Plus Rehearsal in Brighton

We've started rehearsing in Brighton on Saturdays. Don't know why I hadn't thought of that before - John - one third of the band, no less - lives there anyway - and it's nice to come down and good to have a reason to do so. Also Saturday afternoons are much nicer than weekday evenings after work. Plus this is how the band started anyway - Saturday afternoons in my old flat in Kemptown. Joining us today was John's friend Pete who has recently started playing bass and wanted to just "check it out". Chris thought he was pretty good considering he was only playing for two months. It kinda changed the dynamic a bit and made it slightly harder to concentrate on what else was going on, since Chris seems to play quite few things at the same time quite frequently, including basslines. But that eventually focussed me, and everyone else I guess, and we played out with a really good string of older ones. Looks like we're playing a gig in Brighton soon...

We rehearse in this studio called Monster which is basically an industrial unit right in Shoreham harbour, quite an odd place but it's nice to go down to the waterfront during breaks, and the rooms are okay, and everything looks really new, the mic stand works for me (and I do have problems with some mic stands, haha)! On Saturdays at least the place feels almost like a youth project. We felt a bit out of place. Conversation in the corridor: "How old are you?" - "Twelve" - "Are you in a band?" - (more animated) "Yes" - "Wow - What are you called?" - "Trip Hazard" - "Cool, I'll look out for you"... Later on we're in the port area just outside of the studio and I notice the first sign there says "Caution! Trip Hazard". Super sweet! I'll rename that Pollard-style into "Tribute Hazard". That's what we are - whatever it means!

Oh yeah, dig the wig!

Gavin's birthday EP, Sludgefeast, etc.

I haven't done this before. So bear with me. If you go here: http://www.box.net/shared/kxhmgibpfb you can listen to three tracks that me and Chris recorded in our nifty little "home studio" last Saturday. Recording with Garageband is really impressive if you ask me, fairly clear sounding, nice effects, etc.

They're not in the right order either, but anyway

1 Rotating futures (Helium Voice mix) - yes, that' s me with the helium voice treatment. You don't want to use effects like these too often, haha, but it works a treat. The lyrics sound kinda like I want them to sound, over the top, creepy, with an added layer of alien sweetness. I like the hushed barely audible first-take vocals layer grounding it underneath. Whenever we record , on at least one or two tracks we end up using two or even three vocal layers, and quite a few effects, reverb, etc. I dunno, I like hiding in these effects and layers, it works for me, and I don't want the lyrics to be too clear. The lyrics here are from a notebook entry where I'm reflecting on something ou might want to call Retro-futurism or something like that, scribbling down thoughts and impressions while simultaneously watching old and new sci fi movies. I use the same entry and another one in the last song, they're at least partly about an environmental conscience that was missing at the time the future was imagined in this old sci fi stuff but is overhanging it now, all these kitschy, now slightly rusty and outmoded looking utopias that have contributed to an environment and a way of living that is basically unsustainable for much longer, and generally a reflection on shifting times and shifting perceptions of the future. I used these notebook entries for this blogpost (some of the "helium voiced" lyrics from "Rotating futures" are found here, and I like the way the text is recorded, slightly warped, out of kilter, unsettling and pseudo-cute) and also as a brainstorming, kinda stream of consciousness exercise for this experimental science fiction novel I've started writing a while ago (it's gonna take a while before that is ever finished...)

2. Flickering Curtain

3. Walking the foodmiles. This is probably my favourite of the three. A weird, warped pop song about "trashing the planet like an old hotel room of the past" . I want to use that title for stuff in the "future".

So since this was Gavins birthday weekend, the EP is dedicated to him, happy birthday, Gavin!
After we finished recording for the day we ate and headed out to the Bull and Gate in Kentish Town to see Sludgefeast and Winners (and missed three other bands before them) . I didn't really know that Winners consist of three (out of four) ex-members of Do Me Bad Things, and you can still hear a certain exuberance and willingness to rock that is vaguely reminiscent of the DMBTs but there is also a more leftfield indie/powerpop thing going on, I hear Pavement and my beloved Superdrag in quite a few of the songs. Explains why Tom (ex-DMBTs drummer) told me the next Do Me Bad Things album would "sound like Pavement". That sounded so incongruous at the time, and alas, it wasn't to be as the DMBTs imploded soon after but I see how this has been channeled into the Winners project. A winner in my book.

Sludgefeast: short, mostly one - to - two minute songs, um, limited vocabulary ("mf come on"), superheavy riffs, shades and in James' case a fake American accent and big hair. Excellent live band. The night before I saw them play a completely different set (reunited with former band mate Andy for one night only), I've got the setlist for that, 25 songs in 25 minutes (they wanted to do it in 20 minutes and even had a member of the audience measure the time on a stopwatch), it's got titles like "Andy's No 7" and "James No 44" indicating the vast catalogue of (very short) songs at their disposal. Also on the bill were (more Nu-Pavement!) Four or Five Magicians and a rapturously received show by early nineties indie rockers Done Lying Down (well, I didn't actually know them and I even thought they were over from the States since their singer is American, but the gig was great, people loved it and it just rocked, very good!). ..So... at the Bull and Gate I'm wearing my black "80s hairmetal" wig and shades which is really the best way to see a Sludgefeast show, you don't want to see too much anyway, just dive into the heavy, dark sound... James lets Vanessa who is naturally at the front of the action play a few chords on his guitar and later Gavin gets a birthday cake handed from the stage. And the big surprise happens in the end when James replaces everyone in the band with a bandmember from each of the other bands to play a Sludgefeast tune and, you know, to be Sludgefeast for one number, and ... it worked! Really great evening! Happy birthday! I want to see Sludgefeast in the Netherlands now (where they have a booking agent!)!

It's all true - but who or what are Projekt???

What subcategory of Goth best fits you? You scored as a Ethereal Goth You are an ethereal goth... you favor Projekt and Dead Can Dance and have very refined tastes. You like the fine arts and probably prefer red wine to snake bite. Click on my name to take my other tests if you liked this one. Ethereal Goth 71% Anything-Goes Goth 63% Romantic Goth 58% Death Rocker 58% Old-school Goth 54% Industrial/Rivet-Head 50% Perky Goff 46% Understanding Outsider 38% Cyber-goth 38% Confused Outsider 33% Fantasy Goth 25%

Cut and paste quiz results to display on your site: Entire Result Result picture only Result bar graphs only Result text only Entire Quiz <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tblBorderAll"> <tr><td><img src="http://quizfarm.com//images/1148547929artist_930[1].jpg" /></td></tr> <tr><td><br /><a href="http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=46074N" target="_blank">What subcategory of Goth best fits you?</a><br /><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">created with <a href="http://quizfarm.com" target="_blank">QuizFarm.com</a></span></td></tr> <tr><td>You scored as <b>Ethereal Goth</b><p>You are an ethereal goth... you favor Projekt and Dead Can Dance and have very refined tastes. You like the fine arts and probably prefer red wine to snake bite. Click on my name to take my other tests if you liked this one.<br /><br /></p> <table width="'50%'"><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Ethereal Goth</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'71'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">71%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Anything-Goes Goth</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'63'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">63%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Romantic Goth</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'58'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">58%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Death Rocker</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'58'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">58%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Old-school Goth</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'54'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">54%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Industrial/Rivet-Head</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'50'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">50%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Perky Goff</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'46'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">46%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Understanding Outsider</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'38'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">38%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Cyber-goth</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'38'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">38%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Confused Outsider</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'33'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">33%</span></td></tr><tr><td><p><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">Fantasy Goth</span></p></td><td> <table border="'1'" cellpadding="'0'" cellspacing="'0'" width="'25'" bgcolor="'#dddddd'"><tr><td></td></tr></table></td><td><span style="font-family:'Arial';font-size:'1';">25%</span></td></tr></table> </td></tr> </table>

control / release

Five images I just "stole" off the google image search, they're stills from Anton Corbijn's beautiful Ian Curtis/Joy Division biopic "Control". There could be loads more of these moody black and white stills that seem vaguely familiar in style if you know Corbijns work with Depeche Mode, U2, etc. The look of the film is the most striking thing, all shades of grey, black and white, recording a re-imagined desolation, isolation, internal struggle, and the general greyness (if that can be a word) of the time and place. This is combined with sudden outburts of marvellous live reconstructions of JD concerts and TV appearances, the sharp almost military rhythm, the precise delivery, the moody dark voice, all suddenly more present than ever and interrupting the long shots where nothing much seems to happen. I think it's a very touching tribute, and it worked for me.

When I first came across Joy Division, I felt I was lured into the presence of an extremely romantic transript of a literally haunted bunch of souls. It seemed to come from somewhere else. The graveyard in Genoa with its giant mausoleums. The North of England seemed like a mythical landscape. It seemed so sophisticated and knowing too. What the film makes clear and evokes so strikingly in its visual language is the very mundaneness of the environment out of which they came. It does romaticize it a bit, but it's mostly quite downbeat, with the odd flashes of humour, quirkyness, character sure, but it's mostly quite depressing. Curtis' struggle to juggle his encroaching illness, a job, a wife and kid, a band that becomes quickly too successful for him to handle, and a foreign girlfriend is depicted in a way that is quite sympathetic. "Control" really tries to tell a story that needs to be told, and mostly succeeds to bring to life quite a few of the harrowing scenes in Deborah Curtis' book "Touching From A Distance". And yet, it is a very arty film. Corbijn has always been good to find striking visual images out of unlikely situations. So the main impression of the film is the way it fills the screen with these long, impeccably captured scenes. Go back to the late 70s and early 80s if you want to see it like it was. And it's made for cinema, it looks and sounds good on the big screen so you can fully immerse yourself in it.

Uncle Bob is 50

Happy birthday!

"Congratulations on becoming a grandfather." -

"Thanks, man. But I'm never gonna make mature music. I'm going to make albums, and it's gonna sound like it did when I was a fucking teenager. My voice might change a little bit, but not the spirit. Because I really don't know how to do anything else."

Magnet

"I hope that after I die," he says, "I can continue to write songs there too."

Miami New Times

Three gigs in two weeks: Bad Brains, Brett Anderson, Siouxsie

Heroes are Zeros. The past is gone. Well, not quite. .. I'm inherently a fairly conservative person. Once you've touched me somewhere I'll remember forever. It's the same impulse that made me look out and eventually find the 2-gig-drummer of my first band recently. He lives in Huddersfield (!). Now if only i could find that other bandmate with the all too common and therefore virtually un-google-able name too. This is more than 20 years ago but part of me still remembers these days very fondly. It's cool, really...

Anyway, the Bad Brains. A one off. I heard mixed reports. Apparently people thought HR should move about a bit more. WTF? He's not a young rasta punk kid anymore... As soon as i entered the Astoria (first time i've been there since the smoking ban came in and deffo a nice change) i felt the charged atmosphere. Just before they came on, people were going mental. I mean, really mad, and not just the front rows. they came on and played "I Against I". The place erupted. I had to put my watch away, it was that bad/good. moshing like no tomorrow. HR stood on stage with a suitcase at his side, head wrapped in a shawl, shades, smiling the whole time, noting that we were "a bit lively" (and that was a bit of an understatement!) saying "thank you" in a cheeky voice, his voice still.. there, though he didn't let himself go through quite the same, admittedly *insane* vocal acrobatics of the past. He was still singing the words, and the band played the songs. I was screaming like a girl at a Beatles concert when "At The Movies" came on! in a way it felt like the audience's frantic reaction to hearing the songs played live again overwhelmed the band too. there were moments when i definitely heard it in my head while they were playing and reacted to it, it was like a strong chemical reaction.


Brett: I didn't really follow anything he did since Suede too closely but I still like it. But this evening was mostly about Suede anyway. At the Queen Elizabeth Hall, mostly Brett on guitar or piano, singing the songs, and a small (female) string orchestra supporting him on some tunes. He did about two solo songs then it went straight into the back catalogue. Admission wasn't cheap but he knew how to deliver the goods so it worked in everyone's favour really. The first set closed with "The Asphalt World". Later he encouraged people to be as loud as they wanted (even though the very efficient and ever so corporate looking Live Nation team recorded it) which eventually lead to a semi lenghty series of shouted requests for old Suede numbers, the most prominent being "The Beautiful Ones" I think. Slumping in my chair at the back i couldn't help shouting a request for "Killing of A Flash Boy", which seemed to be clear enough for the whole fucking room to hear and was followed by a huge cheer from the other part of the room and Brett asking, in his still ever so camp voice, "What sort of gig this" before good naturedly announcing "He's Gone", probably one of the four or five tracks John Darnielle rates on the much maligned "Head Music" album. All these slow burners and downbeat ballads worked very well in this setting, I'd never heard them like that before, and Brett was very efficient on the piano and guitar. "Europe is our playground", "Two of Us", "Still Life"... For the encore he encouraged people to come down to the front, for three more classics, "So Young", "The Wild Ones" and, this was a bit of a surprise, "Trash". Don't know where he's going with these shows, does it signal a possible return of Suede, but it was nevertheless very beautiful and well put together, and a real treat for fans, and it was mainly old fans by the looks of it. I like that sort of thing...

... which leads to Siouxsie at the John Peel night of the Electric Proms, at the Elextric Ballroom, the perfect setting really. It was just like the old Friday nights at the Ballroom, only with one of the place's perennial icons actually in the house performing. She's without Budgie now, they've divorced, which is definitely a bit sad and unusual for me, as he was always part of the experience. Instead she's got a very efficient band that is much heavier on guitars and generally a more rounded band sound than previous incarnations that were getting increasingly percussion based (The Creatures were often just voice and percussion, and for the Dreamshow they had a Japanese kodo drummer joining Budgie as well). She looks great still, big black hair and a fairly clubby low key outfit that works well for the Ballroom. Three old songs, one of them Hong Kong Garden, the Banshees' first single that was apparently first played on a Peel show. And then for the most part of the set her (really good) new stuff. It is essentially more Siouxsie, very efficient, and I need to get it, if only there weren't a hundred and one more things that I should get and our house wouldn't be full of lotsa stuff already. But I probably will get it anyway...

Last song is "Hello I love you" by the Doors. My friend Steve reckons the new material is "more 2007" and I ask him what he means by that so he says its a bit "like Garbage" which would make it "more 1994" in my book and in a way, if Siouxsie was now influenced by Shirley Manson something would come full circle, since Ms Manson is such a huge old Siouxsie fan. In truth, I'm not convinced it does sound that much like Garbage, but it is more streamlined, more guitar-based and maybe a little less experimental than previous outings. But it works... it was good to see her on a stage again, and I think she enjoyed it too, even though she complained of being knackered in the end.

...p.s. Some of my favourite gigs these days are little shows that cost little or nothing on the door and feature some youngsters or at least young at hearts (like us really) pretending they're still stuck in a time machine, either in the early 90s or the post punk years, or a weird combination of those two. These gigs happen around here on a daily basis. There are edgy, noisy, quiet, average and ocasionally outstanding unknown or less known or hot bands, bands, bands everywhere these days. It is very difficult to book a rehearsal space in London less than 5 weeks in advance right now. Is that a good thing?

is there anyone in here? the hutch opens to one side. as I keep running you adjust the visor and see it in a clear daylight dream sequence. a hut for you and me. you couldn't believe it now. keep running, I say. keep running until the next reststop. let me take that burden off your shoulders. don't talk to me about the past that's hidden in those little lines. all those years swirling through the walls, orange circular stonepaths crisscrossing the land, circling every single face to say goodbye

I Saw A Ship In The Harbour: Colonsay - Oronsay, Day 1

I took so many pics on my week long trip to Scotland, mainly to the islands Colonsay and Mull, I can't show them all so these are from travelling from Oban, a port town connecting many islands with the mainland and allegedely the town featured in Alan Warners novels (since he grew up there), and mainly from my first day exploring the remote islands of Colonsay and Oronsay on foot. There is a mile long stretch of shallow sand between the islands that you can only cross in low tide, you've got about 5 hours each day when you can go over to Oronsay, where there is a farm and the ruins of a priory said to be connected to the famous island of Iona, including a 6th century cross. It's an eerie, quiet place with fantastic views over to the next islands. The Strand, as the space between the islands is known, is a spectacular scene at low tide with the awesome scenery all around you and fantastic visual textures overlaying the wet sand... the pictures don't seem to post in the right order, nevermind, you get the idea.

Colonsay - Oronsay, pt. 2

Bad Brains "House of Suffering" Daytona Beach 1988

"At the Movies", live in NYC in the early days



"House of Suffering", Daytona Beach, 1988

Yesterday I went to the Astoria Box Office to buy a ticket for the original Bad Brains who are doing a short 4 date Euro tour, also taking in Amsterdam (the Paradiso, no less!), Brussels and Cologne, exactly the kind of tour a lot fans wished GBV would have done on their final tour. I'm tempted to do the whole tour, as the distances between cities is manageable and I've already done the Amsterdam - Cologne - Brussels route following GBV once in '02 and it was, uknow, RAD! or fab, or whatever - the way the cities blend into each other is quite stunning, lets put it that way...

The ticket would have cost about nine pounds more with Ticketmaster, who would have insisted on posting it to me, so making the trip to Tottenham Court Road to get it without *any* surchage really was a good move, despite having to face the smoggy and touristy West End on a Saturday afternoon.

So the Brains...you see, I saw them once in 88, in the Graben club in St Gallen, Switzerland, and it was just one of these things, one of those show I'll never forget, the energy was just incredible (see the second video from the same time taken on a beach, the passion of the delivery is breathtaking!). A friend of mine at the time (I was living and studying at Constance Uni) was big into Reggae, and so was I and quite a few friends, it was a bit of a thing then, but he was also very much into the Bad Brains, a band of rastas playing speedy melodic hardcore punk and dub reggae . They were just extraordinary. I fell in love with their album "Quickness" which is somewhat overlooked these days but features some of their most complex and mysterious songs, and quickly also their back catalogue including the milestone album "I Against I" and the classic speedy hardcore anthemss of the ROIR cassette and Rock For Light. The energy shifted, became more refined, and closer to the blissout dub vibes that are very prominent on their tasty new album. What I will say is that their songs are super catchy, like two minute holy grails. Play them a few times and they will stick around, they are subtle and sweet even when they're full on fast and noisy, and you can see in these videos how the band themselves is fully *occupied* by the tremendous primal power of this music. Special vibes...

I Predict A Riot: Sonic Youth play "Daydream Nation"

"Daydream Nation" is a legendary album for many people, it continues to loom and tower in the presence but also points back to a maybe purer time, the late eighties, early nineties, it's a very good album no doubt, though to me just one of many very good SY albums. I mainly associate it with listening to it on my ipod at work for some reason, the sound a bit tinny maybe, and the songs a distant wash. I explained yesterday to various people who didn't want to hear it (so I'll do it here too, haha) how I find the SY sound, the signature textured noise pop, a kinda continuum, they're always good, live especially, and they continue doing what they're doing. Still, this Don't Look Back concert, that has now turned into a tour and deluxe edition with an extra disc with all DN tracks from live bootlegs, was something special, a chance to reconnect with the past that showed how they are vital and were even more so maybe then. I listened to Daydream Nation and Rather Ripped, their really very good latest album that ended up on my Top Ten last year, back to back on my ipod at work again (I don't know why DN hasn't shown up on my most played playlist yet!) and felt quite distinctly that i was looking forward to the Rather Ripped segment of the concert too.

Chalk Farm is overrun with young and old people in alt rock t shirts, it's a beautiful scene around The Enterprise where we congregate, though I sneak in early to see the last ten, fifteen minutes of support band Car-Sick Cars , a three piece noise pop band from Beijing (which excuses the band name I think) who are clearly influenced by the headliners, tasty noise collages and fast perky alt pop songs. The scene in the Roundhouse is beautiful too, the space is just great, not too large, good sightlines, etc. though it gets very crowded, and I kinda hate the ten, fifteen minutes before a sold out show, the anticipation, people staking their place and all that. Noone wants to miss "Teenage Riot", the first track of DN that gets played in its entirety. Okay, the whole thing was really great, the songs sound a lot more powerful than on my ipod of course, the noise textures are beautiful, and the vibe *is* close to when I saw them in the 80s in Berlin when it seemd like they were communicating with their guitars on stage. There is a different kind of attention and concentration emanating from the audience and given back by the group, as Kim Gordon explained in the recent Time Out Interview: "Maybe it's just because of the intenseness that the audience is putting on the old songs that I can feel their energy...The Daydream Nation songs have a real density to them..." It's a very complex towering thing that gets fed by both the band and the audience, and the memories I guess, and the flavour switches subtly as they change vocal duties, the two songs sung by Lee were actually real highlights. And the Rather Ripped encore was beautiful too, and well received, it looked like people were actually dancing more, and it felt more relaxed. Second encore and final track was "Schizophrenia" from Sister, an even older album. All in all, a wonderful show, one of the best I've seen by Sonic Youth over the years, the focus on the past, the "looking back" actually worked, it felt rewarding and very intense. I'm very tempted by "The House of Love" gig later in the month.

More Warhol: "Space" & "Beauty No. 2"

so after the screen shots it was time to check out some of the real time Warhol "movies" lingering in obscurity. Both 60 minute films in tonights programme more or less centre on Edie Sedgwick, the young and vain socialite and IT girl featuring in many of his movies of the time. In the accompanying sheet Patti Smith recalls touchingly how she first came across Edie in a magazine and how she came over from New Jersey and started hanging around outside the clubs just to catch a glimpse of her. In "Space" a group of stoned and half naked young people including Edie, seated suggestively next to a big mirror and showing off her mirror image as well as her trademark huge earrings all the time, sit around and at first try to read lines from a script that quickly gets abandoned in favour of aimless strumming on the guitar and endless narcissistic discussions, playing around with food, thinking loudly what people in 30 years time will make of it. It's kinda like an hourlong Big Brother straight from the Factory and the vain, nihilistic, hedonistic and really quite innocent and even naive 60s, and it's not as boring as that may sound, though people start to leave at that point already.

In "Beauty No. 2" Edie is even more centrestage, lying on a bed with a gorgeous young potential boyfriend, Gino, both almost naked, drinking, smoking, and almost making out with each other, occasionally stroking and discussing a dog called Horse, and mainly talking with Chuck Wein, who is her former boyfriend and who talks her in and out of the situation which seems to be to check to see whether Gino is boyfriend material (again, this sort of stuff gets shown on MTV all the time, so another precursor to reality TV). It's a very sexy scene, and just as it gets raunchy, Chuck really starts to put the boot in with his campy off screen conversation, probing the real Edie behind the beautiful vain facade who gets increasingly worked up about the things he says. The last half hour is absolutely hilarious in its improvised cruelty and suddenly people in the audience who hadn't left by then started to chuckle loudly. They are funny and cruel, these movies. And the stripped down format, which plays like a deranged game show on an endless loop has a strange existentialist quality, the camera never leaves the scene, and it goes on and on. Edie really is a movie star here, however accidental, and fascinating to watch, she does ooze that star quality, even though her inherent vainness gets shown up all the time.

Oh, and EVERYONE was chainsmoking the whole time which was painful to watch for me. It's really sending out the wrong message, people. In so many ways...

the New BFI centre: Warhols screen tests

Yesterday afternoon I finally managed to touchdown with the extensive Warhol retrospective at the old National Film Theatre, now the BFI centre. I hadn't been there since it opened its new spaces after refurbishment and extension and I had some time to kill so it was cool to see and explore:

- a video installation in their new exhibition space by Lynette Walworth where you enter a dark room and hold a glass plate underneath a stream of images that you can apparently manipulate

- the "Studio" where you can watch stuff from the archives for free, in this case an old documentary about Delhi

- and the Mediateque where you can check yourself into a space with a screen and headphones and choose want you want to watch from their extensive archives, in my case some old homemovies from the punk days in the Kings Road, the start of a documentary about homosexuality just before it was legalised, and the start of the very interesting movie "Nighthawks" about a gay schoolteacher who leads a double life cruising the bars at night, which seemed very realistic in tone and which i want to watch in full sometimes. I'm pretty sure I spotted the young Derek Jarman hanging out behind the main character in one of the club scenes. It's free so a good way to kill an hour or two on the South Bank.

So I was impressed with the new centre, which also included a new book and dvd shop and another cafe/restaurant, and, just as always, want to spend more time there watching good movies presented in this dedicated environment.

The Warhol programme I saw was a series of "screen tests" where various people (mainly Factory characters, and/or NYC artists/celebs) had to sit still in front of Andys camera for three minutes, some not always succeeding, some barely blinking. My first reaction was, jeezuz, 80 minutes of this, but it soon became weirdly fascinating and almost like meditation as the trancelike concentrated energy took over. It helped that most of the people *did* look interesting, the lighting was quite dramatic in some, and you can't help thinking that these were snapped straight out of this fascinating boho scene, and a lot of them are probably dead by now, and they seemed so alive, even sitting still, there was a very curious intensity emanating from the screen. I've always been fascinated by Warhols movies, and have previously only seen a few, and probably the more famous ones (My Hustler (I love that one!), Chelsea Girls, etc), so I'll check out a few more, I'm hooked again...

climate change pt. 2: planning a holiday?

Following on from my last post here's a good article by Mark Lynas about the Climate Camp at Heathrow in the New Statesman, calling it the "most important protest of our time". He's the author of the book "Six Degrees" which has been on my to-read-list ever since I heard about it and which details the possible catastrophic impact of just a few degrees.

so here we go:

"Probably the single most polluting thing you or I will ever do is step on to a plane. Take that tempting return flight to, say, Thailand, and you become immediately responsible for about six tonnes of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere - three times more than is likely to come from any other activity you do in the year, including driving and heating your house. This is why aviation is the most bitter and divisive issue in environmental politics today.

There is almost no consensus anywhere in this debate. Even my last paragraph will have caused annoyance for some: my six tonnes figure for the Thailand flight includes a 2.7x multiplier to account for the aggravating impact of greenhouse gases released by aircraft high into the atmosphere. However, citing scientific uncertainty, airlines choose to ignore this extra warming effect: if you use British Airways's carbon calculator to reassess my Thailand flight, it returns a figure of "only" 2.16 tonnes."

I have to admit a tempting return flight to somewhere near Thailand has been something I've been discussing with myself for a while for various reasons. I've never been to Asia, and I feel it's something I should do at least once, right? But I've also looked at other things, closer to home. When I'm planning a trip away I don't always have a clear idea of what I want, there might be people who are a lot more organised but often I just want a general destination, possibly a base too, and then take it from there a day at a time. In my job as a TV listings writer I often come across travel documentaries about interesting sounding places and areas. Last week there was a programme about Rungholt, a medieval port and town on the North German coast that was swept away and vanished in about 1362, a German Atlantis so to speak that has captured the imaginatin of many people. So I decided to find out how a trip to the area could look like. The internet, full of options. So there's a holiday island near there, part of a larger group of islands just south of the famous island of Sylt, plenty of nice accomodation (the above pic is the garden view from a holiday farmhouse), beaches, walks, seafood restaurants etc. And how do I get there? I worked out that there used to be, up until quite recently, a ferry service from Harwich (an old port town on the Essex coast which isn't far and which I've also wanted to visit for some time) to Husum on the North German coast, again not far from where I wanted to go. So that would have been potentially perfect, right? And guess what? Sometimes in 2005 they stopped the service and one of the reasons they cited was that they couldn't compete with the cheap airlines anymore. I wish I'd done this research earlier now, and there may be other ferry options still available (you can still go slightly further up the coast to Esbjerg in Denmark) but it just goes to show how the rise of the cheap airlines has changed the travel options available. It's become too easy to fly, and more difficult, not to mention often more expensive, not to fly. And at a time when people should fly less, and it should be the other way round, alternatives to flying get even cancelled. Well, I haven't given up on this trip yet, we'll see. . .

Climate Camp at Heathrow

A weeklong "Climate Camp" has been set up near Heathrow Airport, as far as i know on the ground or nearby of the proposed new runway that would almost double the flights already taking off and landing there. it's all over the press but i couldn't find a link to their own website so it's here

they are encouraging people to come along, and i hope that it will be peaceful and there won't be any serious trouble. "take the train to Hayes and Harlington" - i take it every day to work but i get off before that. I'm not sure i've got the time and energy to visit this week, we'll see. I certainly support the ideas behind it:

"...Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, and all our efforts to tackle climate change in other sectors are undone by the massive growth in air travel. Holding the camp at Heathrow aims to highlight the lunacy of the government's airport expansion plans, target industry giants profiteering from the climate crisis, and raise awareness of the need to fly less. The camp will also support local residents in their long-term struggle against the building of a third runway and the destruction of their communities...."

As a German national living in the UK you've got to fly at least a few times a year, just to go home to visit friends and family. In the last few years I've become an uncle and there were quite a few family occasions where i basically had to go over for a weekend at least, and also just to stay in touch. I could have said no, i don't want to fly, but you miss out on their development with small children if you don't make an effort to see them, it's special and unique. I also used to visit old friends in Berlin on a regular basis. In the very early days i did actually take the train for a while, maybe three or four times, but that basically meant travelling for two days, from South West Germany to Brighton. I don't like travelling through the night as i can't sleep like that on a train so i stayed in this lovely hostel in Bruges a couple of times. they were quite good trips in a way as i had the chance to explore a couple of places in Belgium in the evening and in the morning. But on the whole it was a long, long trip and soon i realized that flying was a far more convenient option. At the time, and this is quite a long time ago, i wasn't that familiar with flying either, but as an expat it's something that became almost second nature fairly quickly. A Swedish friend of mine still has a fear of flying, and she takes the train from Stockholm to Gothenborg and then the ferry to somewhere in England whenever she comes to London. She says the trip is usually alright and quite entertaining, especially on the boat, and i believe her but it's still not something i'd want to do too often when you can fly in two hours. or so i used to think. with the arrival of the cheaper airlines we started going to Italy and other places a lot too, and it's something that's been quite special over the years, to be able to fly out there at a reasonable prize and explore places, areas, etc.. where i'm from in germany is not too far from italy but it became close again through Go, Easyjet and ryanair flying to all sorts of familiar and not so familiar locations. I've been quite hooked on ryanair for a while, i don't mind the rather brusque service, and all the things that people moan about, if it gets me out there. It's been good, i'm not denying it. However, slowly but surely, i started to think again. While all this cheap flying around was quite fresh and exciting for a while, so many people are now doing it you've got to think of ways to slow it down. airports have become so crowded and the whole experience has gradually soured. last christmas my flight back home was cancelled because of thick fog, it was horrible being in this crowded claustrophobic space at Stansted, and i still haven't received a refund from ryanair. i haven't flown with them again this year. and i'm thinking: do we really need to fly so much? couldn't you just take a holiday nearby or take the train? do you really need to go abroad so much, even as an expat? I don't think there are any clear or straightforward answers. last night i briefly entertained the thought about travelling to chicago to see one or both of the only Robert Pollard shows this year, as he definitely won't come here again, and i quite enjoyed that thought i have to admit, however briefly. i could do it if i fly. i might even do it if i feel it enough, it's a bit silly to fly to another continent for a rock show but i've done it before and it was a great *experience* so if i feel it and if i can do it, which is not that likely, i would probably do it, other people are doing it, hey, and there are people who fly a lot more, drive cars when they don't have to, etc.. even though i try to be a good green citizen, have never driven a car in my life, recycle, try not to waste energy and don't fly abroad, especially long distance, that much, i'm still more and more uneasy about flying and everything it entails, the general atmosphere of it, the security measures, the questions at checkin, the airtport lounges. it's become too familiar. and i'm worried about climate change, it's become a lot more tangible recently. surely one flight more or less won't make a difference but it's the tendency to fly less or more frequently that might make some change eventually.

London is a big, full-on city, it's great but having so many people in one space often makes you yearn for a different pace, the air can be bad and you often feel like you need to get out. it seems to me a lot people associate getting out with flying somewhere, presumably warmer or exotic. However, there is wonderful countryside all around it. ever since i started regular daytrips with the Time Out Book of Country Walks my feeling about living in this city has shifted: it made me realize you don't have to go far to "get out", a 45 train ride that isn't expensive with a South East railcard (20 quid per year) is often all it takes. This wonderful book has walks that always start and end at a railway station so no need to use a car either. It might not be what some people want to do in their spare time but it's worked for me. This year we decided to take a week off before Easter at short notice. I did look around at flights, but it being Easter they were very expensive, even the "cheap" ones. So we didn't really plan anything, did a couple of daytrips, then hired a car and stayed in a B&B in Battle near Hastings for a few days. It's just over an hour from London but feels quite rural, not exactly remote but there was enough nice countryside, castles, old towns, village pubs (the so called 1066 country...)etc to explore to make it very worthwhile. So it is possible to have a good holiday without going that far. The only thing i will say is that a vacation in Britain can be quite expensive, and it isn't always maybe as remote as you'd want it to be. the cost of renting a cottage in Cornwall for instance seems to have skyrocketed. you can get it half prize or less in, say, Italy. Still, i'm always into going to the West Country. Often it's just having a different space around me, clean air, seaside, fields, woods, old villages. You don't have to go that far to get out. So this is my picture, and roughly where i stand. What's yours?

A post with no pictures: Gigs I saw since the smoking ban came in

Usually I post a picture with anything I post here, it does make it look more... inviting, however it can to be a fairly fiddly, lenghty and potentially annoying procedure, finding the pics, uploading them, and then they sometimes post in a different order, etc.

So this post has no pictures but hopefully more text (than usual) to compensate.

I've been on a bit of a roll going out, especially to see gigs, recently. The smoking ban has definitely changed a lot for me, opened places up for me that i previously avoided. That, and the fact we moved back to the East End where there are gigs happening all the time, often free or very cheap, has meant there have been many evenings out lately. Too many maybe. But so far it's still new and for me totally great. I can concentrate on the music without having to zone in on who is smoking where around me and how can i avoid them. How did i put up with this shit, I don't know...

So a list of bands I saw recently with short descriptions/comments. Yes, I wore earplugs for some of them...

Boris/Isis: Not entirely convinced by Boris, but Isis put in a really majestic show, serene and noisy at the same time. They are always very good live, but the last time at ATP the air quality in the upstairs club/smokehole was so horrible, and the noise was too much (it was Sunday) I had to leave after a while. Singer wore a KTL tee shirt!

Four or Five Magicians: a family outing for the London GBV fans at the cosy Notting Hill Arts Club. This *young* Brighton band manage to invoke that early 90s US indie sound but it's not really a pastiche either. However the personality of a Bob Pollard or even a Lou Barlow is still missing even if they get that sound right(could also be the lightshow obscuring their faces, and giving it a pleasingly swirly shoegazing effect) Their set used to consist of at least some GBV covers but this afternoon it's Sebadohs "Gimme Indie Rock". I've just read the lineup is changing too...

The Thermals@Dingwalls: Wow, what a great show! I hear Trev and his mates started the (middle aged) moshpit after "Pillar of Salt", and it definitely went off in the front halfway through. Beautiful. And very concentrated.

Plus, Of Arrowe Hill, The Flying Gambinos, Country Mark @ Cross Kings: Yes, we put on our own evening, and it worked really well. We might do it again. I wore a black wig that looked vaguely 80s hair metal and introduced the acts. Usually when we play a little venue like that the smoke used to annoy me so much after a while, as you have to stick around the whole evening, from soundcheck til the show, but all that isn't a problem anymore. Our set was slightly longer too. Some videos may be forthcoming.

The Guillotines, Black Wire: OK The Guillotine's saxophonist did light up on stage but thankfully noone in the audience followed his example. I can live with that. They looked and sounded like they wanted to be outlaws anyway, hmmmm, pretty good swampy rock'n'roll, definitely with personality. Followed by Black Wire who do that young post punky thing quite well too.

Prinzhorn Dance School: my first instore show at the great new Rough Trade space, noisy, shouty and monotonous, but the post punky vibe worked well in that space, twenty minutes is enough though. Probably the first of many.

then across the road to the back room of Cafe 1001 for these interesting fellas: moody post rocky. a bit weedy but had someting...

The Left Outsides: Hardly anyone there, but their beautiful "sepia toned" psychedelic folk still managed to somehow fill the big room at 93 Ft East, communing with the ghosts maybe? A pretty good free rehearsal for them in any case...

The Nanny Maze: My friend Lolo's indie electro pop duo, I liked their sound a lot, it had it's wobbly moments, but when I came together it was very nice. The intimate downstairs space of Stage B in Stoke Newington worked for them too, again a place I would have avoided previously.

Followed by The White Russians at the White Hart (there was a festival of free live music, The N16 Fringe Festival, all over Stokey over the weekend): A Big Lebowski reference? They are an ace party band, even though they can be quite dark and brooding too. Fun...

and I went to the very sold out Field Day yesterday which was mostly very good (despite bad queues) and saw Battles, Late of the Pier (impressively full on youngsters taking on experimental but mostly very groovy elecro pop) and finally LIARS who took everyone to a very strange place, they were fantastic....

I thought there were more, and there may be some I'm forgetting. I guess my main point here would be to say that there are people out there who will go out more now that smoking is finally banned in live venues. And that gigs are slightly less annoying for me these days. But I need to take a break now maybe...