Monday, September 25, 2006

We had a bit of a treat on Friday evening when one of Orynthia's cousins came over and made us a huge sushi meal. The four of munched our way through an enormous amount of the stuff and very nice it was to. After the meal, we went down to The Tube club for a reggae evening with John Stapleton and the venerable DJ Derek. A nice relaxed crowd swayed their way through a collection of laid back reggae gems. Nice night all round.

On Saturday evening we went to The Louisiana, it was a busy night for our friend Rich. Firstly he was playing drums for his band Aspen Woods, then later he was drumming with headlining band Secret Shine. It's a strange coincidence that whilst we are in New York Secret Shine will be playing their first ever gig the USA. We are hoping to go along to see the show, so thought that we should check them out first. It was a roasting hot evening in The Louie, but what a treat we had. It's been a while since I've seen Aspen Woods playing as a complete band, they were just great. Very much in the Spacemen 3/Spiritualised mode they get locked into some wonderful groves, the sound was great as were Lee's vocals. At long last they have started selling their demo CD, this was recorded back in 2004 and I can't help thinking that it should have seen the light of day a long time ago. I enjoyed my first sighting of Secret Shine, strnage to think that their next gig will be in New York and that we will be in the crowd for that one as well.

I was kicking myself last week, when I found out that this weeks Sparklehorse gig at The Fleece had sold out. Luckily one of my Grumpy Man DJ friends has come up trumps with a spare ticket, so I shall go to the ball after all!

Monday, September 18, 2006

That was good, just had one of those great weekends where everything falls into place.

It started on Thursday evening, which is the start of my weekend these days. For the first time in ages we watched a couple of back to back comedy shows which were fantastic. First up was the opening show in the new series of Extra's, have to say that I thought that it was astoundingly good. So many great ideas squeezed in 30 mins, if the rest of the series is as good as this one then we are in for a treat.

Next up was The Look of Mitchell & Webb, we didn't see any of the first series which on the evidence of this show is a real shame. Very silly, very funny, very good.

On Saturday I had the unexpected treat of watch a very good performance from Bristol City, we won 3-1 but we could have scored 6 or 7. Some really good football, loads of stikes on goal (hit the woodwork 3 times in addition to the goals) so it made for very enjoyable viewing. Saturday evening was even better, we hooked up with some friens at The Polish Club for the Charlie Parr gig which I mentioned last time. It was one of those lovely nights when, we seamed to know everyone in the room, so as well as being a great musical evening it was also a great social one. At the end of the gig, I had chats with a few people before heading over the road for a friends birthday party. A couple of friends from my days at Imperial Music were DJ'ing and we had a great laugh dancing away until 1 am.

On Sunday we had some of Orynthia's family over for a meal, Orynthia cooked some great food and I had the chance to nose around the Chinese supermarket when picking up some last minute ingredients. Noticed quite a few Asian students getting rather excited about the range of stuff that they can get from there.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Last weekends Grumpy Man went well, in a change from the normal, quiet up to 10:30 then busy routine, the place was pleasantly busy from just after 8pm. I played my normal mix of stuff Tindersticks, Nick Cave, Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Absentee, Dinah Washington, Velvet Underground, John Cale and the like happy to say that no dancing took place.

On Tuesday I went to see a painful Bristol City performance, we won 2-1 against Orient but, boy did we make hard work of it. I managed to turn up at the ground with last seasons season ticket! First time I've ever done that, so I had the shock of paying £21 to get in. Luckily I'll get the money back this week, if I had to pay that every week I'm not sure that I would make the effort. Still we won the match, even if the last 20 mins had a few of us looking for fresh pairs of paints - if you get my drift!

This weekend we are off to see the wonderful Charlie Parr. Charlie is a fantastic singer songwriter from a country blues background. I love watching his huge hands flying around the guitar, he really attacks the tunes making it an exhilarating experience. He has a voice which is perfectly suited to the often confused and world weary songs which he sings. His latest album - Rooster, contains one of my favourite songs of recent years. The song is called Bethlehem, and achingly portrays the sadness of an ordinary father in the time of King Herod's purge of children. It's understated and devastating, a wonderful piece of work.

Last week we went to see The Chimes, a local band featuring 3 former members of the sadly missed Munter. The Chimes are a harder edged proposition than Munter were and are starting to build a set of really good songs.

Other than that we have been getting increasingly excited about the New York trip, loads of gigs lined up!!

On the subject of New York, we watched an excellent programme about the place on BBC4 the other night. The journalist Adam Gopnik presented a excellent history of the recent changes in the city, from the wild days of the 70's to cleaned up town that is New York today. Lot's of amazing footage of rubbish strewn streets with burnt out buildings, contrasting with the real estate heaven of today. Has some of the artistic thrust of the city been lost along the way as the general quality of life has improved? Well Gopnik thought so, is this a price worth paying? Well refreshingly, he didn't know. I'll see what I think in a couple of weeks time.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Well it’s been quite a week if you are a Bristol City fan. We went into the Tuesday night match at Northampton in a precarious league position, needing a decent result to get the season going. Well we got the result, mainly thanks to a wonderful performance from our 18-year-old winger Dave Cotterill. Yet this was not a straight forward win as just before half time two of our players managed to fall out with each other so dramatically that Bradley Orr was sent off by the referee.

Two days later our match winner Cotterill was sold to premiership Wigan for £2 million pounds. Then on Friday Three of our players went sent to prison for their part in a horrible drunken brawl last October, a fourth player (Scott Brown) was also involved in the incident was sentenced to 1200 hours of community service. So when yesterdays match against Brighton came around we were somewhat depleted, yet we managed a 1-0 win, the goal being scored by Scott Brown – had to be really!

On the playing side of football Bryan Munich had their first game of the season this morning, with a friendly match against the newly formed Arthritic Balboa. We managed a 6-4 win, I don’t think it would be too harsh on the newcomers to say that we should have won by more than 2 goals given the amount of possession and chance that we had. Still it was a good run out, although the soles of my feet are killing me now!

Better make the most of it, not really sure how many more seasons I’ll be able to carry on for. In theory we have a pretty big squad, so I could be spending a little more time on the sidelines this time around.

Not too much going on this week, other than seeing The Chimes on Wednesday evening.