Pre Halloween craziness...

Plus - bijou 80s breakdown (demo)

animation masks,
silent thread inside the theatre.
unhappy connection, scattered intentions,
multiplied strains,
techno investigator shakes his head,
itching to get out of thread.
in the woods
alone at night. flickering colours, the dozy
masters of tomorrow.

gasoline threads the nation, flying through
frozen colours, interweaving flavours left, stranded in different colours.
ejaculating future reports. bijou 80s breakdown.

hair waves in front of you, suggestively burn down in bed,
a sullen space rocket, a blackness invades your eyes,
reaching out from mossy eyelids, it kicked in and multiplied,
a swirling canvas, a different shadow questions you,
trapped in fuzzy state.

melancholia overload, images
are false to the eye,
delighted quiffs reverse.
therapy deepens layer machine. feedback noise evaluate, evaporate into mist.
flowers bloom over white sheets.

...efforts layer retro fuzz wail and mend the right channel now so the left layer doesn't take over...


a nice, spacey, dreamy demo we recorded a little while ago, just me and Chris, the band version will sound a bit different, will maybe even feature keyboards by a special guest, set to some photos from a very hot August weekend in and near Cognac, France. Where they make the cognac!

www.myspace.com/mmmplus come and see us on the 22nd October at the Cross Kings!

Better late than never... some shots from the wonderful "Our Band Could BBQ Your Life" weekender at the Brixton Windmill

Simon's mum in the cafe of the Museum of Childhood reading "Our Band Could Be Your Life", Michael Azerrads seminal book on the American underground, through the 80s to just pre Nirvana. Each chapter is dedicated to a different band, and the weekender at the Brixton Windmill featured new bands covering at least two tracks of each of the bands in the chapters. I just re-read the book, it's very inspiring and well written, every chapter is infused with the history, drama, organisation and flavour of that band, and of course it makes you want to investigate further and join the dots. First time I read it I wasn't really familiar with The Replacements, Minutemen, Mission of Burma. That was quite a long time ago, and they've become firm faves of mine. This time I ordered/bought discs by Black Flag, Beat Happening and Husker Du, so fingers crossed...



Dan/4 or 5 Magicians/the organiser of the entire weekend as The Replacements, the highlight of the weekend for me. HOW DO YOU SAY GOODNIGHT TO AN ANSWERING MACHINE? He opened with that, it was amazing...


Winnebago Deal played about 20 Black Flag songs straight through, really astonishing:


My good friends Amy Blue tackling Butthole Surfers confrontational performance art techniques, an intense and noisy set, and certainly in spirit with the inspiration ;)
We're playing a show with them again on the 22.10. at the usual place, the Cross Kings, put it in your diary:












Blenheim Gardens in beautiful afternoon sunlight, quite a contrast to the dark coven of noise inside the venue:


Everyone to the Anderson as Big Black, a very cool, understated, minimalist set, one of my faves:


Ice Sea Dead People as Minor Threat:



The mellow scene outside the Windmill, everyone started to look a bit frazzled at that point:



The Muscle Club as Fugazi:


4 of 5 Magicians second set of the weekend, as Dino Jr, very good - though at that point I was slightly less tolerant of loud rock music, haha, so it didn't quite have the same impact as their amazing Replacements set the night before for me, but solid, only songs from You're Living All Over Me which is cool by me. Freak Scene was played over the PA straight after I think, so it wasn't missing though it wasn't played live:




A mountain of equipment lugged onto the stage by X-Certs who tried to be Husker Du, seeing them maybe wasn't strictly necessary on Sunday night, have to say. But all in all a great weekend and really good to read that book again, highly recommended:

some wonky shots from the Field Day '09

I'm not that great at photographing bands, it's quite hard, but what interested me visually was the whole scene, the crowds, the lights, especially as things got a little messy, mostly in a good way, from about 5-6 pm onwards, with the rain and the drinks and whatever taking over etc. it looked good. I love the way this one day festival that is firmly an East London fest mixes up edgy indie with mellow alt country and dubstep and electro and improv jazz and burlesque/alt.cabaret in the "Do you come Here often" tent and all sorts of other grooves, it's quite open ended and attracts an interesting crowd, both nerdy and hedonistic, and very East London, again, mostly in a good way. While the very happening dance tents (mainly Bugged Out and Bloggers Delight) and the general clubby atmosphere might make it come across as some sort of eccentric rave party with an indie festival tacked on, it was perfectly possible to immerse yourself in pretty dark and moody soundscapes all day long, from the Sian Alice Group to SCUM to The Horrors to Fennesz to The Big Pink and finally on to Mogwai who were truly magnificent, one of the better festival headline sets I've seen, best enjoyed with your eyes closed... but open your eyes now:


Wet Paint (they were really good, US alt indie influenced - I'm sure, and wouldn't be surprised if they own a few GBV records - and very energetic and fun, shame everyone was sitting down but I think they turned a few heads):

S.C.U.M. slightly overblown and murky neo-goth sounds, does that do it justice? Not sure... :


The Horrors, in the rain, I guess they didn't quite make the impact they should have, but it was entertaining enough to me, if not a little lightweight:


The Big Pink:




Four Tet, dancers with Hula Hoops that had little lights attached:



Bloggers Delight, a smallish tent that seemed to be rammed the whole time:


Mogwai, both the main course and the comedown:

no solution mf: Sludgefeast and Junkyard Choir at the Spice of Life

James Sludgefeast is back from Singapore for about a week, so there was a series of Sludgefeast shows in quick succession. The biggest one was probably Sat at the Spice of Life, supported by ex Do Me Bad Things singer Mark Wood's Junkyard Choir, and many excellent guest spots on bass, as Coirin wasn't there, guest singers, a Do Me Bad Things cover version, and for the last song, a harmonica (!!!). The whole thing felt like a family party. I got to wear my wig and shades again, James II's shades disintegrated halfway through the set so I gave him mine - unfortunately they kept sliding off as he's a very energetic drummer, and they're just some cheap party shades (you don't see much looking through them but it feels good at a Sludgefeast show, you want it to look woozy!)

Abingdon to Dorchester on the Thames Walk

The fourth day of our ongoing little project: walking the whole of the Thames Walk, see photos from one of the previous days here. Kirsten, whose idea this is and who is organising the walks, did a couple of days of walking with a friend over a weekend without us in between too, and there's a day's worth of walking missing that was impossible to get to with public transport on a Sunday, so we're not doing this 100 % linear. The weather was meant to be really bad today but it ended up just drizzling for a bit, it stayed mostly overcast and a bit windy but mostly dry and it was quite warm so it didn't matter too much, though our shoes got wet walking through the grass. We started in the pleasant old town of Abingdon, where we walked to from nearby Oxford a few weeks ago, having lunch at the famous Barley Mow pub, housed in a 14th century building, eventually arriving near Dorchester, where we decided we would stop the walk for today as our initial destination was taking a little too long to get to. Dorchester is set back from the Thames by about a mile but is a fascinating small town with many historical buildings, couple of medieval coaching inns and old churches, so it was good to get to see it.

Abingdon:





old railway bridge:







The Barley Mow:



allotments just outside Dorchester:

Dorchester:



pub opposite Didcot Parkway station advertising some food:) :

Sunday: On Blake's Steps, etc.

The last episode of the five part Torchwood screened last week, I missed it on Friday so watched it on the iplayer. Really got into it, the way the government is trying to cover up for itself in the eerie plot (involving aliens forcing the UK government to give up 10 % of its children, and the government deciding that underperforming schools should go first) is obviously taken from real life to some extent:




Funky old Redchurch Street:




Rivington Street:



The John Snow in Soho, a favourite haunt:



and around the corner to On Blake's Steps, a fairly eccentric gathering of young and old poets reading a few of their poems, poetry fans and Blake heads on the steps of the (modern) house that stands on the site of the house William Blake was born in in Soho (around the corner from Carnaby Street). My friend and old B'ton buddy Naomi Foyle read a poem about her mum's death (exactly 15 years ago), a poem by her mum who was also a poet and a poem by someone she was with on that day, very poignant, unfortunately I was lost in the moment and didn't take a photo. This is Jeremy Reed:




The "eco poet" Helen Moore reads a poem that contrasts the infinite intricacies of the natural world with the financial jargon of the banker (read by Niall Mc Devitt):



Jeremy Reed again at the end, this time with partyshades:



Niall then took the group on a little history tour around Soho pointing out the various residences of the Blakes, Shelley's house and eventually Blake's residence in Poland Street, three doors down from the Kings Arms pub that he used to frequent. In the upstairs room the ancient order of druids was revived around that time and that's where the gathering ended with some more poems and talks and discussions about Blake, by that point history seemed to have come alive out of the books and words, it almost felt like a seance communing with the spirit of Blake and his legacy:







graffiti in the gents at the KA:



Niall Mc Devitt in the historical upstairs room at the Kings Arms (now, of course, the unofficial London bear pub)



with Naomi in Thai Metro in Charlotte Street, always tasty, reliable, and in an ok location where most of the restaurants are more expensive:





aboriginal art gallery on Charlotte Street, I saw a few new galleries around there that I hadn't noticed before:



Soho Square:




later at 100% Dynamite, the excellent monthly reggae/dub/dancehall Sunday all dayer put on by the Soul Jazz Records crew and co, at the equally ace 1001 cafe off Brick Lane:



Brick Lane, going home: