overlap

In the last couple of weeks I've been to two gigs where I also saw the artist in question around this time last year. Between them they've reminded me how two nights are rarely the same. Last year I'd never previously seen Robyn Hitchcock, despite first being stunned by the tuneful pop simplicity of So You Think You're In Love in, I think, 1992, so finally making it to a show was always going to be special. This time around I perhaps had higher expectations, and it wasn't quite as memorable, though I still had a far, far better time than if I had just been sat in front of the telly. On the other hand, when I saw Eugene Kelly (of Vaselines/Eugenius fame) filling in for Mark Lanegan's parts on ML and Isobel Campbell's Ballad Of The Broken Seas material last year, it was clear that with a stand-in there was always something of a compromise going on. To get to see Isobel and Mark do a rare show together wasn't really expected to be a highlight of the year, but there was definitely a different chemistry with those two and the band. It's fair to say that confetti cannons, pyrotechnics and trapeze artistry is not Isobel's style, but all the same it was a great gig, and a much more relaxed cast on stage this time around. So I guess the moral of the tale is that expectations can end up not coming through. On which note, I'm very pleased to see the Great British Public doing the right thing and rejecting certain values, and voting in favour of tolerance and graciousness. We could all do with a bit more of that some times.

After too many weekends of domestic messing about, today I managed to fit some planned but urgent bike maintenance in around a short ride that I knew a few people were aiming to do today. It's not exactly the sort of thing that this bike is built for, and smooth, slick tyres don't give much grip in a couple of inches of gloopy mud. There was the odd interesting moment, especially as I haven't ridden terrain this rough for a while, but I was pleased to find those particular skills come back very rapidly. It was a decent test ride for the work I'd done on the bike, that's for sure! And now I just learned how to make a thumbnail link to a full size picture too - just click the picture below for a bigger view.

Back to the office was fine, but I'm still a little behind on sleep and about to go to bed. All the same, it was good to kick off the year's gig-going with the songwriting genius that is Robyn Hitchcock, and Peter Buck's fabulous west coast Byrds-style twelve string guitar is always a welcome sound. One of these years I'm going to get myself together and start to live a more self-disciplined life of wholesome goodness. The clutter collection has gone down a little more since last I mentioned it, which reminds me, I need to put the bins out before I go to bed. Phew rock n roll - it's all going on here!

Seems this is the second anniversary of the start of this blog, for what little difference that makes. It's entirely coincidental that this particular date is also a special one on my personal calendar, for reasons of distant historical significance, so it amuses me to mark the day anyway. On average over these two years I've posted roughly every two and a half days, which probably suggests I'm here for the long run. I'm an instinctive archivist and record-keeper, and this is only the modern equivalent of a diary on paper - the minutiae of the daily routine perhaps has little to commend it, but having the space to braindump whatever is on my mind obviously makes a difference to me. Any feedback is always welcome and of interest to see exactly what's coming across, but I've found the act of hammering out whatever's going on into full sentences is a worthy discipline in itself. All the same, thanks for reading! Adjusting to a new year is always an interesting time, especially when it's one that's ushered in with the full range of wet and windy weather - here's to storms that blow over with time, and the calm that follows them.