Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Backstreets – coming to The Windmill, Brixton, soon!


Ok, so I’m plugging this everywhere else at the moment, so I should probably stick it up here too… Next Friday (2nd March), my friends over at Rockbeatstone.com are throwing a party at The Windmill in Brixton (and I’m carrying the bags).

Should be a great night. The Windmill is the kind of down-and-dirty venue with a beer-encrusted floor that you can’t help but have a good night in. The bands we’ve got lined up look great (Adam from The Tailors is definitely going to be worth turning up early for, and Elks used to be Sojourner Fleet, who’ve been on here before).

We’ll be playing some music after the bands come off, hopefully to inspire some ass-shaking, but at the very least some more boozing… So, if you’re in the area, come along.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Guillemots @ Brixton Academy


Funny band, the Guillemots. Incredibly cool, transnational wig-out genius, known for such Beta Band-esque tricks as using a typewriter on stage and taking a power drill to their guitars. But also in possession of some of the most up-their-own-arse fans this side of a Jethro Tull gig. But then if you call a song 'Trains from Brazil', I guess you're always going attract accountancy wankers with dreams of far off climes and long hair.

As ever the band produced the goods, and for the last night of their tour still seemed pretty energetic. Just a shame the crowd were dead from the neck down. Maybe they should stop being the critics darlings for 2 minutes and build up some real fan base. Or maybe I should stop being so judgemental. But I kind of prefer the first option...

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Magic Numbers @ Kentish Town Forum


The return of the happiest beard in show business... There's just no way you can stand through a Magic Numbers gig without smiling incessantly. At least that's what I thought, until I'm stood there with the grumpiest accountants in North London. As ever the tunes were uplifting and got the on-the-spot line dancing in full swing, but some of the crowd just refused to relax, leaving me going nuts surrounded by the arms-crossed brigade. Still, the new tracks were great, and the hour and 45 minute performance covered plenty of b-sides and fun as well as the singles you'd expect... Just a shame some people take the beards so seriously.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Web 2.0 turns out to be bullshit: No one surprised.

If, like me, you often find yourself drowning in the vacuous tautological truisms of interactive media (or even getting paid to spout them yourself), this website might be a godsend.

Sample meaningless expressions include:

reinvent viral value
syndicate dynamic podcasts
capture embedded ecologies
tag peer-to-peer networking

Or my favourite:

disintermediate user-contributed synergies

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Soundtrack to your Valentine’s Misery

Happy Valentine’s. No, seriously, hope you’re having a good day. I’m having a reasonably ok one, and am far from the depths of despair that the title of this post might suggest.

That said, I was woken up this morning by the most beautiful, mournful, heart-wrenching song I’ve ever heard, which seemed perfectly appropriate on Valentines Day. It was ‘I Want You’ by Elvis Costello. There’s something about the middle section that is so shot through with pain, and his voice cracks on one of the notes… pure melodramatic genius.

Probably worth saying a massive thanks to Phil Jupitus for choosing Costello as the first song of his breakfast show on BBC 6Music this morning. I like to be shocked and/or confused at least once before breakfast, and Jupitus usually manages to deliver…

Anyway, that was all I wanted to say. Am now off to hopefully have a much more pleasant evening than the narrator of that song. But if it all goes pear-shaped, I’ve got it on standby…

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Bolt Action 5 @ Goldsmiths College, London


Artful dodgers of screech-noise take on the ghouls of halloween. Brilliant night run by No Pain In Pop, the deranged bastard sons of New Cross. Spent quite a lot of time in those beautiful surrounds, and it makes me weep just thinking about the place... Bring back Duke's all-night booze emporium and I'd be back before you can say 'fried chicken'.

Tenacious D @ Xfm's Winter Wonderland


It's been a while, and have a whole load of pictures to blog, so what better way to start than Tenacious D at Xfm's Winter Wonderland? Comedy gold that blew the pretention of Kasabian out of the water.