Return to sender

And when it gets to the sender I would really appreciate it they take me off their mailing list because I haven’t asked them to send this stuff incessantly, in fact all I ever did was bought some soap for my girlfriend off their website without even a mention of entering into some kind of life long buddy-buddy marketing relationship when I actually really hate nearly all forms of marketing, especially those kinds that still don’t stop even when you email and ask for it to stop.

I’m really going off Lush.

I’ve been a fan since I first heard Young Team four years or so ago (it’s my loss that it took me that long to discover them). Mrs H had never heard of them.

It was our second trip to Brixton Academy this month, following a Band of Horses gig that was very well received by the majority of the crowd, but got only a luke-warm review from us. I was sincerely hoping that Mogwai were going to impress Mrs H, and help us to kick start our 2011 gigging season.

The support act were The Twilight Sad from Glasgow. They looked like lads playing a gig in a pub, and looked more than a little overwhelmed by the occasion. This endeared them to us a lot. They got into gear pretty swiftly,  channelling any nerves that they had into a very tasty wall of  sound that surely met the challenge set down by this glorious venue.

Mogwai are kindred spirits of theirs. They mooched on stage in a pretty unassuming and humble way, saying “Hello, we are Mogwai from Glasgow”. As I said before, we like that kind of thing.

The set was bigger, there were more twinkly lights and a bit of smoke, and they were obviously much more comfortable with the large crowd than their fellow weegies. I’d warned Mrs H that there would be very few words during the gig, and probably no singing. Despite that, Mogwai kept up the pace with constantly changing tempos and complex tunes. Only once did I become aware of the old loud-quiet-loud-quiet trick, such was their level of mastery these days . (That was when they played ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ as an encore. Mrs H dropped off during a quiet bit, and nearly wet herself when they finally unleashed hell at the end of the song).

Extremely good in parts, though there were a few lulls where my attention wandered a little. We left with a proper gig feeling, which is what should happen.

7/10

Things got a little busy on the work front around that time. And then came a year or so of wedding planning. It was all worth it.

Anyway, I feel the need to write and be social again.  This is what is on my mind these days:

• music (always)
• beer – I’ve started making my own again
• the web

See you in a bit.

Sol Seppy ‘The Bells of 1 2′: Mrs H-to-be and I saw this band supporting Sparklehorse last year (or was it the year before?) and they upstaged him. I’ve been listening to them on Last FM and have been hooked by a couple of their songs, and thought it would be a good thing to play when friends with more middle-of-the-road tastes come to dinner. It probably is, but I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t say for sure. It hasn’t stood up to much serious solo listening though – it’s a bit too lightweight, and the lyrics are sometimes saccharine-drenched. Some decent pop tunes though, and a singer with a very emotive voice.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy ‘Ask Forgiveness’: My mate Jim gets annoyed with Mr Oldham for messing around too much in between proper studio albums and doing too many cover versions. He’d probably hate this then. It’s an almost solo, acoustic EP. It’s ok I guess, but I’ve tired of it quite quickly. Danzig’s “Am I Demon” and a cover of R Kelly’s “World’s Greatest” are the stand out tracks for me. As always, there is a diverse range of songs on here from many genres. I was interested to see that he’s covered a Bjork song from the film ‘Dancer in the Dark’, but it’s a wee bit dour.

Neil Young ‘Chrome Dreams II’: I had a go at a Guardian critic a little while ago on this blog for his review of this album. He really liked the 18-minute epic ‘Ordinary People’. I think it sucks. It sounds like it was written in his 1980s Reagan-supporting days, and is a tedious, way overlong, stadium rock song. It’s got saxophones and a brass section in it, and not in a good way.  Thankfully, Mr Young redeems himself with many other songs on this album, his best since Greendale.  (I don’t go with the general media view that Living with War and Prairie Wind were good albums).  My particular favourite is his song to his late producer and mentor, David Briggs ‘No Hidden Path’.  Now that has a proper Crazy Horse sound to it, and when you hear it, you know he’s moving closer to the source.

It’s still a couple of weeks until payday, so I’m back onto Last FM and Pandora to get some new tunes.

Listening to the predictable uproar from owners and sellers of such vehicles, I could not help but notice that not one of them was able to justify their stance in anything other than selfish terms.

Firstly, and on a positive note, my hat goes off to fellow, much more productive Bexley blogger Duncan Borrowman for leading the charge against Mr. Conway.  I wish his campaign every success.

And, well, go on then, hats off to Derek Conway too.  It’s been ages since we’ve had a really decent political sleaze scandal.  The Tories really know how to do it in style.

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.)

After several pints of Proper Job (highly recommended) I made some, possibly foolish, promises about my future work at Greenwich.  (All in good spirit, you understand,  and only things that will improve the reputation of the council if I deliver them).  I’m not going to repeat those promises here – those you of that heard them, and remember them, can remind me if you think I’m slipping.  That’ll teach me to make promises when in beer.

A really good night all-in-all, where, as a newcomer, I was made to feel very welcome.

Lewisham has been a good place to work, I don’t mind saying. It’s well organised, and as an organisation, it knows where it is going, and what it is trying to achieve. I certainly felt that it was clear what I was expected to do to achieve those aims.

There are some fabulous people there: some real characters, some incredibly talented people, some hard workers (who I am always in awe of) and some who have been just really good to share an office with. (Plus some who are a mixture of all of these).

Not everything is perfect, and there are times when I didn’t like some things about the job – but you’ve got to expect that wherever you go, haven’t you?

For my part, I think I’ve left the parts of their website that I looked after in much better shape than before; I’ve helped to solve many technical issues; and I’ve certainly been able to make many suggestions on the strategy for improving and maintaining the site. It’s to Lewisham’s credit that senior managers do actually listen to us groundlings (sometimes).