A friend in need

My friend Bill is one of the most caring, kind and generous people I've ever met.
As well as being involved in his local church and community, and working full time for a conservation charity, he also runs a little place called Cafe Mocha.

Cafe Mocha is run on a not-for-profit basis. It's main aim is to help people who have been out of work, through physical or mental illness, back into work and to offer a community gathering place, for people to meet, enjoy a coffee, get support and make news friends.

On Saturday night, some mindless drunken idiot broke one of the windows of Bill's beloved cafe. It's going to cost him out of his own pocket to get it fixed - but we can help.
A small donation (absolutely anything helps) would be a great help to Bill and the team at Cafe Mocha.
If you'd like to help, please send a donation via paypal to paypal@cafemocha.org.uk

Bill would never dream of asking for help like this, but I can't think of anyone who has earned it more. He's a constant source of inspiration to me, a great friend to many people and a credit to humanity.

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!

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

A play by Colin Smith

On Saturday 25 September we were lucky enough to be in Oldham, just north of Manchester for the last night of a sold out run of Colin Smith's play "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now".

Let me tell you a little about Colin. He's by far the funniest person I've ever had the pleasure to know.
His wit is absolutely razor-sharp. He's one of those people who seems to effortlessly come out with the type of things that you usually find yourself on the way home saying "Aaargh, if only I'd said xxxxxx, it would have been so funny!" He's a master of accents too, switching from one to another pretty convincingly. He's also a bloody nice bloke and a good friend. An all-round good egg, one might say.

So - Colin wrote this play and The Lyceum in Oldham decided to put it on. Smart move. It was sold out every single night of the run, and on the night we were there, the entire audience seemed to have a great time.

Knowing Colin, I knew this play would be good. What I wasn't really prepared for though, was just HOW good it is. I laughed till I cried and my face ached. It's not all cheap gags. The humour is in equal parts intelligent, witty, risque, borderline offensive (just how I like it) and there's the odd cheap gag thrown in too. The whole cast were brilliant.

I was totally blown away by it and literally rendered speechless once it was over. I even cried a little.

The gist of the story is, this bloke wakes up dead, though he doesn't know it, and he's escorted to the afterlife by a scantily-clad "collector" where he has to endure a series of ridiculous (and hilarious) interviews in order to convince him he's dead and assess his life on earth.
He then has to decide which of his 3 dead wives he wants to spend eternity with. While he's fretting over this big decision he's put into temporary accommodation, sharing a flat with Jesus of Nazareth and Adolf Hitler (best comedy duo EVER). It was almost TOO funny at points. It was so funny it hurt!

The Collector (way better looking than The Grim Reaper!)

Comedy genius!

"Directly or indirectly, how many insect deaths have you been responsible for?"

Nice touch - Jesus reading 'Woodworker' magazine.

Special mention to camp Hitler and his fantastic facial expressions.

I don't even want to give away the ending, as I'm pretty convinced that if there's ANY justice in the world, this play will be picked up and will some day soon be playing in a theatre near you. When it is, do yourself a favour, go and see it. I defy anyone to not enjoy the hell out of this.

Messed up

It's 2.30am. I've been awake since 2am. I was asleep, but my dreams were so messed up that I awoke clawing at my face, so I decided to force myself to be awake for a while, for a much needed reality check.

I always say I should write down my dreams before I forget them. They're already starting to fade, so what follows is probably going to be as weird and disjointed as the thing that woke me in the first place.

I'm at a festival. Barefoot, walking around the edge of 2 stages. Cables everywhere. There is some kind of acrobatic troupe with people strapped into robot shaped cages, being strung onto a long wire that's pulled them high into the air. I'm trying to get a picture of them with my phone because they look like transformers, but they're moving too fast and it annoys me.

I don't like the music on offer, somehow I end up in a dirty house with 2 Mexican DJs. They're playing some good music and seem nice enough (in a slightly scary way). We're drunk. It's going ok until I'm sitting between them and one of them suggests I take my top off. I'm suddenly aware of my personal space and just how much it's been invaded. I'm terrified they're going to rape me, and I get angry and shout at them, trying to force them to respect me as a person, as a human being. They're laughing at me. They have a very low opinion of women.
Someone knocks on the door. Why are they knocking? Do they know what these guys had planned all along and know not to disturb them? I shudder at the thought. He makes the excuse that he often wanks himself off on that sofa, so people knock. I don't know what to believe. I'm angry and scared, so I run. Back through the festival - suddenly the transformer robot caged people are really scary.

Suddenly I'm in an ultra-modern white house, with floor to ceiling net curtains blowing in the breeze and the first light of dawn cast pink across the walls. I'm creeping quietly but quickly through the house because I need to know how long it'll take me to get in there, kill the woman who is sleeping peacefully in a vast white bed, get out and get back (to wherever I came from) and keep my alibi intact. As I go through the last door in the long corridor she wakes up. Did she see me? Could she identify me? Should I just kill her now or risk coming back to do it at the time I planned?

Another sudden change. There's things crawling on me - on my face. Get them off! I wake up clawing at my face convinced there's something there.
At that point, I decided to be awake for a while. It's less traumatic.

Robin Guthrie at ICA, London - 19 September 2010

It's not that often that I feel moved to blog about a gig I go to, but this one left me feeling so gushy that I need an outlet.
Early Sunday evening is a good time to be in London. We tubed it from Kentish Town to Charing Cross then wandered leisurely past the tourists taking pictures of each other on Trafalgar Square (taking care to protect our belongings from the pick-pockets), through Admiralty Arch and onto The Mall. Pretty fancy surroundings for a venue, what with Queenie being just up the road...

The ICA is one of those venues that I've heard about for years and years, but never been to until now. It's a very nice arts centre, with art on the walls and a bookshop, as you walk in. The super friendly staff don't make you feel like a scumbag (for a change). We mooched around in the bar for a while and had a nice cup of filter coffee - for only £1.50, which is unheard of in central London, before being politely ushered into the venue.
Nice small/medium venue with pretty good sound, a decent sized stage (with no barriers) and lots of lights. So far so good.

First on were a band that a friend had TOLD me I needed to get there early to see - Daniel Land & The Modern Painters. I'm glad she did. Thoroughly enjoyed their set. Nice wooshy guitars, good songs. I'd definitely recommend them and go to see them again. Thanks for the tip Cath!

Next up were Heligoland. I've seen them before and sadly, this 2nd experience didn't change my opinion. They make great sounds, but (with a couple of exceptions) the songs aren't quite 'there'. Worthy of a mention though is their drummer. Absolutely fascinating to watch. He's so into what he's doing.

Down to the real reason we're all here, sweating our arses off on this exceptionally warm night.
Talking of which...
We've always been weirdo magnets. I don't know why, but they seem to gravitate towards us.
We're chilling out, waiting for Robin Guthrie to come on and this bloke wanders drunkenly up to us and says "What are we all doing here?" The only reply I could think of was "Ummm, we're here to see Robin Guthrie play."
"Yeah, but how did we all end up here? What's it all about? Who is he?"
Oh Jeez...
We humoured him for a few minutes, then kind of ignored him. He eventually wandered away.

After a short wait, a middle-aged man in a green jumper and dark glasses wandered onto the stage. There was no fanfare, no introductions, no applause - he was just 'there' and he was Robin Guthrie. This is the man who was responsible for the glory that is the Cocteau Twins sound and he looks like he's just popped in on his way back from B&Q. If you walked past him buying wallpaper, you wouldn't give him a second glance. I kind of like that. The only recognisable thing about him is those earrings. The epitomy of understated, he has no microphone, so his conversation was limited to the few people at the front who could hear him. He says fuck a lot.
One particularly annoying bloke in the audience, whose hairdo obviously hasn't changed since the 80's shouts out "We've missed you!" Robin instantly comes back with "Well you should have come and fucking visited me then, shouldn't you." We laugh, and I ask Mark to remind me how to spell sycophant.

Recognisable on the street or not, understated or not, one thing you cannot be mistaken about, is the sound when this man picks up a guitar and the effect it'll have on you.
The set didn't start all that well. Technical difficulties meant the first track had to be abandoned and the laptop re-booted before proceedings could continue. This left more time for slightly awkward silences, stupid comments and questions from the crowd etc.
The next period of time, could have been an hour, could have been a day - I lost track of everything... was utterly spell-binding. To try and describe what Robin Guthrie does would be a waste of time. The internet is there. Go and find it...
For most of the set he was joined by the bass player and drummer from Heligoland, who did a damned-fine job of lifting the tunes and added another, very enjoyable dimension. I'm pretty sure that everyone who was there would have been happy to just watch Robin Guthrie noodle away on his guitar randomly, but what we got was a full set of gorgeous tunes, that went from minimal to euphoric and back again.
To be in a crowd of people and see so many beaming faces, closed eyes and swaying bodies is bordering on a religious experience. I remember turning to Mark at one point and saying 'This must be what it sounds like in Heaven."

I left the ICA with a spring in my step, a tear in my eye, a glow in my heart and a deep feeling of joy. I kid you not. All was right with my world in that moment.
Not even the 'severe delays' on the Northern line or the diversion off the A1 through Hatfield on the way home came close to putting a dent in my mood. A mood which has so far lasted 48 hours and shows no signs of declining.

Robin Guthrie should be available on prescription.
Gush over...

Trying to find...

In the hope that this might be picked up on a search engine some day.

My mum is trying to trace her brother.
He was born Christopher Kelvin Newman on 6th September 1945 (06/09/1945) in St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK.

His mother was Elsie Newman (nee Gordon). She was married to Maurice Martin Newman in Tendring, Essex, UK in 1938, but Maurice was absent for an, as yet, undetermined amount of time in the 1940's. During that time Elsie had another child, Jean Christine (my mother) with George Kelvin Sutherland.

There was no father's name on Christopher Kelvin's original birth certificate. Christopher was given his mother's married surname, Newman on his birth certificate, but it's unclear whether Maurice was his father.
We suspect his father was George Kelvin Sutherland, who was in the Royal Corps Signals.

Christopher was adopted and we have no idea what his name changed to, so can't trace him.

Mushroom & black bean quesadilla

I need to write this recipe down so I don't forget it. I just made it up and it's delicious.
Thought this would be a good place to do it, instead of a scrap of paper. This way other people can see it if they're interested.

I made this up as I went along, so there's nothing scientific about quantities used.

6 flour tortillas
1 cup brown rice to serve
Soured cream
Grated mature cheddar cheese
A small piece of hard cheese (eg Parmesan or veggie equivalent)
1 small onion - finely chopped
2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
1/2 orange pepper - chopped
1 hot chilli pepper - finely chopped
4-5 mushrooms - chopped
1 can black beans - drained

Put the brown rice on to boil for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to around 200 C.
Fry the onion, garlic, chilli and orange pepper in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes.
Add the chopped mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.
Add the black beans and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the crumbled hard cheese and stir in, with a generous dollop of soured cream.

Divide the mixture between the tortillas - only covering a quarter of the tortilla. Add some soured cream and grated cheddar.
Fold the tortilla in half, then in half again, to make a triangle.
Arrange in an ovenproof dish, scatter with grated cheddar and cook in the oven for 10 minutes.

Serve with brown rice and soured cream.

I would add a photo of the finished product - but I ate it....

Mugged by a horse!

Last night it was a beautiful evening, and I'd been shut indoors all day working, so we decided to go for a walk. We needed milk, so we walked along the river Ivel from our village to Sandy - about a 3 mile round-trip.

Once you're past the ugly factory (the factory is ugly, they don't manufacture ugly there), it's a lovely walk along the quiet river bank. There's a small weir about 1/4 mile along the river. I love the sound of falling water - and the smell of the Ivel gives me such strong childhood memories. We used to swim in the river during our summer holidays, and I remember everything smelling of the distinctive river smell.

Over the bailey bridge onto the opposite bank, the path winds along the side of the river. It's very peaceful, despite being sandwiched between two busy roads. We had a fantastic moment when we came across a whole family of long-tailed tits. It was hard to count because they kept moving around, but I think there were about 9 tiny babies. They were SO cute and seemed totally unfazed by us, even though we were standing just a few feet away. Mum came along after a few moments and called them all to her.

We also saw some birds nesting in a hole in the sandstone blocks of Girtford Bridge. They came and went so fast we couldn't see what they were though.

Once we'd got our milk, and impulse bought some yummy looking croissants, we headed back. I fell into a hole, nearly broke my ankle, twisted my knee and back. Ouch!

Next was a bloke walking two dogs. One of them was on a lead, but the other (a lurcher I think) came running at us full-tilt barking and snarling. NOT GOOD. I'm not a dog person. I'm very nervous around them, they are loud, smelly, stupid animals that are only just domesticated. I just don't trust them, and when one is staring you down, growling and barking I get totally freaked out. I tolerate dogs at the best of times. So many dog owners just don't get that not everyone loves their dog. They seem so offended if you're scared. They always say the same thing "It's ok, he won't hurt you, he's just being friendly." I'm sorry, but that doesn't help if you're frightened of dogs. I don't blame the dogs, it's the owners who are generally responsible for their behaviour.
I had to shout to the owner of this dog and ask him to call it to him. He just didn't get that I was scared. He still didn't put it on a lead. It came back for another go at us a minute later. This time I was pretty much frozen with fear. Mark was brilliant. He stood between me and the dog and protected me. He's so awesome. He'd do anything, ANYTHING to protect me. I love him so much, but I digress...

The dog experience put a bit of a downer of our pleasant walk for a while, at least until we were well out of sight of it. The rest of the walk back was just nice. We saw a swan, several ducks and other water birds, and watched a tern diving into the water. They are incredible birds, so agile in the air - almost bat-like.

Back past the ugly factory, across the cycle path and through the spooky tunnel under the old railway line. When I was a kid I used to be so scared of this tunnel. I thought it was really long and dark. It's actually only about 20 feet long. It's fine, as long as you don't look at the walls and roof of the tunnel, which is completely covered in spider webs and nests. Just look at the floor and keep walking...

Walking back along the riverside towards the weir there's a pretty white horse in the field. When we'd walked past him on the way out he'd pretty much ignored us. On the way back it was a very different story. Mark was carrying a plastic carrier bag with our milk and croissants in it. Maybe the horse's owners always bring him carrots in a plastic bag? Whatever it is, the horse became VERY interested in Mark's bag as soon as he heard it rustling. So interested in fact, that he WOULD NOT let Mark get past him.
Every time Mark tried to get by, the horse got in front of him. It was trying to shove it's mouth into the carrier bag and it was not giving up. Eventually it managed to knock the bag out of Mark's hand. It started slobbering all over the bag, trying to get it's nose inside. Mark finally was able to get past the pesky creature, but now our shopping was on the floor. I quickly nipped in and grabbed the bag, but the horse WANTED IT. In the end, the only way to get away was to give him one of our croissants to distract him, then leg it.

It was so funny, watching Mark getting mugged by a horse. But when an animal that's 4 times your size is shoving you and getting in your face, what can you do? We walked the rest of the way home, with our horse slobber covered carrier bag, laughing and making up exaggerated stories of the 20 foot tall killer horse, with big teeth and claws, wearing a balaclava and a bullet belt, brandishing a knife and demanding "croissants or death".

I shared my remaining croissant with Mark when we got home. xx

RIP Alex Chilton

Thursday 18th March 2010 started like any other day. I woke up, had a shower, grabbed a cup of tea and woke up the laptop to see what happened in cyber-land overnight. As I have a bunch of friends in different time zones, my morning surf is usually a good catch up. The laptop came to life, and within 20 seconds my whole fucking morning came crashing to a sudden and very unpleasant stop.
All I could say was "Oh god!" Mark was getting ready to leave for work at this point. He asked me what was wrong and I could hardly believe the words coming out of my mouth, even though I was saying them. Alex is dead...

We just looked at each other, dumbfounded. Mark stood totally still for about a minute, trying to take in the unpleasant reality before us, then he put on his coat and left for work. I found out later that he got about half way to work before he lost it. I wasn't so together. I just sat here and cried. I made no effort to hold in how I was feeling. Even now, a week later I'm finding this difficult to write. I had to leave some time before I could talk about this, but not so long that the emotions aren't fresh. This way I can speak from the heart.

Alex Chilton was, to me and many others, a musical legend. He didn't seem to see it that way. He was a reluctant 'hero'. I'm not going to write an obituary here. There are dozens of them out there on the internet already - google it. He was also only 59 years old. That's not old. How could he be dead? That's not right. It can't be true. But the sad truth was right there, being confirmed by the people closest to him.

We only met Alex on four occasions.  I wouldn't be so presumptious as to say we were friends. We were friends of friends I guess. This didn't prevent his death from hitting me so hard that I found it hard to breathe.
Alex had a reputation for being a bit strange and having no time for gushy fans. As they say, forewarned is forearmed, so when I met him I did all I could to not be a gushy fan, even though the voice inside my head was shouting "Oh my god, it's Alex fucking Chilton!". In fact I avoided talking about his music all together. In my experience, when you meet someone you've worshipped from afar, the very best thing you can do is just talk to them about normal shit. Treat them like a human being and generally, they'll act like one. Rock stars only act like rock stars because people treat them like rock stars. In my personal experience, Alex was charming, friendly, funny and fascinating to be around.

So what's the point of this emotional rambling? I want to put all my memories in one place. I want to convey what a huge impact this man and this band have had on my life. I want to reflect, gather my thoughts and memories of good times and maybe smile while I do that.

The details are hazy, but we first heard of Big Star around 1991. An earlier encounter came in the form of 2 covers (Kangaroo and Holocaust) on the first This Mortal Coil album, It'll End In Tears from 1984. I've always loved those 2 songs, but at the time, never made the connection.
An interview with Mike Mills of REM and a review of Teenage Fanclub's new album Bandwagonesque in the Melody Maker both mentioned Big Star. Two very good reasons to check them out. We found a vinyl copy of #1 Record for £6.99 from Parrot Records in Cambridge and the rest in history.

Fast forward to 1993. There's a huge buzz of excitement as Mark and I travel to the Reading Festival with a couple of friends. We could hardly believe our luck. Big Star had re-formed. We'd played those albums to death for a couple of years and now we were getting to see them live. That was something we never thought we'd be able to do. We'd read that there were two original members, plus two new members - a couple of guys from a band from Seattle called The Posies.
The Posies were also playing at the festival, so we thought we may as well go and check them out while we were there. Good move. That was the beginning of a very special part of our lives. But that's a whole other story... At this point,  in 1993 we were just a couple of other people in the crowd, lapping up the Big Star goodness.

We got to see Big Star again on 9th August 2001 at the Mean Fiddler in London (a venue which has since been closed down due to constant breaches of fire regulations). It was a Posies / Big Star double bill. A dream gig for us. The Posies played an acoustic set and Big Star played a full band set. It was an absolutely rammed to the ceiling, hot and sweaty gig. We were crammed shoulder to shoulder with people, all grinning.
This is where Mark's brilliant memory comes in. Alex was having trouble with his guitar amp and ended up kicking it at one point. Steve Mack (That Petrol Emotion) was in the audience.

Our next Big Star encounter was many years later and under very different circumstances in another country. 
Connect Festival, Inveraray Castle, near Glasgow, Scotland - 2-3 September 2007
Day 1 was spent trudging through miles of mud, all of which seemed uphill to get to the festival. After some wrangling and confusion over the validity of our wrist bands, we managed to get backstage. We were introduced to Norman Blake - EEEP! Sheltering from the rain we were treated to a stage-side view of the Teenage Fanclub show, then Mogwai. Awesome. It was also the first time we met Guitar George Borowski (another legend in his own lifetime and one of the sweetest, infectiously happy people on the planet). We hung around for Primal Scream, but spent most of their set sitting on the spare drum risers backstage, just chilling out and staying warm and dry. A long trudge back down the muddy hill back to the car was 'interesting' in the dark. We were driven back to Glasgow with carrier bags on our muddy feet.

On day 2 we made our way from our spit and sawdust b&b to a very swish hotel in Glasgow. Waiting in the lobby lounge, feeling out of place, I noticed someone who looked familiar walking by. It was Alex. At that point I was still pretty nervous about meeting the man, the legend, so when our friend Jon did introduce us it was a quick hello and oh my god, I don't know what to say, so say nothing.
There followed a quite surreal experience. We all piled into the minibus, Alex, Jody, Jon, Ken and his wife Dom, a friend of Alex's, Mark and me. It was quite a long drive out to the festival. We mostly all kept to our individual conversations, but there were moments of hilarity, shared by everyone. Such as Alex launching into the Walker Texas Ranger theme tune.
When we finally found the backstage area, which was pretty well hidden near the 'other' stage, we found a nice set-up. There was a porta-cabin per band, conveniently arranged in alphabetical order around a gazebo tent seating area. Big Star were a couple of doors down from Bjork. Of course Bjork had several porta-cabins, because she's Bjork. I almost bumped into her actually. As we walked past she came out of the door and I had to take evasive action. She probably would have punched me if I'd bumped into her! :-)
We watched The Polyphonic Spree's show, which was quite something to behold, then it was time for Big Star. Hooray! But where's Alex? He's nowhere to be seen around the stage. Show time was rapidly approaching and no-one knew where he was. Mark was dispatched back to the backstage area, through the dark and the mud to look for him. No sign of him in the porta-cabin. He was about to give up when he caught a 'certain smell' as he walked past the seating tent. Inside he found Alex, sharing a joint and having a nice chat, oblivious to what time it was or where he was supposed to be. Mark said he looked like a guilty kid who'd been caught misbehaving. Bless... So Alex was found and duly escorted to the stage, and the show went according to plan.
They rocked the place.

Shepherd's Bush Empire. 28th August 2008

We were lucky enough (thanks again to our good friend Jon) to be guests at this show. We arrived at the Empire and promptly got totally lost in the maze of corridors and stairs. It's a crazy place. Eventually we found everyone, said quick hellos and left them to it. Pre-show is never the best time to talk to people. They have lots on their mind. Ken was busy learning a bass line to one of Alex's random last minute additions to the setlist - a classical piece by Elgar, I think. So we headed down to the bar and spent 20 minutes chatting with 2 really nice ladies from the Caribbean.

We had great seats for the show, up in the box overlooking the stage. Another fine Big Star performance was, as always, over too quickly. We headed back up to the dressing room and had a quick glass of bubbly before we had to leave to get a tube train back to the car. Alex was conspicuous in his absence. It wasn't until we left the venue by the side alley door that we found him, smoking fags and chewing the fat with Jody and a couple of other people. Poor Jody was horribly jet-lagged and exhausted, having just flown to the UK that day. Alex was in a great mood. We had a quick chat - I've no idea what about, and we were on our way. I vaguely recall inviting them round for a cup of tea when they were in our neck of the woods a few days later. Unfortunately, they never did.

The Rhythm Festival, Clapham, Bedford. 3rd September 2008
The most random festival ever. Despite this festival being only about 10 miles away from our front door, we'd never heard of it until Big Star played there. Running since 2006 (who knew?) it's held at Twinwood, an old WWII airbase museum. If I remember rightly, it was a lovely day that day. Everyone was in good spirits and we hung out for a few hours, talking about this and that. Jody was telling Mark about the time he played on the same bill as Jimi Hendrix, many, many years ago.
I found this tiny clip of video today that I forgot all about. Jody had just noticed that Steve Cropper was on stage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49hElIByxWM
Alex was in a great mood that day, which can be seen in the videos I shot of the Big Star show. He seemed to warm to the kitch-ness of this little festival. It had no pretensions. It wasn't fancy or trying to be fashionable. I guess he liked that. Jody was fascinated by the history of the surroundings. Twinwood is the airfield that Glenn Miller took off from and was never seen again.
The Big Star set was on the main stage in the arena, but it clashed with (wait for it) Chas 'n' Dave on the other stage. About 10 minutes before Big Star were due to go on, the entire arena emptied like someone pulled out the plug and the audience went down the plug-hole. Shit! We were left standing there, with a few die-hard Big Star fans, while everyone else chose the Chas 'n' Dave show. No fucking way! Thankfully, it was more of a changeover period, and soon more people started to appear. We also suspect that a lot of people realised that Chas 'n' Dave is only tolerable for one or two songs, and they came back when they got bored. So Big Star ended up with a pretty packed arena, eventually. It was a great show - a really good set.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGboO6F_3ok
I remember Jody and Alex complaining that they didn't get enough time to spend with Jon when we kidnapped him at the end of the night.

Serpentine Sessions, Hyde Park London. 1st July 2009
Remember the heatwave of 2009? Well the 1st of July was slap-bang in the middle of it. After spending several days just being lazy and sitting in front of a fan, Mark, Jon and I had to get off our arses and get on a (thankfully air conditioned) train down to London. After waiting in the longest taxi queue in the world for what seemed like hours, we finally got into a (horribly un-air conditioned) taxi and headed to the Columbia Hotel on the edge of Hyde Park. We killed a couple of hours there, staying indoors where it was cool, while various people were interviewed for a Mojo feature. Eventually we headed into the park to find the stage. That should be easy huh? Big tent in a park, can't miss it...

I had no idea Hyde Park was so HUGE. We walked and walked and walked and sweated, with no sign of anything that looked like a stage. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing though. It meant we got plenty of time to talk to Alex. This was the longest time we ever got to spend with him. He was coping with the heat so much better than we were. He was used to the humidity of the deep south, so a hot day in London was nothing to him. We talked about this astrology thing that he was really into. It's based on a pack of cards. I didn't really get my head around it, but Alex told me I am the nine of spades. Mark is the king of diamonds, which made his day.

So after what must have been half an hour of walking, we still hadn't found the stage. We were walking along by the Serpentine, checking out the ducks when out of the heat haze an angel appeared. OK, so it wasn't an actual angel, but it was 2 golf buggies that had been sent out to pick us up and take us the rest of the way. Hooray! So Jon, Mark and I jumped on one and Alex and Ken jumped on the other and we bombed off across the park.  Awesome.  That was fun.
We weren't sure when or where we were supposed to pick up our guest passes, and we'd been told there was a very strict policy on guests backstage, so we'd been expecting to part company with the guys at some point. In the end though, we were driven straight in and dropped off with the band. Best to keep quiet in those situations... This bloke came up to me and said "Hi, I'm Mark and I'll be your stage manager today." I just said "Hello" and tried to not look like the impostor I was.
So we ended up spending the whole afternoon sitting in the sunshine, chatting with Jon and Alex and listening to Blur soundcheck. They were playing the next day. Yay, free Blur gig! Yay, free drinks! Yay, no-one asked us who we were or what we were doing there!

There was a lot of confusion about what time Big Star were supposed to be on. The organisers kept changing the time. At one point they wanted to put them on an hour and a half earlier than the advertised time. Everyone was getting pretty stressed out, except for Alex, who remained as cool as a cucumber throughout. In the end, they had changed their stage time (at very short notice) to half an hour earlier than the advertised time. Consequently, when they took to the stage there was nobody there. We're talking tumbleweeds here people. This was pure and simple bad planning on the organisers' part. It was not good for the band and it was not good for all the people who had paid good money to see the band and ended up missing the beginning of the set. Alex was philosophical about it. He said "I take particular pride in playing really well in front of no people." And they did - play really well I mean. It was a blinding gig - on of them were on top form and obviously enjoying themselves.
Thankfully, as soon as Big Star started the first song, you could see confused people listening, looking and then running towards the tent. It soon filled up. Next time I looked behind me there was a sea of faces singing along and grinning.

It was such a beautiful warm evening. We stayed in the park till about 10pm, just enjoying the evening and catching up with the lovely Henrik and his friends. 

I took a few photos of grinning fans with Jon for them. Most were probably not as cheesy as ours though. Haha! 

Then we managed to cadge a lift on a buggy back to the edge of the park. In the cool of the evening that was fantastic. We tried to convince the buggy driver to take us all the way to the train station, but he couldn't do it. We hailed a cab and headed back to St Pancras.

The train journey back home was 'interesting' and hilarious. There was a guy sitting near us wearing headphones and singing at the top of his voice in Arabic. Though none of wanted to say it out loud, I think we were all thinking "Is he about to blow himself up?" I know that's terrible racial stereotyping, but we all looked to see if he had any wires sticking out of his jacket. Jon summed it up best, saying "Yeah! Get down with your bad self..." Heehee.

Though of course we could never have known it at the time, this was to be the last time we saw Alex Chilton. But to be honest, what a memory to end on.

We even toyed with the idea of blowing all our savings to go to the Big Star shows in the USA this year, but we decided against it. After all, we'll have other opportunities to see them right? How tragically wrong. It's taken me literally hours to write this blog, over 2 evenings and I still don't feel like I've even scratched the surface of what Alex Chilton's music and the music he influenced has meant to me for so many years. That will never change. It's just sad that an era has ended so abruptly and so unexpectedly. Like I said at the beginning of this long and rambling blog, Alex and I weren't friends, but his loss has hit me as hard as that of anyone. I feel so bad for his family, his band mates and his friends. He was a unique individual and he'll be sorely missed.
It's equally tragic that Alex passed away just days before Big Star were due to play at the SXSW festival in Texas. I have a lot of admiration for Jody, Jon and Ken for going ahead with that show and turning it into a tribute to their friend, despite the emotions being so fresh and raw. It was a wonderful thing for them to do. I only wish we could have been there.

They say you should never meet you heros because it'll lead to disappointment. I disagree.

So next time a band you love are playing a gig and it's a little far away and you can't really be bothered to go or it'll be a late night on a week day, think about it. Don't assume you'll have another opportunity. You just never know...

Not a review

I realised I didn't write anything about the most recent Kizilok gig. It was way back on 31st January. I started this blog weeks ago and just remembered that I never finished it.
So here goes...

This isn't really a review as such. I'm way too biased to write a review, because 1) Mark and I are both in the band, 2) Ian and Andy are our best friends 3) We're recording the album, and 4) I fucking LOVE this music.

It was only 2 weeks before the gig that Mark got a call from Ian (Mr Kizilok himself) asking, no telling him that he was going to be playing bass. The phone call was funny to listen to. Mark said "Yeah" and "Uh-huh" a lot, then hung up. His next words were "What the hell have I just agreed to?" He looked like a rabbit in the headlights.

The last time Mark played live in front of an audience was when Melt (our old band) played at the Lazy Sunday festival in Bedford, 1993. So it's a big deal to get up there and do it again. Scary stuff!

In those 2 weeks he not only had to learn and practice all the bass lines till they were tattoo'd onto his soul, but we also had to create backing track new mixes of the 6 track set. Quite a lot of work.

Mark practiced every single day until he knew the bass lines. Then he practiced some more, learning to play them standing up, which is very different from playing them slouched in a chair. Then he played them in front of me - a small step towards having people watching you.

Mark was as nervous as hell, which is understandable. I was just as nervous for him, if not more so.

The gig was on a Sunday night at a central Manchester venue called The Tiger Lounge. We went up a day early, to make as much time as possible for practicing. Mark had practiced a lot on his own, playing along to the backing tracks, but as yet Mark, Ian and Andy hadn't actually played together. Ian and Andy hadn't also hadn't heard the new guitar part Mark had come up with for one song. In fact, I hadn't even heard it.

On Saturday afternoon Mark and Andy ran through the set a couple of times. It was sounding good and they seemed to be comfortable playing together. It was missing the vocals though.
Saturday evening Andy had a gig, so he left us at his house and Ian came over to hang out and run through the songs with Mark. It was great to be there to witness the birth of the next part of Kizilok's evolution. I was just so excited to hear them play together. Everything went smoothly, with no hitches. The real revelation though was when they came to play the song Ray, which already had bass on the backing track. Mark had written a new guitar part and Ian and I were both pretty blown away when he played it to us. They were both so into it, swaying together, totally connected through the music. It was pretty powerful stuff. When the song finished we all just stood there grinning at each other.

The gig itself was the usual. Disorganised and frustrating. Soundcheck took too long (doesn't it always...) and the venue opened before Kizilok even had a chance to set up. First on means last to soundcheck. Unfortunately this meant they ended up soundchecking in front of the audience, which is never ideal. Ho hum, such is the lot of the support band I guess. There was the usual confusion over who was using whose gear, what was supposed to be supplied by the venue (and wasn't). Same old, same old. Nothing's changed.
The sound was a bit ropey (nothing's changed there either then) and when it came to Kizilok actually playing, you could hardly hear a thing. Some things were too loud, others were too quiet, they couldn't hear themselves, let alone each other, feedback etc etc.
Personally (and here comes the I'm biased bit) I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was beaming with pride at Mark and loving every minute. You won't get a critique of the music from me. After all, this isn't a review. I got video of the whole set, so you can make your own mind up if you want to. I'll tell you now though, if you don't have anything nice to say to me about Kizilok, best not say anything at all. Hahaha...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJY8hPrF0eQ

It wasn't a bad sized crowd and it was the right crowd. A good mix of friends who were oozing love and support and people who were there to see the headline band Music for Aborigines. They seemed to like Kizilok anyway, which gladdens my heart. The reception was good, the applause was loud and genuine.

All too soon it was all over. Mark breathed a huge sigh of relief and went to the bar, where he had to deal with something he's not used to - fanboys! It was hilarious to stand back and watch as he tried to deal with the strangers who were coming up and shaking his hand and telling him how much they enjoyed the Kizilok set. Highly entertaining.

Mark and Ian practicing.

All smiles after the gig. Andy, Mark and Ian.

After Kizilok there was another band on before Music for Aborigines. They weren't really our cup of tea so we went to hang out outside in the freezing cold with various people and just generally catch up with our northern friends. At one point Mark and I were standing outside the venue when this VERY drunk guy staggers up to us and tries to sell us a pack of parma ham. Random or what?

The Music for Aborigines set topped the night off nicely. Love this band. Love these guys. Andy Whit was a rockin' front man at this gig. I could write another whole blog about MFA. Maybe I should some time...
I'll leave it with this for now. My favourite MFA tune, played a little shambolically, but with love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbjgg4FbRqc

Crazy friends

As soon as I found out that one of my all-time favourite bands would be playing one of my all-time favourite albums live in their home town, which also happens to be one of my all-time favourite places to visit - I got kind of excited.

Maybe a slightly less vague way of saying that would be:
Oh my GOD! The Posies are playing "Frosting on the Beater" in Seattle. PLUS they'll be showcasing new songs for the album they're just about to record. Eeeep! Want to go, want to go....

So off I went to see how much flights would be, only to find that the cheapest available was going to cost us £900. This seemed a little extravagant for a weekend away, even my our adventurous standards. Disappointed, I decided it's not going to happen. There's no way I could justify that kind of spend. So I let it go and filed it under "Would be nice, but totally unattainable."

A very dear friend of ours, Andy P in Seattle does not give up so easily. He has now started an online campaign to get us to go. Bless him, it's so sweet of him to want us to be there, as much as we'd love to be there.
He's SO determined that we should go that he's actually set up a Facebook group, which is totally bonkers.
I think it's a joke - a wouldn't it be cool if... situation. Only it's getting harder and harder to tell, because people are actually pledging money to help towards the cost of our flights.

Ummm - I can't help but be all English about this and be totally freaked out by people being that nice. We don't cope well with this type of thing. We're not good at accepting compliments or gifts. It's a weird mix of being really touched and happy that anyone would go to this kind of effort - mixed up with "Aaaargh, they're being all nice and drawing attention to me!"
Hahaha... it even sounds stupid to me.

All of our friends in the USA have already been so generous to us when we've been over there on holiday. They willingly give up their precious holiday, their time, invite us into their homes, drive us around, feed us - anything to make us feel at home and make sure we have a good time. We already feel like we owe them so much - and yet here they are again, being so kind.

It's hard to know what to say.