East Anglian Daily Pirates

Cycled up to the Water Rats to meet Judge Ed, Mr Adams and Lorraine and see the East Town Pirates - Rikky Flag and Jonny Learjet's new outfit, challenging west country piracy hegemony with unreconstructed tricorn rock and roll. A top night had by all me hearties.

Farewell to the Crops

Fantastic session from Electricity in Our Home son the first Hello Goodbye show after the summer break today - go and see them supporting Wire at the Scala on Monday if you can.
Great night at the Enterprise for the Crops swansong, T-Lo's birthday bash and the launch of 'The Beast Must Die', with a brilliant performance from the Great Blondini, who is best described as Tommy Cooper meets Roger Melly. Sterling work on the wheels of steel from the Wild Man too. A very enjoyable night all round in fact and good to see so many old faces, including all three Heave bassists! Not feeling sad to have finished, but pleased to have gone out on a high note, rather than a bum note (though there were a few of those too!). Off to Greece now for a week of well earned relaxation!

Que la bête meure

Final ever Crops rehearsal last night, which went worringly well...hopefully not a bad omen. Tomoland was in attendance to document the historic and rare tri-blogged occasion, and Jolly came along for a private view as he'll be in Wales tomorrow. Picked up copies of the album today...Smell the Glove is here! Come and get one for free tomorrow night at the Enterprise in Haverstock Hill!

Crops Circle

The first Crops rehearsal in over a year last Thursday went from very shaky beginnings to passably acceptable interpretations of the songs to a very satisfying session in the Roebuck afterwards, joined by SS and Alfie. The Crops farewell gig is set for 6th September at the Enterprise in Chalk Farm, so we've got a couple of weeks to get ship-shape. The gig will also be the launch of our album, 'Foxes Earth and Badger Sett' (though it's also TV Magick's birthday so perhaps a 45 would have been more appropriate). Anyhoo, everyone who turns up gets a free copy...if we get it all done in time.

Blue Sky Thinking

It's been a week of balancing the cycling ying with the boozing yang. Had a few pints of Adnams in Chalk Farm with Judge Ed early in the week followed by 3.5 pints of Aspell (staying loyal to Suffolk brands) in Crystal Palace while discussing artwork for the forthcoming Crops LP with Dan and T-Lo in Crystal Palace on Wednesday night. Out for a 36 mile post-dynamo tootle around the North Downs with Spratticus yesterday, which was very much like going for a bike ride in the school holidays, but with pub stops! Clocked up another 22 miles today riding from home to dentist to the Moat to home to the barber's and home again. I seem to be getting the balance about right as the old blood sugars are behaving themselves again.

sierras, ovejas y calaveras

Caught up with Judge Ed again, along with Kate, T-Lo and SS, at the Malkmus Empire gig - a good old fashioned Crops night out but another strangely unsatisfying SM gig: it's really odd how someone whose albums are so top-notch just doesn't seem to cut the live mustard, but there you have it.
Oslo's Thingumajigsaw, on the other hand, are well worth seeing live, if today's marvellous session was anything to go by - the saw and the banjo are a very fine combination indeed and they do a great cover of Daniel Johnson's 'Walking the Cow'.
The calaveras are on a mural opposite a primary school in Lant Street, just down the road from top cantina, El Vergel.

Deconstructing the weekend

A very busy weekend...

Friday night we were at the South Bank for Pere Ubu's 'Bring Me the Head of Ubu Roi'. It didn't quite hit the mark but did feature a great performance from Sarah Jane Morris and son, as well as some added amusement as avant-garde curmudgeon David Thomas got increasingly exasperated with his under-rehearsed band and crew.

Saturday's 'Hello Goodbye' was an altogether more congenial affair. The show was an Easycome special featuring Post Modern Antiquarian Andy Hankdog along with Jason McNiff & band, Indigo Moss, and Petra Jean Phillipson, all playing separately and then together for a rousing finale of 'Bella Ciao', which it turns out is a revolutionary call to arms and not a tribute to a South London pizzeria. Good to see my old engine room-mate from the Glint days, Mr Steve Brookes, alive and well and playing drums for Jason.

All that live music gives a man a thirst so I then sauntered up the road to the Parquet Mortar to meet T-Lo and Judge Ed for the nearest we get to a Crops rehearsal these days - a fez-wearing five-pintathon.

Worked off the hangover yesterday with a brisk 108 lengths in the pool and a large dose of constructivism at the last day of the Rodchenko exhibition at the Hayward, inspiring stuff indeed. As if that wasn't enough culture for one weekend, we then pedalled up to the Barbican for a screening of 'I Served the King of England', a Czech film based on the novel of the same name by Bohumil Hrabal. There was a Q & A with the director Jiri Menzel (of 'Closely Observed Trains' fame) afterwards, involving a very amusing translator. The film is the story of a waiter in Czechoslovakia before during and after WWII and is showing at the Barbican for a couple of weeks in May and is well worth seeing, though the book (inevitably) is even better.