Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Last night...

Went to see Bob Mould play at Koko. The location of the gig was rather important actually - Koko used to be known as The Camden palace, and on May 14th, 1985, Husker Du played a televised live gig from that very same place. So, last night was a bit of an emotional return, the first time Bob has played there since Husker days. The DVD of the camden palace gig was released a year or so ago , and is highly recommended, though there are also separate snippets on Youtube (where else?) Here's the opener of that gig (and the closing song of last night's show!) "New Day Rising"

The entire staff of the Rough Trade shop took the day off to go and see the Camden Palace show, the only time the shop's ever been shut on a weekday! It's a measure of the esteem in which they held Husker Du, and was very evident when I worked there - that's where I learned to love the band, as the albums were always on constant rotation in the shop.
Last night's show was especially wonderful as it gave me a chance to get back in touch with an old friend, Jason Narducey (ex of Verbow), who was a great friend from Jesus Jones days, and who I've not seen in 17 years (eeep!). He's now playing bass in Bob's band, and was absolutely rocking last night. The entire show had so much power it nearly took my breath away, and the fact that they attacked "New Day Rising" at the end of their show with as much energy as Husker Du started theirs, 23 years ago is testament to how good it was...
Tonight? more booze, I'm afraid - there'a Twitter meet-up in Soho! Better go get ready....

Monday, May 19, 2008

I blinked, and a week went by.....

Actually, it's more like a fortnight. I apologise.
Anyway, what's been going on? Plenty over at Shadowglobe, but I'll keep you posted on that over the next week or so. Apart from that, it was The Great Escape this weekend, Brighton's answer to SXSW. Lots of great bands, most of which seemed to have been played on Shadowglobe at some point, which left me feeling rather proud. Highlights? Well, you won't really be surprised; they're the bands I've plugged on this site already- Bon Iver, Wintersleep.....
But the real highlight was AA Bondy, at the Pavilion Theatre on the Thursday night. He has this laconic charm, which if you look superficially, seems to be a scratchy, lo-fi dylan-esque pastiche. But he's so much more than that: the songs have this bruised beauty which takes them into a whole new space. I genuinely think he's a major talent; with any luck, so will a whole lot of others. Here's a Youtube clip (which is actually a few months old) which is similar to the performance he put in last Thursday:
AA Bondy - "There's A Reason"

Buy the album here

Friday, May 09, 2008

Anyone who's in Camden tonight....

I'll be DJ-ing at I Love The 90's at Bar Monsta (facebook link) so if anyone has enquiries about guest list, email me! (or direct message me via Twitter)

Sunday, May 04, 2008

A gentle Sunday morning needs some gentle musical brilliance, to illuminate its beauty still further....

So this will fit the bill, exactly. It's Jayber Crow, doing "O My God, When I Drop Dead" at an acoustic show in the US, about 3 weeks ago.
I'm not sure if the album is available over here yet (I'm going shopping on Tuesday, I'll let you know) but it looks essential to me. There's plenty more on their myspace .

Friday, May 02, 2008

More glum faces at Xfm....

As they've now reduced their weekly quota of local programming across the network by 25%. It makes me particularly sad, as I was one of the people who tried hard to put across how useful we'd be on a local level ( I'm thinking specifically of the work I did around the South Wales RSL) It's galling to see Xfm renege on its promises, but I suspect this process of harrying ofcom into accepting less and less of what Xfm actually set out to do, will continue, and may actually accelerate.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

more on Twitter....

I've been using Twitter more and more over the last few weeks, as a tool for staying in touch with web development stuff, as well as being a simple barometer for the collective web consciousness, it's hard to beat.
Seems like I'm not the only one who's getting evangelical about it, either.
This time next year, it'll be as ubiquitous as Facebook.

Well, don't say I didn't tell you.....

Far be it for me to claim to be some sort of visionary (let's face it, anyone could see it coming)
But here's what I predicted: Xfm's audience collapsing.
The station is now in serious trouble, and I wouldn't put it past their new owners to be thinking long and hard about some fairly drastic measures (rebrand? close it down? wholesale redundancies?) when they finally take over. It's coming up to noon, which means the staff at 30 Leicester Square will be gathering for a RAJAR debriefing. There will be some long faces, a lot of shuffling feet, and some VERY frightened people in that meeting- oh, to be a fly on the wall!
My hope, is as ever, that the good people there can be given time to show their true potential, and that the morons responsible for the sorry decline of a once-proud station are summarily despatched to the Job Centre.