Friday, April 28, 2006

Well last weekend didn’t really go to plan. Things obviously weren’t right when I realised that I didn’t really want breakfast. Now anyone that knows me, we realise that this is an unusual situation to say the least. I guess it happens about as often as whole week going past without a self inflicted humiliation for the The Labour party.

Anyway I spent the whole day in various degrees of discomfort, including a few periods studying at close quarters the lovely porcelain of our lavatory. In the evening we had tickets for the Calexico / Iron & Wine gig. After managing to have a spell of stability we decided to go the gig. Must admit that I expected to see a 60% full venue as was the case the last time Calexico play the Academy, but this time the place was packed, Not really want I wanted to see as it’s a very uncomfortable place when it’s busy.

Iron & Wine were first on and pretty soon I was struggling to stay on my feet. After about 20 minutes of their set, I realised that I needed to get out quickly or I was going collapse in the heat. As I mentioned the Academy is not a pleasant place when it’s full, trying to take the short walk to outer bar area was horrible. The stairs leading up from the “pit” area were covered with people trying to see the band. Meaning that you had to push your way through people who had nowhere to go (bit of a health and safety issue I’d think). At last I did make it to the seating area and sat there feeling rather strange for a while.

I had told Orynthia to stay in the main room and watch the band, but after a short while she came to see how I was. When she tried to get back in the main room she found it imposable to get back to where she had been or get any sort of few to see the gig, so without seeing Calexico we decided to leave. Good job we did really, as soon as the car pulled up outside the house, I knew that I was in trouble1 I just about managed to make it to the Tulip bed in front of the house, before depositing an unusual load of plant food at their base. The good news is, that almost a week on the plants are looking better than ever, don’t really fancy feeding them in this way on a regular basis though.

Tomorrow should see the last home match of the season for BCFC, amazingly having flirted we relegation almost all season, we could still make it into the promotion playoffs! It depends on the two teams above us failing to win their games and us winning both of ours, but it could just happen, If it does we have the delight of running around getting tickets for the extra games!

It’s Redland fair this weekend, the social event of the year for people round here. It’s a community fair / car boot sale / performance afternoon where we have picked up some amazing things in previous years. The fun officially starts at 1pm, I think Orynthia will have us looking for bargains before that!

I just been sent this link to some fantastic footage of the brilliant and bonkers Sun Ra, take a look it’s genius.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Joe Volk
Wow, where did those 2 weeks go? I guess that we’ve just been catching up with friends and family following our little trip.

In fact over the Easter weekend we had a bit of a family gathering here, to celebrate the fact that one of Orynthia’s cousins had just returned after about 4 months travelling around Southern India. She had loads of amazing stories to tell and pictures to show us. It felt as though we spent the whole afternoon laughing.

Being a Burmese gathering we obviously had way too much food, so on the Monday we invited 4 other friends over to join us in an attempt at eating it all, they did pretty well, but could not quite clear the decks completely. It’s great to have friends who are happy to come and ear leftovers, pretty wonderful leftovers they were though.

I did my little bit of DJ’ing at “Lost In The Woods” last night. It was the first night for the boys in a new venue, The Lansdown in Clifton. The music took place in a lovely room above the bar. The acoustics of the room were perfect for the “voice and guitar” approach of all the guys who played, lovely evening.

Tomorrow we’re very excited about the prospect of seeing Iron & Wine + Calexico playing. It will be interesting to see Iron & Wine in a larger venue, we seen them twice before in St Bonns which is a tiny social club which no stage at the time. Will their intimate sound work in a venue, which holds around 2000 people? I’m sure that it will, we’ve seen Calexico in this venue before and they were great.

We arranged a little trip to London in May. Over the course of 4 days we will be seeing Camera Obscura, Bricolage and Swedish band Irene. In addition to that we hope to catch the Modernism exhibition at the V&A and the Bauhaus exhibition at Tate Modern!!!!

We will be making the trip on the Mega Bus, it’s costing the outrageous price of £4.50 for the two of us. Yes, £4.50! That’s the return price – it’s mad! To be even more cheapskate we are staying in the guest room with Orynthia’s aunties sheltered housing complex, that’s setting us back £5 per night, amazing.

Friday, April 07, 2006


Well we are back home after our mountain and lochs/lakes holiday. It was about a 1700 mile round trip taking in Glasgow, North West Scotland, The Lake District and Snowdonia. Lot’s of amazing scenery along the way, it was also great to catch up with lot’s of friends during the trip.

Whilst in Glasgow we went to see an excellent band called Bricolage. The 1990’s were also playing, they were pretty good as well, have to say though that the highlight was meeting James Kirk. For those that don’t know him, he was one of the founding members of the group Orange Juice. He released an excellent solo album a couple of years ago called “You can make it if you boogie”. Turned out to be a lovely chap, very funny and interesting. He even managed to give us a few tips for things to look out for in the highlands – he was quite the tour guide.

Lot’s more to write, but lots of stuff to catch up with around the house as well. Just time to say that I’ll be playing a few tunes at the next “Lost in the woods” evening. This will take place on April 20th at The Lansdown in Clifton. The performers will be James McArthur, Joe Volk and Jonny Collins, it’s all arranged by those nice people from Aspen Woods. Admission is £3, which ain’t bad.