Vega, BHMC, Arcade Fire

What a scrum! The Mountain Equipment sample sale in Hyde was far busier this weekend, with people walking around carrying armfuls of down and hard-shell jackets so as to stop anybody else picking them up. Somehow from within the melee, Laura managed to find a couple of anoraks for her cousin and his son, and to find me a Vega jacket, in Facebook blue. The only imperfection was that the zip was stuck; easy to repair, surely. At only sixty pounds, it was around a quarter of its retail price. Ker-ching!

Cabaret, and a hanging.

The second murder was very risky. It had limited the probable murderers to either Skinner or Chaz, with Colin and Hannah as outside bets (if either of them were ninjas). That took a lot of pressure off of the rest of the survivors – nobody was defending themselves, only accusing one of them. Skinner? I didn’t think so. Chaz? Let’s find out.

We spent the afternoon cruising between vineyards in the Espace, trying amazing wines from the region. I kept a close-ish eye on Chaz, sitting next to her in the car and sticking close by during the tastings. “Are you trying to get a piece of Chaz?” asked Vinny, ever perceptive. I was, to an extent, but I was rather enjoying getting to know her too. And was falling more and more towards the idea that she was the murderer.

Our wine tour ended at Ventenac, the cellar for the collective made up of the former employees of the family that had once owned the chateau. By now, Skinner and I had consumed several glasses of wine. We didn’t swill and fling away our dregs, you see. We just had the whole thing. Dominic, who had stayed behind, was setting up the evening’s entertainment around the rough patch on the second level of the terraced garden: a barbecue, bonfire and cabaret.

Great acts. Hannah sang. The Lovely Jane and the Lovely Colin sang. Jamie recited a poem. Vinny played guitar. Julia dressed up and read a poem. Dominic sang a Lovely Song for the Lovely Jane and the Lovely Colin, inspired by their approaching wedding. The Lovely Jane danced with Poi. Skinner, Vinny and I played Mallet’s Mallet, using crème fraiche instead of a mallet. I lost. Splat! As things drew to a close, we all sang together. Dom adapted ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ to be ‘I Love this Chateau.’ Jane had written new words to ‘Let It Be,’ a sweet and slushy end to a lovely evening. Even Skinner and I, easily the most pissed people there, couldn’t ruin it with our shambolic hosting.

Trial time: Chaz? Skinner? It didn’t take long. Of seven survivors, three had voted Chaz, with two voting Skinner. The Lovely Jane hadn’t chosen. My vote. I looked up. It was Chaz, I thought. I voted: “Skinner.” Over to you, the Lovely Jane. She chose Chaz. And so we hung her.

Furious Five and Kurtis Blow, in conversation

Dunk gave me a heads up that the Furious Five and Kurtis Blow were doing an In Conversation at Contact Theatre last week, and I snapped up a couple of tickets for me and Lucian, and let Bronco and Steve know it was on too.

Steve and Bronco with Kurtis Blow

The show started with the Furious Five rapping, dancing, getting the crowd to wave their hands. It felt like a party. Lu was straight up on his feet, waving his hands around and dancing. He's been off booze for nearly seven weeks, but his party shoes still fit, it seems, and he was wearing them. Kurtis Blow came out, and the party kept on coming. The In Conversation section saw Kid Creole and Melle Mel talking about the early days of hip hop, about life in the Bronx in the 70s, about Afrika Bambatta's breaks. Then they finished off with The Breaks. Ninety minutes of fun and fascination.

Afterwards Lucian said two things. I agreed with one, and partly with the other.

"I thought that the host was a bit of a wiener."

Partly true, he was dorky. But in that earnest, American way where he'd underline the obvious to make sure that everybody got it, where a Brit would assume that to be the case. Highlighting the double meaning of The Breaks in The Breaks is unnecessary, sure, but harmless with it. Case thrown out for extenuating circumstances, I'd say.

"That was a perfect gig. They played all three of their songs that I knew, with no filler, and I didn't have to pay fifteen quid to get in, or queue at a bar, or stay out all night. Exactly how I'd want to see those artists."

For real Lu. Word.

The new Arctic Monkeys album

Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not grabs you straightaway. Its sarcastic lyrics charm and amuse, and its short songs are easy fun to dance to. Favourite Worst Nightmare took a little longer to fall in love with, all thundering drums, the soundtrack to dark clouds forming that over time seem to resemble the shapes of faces of people you know. Humbug, which I bought today, seems more like the latter, a grower. A couple of plays in, and some songs stand out already, Crying Lightning, and especially Cornerstone. A couple of the other songs started to tickle my mind second time round… is it going to be another album I love? I’ll let you know.

You'll never get to heaven in a camper van...

T Shirt: Batman, light blue
Weather: Hot, with light rain later on.

What a relaxing day. Partly out of solidarity for Dunk’s driving, and partly as a result of feeling queasy during the day on Saturday, I decided to stay off the booze all day. My knee hurt a little too, so I planned to spend as much of the day sitting down as possible.

We ran into Miriam and the Padmore party, Evan, Clem and Al at the bank by the main stage. In a tumble of hugs and joy, we sledged down the hillside on our backsides.

The group dynamics of the festival as a whole were strange – the parties that we lounged around with were made up of various friendships, some strong and deep, others mild and frivolous, some overlapping, others independent of one another. I know Thom, who knows Spud, but Spud and I don’t know each other at all. The rules of interrupting a conversation between two of your friends are markedly different to those governing interrupting a conversation between your friend and a stranger. With the former, in general, one would wait until they were done, whereas with the latter, in general, one might interject earlier. This difference was very prominent in the festival environment. I found myself interrupted as the stranger, or interrupted as the friend, on more than one occasion. I’m sure I must have interrupted as the outsider too.

There were so many people there, flowing past, who maybe I’d meet again, or maybe not – Sally Pilkington, Evan, Spud, Cassie. Who knows?

I wasn’t impressed with Trembling Bells, whose vocal gymnastics bored me, but I thought Cranium Pie were ace. I might have gotten over my crush on the She of She Keeps Bees – not quite as charismatic when she’s a bit further away. I thought that the Yellow Moon Band didn’t really get going, a difficult trait to succeed with at the tired end of festivities. Dirty Three were fun, and funny. And Wilco? Wow. Stunning.

Dunk’s endurance drive home started at 12.26, and ended at 4.20. What a hero. We tried to keep him awake with classic rock, volume up LOUD, and with a little rhyming game…

You’ll never get to heaven in baked bean tin…

…because a baked bean tin’s got beans in.

The best of which was

You’ll never get to heaven in a bacon sarnie…

….because a bacon sarnie smells like Arnie

“I’ll be BAC-on.”

Green Man, day 1

T-shirt: The Bluetones, baseball style.
Weather: Splendid, after a five-minute shower early on.

A cup of tea should start every day, and in the van, you can. Heavenly. Al and Ben P popped by first thing in the morning - they hadn't slept from the night before, and both looked pretty wrecked. Al more so. I gave him a Cadbury's Caramel and some Pom-Bears. I hope it helped. We went up to the arena, with Ryan stopping off for one his many vegan bacon rolls at Tea and Toast. Blatantly hitting onto a waitress, I reckon.

We Aeronaughts opened the festival. Dunk and Kate weren't that impressed, but I quite liked them. They're a female backing vocalist - to even out the harmonies - and a guitar technician - to cut down on the time spent tuning up (and talking rubbish) between songs - away from being pretty good. I loved Beth Jeans Houghton and Errors, and Rocky Erickson was exactly the kind of bluesy rock that pushes all my buttons. I popped off to collect Matt, Chaw and Megan, then hurried back for Animal Collective. I wish I hadn't bothered. Shit Collective more like.

As they were finishing, I turned around to Paul Collins to share my disgruntlement with their shitness, and saw him down on one knee proposing to his girlfriend. She said "yes." I clapped. The whole crowd clapped for the band, but I pretended they were clapping for Paul and Rosie.

Arriving at the Green Man

This week I have mostly been listening to...

...Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

Basketbawful-ly good, as it happens.

Considering that I don't give two hoots about basketball, I'm really enjoying reading Basketbawful, especially the Livin' Large section, which details the university year that our narrator, Matt, spent rooming with a basketball 'scholar' from Holland, Mat. It's a window on a whole other world, and it's very sharply written: the perfect ingredients for a great blog. Not only this, but it's tender too Check this.

I know it's been my tendency to ridicule the feelings I had for Aimee and the way I behaved while in the throes of first love, so I should also point out that that was the happiest I had ever been in my life to that point. In fact, I had prior to that never believed I could be so happy. So while my sappiness was embarrassingly sappy, it was the best and most honest emotion my 18-year-old self had ever felt. Life is tough. People should always be grateful for whatever euphoric happiness they can find. And I'm happy I got to experience the crazy.

What hooked me in, most of all, is that he's a Meat Loaf fan too. We're a rare and special breed.

However, a fight almost broke out when we were cruising around in Greg's car, a sweet-ass 1957 Chevy Impala. Meat Loaf's "Paradise By The Dashboard Lights" came on, and we all sung it together up until the woman's part. At which point Gauvin continued singing. By the time Gauvin belted out, "would you take me away, will you make me your wife," Greg was freaking out.

"DUDE," he yelled. "YOU DO NOT SING THE CHICK'S PART!"

Gauvin realized his faux pas but refused to back down. "Whatever. I can sing whatever part I want."

Greg's eyes bulged. "THE GIRL'S PART? SERIOUSLY?!"

Great stuff.

I went out for a short, fast ride down to the Mersey, then along the TPT. It was a glorious evening, and I was riding right into the falling sun. I love my bike so much. Not so good, though, was that I caught another bloody snakebite puncture in a rough patch, and had to push back from the Bridgewater Canal. Punctures bum me out big style. I wonder how much a cycle pressure gauge costs. Time to get one maybe?

The Green Man party line-up

looks like this:

Dunk
Kate
Ryan
Miriam
Culture Thom
Ali Danesh
Ed Chemical?
Paul Collins + some
Saxaphone Kate
Nic from Oddest + some
Sionedd + some

…and I think there are a couple of bands on too.

East Bound and Down

A gentle day of reading the Economist, noodling around on the internet and popping into charity shops. I found Permanent Vacation in Oxfam for £1.99 – result! Kate and I watched Smokey and the Bandit and I couldn’t stop humming East Bound and Down for the rest of the evening.

Awesome Sunday

My day was three kinds of awesome today.

1. Milner awesome

I met Helen for lunch at Oddest. It’s been such a long time since I last saw her last for a one-to-one – since Easter, and the videos of the chimpanzees hunting; before Steve and Fordbank were evicted from Victoria Ave; before Steve moved in with Chubb and Helen; since before Helen got a job in London – and so much has happened since then with both of us. I talked about my new house, my housemates, the Moss Side move. She talked about London, living with a boy, optimism and change. “I’ve been in Manchester for three years now,” she said. Wow, I thought, it feels like less than that. This time last year we went to Gorton Monastery to see an orchestra. She’ll be fine – she’s a motivated and intelligent young woman, with a lot going for her. I’ll miss her. I’ll stay in touch.

2. Family Awesome

Caroline, Ashleigh and Izzy came up to see me today. I made a roast dinner using yesterday’s allotment vegetables – new potatoes, spring cabbage, spinach, courgettes – a ready-roasted supermarket chicken, and lashings of tasty gravy. Yum! Izzy and I pootled around the garden, when she wasn’t busy trying to eat rocks, and explored the spooky circle. The four of us strolled into Longford Park, and around the petting zoo. We’re off to the Isle of Wight next week. I’m very excited about it.

3. Batman awesome

In a quiet house, all by myself, I read the Dark Knight Returns and The Long Halloween. Bliss!

1995, not such a good year for music

I remember 1995 as a year of Supergrass, The Bluetones, Pulp, Radiohead, Oasis and Blur. Watching every number one of that year on music telly made me think again. Robson and Jerome, topped the charts twice. As did the Outhere Brothers. As did two of Michael Jackson’s weakest songs – You Are Not Alone, Earth Song – and the terminally wet Fairground by Simply Red. Bleugh!

My top three number ones of the year are:

1. Gangtsa’s Paradise – Coolio feat LV
2. Some Might Say – Oasis
3. Back For Good – Take That

Farewell rose-tinted specs, the past was suckier than I remember. Fact.

Coincidence

Lindsey from work is going out with Dave Shmoo! Nuts!

Kate, Paulina, Ryan and I went to Blowout with Matt and Chaw to watch She Keeps Bees, who are going to be at the Green Man Festival this year. As we were chatting, Kate pointed out Dave Shmoo. As he came over, Lindsey said "Hello!" to me. We know Dave Shmoo from Sol's and Fuel. Tiny world.

I was half-pissed when they walked in, and ended up ranting about Moss Side to Lindsey. I'm sure she was baffled by my ramblings.

Let’s go for a green, star performer… again.

We had a little party for Dunk’s birthday. Kate and I made a cake, and iced it red. Gethin and Cara came round, and Al and Ander followed. We lit the barbecue, hooked up Spotify and sat around in the garden chatting. Ander was really impressed with the hairdryer on the barbecue trick. I wish I had the video he took of its fiery glory, sadly I don’t. Matt and Chaw arrived later with booze and meat reinforcements.

- insert cake picture here -

I blame myself, but I wasn’t alone. I started it all, but it was the others who made it get out of hand. I’d cued up some Wu-Tang, remembering how much I’d enjoyed it last night. An eyebrow rose here, a foot tapped there; it was going down quite well. Then Dunk disappeared into the kitchen, and here our troubles began. We had an urban interlude.

Regulate – Warren G
Summertime – DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince
Millionaire – Andre 3000 (feat. Kelis)
Concrete Schoolyard – Jurassic 5
No Digitty – Blackstreet

There was a much better collective mood than the last time we played Cranium. I was with Dunk, Al was with Gethin, leaving Kate, Cara and Ander to make up the third team. Dunk, as birthday boy and king of the day, took responsibility for choosing what colour card should be drawn when a team rolled a purple. And the answer was, invariably, Green.

Green – humdinger
Green – cameo
Green – copycat

It’s the most entertaining card to watch, Dunk reasoned, and he was right. The Al and Geth show was the pick of them. What a brilliant night.

Kudos to Blackwell’s at Manchester University, who ordered and took delivery of Dunk’s birthday gift – Maus – in less than 24 hours. I got a copy for me too, and read it into the night.

The worst ever name for a festival…

…is Mad Ferret. It’s not even a good pun. Kate and I were on a guestlist, so we avoided paying £34 (seriously!) each, and breezed in at around nine. Johnny Walsh is a good guy, very chilled out, very polite and friendly. I can see why he’s a successful promoter. The band that he was hyping, Fraser King, were pretty good. I never thought I’d say it, but they kind of reminded me of Misty’s Big Adventure: not so much in terms of their sound, but in the way that their songs had quite big changes within them – of tempo, of volume, of depth of instrumentation. They reminded me of the things that I liked about The Coral, and Gogol Bordello. I’d go to see them again, but maybe not to Mad Ferret again.

We took a mannequin home with us.

Afterwards, we went to Trof. I was chatting to a tall blonde girl – Leonora? Lenore? Lionella? – who I’d seen around Chorlton a bit. She works in Dulcimer, that was where I recognised her from. I felt really old talking to her – she started at Sheffield uni the year September after I left that fair city, just in 2005. I did some maths, and worked out that she was probably 22. Wow! I felt like a dinosaur. She was born after the Smiths broke up. It turns out she’s Johnny’s ex, although I thought that they were a couple. Was she flirting with me to get at him, I wondered. I went to bed wracked with doubt.

The Thief's Journal

I rode the pilot’s seat (at the very front on the top deck) of the 15 bus to work today. It’s my new route in, and at the time of day that I caught it, the bus seems to head directly into the rising sun. I’ve started to read the Thief’s Journal by Jean Genet, a filthy little horror of a book. I like it.

Kate was working, and Matt and Chaw were out, so I had the whole house to myself. I made mushrooms, tomatoes, and pasta as I listened to some of Kate’s records and then mooched about in my cargo pants. Spotify. Facebook. A bit of studying. And slowly starting to feel less like a visitor and more like a resident. Slowly…

The answer to the question is: "A little better."

I met Woody for a beer in the Woodstock, his new place of work. They were robbed after the Bank Holiday, he told me. Four massive guys with an angle grinder went to work on the safe. Shit. It’s set back from the main road, sure, but its only 400m from a police station. That takes some stones. And how was he coping with the move from a high-pressure target-based call-centre team-leader to slow, afternoon, bar work, sweeping the occasional patio? Pretty well, it seemed. Early doors though, not being stressed takes a bit of time to get used to.

The British Lions romped through the Golden Lions, scoring ten tries to their opponents’ two. Satisfied with their performance, I went to Milner’s for Thai food. Amazing, very peanut-centred! Cally and Ali were there too. Cally’s joining the police. I was dumbstruck. We put on the telly.

After successfully avoiding all that bollucks with Susan Boyle whilst it was going on, I saw her singing for the first time. I was touched, though not for the sappy reasons that many others were touched – my first ever girlfriend put the song I Dreamed A Dream on the tape that she made for me when I went away to University and broke both our hearts. It all came back to me.

“Have I got any better at managing my exes since then?” I wondered in the taxi home. They were playing Nelly and Kelly’s Dilemma. I hate that piece of shit song.

Hollingworth Lake

We took the train to Smithy Bridge and strolled to Hollingworth Lake, where we hired a rowboat and explored the lake. Straight lines aren’t easy in a rowboat, but I soon managed to get the hang of it. Sailboats soared past us, their grace and speed making us seem clumsy and waddle-some. We stopped for coffee, and for millionaires’ shortbread, and drifted aground. It was a beautiful sunny day.



Could we plan a pirate-themed treasure hunt using the lake, we wondered, over a cone of chips on the shore. I found the LSO performing Classic Rock greats on the way home. Good record. Great day.

Were the Bluetones any good?

Colleague: "So, were the Bluetones any good?"
Me: Yes,(pause) in 1995.