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?

How strange to wake up this morning and to switch on the TV news in the middle of the government security statement. I've forgotten the name of the young chap with the slicked back hair who was reading out the instructions, but his steely tone certainly sent a chill through the early morning air.

Not wishing to personalise this serious event too much, but I know that my mum will be having kittens now. I only told her yesterday that we would be going to New York later in the year, she is a professional worrier so I'm sure the anxiety gene will have kicked in with this mornings news.

In 2001 we had our New York trip booked up well before our Xmas trip, so when the news of the shocking events of September 11th started to reach us it, we had those inevitable selfish thoughts regarding our own safety. Pretty soon we decided that unless anything else happened, we would stick to our plans and make the trip. We didn't want to be voyeurs of others peoples misery but, the signs coming from the city were that once the dust had settled (literally in this case) they wanted people to visit. My mother was very concerned about this and had to put on her best trembling stiff upper lip voice when wishing us a good trip.

So we went, and had an amazing trip. We kept away the ground zero area, however we did spend some time with a friend of a friend who was working in the second tower at the time of the attack. The things he told us about that day were truly awful but he was doing his best to get his life back on track.

So unless we are told otherwise we will be getting on the plane later in the year, looking forward to another fascinating trip to one of the most eclectic places on the planet. The first time I went to New York was in 1984, with the my good friend, the unfortunately named Simon Templar. At the time any potential worry about a trip to New York was purely linked to the supposed wildness of ordinary street life, rather than a terrorist threat. Family and friends were convinced that we would be murdered within seconds of arriving, such was New York's reputation at the time, it's fair to say that Simon and I probably weren't the most streetwise pair of lads, so maybe their concerns were justified.

We managed to get stung within seconds of our evening arrival in Manhattan! We took the bus from the airport to central Manhattan, with the idea of getting a cab to the Vanderbilt YMCA on East 46th street. On leaving the bus we dashed round to collect our luggage before the anticipated gangs of gun touting hoodlums made a play for our enviable collection of black clothing. There must have been a glut of black T-Shirts that year, as no-one took any interested in our cases. We were almost there, now we just needed to take a short ride in one of those famous yellow cabs and we would be safe for the night.

The bus pulled away, and magically the crowd that had been around us melted into the night, leaving Simon and I looking expectantly for a cab. At this point a man approached us, saying that the cab drivers of New York were on strike! Luckily for us, he happened to know where a few strike busting cabbies would be and that he would be happy to help us out. Wow, what a stroke of luck, how nice of this fine fellow to come to the rescue of these strangers in his city. Dumb, dumb, dumb!

He told us to follow him, which we happily did, maybe we should have taken a moment to consider where this chap may be taking us, but no we just skipped along behind him. Luckily for us, the guy wasn't interested in a major scam, all he did was stand in the road, flag down one of the many passing taxi's (obviously there was no strike) and charge us for his hard work. I can't remember how much our special taxi tax was, so it can't have been too much, we took this as notice to sharpen up act and not get caught out again. During the rest of our stay nothing untoward took place and indeed every subsequent visit has been touble free

Saturday saw me back at Ashton Gate for the start of another football season. It was good to catch up with fellow fans outside the Nova Scotia, the general mood was one of optimism. however given the traumas of recent seasons it was tempered with some caution. City managed to get off to a winning start, with a hard fought 1-0 win over Scunthorpe United, only another 45 games to keep the unbeaten run going!

Slightly more exciting, was the fact that we booked a trip to New York in the autumn. We are going for a couple of weeks and are just waiting on confirmation that a nice looking apartment will be ours for the duration of our stay, delighted that we will be flying direct to NYC from Bristol airport as well. We last went at the end of 2001, I'm sure that many things will have changed since then, can't wait to see as many of them as we can. The nice thing about going for a couple of weeks is that we can take our time and have a few lazy days as well, also hoping to catch up with some friends whilst we are in town. In fact some of our musical friends from Bristol will be in NYC at the same time as us, so we hope to catch some Bristolian talent in action. Sufjan Stevens in playing when we are there, the cost of the tickets which I've seen advertised is rather offputting at $150 per person, so sadly I think that we will have to give that a miss.

Saturday evening saw us attending a family wedding, which featured some of the worst music you've ever heard. Classic wedding fodder, painful to the ears, yet I can't really criticize. The DJ at our reception played some shocking stuff and strangely he organise some sort of skipping competition as well, we are still not really sure what that was all about.

Looking forward to the Summer Sundae festival this weekend, so many good people to see: Belle & Sebastian, Camera Obscura (who have just anounced a gig on the Thekla on October 19th), Richard Hawley, Absentee, Calexico and lot's more. The following weekend we have another treat when the splendid M Ward plays in Bristol, he was fabulous the last time he was here and indeed his 'Transistor Radio' album has had many more plays than anything else on our iTunes, so we are really excited about the prospect of seeing him again.

Had an impromptu walk around the Stokes Croft area last night. We been trying to find a new sofa that we like, without much success so decided to take a closer look at Sofa Riot and liked the look of the place. I’m going to pop in and have a chat with on Friday.

Thought we would eat at Café Kino, and although the menu looked inviting we had to leave for another day. In the early part of the week, it shuts at 7pm, which was just about the time we were peeping through the window.

So we took the short walk along the fabulously interesting Picton Street to the excellent One Stop Thali Café on York Road. It’s a while since we’ve been there, so we were pleased to find that the food is as good as ever and the atmosphere was wonderful. As well as the people eating inside they must have provided about 20 of the take away Tiffin meals for which they are becoming famous.

Lovely to see three independent businesses providing such a interesting and fun place to spend some time.

Update on the Bristol record shop crisis. Had the following message from my friend Pete who owns Rooted Records on Gloucester Road.

“We deal with Vital, Baked Goods & SRD and a multitude of small companies and have good contacts there so we can always get stuff to order for you I hope !! or we'll certainly try - you know we'll do our best - And we also buy just about any vinyl. Pass it on”

Although they deal mainly in the harder end of dance music, they will try to get hold of any of those obscure items and indeed some of the less obscure ones as well. They hope to be selling gig tickets in the near future as well, so why not give them a go, I know that we shall.

So I appear to be in one of my regular Japan phases - watching Lost In Translation, reading Murakami, watching Tony Takitini. I guess I should be listening to Japanese music as well, but I've lost track of what's going on musically in Japan at the moment. Maybe I'll dig out some old CD's from Cornelius, Pizzicato 5 or Roundtable.

I've been trying to work out what started my fascination with the culture of Japan, I'm convinced that it started with a TV series in the 1970's. Thanks to a bit of web research, I think that the programme was called Shirley's World. My memory is of Shirley MacLaine playing a photographer in Japan, in my head the whole series was set in Japan, from what I've been able to find out it doesn't sound as though that was the case, in fact it was probably only 1 of the programmes in a 17 show run. Anyway, it obviously made a deep and last impression on me. I also realised the other day that another, earlier encounter with Japan had lodged itself in the deep recesses of my memory.

I was flicking through a book the other evening and noticed a reference to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Over recent years I've always said that my first memory was of my father getting rather excited during the Manchester United 1968 European Cup victory, but upon seeing that reference to 1964, I suddenly remembered watching grainy black and white highlights of those Olympics. So Tokyo and Japan have both obviously been on my mind for a very long time.

Managed to get down to Arnolfini this evening to see the film “Tony Takitani”. It’s a Japanese film, based on a short story by Haruki Murakami. Most of the English reviews that I have read have been rather unkind about the film, however I’d have to say that if you are a fan of Murakami’s work you find plenty to admire in the film version.

True, the pace is languid and the story slight, yet I thought it was a wonderful evocation of loneliness and loss. Not a car chase of fight scene in sight, just a simple meditation on the events that shape a life.

Bristol looked pretty great this evening as I walked along the dockside to Arnolfini, bumped into a couple of friends in the cinema and another one on the bus on the way home. How nice it is to live in this city of ours, despite the lack of any interesting record shops.

Another one bites the dust!

So just a matter of weeks after bemoaning the loss of Disc n' Tape, news reached me last night of the closure of all the Replay Records shops, where do we go now ?

Other than Rooted, all the interesting record shops have now gone, with that the chance to chat to someone who might actually have some knowledge of music from the margins has gone as well. It's a real shame, I guess it's time to join the world of internet shopping! Apart from Piccadilly in Manchester are there any other good sites out there for the slightly more obscure end of the market?