Category: General Blogging

[Gig review] The Pipettes

Posted on by Alasdair

Londonist loves the Pipettes, and who wouldn’t? With their Spector-influenced indie-pop and fifties/sixties school prom aestheic, and their modern cynicism, it’s not a surprise that they packed Koko to the rafters on Friday night.

What is a surprise is how quickly they’ve done it. In less that six months, they’ve gone from playing moderately sized student unions, to packing out a large venue as indie-pop darlings of the moment. And if we’re honest, it shows just a little. They’re the hot thing right now, and making the most of it, but you can tell they’re not entirely used to venue where the audience don’t have the room to move like their songs demand, or a gig where half the audience only respond to the singles, because that’s all they really know – there was a bit more urging the audience to move then there needed to be early on, which had them looking a little uncertain of themselves when they really, really don’t need to be…

Was it a bad gig? Not by any stretch – the girls delivered the uptempo pop wit that their records promise and looked marvellous in their new polka-dot dresses and if it took them a little longer than normal to get the audience fully on side, well, they did it in the end, judging by the roof-raising cheers for the encore. One suspects they just need a little time to adjust to their well-deserved new status, that’s all.

And if you missed them, well, they’re still fantastic, and you should catch them next time round. At this rate, they’ll be playing Wembley some time early next year, and you’ll be surrounded by people saying “yeah, I saw them when…”

And now, organ failure.

Posted on by Alasdair

I could really have done without the last week.

I have been fighting a cold all week. (And when I say fighting, what I mean is “stubbornly refusing to admit that I have a”.) What I have wanted to do all week is take a day or two off, and spend it in bed, resting in an attempt to shift it, moving only to get more tea.

What I have done is work late two nights this week, in a futile attempt to get five days work done in three, then spend two days doing heavy lifting followed by going gigging. (Thea Gilmore and The Pipettes, respectively. Reviews to follow. No, not going was not an option. Don’t be stupid.)

And tomorrow, I need to get up sharply in order to get to the post office and pick up whatever it is that they failed to deliver in the week. Bah.

Has anyone got a spare set of lungs? And possibly some sinuses that aren’t full of eldritch horror? And perhaps an immune system that can fight off colds, since this is the third one I’ve had to refuse to admit to having in only slightly more than three months?

Yes, I do want your sympathy. No, I don’t have any pride. You need to be able to inhale properly in order to have pride. The inamorata is away sunning herself in a Cretian villa (at least, I hope that’s what she’s doing) and I have no one around to give me sympathy, so hand it over.

Yeah, OK, I’m going to bed.

Attention London Food Nerds!

Posted on by Alasdair

(stu_n, burge, mr_tom, I’m particularly looking at you…)

anw has pointed me in the direction of this: http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/10/12/179

Heston Blumenthal’s scientific advisor is putting on a show at the Dana Centre in which he unravels the physics of cooking. With a special buffet. And a drink. 12th October, 13 quid a head. Sounds like fun to me.

0207 942 4040 is the number to call to book…

Just messing about with pictures…

Posted on by Alasdair

I’ve spent a large part of the evening messing about with more of the photos from Dublin[1]. Mostly, I’ve spent the time kicking myself as I’ve come away from almost all of them thinking “If only I hadn’t cocked this detail or that detail up that’d be a really good shot”. One of them, I blew almost completely but I liked the whole idea far too much to abandon it. Had I the time and resources, I’d go back and re-shoot it, but I don’t so I shall put it on-line botched as it it, thus destroying what tiny shreds of photographic credibility I have.

Anyway, the point of this isn’t that I’m bad, it’s a) that I had a really relaxing and pleasant evening, and b) I’m struck (and pleasantly surprised) by how much more I’m shooting to capture an idea. Sometimes the idea is an abstract notion, sometimes it’s just a pretty image, but my shots are getting much more constructed. (And correspondingly more heavily post processed.) It feels like I’m actually starting to evolve something of a style[2]. Slowly, very bloody slowly, but I can see it moving on. At the moment, I’m at the stage of regurgitating my influences, trying for effect X or Y that I’ve seen other photographers produce, and sometimes I get there, and sometimes I don’t, but I feel like I’m starting to make progress again. Like I felt about writing nine or ten years back – I knew I hadn’t got to my own style yet, but I had some sense of where it would wind up. It’s the first time I’ve really felt like that about photography. Which isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed it up to now, or anything, because god knows, there’s nothing like it, just that one of my problems was that I felt like I had no style or voice of my own. I still don’t think I have, but at least now, I feel like I know what direction I’m heading in – like I’ll get there at some point.

Which is nice.

[1] Yes, I know I’ve been back a week. I’m not fast, OK?
[2] “Oooh look, blue neon lights!” does not count as a style.

A few little things…

Posted on by Alasdair

Saw “An Inconvenient Truth” at the weekend.

Everyone’s been saying “wow, this is a really important film”. It is. Go and see it. If you’re halfway aware of environmental issues, you’ll probably know just how fucked we are anyway, but still, go see it – it’s got some interesting trivia (but by no means trivial) items that are very sobering examples, and might be of use to you in trying to articulate how fucked we are. And issues aside it’s really quite interesting to see what kind of man Al Gore is, and to think about what we might have had, if Bush hadn’t stolen the white house.

If you’re not aware of environmental issues, then you absolutely have to see this movie. If you’re uncertain about anything to do with climate change, global warming, and what needs to be done or what can be done, then go. Now.

Yeah, I know: everyone you know who has seen the movie has said something like this. Fucking Kool-aid drinkers, the lot of us. Swayed by propaganda. Gore’s just pushing his angle, same as the other side of the debate does theirs.

If you are thinking thoughts like that, then I’d ask you to please leave the planet now via your preferred exit. The rest of us would like to survive the next fifty years or so, and you’re in the way.

Go and see the film.

Forgot to mention:

Posted on by Alasdair

If anyone’s in London at a loose end tonight, they could do far worse that pop along to The Spice of Life at about 8pm this evening, for the launch party for the new Flipron album, “Biscuits For Cerberus”. 6 quid on the door, for an evening of fine cabaret-pop[1].

Go on, you know you want to.

(And how can you resist an album with a title like that, I ask you? What’s wrong with you? Samples available here.)

[1] No, I don’t know what that sounds like, either. I also can’t think of a good way to describe them that won’t sound even stupider.

Last.fm wash and brush-up…

Posted on by Alasdair

Gosh, it’s a bit nicer looking these days, isn’t it? I can almost forgive them not even interviewing me back when I applied for a job there. Bastards. Etc.

Anyway, now that they’ve got the social features up to the point that they’re slightly interesting, I’ve friended those of you I could easily find on there. The rest of you: leave your last.fm username in your comment if you given enough of a toss.

(I’m alasdairw on there, by the way.)