A wet Wednesday in October.

Just the sort of day I used to try and bunk off school when I was a kid. I would feign a cold, or some sort of lurgy, and impress upon my parents that under no circumstances should my puny immune system be subjected to the rigours of a walk to school, let alone an entire day at the aforementioned establishment. To my shame, this tactic normally worked, and, with my sisters cries of "but he's not ill!" ringing in my ears, I would eagerly listen to the noise of my parent's cars disappearing off down the drive: I was free!

A day off school is simply one of the best days ever, you're free to lounge around in your pyjamas, watch unsuitable telly (don't forget, this is the mid-70's, so that actually means "Pebble Mill At One"), eat what you like (endless glasses of Lemon Squash and as many Rich Tea Biscuits as I could scoff) and the glorious, lazy hours of absolute inactivity. I would lie on the sofa, doing nothing. Sit on my bed, doing not much. Lie spread-eagled on the bedroom carpet, doing bugger all. Bliss.

But the thing which really sealed the deal for me was my dad's hi-fi. I was now its Master. I could turn the huge Sony amp (a TA 1150!!) up as far as I dared, and play whatever I wanted. My Dad had put all of his Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel onto Reel-to Reel tapes at the start of the 70's so that would always be a starting point, but from 1976 onwards, the best thing to play on a day off was always "New Rose"; with the empty house reverberating to those opening voodoo drums, whilst I sat at the foot of the stripped pine stairs (very 70's) and marvelled at the power, and the naughtiness of it all.

Thanks for all of the kind words yesterday

It's very much appreciated.

I'm getting divorced.

So there it is. Now you know why i've not realy posted much here (or on Down With Tractors, for that matter) for quite some time. I really haven't felt like interacting with people, involving them, or boring them to death with details of my private life.
There's a line in The Lover Speak's "No More I Love You's" (no, NOT the Lennox version, that was a cover!) where David Freeman talks of a language leaving him, and I can most definitely empathise: it's a slow, lingering death, a gradual erosion of something which once was precious, now reduced to a ghost of what it was.
If there's one thing it's taught me though, it's that I don't want that language to leave me forever. I don't want to forget how to feel. I want to find that language, and start speaking again. Part of this will be me finding my blogging voice again, after this enforced hiatus, so i'll be doing my best to post as much as I can over the coming weeks.
Thanks,
Iain
x

It's been rather busy on the gig front (for once)

Which means I've been living the rock'n'roll lifestyle once again, so please forgive the lack of updates. Last weekend was the Wireless festival in Hyde Park, which is always a pleasure to attend. When I worked for Xfm, we were instrumental in the launch process for Wireless (we were one of the launch partners, and it was I who announced the festival to the press at a photocall in the Islington Academy). I was the first DJ to go onstage an announce one of the bands (the Rakes, on the main stage, IIRC) so there's always a place in my heart for Wireless. It was great to be back there as part of a new, confident, forward-thinking radio team, but slightly sad to meet some of my old work mates and see how things have fallen away at Xfm. Here's a station which, from it's position as sole broadcaster from the site, was now relegated to selectively highlighting parts of the festival, and no longer had a dedicated "stage" either. I still hope that any new management structure will sweep away the last vestiges of the idiotic middle management cronies from GWR who placed Xfm in such a parlous state.
The actual gigs? Well, I saw......fragments of bands, as I was somewhat occupied in clebrating the end of a truly successfull week at NME Radio. Here's to many, many more. However, I would say: turn it up a bit. Fatboy Slim was WAY too quiet. Pah.

Last night saw the completely welcome return of Lowgold to London, for another Islington show. They dedicated "Let Me Into Yours" to me, which flabbergasted me; though not as much as the actual song itself, which was the best i've ever seen them play it. I was left, just like last time, with a tear in my eye. They're still the best band of the last 10 years for me, and in an ideal world, they'd be much bigger than they currently are.

Portrait of the artist as a young man (in a big coat, somewhat obsessed with The Smiths)

That's me, outside Our Price Records, Watford High St, in 1987.

Well, that was an interesting month!

Interesting for one reason: I'm back on the airwaves! I'm now on the newly-launched NME Radio, doing the afternoon show. It's been a long time, but it feels great to be back on air. Shadowglobe is currently in "wait" mode, but it Will return: we're eagerly anticipating launching V.02, so watch this space for news of that as well.
Apart from that, I've been massively busy with my friendfeed page, so if you're wondering what happened to the long stream of links and videos I normally post, well, they're on friendfeed. It's turned into one of those services I simply can't live without: I can't recommend it highly enough. If you have any interest whatsoever in Social Media, you need to sign up.

...And this is what I really know...

Today is hot. Really hot. Hot enough for me to get out of the sun, and just look at the heat from a distance, as I cower indoors, away from pollen and sunburn.
The real advantage of staying indoors, is that the stereo is there. Which means I can play this whilst looking at the sun:
Colourbox "Baby I Love You So"

I'm a dried up seed........

Went jogging this morning, along the promenade in Brighton. One of the first tunes to pop up on the ipod shuffle was "Ambition" by The Subway Sect. I've loved "Ambition for years, probably ending up loving it even more after it was covered by The Jesus And Mary Chain (it was a staple of the early live gigs I saw, and ended up as the b-side to the 12" of "Never Understand"). I can remember Jim Reid being interviewed about the song, and asserting they had covered it because The Subway Sect "had made such a huge mess of the song in the first place". Nothing could be further from the truth. It's one of the only Punk songs I know which can transmit all of its anger and frustration in a truly effective way. It's fairly accurate to say it's not as stereotypically "punky" as their first single "Nobody's Scared", but that's missing the point.
It was the lyrics of "Ambition" that supplied with the material for my first real piece of graffiti - in large letters on a development of flats round the corner from my house in Hatch End:
"Am I guided, or is life free?
'Cos nothing ever seems to happen to me"
Here's footage of The Subway Sect, live in Glasgow last year, performing it:

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....

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

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)

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 .

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.

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.