Album of the year / Album of the decade

As it's getting close to the end of the year and the end of the decade, Mark asked me earlier what are my album of 2010 and album of the noughties. I had to think about it for a whole 20 seconds. So, if you're interested, here are mine.

Album of the year 2010
This was a quick decision. Without doubt it has to be Blood/Candy by The Posies. Nothing else released this year has grabbed me by the throat, heart and soul like this one.

What an amazing musical trip! It's adventurous, crossing and mixing styles not only throughout the album, but within the songs themselves on occasion too. There are moments where, to my mind, I can hear reference to Brendan Benson, Nada Surf, Beach Boys, The Beatles etc etc - but it never 'sounds like' those artists. The Posies always manage to create something unique to them. They are their own sound.

My personal favourites on Blood/Candy are So Caroline, She's Coming Down Again, Cleopatra Street and Notion 99. That's not to say that I like those a LOT more than other songs on the album, they're just my favourites. It took me a while to get into Licenses To Hide, but once I'd heard it live, I 'got it' and now really enjoy listening to it.

This much anticipated (by me at least) return, after a 5 year break since their last album, was worth every minute of the wait. I never thought I'd say it, but I honestly think this is their best album ever (so far). I say so far because who knows what they'll come up with next...

Album of the decade 2000-2010
Slightly more difficult to decide this one. There has been some cracking music released in the last 10 years. It's heartening to know that music ISN'T dead. It's alive and kicking, but struggling for breath in the world of downloads for free and a music industry twitching in its death throws. Honourable mention to Doves and Radiohead, who have both made some exceptional music in the last 10 years, as have many other artists.
So in true top anything style - I've chosen not one, but two albums, because I think they score equally and I can't choose between them.

I'm judging this not on technical perfection (though in my opinion my choices are both pretty close to perfection). I'm not judging it on what anyone else thinks, or how popular or successful the album was. Tish and pish to that! I'm judging this purely on how many times I've felt inspired to listen to this album. Whenever I look to our music collection to entertain me, or my iPod to take me away from it all, these two albums have consistently been first choice, over and over again. And it's testament to the music that I've NEVER got bored of hearing them. That I can still be moved to tears or find something new in a song I've heard many times before is all I need to make my choices. So here they are.

Songs From The Year Of Our Demise by Jon Auer

Every hour of every day of every year that Jon Auer laboured over his solo album can be heard in the finished article. Every tear, every bead of sweat is somehow reproduced in these stunningly beautiful songs. I listen to this album at least once a week. It takes me from tears to a massive grin and everything in between - every time. Every emotion gets a look-in. It's a treasure.

Magnetic North by Iain Archer

From the very first song, the very first time I saw Iain Archer perform live (purely by accident, but what a beautiful accident) I was utterly enthralled. I'll never, ever forget standing in front of him as he played this wonderful, intelligent music, while all the 'cool kids' totally ignored him. Magnetic North is an achingly beautiful collection of songs that sometimes punch you in the eye and sometimes give you a warm loving hug. The musicianship is something to behold and his fragile voice, sometimes on the verge of breaking is just mesmerising. Again, once a week at least this gets a spin and I never tire of hearing it - far from it.

Amsterdam - 9th October

Up and at 'em early after a decent night's sleep and onto the packed 10am train to Brussels. Another beautiful sunny day. THIS is what life is all about - adventures, new places, new friends.
:-)
One of the weirdest things we saw on our trip was on this journey. Matilda spotted it and pointed out the window. In the middle of a field full of cows, there was one cow, obviously very dead, lying upside down with all four legs sticking up in the air. Bizarre... As a vegetarian, I guess I shouldn't have found this amusing, but it was - so ner.
We passed hooker street again, approaching Brussels Nord. Even at 11am the windows are populated by the day shift skanks. I wonder what the girls they keep in the back look like?

We thought we'd have to wait over an hour for our connecting train to Amsterdam, but when we arrived there was a train leaving in 15 minutes only 2 platforms down. Result.
It's a 3 hour journey from Brussels to Amsterdam, but the time flew by and soon we were back in the city we loved so much on our previous trip (a very cold 24 hours in January 2006, funnily enough for a Posies show). This time it was glorious and warm and heaving with people. I was bloody starving by this point. It was mid afternoon and I hadn't eaten yet, so I grabbed a slice of pizza at the station and snarfed it super-quick. It was sooooo good.
It was quite a shock, after spending the past few days in relatively quiet places, to be suddenly thrust into such a throng of people. It's a manic place.
We found our hotel, only 5 minutes walk from the station, got checked in (decent room), then headed out into the late afternoon sunshine.

The real beauty of Amsterdam is that it can be anything you want it to be. It can be a drug-fuelled haze, a trip for seedy unspeakables, a tourist bonanza or just a nice place full of art and culture. It's kind of up to the individual. That's what I like about it, apart from the fact that it's a really beautiful and friendly place.

We walked down to Leidseplein, parked our bums in some seats and enjoyed some quality people-watching over a coffee. It's a great way to kill time. Another quick wander around the surrounding streets then it was time to head to the venue, Sugar Factory. It's the sister venue to the Melkwegg - right across the street. We got our tickets sorted and immediately bumped into an old friend, Carsten. It was so nice to see him after 4 years or so. He'd come from Germany for the show. Amsterdam was our last show on the tour, and Carsten's first. He was going to the next 6 shows, I think. Lucky boy.

We headed inside, bagged a spot at the front, had a drink and a good chat as the place gradually filled up around us. There was a lot of confusion about what time The Posies were supposed to be onstage during the day, so we were a little concerned at how few people were there at the time they were supposed to be starting. Of course, nothing ever quite goes to plan and they ended up starting later, and by then, the place was pretty well packed. Yay!
What a cracking gig! The crowd were great, really into it. The band were really into it and obviously having a good time. They put a lot of energy into the show and I finally got some half-decent photos at this one too (despite the red lights).

Boing!

After the encore, Jon and Ken grabbed the box of CDs and went off to sell merch, while Matt and Darius grabbed the nearest alcohol available. After a couple of minutes it became very obvious that this crowd were NOT going to let the night be over without a fight (in a good way). They just kept clapping, whistling and screaming. Jon and Ken had to come back to the stage and do one more song, which was a real treat.  You Avoid Parties, played so sweetly, it brought a tear to many an eye.
We had a fun chat with Jon's friends from New Mexico again (whose names I STILL can't remember). They were having a great time, totally enjoying their retirement and had bravely cycled around Amsterdam.

Outside the venue, it was time for lengthy goodbyes and many hugs all round. Jon gave us a bottle of wine and told us to "Let it breathe". Ha! All too soon we all went our separate ways, heading into the Amsterdam night. I managed not to cry - just...
Mark and I stopped at this amazing place called Maozusa on the walk back. They take a pitta bread, stuff it with freshly cooked falafels, then give you a mouthwatering choice of about 15 different things you can add yourself. Oh my god - it was SO tasty. We stood on a bridge over one of the canals stuffing our faces, totally happy.

We were sad our Posies tour had come to an end, but couldn't really have asked for a better night to end it on. Music, friends, falafels - what more do you need - really?

Liege - 8th October

Our day started with bumping our suitcases across the cobbles of Brussels again and a pretty long walk to the Midi/Zuid station. Weird looking place - it looks like a big generic office building from the outside. If it wasn't for all the train lines converging and the big B logo outside, you could easily miss it.
We arrived in plenty of time, so went and had a very nice cafe latte and chilled out for a while in the sunshine.
Once you're inside the Midi/Zuid it's all business. It's well laid out and there's loads of information screens everywhere that update constantly with reliable information. Nothing like the UK... Travelling by train on the continent is a real eye-opener and I highly recommend it.

The journey to Liege was only an hour and a bit. Our guidebook was pretty negative about the city, describing it as grubby and unpleasant, so we weren't expecting much. We arrived in blazing sunshine at the groovy new station. The guidebook was wrong!

Our hotel was right across the street from the station, so no messing about with cobbles today. We checked into our very nice room with a super kingsize bed and wifi. Woohoo!

We were in Liege quite early, so decided it would be a good opportunity to eat some proper food - something we hadn't done for several days. So we headed into the centre of town and had a very nice curry at the Taj Mahal restaurant. It's a small unassuming restaurant down a narrow back street.
Good food + exceptionally friendly service = big tip.
Suitably full, but not stuffed we set out towards the night's venue - Caserne-Fonke. A quick call to Jon confirmed the details of what time they were on. The Liege show was the only show where The Posies were playing with (actually supporting) another band - Puggy. Never heard of them, but apparently they're pretty popular around these parts.

It was quite a trek, but we really enjoyed walking everywhere on this trip. It gave us a chance to see a little bit of each city that we wouldn't have seen otherwise, and get some much needed exercise. We passed through the wig district - I shit you not - there were loads of wig shops all bunched together in one street. Then walked a long way up the river and over a bridge, just as the sun was setting. It was really pretty.

We found the venue, no problem. We knew we'd arrived when we reached the end of the queue, which ran right down the street and round the corner. Puggy are VERY popular. 1,200 tickets sold for this show. Blimey! We stood in line for what felt like a very long time before we finally got in. We were very thankful to be given backstage passes - the place was heaving with teenagers! And what a place. HUUUUGE, one might even say cavernous. The stage was set up about half way along the 'room', so the dozen or so people backstage had the same amount of room as the 1,200 fans crammed in front. It was so big the van which was parked in a corner looked like a toy in there.

We met up with Matilda, who was on video duties for the night this time, said hello to everyone, had a quick drink, then it was show time already. It was absolutely packed, so we decided to stay in the relative calm available to us and watch The Posies play from the side of the stage. This is something we've not done before. It was interesting to watch the show from a different angle like this. OK, we didn't get to hear the full-on sound out front, but we thoroughly enjoyed the show. It was fun to watch the audience. They seemed to really enjoy the set, despite being born after some of the songs were released! There was lots of clapping and cheering - always a good sign.

 

Mahoooosive!

They played a great, but short set of beautifully executed songs, but it was all over too soon.
After the show I found this on the wall and had to take a picture.

GET IN The Posies!!!
Hell yeah.

Tired and shagged-out after a prolonged squawk, the guys had a long drive ahead of them to Utrecht, so we all called it a night pretty early - after spending some considerable time trying to find Darius' wingnut, which he'd dropped in the dark while packing up his drum kit. Eventually it was found.
Matilda, Mark and I went outside to find a bus back into town, where she was approached by a man who wanted to offer her a job. Random! Anyhoo, their conversation was entirely unintelligible to us, but seemed to go well.
He offered us a lift, which saved us time and money and gave them more chance to talk about TV stations and web applications (the only bits I understood). It was a bit of a manic ride, but we got dropped off at the station 10 minutes later in one piece.
By this time I think it was only about 10.30pm ish, so we decided to go for a night cap and chat. Around 11pm Matilda found out she'd just missed her last train back to Brussels, so she got a room at our hotel for the night and we ended up sitting outside a bar a couple of doors down from the hotel until 1.30am, just enjoying each others company.
We were interrupted for a while by Victor, a local loon, who wanted to sit with us. Matilda handled him really well and tried so hard to politely tell him that we were deep in conversation and didn't want him to sit down. He was getting pretty pushy and quite aggressive, but she stayed calm and refused to be baited by him. Kudos to you girl.

All in all a great night in Liege. Don't believe everything you read in guidebooks.

Brussels - 7th October

A leisurely coffee at Antwerp station then onto another efficient and comfortable train for our journey back to Brussels for Posies gig no.3.
Just before you reach Brussels Nord station there's a street you can see from the train, with window after window of hookers, standing around, feeling themselves up and smoking fags. Classy...

We got off the train at Brussels Central station and navigated our way to our hotel for the night, with a lot of help from the map in the guidebook leant to me by someone at work. Thank god I had that. Central Brussels is a maze of narrow cobbled streets. Cobbled streets look great, but they're a bugger when you have a suitcase on wheels. We eventually found our hotel, round the back of the beautiful St Catherines.

We checked in and headed up to our room. I walked through the room, to the window and said to Mark "Did I miss the bedroom?" Checked the only other door, it's the bathroom. Looked again - the "bed" was a fold-out sofa! What the hell?! And you even had to open it yourself. It was seriously uncomfortable, with metal and springs all around the edge. Thank god we were only spending one night. But at least we had internet access. Time to head out to the venue for the night, Botanique.

It was quite a long walk, but we found it ok and even bumped into Martine and Frank on the way. Yay!
Botanique (Botany) is a really lovely arts centre inside the old glasshouse of the Brussels botanic garden. What a beautiful place. Tropical plants and fish ponds all around.
There was some confusion over the guest list, as the woman said we weren't on it. We got it sorted eventually, then went and sat outside on the terrace for a while, overlooking the garden and the city. Lovely.

Gig time! Another great set, with a good selection of old and new songs.

The lighting was great, the sound was superb and the guys were in a good mood, obviously enjoying themselves. What more could you want? Apart from maybe a slightly livelier audience...  They really didn't seem to get the signature Posies humour between songs.
Mark was put in charge of Matt's video camera and disappeared to the back to get some footage. He never came back, but I stayed at the front and did some videos with my camera too. It turned out that the sound was SO GOOD at the back, Mark couldn't bring himself to move away once he found the sweet spot.
A particularly lovely version of The Beautiful One brought a tear to my eye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNp5Up4LgfM

Once the show was over, Jon and Ken were once again mobbed by people thrusting cash at them in exchange for cd's, which they gladly thrust back at them, signed. We met Matilda (a multi-lingual Finnish woman living in Brussels) and her boyfriend Jill (?). Matilda was incredibly drunk and promptly fell down a short flight on stone steps. There's nothing quite like the sound of a floppy drunk body hitting solid ground. It happened so fast no-one could stop it. Before we knew what was happening, she was head-downwards on the steps, with her legs in the air, but she was shouting "I'm ok!" Thank god she didn't fall into one of the fish ponds!
There was a huge crowd at the merch desk, so Mark and I went and hung out on the terrace with Martine, Frank, Matilda, Jill and Darius. A hilarious conversation ensued, with subjects ranging from music to gynaecologists. Matilda was so frikkin funny. Normally I find drunk people annoying, but she was good natured and fun. She kept spilling her drinks, bumping into people and dropping her cigarettes. And BOY can that girl talk!!!!  :-)

Once everything was sorted, we all went to the hotel next door for some (VERY expensive) drinks in the bar with Jon, Ken, Matt & Darius, the rest of us and Jon's lovely friends from New Mexico (whose names I can't for the life of me remember). I ordered 2 glasses of wine and a Jamesons and it came to 21 euros. Ouch! 9 euros for a shot of Jamesons? - crikey, you can buy a bottle for that.
Matilda talked AT people a lot. Heehee. BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

We had a great chat with Matt and Jon - the first chance we'd had to actually talk properly, but everyone was tired, so eventually we left for the long walk back to our hotel across town. We walked with Martine and Frank back as far as the parking garage where they'd left their car. When we got there, the shutters were down and it looked very closed. Uh-oh... Thankfully it turned out they could get their car out and get home. Phew.
Walking back through Brussels was much nicer than Antwerp the night before. Unfortunately, we had to go back to our sofa-bed. I didn't sleep a wink, but when you're having this much fun, shit like that doesn't matter so much.

Antwerp - 6th October

Our European adventure started with our first ever trip on the Eurostar from London to Brussels!
It is kind of weird, that 20 minutes that you're inside the channel tunnel. It's best not to think about the fact that you're actually under the sea. I busied myself with my ipod and the time flew by, along with the countryside. One thing I did discover is, if you try to look at things close to the tracks when you're travelling that fast, it makes you feel travel sick quite quickly. It's best to focus on the wider landscape.

There was a little less legroom that I was anticipating, but it's still a damned sight better than travelling by budget airline (boooo...). You don't have to worry about how big your bag is or how much your suitcase weighs. As long as you can lift it onto the train, that's pretty much it. It's very civilised really.
It only takes about 2 1/2 hours for the entire journey too. If we'd flown, we'd have wasted nearly that long being at a bloody airport ridiculously early. Plus you have the added bonus of trains ending up IN the city you want to go to, rather than 20 miles or more outside, which many airports are.

Our Eurostar tickets also gave us free onward travel to any station in Belgium, so when we arrived in Brussels, we hopped onto another train to Antwerp. It was only a local train, that stopped at pretty much every station, but hell, the Belgians know how to do public transport! I initially thought we'd got into a 1st class carriage. The seats were big and comfy. Awesome. The ride is noticeably smoother on the continent too. No bumping around or squealing rails in Belgium, hell no.

Antwerp central station - not too shabby.

Our hotel in Antwerp was literally across the street from the train station. Really nice spacious, comfy room. Schweeet! It was already late afternoon/early evening by the time we got checked in, so no time to wander around the city straight away.
After some faffing around we found a very nice woman who helped us make sure we got on the right bus for the venue, Trix. She was just the first of a whole host of super-friendly, English speaking people who made our trip so much easier and stress-free. We got on a VERY crowded bus and headed off into the night (without paying).
After about 10 minutes, she realised that we'd gone past our stop - not her fault, the bus just didn't stop there. D'oh! So we had to get off at the next stop and walk back the way we'd come to find the venue, Trix. It wasn't the nicest area I've ever had to walk through in the dark. It was pretty dodgy looking, so we kept our heads down and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. We got a little disorientated, so I stopped a couple of guys to ask them directions. It turned out they were heading to the show as well, so we walked with them. More nice people! So far, me likey Belgium and Belgians.

When we arrived at Trix we could hear the guys sound-checking inside. They'd got caught in traffic and had arrived later than expected. The doors opened and there was quite a queue to get in, which is always a good sign. We got to the entrance and told them we were on the guest list, which confused them slightly, as they hadn't been given the list. The guy let us in because "You're the first people to ask, and you're English, so it must be true." Ha!
Just after we got in, Ken rushed over with the guest list, looking flustered and busy. :-)

The place filled up nicely and there was quite a buzz in the air. I tried to buy a couple of drinks, after queueing at the bar for a few minutes. Only then was I told I had to join ANOTHER queue to buy drinks tokens. WTF! Apparently, that's how they do things in Belgium. You can't pay for your drinks at the bar, you have to buy tokens in advance, then hand them over at the bar. A token is 2 euros. One token = one drink, which is great if you want a beer. It's a pretty bloody expensive way of buying a glass of water though, as I discovered. Yikes!

A great set followed.

Conversations was dropped in favour of Daily Mutilation.

After the show Jon and Ken were positively mobbed by people clamouring to buy the new cd. It seemed to take forever before we even got a chance to say hello. We had a quick chat with the boys, met a lovely new friend, Martine and then called it a night as we weren't sure what time the buses and trams stopped running. When we got to the nearest bus/tram stop it looked like it had shut down for the night already, so we started walking back towards town. It was rubbish night and all the streets were piled high with stinky unspeakables. We got about a third of the way, when we saw a bus, so hopped on it back to town. It was way too far to walk that late at night and after such a long day of travelling. We were knackered. Despite being very tired and the comfortable room, I barely slept a wink.

Next morning, we had a little time to kill, so we wandered around the town for a couple of hours, took a few photos and found a supermarket to stock up on essentials, like orange juice, fruit and water. Then we packed up and checked out to catch our train back to Brussels for the next gig.

Photos from Antwerp

Our adventures with The Posies 2010 - London - 5th October

5 shows, 5 cities, 5 nights - hell yeah!

Our Posies adventure started off in London at The Garage. Apparently it's called the Relentless Garage nowadays, but that's a stupid name, so I'll stick with the old one.

We sacrificed not one, but two, Posies virgins to the alter at this gig. Our good friend Nick, who has great taste in music and is one of those people who IS prepared to get off his arse and travel for a good gig, was virgin no.1.
Our gig buddy Kate, who is a very cool chick and loves going to gigs, even if she's barely even heard of the band she's going to see was virgin no.2. I'd convinced her to come at midnight the night before the show.

We had a chance to chat briefly to Jon, and I got a rare and pleasant pre-gig non-sweaty hug - which was nice.
Here's the setlist. The only tracks missing from the new album were Accidental Architecture, Notion 99 & She's Coming Down Again. All the new songs sounded frikkin awesome. I'm even beginning to like Licences To Hide now. That's the only song on the album that I didn't instantly like, but hearing it live, it's getting under my skin.

There was a decent crowd in. It wasn't rammed, but it certainly wasn't light on the ground either. It was extremely hot though. Ken commented on the number of people in the audience who were wearing coats, when "It's a million degrees in here!"
We were told the tale of Darius and his stolen passport and thanked as a nation for having great embassies and for inventing sandwiches.

After the show Ken and Jon were swamped with people eagerly buying CDs. Yay!  :-)
They were so swamped we left them to it and headed home.

 Honourable mentions to other friends present: Henrik, Andy H and his mate Mark. Great to see you guys.
Antwerp next!