Within me a lunatic sings
3:41 pm Saturday, 2 August, 2008
Ramblings on Sigur Rós at the Hordern Pavilion (Sydney) tonight. No mention of strip clubs or brothels, though now I know what to blog in future about to see a sudden increase in readers!
Archive for the 'gigs' Category
T-minus 2 hours 30 minutes!
8:25 am Saturday, 2 August, 2008
Sigur Ros in about 3 hours, I have been listening to með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust to prepare and I’ve thoroughly fallen for track 2; Inní mér syngur vitleysingur. Love it, cannot wait to hear it live. This is going to be a good evening.
…but still floating
1:11 pm Wednesday, 5 December, 2007
I have Radiohead tickets. This should put me over the moon but it’s not quite working today.
I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamt that I got an email from a friend with some advice (the kind of stuff she’s really good at) and the advice was perfect and I thought it would resolve all of my worldly problems.
Do you think I can remember a single word from the dream mail today?
I’ve got my back against the record machine
1:51 pm Wednesday, 21 November, 2007
What do you get when you have a folk/soul Northern Irish singer, Duke Special, playing piano along with one of his band playing piccolo and they are covering Van Halen’s Jump? Well it’s either going to be awful or it’s going to be awesome. There is just no two ways about it. Well the first thing you get is a wave of giggles around the room and then it is indeed awesome.
Don’t believe me, judge for yourself YouTube!. If you look really closely you can see me in the top right corner!
It was covers night, there was a ton of weird and wonderful stuff. They handed out song sheets for various choruses and some were just amazing. It was such an odd selection. The first one we got was Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights which of course is glorious and they didn’t do too bad a version. Perhaps almost as odd as doing Van Halen, we got Kaiser Chief’s I predict a Riot which didn’t work so well. The final song of the evening was the utterly wonderful Maps originally by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Love the song, I found it through a cover by Arcade Fire and it’s easily become one of my favourite songs. So a nice just piano version to end the evening was fantastic. I also found while perusing eMusic this morning that he’s recorded a version too and it’s pretty damn good.
So all in all an excellent evening. Tonight I’m doing to see that other Duke S band, the Duke Spirit and I’m looking forward to it.
Sleepyhead, come on let’s take a ride
2:11 am Monday, 19 November, 2007
Ah Sunday evening, Monday morning how I dread you so. Another week begins. Lets first take a look back at this past week.
I’ve just noticed that I have been posting an hour in the future for some time now. I wonder how I missed this. I bet it’s some sort of GMT/BST thing. Anyway please subtract an hour from the last few postings, thanks very much!
Right lets go straight back to Friday evening. I took the day off work because something was up and I had things to do. This wasn’t so bad. I got some things done but not everything, wait that’s the story of my life is it not? Anyway I still had to go out to Hammersmith because that evening I was going to see Ryan Adams and the Cardinals in the Apollo. It was a mixed evening. The bad, we were seated (the entire gig was) and about halfway back on the balcony so it wasn’t great. The crowd was basically a bunch of cunts. It was the worst crowd I’ve ever been with. From the moment they came on stage there were people shouting shit and throughout the entire gig people were shouting requests. It was just odd. Every song would finish and people would shout and shout and shout. Assholes. Now the other big problem I have with seated gigs is people getting in and out. There seemed to be no rush at all for people to take their seats or anything like that when the gig started. Everyone milled around, people sat in wrong seats and then shouted about it. So shit crowd, like I say basically a bunch of cunts.
The good however could have been so much better. If this had been in Brixton or somewhere like that, it could well have been the best gig I’ve ever been to. They played for just over two and half hours and the setlist was amazing. There was almost everything I could want to hear (opening with Let It Ride!) from all the albums. Really good stuff.
So that was good.
Saturday was quiet. I did some stuff locally in the morning before my sister came around to use the net for a while. Her job fell through and so it’s back to square one but I suppose from my point of view at least she has a flat of her own now.
Saturday evening I stopped by for a quick drink at Andrew’s birthday party before heading out to Alexandra Palace to see Arcade Fire. I was most amused to find the shuttle bus to be a green ex Dublin Bus bus still with all the signs inside. Anyway into the gig as the band took the stage and it was excellent. I wasn’t in the best of form at the time (and probably ain’t now either to be honest) and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would but it was still damn good. Little bit of a chore getting home as I took a wrong turn and spent more time walking than I thought. Oh well.
Sunday…dead. I was meant to be seeing Arcade Fire again this evening but it didn’t happen. I generally use Stargreen for all my ticketing needs in London. I provided them with a change of address when I moved but this seems to have caused huge problems for them and for me. Twice I’ve had to collect tickets from them and for Ryan Adams I had to get duplicates from the box office. Despite two conversations in the past few days, they knew I had not got my ticket for tonight and yet still didn’t get back to me to tell me what I was doing. Do you think they were open on Sunday? So not happy there, I’ll be onto them tomorrow for my money back. I’m considering a strongly worded letter…not that I’ll ever get to it, it’s so old fashioned.
Now to talk about some other stuff. Work, well I can sum that up simply. I don’t know. I’d add stop asking me please but to be honest I think most of you know that already. When I have something to tell you, I’ll tell you. I’m really unhappy about the entire thing but there isn’t anything I can do but wait. It sucks.
Flat, well my flatmate gets back from America tomorrow. Family has kept her there for the past couple of weeks and is going to have her moving back to there in December. I have no idea what this means for me. I cannot afford to take the flat here on my own and we are both paying a lot for this place because it’s a nice flat and we can afford it. I’m not optimistic about keeping it. Of course to add to the complication, we are under contract and I don’t know what, if anything, we can do about that. I’ve that to follow up on during the week.
So just when I thought all was okay on the home front and I could worry about work, I had been so afraid of having to deal with them both at the same time, here I am having to deal with them both at the same time. Not good, not good at all.
Hence the real need for some quiet time. It’s odd that with my flatmate away so much recently how little time I’ve had to myself. Between going out and about and having my sister around and of course KG, I’ve just been all over the place. None of these are bad things I’d like to quickly add but it just stacks up. I feel worn out. I slept until 12.30 today and I still feel so tired (and cold for that matter). I should stop going out so much, that’s out in terms of booking things and that but there is so much good stuff on that I really want to see. I have another 3 gigs this week and then I’m going away next weekend so I’m already looking at the week after for having some time. It’s kinda mad. Some of it’s really good but some of it’s just kinda mad really I think.
I watched some stuff recently. House continues on a grand little roll. I’m really enjoying it, to the point of watching it before I watch anything else which is unusual for me. I guess it’s mainly because Boston Legal continues it’s roll of not being very good. I hate all the characters with two obvious exceptions and dammit I’m starting to hate them a little too. I have not cared enough to watch Heroes for the past few episodes but I hear that it picks up a bit…it needs to. I’m not sure why I’m still watching Weeds, oh wait, yes I know why but it’s a shadow of it’s former self.
Gaming and another couple of big ones recently. This weekend I completed two major nagging concerns. Sewer Trial for a number of badges and then today with the Goodman brothers, the Praetorian arc giving me some much missed badges. It took a good while, we may have been at it for 4 if not 5 hours (oops) but it was nice to get it done from start to finish and get the missing pieces. It was good fun too.
As I think I mentioned recently, I’ve been reading the Kurt Wallander series by Henning Mankell. I’m on book 5 Sidetracked now. I took a brief interlude to read Slash’s autobiography which while being nowhere near as entertaining as The Dirt was still a decent enough read and did leave me dreaming of having been in Guns N’ Roses one evening. Odd that was. Anyway book 5 and there is a whole style to his writing that I just can’t identify. I was going to say it was translation but there has been at least two translators. Well if whichever blurb it was can get away with just saying it’s very “Nordic” then I’ll go with that too. I’m kinda enjoying them, it’s odd I’m really not sure if I am but I’m still reading and buying more anyway. I guess I should stop that but I like finishing what I start (that includes series).
I need to use my camera. I should have this weekend but it’s cold and wet. I’ve done a tiny amount of macro work late ate night recently. A few photos are up but most are crap (and some could argue so are the ones that are up…) and I just need to get out and do more. There’s that having time again…
I’ve missed so much at the cinema. There are so many movies out at the moment or out over the past couple of months that I have not manged to see. Not just random stuff but things I’ve actively been looking forward to seeing (Once, Into The Wild) and I’ve just not managed it. I need to get that into order.
Oh did I mention that the full length tracks with the Heima DVD are even more amazingly beautiful than I had expected? I didn’t. Oh well they are. Truly amazing stuff.
I’d quite like a holiday. First I’d like some money for it though. I seem to be just hemorrhaging cash at the moment. Instead of getting money back from people for tickets and the like I just seem to be getting more tickets. It’s fine, it’s just it seems to be racking up at the moment. I’m not stuck for cash or anything but I’m just aware of my bank balances a little more. It would be nice to get it all back and pay off a credit card and then just carry on. It’ll happen, just like everything else it’d be nice if it happened on my timescales as oppose to anyone elses.
Oh, I’m perfectly sober now, but I really must try and remember to tick the drunk box for anytime I’ve been drinking before going on the internet. Context is king, yo!
Finally here’s a thought. You know how there is the old line that if you think you are crazy, then you probably aren’t and that it’s the ones who think they are perfectly sane that are actally crazy? Well anyway there it is if you don’t know it. I wonder if it could apply to anything else…
Increment by increment
2:00 pm Wednesday, 14 November, 2007
Last night we went to see Swimming With Sharks. It was on in the Vaudeville Theatre on the strand and I have to say that I wasn’t impressed with the venue. Aside from taking their time to deal with a drunk and loudly singing punter, it was just noisy from start to finish.
The plus side is that again, and again on a Tuesday, we got bumped up in seats. Handy to know for the future. We moved to second row of the Dress Circle during the interval and they were pretty good seats. Anyway I enjoyed it quite a bit. The cast were pretty good, I thought that the cast did a pretty good job in particular the fella (Matt Smith) playing Guy. Slater was decent and Helen Baxendale was for the most part very good. I’d tend to agree with the Guardian review that it’s a shame it descends into sensationalism at the end as it was much more enjoyable until that point. Anyway a fun evening out.
Lots of gigs coming up in the next week. First up is Ryan Adams on Friday evening, then Saturday and Sunday is Arcade Fire in Ally Pally (been a long time since I did two nights running at anything), Tuesday is Duke Special down in Bush Hall, Wednesday is Duke Spirit in 229 and then finally Friday brings Cherry Ghost in Koko. Somewhat of a mad week ahead. I’m thinking to myself that perhaps it might be a bit much but while I think that, I’m booking gigs for the first three months of next year (BSP tour in January!) and pleased to see that Colin MacIntyre (formerly known as Mull Historical Society) is finishing up that fourth album and has a London gig before the end of the year so I think I’m in for that too.
oh caveat emptor open the atoms core
1:46 pm Monday, 12 November, 2007
Alright, it’s catchup time.
Who needs an order though? Last night I was home around 8ish and I cooked some dinner (sweet and sour chicken with rice seen as you asked) and I was looking for a quiet evening of taking it very easy. So when I pickup for an almost full team for STF came along, I thought to myself it was worth a shot.
And it was, it was awesome. One of the best teams I’ve ever been one. We stumbled a little bit at the start (a quick Warburg mish for some Shivans and the first badge of the evening for me!) but when we got going, we slaughtered it. The last mish was positively easy. We had one death for Recluse and finished that bit off in about 20 minutes. It was awesome. I got 4 badges for the evening and a couple of nice drops tho nothing really worth writing home about. So I went to bed in quite a good mood.
So backing up to earlier in the week. On Wednesday evening myself and Nathan went to see !!! in Koko and it was pretty good. A few beers before hand with a couple of drop in guests was nice and then yeah I enjoyed the gig, it was just fun.
Oh and before that, on Tuesday evening we did leaving drinks for the Hatters which involved a stupid amount of cocktails but was all in all a fun evening too.
Now forward to Saturday. Well, busy enough. I spent both Saturday and Sunday afternoons helping my sister move into her flat which all went well enough.
Saturday night though was White Mischief. For various reasons, I was photography pass-less which was a shame but I had a most excellent evening. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Kunta Kinte but then right after them, British Sea Power were awesome. Really good stuff as I briefly mentioned before.
So then a little more random music, a little cabaret, a little burlesque and then home around the two o’ clock mark and into bed about thirty minutes later.
Sunday, as I said I was doing more moving. I woke up feeling like I had slept for hours and hours and I was really surprised to find my clock telling me it was 9.36. I thought it was a bit early to get up so I read for a little while before dragging myself out of bed. I was cooking some breakfast when my sister made some comment about being good to have slept for so long and lo-and-behold, I have no idea how my clock was so wrong but it was now well after 2.30 in the afternoon. No wonder I had felt like I slept so well.
Anyway into town then for a brief couple of drinks that went really well I am very pleased to say and so all in all yesterday was a pretty good day.
Today is petty tough so far. I am embroiled in paperwork and I think it’s going to continue like that for a little while. More on that at some stage down the line though.
And did you notice when you began to disappear
3:09 am Sunday, 11 November, 2007
Given that the week started with me seeing one of my favourite bands doing an acoustic set before showing their tour movie, both of which were amazing, I’m astounded at how shit a week I’ve had. I cannot remember the last one that was this bad which didn’t involve the word cancer.
And it only seems to be getting worse. I had a most enjoyable evening at White Mischief tonight. British Sea Power were their usual solid stuff, not their best but still pretty excellent. However opening with Remember Me had me from the get go. I had intended and indeed spent most of the bus ride home planning sitting down here and typing now but as soon as I got in the door, well I’m just too tired and I need to go to bed and sleep. About 48 hours worth would be nice, thank you very much!
It feels odd to be eager for Monday, especially given that this coming week is not going to be good.
Note to self, when you get up in the morning cook some breakfast. It’ll make you feel better for a moment anyway. Mmm scrambled eggs on toast.