Ingerlund

Spring.

But first, I’ll wrap up winter.  So – it’s been over a month since I wrote anything.  I think I got over that little period of ridiculous gig-attendance, and just collapsed.  But I’ve been gradually getting back into the swing of things.

Rodrigo y Gabriela – a him & her of ridiculously talented guitarists.  Check out some videos of them – it’s just annoying how stupidly good they are.  And they’ve gone and surrounded themselves with some other unbelievable talent – for example, it was the first time I thought “holy shit, that guy is ROCKIN’ that piano” – (such as the second half of this terrible quality video).

The Drums – indie pop.  Wasn’t really sure on this one, but it was at the Roundhouse – so I figured that even if it was crap, I could relax in my member’s bar.  It wasn’t crap – it wasn’t amazing either… but I don’t regret going.  Except that Boy George came out and did a song or two with them.  I guess I can now cross Boy George off my list, but he was never on the list in the first place.  But yeah, decent gig – if a bit camp.

To kick off March, I headed along to the Barbican for some “alt-country”: Lambchop.  Again – those big comfy chairs, with my sitting up the front with acres of legroom, several glasses of wine, and rather mellow tunes – threatened to send me off to sleep.  But – managed to stay awake for what was a rather good gig.  Two encores.  Extremely mellow, ‘intimate‘ gig, plenty of chatting with crowd etc.  Cool.

The following Wednesday – another old-timer, Nick Lowe.  Again – got myself a sweet comfy seat, in the wings, with a corridor of legroom.  And right next to the bar.  And enjoyed a rather good gig.  I can’t find any videos of it, but there are a couple from other dates on the tour.

The very next night – some youngsters to even things up… The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Very good – a gig which made me think about what makes a band good, or even great – as opposed to ‘alright’.  The opening bands – I listened, and then thought something was missing.  Just that extra ‘something’ which makes a band become something special.  And then these guys came on – and they had it.  Not necessarily something completely different – but “something” (“something” which doesn’t really come across in video).  And listening to them I suddenly realised how many of their songs are my current favourites… I’m quite bad at going on a binge of accruing music – so end up with trying to listen to a couple of dozen new albums, by sticking them all in a playlist on random.  Which of course means one rarely realises who is singing particular songs.  But anyway – these guys are quite good.  Hopefully they’ll be getting more widespread kudos.

Following night – Justin forced me to go see Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings.  Some awesome old-school lounge/funk/soul – or something.  With a crazy lead-singer who made a lot of young ladies happy by getting them all on stage for one of the last songs.  Great fun for a gig, and thanks Justin for dragging me along.

At some point over those couple of weeks – there’d also been a night on Bibby’s boat-community, where a couple of ladies had created a ‘pop-up restaurant’ – which I went along to with Jess, and enjoyed some good food/drinks/company/etc – while raising funds for some charity.  Pretty much your average middle-class middle-age hobby nowadays – do something you want to do, but under the banner of raising money for charity.  Not that I’m putting it down – it’s brilliant.  You get to do stuff you’d normally feel guilty about, while also finally getting around to doing that ‘charity work’ which you always promise yourself you’d do, but never get around to.  So yeah – have a dinner party but charge for it and give money to charity.  Simple.  Drive a tuk-tuk across some country you wanted to visit anyway, but raise money for it and give it to charity.  Sweet.

Anyways – leading from the pop-up restaurant evening, it was decided to do a series of dinners ourselves – but in a competitive manner.  And without the raising money.  ie: redirect the effort from helping people into competing against people.  Not sure how we arrived at that but… the idea was: Jess would cook us an 8-course dinner.  Of course, we managed to reach this decision by Bibby & myself suggesting we would later do the same ourselves.  We’ll see about that.  But yeah – Jess cooked an 8-course meal on a Tuesday evening.  Bibby & I had promised to match wines to each and every course, but we didn’t really fully follow through on that either.  But it was an excellent night – with a surprise guest Nic Whitson, and others.  We got through 8 courses – all rather good, and in total – perfectly balanced/sized.  We also got through several bottles of wine – some perfectly matched to the course, and some not so.  But all in all – an excellent evening.  And then Jess nearly burned down her apartment – and in fact did have to spend the night with all windows open, in an attempt to disperse the noxious gas from a burnt candle-holder, the fumes from which had built up in the bathroom for a couple of hours – before she opened the door to release black black smoke – which instantly filled the flat with poison.  Like a true gentleman, I made the appropriate noises and then promptly left her to deal with it.

On the Sunday – I had a ticket to the Roundhouse to see some tiny little band called Hush War Cry.  I’d never heard of them, but got the email from the Roundhouse – and tickets were £6, so I figured why not – Member’s Bar, right?  Except it turns out they were actually playing in a side-room – the Studio Theatre – with Paul Weller playing the main stage.  I got there, and tried to find my way to the Studio Theatre.  But the security kept waving me through into the main area.  And suddenly I’ve got myself into Paul Weller (tickets sold out in hours, £40 worth).  I figured I’d see if I could get into the member’s bar – while being quite happy to head off to the place I was supposed to be at if so demanded.  But I got into the bar, and settled in to watch a much more expensive and ‘prestigious’ gig.  Which was alright.  Had previously never really listened to The Style Council or The Jam – but it seemed fine.

And then, finally, The Felice Brothers.  I was supposed to see these guys last year – but they claimed to get shingles of the face or something, and delayed the gig.  And I guess that’s not something you’d make up as an excuse.  This was one of my more anticipated gigs of last year – after the very very good last album, and with the delay – anticipation had grown even more.  And it was an excellent gig.  Really very good.  Unfortunately – the only video I can find is of a cover.  It was an excellent gig – very very happy they finally made it here, and it didn’t clash with anything else.  Well done Felice Brothers – well done.

Following that up – was another very small gig at my local venue – Kindness at XOYO.  Another guy on the rise – I get the impression that this guy could be described as a ‘tortured genius’ – but only because that term has become such a trite generic term for anybody slightly good and eccentric.  This guy is probably more aptly described as an eccentric talented perfectionist nutter.  Just an impression.  Possibly because he reminded me of Darcy Clay in some way – although I couldn’t really justify that.  Anyway – a lot of effort put into the stage show, with a relatively small number of songs.  But good.  Very good – if this guy sticks around, I foresee some success.

The following night – I caught up with a couple of guys from university days, for the first time in many many years… over a decade easily.  Chris Lambert – star of the Highlander movies – and John McIntosh.  We got drunk, caught up with progress in life (them: both married, me: not so much), talked about the “good old days”, and all that one would expect from such an evening.

Which meant I was very hungover the next day – and slow-witted – and stuck in a meeting with two company directors, and therefore missed out on buying tickets to three gigs that went on sale that morning.  Jack White, Eddie Vedder, and Gossip.  Not pleased.  Bought consolation ticket to Kill It Kid for Monday evening.  And then my web hosting company somehow deleted half my emails – including the tickets to the gig.  So bought another one today.  About to head off to that now.  They had better be bloody good.

Right – so after the “multimedia orchestral-rock song cycle” The Long Count, in which I fell asleep – I saw another 10 gigs over the subsequent 10 nights.  I’ll try to recap some of that.

Friday 03rd – Eugene McGuinness, Francois & the Atlas Mountains, Trailer Trash Tracys.  Francois & the Atlas Mountains were very good, awesomely energetic (if cheesy) presence on stage.  I gather their album is getting a fair bit of attention now – I think they’ll be becoming rather successful.  This gig was my first of the HMV “Next Big Thing” series – so I was a little surprised that Eugene McGuinness was only on stage for 30 minutes – but I suspect he was expecting an encore chant which just didn’t happen.  I also discovered throughout the week that the whole series was scheduled for short sets – providing exposure for as many bands as possible.  But yeah – Eugene was short but good, perhaps a little overly happy with himself… but that’s often a prerequisite for a good entertainer.

Saturday 04th – Roots Manuva.  I took Dom along to the Roundhouse, where we spent most of the evening sitting in the Member’s Bar.  Really good show, if I couldn’t recognise the majority of the songs – even those I know – followed by my introduction into being one of those people outside venues handing out flyers.  Dom & I stood in the snow, handing out flyers for Rough Beats.  Little Nick had once told me about his experience handing out cards outside a tube station – and how the way people react to you just makes you feel like scum.  I now know exactly what he meant.  A few people would give seemingly genuine and enthusiastic thanks for being handed information on an event they would very likely enjoy – but most people do just look at you with unconcealed contempt.  To be fair – I generally tend to not accept flyers, as I believe the resources are a waste – but I will certainly now make an effort to be at least polite when I do refuse them.  Anyway, I found that by saying the word “festival” over and over, more people were likely to take one.  Eventually Dom gave into sensible misgivings about standing in the snow – and we headed off.  And stopped off at a pub for “just one or two drinks, and to say hello” – where Tony’s girlfriend was having a birthday party.  Several hours, a couple of breakdance moves, and much vino tinto later – we left.  To find queues of people for taxi companies.  So – we headed off in our respective directions, in drunken attempts to walk home.  In the snow.  Did I mention drunken?  My walk must have been at least an hour – never really sure where I was.  At one point I brought up a map on my phone – and stood there for ten minutes comparing the map in my hand – to the intersection I was standing at.  I could read the street names, I had a map, I knew that I was very good at interpreting such information and comparing to a map – but I just could not convince my brain to do what it was supposed to do.  And while I was trying to make sense out of all of this – it was still snowing – making my phone do random things as snowflakes landed on the screen.  All very confusing – but I eventually made it home, without once falling over, and somehow managing to buy grapefruit juice on the way.  Also cigarettes, strangely, but at least I didn’t fall over.

So – Sunday the 05th arrives, and I’m very hungover.  So hungover I only barely manage to convince myself to leave the house to head to the Jazz Cafe – for Juan Zelada, Julian Overden, Miss 600, and Kristyna Myles.  Kristyna was good – and offered me my first opportunity to be a “Rough Beats Ambassador“.  Sidling up to an attractive young songstress and handing her a business card for a potential gig made me reconsider my career choice, as being a talent scout really does rock.  And I was given the chance to confirm this impression with the next act – 21 year old (to the day) young lady Miss 600 – also rather good.  Although – I might have failed to sidle up to that particular attractive young lady, it was a while ago now.  Next up was Julian Overden – not an attractive young lady at all.  Rather, a very happy-with-himself crooner, seemingly angling to sing the next James Bond theme.  But very talented, although singing mostly (only?) covers – very good stage presence.  And finally – Juan Zelada, who also had very good stage presence – although where Julian was smug fake charm, Juan seemed more genuinely happily charismatic.  Anyway – another very talented chap – another Ambassador card given away, and I lurched home to try and get some sleep.

Monday 06th – a day of bluffing my way through a workday, and then heading to Borderline for Charlene Soraia, Katzenjammer, & Sweet Billy Pilgrim.  Charlene was another young attractive songstress – but also slightly crazy.  Some nice songs, interspersed with the musings of a crazy lady.  Cool.  Katzenjammer – are apparently Norwegian.  I initially wondered if this was a fake gimmick, but apparently it might be true.  Anyway – very good, and provided me with some young scandinavian ladies to present myself to, and pretend to be a talent scout.  And that’s always a good thing.  Anyway – good show, crazy talented, crazy instruments, and crazy swapping between instruments just to show off.  And then, for full juxtapositional effect, Sweet Billy Pilgrim – far from quirky/crazy.. instead very mellow but lovely tunes.

Tuesday 07th – back to Borderline… Fossil Collective, General Fiasco, & Little Comets.  Just a night of indie rock followed by indie rock followed by indie rock.  Little to no juxtaposition here.

Wednesday 08th – the barmaids at Borderline, starting to wonder if they recognised me the previous night – are now sure.  I’m that weird guy who’s stood at the end of the bar drinking red wine for 3 nights in a row.  At least I no longer need to order drinks – I just nod my head, and get my drink.  Anyway – Rae Morris, The Staves, & Lianne Le Havas.  Rae Morris – big ’80s hair, awesome voice, little casio keyboard, and oozing humility.  Talked about how it was the first time she had a ‘room backstage’, with the flowers and the food and stuff – and how her family was loving it.  Pretty cool to see somebody just fully appreciating what might be their big break – but looking at it from that point-of-view.  And she could sing.  The Staves – three sisters (I think/assume), so that took my tally of attractive young ladies I could legitimately approach that night up to 4.  The sisters could also sing, rather well.  And then Lianne Le Havas.  Could she sing?  Oh hell yes.  The first (and only, I think?) encore I saw throughout the Next Big Thing series.  And yeah – a very very talented young lady, with all the elements which should result in big things.

Thursday 09th – I didn’t go to the Borderline, or in fact the Next Big Thing series.  Instead, I went to a little place known as Ally Pally, to see a little band known as the Black Keys.  With 4 spare tickets in my pocket – which I’d paid a lot of money, and spent a lot of time and hassle to get – going to waste.  I’d actually had to travel up to the UPS depot in Kentish Town, that morning, to get the 4 tickets I’d bought via the official scalping channels for double face-price.  And then it turned out I didn’t use any of them – instead only needing the one ticket I’d swapped with Jess for the following night’s performance, as everybody who’d wanted Thursday tickets pulled out.  On the plus side, it meant I got to go by myself, and therefore just be my normal lazy gig-going self, standing at the back where people were less likely to annoy me.  And yep, good gig.  Support act was Band of Skulls – who were very loud – and who I once again thought proved that their album has had a lot of excellent production work put into it.  And the Black Keys.  I had huge expectations after their sublime gig a couple of years ago.  And although this night didn’t live up to those expectations – that is only because of how ridiculously high those expectations were.  Just a great show – a stage show based around simplicity itself, but just cool as shit.  Pretty much a perfect fit for the music, in other words.  Another snowfall came down while the gig was on, making the scene of thousands of people leaving Alexandra Palace, and streaming down the hill or queueing for courtesy buses just that little bit more bizarrely picturesque, and uncomfortably cold.

Friday 10th – sure, why not, let’s head back up to Ally Pally. Black Keys again – and no regret whatsoever regarding seeing that show twice in a row.  Tonight I had Jess, Caro&Dom with me to encourage me to actually put some effort into standing somewhere mid-crowd, rather than sulking like a hermit at the back.  It also made me listen to it as if I was new to the music – as Caro&Dom had not really listened to the Black Keys prior to this.  And listening to it through intentionally unaware ears, the guys really do sound very loud, raw, and ‘bogan’ live.  Listening to the youtube clips – that confirms my impression.  And both Caro & Dom did make remarks to that effect.  But this is the same band which I wasn’t sure about playing at work because it might be construed as too “boring”.  Anyway – point is – if you haven’t heard the Black Keys – you should.  And do not be put off by how they sound in any live videos – the albums are perfect.  Listen to them.  Buy them.  Do it.  But back to this gig – identical to Thursday in every way – down to setlist, as far as I could tell.  Which all adds up to good.  Great simple light show throughout the set – with the same mirrorball from last time suddenly making an appearance for Everlasting Light for the encore (it was spctacular at Brixton Academy, in Ally Pally – awesome), followed by a rather spectacular finale.  (The sound is crap in that last clip – but the visuals are there.  The crowd absolutely erupted during that sequence – just an overall feeling of awe).  After that gig, the four of us took a shortcut through the park through the snow – an option which none of the several thousand other people selected.  We found a deserted pub, had a couple of drinks – back to Caro&Dom’s for a final drink – then called it a night.  Not really sure how I stayed awake that long.

Saturday 11th – another big-name event, another big-name venue.  Off to the terrible shopping mall which is the O2 Arena (the Venue Formerly Known As The Millenium Dome) – to see Snow Patrol.  I’m not sure what it is, other than my leftist (if not communist) leanings, which urges me to dislike an act as soon as I find out they’re playing at the O2.  Or maybe it’s just my hidden (not-so-hidden?) hipster side fighting against supporting anything which is popular.  Or – maybe it’s just that as soon as a song is played on any television show based around a self-centred but quirky “strong-but-vulnerable” female character – I struggle to support that band any more.  It’s not rational, I know.  The bands need money.  Ally McBeal and Meredith Grey (yep – bothered to look that up) need hip up-and-coming bands to provide soundtracks to their lives.  It’s win-win.  But oh – I despair to think of all those talented musicians all of a sudden becoming popular and making money because of those terrible culturally and morally parasitic and narcissistic shows.  Hmmm… nearly ranting there.  Right – Snow Patrol.  First act – A Plastic Rose – apparently some unknown act who some guy from Snow Patrol saw in Dublin or somewhere, and invited to support them at the O2.  And they did rather well, despite techie problems meaning they played their first song with a silent bass guitar.  Which is kinda nice.  Well done Snow Patrol.  Then Everything Everything – who are just quirky and different enough (ie: original), along with talent, to probably do rather well.  Good set from them.  Then Snow Patrol.  I was still fighting my irrational urges to dislike them, despite knowing in my head they are actually rather good, just maybe too accessibly good for their own good.  And the first few songs – I felt myself succumbing to the “meh – yeah, just typical mainstream crap now”.  But mostly because I’d had such high expectations built for a stage presence.  If the Black Keys could do that, with a limited budget – then these guys, in the O2, with a huge budget, should come up with something more than lasers and spotlights.  Rather unfair – as not everybody can come up with something thoughtfully original as a stage show.  But then all of a sudden I noticed a couple of pieces of the lighting rig being slowly lowered down to hover above the stage.  Then the chap sang a duet with some lady, and their faces were shown, one each, on two pieces of oddly shaped video screens which were the pieces which had descended.  And I got a little more interested in the whole thing.  Those strangely shaped video screens started making more and more appearances – until I finally figured out there were six of them, and that when put together they formed a snowflake.  And yeah, once I figured out they’d actually put some effort into the meaningless stuff, like the stage show, I enjoyed the show quite a bit.  It helped having a great seat – at the front of a section, so I could remain lazily seated while everybody else stood to chant out lyrics in some effort to prove that they know the words to a ridiculously popular song – but still retain a view of the stage.  Hmmm – am I sounding grumpy-old-man much?  To make up for that – here’s a cutesy little moment of crowd interaction from Snow Patrol.

And then it was the final day of this gig binge – Sunday 12th.  Back to the Jazz Cafe, back to the HMV Next Big Thing series.  Liam Blake, Sam Brookes, & Jake Morley.  Liam Blake – nice indie-folk, maybe?  Gypsy folk?  Sam Brookes – similar, but with some young ladies accompanying him to prod me back into talent-scout mode.  And finally, Jake Morley – very nice – perhaps being held back by a resemblance to Jack Johnson.  But good music – and should do well.

And then a day without a gig.  Training course during the day – but nothing in the evening.  Bliss.  Dinner and wine in the bath with trash television playing on the laptop.  And another day of the same.  Although Jess tried to talk me into going to a gig – I really just couldn’t.  Wednesday I believe was some kind of non-gig-related drinks for some reason?

Thursday 16th – a thoroughly frustrating day of work, dragging (pointlessly) into the evening – before I had to head west, to Shepherd’s Bush for M83.  Good gig.  Nice happy music.  A nice way to wind down from that exhausting two weeks of gigs.  And now – nothing until Friday.  Except last night’s binge-drink session for workmate’s birthday.

So, a few gigs over the last week or two – warming up to what is about to be a marathon of them.
First off – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy at the Hackney Empire.  There had been a company meeting, followed by some drinks (including whisky tasting) earlier in the evening – and when I arrived at the venue, I was feeling very… sluggish. I arrived as some frenchman was begging to be allowed in, or to buy a ticket, or anything. I had a spare – so gave it to the poor chap. Then discovered my ticket was for the upper balconies. I made my way up hurriedly (being slightly late) – and discovered I was indeed rather high up – so much so that my blurry tired eyes really struggled to focus on what was going on. But I could hear well enough – and to be honest, the man is not exactly easy on the eyes – so probably better that I couldn’t see him properly. So I found myself a spot leaning on a railing, and listened to some indie-folk. And yeah – decent gig. Good music, not much more to say.

Two days later – another guy with a ‘nickname’… Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at the Jazz Cafe.  And again, too tired to enjoy it properly – with my thoughts running distractedly over things like how many people in the crowd looked/acted like their mothers did drugs while pregnant.  At one point, a chap I’d picked earlier as almost certainly a dealer – pushed me aside at the bar – then looked at me, and said “Sorry – I’m a c*$%.”  Without thinking, I immediately responded simply “I know.”  He laughed, and there was no “shankin’”.  Anyway – I describe that mostly to relate how distracted I was at the gig – even though it was good.  I find myself doing that at all gigs now – I’m absorbed for the first couple of songs, then the mind starts wandering.  The wine?  A 21st century attention span?  Old age?  Dementia?  I don’t know.  Although the only video I can find of ‘the Upsetter’ is of terrible quality – it really was quite a good gig.

I had the weekend off – and tried to use it to get back into some kind of routine, do some housekeeping, and catch up on sleep – with one eye on the upcoming ridiculous schedule of gigs and work.  I half-succeeded with pretty much all of that.  Except the sleep – which I nearly accomplished, and then dashed all the good work by staying up until 4am Monday morning – doing nothing but reading and a terrible cycle of “another wee dram before bed”.

On the Tuesday, it was my wee sister’s birthday.  I stayed up on the Monday night in order to give her a call – then realised the time difference is currently actually 13 hours, or 11 hours, or something – so I could have called much earlier than I did.  And when I did – I only got voicemail anyways.  Tuesday night, her birthday in local time – I celebrated the way I know she would have wanted (or maybe not).  By seeing some classic hip-hop.  GZA – in the rather small Islington Academy.  He was rather good – much better than the gig with the rest of the Clan.  Red wine and Wu-Tang – classic.  There’s a series of videos from the event here – 1, 2, 3, & 4 – but they seem to be taken from the mezzanine, and focused on the DJ rather than the rapper.  (For some shimmy shimmy ya action – start of clip 3.  In clip 4, I’m in that crowd somewhere, near the top of the screen – and no, I’m not one of the people bouncing the W symbol.)

I then had a night off (which actually turned into tapas and drinks with workmates) – and then last night was the first night in a schedule I’m really starting to regret.  11 nights in a row of gigs (although last night was not strictly a gig).  And looking at my calendar – that is followed by a 3 day training course, and then another gig.  And during that 11-day marathon – I will be be spending a week on-site at a new client, where my full wits (and patience) will be required.

But to get it out of the way – last night’s not-strictly-a-gig.  The Long Count.  Ummm… not sure how to describe it.  So I’ll plagarise:

Acclaimed rock band The National’s twin brothers Bryce and Aaron Dessner conceived The Long Count in collaboration with video artist Matthew Ritchie as a multimedia concert, which explores the ‘time before time’; the indivisible moment before creation is expressed.
Inspired by the ‘hero twins’ of the Mayan creation myth contained in the Popol Vuh – of which the Long Count calendar is an important part – the show presents a mythical song cycle of subtly interweaving guitars, solemn a capella, layered sound structures and scintillating rock.
The Dessners team up with a 12-strong ensemble featuring members of the Heritage Orchestra, surrounded by an impressive installation designed by Ritchie, and singers/performers Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) and Kelley Deal (The Breeders), plus special guest Tunde Adebimpe (TV On The Radio).

Yeah – so it was that.  I didn’t really know what to expect – but I think that the NY times summed it up the best:

The multimedia orchestral-rock song cycle “The Long Count” is theoretically about the prehistory of time, ballgames and twins. Practically, it’s about a semipopular indie-rock band with some contemporary classical-music experience not embarrassing itself in a multimedia commission with an extremely convoluted theme and text. The practical part is what you want to focus on.

Unfortunately, I was so tired that after the initial bemusement wore off, and the wine and very comfy/roomy seats took effect – I actually dozed off a few times.  This despite the fact the entire show was only a little over an hour long.  But it was pretty good.  That NY Times review really does get it right – they “didn’t embarass themselves” – which isn’t gushing praise, but in such a concept – it’s pretty good.  A lot of the crowd left very confused – I think they’d just read “The National” in the description and thought they were going to see some side-project gig.  And then got confronted with all this artsy theatre buuuulllshit (here’s the ‘trailer‘).  Me – quite pleased I went, slightly upset I was unable to appreciate the whole thing – and struggled to follow what (if any?) narrative there was – but I probably should have read up on the subject material beforehand.

Well – December has pretty much turned into just treading water, waiting for the New Year – which will hopefully provide enough symbolic ‘new beginnings’ to provide an impetus to get moving again.  Not sure if that makes sense to anybody – but I have talked to a few people who agree… we’ve had enough of this year, it’s time for a new one.  There’s not been anything particularly bad about the year – in fact it’s been rather good in a few ways – but it’s just gone on long enough.  Mostly – I’ve fallen into an apathetic hole, and am using the upcoming New Year as an excuse to not do anything about it until then.  Which just means I’m going to have to actually get up and do quite a lot in the New Year, so that I don’t fall into a guilty spiral back into inactivity.

But – what has been breaking up the monotony of December?  Since I last dragged myself up enough to type… a couple of gigs.  Firstly – DJ Shadow.  Rather an odd show – due to the stage set-up.  It was just an empty stage, with a big white background, and a big white ball – which he sat hidden away in most of the time.  But he used the background wall and the ball as projection screens – creating a rather spectacular effect, especially when the whole 3D nature of the projection space was used cleverly.  And once in a while, the ball would spin around – showing him inside on “his decks”.  All in all – it sounds rather boring, just a stage with a big ball on it – but his lighting/display/video guy used it to spectacular effect.  There’s a series of clips on youtube, showing the whole gig – which show the visuals quite well, but the audio is utter shite.  Which is a shame – because he was rather good.

I then had nearly a week off of gigs, but not off work – instead working on a new client, spending about a week of waiting for the client to get all the things ready that I’d asked to be ready before I wasted their money by being on-site.  Oh well – it’s their money.  Oh – and over that time, I also decided on several occasions to NOT stay up overnight watching cricket, because it was obvious that NZ was going to get thrashed by the arsetralians.  Which was the correct choice considering I had to go on-site at a client the next mornings, but the wrong choice considering the eventual result.  Oh well.  Now I can get my hopes up, and stay up all night while watching South Africa thrash us.

Next gig was one which I went to only to see the smallest support act.  HMV is doing a series of gigs in February – 11 nights in a row, of their picks for the “Next Big Thing” – £10 per gig.  The first one I checked out on youtube, and decided to go see – was We Are Augustines.  But it turns out they’re playing on the same night as the Black Keys, which I already have tickets for.  But – I saw they were playing support for some shitty rock radio station’s “Winter Wonderland” event.  So – I got tickets to that, and headed off extra early to be there in time to see the very first support act.  Which of course meant scoffing down junk-food on the way, getting there at 6pm, and then essentially spending 6 hours at a bloody gig drinking red wine.  And regretted that pretty quickly.  We Are Augustines were fine, but re-affirmed my initial impression from their videos – slightly too earnest young rock’n’rollers – bordering on cringeworthy.  If they were from any other country, I’d think that was fine – they’ll grow up, become cynical, their music will become better, and yay – more good music for the world.  But these guys are american – I suspect they’ll grow up, become more earnest and self-important, and start churning out earnest well-meaning soft-rock.  Anyway – I’ll shelve my cynicism and enjoy them for now.  Meanwhile, back at Brixton Academy – loud obnoxious radio DJs (are there any other kind?) – came and went, introducing each band.  Next up was the Tribes – which I don’t really remember much of.  I guess they were fine, but forgettable?  I’ll check them out this afternoon on youtube.  After that – Band of Skulls – who of course I’d already seen this year.  I’m thinking maybe even more than once – but maybe I’m mixing up that I’ll be seeing them supporting the Black Keys, twice, in February.  And they’ve got their new album out now – so it was pretty much a set of all new songs, with only one or two of their old crowd-pleasers thrown in.  Then it was the Maccabees – whose name I’d heard a fair bit, but haven’t really listened to.  They were fine, and I’ll have to listen to a bit more of them.  I think the Horrors were also supposed to play, but they pulled a sickie.  And then the headliners – Kaiser Chiefs.  I’ve never really bought into the hype around the Kaiser Chiefs overly much, although I do understand that they are rather good.  So – I should have enjoyed it, but by this stage the Academy was packed full of young people – young people who listen to a rock station named XFM – and I was tired, old, many wines down, and cantankerous.  I slipped out before the Kaiser Chiefs’ encore in order to avoid the rush, and slunk off home for a good ol’ nap.

And those were the last gigs of 2011.  It will be time to draw up a “Best-of-2011″ some time – but in 2012, when I’m all re-energised.

Other than that – on the evening of the 24th, I stayed up very late, watching the entire Die Hard series, and chatting with family over this new internet jobbie.  Spent an hour or so just watching the niece and nephew over internetcam – which was awesome.  And eventually headed off to bed about 4:30am – having been reminded how tangential the downhill slope of those Die Hard movies really was.  And on the 25th, slept in, before heading North with half-a-dozen bottles of wine in my arms.  Eventually found a taxi, and went to visit Caro’n’Dom & Malachy.  And then a day of board games, roast lamb, wines, chit-chat, and a stroll up to Alexandra Palace.  And then an evening of wines.

And now – back at work, in a deserted office, killing time until 2012.  Not having even organised anything to do in order to welcome in the New Year.  It is looking like the least eventful New Year’s Eve since high school days.

Right – so after I foolishly did a hungover-still-slightly-drunk edit to last week’s post, I’ll try to make up for that with an ultra boring sensible post.  “Try” being the key word there.

Firstly – the one gig I made it to in the last week or so.  Das Racist – some alternative hip-hop.  If you’re open-minded about music, you should definitely check these guys out.  They’ve become popular because of their slightly gimmicky ‘joke-rap’ songs, and accompanying videos – but they are also actually really freakin’ talented, with a fair bit of ambition thrown in.  In fact, their best known song is probably their worse.  So yeah – it was pretty sweet to see them in a tiny venue – XOYO – just around the corner from my place.  Every gig I’ve seen there has had their ‘visuals’ limited to some smoke machine, and usually not too much of that – as the place is just too small.  But these guys had a full on light-show, with the backwall covered in images/videos, and all that.  And yeah – good show, with the crowd being an odd mixture of geeks there for the “joke” rap, homeboys there for the “proper” rap, and me – there for the good music.  Yeah – something like that.

The following night – I had tickets to Thurston Moore at Union Chapel, which I was really rather looking forward to.  I also had my work’s end-of-year dinner/party (known to some as “the Christmas Party”).  I left work in time to avoid the giving of gifts/etc – headed home, and got changed into my “lounge suit”.  I then headed back into town, to the “lounge” where we had drinks and dinner, while everybody enthused over my suit.  I really have to stop dressing so well – I get tired of compliments so easily.  Anyway – I took my tickets to Thurston with me, hoping to slip away at some point.  But – I got caught up in it all – a good dinner, free drinks, etc… and ended up missing the gig.  Instead I got drunk enough to ignore my promise to myself to not bring up the prospect of a payrise with my boss while drunk.  I knew I was going to do it – and had desperately tried to do it during the two previous days while at work – but had failed.  So – as was always destined – I instead did it in the midst of a drunken conversation with one of the company owners – how unprofessional is that?  But, it seemed to go well, as his response was “of course, yeah”.  I now just need to follow up while we’re both sober.  Or maybe – organise more drinks, and have some paperwork handy next time.  Anyway – more drinks were had, I did some breakdancing, drank plenty of wine – and eventually left everybody when the decision was made to go to a casino.  I don’t do casinos.  (The list of illegal stuff I’m fine with is rather long – but gambling… that’s where I have to draw my moral line in the sand.  Go figure.)  I think I got a bicycle rickshaw home.

And woke up the next morning with my first “proper” hangover in quite some time.  And proceeded to half-drunk-half-hungover babble all over this website.  And then crawl off back to bed, and spend the rest of the day alternately stumbling about trying to eat, drink, and sleep.  (And came very very close to whim-purchasing flights back to NZ/Aus for the 25th/31st respectively.  I was actually seriously considering flying out, landing in NZ on the morning of the 25th, spending a couple of days, flying to Melbourne or Sydney on the 31st, having a party, and then flying back to London on the 2nd.  Stupid hangover urge.)

Books – I think I was reading Pigeon English, by Stephen Kelman, at the Das Racist gig, and it has somehow lasted most of the week.  Quite good – even though – or actually because of – it’s rather gimmicky premise.  More qualified, if not better, people than I have called this book “overhyped”.  Perhaps it is – but probably because of this, it was quite welcome in the middle of all the other Man Booker nominees I’ve been reading.  It’s just trying so hard to be “literature” – that it perhaps pushes a little too far, but instead of becoming overly pretentious – actually becomes just bad enough to enjoy while being good.  I realise that makes little to no sense – but I can’t be bothered trying to explain it any further.  Essentially – a story written from the viewpoint of a 11-year old boy, in the middle of immigrating right into the middle of London’s much-publicised knife-crime.  So yeah – the expected attempt at a poignant mixture of wide-eyed innocence – facing normal childhood experiences, along with gangs.  And then just randomly throw in a mystical connection to a pigeon – seemingly just to justify the title.  Odd.

Oh – and I was also supposed to see the Felice Brothers on Tuesday – which was possibly one of my most eagerly anticipated gigs of the month.  But then one of them went and got facial shingles, or so they claim – and that’s been postponed until March.  Which has resulted in rather a quiet month – most welcome.