Don’t usually go in for these memes, but this one was too funny not to publish.
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Tag: music
Catch-Up: Concerts
Yes, it’s true, I’m bad at blogging. But as we all know, weblogs suck anyway. Regardless: here’s the long-awaited catchup of my whereabouts and doings of the last week (as all I’d previously said is that I’d left and that I’d got back again.
Claire and I went to Preston a week last Thursday evening, for a busy weekend of travelling around and attending concerts on what turned out to be the hottest weekend of the year so far. At the Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Manchester, on Friday, we saw REM, who are absolutely stunning live, it turns out: on stage, they throw a lot more energy and a lot more emotion into what is (in recordings) quite quiet and sombre tracks. A wonderful concert, although we did get somewhat crushed when we were (at the start) within spitting distance of the bands, and so we had to retreat back before the end. Supporting them were Idlewild, who turned out to be brilliant, Feeder, who were very good, and The Zutons, who weren’t so good. Claire was more impressed by the latter, but I think that may just have been because she could look down on their saxophonist (not in height, of course, but in saxophone skill).
Then, on Saturday, we travelled down to Milton Keynes to see Green Day at the Milton Keynes Bowl. The bowl is, to all intents and purposes, a large grassy crater just outside of the city, in which they’d erected an enormous sound stage. Green Day were supported by a handful of pretty nondescript pseudo-rock bands, much of which we slept through with our t-shirts over our faces to help us breathe in the sticky air until the sun set. Green Day themselves were brilliant – aside from a slight problem with the video link (the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound meant that by the time we could hear what they were singing we’d already seen them mouth it): they could have done with repeater projectors as well as the repeater speakers they had – a royally rockin’ gig. A good selection of stuff from their new album and older material, lots of crowd enthusiasm, a few bottle fights, all the stuff you expect from a nice, loud concert. We spent the night at a draconically-run travel lodge-like place a little way between Milton Keynes and London.
And on Sunday we went into London (well; if you’re going to travel 700 miles around the country anyway you might as well take a minor diversion if you pass a place of interest) to go to the National Science Museum, which was good as ever. Their new “Hitch-Hikers’ Guide To The Galaxy” exhibit wasn’t very impressive, but I don’t know what I expected from it, though.
The highlight of the trip has to be a conversation between Claire, my sister Becky, and I in the cafe at the Science Museum. It went thusly:
Dan: Claire doesn’t like carrot cake.
Becky: (to Claire) Have you ever tried carrot cake?
Claire nods
Becky: (to Claire) And did you like it?
Claire nods
Becky: (to Claire) So… do you like carrot cake?
Claire shakes head
Unfathomable.
Claire’s Birthday, and Preston
Well, Claire and I are in Preston. We travelled up here last night (after a few false starts, including getting to Mach before realising we’d left the Green Day tickets blu-tacked to the wall “so we don’t forget them” in Aber and having to turn back). Claire’s been made out to be a bookworm again, with a heap of new reading material to keep her occupied for the coming year.
Visited my mum’s house. My sisters are typically hilarious. They’ve got a new chicken (after the last ones were eaten by foxes) + chicks, and a new guinea pig (called Pork Chop, which I think is a fantastic name for a guinea pig), and the puppies have grown up so it’s complete mayhem of the excitable 3-month-old doggy variety. They’d decorated a cake for Claire’s birthday, which read “Happy Birfday [sic] Mini Melton” and had an (anatomically correct) picture of her, with an arrow and the word “You” pointing to it.
This evening, we’re off to see Feeder and R.E.M. at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground, which’ll be fab, and then tomorrow, we’re travelling down to Milton Keynes to see Green Day (& friends), then we’ll spend Sunday in London before returning to Aber. This puts Troma Night in the hands of those of you still in Aber. Bryn has a key to the flat, and I’ve changed my password on Duality to something you’ll be able to guess: to determine it, look at the large yellow sign in the kitchen – there is a mis-spelling on it, and there is a number on it. Type the mis-spelled word (in lowercase) as it appears on the sign, followed by the number. If you have any trouble, text me. And if somebody could record/download the Dr. Who episode (as Claire and I will miss it), that’d be great.
I mentioned to my family that the computer game that’s occupied me most of late is Microsoft Train Simulator. My dad seemed pleased, but the rest of my family seem to want to award me an anorak. Once she’d checked to see that I wasn’t joking, the dialogue with Becky went as follows:
Bex: Microsoft Train Simulator?
Dan: Yup.
Bex: Trains?
Dan: Uh-huh.
Bex: So… what? You plan train routes, manage finances, that kind of thing…
Dan: No, it’s not like Transport Tycoon. You drive trains.
Bex: You… drive trains.
Dan: Yeah; you drive different kinds of trains along real-world routes to a schedule.
Bex: So… do you like; earn money and you can buy better trains? Or unlock secret areas?
Dan: No.
Bex: Wh… bu… <disapproving silence>
Well; I’m guessing she won’t be wanting a copy, then.
Some Pictures From My Phone
Some pictures I just extracted from my phone:
ASSA are branching out. Not just (experi)mental music, they do locks, too!
This sticker was found in the ladies toilets underneath the library on Llanbadarn Campus. I think it might be a little out of date… look at the phone number!
Paul & his dragon. I’m not sure whether or not the person who sent me this picture wanted it to be put online, so I’ll assume that they did…
Build Library Here (Or Else!)
This last few days, Claire and I have been listening to a hell of a lot of the new Pagan Wanderer Lu album, Build Library Here (Or Else!). And it’s such an impressive album that I’ve decided to write a little about it here, in the hope that some of you who’ve never heard of PWL before will take enough interest that you’ll download a few tracks (or persuade me to pirate some in your general direction), that you might enjoy them and the world will be a happier place. Oh; and so you might actually buy a copy of Build Library Here (Or Else!), ‘cos the artist is a great guy but is somewhat penniless:
Build Library Here (Or Else!) touches upon a combination of things going on both inside the songwriter and in the bigger picture, all put forward through a combination of intelligent lyrics, guitar, keyboard, and electronic/synthesised music. The Ending Makes What Came Before A Story is a slow acoustic piece with a soft chorus, which always reminds me of quite how easy it is to find pattern in something that you want to; whether in superstition or self-confidence. Or perhaps it’s about finding closure in hindsight. Good Christian/Bad Christian is a very danceable electronic affair: “I come to you with plans to be your leader – I come to you sing I’m a believer: Good Christian/Bad Christian… Baghdad can’t tell the difference,” sings PWL, in this politically and religiously fired-up song, challenging the link between state and religion that’s more obvious than ever in our terrorism-fuelled God-fearing Western democracies, with undertones of the association people mistakenly make between religion and morality. Keep The Weather Out is happy and bouncy; telling – on the surface – the story of a young couple buying a house for the first time and “settling down”, and the things that they consider important to making their house a home… with obvious references to tabloid-inspired xenophobia. Claire plays concertina in the background, and a strange synth drum-slapping session two and a half minutes in acts as a reminder that you are still listening to Pagan Wanderer Lu… in case you’d forgotten…
(Sick of) Playing Solo is, as Claire put it, possibly the bluntest, least-subtle Lu song ever. So far as anybody can see, there’re no deeply hidden meanings to go digging for; no clever run-on concepts to trip your brain up on; no second-listen “magic”. It is, essentially, an advertisement: but it’s a really, really good advertisement. Right from the start (and players of The Game will hate the second line) it presents a catchy, listenable tune, with frequent breaches of the fourth wall as the musician makes reference to his absent band and the things he’d love for them to be doing right now – with demonstrations. It’s fascinating to think that, owing to the complexity of the track, we may never see it played live ‘solo’, and the meaning is somewhat lost played with a band. I laughed out loud the first time I heard this song.
The Memorial Hall is my favourite song on the whole album. Even it’s musical peculiarities are remarkable and fascinating, such as the fact that it changes from 3/4 to 4/4 time some way into the song, without an awkward ‘jump’. These two parts each carry their own musical style: sombre and slow, and happy and disco-ey. It talks about the reasons for war, the arguments resulting from them, and the reactions of the people ‘left home’ in times of conflict, and comes to the startling realisation that the only valid purpose of modern warfare is to allow folks to dance at their local memorial hall disco. It makes reference to The Ending Makes What Came Before A Story, and leaves a catchy tune in your head that’ll soon take over your life in the way that (You And Me And) Winston Churchill, an earlier Pagan Wanderer Lu song, did before. It’s a remarkable song.
Show Me Yr Knuckles is worth a listen, 2 Bullets is good, although I can’t help but feel I’m missing something when listening to it, O Peter! (Won’t You Hear My Mournful Strum?) is an unusually deep-sounding, dramatic track, At The Hairdressers… is a masterful song about life, and death, and the triviality of it all in the eyes of anybody else, Harp & Chainsaw is an enjoyable experimental-sounding romp, and Yr On My Shoulder is a spectacular dive into personal ethics on which Claire and I are undecided whether the author is concerned with justification of his actions to himself (in a Marillion “Uninvited Guest” style ballad) or to somebody else: the lyrics could be read either way. Either way, it’s a stunning song.
Jabita Nu-Orleenz and Goodnight / Nos Da are both a little… weird, even for me. They’re still quite listenable, but there are perhaps boundaries in experimental up-and-coming music that even I’m not quite ready to venture into.
All in all, a fab CD.
Pagan Wanderer Lu
What a great gig last night. Amazing. Will say more in the morning, but suffice to say that Mr. Wanderer Lu was well on-form (apart from a slight lyrics hiccup in a new song I particularly liked): drew a great crowd too. Now… time for bed.
Tsunami Relief Concert
On Saturday night, Claire and I went to the Tsunami Relief concert at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, which was pretty fab. We arrived at about 3:15pm, just as things were starting to kick off – on one of the many park and ride services being operated especially for the event. The buses and their fuel were both donated for the evening, and the bus drivers were working as volunteers (but taking donations towards the fund in tubs at the door). We had some confusion over the gate we needed to enter by, which only increased our relief at getting in out of the driving rain. It wasn’t much warmer inside, but huddling with a crowd pushing their way towards the stage quickly warmed us up. The Millennium Stadium is huge. It’s amazing to wander down onto the floor, with tens of thousands of people looking back across it.
The concert was really good – a lot of acts I’d looked forward to seeing: the Manic Street Preachers, Feeder, Eric Clapton and Keane were all fantastic. But between these were a lot of other acts which were surprisingly good – Katherine Jenkins, who performed first, was absolutely wonderful: her rendition of “Amazing Grace” brought tears to my eyes. Lulu was wonderful, Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics was just stunning… even Craig David was more than tolerable as he performed a slow and easy acoustic set. And polishing it off with Jools Holland’s Ryhthm & Blues Orchestra and Eric Clapton jamming away together made a great finish to the evening.
We were both exhausted from about 11 hours on our feet, but it was a great show well-worth seeing. I pity those of you who tried to get tickets but were too late – you missed out.
Sadly, we both lost a point on Bryn’s Challenge – disallowed as we were from taking food or drink into the stadium, we had to resort to the fast food available on-site. We settled for merely having a hot dog each, while the folks we watched on the Troma Night webcam tucked into their pizza, but it’s still disappointing that we had to do so. Ah well.
We got back into Aber at about 3am: Claire took a lie-in on Sunday morning after a sterling driving effort (albeit less of a “sterling driving effort” than when she drove to Stirling, but hey).
Tsunami Aid…
This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.
This repost was published in hindsight, on 11 March 2019.
Claire wrote:
Tickets go on sale at 11.00am TODAY for the Tsunami Relief Cymru concert at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff on 22nd January. Acts confirmed include Jools Holland, Eric Clapton and Feeder. Dan and I are going, standing cos it’s prob cheaper and more fun, tickets start at £15. Let’s go! It’s only in the middle of exams, I’ve got one in the morning of the 22nd and I’m still going!
Also, Happy birthday to Dan, who is a whopping 24 today! Come to Troma Night and tell him how old he is!
Weekend
I seem to spend most of my time on this blog posting retrospectively about what I did on any given weekend. Will try to spice things up with a little more thought and debateworthy stuff in the future – I’ve got some ideas. In any case:
Friday was Andy’s gig – not as good as the last one I went to, but still a fab show (and, in particular, some great guitarwork this time around). Claire couldn’t come – she was in Gregynog on a Computer Science away-half-weekend (the replacement for what used to be the “second Aberdyfi weekend” that we used to have in the first year).
Saturday was Troma Night. Rory (visiting) and not-gay Gareth (recently discovered to be in Aberystwyth) came along, as did Claire’s friend Ruth, and a good time was had by all.
And, of course, Sunday was Geek Night. We played Hacker for the first time in ages, as well as a little Fluxx. Matt seems to be a huge fan of the latter – perhaps it apppeals to the mathematician inside him.
Oh, and: Yay!
Halloween In Aber
I’m a big bad wolf, it seems. And last night I, along with Little Red Riding Hood (Claire), Death (Bryn), Paul (Andy!), Judge Doom [barely] (JTA), Pinocchio (Matt), and Matt (not in costume… grr), went out to the Coopers Arms to see Pagan Wanderer Lu. And he was good – some songs I knew, some songs I didn’t: tried to buy a CD at the end but it was £3 and Claire and I only had a £20 note between us and he evidently hadn’t sold £17 worth (i.e. 6) CDs yet because he couldn’t give us change so he’s holding one for us. Nothing rhymes with ‘Aberystwyth’, by the way.
We didn’t stay for much longer, because by this point the room was very full and very hot (particularly with us all in costumes)… so we bailed and went for a sly drink in Scholars, before retiring to the flat to watch My Neighbours, The Yamadas. Which was good.
Hmm… what’s everybody else saying:
- Bryn‘s been reading up on the history of Halloween
- Claire writes a little about the night: she’s right about arguments and miscommunication; oughta be more careful of that in future.
- Expect a report by Pagan Wanderer Lu soon, particularly as he reads my blog and this oughta remind him… =o)
- Andy mentions last night.
- Some pictures of the gig here.
Surprisingly Good Unsigned Artist
I’m actually impressed. My friend Andy’s finally put some songs online, and he’s really good (for one reason or another, I’d never heard anything of his before, and I’m much impressed – for some reason I’d come to the assumption that he’d be shit). Anyway – so long as you’re willing to put up with the (pretty crappy) recordings he’s put online, go listen to B.O.A.T.S. and Straight To Video (and Kofi Annan TV, if you can put up with bad MP3 quality). Then leave him some feedback.
In other news, have made a few minor improvements to Abnib: mostly to better highlight upcoming Troma Night events. On which note – this Saturday is Troma Night 50 – “Return To Firetop Mountain” (well done to Matt for understanding the reference), which I’m much looking forward to.
The Marvellous Breadfish
Tell me, have you seen the marvellous breadfish?
Hot Puppies, Troma Night, And A Fantastic Transcript Of A Speech On DRM
[this post has been partially damaged during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004, and it has been possible to recover only a part of it]
Went to the castle to see The Hot Puppies yesterday evening. Everything I’d heard was true – they really are very good. They play well, they sing well, they look good… and they exude confidence. A wonderful show.
Troma Night was somewhat shorter than usual, owing to the aforementioned puppi…
Live Music, Anyone?
[the image in this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004]
[the image in this post was recovered on Thursday 30th December 2004]
Sounds like an excuse to lounge on soggy grass and drink real ale if ever I heard one. Yay….
Random Drunken Piano Appreciation Society Of Aberystwyth
So Paul, Claire and I are in The Flat. Paul’s reading, I’m coding, and Claire is playing the piano. It’s half past eleven. The doorbell rings.
Who could that be? None of us are expecting anybody, and most of the folks we know have already left town to be with their families, etc. I go downstairs and open the door. A confused-looking young man smelling of beer looks in at me, confused.
“What’s the piano?” he asks.
“It’s a long instrument with lots of keys, but that’s not important right now,” I reply. Somehow this humour is lost on him. “It’s my girlfriend,” I continue, “She’s playing the piano upstairs.”
“Oh,” he says, “Tell her she’s very good.”
So I did.
Random.