Plus ca change

Long time no blog. Somewhat phased by the dual calamities of the self-immolation of Summerisle's blog and the closure of the upstairs studio at Resonance, which the surveyors were alarmed to find in imminent danger of collapse, my blogging went into a short period of paralysis. A version of normality has now resumed, with a new Titlow blog and the Resonance control room cosily relocated to the live room/office. Spurred on by a few comments from Resonance's smoker-in-residence Michael Garrad, I am now back in blogfordshire.

Here's a rare shot from the day job - with Bob and Marisa at the Mentoring awards on Monday: good speech Bob!



And here's Mr Spizz with ace drummer, caterer and thespian Justin Denim at Acoustic Suicide on Thursday:



Folllowed swiftly by Bristol's S J Esau putting in a stirling performance at the very end of Saturday's show, just after we managed to eradicate the various gremlins that had accompanied the studio move, providing the show with a little extra frisson.



And the now rather creepy empty space that was once the conrol room and has taken on the feel of present-day Chernobyl.



And since it's all change round here, a last photo of the Piccadilly Weepers (or at least one of them), which have finally succumbed to the razor blade in the face of encroaching greyness, an impending passport renewal photograph and a bloke shouting 'Teenage Werewolf' at me in the street the other night. It was fun having the Iberian peninsular etched upon my cheeks in salt and pepper facial hair, and we had some good times together, but all things must end.

Circulus and Blanket

Here's Michael from Circulus (with Nag in the background) and Blanket performing on yesterday's show. Both were excellent and hopefully made up for my rather poor quality interview technique, e.g. 'So, the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, how long did it go on for?'

Farewell, Mr Vonnegut

Where's me shirt?

On Saturday's show Brickface worked up a sweat with a spirited session of fiery shirtless mayhem. If you've ever wondered what the Prodigy would sound like if fronted by Steve Ignorant from Crass, and even if you haven't, Brickface are your men.
The evening continued in a similarly lairy manner, with a trip with Summerisle up to King's Cross to the Resonance benefit at the Cross Kings. I finally got to see I Am A Kamura, of whom I'd heard many good things, and quite rightly so. Dan Laidler also played a song - his first live performance in several years but hopefully now he's had a whiff of the crowd, he'll be back for more soon. A long conversation ensued between Dan, Summerisle and myself regarding medieval battle soundtracks, with the result that the three of us are now locked in hand to hand combat to see who can produce the best one. My first effort was roundly dismissed as being less than credible for containing a bugle and a marching band, neither of which were common features of the medieval battle ground apparently. We also got to see Shimmy Rivers And And Canal, who were superb as always, and Naked Ruby, with their scantily clad lady dancers - they should do a gig with Brickface. Takings from the bar were being donated to Resonance so we did our best to down as much beer as possible, with the result that we ended up in McDonald's - something that I have to say only happens to me when out with Summerisle.

Keep not taking the tablets

I've had a reprieve from the not-so-formidable-really Nurse Lucy, who has agreed that I can stay off the Metformin tablets for a bit longer to see if I can keep controlling my blood sugar with diet and exercise. This will take me past the two year milestone and hopefully beyond, as I'm pretty sure the high readings I had at Xmas were a festive blip. I seem to confuse quite a few healthcare professionals as I don't fit the profile of either the overweight type 2 or the taking insulin since childhood type 1, but part of me rather enjoys being a medical anomaly.

There are probably laws against taking pictures of nurses at general practitioners so here's an entirely unrelated picture I took a couple of years ago of a Catalan donkey on a hilltop outside Barcelona.

Deep in the Woods

Spent a most enjoyable weekend in the New Forest, staying in the pseudo-Scandinavian wooden splendour of Rose (West) Cottage. Hearty silvanian walks were followed by the quaffing of pints of excellent ales, which themselves formed the prelude to gourmet repasts and talk of zombies, native British reptiles and shibboleths (mine is the word "huge").

Jo Jo was a Madame

The Hello Goodbye fundraising jamboree gala extravaganza at Madame Jo Jo's on Wednesday was a splendid affair, with four top notch acts giving it their all to help keep Resonance on air. Jesus Licks kicked the night off with an excellent set accompanied by some exubarant interpretive dancing by a somewhat tired and emotional Gerald Mitchell. I'm listening to their album, 'Terrrible Beauty', as I write this, and mighty fine it is too, especially the excellent 'If You Kill Me', which makes most judicious use of swearing. Then Indigo Moss took to the stage for a highly accomplished set of South London bluegrass - their 'Dang Nabbit' single is a handsome recording, though the version they did on the show for us is for my money even more superior. 'Who was on next?' I hear you cry. Why, it was none other than Hungarian surf guitar breakbeat twosome Akaskodo Teliverek, whose name means 'Rearing Stallions' in their native tongue, don't you know. These fellers were the stars of the show for me... a sort of Central European disco Frank Zappa in very short trousers if you can countenance such a thing. They are permanantly number one in the popular music charts of a parallel (and much more interesting) universe, and proof positive of the need for Resonance to stay on air, if only so that London at least can hear them on a regular basis. In the meantime I urge you to purchase their remarkable eponympous long player on Adadat records. Anyhoo, it was past midnight by the time the Xerox Teens came on, pissed up, on fire and lairy, to play a brief but highly charged set to an audience that had been whittled down to the truly dedicated and inebriated, though Mr Mitchell had by this time thrown in the towel. All in all then, a pretty good night. Perhaps not quite as many people as we'd hoped, and the venue was a bit of a smelly dive for the amount they charged us for the privilege of putting the night on, but we raised about £300 and Richard and I got to play some of our scratchy old post-punk vinyl so we were pretty happy. A final honourable mention must be made for trusty Resonance engineers Robin and Michael,who did stirling work on the door. Cheers gents.

Saint Pancreas

Wow - the public demands an update on my current rate of pancreatic activity. I'm hovering around the 7.5 mmol reading mark, and have delayed starting on the metformin tablets, which will probably get me into trouble with the formidable nurse Lucy at my GP's. I wanted to get to April and the two-year milestone of controlling by diet and exercise, and I'm not convinced that the tablets will make that much difference, so a few more weeks and then I'll be reviewing the situation, diddle diddle dum.

I don't have a suitable picture to illustrate this riveting post, so apropos of nothing here's a rather frightening picture David sent me of Shelly and I taken sometime in the curly nineties.

On Probation

Didn't go to Resonance yesterday as I was working on the sound for Lizzy Hobbs's amazing animated film 'The Old, Old, Very Old Man', which tells the story of Thomas Parr, England's oldest man, who is buried in Westminster Abbey. He lived on diet of green cheese, onions, coarse bread, buttermilk or mild ale (cider on special occasions) - not unlike my own diet, in fact, which is rather encouraging. Edward Fox has provided the voices and the animation is fantastic, so the pressure's on to make sure the sound is of the same high standard. So far it's going well, but the deadline is approaching fast, so, unlike Mr Parr, I don't have much time!





Then up to the dizzy heights of North London to celebrate Eddo's 35th birthday, and the start of his new career as a probation officer. It was the first time this year all 3 of the Crops had been in the same room: with a bit of luck we'll manage to meet up a bit more often to finish recording our album. Good to see Tommo there too, and had a great chat with him about Cormac Mcarthy and Moby Dick. David peaked too early and had to be taxied back to Stockwell before closing time, so I took the last Northern Line train home and was entertained by the busking ghost of Gene Vincent. None of my pissed up kebab munching fellow-travellers appeared to see him, so all he got was a quid from me, which was not alright mama.

Do the Dog

Liam and Pete, formerly of HG favourites Suitable Case For Treatment, came in to the studio yesterday for a session for their new outfit, Mephisto Grande, a band name that rather impressively comes complete with its own hand gestures. They make a lot of noise for two people and as well as using guitar and drums to accompany Liam's incredible voice, performed a great accordian duet and a splendid version of 'John the Revelator', which seems to be establishing itself as something of a standard among our guests.

Then, on to Clapham for the event of the year so far: the Xerox Teens accompanying Richard Curtis's K9 Freestyle dog dancing display team. Words can not really do justice to quite how extraordinary a spectacle this was. In this picture you see Disco, a Portuguese Water Dog and for my money the star of the show, strutting her doggy stuff. Get down!

Ca Plane Pour Nous

Plastic Bertrand's birthday, apparently, and we celebrate with a visit to the show from seasoned veteran Dave Russell, whose energetic performance would put many a younger man to shame. He has an excellent album out on Sexton Ming's Rim Records, but really has to be seen and heard live to be fully appreciated. Cheers Dave!


Brighton's Shrag played live too, sounding somewhere betwixt Sonic Youth and the B-52's, and causing a certain amount of heat under the collar of our hormonal young engineering crew. Anthony and Rich from the Xerox Teens also popped in to talk about their Resonance fundraising gig in Clapham next Saturday, in which they will be performing the backing music for a troupe of dancing dogs.

And here's Nostalgie Ya Mboka's Vince, who is younger than Plastic Bertrand

Anti-pasti folk

A particularly lively Hello Goodbye this week with no less than 4 live acts. First up was Devon's Uke Stanza with a brace of songs: one about the death wish of the pheasant and the other about naked waltzing. Did I mention that he was from Devon? Taking time off from pulling pints of Adnams in the Gladstone, Dan Orcese also played a couple of songs, with his reference points being much more urban - I think his song about Hackney Downs should have been called 'Hackney Downs Syndrome' but on reflection, it is perhaps a little tasteless. Glastonbury's Flipron gave us three excellent songs too - a very fine band with a most charming frontman called Jessie, who sports a splendid pair of sideburns - always a sign of a man of good character. Last but not least, The Irrrepressibles returned to the show in a slightly reduced form of their new expanded line-up, with Jamie's voice in astonishing fettle as ever. Sadly I didn't get a picture of them as we were so crammed in to the control room I couldn't nip down to the live room to take any snaps.
On to the 12 Bar in the evening for the Anti Folk Winter Festival. I'm not too sure quite what anti-folk is, but a good night was had by all, with Jesus Licks in particularly fine form. I was most impressed with Dom's ability to sing and play the flute almost simultaneously. Looking forward to seeing them again at Madam Jo Jo's on 14th March for the Resonance fundraising do. Thee Intolerable Kidd (seen here with King on drums) was another highlight of the anti-folk night and though I say so myself, the deXter Bentley performance was none too shabby either. An honourable mention should be made here to Richard's 'Woody from Toy Story' outfit, alas not captured on camera.
While writing this entry I have been listening to Dave Cloud's 'Fantastic Rage', a song to suit all moods.

Hair of the Sea Dogs

Shelly's birthday celebrations started on Thursday in a civilised enough vein with a preview of Michel Gondry's 'The Science of Sleep', which was followed by a Q & A with the charming Frenchman. I wanted to ask him who was the better drummer between him and Gael Garcia Bernal but the audience was full of film students with far less interesting questions. Anyhoo, the film's well worth seeing, with great performances from Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg, though not as good as 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', which we watched again on DVD last night in homage to Gondry.
Friday night saw things get more raucous with deformed eggs and copious amounts of red wine being consumed, mostly by me, it would appear. Anyway, cue drunken renditions of Nick Cave and Jacques Brel songs with ham-fisted guitar accompaniment, but much harmless fun was had by all and sundry.

This all meant of course that Saturday morning saw me nursing a particularly ferocious hangover: possibly not the best state in which to be co-presenting a radio show.


Usually our engineer Michael is on hangover duty, but he wasn't in this week, probably due to not having a hangover, so it was clearly my turn.


Fortunately Woodcraft Folk were in session, playing some very soothing music, including a very relaxing version of the Fall's 'English Scheme'.


Captain Blood Blood and the Sea Dogs were noisier but I can forgive them since they were also highly entertaining. If there was any justice in the world these lads would be riding high in the popular music charts instead of the indie schmindie fops polluting the hearts and minds of our young people these days.

Sang douce

Just got back from my six-monthly diabetic MOT at the gloomy obelisk that is Guy's hospital. Been struggling to get my blood sugar readings below double figures since they took a hike over Xmas, so was bracing myself for being told time it was time to go on to insulin: my HbA1c (3 month average) is 8, so a little over the level they'd like it be, and higher than it has been previously.

I see a different doctor every time I'm there, so never know quite what, or who to expect. Fortunately this time it wasn't the clinically depressed Irishman struggling to operate his computer who I saw last year, but a much more personable endocrinologist. She didn't seem too alarmed by the readings and suggested that instead of insulin, I try metformin, which comes in tablet form and helps the body to make better use of the insulin it produces - it's usually prescribed for Type 2 'betics, who are insulin resistant rather than insulin deficient. So that's two more tablets for me to take every day, but at least it means I now qualify for free prescriptions.

The doctor also warned me that the tablets may cause diarrhoea, so instead of injecting needles I could be shitting through the eye of one. Stay tuned for further developments!

Dillon Sticks Bronsteins Bib

Another day of quality music courtesy of Hello Goodbye. Sandy Dillon dropped in to the show for a quick half hour of songs from her excellent new album, accompanied by a wonderful vintage casio keyboard and a small unnamed string instrument possibly of Vietnamese origin. She's a true survivor and spoke cheerfully of death, cancer and the horrific effects of MRSA. Hopefully she'll be back on the show again soon with her whole band. We also had a great session from Brighton duo The Sticks, who went on to give a superb performance at the Betsey Trotwood last night, along with The wondrous Bronsteins, who had to contend with a drunk (no, not me) in the audience testing everyone's tolerance levels of twattery to the limit.

He'd been taken home by his embarrassed girlfriend by the time the mighty Bib took to the stage, which was a shame in a way, as I'm sure Duncan would have had some fun with him. Readers in Australia will be disappointed to learn that '24 Hour Supermarket' no longer features in their set, but they were nonetheless on fire last night, with Duncan's Ian Curtis dancing getting more and more impressive with every show. Add to this the fact that he was clearly in pain, putting out an appeal for some Lockets a couple of songs in, and you realise what a consumate performer the man is. Yes miss!