overlap

I've been getting my hair cut at the same place for a good eight or nine years, for as long as I've been living in this city, anyway. I've been increasingly less satisfied with the cuts I've been getting there recently - someone moved on a couple of years ago, and it's never been the same since. Nevertheless I've kept going there, it's relatively cheap and they can usually fit me in at short notice. Today they couldn't fit me in, and a momentary fit of decisiveness and spontaneity saw my trying somewhere else. Yes, I spent more money, but for how many times a year I get my hair cut that's not such a major concern. and I'm really pleased with what's been done to it. Ropey 72dpi pictures aren't going to show an awful lot, but you get the idea - it certainly wasn't a scalping!

Bad driving is a frequent experience for me - there's rarely a week goes by when I'm not on the wrong end of an impatient, inconsiderate manoeuvre, or a poor piece of decision making, but outright life-endangering behaviour is something I'm happy to say I don't get too much of.

I'm generally laidback to the the point of being barely responsive, so when I say that last night's near-hit shocked me to the point of doing a U-turn in the road and chasing after the driver in question, you can draw your own conclusions as to just how close it was.

And for once I didn't get the registration number, as I was too busy staying in control of the bike. But for a fraction of a second, this post would have turned up after a lengthy trip to the hospital for a likely broken femur and/or hip, assuming I hadn't also been thrown under one of the approaching cars.

I'm not sure the guy even realised how close he came to taking me out as I don't know whether he raced off down the road because he realised I wanted a serious word with him or because he's a habitual lawbreaker and non-respecter of human life. Meanwhile, running through it again was making my heart race as I lay in bed failing to get to sleep.

It's been suggested many times that I think too much, but I'd say it's the processing equivalent of keeping your friends close and enemies closer, or the polar opposite of denial. And once this has been thoroughly worked through, in case there's anything I can learn for the next time, I move on.

This is getting stupid now. Last night I travelled some way to watch a guy play songs to precisely two dozen people in the basement bar of a little pub in the midlands. I first came across Mick Thomas several years ago, and I've somehow missed all possibility of getting to shows he's done in the UK since. On the back of that one show, I've since tracked down most of his back catalogue as part of Weddings Parties Anything, a band with a considerable fifteen year history of musical significance down under that sadly didn't make that much of a dent round this side of the planet, from what I can gather. Yeah, it was great, and I'm glad I went but something's telling me I'm not 23 any more and getting to bed at 2am yet again on a work night is just not sustainable, and sooner or later something will have to give. An early night beckons tonight, that's for sure. * further to my last post, I've just got round to listening in full to the show I mentioned, and I'm pleased to find the subject was touched upon as part of a conversation rather than wheeled out deliberately in order to make 'entertainment'. While I would have preferred the time to write more carefully, to get my email through in about a three minute window when they only quoted from two emails in what was describe as 'an avalanche of emails' on the subject, and to have my quote followed by 'so that's kinda fascinating, isn't it?' makes me feel I've made a tiny difference. And it's always good to be reminded that even when someone doesn't share an interest, they can still be perfectly accepting of it.

Labels: gigs, Mick Thomas, music

Funny, if it hadn't been for the car having a flat battery, I wouldn't have been in the car as late as I was, so I wouldn't have been listening to the radio. There's a show I never miss but usually listen to online as part of my morning routine at work, so ordinarily I would not have heard the show till tomorrow morning and then felt I'd missed an opportunity to contribute to a debate sparked by presenters opening Pandora's closet in a way they surely didn't intend. As it is, I did get the chance to seize the opportunity and my hastily composed email obviously made enough impact at the other end to be broadcast across the nation - so hooray for flat car batteries, keeping the multi-wardrobe flag flying! That's exactly the sort of public service broadcasting that I pay my licence fee for. * I'm not quite vain enough to link directly to the programme's web presence, but I'll be happy to share the details if anyone really wants to know.

Right now I should be running round the associated dairies superglobalmegalostore, but instead I'm sat here waiting for my car battery to get charged so I can go back down the hill to where my car is sat immobile in the rain. Still, it could have been that I only found the battery was flat in the morning when I'm about to use it on a rare commuting foray as I have to bring some stuff home and shoot off up the motorways in the pursuit of rock n roll. And on that note, a few days of not going to gigs means my own batteries have recharged a little, which is nice. Welcome to proper autumn, and the rain, and nice warm clothes, and thick tights and long skirts and boots. Could be worse, a lot worse.

I'm guessing that due to the current unavailability of a certain other place, there may be one or two new and/or familiar faces who've not been here in a while. Thanks for stopping by, nice to see you again. And while you're here, I'm thinking of a change in how this looks so if there's anything I should know that could improve it visually other than that the pink colour doesn't display too well on Macs, for example, I'd appreciate hearing about it. Cheers!

A long week, but a good one. Though I'm not in a rush to repeat it. The Havenots - entirely new to me, Liam's voice has the plaintive mournfulness of Chris' early stuff, but Soph's harmonies sweeten it up a little bit. That's a lot of sound for two voices and an acoustic guitar. Chris Mills - it's some measure of how much time I spend watching live music to get to the show of someone who lives in Chicago, and whom I haven't seen live in just over three years, and still get recognised and personally greeted by the artist in question. In the trio set-up, everything's a little bit more rocky and despite the low numbers everyone has a great time. This is where it's at, people and songs, not cgi dragons and fireworks.

Labels: Chris Mills, gigs, music, The Havenots

This was always the making up the numbers night, and there's something hugely liberating about not being disappointed while leaving before the end. Untypically, I missed the first support band by not even being there. The Fallout Trust - one of the problems I have is I've seen so many bands that there's very little that's new to me, so it's a good guide to a band having a certain something if I can not immediately place them in relation to a couple of other acts, and this was a reasonable example of that. The singer has got a hint of a young Holly Johnson or Jarvis Cocker, but in places sings like Fat Bob from the Cure. The band are nice and tight, everyone knows their job and does it, including the singer who makes a point of mentioning the name of the band often enough, thanks everyone for coming and so on. And in an unheralded burst of professionalism, they were taking down their kit and removing it from the stage less than five minutes after the posted set timings had their set ending. I don't know they'll become huge stars, but they definitely have something. Including the only person I've seen this week asking for his mike to be turned down a little rather than up. Leaves - Either I was mis-sold on the description, or my ears are still ringing from the rest of the week. Too much thunderbass-driven wall of sound noise for it to be that possible to hear what they are on about. They had half an hour of my life, and that's enough. It may be down to my state of mind being unexpectedly altered for the better by a conversation I was having earlier, or the sleep deprivation, or the general lack of expectation, but whatever the cause The Fallout Trust made the most surprisingly interesting impression on me so far this week. And now I'm home, full of pizza and with a glass of wine and it's not that long after 11 - nice one!

Labels: gigs

Dio - Ronnie James Dio is a bona fide rock legend, no question. Technical problems happen to the best of us, but how you cope with it is the true measure of your professionalism. Less than impressed, and not on my own in that.

It took all the way through to Long Live Rock N Roll before I was really won back over. There's a fuller review elsewhere, but although I'm still glad I went, I'm now catching up with other aspects of the itinerant lifestyle that goes with a touring band.

Not least of those is that the time available to cater for oneself and eat properly is limited - no vast platters of backstage catering for me, and the temptation to go for ready packaged easy to grab food on the move is not such a healthy one.

I'm glad this week is an exceptional one rather than any kind of normal, but that said, I might be dusting my earplugs off again as soon as this sunday!

Labels: Dio, gigs, rock

I like trains - another one for the rubbish band names pile, though it does allow for the hilarious schtick of all wearing smart jackets with the classic British Rail logo on. They sound better than the name does, and this is one of the places where being unable to relate to new music without comparing against a vast list of references comes in handy. Radiohead trying for the epic grandeur of The Blue Nile at their finest, and coming a lot closer than might have been expected. Not bad at all. Lyca Sleep - it's an even worse name, and they sound surprisingly mellow, primarily due to the guy's plaintive voice, but what I imagine is intended to sound like an arty collage of haunting soundscapes comes across more like a bunch seven year olds with lead gloves let loose in the music room. This is reaping the down side of the post-Radiohead world, and makes you wonder if they couldn't have rested on that day too. No thanks. Pure Reason Revolution - in concept they're not really my sort of thing, but I enjoyed listening to them in session on Radcliffe's radio show. They're only prog in the same way the Super Furries are, that they start making a racket they like and finish when they've had enough whether that takes two minutes or twenty two. One set of female vocals and the occasional use of fiddle and keyboards means they sound perhaps more like Gorky's than SFA, but either way there's refreshing lack of well anything much beyond playing the music. They may reap some of the backlash that's coming the way of the Magic Numbers any day soon on a looking a bit of a state is still a concerted stylised image basis. The album's out soon, and when it comes up at a decent price, I'm having one.

Labels: gigs, Pure Reason Revolution, rock

There's nothing unusual in a couple of consecutive nights of gigs as bands being on tour is a fairly seasonal thing, but at the moment there's a load of stuff has come together at once. Leaving me with the possibility of getting in seven straight nights of rock n roll, and there's only one night where I'm going to see something I wouldn't already have wanted to see anyway, just for the purpose of making the whole week. I've previously done eight nights in nine, but seven of those were the same band and that was only over two cities. But this time the combination of four cities and six different venues fitting around taking no time at all off work is a different game entirely. It's pretty easy to see how a band can get into the cycle where if this is thursday, you must be Swindon and everything blurs together rapidly enough that the hard living, late nights and travelling make for a complete assault on the senses, and rapidly take their toll. A couple of months ago someone in a band I'm going to see again soon asked me and my travelling companion how it was that we'd managed to fit five gigs in six days in three countries around the demands of a normal lifestyle, and we struggled to answer. It's certainly true there are things that could (but aren't currently expected to) happen that would make this sort of thing a whole lot more difficult - having a family would quickly have me reprioritising in a big way. And that may be as much answer as I have - that I'll keep trying to pack as much in as holidays from work and budgetary demands allow for as long as I can see no reason not to. Rock on!

Labels: gigs

Rachel Mari Kimber - seems there's a lot of female singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar in my life this week. Took me till the last song to work out who she reminded me of - it's Beth Orton. with a little bit of the pure clarity of a Sandy Denny or Kate Wolf. Well suited for this particular support slot, songs a little bit inwards-looking without disappearing through the eye of a navel six times a verse. Roddy Frame is underrated as far as I'm concerned, but like plenty of artists, he may well be known more for the odd atypical hit single than what is truly characteristic. 90 minutes of great songs with a delicate touch, and some serious riffing on Oblivious and in a couple of other places. Despite three six-string acoustics and one twelve-string, there's still ample opportunity for gags about the tuning up process, a sizeable helping of amusing moments and interesting anecdotes about where songs came from. Add to that a fantastically clear sound* and a well-behaved crowd, and you get a great night out, and home before midnight too! * so it turned out for the best I didn't take the handbag, and not just for sonic reasons

Labels: gigs, music, Roddy Frame

Mark Burgess ex-Chameleons' new band. Remarkably Chameleons like, and while I saw them doing a reformation show a few years back, and they made no good impression whatsoever, this trio was suitably jangly and interesting in a way the whole lot of 'em weren't. Despite doing some Chameleons tunes.

New Model Army - what can you say about a band that's been going for a quarter century in some form or other? There's a bit of a cultish element to the Army, Justin has got all the right charisma, the little twinkle in the eyes and the way with putting a grandiose statement into a snappy soundbite to win anybody over. Two hour show, nice mix of material from the new album and from the back catalogue. Green And The Grey sends a shiver up my spine as arms and voices are raised in unison - it's such a great song. It was good and healthy to combine the gig with seeing some people and places and laying a few more demons to rest on the North Circular.

* In a suitably rock n roll footnote, I realised I was getting a little sleepy on my way home, and pulled over at 2am for a quick kip. And woke up at 6.30 to drive the rest of the way home - it's a very long time since I got home from a gig in daylight!

Labels: gigs, New Model Army, rock

Last night I started what is going to be a long week by seeing Fish. Good show, but it must be rather frustrating to have been working for yourself for nearly twenty years and yet still to be promoted as being 'formerly of previous employer', but then again he did do the whole Misplaced Childhood, so he can hardly be said to be rejecting his past wholesale!

Labels: Fish, gigs, rock

I've said it often enough before that I took a long time to learn to share the fact I also have a girldrobe, and if there's any doubt, my strongest instinct is not to tell - after all you can always tell something a bit later, but you can never take the knowledge back.

But it shows how far I've come that I have an impending social engagement where I've just realised that for once I'm deliberately choosing to hide, which is to say that the default position of admitting nothing has shifted enough that my normal has become the coffee cup with the lipstick smear rather than the scrupulously scrubbed clean one. Of the people I communicate with individually, there's a lot more know than don't know these days.

Hiding in plain sight has its uses, and I well recall the reaction I got from colleagues when I suggested that I wouldn't be attending a fairly formal work social occasion as I didn't have a suitable dress for the event - you can find out a lot about people's attitudes that way, even if it just confirmed my low expectations. Which I can live with, at least I know where I stand without having to find out the really hard way.

Earlier this week I found myself missing my little make up bag when it stayed in my handbag rather than finding its way back to my work rucksack. And it's little things like that which make the make up in my desk just another part of all the stuff I carry around most of the time like my keys and my mobile phone, rather than *SOME GREAT BIG DEAL SPECIAL THING*.

And that's a pretty happy way to be, thanks very much.

I've tidied the blog up a bit, and split my collection of links up too. I'll add to the second section as and when I dig out more of that sort of stuff which I'd like to share. For a little while now I've been wondering about adding the link to Becky's site - it is probably the best TV-specific site I've come across, and I do enjoy reading it, but I think it's put to a very different purpose to what this blog does for me. This is very nearly all of me, and I'm entirely happy with displaying as much of that as I do while staying within the limits of where I feel comfortable that I'm not over-exposed. Part of the dressing business is rooted in hiding behind a mask, for me at least - what I'd like to hope I'm doing here is showing both the mask itself, and some of what goes behind it, though I'm in no position to judge whether I'm actually managing that to any great extent.

I was supposed to be going out on monday night, but I just couldn't face four hours of driving, especially having not got to sleep before 4am that morning. Nothing more exciting than finishing off the book I was reading, mind. I'm generally pretty good on disciplining myself against impulse purchases when I'm a bit sleep deprived and material comforts can seem more appealing than they really are. But some of the money that would have been spent that evening disappeared into the tills in La Senza instead. I'd had my eye on something for a little while, and I was in the right place at the right time, so then all I had to consider is how my delicately gift-wrapped new items were going to survive the journey home stuffed in my rucksack. No problem!

Guess who finally worked out how to get digital stills off the camcorder and onto the PC then?

Something I've been talking about recently with various people is the dubious delights of internet dating. While you can't currently find me on any dating websites, I've spent enough time on different ones in the past to have more than half an idea of what works and what doesn't. And knowing a few people who are currently involved in that particular game, I wondered if I could put together a few ideas for helpful suggestions. You tell me... * keep it fresh - 'last updated this week' says someone's interested, 'last updated last week' says someone may have had a busy week, 'last updated three weeks ago' says someone's either met somebody, or isn't really that interested in meeting someone. Some websites automatically sort profiles by most recently updated, and only show a limited number of results when you start searching so it's very much in your interest to keep the profile updated frequently. Remember, you only need to replace the odd but with and, or move sentences round and hit save, not write a brand new profile from scratch. * less is more - if the aim is to catch someone's attention then you stand a better chance by just showing a little of yourself rather than laying everything out in the open from the off. There's a big difference between saying you like classical music, say, and inviting questions about which composers you like, and saying you absolutely love a vast list of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Schubert and Wagner, which risks the reaction 'Bloody Wagner? I hate Wagner, forget that...' * give 'em enough rope - leaving some information a little bit vague gives people a chance to break the ice by asking a question. Especially where a question allows them to show they've actually read what you said rather than fire off the same message to half a dozen people. In the flesh I'm absolutely rubbish at meeting people, but even I can recognise what looks like a scowling, folded arms challenge to people to like me on the screen. * if you're gonna do it, do it right (right baby) - whatever you want to say, proofread it. Then proofread it again. * always asking questions - finish it off with an invitation for them to tell you something about themselves. Nobody wants to meet someone who's only interested in themself. * smile - put in just a little bit of humour, and enjoy yourself. What's the worst that can happen? *** note, this is just one person's take on the subject, and there are no doubt as many other ways to approach the subject as there are flaming bicycles in flaming Beijing