Promis at M Bar

Support act A.J.Teshin played a cool set of Kurt Weill songs. Although Weill is not really my cup of tea, A.J. did a good job although the performance lacked the emotion that may have sold it to a non-believer. Best song was 'Lonely House' which lyrically could have influenced Scott Walker's 'Montague Terrace in blue'... I would have liked to hear 'Alabama Song' but you can't always get what you want...

Jose played a selection of songs from his four cd's plus a few covers such as Brel's 'Amsterdam', Mary Hopkin's 'Those were the days' and bizarrely: Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire'... Best songs were 'Bar Fly' from Promis, 'Drinking Alone' and '29 Again' from Promis II, 'That Vibrant Air' from Promis III and 'I Promise' from 'Life is Grand'...

Everything's great when you're downtown...

Met up with DSS at Lost Souls Cafe, which is a hidden gem at 4th and Spring. DJ's, some live art courtesy of a hanging opaque screen where people can daub virtual paint courtesy of a controller shaped like a can of spray paint (think Wii for taggers!) and best of all, coffee...

We moved on to Art Walk - a second Thursday in every month event with galleries and street performers spread over a few blocks around Main St. Some cool leftfield art and definitely worth checking out again - maybe when the weather is a bit warmer.

Laura texted me to ask if we felt the earthquake (5.0 in San Bernardino) but we missed that one...

Luke Warm...

I enjoy reading the end of year 'Best of' lists of album of the year - there's always the chance that you missed a great new band or a stunning comeback by someone who jumped the shark back in '97... Chances are though, if it's that great you probably would have heard about it by now, and the whole process ends up like sneaking a look in somebody's medicine cabinet hoping to find a few Oxycontin and ending up with a couple of expired Aspirin... Anyways, one such 'best of' list was topped by a couple of bands I'd never heard of: The Indelicates and Vanilla Swingers - both boy/girl duo's out of the UK...



The Indelicates certainly had a few good song titles, such as 'Fun is for the feeble minded', 'Waiting for Pete Doherty to die' (aren't we all?) and best of all 'We hate the kids'... The guy sounds exactly like Luke Haines, the music much like The Auteurs and it's only when the girl starts singing that you realise you're not listening to 'After Murder Park'. The girl sounds like a more plummy Kirsty McColl - like if she'd gone to school at Coloma Convent instead of down the street at Ashburton (if you know what I'm talking about fine, if not...)

The Indelicates on MySpace...



The couple of Vanilla Swingers tracks that I heard were nothing to write home about - the more electronic one (Goodbye Lennon) sounded like a average imitation of Black Box Recorder (that Haines guy is everywhere this week!) as the singer does her best Sarah Nixey. That was at least better than 'I'll stay next to you' which sounded more like Fleetwood Mac...

Vanilla Swingers on MySpace

RIP Ron Asheton

The founder member of The Stooges was 60. Asheton played the seminal riffs on Stooges' classics including 'No Fun', 'Down On The Street', and 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'. He switched to the bass guitar for The Stooges third album, 'Raw Power'

Look-in for an old friend...

I was looking for this Italian kid on Facebook who was my best friend when I lived on South Way, and I suddenly remembered that I met David Essex at his house! George lived opposite me on South Way and his Dad (Arnaldo Putzu) used to do the paintings that were on the cover of Look-in - a weekly kids magazine with features on the TV and music favorites of the era. Anyways, one day I was over at the Putzu's - probably playing Subbuteo (which was our main passtime aside from playing real football over at the local rec) when Arnaldo brings in David Essex, who he was painting for a forthcoming cover. I remember saying a quick hello and promptly forgot about it for the next 30 years until today... Essex was a big star at the time (my cousin Sharon had a huge poster of him on her bedroom wall alongside David Cassidy) but I don't remember being all that excited... Maybe if I'd met Dave Swindlehurst I would have been more impressed...

We moved out of South Way when I was 12 or 13 and I lost touch with George, although some quick googling reveals Arnaldo (and probably the rest of the family) went back to Rome in 1985.

Anyways, it appears Arnaldo not only painted the Look-in covers but a huge volume of movie posters - mainly the comedy films of the era such as the Carry-On movies but also stuff like the original Get Carter poster...

Get Carter:



A typical 'Look-in' painting:



The cover of Look-in:

Light aircraft on fire...

Promo video for The Auteurs 'Light Aircraft on Fire' by the excellent Chris Cunningham.


Cunningham is probably best known for his work with Aphex Twin, especially the video for Come to Daddy but all the promos are brilliant. Here is Squarepusher's 'Come on my selector':

Read it in books...

One of my resolutions for 2009 is to read more... I have made a good start...



'Too Fat to Fish' is comedian Artie Lange's biography... Lange is the larger than life alcoholic, drug (and food) addict regular on the Howard Stern radio show. Lange makes a good case for his clutching defeat from the jaws of victory mentality being a result of the serious injury and early death of his father (he fell off a roof and was a quadraplegic...) but it's likely purely down to his addictive personality... Most of the stories revolve around the addictions to Cocaine and later Heroin which threaten to destroy his career. The book is no Straight Life, but there are some amazing stories like driving through Malibu on a lunch break from MadTV dressed as a pig (including prosthetic snout) to meet his dealer to buy coke...



'Bad Vibes: Britpop and my part in its downfall' is Luke Haines superb memoire of the 90's, from The Auteurs early trailblazing of the scene (along with Suede) that would evolve into Britpop, through to his terrorism concept album Baader Meinhof... Britpop (and Haines hatred of...) is a common thread through the book and at one point Haines fires a flare from a hotel balcony at Oasis and their roadcrew frolicking in the hotel pool... Haines is equally unhappy on tour (where he avoids the majority of his bandmates) or at home, where his life has more than a touch of Withnail and I... A great read - almost on a par with Julian Cope's Head on/Repossesed and I look forward to the follow-up, which should start with the seminal How I learned to love the bootboys...