Madness

There have been two incidents in the past week that have made me feel like I am going mental. I am aware that isn’t the most politically correct way of putting it, but it’s all I’ve got for the time being.

Scribbler
The majority of August was spent in Edinburgh with Dave for the Fringe (there will probably be a giant blog on this in about three months’ time) as he moved down there at the start of the month. Whilst waiting in the queue for a cash machine, I said aloud that I’d have to buy my sister a birthday card. “I guess I might get a nice one somewhere on Cockburn Street…” I mused.
“Why don’t we go to that place on Princes Street that we went to last year?” Dave suggested.
“Which place?”
“You know, that place you said you always go to and really like…” He saw my blank expression, “…on Princes Street..?”
“I have no idea where you’re talking about. What place?”
“I don’t remember what it’s called, but it’s got, like, green neon lights and stuff. We went there last year.”

I had no recollection of going into a place with green neon lights the previous year but neither of us would believe the other, so I told him to show me where it was or else I’d think I was going mad. As we walked along Princes Street, I was eager to reach where Dave believed this mythical shop lay. I imagined we’d get there and it wouldn’t exist, he’d look foolish, I could write him off as a mental and I’d be right and quietly smug.

When we passed Hanover Street and I was told, “I’m pretty sure it’s just round here…” I prepared myself for victory.

Until we came to this building.

“Here we go!” Dave said cheerfully.
I looked at it. It was certainly a card shop. It had green neon lights. I had never seen it before in my life and was shocked it existed.
“I have never been in here in my entire life.”
We went in. The walls were lined with greeting cards. It was nice, but nothing special. This threw up a number of questions. Why did I not remember this place? Why would I say I really liked it when it wasn’t much different from a number of other places? Who was I buying a card for the year before? When would we even have had time to go between the drunkenness and comedy? Was Dave thinking of someone else? Why did he know where this place was if he had never been with anyone before?

I was distracted from my card purchase and tried to ask all of these questions at once. It came out as, “I… cards… What?”
I think seeing my confused face worried the boy and we both felt like we might be going crazy. We only spent about four days in Edinburgh together last year, so I talked us through the first two, trying to figure out when we’d have a card-buying gap. He started to doubt himself. We have still not solved this mystery.

Drip Drip Drip
I was awoken from a dream about getting tickets to a Larry David book signing (he doesn’t have a book out, but it’s only a matter of time, right?) when I accidentally kicked Dave in the leg. How selfish of him to get in the way.
It was 3.27am.
I heard a strange noise. It sounded like water dripping and hitting a piece of plastic. I listened for a few minutes as it went on, then sat bolt upright, worried that it might be a leak.
“Are you okay?” Dave whispered.
“Yeah, just wondering what that noise is. Can you hear it?”
There was a moment of silence before it happened again and he told me he had heard it too. At least I wasn’t hearing things.
I lay down again, putting off having to get up and check it out. By 3.30am I had convinced myself that it was something more sinister than just a leak. It was definitely a ghost or a demon.

Oh, why have I not got round to round to reading Richard Wiseman’s ‘Paranormality’ yet? It would definitely reassure me that it’s not a ghost. Oh, come on, why am I even entertaining this idea? I am a logical person. I’m like Richard Feynman but without the smarts and the talent.

“Do you mind if I turn the light on?” I whispered.
“Okay.”
I did so and ran back to bed, like a frightened toddler.
“It sounds like it’s coming from by the door.” Dave told me.
“I hate you for making me watch Paranormal Activity that time.” I told Dave as I reluctantly got up to investigate the ceiling around the door. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. I rushed back to the bed to report to Dave.
“There’s nothing there or anywhere else, it’s definitely a ghost.”
During this time, the noise had slowed down slightly and was a little more faint, as if it was coming from just outside the door. I took a while, but eventually flung it open and got ready to jump out of the way in case a spook came at me. Nothing.

Am I going mental?

After a few minutes, I apologised, turned off the light and lay with my eyes open in bed. The noise could be heard every few minutes now, even more faint than it had been before. Dave fell asleep quickly, but I couldn’t. Outside, where it had previously been quiet, a dog started barking frantically. Soon after, a group of women started laughing maniacally. It was quite disconcerting, especially after I convinced myself that the dog I could hear was actually right on the other side of the wall from me and was barking at the house. I could picture it perfectly, it would be barking whilst its two owners would be panicking, trying and failing to drag it away, “This is so unlike Steven, I wonder what has gotten into him!”

Drip.
It’s probably just house noise…  It’s not house noise. Why else would it pretty much stop after I switched on the light and went looking for whatever it is? Demon. For sure.
Drip.
Oh please, can it not be? We’ve got the landlord coming round tomorrow, what do I tell him?
Drip.
What if it’s not even a ghost playing with a bucket, and it’s the ceiling dripping blood on me, like in Tommy Wiseau’s ‘The House That Drips Blood On Alex’?
Drip.
I should maybe start writing all of this down in case the demon takes over my body and it makes me kill Dave and myself. People would ask questions. I have no intention of killing myself or Dave, it’d be really annoying if people started to think that.
Drip.
Am I going mental?
Am I going mental?

I think I might just have been really tired.

White Male, 52, Seeks Attention

I have re-written the original article about Morrissey’s latest cry for attention.

MORRISSEY IN ILL-JUDGED

COMMENT SHOCKER

British singer Morrissey has said another stupid fucking insensitive thing equating a genuine tragedy and the loss of 70+ people’s lives to the state of the meat business in an attempt to make a glib point about vegetarianism.

The apparent parody of a petulant sixth year pupil and former The Smiths frontman was on stage at a show in Warsaw, Poland on Sunday night when he gave his thoughts on the two terror attacks in Oslo, which claimed the lives of at least 76 people.

According to Britain’s Daily Mirror, introducing the overrated and unnecessarily lengthy song Meat Is Murder, the outspoken vegetarian told the crowd, “We all live in a murderous world, as the events in Norway have shown… Though that is nothing compared to what happens in McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried S**t every day.”
He continued, “Mum! Mum! Mu-um, you’re not looking! MUM!”

The paper claims fans flocked to web forums to slam the remark. The Outrage reached Twitter four days later.

A spokesperson for the singer says, “Morrissey has decided not to comment any further as he believes his statement speaks for itself and also he can’t think of anything clever to say in response, without having to back track, that would make sense in any way. He wanted people to start talking about him again and instead of writing some decent songs, he’s decided to lazily compare two unrelated things under the guise of making a tired point.”

One gig-goer told us, “He’s not doing vegetarianism any favours. I am going to go out and eat as many animals as I can just to spite him.”
Another said, “I was very angry at his inability to come up with a good pun for Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

Morrissey has been vehemently opposed to the meat industry throughout his 28-year career, and has even banned burgers and sausages from being cooked at venues on his current tour. However, he has allowed the skinning of pheasants to take place in the car parks of the venues as, according to the bequiffed ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’ hitster, “They just look funny and different from me, so they cannot be tolerated. They are a sub-species.”

Primavera Sound 2011

[Better late than never. Please do not think, dear reader, that the length of time this took to post is any indication of quality. Same old shite.]

Well, that was alright.

On the 25th May, Morven and I headed out to Barcelona for Primavera.

Which was nice.

I won’t go into too much detail on what we did, just who we saw. I know that is very unorthodox for this blog, previously stupidly detailed about every aspect of my dumb-ass life, but I’ve not updated properly in so long that it seems a bit mental/like a lot of effort to go back months, filling in, and then describe exactly what we did in Barcelona. Besides, it’s all here onwards.

On with the musics!

I didn’t really know what to expect with this. Imagine! A festival in a foreign country! Just imagine! What on earth would that be like? My bud Jamie, who had been at last year’s Primavera gave me some tips (mainly “Don’t leave where you’re staying at 10am, go exploring Barcelona and then to the festival: You WILL end up sitting at the back of the main stage, exhausted and weeping come midnight.” and “Go to the food court! Eat everything!” and “Don’t try and buy Jägerbombs as I don’t think they do them in Spain. I got charged 24€ for three.”) so, remembering Tip #207: “Buy drink tokens early to avoid queuing for drinks later on.” – we did just that. It was slightly different this year. On trading our tickets in for wristbands, we were given a card that allowed us access to the festival site. In order to buy drinks, you had to load money onto the card and it would be used instead of carrying cash around with you. Except, you still carried cash around with you for food and merchandise. But hey, it’ll save on queues, right, so it’s worth it!
Forty minutes later, we were still in the queue to top up our cards, which allowed us to miss seeing Islet and Sonny and the Sunsets. D’oh… I put about 20€ on, figuring I’d mainly be drinking water over the next three days which was 1€ a time. We headed to the main stage, San Miguel, to catch Of Montreal. I did take pictures of every band we saw, but they’re so bad and mainly of dots in the distance that I’ll just steal the promo photos from the Primavera site.

Of Montreal

Despite having listened to and enjoyed the music of Of Montreal, I didn’t ever really think about what they’d be like live. I imagined probably quite dull, so wasn’t expecting to be blown away by them. Until they came onstage, dressed similarly to the above picture. ‘Hmm…’ I thought, ‘This might be a bit interesting, then.’
I feel bad for not really paying much attention to the music, but they were awfully distracting as a unit. I know I appreciated the tunes, but there was so much going on that it was difficult to focus on that. There was a man onstage dressed as a referee and two men in wrestler masks and outfits had a choreographed wrestle and it was all overlooked by the first guy. It was very very funny. Strange stuff kept happening and more people emerged from the side of the stage in different costumes with odd props. At one point, two men in long blonde wigs and onesies appeared with a string of modelling balloons. It was ridiculously long and they fed it into the crowd. For the rest of the set, this balloon snake slithered its way around the delighted audience. Easily amused? It was all very good fun! An ace way to kick off the festival.
We had to leave before the end so that we could get a good space for

PiL

As we ventured to the opposite side of the site to the Llevant stage, we were bewildered. “Can you believe that all of these people weren’t watching Of Montreal?” This would become a common musing in relation to every band we saw who were especially spectacular. We got to the stage and decided to stock up on water first, only to find that the bars were closed. It was strange. We met up with Andrew and Lipi who had exciting news: they’d just walked past Jarvis Cocker. Knowing that he was just wandering around left me very excited. To take my mind off it, we came up with some possible chants for during PiL’s performance such as “Far.mer’s.wife – Count.ry.life!” and “One Show, One Show, we saw you on the One Show!”. Easily pleased. Public Image came onstage and I couldn’t help but feel very strange, watching Johnny Rotten about 20′ in front of me. They were pretty good and made every song last at least twice as long as it normally would on record. My favourite was This Is Not A Love Song as, despite the time and  that has passed and the advertising opportunities that come with it, it still managed to sound really fresh. Good work, Lydon. We kept our chants at bay. An hour passed and we thought they’d be finishing shortly, but they were still going at 10.40, an hour and twenty-five minutes into their set, so we had to admit defeat and rush off to go catch Grinderman. On the way out we noticed that the bars nearby were open again and now were not accepting payment by the topped-up cards and were only taking cash. Crazy talk.

Grinderman

We found a spot in the middle for Grinderman. I didn’t mind, I was just excited to finally see Nick Cave live for the first time. I’d had their song Go Tell The Women stuck in my head all day and, at intervals, would let out an “I’m the Grindermaaaan…” or two. M0rven and I pondered whether Cave would be in a good mood or not as she, a seasoned live Bad Seeds correspondent, maintains that if he’s in a good mood, the gig is much better. It was evident from a few minutes of them being onstage that he was pretty happy to be there. Morven is a massive Nick Cave fan. The biggest I know. But she wasn’t too hot on Grinderman. I think this performance may have changed her mind, however. I’d not really seen anything like it. I’ve watched performances where he’s slightly more animated than you’d expect, but he was all over the place this time, it was brilliant. During ‘Kitchenette’, he ran into the crowd and shouted “I’M JUST TRYNA RELAX! I JUST WANNA RELAX! TIPPY-TOE TIPPY-TOE TIPPY-TOE!” in the faces of the admiring masses. I was very envious of those who were down at the front, and little did I know, this was also to become a recurring theme of the three days.
They played all “the hits” and lots from the new album and pretty much launched themselves into my favourite bands list with that one performance. Fuck, dude, it was great, even if they didn’t play Go Tell The Women.

Das Racist

I feel a bit of a fraud for putting these guys on my list of bands we saw. We had them on our Would Ideally Like To See list, but we headed to get food straight after Grinderman, when Das Racist were starting. As we’d missed two bands we’d hoped to catch earlier on in the day, I was a little frustrated that we’d not seen too many, so insisted that we go catch the end of the above’s set. I wish I could remember it. We definitely saw them and I did not have a drop of alcohol that whole day, but, we just their last song and from quite far away. I was determined to make that count, though. They are a very good band.

I’m a bit confused as to what to write about next. So, with a lot of thought, I have decided on…

Gold Panda

We both headed to San Miguel to see Flaming Lips, although, at this point I had already told Morven that I wanted to catch a bit of Gold Panda, who was on at the same time. Oh boy. I got into Gold Panda through Spotify (Thanks, Jonathan!) as he came up as a related artist for Errors. Never a bad thing. Anyway, I’d listened to his album, Lucky Shiner, a helluva lot over the last few months as it’s good to hear whilst reading or writing. So I decided I definitely wanted to see him, even though I also wanted to see the Flaming Lips. The plan was to catch a little of his set, then head back to San Miguel, so I left Morven quite near the front for Wayne Coyne and co. and ran off, agreeing to meet her after they were done at a lamppost. I headed along the pier to the Pitchfork stage and saw that Gold Panda had already started. Not many people were there at that point, so I got quite near the front and noticed that it was just him, his decks and a Macbook. He played the first few songs from Lucky Shiner that, to give him credit, are lovely, but I was expecting more. I don’t know what, but this just wasn’t much fun. I wanted to be back at San Miguel with my sister, especially as when I was leaving that stage, Wayne Coyne came on and shot confetti and glitter out of a walking stick. Dude. I decided that I probably needed to be a little drunk to appreciate One Man And His Laptop from the distance I was currently at, so started climbing the steps back over the pier and watched from there for a little bit. It became a little monotonous after a couple of minutes, so I headed back to San Miguel. Disappointing.

Flaming Lips

The entire area was packed by the time I got there, so I didn’t hold out much hope for finding my lovely sister. I found a spot near the back and had a sit down and enjoyed from there. It was lovely to watch as they put on a hell of a show, but I couldn’t help but feel slightly miserable and lonely after a while, feeling I should be in amongst the crowd, hugging people throughout their joyous set. Again, all “the hits” were played and they finished with an emotional version of Do You Realize??? – it was just far too nice. If I’d have been with Morven, it would have definitely have been the perfect way to end the first day of the festival. As it stood, it was just rather nice. That’s still good!
I found her at the lamppost, we got some drinks and wondered what to do. We left at around 4.20am and waited for the trams to start running again, which they did at 5am. So that wasn’t too bad!
A good first day…

Day Two!
The Fiery Furnaces

I always think that the Fiery Furnaces sound like such a summer band, yet they remind me of winter. And Fopp. And Fopp in winter. I think I must have bought their ‘EP‘ in either December 2005 or January 2006 from Fopp. Whenever it was, I fell in love with them pretty quickly so was very excited to see them live. EP is the album I’m most familiar with, which is rammed with synth music, so I was a little sad to see that their set up didn’t include any synthesizers or keyboards. I wasn’t disappointed for very long, though, as they came on and seemed happy, especially with their view of the Mediterranean Sea, so put on an ace show. They played plenty of songs from EP, including Tropical Iceland, but just with the guitars and drums. It sounded pretty thrashy, but totally worked. It was really nice to hear a different take on things.

Dan Melchior und Das Menace

I’ll be honest, we mainly enjoyed this set whilst sitting down, eating rice and samosas, but they key word there is ENJOYED. Good time rock ‘n’ roll. We stood up once we had finished eating and watched for a bit. The band seemed to be having fun, which is always good to see.

The National

Again, I’m not sure if I should really put the National on this list, but I have done – SO DEAL WITH IT, GRANDAD!
Morven went to go see Half Japanese. She wasn’t too bothered about seeing the National, but I wanted to see a bit of them. I was happy to just watch fifteen minutes or so of them, so arranged to meet up with her at the stage where Half Japanese were playing and made my way down to Llevant ten minutes before they were due to start. The entire area was packed out, so I knew I wouldn’t get a very good view. I was happy for all of two minutes, before becoming increasingly annoyed with the lack of gig-etiquette from those around me. Lots of wankery and shoving, despite us being near the back where all the space was. They came on and I managed to move even further back. Here, however, I couldn’t even see the stage behind all the people so moved onto the sand next to the palm trees, which was pleasant. At this point, I was so far back that they were actually quite quiet so I didn’t feel like I was actually watching them. I lasted two songs and then went off to find Morven on the steps of the ATP stage for…

Half Japanese

It was nice to sit down with a good view of the stage and these guys were ace. Essentially just middle-aged men rocking out, which was delightful. Morven told me of her struggle to actually get to the stage, walking in the opposite direction from, seemingly, everyone else at the festival, who were all off to watch the National. We didn’t catch the whole of the band’s set as we wanted to get to the San Miguel stage and see…

Belle & Sebastian

“Oh, but they’re so twee. Aren’t they shit? Ugh, who likes music that actually makes them feel happy? You SQUARE.”
SHUT UP, IMAGINARY DICKHEAD!
I’ve enjoyed the music of Belle & Sebastian for years now but had always missed out on seeing them live for silly little reasons. I don’t really understand why, especially of late, they seem to crop in ‘guilty pleasures’ lists but people really seem to really get snobby about them which seems a bit mental. Admittedly, though, my sister and I did play “Guess the people who are going to see Belle & Sebastian”, which was easy. Lots of girls in wool.
We found a spot near the middle for the gig and soon were treated to a tremendously high-energy show. It was really good fun and they played all THE HITS. Well, not all of THE HITS, but still, SOME HITS. Stevie was particularly amusing with his comments and instructions on which parts to sing along to. At one point, Murdoch went into the crowd and picked out six people to come onstage and dance as they played. Again, this made us regret not being anywhere near the front, especially as he handed each of his dancers a medal for their efforts before they left the stage. Lovely!
Around two songs from the end, people with the only banner I’d seen the whole weekend made their way to the front of the stage. Their sign said “#spanishrevolution: Sing along with the common people”, alluding to the trouble there had been earlier on in the day. In the main square in Barcelona,  protesters had set up a makeshift village due to the financial crisis. The people camping out in tents on the square were mainly frustrated young people, as the youth unemployment rate in Spain is at an all-time high. The protests were peaceful, yet on this day, police had been called in to take down the tents. They then opened fire on the people who had been living there, with rubber bullets. This article sums it up better than I can, but, after visiting the square after the festival was over whilst we had some free time on Sunday, I can act as a witness to how peaceful everything was there. Obviously I wasn’t at the square as the shit went down, but can say with a fair amount of confidence that I doubt things were out of hand as the police arrived.
Anyway, enough!

When we had been writing out our list of bands to see on the Thursday, this exchange occurred.
M: “Do you want to be right near the front for Pulp then?”
K: “I don’t really mind, as long as I get to see them and it’s not from a massive distance, then that’s still good.”
M: “Okay, in that case, we could maybe catch a bit of Explosions In The Sky beforehand…”
K: “Cool!”

I think we both knew at the time that this was never actually on the cards. By the end of Belle & Sebastian’s set, we had both silently agreed that we needed to be right down at the front of the stage for Pulp. So, valiantly, we made our way forward…

Pulp

So. This was the reason I was stood by the sea in Barcelona at quarter past midnight on a Friday night/Saturday morning when normally I’d be sitting up in bed with my laptop killing time with more important things to be doing.
On the 8th November 2010, I was sitting on some concrete steps with a few people from my class, awaiting a couple of uneventful hours of Monday morning education. Aforementioned super-pal Jamie, who reading something on his phone, said nonchalantly, “Apparently Pulp are having a reunion.” At this point, I don’t think he knew how much I loved this band and was probably just filling the silence.
“WHAT?!” I asked.
“…And they’re playing Primavera.”
This last bit of information was probably just in relation to the fact that he had spoken a lot about Primavera 2010 and how great it was, but it was that moment that made me think, “HOLY SHIT! I’m gonna have to go to Spain!”
As the rest of the line-up was announced (“Wow! Comet Gain! Grinderman!” – Incidentally, we never got to see Comet Gain as they were playing on the Wednesday as part of the festival but in a different venue. I still don’t really understand this or how one acquires tickets to it, but it was quite annoying to find that they’d already played.) I became more determined to go. Initially, the line-up wasn’t too amazing, but Pulp was keeping me motivated to go. I didn’t have anybody who was able to come along, so I thought that I’d happily just go myself, even though my mother would probably kill me if this happened. I still hadn’t bought a ticket by February and was beginning to worry that it would sell out. Morven was my saviour, however, and as PJ Harvey was announced, she told me that she would love to go. Even though that was it decided, we still didn’t buy tickets until mid-March and hadn’t booked flights or accommodation until the beginning of April. Once this was done, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted. Just over a month later and we were there. This was due to be their first gig with that line-up for fifteen years, but they played a secret gig in Toulouse two days earlier. Bastards! Still, it felt exciting knowing that we’d be part of probably one of their biggest gigs with those same people in the band.

We made our way to the front of the stage, which wasn’t as difficult as anticipated. Several others were doing the exact same thing, but loads of people were also heading away from the stage. When we reached our destination, there was a group of around six people sitting down. People were stood around them in tiny spaces and others were struggling to not trip over them. I’m all for sitting down whilst waiting for a band to come on, but right at the front of the stage seemed a little selfish. If you’re too much of a pussy to stand and wait, then you don’t deserve to be at the front. Everyone hated them and glared at them. Whenever others nearby happened to sit down, they cheered and said, “Join the revolution!” which Morven and I agreed wasn’t a great statement to make when it seemed there was real revolution in the air in Barcelona that week.
We couldn’t remember if the band were due on at 1.15am or 1.45am but hoped it was the former as at this point, it was 12.15am and our feet were sore. We managed to get two or three rows from the front which suited us just fine and we watched as the set was all put together behind very thin curtain. It was exciting to see the letters P-U-L-P being raised into the air. At around 1.15am, slogans started to appear in lasers on the curtain, which got everyone excited.  Phrases included, “Do you remember the first time?”, “Is this a hoax? Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?”, “Make some niose” (which was then followed by the corrected “make some noise” that made me think Jarvis was at the side of the stage, typing it all up) and “Would you like to see a dolphin?” then a laser animation of a dolphin. Ace. At one point, some people in the crowd started singing happy birthday to one of their friends and a few seconds later, a projection of a laser birthday cake was on the curtain. Nice touch.
They started putting things up like, “Are you ready?” and “Shall we do it?” which were exciting at first but they made us wait half an hour. Boooo! By this point, I was just too excited and nervous and I knew that it would be mad where we were standing. I was prepared to lose at least 40% of my possessions.
Finally, the last slogan was put up and we could see the band were onstage through the curtain. I felt mega-nervous. One by one, the letters P-U-L-P lit up and everyone screamed like mental.
Jarvis could be seen despite the curtain not being pulled at this point and they started with Do You Remember The First Time?, with the sheet coming down and the crowd going mental at the first chorus. As a result of all this tension and build-up, I have found that since coming back from Barcelona, I cannot listen to this song without feeling nervous and a bit emotional.

I’ll do a very brief (although knowing me, not that brief) summary of each song from after that one…
-Pink Glove: We were instructed to join in with the breathy ‘ah ah ah, ah ah ah’s and did so. At this point, Cocker was pulling some fantastic shapes and I was surprised that I was still managing to stay relatively close to the front.
-Pencil Skirt: Again, I managed to hold my ground and was grateful for this one not being as manic and jumpy as the others.
-Something Changed: During this, I wanted to cry with joy. It’s still such a lovely song.
-Disco 2000: This is one of my favourites as it reminds me so much of my childhood and I remember everything about hearing it when I was little so vividly. It was the one I was determined to remain close to the stage for. I just lost it completely and felt so amazingly joyful throughout. Just great.
-Babies: I moved slightly further back for this one. My intention was to get to the right hand side of the stage. I’d totally lost Morven long before this, but had agreed to meet up with her later. I hoped she was alright in the crush, though, especially as this was her favourite song.
-Sorted For E’s & Wizz: Gaaaaah! I’m so glad I finally got to hear this live. I’m so glad I finally got to here this live AT A FESTIVAL! The words “I lost my friends, I danced alone, it’s six o’clock, I want to go home” have never seemed so appropriate. Except the part about wanting to go home, I guess.
-F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E: I got pushed back into the middle for this one, which I really didn’t mind at all. There is something quite liberating about jumping around like a mentile whilst pumping your fist to “EL! OH! VEE! EE! What is this thing that is happening to me?!”
-I Spy: By now, I’d made it about ten rows back, where it was relatively calm compared to a few more in front. Cocker came into the crowd after the song had finished, but continued singing to his people. “I spy a boy…” he said, pointing at a man. “I spy a girl…” he continued, pointing at the lady next to him. “Introduce yourself, boy…” he urged to the man, who told us his name was Shane. “Introduce yourself, girl…” She was Michelle. Then, returning to his normal voice, Jarvis said, “I think Shane has something to ask you, Michelle…” and we witnessed a proposal. Jarvis said that they’d play another song whilst Michelle thought of an answer.
-Underwear: I’ll admit that I wasn’t giving this song my best attention. I was too busy wondering how the Shane and Michelle thing came about. Did Shane bump into Jarvis earlier on in the day and somehow guarantee that he would remain at the front of the stage at that particular song? But HOW?! Also, having Jarvis Cocker give his blessing to your engagement is pretty fucking cool. I don’t really like the whole wedding thing, but that’s certainly the way to get it started. My second confession for this song is that I joined in with several others in pointing at Cocker and shouting the words, “I’d give my whole life to see it, just you stood there only in your underwear.” OH THE SHAME! (But I totally would, he’s still got it. I doubt it ever left him.)
-This Is Hardcore: Now I was well and truly to the right of the stage, again, about ten rows back so I was able to witness Jarvis’… uh… choice miming work in full. What a bewilderingly sexual man. This song cropped up on a karaoke list when I was in Inverness last week. It struck me as very peculiar as it was amongst three Pulp songs, the others being Disco 2000 and Common People. I was tempted to go up and sing it, just so I could disgust the people of Inverness with my Cocker-esque hand gestures.
-Sunrise: It was very nice to be standing where I was for this as the people around me were the right level of excited. They were singing along, but weren’t going terrifyingly mental at any point. Although, I imagine it would be quite hard to go terrifyingly mental at such a nice song.
-Bar Italia: This was an unexpected treat. That’s all I have to say on it.
-Common People: As an introduction to this, Jarvis pointed out that he hates it when people go to a new country where stuff is happening and air their opinions on political matters that they don’t really know anything about. This being said, spotting the Spanish Revolution banner, he said, “So, I’m not gonna pretend I have a big understanding of this situation, all I’m saying is when police go into a square and put 100 people in hospital for doing nothing, that’s not good… So, we dedicate this song to those people…” The crowd, again and quite rightfully, went crazy.
-Razzmatazz: After the crush of Common People, I stepped back a bit. This song was the encore. We knew they’d come back on, but weren’t sure what they’d play. A few people around me shouted for ‘Misshapes’, which got me excited, but sadly it was not to be. They played this as they said there was a club in Barcelona that they’d DJed at a couple of times called ‘Razzmatazz’. A lovely lovely ending to a perfect set.

I left with a massive adrenaline rush and, surprisingly, tracked down Morven quite easily. We grinned as looked for somewhere to sit down and eventually collapsed against a pillar, broken by Pulp.

Day Three!
Cuzo + Damo Suzuki

We left pretty late to get to the festival on the final day and I was worried that we wouldn’t get to see these guys. We got to the venue about fifteen minutes from the end of their set, but there was a massive queue to get bags checked so I figured that we’d miss them and was a little annoyed. In the queue, I watched as a man and woman walked ahead to another gate with a woman standing guard. She put out her hand to stop them, the man showed her something, presumably a VIP band, on his wrist and she let them in. It was here that I realised that this was Jarvis Cocker and his human lady-friend. Ace. It felt nice knowing that he was watching bands for another day.
We eventually got in and ran to the Pitchfork stage to catch the end of Damo Suzuki with Cuzo. Excellent to see Damo having a good time in the flesh. The crowd was quite small, but very appreciative.

tUnE-yArDs

I’ve been kicking myself for not getting into this lady earlier. I first started listening to her first album, ‘Bird Brains’ at the end of last year, but only properly got into her music in February this year. She’s definitely been my most obsessed about music-thing of the year, seriously, SO GOOD. The latest album, W H O K I L L, has been getting amazingly good reviews and they’re certainly justified. I was super-excited to see her, so again, we headed to the Pitchfork Stage to do so.  Before she came onstage, Merrill could be seen in her excellent outfit. Everyone cheered and she waved and jumped up and down. I’ve never seen someone so excited to get onstage. She came on and won Morven over with her first song. Morven hadn’t heard much of her stuff before but enjoyed what she did see before going to see Fleet Foxes. I stuck around for the rest of the set, which was ace. Everyone was loving it, she seems to be one if the perfect festival musicians. Notable songs she did included ‘Gangsta’, ‘My Country’ and ‘Bizness’ all from the new album. She mainly played stuff from it, which everyone seemed delighted by. She also played a song that I don’t know the title of, but may be ‘Do You Want To Live?’ that isn’t on either of her albums but sounded fantastic. tUnE-yArDs were definitely a highlight of the entire festival.

Fleet Foxes

I headed to the San Miguel after Merrill’s set as Fleet Foxes were playing, and it was predictably packed, so I stood and watched from where I had been for Flaming Lips. I only caught a few songs, which were lovely, but I decided to go have a wander until it was time to meet Morven. I checked out the merchandise stand for prices of Grinderman t-shirts and Primavera bags and just looked at things for a couple of minutes before heading back. By happy coincidence, Morven had moved to the back of the crowd where I’d been previously and was sitting down enjoying Fleet Foxes. We decided to go for some food before they finished.

Einstürzende Neubauten

I really didn’t know what to expect with this. I’d not listened to this band as much as I probably should have, but in my head, they have always been one of Morven’s Bands because of her love of Blixa Bargeld. They opened with The Garden, which was ace, and basically just played an incredibly good show. The songs they played that weren’t in English only fuelled my desire to spend this summer re-acquainting myself with the German language. They were so full of energy and excellent that they became an unexpected highlight of the weekend. Would definitely see them again.

PJ Harvey

What a Bad Seeds reunion of a festival this was turning out to be! After seeing Grinderman and knowing that PJ Harvey was playing two days later, I couldn’t help but think a lot about the relationship between her and Nick Cave. I know, I know, focus on the music, but it seems so interesting and sad that I just couldn’t help it. Anyway… We sprinted off to PJ Harvey just as Einstürzende were beginning their encore. I accidentally became in charge of finding us a good spot for us to stand in. I failed miserably and continued to feel awful about it for the rest of the gig as Morven is a massive fan of PJ Harvey but had never seen her live before. Not only did we end up behind, in the words of some American girl, “the five tallest dudes at the festival”, but also there was a slight disagreement over gig-etiquette with another reasonably tall fellow. Nevertheless, lady Harvey was excellent. She played a lot of the new album which I recognised, so that was enjoyable also. She seems so lovely and shy, it’s hard to imagine her being the person behind some of her older songs.

Swans

Morven didn’t want the final act we saw at the festival to be someone she really really loved and I could understand why, so we went for a few drinks and sat on the steps of the Ray Ban stage to see Swans. It was nice to sit down after a long couple of days mainly spent on our feet. Swans were very good and very loud, but we weren’t paying much attention to them due to being sad that it was the last night. We finished our drinks and headed out of the site, waving goodbye to the lovely, accommodating festival.
So, there we have it.
In conclusion, I would say this is definitely the best festival I’ve been to. For a number of reasons, too. The whole three days just seemed so relaxed and there was never any cause for stress. It was certainly different from most British festivals I’ve attended. I’d hate to be one of those snobby people who will go on about how things are better away from home when they aren’t, but we genuinely felt safer than we ever have at UK festivals. We noticed that there were surprisingly few security staff on the site and it sort of made us feel like we were being trusted and treated with respect as opposed to being made to feel like children who weren’t capable of behaving nicely. Also, it’s the first festival I’ve been to where I’ve not been covered in beer at some point because some asshole has decided, inexplicably, to throw a pint in the direction of the stage. The only “missiles” I saw launched at the stage were various articles of clothing at Jarvis when Pulp were on. I don’t think he would have complained.
I’m not naïve enough to believe that there was absolutely no trouble at Primavera, but we never saw any which is certainly refreshing in comparison to festivals like T in the Park where if there weren’t people getting into little fights, there were people throwing up and hurting themselves left, right and centre. Why should festivals be an excuse for people to act like dicks?

Top Tips for Primavera:
-Don’t worry if whatever silly drink-buying system they have in place next time falls through. After the initial hiccup on the first day, the main bar in the food court still accepted card payments for those who had no money, as well as cash. Things will work out.
-If you somehow manage to obtain a piece of clothing that is clearly a promotional item from one of the festival sponsors (this year, everyone was wearing straw SMINT hats), be prepared to be jumped on by anyone working for any of the other sponsors. They can tell that you’re a sucker for a freebie, so will give you other shit and try to talk you into being part of their campaigns. Not necessarily a bad thing.
-The most important tip – B.Y.O.L: Bring your own lids. We discovered on the first day that if you bought a bottle of water from one of the bars, they took the lid off and gave you it, either because it would you to drink it all in one so you’d buy more or it’d make it harder for you to bottle bands. So, on the second and third day, we brought out own.
Look how happy we are!

Who’s coming with me next year?

At least I’ve got five months to do this after the Rapture comes…

In December 2009, I bought the above book. I’d seen it come into stock at my work and thought it looked interesting and I liked a lot of the contributors who had written for it. It’s edited by Ariane Sherine, who is behind the Atheist Bus campaign, and is essentially a collection of writings about various subjects but all with the theme of Christmas/Midwinter/Festivus  For The Rest Of Us. The book is split into six categories: Stories, Science, How To, Philosophy, Arts and Events. It is really rather lovely.

I didn’t buy it, however, until a trip to London for my chum Kerry‘s birthday. There was a christmas event on at the Waterstone’s on Gower Street, where loads of authors were going to be signing their books on different floors but at the same time. I arrived there and immediately spotted Rich Fulcher, who was due to be signing his book. I was there to get hold of the book pictured above, though, so tracked down the table for it. Initially, nobody was sitting at it, so I went for a wander and ended up in the science section where I bumped into Robin Ince who I knew was due to be signing the atheist book. I spoke to him for a little bit about Carl Sagan and then let him go back to his table. I figured I should probably leave it a few minutes before following him to get a book signed or else I might look like I was stalking him, so again wandered off. I looked for a copy of the Atheist’s Guide To Christmas, but apparently all of the copies were at the table I was delaying in going to. On my search, I walked past Simon Callow, which was pretty surreal. In my head, he was eating a free mince pie (part of the selling point of the event), but I think I’ve just made this up as I’ve always dreamt that I might, one day, spot Simon Callow in a bookshop eating a pie of some sort.

Soon I headed back downstairs to the Atheist table and saw Robin Ince, Zoe Margolis and Andrew Mueller hidden amongst the massive piles of books. I chatted some more to Robin and rambled at him about bookselling, Aberdeen and the silly night I’d had previous which was responsible for my lifestyle-flu (I get rambly when ill). I believe at one point I used the phrase, “Ugh, bloody Simon Callow, I’m always bumping into him in bookshops… Bastard.”
Note: I do not think Simon Callow is a bastard.
My book eventually was signed by all three sat at the table. I felt quite guilty for not talking to Zoe Margolis and Andrew Mueller much, but they were trying to sign as many books as possible, so I don’t think they minded. They were probably glad of my lack of communication, actually, if they were listening to the crap I was putting poor Robin through.

I left in a better mood than I’d arrived in and jokingly told myself that I’d have to get everybody who contributed to the book  to sign it some day.

I thought no more of it until the start of this year when it was announced that Robin Ince would be returning to Aberdeen in May, but with his scientist buddies, Brian Cox, Ben Goldacre and Simon Singh in tow. As a big fan of Cox and Ince’s radio show, the Infinite Monkey Cage, I knew immediately that I’d be going. Also, I’d enjoyed the works of Simon Singh and Ben Goldacre for a while, having seen Singh at last year’s Word Festival and having read and enjoyed Goldacre’s ‘Bad Science’ book immensely.
“Hey!” I thought, after buying tickets, “All four of those guys have written for the atheist book! Bring it with you and get the three signatures you don’t have!”
Great job, brain. It’s nice to have a little project on the go!

So, May finally arrived and I headed, with Dave, to the Music Hall for an evening of Science and Comedy. The first half consisted of chatter from Robin Ince, Matt Parker (guest stand-up mathlete), Ben Goldacre and Brian Cox. During the interval, Ben Goldacre was signing copies of his book in the foyer. I decided that that might be my only chance to get hold of him, so brought my atheist book with me. The crowd around his table was massive, so I thought I’d maybe hang around after the gig and try get him to sign it then instead. Autographs after a gig! I felt like I was fourteen again!
I spotted Simon Singh standing by the table. As he had not been onstage at this point, he wasn’t really being approached by anyone. He was talking to a man, but I waited until he left before asking Simon for a quick signature on my book. He happily obliged and asked, “Didn’t Ben write something for this too?” and called Mr Goldacre over to sign it also, which was very nice of both of them.
After the show, I thought I’d have to stand at the stage door as if I was waiting for Mick Jagger, in order to snare Brian Cox, but apparently I wasn’t quick enough, so missed them leaving. Still, though, two out of three ain’t bad.

The following evening, I went to see Richard Herring at the Lemon Tree. It was the first time he’d been in Aberdeen since 2007, which was exciting. It was his Christ On A Bike show that we’d seen in Edinburgh, so that seemed fairly appropriate. I knew he’d be another one to tick off the list as he always hangs around at the bar after gigs to sell and sign things. Generous fella. I got to the head of the queue and he signed my book.

I said to him that I was trying to get as many people from it as I could and that I figured Simon Le Bon would be the trickiest, even moreso than Dawkins. Again, I punctuated my statement with a ‘…Bastard.’ and he laughed.
Note: I do not think Simon Le Bon is a bastard.
In fact, he seems rather charming. I RIO (really) hope he signs my book. That was terrible, I’m going to go punch myself in the face and eyes.

So. Here is the full list of contributors I’ve still to get. Is it possible? If you know of how these delightful people can be tracked down or you’re friends with Simon Le Bon, please let me know in a comment. After 6pm today, it’ll only be us non-believers left on earth for the next five months of plague and punishment, so in theory, I’ve only got until the 21st of October.

STORIES
-Ed Byrne
-Jenny Colgan
-Emery Emery
-Catie Wilkins
-Simon Le Bon
-Zoe Margolis 
-Richard Herring 

SCIENCE 
-Simon Singh
-Richard Dawkins
-Phil Plait
-Adam Rutherford
-Brian Cox
-Ben Goldacre
-Nick Doody 

HOW TO
-Josie Long
-Matt Kirshen
-Claire Rayner
-Siân Berry
-Mitch Benn
-Jon Holmes
-Andrew Mueller 

PHILOSOPHY
-Derren Brown
-Charlie Brooker
-Hermione Eyre
-Andrew Copson
-David Stubbs
-Julian Baggini
-A.C Grayling

ARTS
-David Baddiel & Arvind Ethan David
-Anna Pickard
-Kapka Kassabova
-Simon Price
-Natalie Haynes
-Lucy Porter
-Emily Hill 

EVENTS
-Robbie Fulks
-Christina Martin
-Graham Nunn
-Robin Ince
-Neil Denny
-Caspar Melville & Paul Simms
-Sid Rodrigues 

-Ariane Sherine

Polar Opposites of Stand-Up

We went to see Doug Stanhope two weeks ago; Kris, Lee and myself.

[Doug Stanhope and blow-up doll. Not Kris, Lee or me.]
He is one of the few stand-up comedians you can use the phrase, ‘He just doesn’t give a fuck’ about and actually mean it, as opposed to pinning it to the wannabe bad-boys that you see on the circuit today. The kind who try too hard and attempt to offend people just for the sake of it, rather than because they’ve actually got something to say. You can just tell that these guys get offstage and go home to their normal life, leaving their stage persona at the door. I think that when Stanhope is preaching to his disciples onstage, he is speaking exactly as he thinks and when he leaves, he is exactly the same person.

He gets compared to Bill Hicks a lot, but the only thing that’s really similar is that they can both come over to the UK and play in ridiculously massive venues, whereas in their US of States, they tend to mainly play little bars to drunk people who aren’t there to see them. The week previous, Stanhope had been playing to 3000 people at the Hammersmith Apollo, which was quite a difference to the 500 who came to hear his Gospel at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen. The perfect venue for him, I believe.
I’ve been aware of Stanhope for a few years, but it’s only been through knowing Lee in the last two that I’ve become more of a fan. He’s not just Lee’s favourite stand-up, but he sees Stanhope as a God. There have been many times where the two of us have been in the pub and I’ve listened to him talk about his bleak outlook on life. He seems perfectly happy, though, but always cited this way of thinking as down to Stanhope. This always made me a bit cautious of the American, slightly annoyed that he’d made Lee so cynical. I love cynicism, I think it’s the only sensible way to live your life, but if it starts to make you depressed, you’re probably getting a bit too much of it.

So. We went to this gig and he opened by saying how he felt relieved to be back in such a decent sized venue and how it was exactly as a stand-up show should be. He covered quite a lot of ground with his rantings. Stanhope spoke at length on the frustration he feels as his body is slowly breaking down, how Charlie Sheen has stolen his act and is doing it better than he is and generally how he lives his life. In comparison to some of his older shows, this one seemed pretty tame, but tame by Stanhope-standards is like seeing any other ‘edgy’ comic at their most intense.
For the first time in his career, he took a break about fifteen minutes before the show was due to end. He said he needed “to take a shit real bad”. He returned to the stage five minutes later and told the room all about his mother’s assisted suicide.
On the whole, the show was spectacular. I began to see why Lee sees him as a deity, as everything he said, I agreed with. Something still wasn’t quite right, though. On one hand, his desire to enjoy life by just doing whatever he wants is admirable, but on the other, his bleak outlook and total detachment from the world is peculiar.

On the whole, the gig left me exhausted and also a little  sad but enlightened.

Skip to nearly two weeks later and Dave and I arrived at the Music Hall so he could finally enjoy his Christmas present.

I bought us tickets to see Tim Vine for Christmas. I’m not a huge fan, but Dave loves a pun and I didn’t think it’d be very polite to make him go alone.

The atmosphere could not have been any different to the one at the Lemon Tree earlier in the month. We arrived as a magician called John Archer had just come onstage. And there were children sat with their parents all around us. We had ice cream at the interval. Time Vine came on with some headwear on that consisted of knitting needles and balls of wool (“As you can see, I’ve got nits.”)
A very very different show indeed.

While there were no stories about crack and hookers, there was a bag of props. Instead of the swearing, there were musical breaks to try and solve the mystery of whether things were torches or not. Overall, he wasn’t bad. The songs were the best bits as they bordered on Harry Hill-esque ridiculousness. I left happy, but it didn’t exactly have the same effect on me as Stanhope had. This being said, I did enjoy both gigs.
My advice to Tim, however, would be: More tales of substance abuse and sexual debauchery and fewer puns.

The Power of the Internet

To say that ‘lots’ of people are going mental for Rebecca Black’s song, ‘Friday’ would be a bit of an understatement. At the time of writing, just over 66million people have viewed the official video on YouTube. I can’t really get my head around figures like that, it’s more than the population of the UK. (Although, probably not according Aberdeen rag, the Press & Journal, who last Saturday  claimed that 250million people would be turning up to the anti-cuts protests…)

I’ve read the full story of how ‘Friday’ came to be, I’ve watched it, I’ve wondered if the people at Ark Music who made it intended it to be a serious song, I’ve sang along to it, I’ve had it stuck in my head whilst at work, I’ve had it stuck in my head whilst really ill in bed in the dark at 4am (which is a bleak, bleak feeling), but I still can’t really figure out why it has achieved the… success that it has. It’s not the worst song ever written and it isn’t the first time a child has had money thrown at them resulting in absolute rubbish being produced, so why is this now so huge?
It’s THE POWER OF THE INTERNET! It’s bewildering, but amazing.

I can’t help but wonder if Aaron Carter’s ‘Crazy Little Party Girl’ would have the same reaction if it was released these days.

Granted, it doesn’t teach us the valuable lesson of which day of the week follows which and it may be missing the autotune and the interjection of an ageing rappist, but it’s still got the terrible video, the inane lyrics and a child who can’t really sing brilliantly. Come on, internet, you love it.

Terrible at blogs

I don’t know what’s happened, but I am rubbish at doing this these days. I know I ask for your forgiveness a lot, so I’m not even going to bother this time. I’ll just sit in this corner and weep and ask that you don’t look at me. Please, don’t. Feel free to throw things in my general direction, but don’t look, I’ll jump into their path if your aim is wrong.

Right.

So, stuff and things for February and March. What happened there then? Eh?

There was a trip down to Glasgow on 18/03 to go see Richard Ayoade’s ‘Submarine’. I first heard he was directing this film a couple of years ago and as I rather like him, I read the book on which it is based in January 2009. It was brilliant and so I’d waited for the film ever since.
It was pret-tay pret-tay pret-tay good.
The Q&A with Ayoade afterward was bewildering. He is very charming, but boy, he gives no serious answers!

The week after, we saw Debutant/Stuart Warwick/Vessels at the Lemon Tree. We drank too much, but the gig was lovely. At one point, the phrase, “He can’t have cancer, he’s got too much pizazz.” was uttered.

Then I saw Dananananaykroyd for the first time in years and they were okay.

Into March and I think my gig-year peaked then. We saw Les Savy Fav at the Tunnels. It was their only Scottish date, the place was packed and they were brilliant. They were supported by Al’s band, Battery Face (very good) and Young Legionnaire (also very good) who we saw support Pulled Apart By Horses last year. The only negative thing about the gig was that John (of my Jaunted blog) was there, although this soon turned into a good thing when Dave was drunk enough to get onstage with the mic right next to the bastard. I mimed punching John in the face to him whilst shouting, “Dave! Punch John in the face!” and as Jamie shouted, “Dave! Punch Euan in the face!”
David just stood, grinning, mic doing nothing in his right hand and his left hand waving at us. Hilarious.

I unofficially moved in with Baz on the 10th of March. Well… I didn’t have a key but I stayed over there as I had to be at Duthie Park by 9.30 on the 11th and couldn’t face having to get up early to get in from the Bridge of Don. We went to the park to film Chris’ creative project. In the end, it turned out to be only me, Chris, Lawrence, Andrew, Neil and Kris there, but we made the most of it and had a really fun day. It was a year to the day that I spent four hours in a freezing car park filming with the IT Crowd, which was pretty funny as it left me with the same feeling of excitement and interest in pursuing some sort of tv job in the future. In short, having fun filming with friends. Ace.

The first and last time I will ever wear a Celtic top…

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

I officially moved in on the 14th March. It feels bizarre but nice.
I was on a plane to the Netherlands three days later. My cousin Neil was getting married to his girlfriend Eva on the Friday, so my mother and I flew to Amsterdam on the Thursday, caught a train to Utrecht and met up with my sister, brother-in-law, auntie and uncle. They showed us to our hotel. My sister had texted while we were on the plane saying I would “frickin’ love” the place. She was right. She had Bowie’s mugshot stencilled to her wall and we had Frank Sinatra. My mother and I went for a wander and bumped into Neil. Later, we went round to his, now with my other cousin Graeme and his girlfriend Dionne also in tow. We met Eva’s brother Tom, who was delightful. Around sixteen of us ended up at an Italian restaurant for a Scotlanders-in-the-Dutch meal and were there for three hours. It was lovely. Family is a nice thing. The wedding wasn’t until 3pm the next day which left me, Morven and Matthew time to explore. It was also, unluckily, the first time in days that it rained and, boy, did it rain! The ceremony was mainly held in Dutch, but it was alright to keep up with. We went to Cafe Lofen for food and a party afterward. It was very enjoyable, Dionne became my hero of the evening.

The next day, mum, Morven, Matthew and I caught a train to Amsterdam. We went on a canal tour and saw some amazing buildings. Then we walked, went into bookshops (we found the American Book Center, which is where I intend to work when I move here in future years), had some food at a lovely Indonesian place called Sahid Jaya then walked some more and witnessed a game of Police horse football while the theme from Titanic played. I’m sad that me and mum didn’t have enough time to properly explore the place as we were only there for the night, but it was still enjoyable. More reason to go back.

On the Sunday, we returned home and I went to see the Room at the Belmont with Dave, Baz and Carolyn. I’ve only seen it on dvd once before, so it was amazingly funny to witness with a screen full of people.

Last Wednesday I had college, followed by doing some editing and then filming for Kris’ film, Your Call Is Important To Us. There was a tiny bit of drama as our location became unavailable an hour after we’d met up, but we found an alternative. I went straight from there to Dave’s. His alarm went off at 2.55am and we woke up and he got ready to go to the airport. At 4am, his taxi picked us up and dropped me off at the flat where I said goodbye to the boy as he goes to work in Washington DC for a bit. It feels strange.

Amber gave me a lift to college on Friday to pick up a camera, tripod, sound equipment and lights. When I got back, I found that the disc had Stacey’s entire film on it, so had to run back and get a new one. Then I rushed home to meet Rory, who helped me film some stuff. Again, I had to rush off to Union Square to meet a girl who expressed an interest in being in my film. She was really lovely and enthusiastic, so I left her with the script and again returned to the flat feeling productive and happy. Baz came home from uni and I dressed her up like the White Witch from Narnia and filmed her lounging around. In the evening I went to the pub with John and Rory.

Nearly caught up now…
That takes us to Saturday (it is currently Tuesday). I went to the train station to meet Morven and Matthew in the early afternoon. My dad gave us all a lift home and we got ready for the Aberdeen leg of Neil and Eva’s wedding tour. It was at the Palm Court, where I’d never been before and I got to catch up with family I hadn’t seen in a long time. I also got to meet Carly, my cousin’s daughter, who is the smiliest one year old I’ve ever seen. Excellent child. After a nice meal, we all had a dance for a few hours. Eva’s mum, Patricia, proved herself to be brilliant and told us of her love for Muse and Lady Gaga. She invited us to join them all at Pinkpop next year. I will definitely have to take her up on that… provided I’ve paid off this year’s Primavera by then.

The party stopped at 1am, but by this time, my phone had changed its clock forward an hour. We all headed home, I went back to the flat and woke at 8am to direct Brodie to give me a lift. He found me eventually and we headed to Duthie Park to shoot Lauren’s film. It didn’t take long and was also good fun. The people I’ve been filming with most recently are ace; the dream team! We’re having a lot of fun. While we were out there, Brodie, Chris and Kris spoke of an idea for us to do in class this week. They wanted to do something along the same lines as 10 O’Clock Live and told me to be the Lauren Laverne figure. Class on Monday was spent writing scripts and preparing for this.

We usually have class on a Tuesday too, but most of us are finished with these particular classes and so had today off. I spent a wee bit of time in the morning making this. It is terrible quality in all aspects, but it gets the message we’ll be trying to send across…

I’m sorry that this was probably pretty dull, I just thought I’d get the boring ‘what’s been happening?’ crap out of the way so I remember it in the future.

HOW’RE YOU?

Bus literature

I was feeling sort of down on the bus home on Thursday night.
My favourite bus driver got on as a passenger. He is fairly Aberdonian and manly and I imagine he ‘doesnae tak’ ony shite’. He’s the same driver who drives one of the late night buses on a Friday and Saturday and often has to gently wake up various drunken passengers.
He had a book in his hands that I could only see the pages of and not the cover. It looked fairly well read and I was intrigued by what it might be as I am a book nerd and must always know what things are. I looked over his shoulder to see if I could see the title on the top of the right page. It said ‘Eclipse’. I giggled at the thought of him reading the Twilight series, but figured the book was too large to be the same Eclipse so tried to scope out what it said at the top of the left page. With a name like that, I assumed it was some science fiction novel from a long time ago, about the moon exploding or something. I couldn’t see past him to read the top of the left page, but as he got off the bus, I saw the back of the book. Above the barcode were two small pictures showing the covers of Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ and ‘New Moon’. It properly cheered me up. This was the first time someone reading a book of this series has made me feel happy.

Bad bad black leather swamp Nazi

Dave and I jumped on a train at 3.30pm last Friday and headed to Glasgow. There were business-wankers at the table next to us and it was most off-putting. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand what was being said most of the time as I didn’t have handy my copy of

We blocked them out with wine and were soon in Glasgow. Upon arriving at our Travelodge, we bought chips and watched Take Me Out whilst hoping that the idiots next door would turn their loud, awful music down at some point over the course of the evening. Then we walked to Mono. I was sending a text when I felt someone bump into my arm. I ignored it. It happened again and I thought ‘Is that some rogue trying to get past me or is it someone I know? It would be far easier to just have a glance, but no, I’ll wait to see if it occurs a third time…’ It did and I looked up into the smiling face of Jamie. HI JAMIE!!! We weren’t massive fans of the first band, Two Wings, but we sort of listened anyway.
I didn’t really know what to expect from the rest of the gig as it was being billed as ‘The Jeffrey Lewis and Peter Stampfel Folk Show’ and I was ignorant of who Peter Stampfel was. Turns out, he is 75 year old man with a good moustache. He was also one of the Holy Modal Rounders. The gig consisted of them telling stories from recordings of various songs and albums and Peter making it quite obvious that he’s almost an acid-casualty.
They played for a good two hours, which was impressive and enjoyable. Afterward, McPhee introduced us to Euan and his friend John, who were lovely and we tried to get our photo with Peter Stampfel after deciding he would be our new adopted Granda. Our first attempt didn’t really work. I spoke to Franic from the Wave Pictures who had been playing mandolin and guitar for the guys and he said that his own band would make their triumphant return to Aberdeen this year. I’ve since found out that they are indeed coming back, but on the same night as Uncaged Monkeys. D’oh. Big John Cavanagh talked Gramps into getting his photo taken with all of us. Results are great, check out how delighted everyone looks!

Ace.
Euan got caught up talking to the man whilst we went outside. Jeffrey Lewis was standing with some people out at the door and when Euan emerged, we challenged him to talk to Jeff so that we could too. We are socially awkward. He overheard Jeff saying something about Neil Young live, so he approached him and said, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’ve seen Neil Young live too, in Aberdeen.”
I resisted saying, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I live in Aberdeen!” and instead just walked over to them too. Big J.L introduced himself to us and I got talking to him about his Tunnels gig that I missed due to being hungover (worst regret ever) a few years back. He spoke of how he’d been camping in Glencoe once and that if he was invited back to Aberdeen he would come. A few days later, I sent him an email inviting him back. Hope he does come, he’s lovely.

After that, we went for cocktails, followed by Sleazy’s. We met up with Dave’s friend Al in the queue and headed downstairs to see Ultimate Thrush when we eventually got in. I saw Andy who used to ridicule me for being a young’un when I was sixteen, but the place was so packed that I couldn’t fight my way to him to say hello. At about 3am we left and made it back to the Travelodge. The people next door were still playing their music. At 4.30am Dave fell asleep, but I was wide awake. I reckon I could have slept through the music had I been tired, but since I was alone and bored in the early hours, I went down to reception and complained, just to give myself something to do. That killed a few minutes. I fell asleep at around 5.30am. They still had their music on. Bastards.

The following day, we walked to Monorail to peruse their records and then went to meet Dave’s brother, Alasdair for lunch before getting on the train home. I had a bit of a rush to get home and back into town again for the Mogwai gig at the Music Hall, but I made it. Remember Remember were supporting. Aforementioned Andy plays drums for them now. They were very good. Mogwai turned out to be pretty disappointing. I like them, but wasn’t as blown away as it had been promised that I would be. I went home feeling sad that such a promising weekend had descended into blahblah.

Nothing much happened until the following Saturday where Dave, Jan and Claire had their first gig at Cellar 35. They were playing with Matricarians and the Oxbow Lake Orchestra. Their name is Seas, Starry and they are wonderful. You can download their CD, I think recorded solely by Jan, for FREE FREE FREE here: http://seasstarry.bandcamp.com/album/i-woke-up-near-the-sea-sailing-in-my-dreams
That whole evening made me really appreciate the people I know as well as the music scene in Aberdeen in general right now. It was pretty perfect. I’ve met loads of really lovely people in the past two years or so and it’s pretty much exclusively down to being part of the (nice little, often sarcastic and difficult, but hilarious) Aberdeen-Music community. I got into a little debate with Kris at college about this the other day as he reckons there is nothing going on up here music-wise. He likes to be negative, though, so we just ignore that! In fact, I may do a blog soon about ace bands from up here. That’ll be a treat. I hope you learn something, shouldn’t you be in class? Go to your room.

January 2011

It feels like it has been a long month already. It is only the early hours of the 28th.

New Year’s Eve was a lot of fun. Everyone gathered at Baz’s wee cottage and had drinks and talks and good times. Ten minutes before ‘the bells’, someone we didn’t know was throwing up in her bathroom. There was a big queue to get in for those with full bladders. I heard talk of “going for a piss outside” from several guys who were beginning to lose patience. Then I heard Jill and Keri whisper the same, but phrased in a more lady-like, beautiful and embarrassed way. At this point in time, blog, I am not ashamed to tell you that I did not need to urinate, however, upon overhearing their conversation, I joined in. “Am I hearing talk of an outdoor pee, ladies? Is that going to happen? Have we been driven to this? That’s hilarious, let’s do it.”
Jill didn’t join us and I lost my nerve, but still, it led to me and Keri wandering around a multi-storey car park in search of toilets it claimed to have as fireworks began to go off. What a start to the year!

A week or so later, I went back to college. That is not related to the above paragraph, it is simply coincidence that it follows it. Everything went back to normal. Back to your homes, nothing to see here.
I had been worried about college over the holidays as I didn’t like my script that I’d written for my short film, but I’ve since regained the faith and it is down to it that I am currently typing this at 1.25am when I should really be in bed. This has the potential to be a lot of fun once the paperwork is done.

I bought a FlipCam from Amazon. It arrived and I realised that it was one I could have got for £30 cheaper in John Lewis. This will haunt me forever. I still get annoyed whenever I see a £3 copy of ‘Please Kill Me‘ or ‘Screenburn‘ in HMV due to my using the last of my money on two occasions to pay full price for them a few years ago. Idiot-fool. It has been alright so far, but not really worth the money paid for it. Hopefully it’ll come in handy when I get some nice editing software loaded onto the laptop…

One evening as I sat with Dave at a bus stop, a man in a homemade balaclava came up to me, made the shape of a gun with his fingers and said, “Tell me the time!”
It was 9.20pm.
He then said “Gie us yer wallet.”
I responded, “Nah, it’s okay.”
He said, “Just joking.”
I still cannot figure out if this is true or he was just not a very persistent mugger.

Last Wednesday we did a pub quiz and I told Baz that I would move in with her until September. Nothing has been finalised yet, but it looks like this will happen in late February – early March. I am quite excited. The flat is stupidly close to my work. We met up with Claire and Jan that night. It was Claire’s birthday so we went to Exodus and I bought her some frozen margaritas. They are not the kind of drinks that can be enjoyed quickly, but I was fortunate to be wearing my lovely jacket with big pockets and so I managed to sneak two out with me when they closed and demanded Dave take a victory photograph.

I do hope that my year hasn’t peaked too soon.

On Friday we went out for her proper birthday night out. We went for a meal at Spice Dabba, which used to be an internet cafe/charity/radio station where I once did some work experience. It was peculiar being back there after four or five years, but the food was delicious and the company was rather good also. We headed to the Tunnels after food to see Moon Unit.
We arrived just as Matricarians were finishing, which was a shame. Then a man in some glasses came on. His name was Patrick MacAuley Keenan and he did some nice sounds with a laptop and guitar amongst other things, whilst projections of Fantasia were played. Scrim were up next. They made clicking noises and the boy one had a microphone in his mouth the whole time. I did not appreciate them as much as I perhaps should have. Jan summed it up perfectly when he tapped me on the shoulder and said simply, “It’s not finished… it’s finished.” referencing Vulva and Hoover’s performance art from Spaced. They finished up and several almighty boos could be heard from the back of the room. Ouch. Moon Unit were pretty pleasing, but possibly played for ten minutes longer than they should. I got a bit restless and wandered around for a bit around halfway through.
A fun evening was had by all, though.

This week I have been listening to slightly more Sebastien Tellier than usual. I found this tshirt online and decided that I needed it, only to find that it was only available in XL. I bought one anyway because I am an idiot and a sucker for a man with a beard on a tshirt. Or a man with a beard in general.

Off to see Jeffrey Lewis tomorrow (tonight) in Glasgow at my favourite place ever with Dave. It will be lots and lots of lovely fun, I imagine.

This hasn’t been very interesting.
I’m sorry.
Here, have this.

HAPPY NOW?