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| Sunday, August 31, 2008 |
| Exactly five years to the day since this adventure began, fittingly I'm at the very same pub where I first met the band. Such a lot has happened since then... |
| Tonight's gig: |
| Cry Wolf at The Six Bells, Brentford |
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...not the least of which has been the smoking ban! That, combined with the amazing adaption of my Australian metabolism to local conditions, has meant that gig-going has become far more comfortable.
Sweet familiarity has not bred contempt, either, as the band were able to bring something new to their performance tonight: Pars Evrenos on bass (for Black Night), and David on lead vocals for Whole Lotta Love!
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| Saturday, August 30, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: |
| The Mick Taylor Band at The Boom Boom Club, West Sutton |
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Not being an affectionado of the Rolling Stones, I really didn't know what to expect tonight, but the presence of one of Cozy Powell's frequent collaborators (Max Middleton on keyboards), combined with a venue I very much enjoy, was enough to convince me to head on along.
And I was glad I did - though I recognised not a single song, Max's sound and style was instantly familiar to me, and the rest of the band were individually and collectively just as polished. An uplifting evening with great musicians and good company to boot. |
| Friday, August 29, 2008 |
Parking Wars are over... for the time being, anyway
The whole thing began a few months back, when the guys who worked in the restaurant next door parked my car in, so then my landlady parked them in!
A trivial game, perhaps, until they wanted to leave, sparking four hours of angst, with much swearing, yelling and thumping from the laneway, and even, at one stage, trespass, when they apparently scaled the brick dividing wall between the two properties and came thumping on my front door - which I didn't answer, as I couldn't do anything anyway. They had parked ME in, after all. Well after I went to bed, she kindly went and let them out, reminding them that it was not actually a spare spot, but belonged to her property.
Revenge was had when they went and scratched her duco, and then they stuck to their own parking spots... for a few weeks, at least.
It all kicked off again three weeks ago - coming home from a very late gig at The Rising Sun, I found one of their vehicles in my spot. Too tired to care, I simply parked it in and went straight to bed. The next day I went out - by public transport, figuring that they would eventually have to come and say something. When I came home, it was still there, just as before... or so I thought. Then my landlord told me that they had somehow managed to manouver the people-carrier out between my car and the van next to it, and had promptly gone out, done their business, and managed to squeeze it back in again! Getting it out was impressive, but putting it back in when there were spaces elsewhere was being a little bit too clever, as far as I was concerned. So I went and moved my car so that this was no longer possible, and there we stayed, stalemate, for the rest of the week. Then a friend suggested I take a look at the van, to see if it had a tax disk... surely it did, I thought, but then I discovered that it didn't! More and more curious... I went and moved my car elsewhere after a few more days, but there was no sign of this apparently illegal van going anywhere, and we started to wonder if it had been dumped there!
To that end, my landlady decided to finally and reluctantly implement Plan B, having been considering signing up with a clamping company for some time - despite wanting to give people the benefit of the doubt, we were realising it was not going to work. So we all fixed the stickers to our windscreens, and waited. And then came a fateful phone call from upstairs - the people-carrier had been taken out, my landlady told me, best to grab my spot back now. So I did. And guess what? I was promptly parked in when they got back.
Curious, I went downstairs, not only to check the integrity of my duco, but also to see if a tax disk had miraculously appeared. Yes, it had, though it was not particularly well-fastened onto the windscreen, being attached merely by two straggling strips of sticky tape. Interestingly, the number plate written on it was even correct. My problem was that I needed to drive to a gig the next evening, and that vehicle was in my way. Voicing my concerns to my landlord, he told me not to worry, so I went off to work that day, not at all sure what I would see on my return.
And when I came home... there was no people-carrier in sight. Not blocking me in, nor even in their usual crowded spot behind the restaurant. Delighted, I went to talk to my landlord, and he told me that he had called the clampers that morning, who had promptly come and shackled up the offending van... its driver had then had to pay the appropriate fine to get his bomb back, and it was now parked well out of the way down a nearby side street, so Sam concluded.
Over the next few days I was able to come and go to gigs as I pleased, and none of the clever lads attempted to steal my spot, though one wagged his head at me disapprovingly one evening as I was heading out. Whatever.
But it wasn't quite all over. My landlady had been parking in a locked garage since her own paintwork was damaged, and I remained in fear of mine, but revenge was enacted in a very different way. On another late night return from a gig, I found the laneway strewn with plants and flowers torn out of the ground... Childishly, the fellows from the restaurant had gotten back at Sam by destroying just about all of the beautiful plants he had so lovingly cultivated throughout the spring and summer. Very sad.
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| Thursday, August 28, 2008 |
| Moving to the UK in order to be nearer to the music I love so much has created an unexpected paradox - I am separated by thousands of miles from my actual music collection, thoroughly boxed up and securely locked away in storage back in Sydney, and yet I am surrounded by, almost on a daily basis, those wonderful people who created those delicious sounds. Not only that, I also get to witness firsthand those very same people performing and totally immerse myself in the music, as well as talk with them about it... it seems a very small price to pay indeed! |
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Reading:
...about reading! I've been so busy every weekend recently that I've quite neglected keeping up with one of my favourite weekly reads, the Books section of the Saturday edition of The Times. But I'm well and truly making up for that now. Instead of relying on the lightweight free newspapers for my daily commute on the tube, I am now steadily working my way through my summer backlog, and not even in chronological order! Not only do I love finding out what is out there that I might be interested in, often I simply revel in the ability of the reviewers to succinctly reveal not only the substance of the book itself they are writing about, but some candid observation of life and society itself, as reflected by that book, all in a simple sentence or two, and sometimes even in a mere few words. |
| Wednesday, August 27, 2008 |
There is nothing quite like the feel of having a Rickenbacker back in my hands again... :-)
I'm spending a little bit of time on MySpace at the moment, and I can't help wondering, are other people as irritated with the big-chinned, gum-chewing bloke on the webcam-style video advertisement as I am? Perhaps it's just that he's the same gormless, big-boned type as the students who used to give me so much grief at the university - twice my body-mass or more, I'd have a quiet word to them that they were using university computers for what was clearly non-university business... Most people would be a bit embarassed and move on, but these big boys apparently found me so much of a threat to their masculinity that they'd threaten to thump me... except that I was a woman, of course, so they told me. When I suggested that they have a go anyway, they'd mutter and demur and bluster and generally just go on and on... all a bit pointless really, as we could shut the PCs down by remote control anyway.
Those were the days! Australia, nah, don't miss it at all! |
| Monday, August 25, 2008 |
Listening to: Gary Moore...
...Dunluce, Blood Of Emeralds, and the very beautiful version of Sunset from the Live In Japan album. Played without drums, he had dedicated it at the time to Randy Rhodes, but to me, it's always to Cozy Powell, as the track had originally first appeared on Cozy's third solo album. And now it's for a dear friend as well...
No-one can quite evoke all the grief, mourning and longing involved in losing something so precious as a loved one, though for me, Gary Moore comes the closest. Driving home late last night, with my mp3 player as always on random, this was one of the songs which was so aptly selected... It's music, as always, which lifts me out of the sorrow I'm feeling.
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Reading:
Quite apt, really... This is your Brain on Music, by Daniel Levitin, subtitled "Understanding An Obsession"
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| Tonight's gig: |
| The Good Old Boys at The Red Lion, Isleworth |
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| ...and what a great evening's entertainment it was too, at a very hot Red Lion! A lovely way to round off a long weekend. |
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| Sunday, August 24, 2008 |
Having not ventured into a sports store for some time, today I made the pilgrimage in search of a pair of shoes suitable for tennis. A simple task, you would think, but no. I had to do this since normal shoe stores don't seem to carry your basic "sandshoe" (as they are called in Australia - "plimsolls" perhaps, here?).
The prices bring me up short just to start with, but there are two other immensely irritating things as well. The first of these being the apparently unavoidable and overt branding on every single shoe, which goes right against my core beliefs. Any words I wear on my person are for something I personally endorse, whether a band I love or a particularly pithy saying — these obscenely rich manufacturing companies should be paying ME to wear their brand, not the other way around! Why is it that when playing sport, you HAVE to wear a brand on your clothing? Is this not the most clever marketing ruse around? You pay a fortune for something AND you do their advertising for them?
And the other thing is the overwhelming pinkness of everything in the women's department. I loathe pink so much I go and look in the men's department in sheer desperation, but my feet are too small to fit into any of those shoes... and so it's reluctantly back to Pastel Hell for me. If it's not pink then it's baby blue or lilac or some equally wimpy hue - why haven't the bright bold colours of normal clothing permeated the sports shoe market?
The shoes apparently for tennis (and it's hard to tell, but I suspect I'm meant to know by the style of tread) are all chunky and heavy to boot (no pun intended), something I've found just weighs me down on the court. In the end I go for a streamlined shoe more like a running shoe by one company I find less offensive than most, trimmed in green and navy, and that will have to do - I then escape out into the fresh air in search of something far more delightful, ice cream!
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| Tonight's gig: |
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Cry Wolf
Hare Hill Social Club
Ledger Drive, Addlestone, Surrey
9pm start
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| Saturday, August 23, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: |
| Netherworld at Cobham Village Club, Cobham |
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| Friday, August 22, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: |
| F2* at The Rising Sun, Slough |
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* Not their real name... |
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| Wednesday, August 20, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: |
| The Micky Moody Band at The Eel Pie Club, Twickenham |
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| Saturday, August 16, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: |
| Cry Wolf at The Red Lion, Twickenham |
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| Friday, August 15, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: |
| Raw Glory at The Red Lion, Twickenham |
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| Tuesday, August 12, 2008 |
wma samples from the recent Raw Glory recording sessions are now available! See City Life.
There are new logos for Blackfoot and Spoilers and a revamp of the Blackfoot Sue timeline is occurring. |
| Monday, August 11, 2008 |
| That was quite a weekend. Much of the fascinating material I'm reading was demonstrated in real life - or perhaps I'm just more aware of it now.
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Reading:
Another Deborah Tannen, this time, Talking from 9 to 5, with the subtitle "Women and Men at work: language, sex and power"
But it's far more than simply about language... Tannen's insightful observations of both genders in the workplace lifts the lid on all the behaviours we simultaneously take for granted while being unconciously irritated and frustrated when other people don't operate exactly the same way we do... enlightment dawns!
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| Saturday, August 9, 2008 | Sunday, August 10, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: | The view from my front door today |
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Raw Glory
The Coach & Horses
183 London Road,
Isleworth, Middlesex
10pm start
See you there! |
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| Friday, August 8, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: a last minute dep, with Raw Glory stepping up to the breech at the Boom Boom Club in West Sutton when Ray Owen of Juicy Lucy was taken off to hospital and his band sadly had to cancel.
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| Thursday, August 7, 2008 |
Reading:
that's not what I meant! by Deborah Tannen, a linguist who cuts to the very heart of the reasons for everyday misunderstandings within our attempts to communicate with one another.
The subtitle says it all: "how conversational style makes or breaks your relations with others"
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This is a real eye-opener. To quote: "...the most significant outcome of knowing about conversational style is knowing itself: knowing that no one is crazy and no one is unkind and that a certain amount of misinterpretation and adjustment is normal in communication."
For my part, I've often been flummoxed, when talking in my customarily direct way to someone more accustomed to communicating in an indirect style, for them to be second-guessing my every statement and looking for a deeper meaning when there simply isn't one, with both of us becoming increasingly puzzled and frustrated at our apparent lack of understanding. This book explains such differences in style in such a straight-forward way you wonder why it wasn't obvious before - such is the author's gift.
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| Wednesday, August 6, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: |
| The Good Old Boys at The Eel Pie Club, Twickenham |
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With Pete off enjoying himself on holiday in France, the band was a four piece tonight, but dear Simon expertly carried the evening, even when lapsing into autopilot - Shaking All Over had an overly long ending as, he admitted, he "was waiting for the other guitarist to finish it off!"...also featuring, of course! - Nick Simper, Alan Barratt and Richard Hudson.
Good news: it will be the full 5-piece line-up at my local, The Red Lion in Isleworth, on August 25th!
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| Tuesday, August 5, 2008 |
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| Here she is! Meet Ritchie... isn't she beautiful? |
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 |
At long last! On a drizzly Sunday evening, I finally get to see the repeats of the final Dr Who episodes of the season which the BBC so thoughtlessly aired while I was away in Australia...
The genius of a show with such a long history, such a rich vein of creation and imagination to draw on, and the sheer artisty of bringing all the varied threads of this wide-reaching story together... wonderful. There's no other show like it. This 21st century "regeneration" could have gone badly wrong, but instead, it's been one of the most lovingly realised reinventions in television history.
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 |
| Tonight's gig: Cry Wolf at probably my favourite venue on the local circuit, The Windsor Castle, Carshalton.
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| Friday, August 1, 2008 |
Tonight's gig:
Sometimes it's more about being seen than seeing the band.
Went to the The Cardinal Wolsey, East Molesey, and caught up with lots of friends and a load of the usual suspects! Also saw Raw Glory's singer Paul depping with a local pub band for the evening. |
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