Gigs

“Micheal Kruse is a riot as an homeless man who insinuates himself into the household of…”

Right – that’s a bit of an in-joke, but to anybody who has read the NZ Skywatch synopsis of the Nick Nolte/Bette Midler classic – yes, I’m homeless.  And I’ve managed to crash at a lovely generous couple’s place.  But no – I didn’t nearly drown in their pool.  And to those who haven’t seen Down & Out in Beverly Hills – don’t bother googling for the quote I’m referring to – it seems the only use of it on the internet, ever – was actually by myself.

Moving on… moved out of Balham on Saturday.  Which mostly served to remind us that another year of our life had passed.  And also made me officially homeless.  So – moved some stuff into a storage place, and then took the essential stuff with me to crash in the spare room at Caro’n’Dom’s place.  Which they kindly agreed to, despite my asking only 4 days prior.  Not much notice at all – and when I arrived, I discovered they were also midway through repainting their lounge – so they’d already lost one room, and I was about to lay claim to another.  So – very very generous of them.  Anyway – after I’d seperated all my stuff into “will need over the next 2 or 3 weeks” – and “won’t need until move into my own place” – I figured, the two sections should really be titled “stuff I need” – and “stuff I don’t need”.  And realised that I have once again started accumulating ‘Stuff’.  Which I shouldn’t do – it’s just dead weight.  I daydream about getting rid of all stuff – and going proper homeless for a while.  But am a coward, and like some of my Stuff.  So will just look forward to my next backpacking-type trip as a proxy.

So – moving out of Balham has been the main event of the last couple of weeks – but also managed to squeeze a couple of gigs in.  Shapeshifter, all the way from Aotearoa – played a great gig, with Tiki Taane fiddling the knobs and what-not.  Although Justin & I spent the whole gig glancing with contempt at the young kiwi kids which comprised the vast majority of the crowd.  How DARE they be so fresh-faced and naive?  Not like us hardened embittered London veterans.  Meanwhile, Bibby had lost us within 2 minutes of entering the venue – and I believe spent the entire gig right up the front dancing around with the young ‘uns.

And next on the agenda was the Black Keys.  I had bought 4 tickets for this – and 4 tickets were exactly what I had in my pocket when I arrived at Brixton Academy.  For some reason I’ve decided to not sell tickets to scalpers anymore – so I entered the venue with 4 tickets in my pocket.  And thought about taking up smoking again, just so I could leave the venue, have a cigarette, and then re-enter with another ticket.  Thumbing my nose at the “no-reentry” policy.  Really sticking it to The Man.  Full-on rebellion.  But – I didn’t.  Instead, I stood at the back, supping on my red wines – feeling rage at the age of the majority of the crowd.  These are only kids!  How do they even know of these guys, one of my favourite bands?  I then defended them in my head, by thinking that they are actually a fairly new band – and that maybe these kids had more right to be here than me – the old creeepy guy standing in the shadows at the back.  But… NO – the Black Keys have been around nearly 10 years!  These kids were still learning the primary colours when the Black Keys first came out.  How dare they stand in front of me, with their youthful good looks, smooth skin, full heads of hair?  Little shits.  And that argument, of course, won in the end – so I glowered at these kids from my shadow in the back – while the Black Keys put on a bloody good show.  Really really good in fact.  I can’t remember if I’m missing some gigs from my memory just now – but I would rate the Black Keys as maybe just below Grinderman as regards the best of this year’s gigs.  And I do mean “maybe”.  And “just”.  And all the rest of it, I guess.  But – good stage visuals.  Simple, but strong – hence super effective.  Good music – great sound and just enough impromptu to make a good live show without becoming meandering noise.  And – the best use of a disco ball I’ve ever seen.  To be fair – until then I’d considered every use of a disco ball as being terrible.  But this was good.  So – the best.  And – a backing band which only came out to play the stuff from the new album – so usually it was just the two of them on-stage.  And this reminded me – both these guys & the White Stripes are essentially 2-man bands – yet have made some of my favourite music of the last decade.  Hope more people follow the example – and use actually good writing, and simplicity – to create sweet sweet music.  Oh – and the Walkmen opened – and I was keen to see them too, so that was sweet.  A pretty stock standard rock gig – but can’t expect much more from a supporting slot.

That’s all for now.  Got a couple of gigs coming up – the National, and then the Arcade Fire – both occurring around the time I am hopefully moving into my new place.  So – another hectic few days coming up at some point.  And before then – I’ll be spending my evenings entertaining the small Caro-Dom offspring – Malachy.  I spent last night reading a book to him – but pointing out how the book was wrong about some things.  You should NOT touch the octopus.  You should NOT touch the tiger.  And I guess you can touch the helicopter – but not the top bit.  What are these books trying to do?  The octopus is a clever, tricksy, dangerous creature.  In a way – it’s like 8 snakes, with a giant brain attached, yeah?  Not cool.  And tigers – yeah, cute and all – but essentially a big cat with attitude.  And cats are generally moody little brats.  So yeah – touch a tiger, but if it bares it’s teeth, or looks annoyed in any other way – get out of there.  Or – follow my example, and just find yourself one or more tiger cubs.  Drugged and sleepy, if possible.  All in all – don’t anybody worry, I’ll be setting Malachy on the right path, regardless of what these irresponsible books suggest.

Okay – it’s now October, a month which is represented in numerals as double-digits.  However – September was still a single-digit month.  And it was in September that I first noticed some disturbing signs.  Chook came home, claiming to have seen evidence of decorative lights being installed on streetside telegraph poles.  But – there was the possibility that these were for some local festival.  And then I go to our local supermarket – where they have on sale… jeebersmas puddings and advent calendars.  Okay – I have long been sick of the backlash against the backlash against the backlash against…. etc etc … against jeebersmas.  And the whole “they start putting up decorations earlier every year” – and all that.  But – I honestly believe I have never seen advent calendars for sale in bloody September before.  And that’s all I’ve got say on that subject – hopefully until next August.

So – it seems that once again I’ve neglected to “tell the world about the trivia in [my life]” for over a month, which should keep Geoff Boycott happy at least.  But for anybody who likes to pretend to be interested – it seems that when I last babbled, it was immediately prior to several events.

Firstly – dinner with Lyn Ward & beau at The Ivy, followed by Oliver.  Both of which were pretty good.  Food at The Ivy was pretty much what you’d expect – no more, no less.  Fairly good food, fairly expensive prices, fairly attentive staff.  So – a fairly pleasant experience overall.  And then Oliver.  It was my first show, despite having been in London for quite a while now – and I wasn’t disappointed.  I didn’t really know what to expect – but the singing, acting, dancing etc – pretty good.  But the set(s) – that was amazing.  I was impressed – and I very rarely admit to being impressed.  As soon as the underground set was somehow presented to us – wow.  Anyway – was rather tired by the end of the evening – and left Lyn & John with not much of a farewell, realising later that I probably wouldn’t see them again until I next visited NZ.

But I needed my sleep – as the next night was Secret Cinema.  A kind of immersive cinema experience.  Except that sounds remarkably wanky.  So – best way to describe it – is to describe my personal experience, I guess.  I knew the whole concept is to go somewhere and watch a movie – but you don’t know what the movie is beforehand.  We had been told only that we should arrive at Alexandra Palace dressed as bedouin, or arab, tribesmen.  Tribes-people.  So – we did.  And on the walk from the train station to the actual Palace complex – we passed camels, donkeys, soldiers hiding in the undergrowth, dancing girls, etc – and a general theme of tribesmen coming together for a war or some such.  At this point, I think all doubt that the movie would be the obvious choice – Lawrence of Arabia – had disappeared.  Then – we entered Ally Pally itself – and the initial foyers were set-up with desks, pool tables, etc – with dozens of people dressed in colonial english army uniforms – hustling about pretending to be busy.  I got pulled aside by somebody claiming to document the “new arrivals” – and had my photo taken.  And then some other ‘english officer’ turned his nose up at us, and loudly said that he was off to the officers mess, as there would be “better company”.  etc etc.  All quite well done.  Then – entered the first hall – which was more of the bedouin side of things – live music with belly dancers (some complete with snakes – why why why?) – backgammon boards, cushions, etc.  There was also a sideroom which had walls painted as the desert horizon, the floor had been covered with sand, and had a guy riding a camel around in it.  And eventually – we entered the main hall, where there was a little show put on of Lawrence arriving and speaking to the four tribal leaders – and then we watched the movie – lying down on cushions we’d liberated from the previous hall.  And a long, long time later – managed to catch the last train back into London.  Definitely keen for more Secret Cinema events, I think.  Here is the official footage of the one we went to – but there are plenty of others there too.

I think the next event after Secret Cinema was Modest Mouse – with a pair of Osbornes.  That was pretty good too.  Excellent live show, in fact.  I think some expectations had been lowered after Wu Tang – but with Modest Mouse, considering the music can be quite “noisy” even when produced and tweaked for an album – the live show was extraordinarily audible, or understandable, or something.  Where’s my vocabulary gone?  What’s the equivalent of ‘legible’ for audio?  Audibly legible?  Anyway – I could undertand lyrics, recognise songs – and both the light show and band’s theatrics were manically understated, fitting the music perfectly.  If that makes any sense.  If it does make sense to you – I suspect you might be crazy.

And then there was King Kapisi.  That was also rather good.  A very small venue – but a very energetic and chatty Kapisi.  Good, no-nonsense Aotearoa Hop-Hip show – followed by somehow being in the bar after closing time – and Kapisi walking into the toilet and having a urinal-chat with me.  Which somehow continued until we left the urinal – and I was standing uncomfortably in the middle of a near-deserted bar, while Kapisi gave me life advice.  Chris, as we dispensed with his royal title early on, did get me to admit that “I run that shit”.  He forced me to give myself big ups.  And eventually – I managed to sneak away, leaving the King Kaps to move on and spread his goodwill and cheer onto the next person needing an ego-boost.  Unfortunately, I squandered my newfound self-confidence extremely quickly – spending the next 24 hours tearing down all that nasty self-respect, and turning up at work on Monday in a sorry sorry state.

Which lasted all week – until Ben returned from Europe – and, quite accidentally, Friday night turned into a repeat of the previous Saturday.  But – I hade to pull myself together on Saturday – for Saturday night I went to Grinderman.  Which – I didn’t really know what to expect.  Partly because I was still so dopey from the previous night.  But – Nick Cave woke me the hell up.  Without a doubt, the best gig I’ve been to this year.  Read my comments on the Modest Mouse show above, but remove the ‘understated’.  The music, the band, the light set-up – all absolutely manic.  Pure, raw energy – with Nick Cave running around the stage, leaning into the crowd – and generally terrifying the poor guys who had to make sure that everything on stage was where it is supposed to be.  Because after Nick Cave ran through – nothing was where it used to be.  Every minute, somebody would be crawling out onto stage, to untangle the mic cord from where it had somehow been wound theree times around an amp; or retrieving a mic stand from where it had been thrown – or putting the keyboard back on it’s stand.  Absolute madness.  And once again, somehow ended up being in the midst of the after-party – which had warm beer.  Terrible terrible warm beer in plastic bottles.  But – hung around for a short time – and Jess got a hug from Nick , before I shook his hand and congratulated him on a fine performance.  And then bolted for the door before he could sneer at me, which I’m sure is what would have been next.  I can’t imagine Nick Cave convincing me that I actually run that shit.

And that’s been the last month.  Coming up – not much.  Probably heading to Egypt next week – so may be another month before I write.  But – I expect that anybody still reading this only check it monthly now anyway.

Oh – and I’m writing a technical whitepaper to be published soon.  Maybe I’ll post a copy of that up here too.  Just to prove that I can write something even more boring, if I put my mind to it.  I need some ideas for a title by the way.  It’s kind of about using Oracle RAC to accomplish server consolidation – rather than the usual de facto method of virtualisation.  Ideas?

So – it’s been over a month since I last purged the minutae of my life onto this page.  There must be lots to catch up on, right?

Well – all I can think of is that I’ve started trying to see more live music.  But – August was a terrible month to begin – and the only things I managed to see were: Don McGlashan (small venue, but perfect really); The Herbaliser (didn’t know what to expect – but really good show, and amazing venue); The Black Seeds (yet again – but always good, had a few drinks with Barnaby before the show again – so can claim to be one of those “I’m-with-the-band” dicks); and the Wu-Tang Clan (terrible show – but had to do it).  Actually, once I started listing those out – there were more than it feels like.  Some of those must have been in July, and maybe even before the previous post – as I’m sure I haven’t seen anything for weeks.

But – I’m thinking the next update I write will probably consist of a series of reviews.  For I’ve got lined up:

• Tonight – dinner at The Ivy, followed by Oliver – with Lynette Ward & Her Man
• Tomorrow – Secret Cinema (look it up on YouTube – the clues I’ve got thus far are that we have to dress as Bedouin – and something about rebellion/uprising.  I’m thinking Dune?) – with Justin, Marty, & the cool kids
• 8th – Modest Mouse – with Ben, and hopefully 2 others – otherwise I am once again selling tickets at a huge loss to dirty scalpers
• And then there’s nothing booked until October – and actually, looking at my spreadsheet (yes – I have a spreadsheet) of upcoming gigs, not much interesting happening until October.  What is it with August/September & live music?  Too many festivals – preventing real gigs?

Anyway – that’s all that’s been happening.  Possibility of some travelling soon, but also possibility of work being very demanding, and taking itself far too seriously for my own good.  Publishing “whitepapers” and what-not – including research at a data centre in Farncombe, a much longer commute than normal.  The timing of everything at the moment is terrible.  One project I’ve got on my plate, they keep giving me false-starts – so I cancel any plans making plans of travelling to cater for it, then it gets postponed at the last moment.  Not cool.  And another one which may start at any time – and I definitely want to be available for the start, as it’s a project I want to do.  And yeah, now this whole writing a whitepaper thing – which is rather a priority for the company, and which may mean any request for a week or two off might be prioritised fairly low.  But – we’ll see how we go.

Yep – reliving my youth.  First – went back to university.  Had to work though – and it was during summer break, so no (or very few) young girls walking around.  Oh well.  Three days working for Brunel University – which just happens to be on the opposite side of London.  I think my new employers are testing my limits.  I was originally scheduled to be there for four days – but finished the job within one.  Decided to go back the second day, and do it again.  Then – the actual work got changed a little, and it stretched out to the third day – when I made a silly little mistake which cost another day.  Eventually finished late on the third day – hopefully keeping the client happy because it was cheaper than they thought – and keeping my company fairly happy – because I only stiffed them out of one day’s payment, not three.

And that set up Friday to be a half-day.  So, at lunchtime Friday – went and picked up a rental car, and had my first experience of driving through central London.  Good fun – especially navigating from a printed off Google Maps driving directions sheet.  And it turned out I had to pick the car up from a slightly different place – throwing my directions all out.  Managed to do it though – and got back to Stratford safely.  Packed the car with some stuff, and headed off North with Pen.  Now – we did pack the car with SOME stuff, just not all of the stuff we should have.  The tent – that’s one thing not packed.  We realised this after some time – but couldn’t be bothered going back.  So – drove up to Yorkshire, hoping that somebody would have a spare one, or we could buy one on the way.  All else fails – we’ve got a car, and a hammock.  But surely – everybody carries a spare tent with them?  Turns out – Caro&Dom do indeed.  And we discovered the best way of putting up a tent.  Forget yours – ask for a spare one, and it will be already put up for you when you arrive.  Sweet.

So – after several hours of driving, and listening to some sport called cricket – we arrived at Rough Beats 2008.  For those of you who don’t know what this is – it’s a music festival organised by Dom & family.  I gather the musicians play for free.  Most of the workers are volunteers.  All in all – a good atmosphere.  So, we got there Friday night – listened to a little music, and drank some quick beers to catch up with all of those who’d been there all day.  Watched Chook trying to be a barman – and then jumped over to help him when it got a little busy later on.  Worked the bar until closing, and then had chats with those left at the bar.  Went to sleep at dawn or so.

Next day was my big day.  My task for the weekend was to make and sell Bloody Marys.  Turned out we were going to do this from the main bar – so I got the key for that, and started setting up the bar.  And then, when the liquor licence kicked in – started selling booze again.  Bloody Marys went down a treat.  Stayed behind the bar all day, and then night fell.  Busy busy bar – as people started running out of whatever booze they’d brought themselves.  And then we started to run out.  Cidar went early in the day.  Then the beer brands started dropping off.  I started getting exhausted – mostly due to the fact I didn’t have enough time to be drinking myself, I believe.  Feet were killing me.  So – stocked the bar with everything I could find in the big fridge-trailer, and left Chook & Caro to deal with what looked like becoming the hardest part of the day.  People already drunk, demanding booze, while the booze is drying up.  I found some of my own beer in my tent – and put that behind the bar too.  Gone very very quickly.  Then I left – with the bar dry of beer, very very low on mixers, out of rum, out of tequila, and very busy.  I gather they were selling “your choice of spirit with apple juice” at the end, and then “your choice of straight spirit”.

Anyway – managed to get to bed about 1am I think.  About 12 hours actually behind the bar – with another couple of hours before/after doing oddjobs.  Pretty tired.  And then, of course, the sun decided to come out the next morning.  Why somebody doesn’t come up with a reflective tent – I don’t know.  Instead, tent manufacturers seem to be moving in on the oven industry.  I came up with the idea of an entire tent made of solar panels.  They can apparently print/spray solar panels onto any material now.  Tent automatically becomes cooler, plus you’d have a power point.  Probably rather bulky to pack up – but pretty cool.

Anyway – packed up Caro&Dom’s tent – and discovered a very long carving knife hidden underneath it.  Strange.  Then – headed to the local township, and had lunch at the local pub.  Lamb Henry for me – delicioso.  And then the rain came – just in time so that I didn’t feel too bad about leaving.  (I didn’t realise the music was on all day Sunday too.)  So – into the car, and headed back towards London.  Extremely tired – but listening to that sport again (I’m sure it’s called cricket) kept me awake, as my despair grew listening to our lacklustre team fall apart.  Never mind – I don’t even know what cricket is – rugby’s the only sport anybody’s interested in – and the right team won that over the weekend.

Got back to London on Sunday evening, with the help of sports radio, coffee, and my new work phone’s internet ability (I’d forgotten to get directions back home before leaving).  Beer, buffet, bath, bed.  And back to work, a broken wreck of a man.

 Oh – and I forgot to mention how Portsmouth was.  Well – that’s understandable.