Portishead do Butlins December 12, 2007

It’s not your standard venue for a rock festival, but those who have been to an All Tomorrow’s Parties leave with a whole new view on holiday camps.

I spent this weekend with three old and very good friends at the Portishead-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties. What a weekend.

Within hours of being out from under the guiding (some might say restraining) hands of our better halves, and upon discovering that Russell Brand had named named his first venture into the world of literature “My Booky Wook”, we were compiling a list of “people who can feck off”. Great to be back with some like-minded cynics.

The festival clips are being uploaded as-I-write onto YouTube, and I’m sure that will carry on for a few more days yet. My current favourite, embedded here, shows what went on in the smoker’s shelter for several hours on Saturday night.

Our top three acts of the weekend were Thurston Moore, Portishead and Chrome Hoof.

We were surprised about Thurston, I have to say. After Sonic Youth’s show this time last year (which was also top-notch), we had expected him to show up and give us an hour and a half of loud feedback, just to even things out a bit. He played it straight down the line, and we were bowled over by how good he and his band were.

Portishead, playing for the first time in ten years, were as stunning as you would expect them to be. A big comeback from them next year.

Chrome Hoof can be hard to describe, but I’ll try: it’s kind of Death Metal Disco Psychadelic Funk played by silver wizards with Shirley Bassey on vocals.

Sorry to say (Andrew) that Sparklehorse wasn’t up to much again. I’ve seen him do a much better show. And Jerry Sadowitz (who doesn’t want to be reviewed, but I don’t care) disappointed 5000 people by switching to play at the smallest venue possible, thus allowing only about 400 people to see his show. I don’t think there are any clips of him having a tug on stage, but I think this image is now permanently available in the mind of one of my work colleagues.

Poem of the weekend goes to John Cooper Clarke, who had us reciting hire car all the way home in our, well, hire car. Sounds a bit like Jimmy Saville, but what a hell of a guy.

Honourable mentions also to Black Mountain, Jah Shaka, Aphex Twin and Kling Klang. Anyone else who was pretty good – apologies, I probably wasn’t there.

Whilst wandering past a noticeboard, I noticed (that’s the point of noticeboards surely?) that “The Catford Scum” were there. Google says that “Catford scum does not match any documents”, but I’d be delighted to find out who the Catford scum are, and perhaps even meet them someday.

We’ve come back wondering, after a little too much flavoured vodka and pickled eggs, if it’s possible to have black pepper poisoning?

(Edited slightly on 4 Feb 08, to remove my ill-thought out potty-mouthing.  I don’t want this site to have an adult content label slapped on it, thank you very much.)

Neil Young November 26, 2007

A review by a Guardian music critic that is a shining example of why I don’t read the Guardian any more. (I find the news in the paper excellent, but their music and culture writers suck big time. ) This piece is just lazy, inaccurate journalism, from the paper that brought us headlines such as “Why we all love Robbie Williams”. ><

Keeping it Peel (well done Auntie II) October 15, 2007

My second thumbs up for Auntie Beeb is for the recent ‘Keeping it Peel’ show, hosted by Elijah Wood, which formed part of Radio 1’s 40th birthday celebrations.

I wondered just what kind of a job Mr Frodo-sir would make of this, but he did a pretty good job by saying his piece and then keeping the hell out of it.

I also suspected that the show would be made up of the usual collection of fawning megastars and insincere DJs all falling over each other to say how often they listened to his show, and how they actually really like death metal, with music from the Smiths, the Sex Pistols, a token Fall song yawn yawn yaaaaaawn.

There was a bit of the above to keep a wider range of punters happy (and I’m always happy to hear a Fall song) but there was also something of the spirit of John about the show, which made me wonder whether one or two of his old producers, or even some of his family, had been involved in it.
I think that this show must’ve been an incredibly difficult thing to put together since you’ve got to try and achieve the balance of musical integrity and limited commercial success that was the hallmark of most of the stuff that he played. Of course, the producers of the show were helped by having access to what is probably a huge archive of John’s ramblings in audio. And it certainly was great to hear him ramble once again.

When I first started to listen to Peel, I found it hard work, and I only did it because I somehow felt that it would be good for me – somewhat like reading Dickens. I wanted to hear the bands that I liked, and I didn’t have much time for the other stuff – and there was so much other stuff.

I don’t know at what point that changed, but I do know that his show became a real joy to listen too, and that he changed my attitude to music completely, over the years. In fact, I hold him partly responsible for the fact that when my friends come round to dinner they complain like hell about the music that I play and ask me what planet I am on (a fair question).

Internet radio such as Pandora and Last FM are pretty good for finding new music, but I can’t see them ever changing the way I think or making me laugh quite as much as John did. I find it sad to think that if he were here today, the fact that his show had been pushed to an unfeasibly late slot in the schedules wouldn’t have mattered to his listeners, who could ‘listen again’ whenever they wanted to. (I’m sure the old boy himself would have continued to be very disgruntled at being kept up late, though).

Anyway, with John Peel day having passed last Thursday, I thought it high time to put it on the record: I miss John Peel so damn much.

Amy Winehouse: an apology, of sorts October 9, 2007

The other week, Mrs H-to-be and I spent an evening with friends in Walthamstow, and were pleasantly woken on Sunday morning by the gentle sounds of Desert Island Discs wafting through our bedroom door.

George Michael was the guest, and I was immediately taken with his first musical choice. Possibly, it was a combination of the moment and the music that got me: lying in bed with a fuzzy head, after an evening of fine wine and good friends, snuggled up against the delectable Mrs H-to-be with warm sunlight falling on to my arm, and then this sleepy, sweet little tune coming through the door.

Anyway, I admit it.  I heard an Amy Winehouse song and I liked it.  So there.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t think that she is a media-attention-grabbing bore.

And, as a footnote, for anyone who thinks I’m going soft in my old age: listening to George Michael’s interview didn’t raise my opinion of him at all, and I will still leave the house if anyone ever plays any Wham.

Eleven cover versions September 17, 2007

In response to Andrew’s list of twenty.

In no particular order:

• Cat Power – Wonderwall *(Oasis)
• Kid Koala – Moon River (Andy Williams)
  
• Tortoise and Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Pancho (Don Williams)
• Coldcut/Irresistible Force – Autumn Leaves * (Nat King Cole)
• Barry Adamson – A fantasy bond theme (MontyNorman) **
• This Mortal Coil – Song to the Siren (Tim Buckley)
• In the Country – In my time of need (Ryan Adams)
• TV on the Radio – Mr Grieves (The Pixies)
• The Pixies – Winterlong (Neil Young)
• Nirvana – The Man who Sold the World (David Bowie)
• The Fall – Lost in Music (Sister Sledge)

Any more than eleven and I would be scraping the barrel.

*These two were pretty hard to find on the web, so this is the best I can do. The Cat Power track was from a stunning Peel session in 2000, and isn’t available to buy.

**I can’t find this one anywhere, which is a real shame. It’s a ska version of the Bond theme, and is well worth hearing if you ever get the chance.

Homefires (day one) June 11, 2007

Broken hearted at having missed one of the best ATPs in recent years, the Sandyford Two and Mrs H-to-be paid a visit to this year’s Homefires festival, and were very glad we did.

It’s billed as a festival of “quiet music”, so I was a little worried that there wasn’t going to be enough rawk to keep Mrs H-T-B happy. She largely enjoyed the day, and only misbehaved a little bit. (Sorry to the people sitting near us when that happened).

Her, and my, favourite act of the day was St Vincent. Catch her if you can, but don’t watch the YouTube video of this particular performance, because it doesn’t do her justice. At all.

I also got to meet two of my favourite pop stars: Four Tet and Nina Nastasia. I kept ending up being in the toilets at the same time as Four Tet (Kieran Hebdan) and eventually plucked up courage to talk to him. He was there with his mum and a few friends, and was just really friendly, and seemed to be enjoying the day. Nina was stood around after the show, and I just had to go and talk to her. Managed not to say anything too stupid, which I usually do in the presence of famous people (even slightly famous people). I bought her new album from her, and I was awestruck for days afterwards. Thanks Nina.

Her video does do her justice:

The Dirty Three’s ATP June 11, 2007

I was truly, truly gutted not to be at this event, having been to three All Tomorrow’s Parties (ATP) festivals in the last few years. This one was perhaps the best line up I’ve seen. For you doubters, or for those of you that haven’t heard of ATP take a look at what happened when Nick Cave came on stage this year.

I heard great things about loads of my favourite acts like Nina Nastasia, Joanna Newsom, the Magnolia Electric Company, Spacemen 3/Spiritualised, Low… I was sad to hear that Cat Power’s set wasn’t up to much though.

Now that we know that the queuing problems have been resolved, the Sandyford Three will certainly be there for the Nightmare Before Christmas with Portisheed, as they say in my part of the world.

Evenin’ May 8, 2007

No promises, but this is what I think I might write about:

• lovely food, probably cooked by Mary and me, washed down with some lovely booze
• why I hate Walker’s crisps
• my struggle to put my education to good use in the IT business
• how to wind up BT – forever
• my latest consumer campaigns
• wild and crazy music
• online gaming
• living in Bexley, which is in Kent and South-East London, strangely
• working in Lewisham (maybe)
• yogurt fights, chair racing, elephant shaped flower-beds, why mice are irresistibly attracted to me and other stories from my creatively mis-spent, but not wasted, youth.