (yet!).
I currently have 104 items in my discogs collection, but that is probably less than a quarter of my actual collection so it may be a while before I get up to date with it, but while I'm doing so I'm going to be in some sort of list heaven or something.
That only leaves me to add that just before Christmas I met up with Mr Cloudhand and partner along with the incorrigible Mr Tweedy for an evening of drinking, eating and reminiscing. I arrived thinking I was just getting over a cold, but little was I to know that rather than it being on its way out it was in fact still in the early stages of building itself up inside me ready to unleash its full force. We followed the same format as our previous night out and had a few drinks in the Hotel Du Vin. There was quite a large wedding reception going on so there was no chance to have a game of pool his time and no chance for photo oportunity as I had forgotten my camera. After a couple os absolute vodkas with lemonade I had forgotten all about my cold, and after a few more I forgot pretty much what we were talking about too, but we had a very enjoyable meal at the Drum and Monkey. The fact I had mentioned that I had lost many of my old photos had not gone unnoticed in the Cloudhands office and Adrian had kindly brought some of the photos from his collection up with him so I could scan them. I have included one here as it is the only photo I know about that features my favourite Inductrial Records t-shit.
My thought for the year is "Isn't it amazing how things can disappear from your life without your knowledge".
torsdag, november 15, 2007
Dag 1382: my room waiting for wonderland
This is the view from the room in which I spent most of my formulative years (which included the rather crutial 1982).
This what I remember it containing:
- 1 bed in the corner with its legs removed
- 1 piano which I had stripped and painted yellow
- The walls and radiator were also painted yellow (and maybe the skirting board too?)
- 1 pedal harmonium which I found in a junk room at school and they said I could keep it
- 1 Korg ms-10 synthesizer
- 1 Carlsbro valve amp head
- 1 cabinet containing a 15inch speaker
- 1 upside down old television painted in various bright colours
- 1 bedside light that hung from the ceiling and was shaped like a giant light bulb
- 1 full length mirror with dark wood frame
- 3 parrots on the wall
- 2 candles on the window ledge
- 1 small desk with:
- 1 sinclair spectrum/later replaced with 1 atari st/later replaced with an amiga
- 1 hifi system (seperates) consisting of record deck, cassette deck, amp and warfdale speakers (I later added a cd player -much later)
- 1 shergold meteor guitar (was swapped out for the above sinclair spectrum)
- 1 Soundmaster cr-88 drum machine
- 1 old 35 mm pentax SLR camera with seperate light meter and 2 extra lenses which was used to take the above photo, which was not an intentional double exposure, if I remember correctly
- a couple of my photos framed on the wall above the harmonium
- 1 open brick fireplace with no fire in it
- 1 wooden box containing all my tapes (painted yellow)
- 1 yellow wooden slatted wooden blind in the window (rolled up and out of site in this photo)
- 1 cat called Dinah
- my blue book that I used to write down song lyrics and such stuff (that I still use to this day)
Things I remember doing in this room include:
- Taking quite a lot of photos in this room (which I still have)
- Recording the backing track for the Strange Devotion gig at the 1982 Folk and Blues
- Recording some tracks with Liam from Neural Circus and John Robson. The tape survived, but at some point I had taped over the first couple of tracks and so our version of Silver Machine (including lyrics sung by Liam which included the line "I've got a pink pussycat called Simon, you can take him home if you want to") was lost forever
- Learning to play Pictures at an Exhibition on my yellow piano (I should add I learned some of it not all of it)
- Playing Dungeon Master, and many other computer games whose names are long forgotten
- Having loads of friends back to listen to music and hang out
There are obviously other things that we don't need to go into here.
All in all this was a good room to live in and I would recommend it to all potential occupants.
onsdag, november 14, 2007
Dag 1381: The post that's burnt the most
I normally like mine pretty well done, but not even I would fancy eating this one.
onsdag, november 07, 2007
Dag 1374: Snowblind and Pepsiburst
Once when I was in a bar in France I ordered a Coca Cola. What I actually received was a Cacolac, which is a milky chocolatey drink. I am not particularly fond of milky drinks, especially chocolate ones, but I didn't dare ask for another Coca Cola incase I got the same again.
Mr Dent: "Is that a can of coke you have there, Butler?"
Mr Butler: "No it's Pepsi, Dent."
onsdag, oktober 31, 2007
Dag 1367: A rainy day in England
As I have the near dubious honour of being chief music correspondant on the Critical Mass staff rosta, I find my morning postbag absolutely inundated with letters asking me if Joan as Policewoman wears a police uniform for her shows.
Although I always appreciate the letters, I am afraid that in this instance, I am just not at liberty to divulge the answer to that question.
måndag, augusti 15, 2005
Dag 533 - and that's traitorous
"Wallop!" said the yellow sad eyed wombat to the mother of plenty. Oh yes that's fine for at least 20 different strokes when the rain flows in freely from several apertures but suddenly I heard a flux bird digging the mushrooms from underneath our perforated veruccae with silver pots covering them and died.
The greenfinch that flew past my window yesterday burped as it flew away backwards down the upwards facing slope because never had it once eaten any blue opal fruits. "Well!" said Grobblegott "That's tasty" as bird-shit, which was not yellow anyway, slid through his carpet slippers while he was not wearing them on his tree house garden chair with flowers on the left chair arm.
Anyway, two or black fishes with spotty fins swept out their kitchens without heed of the rotten consequences to life in hospital teaching wards.
The often upset shrew who knew Grobblegott went sick 3 or 7 times but never coughed because he was hermaphroditic - "At least that's a true story" said Fluxbird.
Suddenly, without flybutton, police-tree Shrubbery burst forth or fifth branches in his attempt to fly backwards inconsequentially. Mother of plenty appeared massaging the greenfinch in its entirety. "Gosh! I would think that that's a thrilling non-entity" yelled Wombat through all mouseholes having purple doors which rattled. "Taht!" squealed police-tree Shrubbery. "Are Dungheep's armpits found available locally?". That is unusual to speak of in Gromboland because armpits are never found very near the mountainous lake steamer.
Flicknife Fryingpan called across the gangway to his brother's fiancee, whilst three hot happy buns stole butter from the tapeworm's auntie. "Oy fatso where's Fluxbird's armpit cleaner? I've dropped mine off the edge of Grobblegott's big bulbous midwife".
Finding no jam jars, I decided that it would explode the others wives if something or someone risked breaking them all.
"Wallop!" said the yellow sad nosed wombat. "Is that preferential to repeat such trivia? - Not really cricket what ho? is it?"
Flik flopped over garden zones at midnight screaming 'Blue curtains'. Why this phenomenon occurred wasn't exactly explicable, but he felt normal when he did it.
Amyway, back to the story which was happening simultaneously with this story as might well be expected.
While sniffing uncertainly, Dungheep washed Greenfinch twice in seven bath tubs at Waterloo Bridge Tunnel, Neptune. The clock ticked and the Mother of Plenty watched and waited for something to happen.
Suddenly in a blinding flash a creature strolled invisibly on. "Quack" wasn't said ever so it clipped itself away.
As foretold by the storytellers the jelly mold didn't work on butter because Bekorz wasn't helping the mind make sandwiches.
"Fazoom!" cautioned the, now, spirangulated Police-Tree Shrubbery, as copies of Crass News crassly crassed open baked bean plants stems. The news quickly traveled away from the scene of a crime, not anything to speak silently of, but neither Crass News nor itself were able to withstand the unhappy plight they found Police-Tree Shrubbery not in - slowly, quickly and inbetween.
Wellington boot hill is quite steep and slippery and awfully muddy in several bushes armpits but not herbitualy speaking. Incidentally, cosmic badges.
"Skies biscuits!" whispered Greenfinch. "I have already sold myself 15 hours worth of chewing tape under false eyelashes." psychedelic possums ran round Grobblegott backwards extremely stoned (quartz) concourse (digital) kaleidoscope (watched). Follow you and follow others.
This only philosophy shows Dungheep's intense oneness in life.
hepatitis epidemics had already got 16 of the cousin's sweets before they had been introduced to Grobblegott, who was against any participation, political or otherwise indirectly by noon.
"My God!" spoke Said, "I've just realised that I'm not really supposed to be in this story at all, so I'd better get myself lost."
The thigh high sky fell flying to the clouds (pink and fluffy, but not at all light). Police-Tree Shrubbery gasped at the sight as the pink high clouds rushed to bed with their buxom birds feather and sickle.
They left Corny Marks house in a cataclysmic cosmic pickup of a mess tin, It was soon, I think mostly yesterday, maybe sheltered sooner by squeezey tops of no liquid of no fixed aberration, but plenty later it backwards rained.
Oh, I will sniff for stories untold because I shan't care what happens to our story unless you know what the answer is.
Blue stew, barley and gruel upset, dribbled and dropped.
And of fairies, there was pixies of mice drowned under water through grey hollow slabs, come more slabs. Pavements.
I wouldn't - oh well that'll find some nicely rounded kneecaps of shrew often jellied. Right wing flapping shirtflaps open, Greenfinch crashed into Flicknife Fryingpan as soon as possible.
"Wallop!" said the sad mouthed wombat.
"Titter titter titter" tittered Dungheep, "that was humorous, titter titter titter".
Greenfinch didn't kill Flicknife Fryingpan, but he walloped Dungheep on his interior flybuttons twice.
Sadness filled Dungheep quickly, "boo hoo hoo" swallowed he.
After much consideration and merriment, heart searching and floorcleaning, Dungheep slept all morning, except between break waters and piers. Analysing his situation, he followed, basically, the principles already layed aside by others, especially Tart Taht who hated beauty so much she became beautiful every full moon.
The grey hollow slabs were not moving because they weren't alive or kicking, but they were often non-existent.
(c) PL, MG and DB.
