A lovely morning in Redland

Well right now what is there to do other than listen to fantastic new triple CD release from Tom Waits – Orphans and reading everything that you could ever wish to know about the man, his music and his life at the amazing Tom Waits Library!

So the latest Ashes started in Australia overnight, sounds like it was a pretty tough day for the English. I managed to avoid checking on the score until around 6am, by then Australia were well in control, bringing back memories on childhood for me. It feels as though I woke up early on many freezing cold winter mornings, switched on the transistor radio which I had taken to bed with me the previous evening, only to hear that England were being soundly thrashed by a rampant Australian side.

Listening to a small radio in bed in one of the great joys in life those days. I guess I, like so many others of my age started by listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bed clothes whilst nervously waiting for my mum to tell me to "turn that off!" The reception for Radio Luxembourg in Bristol was pretty bad and the signal would ebb and flow, leaving you with the joyful sound of static for minutes at a time. Maybe it was this which caused my love of tuneless experimental electronic music? On occasions I would wake with a start late at night, realising that I had drifted off and the batteries on the radio has died. Now this was in the days before rechargeable batteries and we didn't really keep much of a battery stock in the house, so the prospect of several days without a radio was a worrying prospect.

Eventually I graduated to having a radio which I could plug into wall and keep on the table next to my bed, amazingly this didn't happen until I was on the verge of leaving school and starting my first job. By then I had made the move from Radio Luxembourg to John Peel on Radio 1. I dipped my musical ear in and out of the Peel show for a few years, until the festive 50 of 1978 saw becoming a regular listener. To ensure I didn't miss anything I would record the shows as well, so that I could play the tapes the next day, this would ensure that none of those fantastically obscure tunes slipped past me.

To this day late night radio is an essential part of my (and Orynthia's life). Our companion in the bedroom is Mark Radcliffe, consistently entertaining - sometimes just fantastic. Whenever he has Simon Armitage or Stuart Maconie as a guest of the show the silliness quota goes through the roof, and we lie in bed chuckling away at the wonderfully frivolous banter.

Following the postponement of our football match on Sunday morning, the weekend wasn't a tiring as anticipated. It also gave us time to have a proper look around the Totterdown art trail on Sunday afternoon, rather than spending it in bed as planned. As ever we saw some interesting stuff, especially the "Silver House" on Hill street, which quickly became the talk of the crowd as people moved from house to house. Saw a few things which we liked, but in the end we only spent a couple of pounds on a card.

The Friday night launch party featuring Suzuki Boom Boom (see picture) was fun, a ridiculous number of people squeezed into the abode of Mr Ritchie Paradise, to see his latest band swing into action.

Sunday evenings Grumpy Man, was a rather quiet affair, we'd like to think that it was the dreadful weather which kept the heaving crowds away rather than tunes. I don't think that we will be having one in December, but some exciting plans are coming together for the new year. We are hoping to get more involved with bands that fit the Grumpy Man style and we've lined up a treat for February, when Geoff Barrow of Portishead fame will become an special guest Grumpy Man for the night.

Tomorrow night we are going to a lecture on 30's ceramics at Bristol University, we've both got an interest in ceramics from the 20's to the 60's with our collection of "Homemaker" stuff holding pride of place. Hopefully it won't be too academic for untutored admirers such as ourselves, it's going to be a bit of a dash from work as it's a 6pm start, rumour has it that they provide free refreshments - always a sure way to attract our interest.

Well the good news is that I don’t have perforated eardrum after all. It’s just an ear infection, which should clear up soon, with the help of the cute little ear spray, which was prescribed for me.

Playing football was interesting as I couldn’t hear any of those helpful “man-on”, “time” “ lump it over here” shouts which are an integral part of the game. Added to that the fact that I’ve played once in the last month, I have to say that it resulted in a fairly woeful performance. The mighty Bryan Munich have a league game this Sunday, I hope that I can raise game from the lows of Monday night or I’m in for a miserable morning.

It’s actually going to be a pretty busy weekend, on Friday afternoon we are going to one of the launch events for “Front Room – The Totterdown Art Trail”. Sadly we won’t have a chance to have a complete look around during the rest of the weekend. It’s a shame as we really enjoyed it last year; of all the art trails in Bristol I think it works the best, mainly because of the compact nature of the display area. It’s really easy to visit all the houses on foot, unlike some of the other trails. As well looking at some interesting art, it is of course a wonderful opportunity to nose around other people’s houses, some of which are amazing. If you live in Bristol and have a spare hour or so, you really should go along and be nosey!

So what of the rest of the weekend? Well on Saturday I’m meeting up a friend for brunch before see City in action for the first time in ages (due to our trips to New York and London). Talking of City they have given me an interesting idea, on December 3rd my mum will celebrate her 75th birthday, sometime on that weekend City will be playing an FA cup game (date yet to be confirmed). Wouldn’t it be great to have my mum running out as the city mascot, having put up of years of obsessive football following from both my dad and I, what could be finer than going to first game at the age of 75! Seriously, I don’t think it would fair to put her through that; we will have to come up with another plan.

As previously mentioned I’m playing football on Sunday morning, before DJ’ing at Mr Wolfs in the evening at the latest Grumpy Man event. Sadly, I’m going to need a bit of a kip in the afternoon, otherwise I may make it through the evening, but I’ll be dead for the rest of the week.

Such is the sad state of affairs as I approach my 45th birthday . Not sure how much longer I’ll continue playing football as the recovery time, gets longer after every game. I’ll have to think of my 45 favourite 45RPM records and make myself a little play-list for my iPod, I missed the chance to do my 33 favourite 33 RPM records, will I still be around to list my top 78, 78’s ?

Every now and then I get a bit of a problem with an excessive build up of wax in my ears, leading to problems with my hearing. Over the past 10 days or so, the hearing in my left ear has been very poor, so I have been preparing myself for a visit to see the nurse in order to have my ear syringed.

Some of you may never have been through this experience, you have my sympathy. Few things in life are as startling as the change from virtual deafness to crystal clear hearing. Of course this does cause some interesting feelings to rush around your confused body. I remember the shock of hearing the rustle of clothing as my trouser legs lightly scratched against each other on the walk to the car. The car journey home was an amazing experience, I was convinced that all the doors had fallen of the car, so loud was the sound of the engine, passing cars and each gear change. The gentle swish of wiper blade across the windscreen was replaced by the sound of a jet engine whizzing in front of me.

At last I made it home, too risky to try the radio, TV or CD player, so I opted for a glass of water and a scan through the paper. Obviously the sound of running water from the tap was akin to finding oneself at the base of the tumultuous rush of a 100-foot waterfall. Time to sit and read the paper, this was back in the day of The Guardian being in its full broadsheet glory, pretty soon I realised that even this was going to be an impossible task. The noise of those huge pages crashing and crackling as I turned the pages was like sound of a thousand bonfire night parties exploding around my head. If only I read a tabloid newspaper, things may have been a little better.

Of course fairly soon, these amazing sensations begin to recede and once again it’s safe to put the kettle on, without thinking that the latest space shuttle launch is taking place in your kitchen.

This morning I went along to NHS walk in centre, only to be told that they no longer carry out “ear irrigation” there, I would need to see the nurse at my doctors. The receptionist said they might as well take a look at the offending ear as I had made the journey down. Less than 5 minutes later a nurse was looking into my ears and advising that my “good” ear was pretty blocked up, however my bad ear was not! She was concerned that she couldn’t see my ear drum, so she called a colleague into to have a look and they decided that I may well have a perforated eardrum and would need to see my doctor tomorrow. I was a little concerned on hearing this news, but they assured me that if it is a perforation, these things normally heal themselves. Let’s see what the doctor has to say tomorrow.

Last night I put my ear problems to one side (the left!) and went with Orynthia and Ashton to see a rare screening of the 1947 film “Dreams That Money Can Buy” with a live score being performed by The Real Tuesday Weld, with help from Cibelle and David Piper. It was great fun; the film itself is fairly mad surrealist take on the idea of someone being able to help people to have dreams, for financial reward of course. The people who helped with the creation of the film and dream sequences included Max Earnst, Fernand Leger, Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp.

Of course with those people involved, it was a pretty crazy visual spectacle, the live score and narration was subtle and entertaining. The performers were split into two groups of four with the screen in the central area; they were dressed in period clothing and lounged around in comfortable furniture between contributions. It was a little like watching the recording of a radio broadcast (with amazing Technicolor images) and was really rather fantastic, even with only one good ear!

So we’ve been back from New York for 3 weeks now and I think I’m almost ready to shake off the cold that I picked up just after we returned. The whole experience has left me feeling like I’m really on the threshold of old age, I have no energy or inclination to much at all over the last couple of weeks. My feet ache when I walk, if Phlegm was tradable on the stock exchange I would be a very rich man indeed, sleep has been fractured and inconsistent and I’ve been moaning and groaning (like I’m am now!).

I’ve decided to let my subscription to The New Yorker lapse for a while. I still love the magazine, but I just can’t keep up with the reading, I hate being 3-4 weeks behind which I always appear to be these days, because I’m behind I try to catch up by reading during breaks at work, leading to a decline in the number of books that I can I read. I’m sure that I’ll return but we just need a break from each other at the moment.

Talking of books, I am reading something that I picked up whilst we were in the States, It’s called “It’s alright now” by Charles Chadwick. A strange meandering and epic take on a mans life, written in an almost diary like style, with huge chunks of the book describing very small events in minute detail.

It’s received quite a lot of interest both here and in the states as it’s the debut novel from Mr Chadwick and he is in his 70’s – hope for us all then! I’m quite attracted to the way things move at a very slow pace, unlike like so much of the things which are put in front of us these days, this takes it time. Hopefully the journey will be worth it, in many ways it reminds me of an old fashioned game of test cricket, subtle change emerge slowly rather than in a blitz of frenzied activity like it would in a one day match.

The C86 bash at the ICA was great fun, sometimes nostalgia can be a good thing.

In the bar area the people from Rough Trade had set up a small shop area selling CD's from some of the more obscure bands of the era, as well as a few more contemporary things. The walls were covered by a slideshow of pictures of bands, record sleeves, fanzines and anything else that would bring the memories flooding back.

I must admit that I didn't know much about The Wolfhounds, I bought one single from them back in the day, so I was pleasantly surprised by their powerful and punchy set. They were much more akin to someone like The Gang of Four than most of the bands linked with the C86 sound. Before Phil Wilson and Big John from The June Brides took to the stage we were shown an extract from a forthcoming film documenting the indie scene of the 1980's. It featured some amusing footage of The Jesus & Mary Chain, including the tumultuous climax of one of their gigs when the crowd decided that would like to rearrange the PA system!

Phil and John breezed their way through a series of classics from The June Brides, cue big grins all-round. We did have a strange moment mid way through the set, we have been corresponding with Phil over recent months and he kindly dedicated a song to us, for next minute we were caught up in a strange minor celebratory world! Someone dashed up and asked to take our picture, then I heard someone else in the crowd say "Tom and Orynthia, they're from Bristol"! What was going on? The person taking picture was Phil Wilson's wife and the person who mentioned was a friend of a friend who we have seen on a couple of occasions.

There was another documentary interlude before Roddy Frame took to the stage. Roddy picked up on the feel of the event and entertained us with several amusing anecdotes about his pre C86 days on Postcard records. His set was peppered with gems from the early days of Aztec Camera, he also managed to throw an Orange Juice song into the mix as well.

Then it was back to the bar area, stopping only for a quick hug with Phil, where Steve and Katrina of The Pastels were playing a few tunes. we hung around for an hour or so, chatting to a few nice people including Roddy Frame before heading back to Bristol

All that gadding about (see below) caused my frail body to fall victim to the dreaded man flu. Then again is there anything better in the world than feeling a little ropey but being able to snuggle up in bed, long after the alarm has gone off in the morning? When I did finally make it downstairs those nice TV people had put on some lovely old films to help me pass the day.

Hope to be back on form this weekend as we are heading up to London for a bit of mid 80’s nostalgia. The ICA is putting on a couple of gigs to mark the 20th anniversary of the movement that became known as C86. So on Saturday we will be watching Roddy Frame (although he predates that whole C86 scene), The Wolfhounds but most importantly Phil Wilson. Phil used to be the singer with the June Brides; in many ways to our way of thinking they were the quintessential C86 band. Fantastic pop songs played at high speed – guitars to the fore, wailing vocals and great little trumpet breaks – they looked great as well, if you like the classy nerdy indie boy look which we all (well me anyway!) aspired to. Short hair, early 60’s suits, and great shoes, how could they fail? In our small world they were stars, of course most people didn’t have a clue who they were.

By the time they released their album it was all over for them and most of the bands of that ilk. Strangely “indie music” turned into a very different thing and the moment was gone. A few years later “indie” was everywhere, of course we moaned that this wasn’t “real indie” but who would listen. Soon we had Oasis – the biggest band in the country being called an indie band, which I could sort of see, then anyone who played a guitar was indie, then dance music came along and blew all those indie bands away.

It’s great to see these people getting some recognition at last, compilation albums being released, amazing write ups in the press looking back on those halcyon days. Now the only question is this, should I wear an old suit or a black and white French style striped T-Shirt?

To say that we've been busy since returning from New York would be an understatement. Last week went to The Essex Green on Wednesday, Camera Obscura on Thursday, Crippled Black Phoenix on Friday and The Divine Comedy on Saturday. Sunday saw me playing football in the morning (3-1 win for Bryan Munich) and then DJ'ing at Grumpy Man in the evening, quite a hectic schedule.

Enjoyed all the gigs, the first two were at the recently re-opened Thekla. The Thekla looks great but it was a little strange to get ther just after 8pm for the Camera Obscura gig to find that we had missed the excellent Francois already, due to the fact that an indie club night was going to take place after the bands. That's fine but having to squeze 3 bands in before 10pm is just daft. I think that they need to realise that if people go to see bands they need to see them at a resonable time.

Grumpy Man was good fun, we did have a few people who were asking for "happy songs" so we had to explain that is not what we do. On the other side of the coin the keyboard player for Jamie T who played in Bristol last night, came up to us to say how much he loved what we were playing.

Let's start at the end. If you are heading to England from New York, Newark airport with an evening departure, make sure that you sit on the right hand side of the plane, grab a window seat and enjoy one of the greatest views in world.

The amazing light show beneath the wings of the plane provides you with final reminder, should you need one, of the wonder of this city. The grid system of the streets and avenues below, provide the perfect setting for the largest, most wildly illuminated map in the world. It makes you want to rush to the cockpit and demand that the pilot turns the plane around so that you start your visit again. That wasn't an option, so we find ourselves back in Bristol after a wonderful two weeks in the city of constant surprises.

Given the benefit of time and that we have been several times before, we were able to visit some far flung places, many of which has escaped our attention on previous trips. We spent several hours bird watching in the Jamaica Bay wildlife reserve, visited the Bronx museum, a quirky sculpture park in Queens, and the site of the 1964 world fair in Flushing. Also had a good walk around Harlem and had a chance to check out the Park Slope area of Brooklyn.

In addition we saw lots of bands, ate lot's of nice and interesting food, bought loads of CD's and revelled in the fact that the exchange rate made us feel rather flush.

The apartment was great, we were on East 71st and 1st, not a part of town that I knew well but we found plenty to enjoy in the local area.

Got to spend lot's of time with our friends Bill & Doreen who are about to leave New York for Mexico, they gave us interesting tour of the changing face of the Lower East Side. Where Heroin one ruled the streets, swanky bars and expensive shops now rule the roost. Strangely on Friday afternoon we ended up spending our time with lot's of very excited children (and a few adults) at the launch of the final Lemony Snicket book, well Stephen Merritt of Magnetic fields fame was playing, so we had to pop along. It was great fun.

Our new favourite food shop, is the oh so simple Yonah Schimmel Knishery. Now we thought a Knish is pretty much the same wherever you go, well not here. They are huge and much more tasty than any other one I've had. The real treat though are the sweat ones, the Cherry Knish is a gem. The Spartan interior of the shop looked as though nothing had changed for about 40 years, the service was less than great but we loved the place. The walls were covered with press clippings and new pictures, my favourite being a picture of the Brooklyn bridge which was obviously too large for the intended frame. Brilliantly they simply cut the picture and put the rest of it into a smaller adjacent frame - genius!

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!

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.

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.

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.

We ended our bank holiday weekend by going to see the latest Ken Loach film - “The Wind that shakes the Barley” at The Orpheus.

Anyone that knows anything about the film, will be aware that it’s no jolly romp, it is a fascinating account of how people who start out unified with the best of intentions to change things for the common good, can be driven apart.

It’s set in the Irish countryside in the early 1920’s and makes for grim but fascinating viewing. The resistance it portrays has obvious links with events around the world, which fill our TV news shows every evening. It does make me ask which is the best way to the solution - armed resistance with increasing factionalism or the slow and peaceful track whilst keeping the moral high ground.

Think of the situation in Burma, years of calm protest with occasional awful bursts of violence has seen the democratic resistance dragging on for decades. Then again how many lives have been saved by their refusal to go for the headline grabbing armed conflict? I just hope that in the end they get the reward that they deserve.

The Spinto Band were great fun on Sunday night, came across as a mixture between Talking Heads, Weezer and They Might Be Giants. Bouncy, energetic and full of top tunes they come with the guarantee of a good night out. Pleasingly the venue was much less smelly than the night before.

We been in the midst of a little chaos at home, as we had a new free standing unit built for our kitchen, this means that the old unit is in the hallway and for a few days the contents were spread around the rest of the house. Everything (other than the old unit) is now back in the kitchen and everything is looking very neat and tidy, not always our natural state of affairs! We also got some visitors from Australia staying with us, so for a few days we have relocated to our other bedroom, it's almost like having a mini holiday of our own. We had to take a little collection of clothes with me, find somewhere to put my wallet, keys, work pass, small change and the like. Woke up this morning (cue blues riff) and had that momentary sense of confusion caused by facing a different wall. Managed to get to the bathroom and back without any mistakes and was delighted to find that I had taken the correct clothing for work into the other room, a rare case of forwarding planning working out.

Orynthia has the day off work to show our guests around Bristol, true to form after a glorious summer, the weather today is grey and damp. Still our guests are travelling for 9 weeks through Europe and America, so I'm sure that they will encounter plenty of hot spots along the way. How fantastic to be on holiday for 9 weeks, I've never been off for more than a month at a time, so I can't really imagine how you go back to work after being off for that length of time. I tend to forget things after going to lunch, so over 2 months away from the office would leave me devoid of any work related memory at all.

We went to see the marvellous M Ward at the rather smelly Academy 2 last night. Very low stage, so it wasn’t the perfect place to see this wonderful guitarist in action. Still the songs were sublime and the band and Mr Ward seemed to really enjoy themselves.

You can enjoy the video for Chinese Translation from his forthcoming album if you go here.

Back to the same venue this evening to see The Spinto Band.

Best not mention Bristol City – yesterday was very, very bad!

Summer Sundae was great fun, Absentee, Camera Obscura, Calexico, Buzzcocks and Belle & Sebastian were wonderful. Credit also to Liam Frost, Richard Hawley, Isobel Campbell, Tunng, Joan As Policewoman and M Craft who were all pretty good.

Talking of Camera Obscura as I often do, you can find a nice little promo film about the band by going here and then here for part 2. If you go here you can find a promo video for the title track of the latest album and forthcoming single Let’s Get Out of This Country. What more could you want?