Leeds - Day 1

I’ve never been at a festival where rain has made a difference to proceedings, which I guess is quite an achievement considering the British summer. I remember torrential rain during the sets of Muse and the Foo Fighters at Reading in 2002, but the ground was rock-hard and it soaked it up.
The weather has been Autumnal all week, occasional sunny intervals interspersed with malevolent looking black clouds wanting to shed their wares onto the flesh-heads beneath. It was raining on Friday morning and did on and off all the way to Leeds.
Still, the weather held up pretty well. We had a couple of half-arsed showers during the day, but it never lasted very long. It was Mork & Mindy though.
After the usual queues to get our wristbands and actually get into the arena, we made our way over to watch The Crimea. It was a bit odd that one of my personal highlights were on straight away and such an early time but The Crimea still managed to excite. Davey Crockett (not that one) is one of the oddest frontmen I’ve ever seen; talking to himself, twitching, throwing seemingly involuntary hand movements and having numerous full-on fits throughout the set. It makes for an interesting experience and I could see that people in the crowd who’d never heard the material before were at least impressed by the energy of the performance.
Cider. Bad food. Expensive food. Cider. Cider. Trip to comedy tent. See some fucking appalling comedy (bar some American fella who actually at least was on nodding terms with a joke).
It’s METAL! day on Friday at Leeds Festival so we didn’t go anywhere near the main stage all through the day. I tell a lie actually, whilst investigating the site later on we passed when Marilyn Manson was playing. He was probably using cuss words and wearing his mum’s makeup again. That boy…
So, as there was too much of the rock in the main arena, we hung out in the big tents all day. The tent was quite crowded for Sons & Daughters and The Duke Spirit, but I wonder if figures were boosted by the fact that if you weren’t a metaller then you really had no other place to go.
Both of those above bands were alright, some good songs but nothing to set my pants on fire. I have the Sons & Daughters album (again it’s alright) and am amazed at how Scottish they can sound. I expect bagpipes and a theme album about Culloden from them sometime into the future.
Maximo Park were good, and again attracted a big audience. They’re a good festival band, not too challenging but with tunes you can hum to whilst you tuck into a tasteless burger.
Highlight of day 1 arrived in the shape of British Sea Power. A relatively disappointing crowd greeted the band (allowing us to get a little too close to the front to those fucking big speakers) but it didn’t stop them producing a great set. Playing a smattering of their best songs from each of their two albums, they still managed to chuck in a ten minute feedback laden finale in which the guitarist attempted to demolish the entire stage (causing panic amongst the stage crew as he swung in the air from the lighting rig). Oh yeah, and there was an eight foot bear on the stage. He seemed to be wearing a tool belt and stalked the band members who had not tried to escape across the lighting rig, and ended up attacking the lead singer. There was a guy who leapt into the crowd with a drum as well.
After a great set, I found this ending all rather exciting and it sort of put everything in context for the rest of the day.
The day ended with a double header of The Futureheads and Bloc Party. The tent was packed to bursting point for both bands and it was hard to get a good view. Both were as tight as a midge’s minge and enjoyable enough.
The Futureheads are one of those bands who are enjoyable but I don’t understand how you could have them as one of your favourite bands. Some people seemed to be having orgasms at their short, fast-pop numbers but I don’t get how they can get that level of devotion. As I say, I enjoyed them but they’re a bit like As. Okay to listen to but never going to be a favourite.
Bloc Party are good live and a festival allows them to cut their weaker songs from the set. Again, some people seemed on the verge of whacking-off to the tunes.
My ears are ringing this morning. The BSP (wax on kids!) have increased the chance of my death from tinitus in later life (a bus will be involved).

(apologies for any spelling or grammatical mistakes as I’ve written this in about ten minutes).

Random Thing

Marie put this on her blog, which she copied from Dave's blog. The idea is to list the next ten records played by your mp3 player/computer jukebox or whatever when it's on random. I'm bored at work so here goes…

Go Tell The World - Joy Zipper

I heart the Joy Zipper. They are one of my favourites, and this is one of the standout tracks on their latest album The Heartlight Set.

Goodnight - Idlewild

I still haven't worked out if I'm disappointed with the last Idlewild album. I listened to it the other day after a breather of a couple of months and it sounded good, some of it great, yet I couldn't quite place my finger on what was wrong with it. Maybe it was the fact that a lot of it is good rather than great which has left me less enthusiastic than I should be. Then again, I've noticed that a couple of bands I used to adore and eulogise about at every available opportunity have sort of diminished in my eyes lately. Is this a blip or am I moving on?
Anyway, this is a good track off the last album, one that sounds better if you're drunk and melancholy. I'm at work so I'm not drunk. Roddy Woomble's voice is like warm sombre treacle when he's not screaming about SHAPES!

(Drawing) Rings Around The World - The Super Furry Animals

I'm listening to the new album by the Super Furry Animals now. I love them. This song is off the album of the same name and is one of the more straightforward moments from the SFA (right, indie berks!). Still, it's rather good and did have a great video. This band is almost definitely in my top 3 British bands. Did I tell you that I love them?

Walk Into The Sea - Low

I'd always kind of ignored Low until I found myself with a couple of their albums on my mp3 player. This is off their latest opus, which I must say is rather smashing.
Living on the coast as a child, I have walked into the sea on numerous occasions. I grew up next to the Irish Sea, which is grey, cold and full of dead things. On a holiday to Aberdeen as a child I was encouraged to wade into the North Sea. It was so cold that that I can still remember the shock my body felt all those years ago. All my internal organs screamed 'oh my God, we're going to die!' and the blood was removed from the extremities. There's something strangely foreboding about the North Sea. It looks like it wants to kill you. And will one day if it gets the chance.
I've yet to walk into an ocean.

Grounds For Divorce - Wolf Parade

Heh, I love the singer's voice. It's odd. I've been enjoying the EP that this track is off. For some reason this track keeps on reminding me of Big Country. That doesn't seem quite right, and I can't place my finger on what it is that reminds me of the Scottish funsters (funsters is actually rather inappropriate). It certainly isn't the vocals, and as I can't remember the last time I listened to Big Country (probably whilst watching the sweetly charming Restless Natives which was soundtracked by the band). I own no Big Country albums. I'm thinking it might be the use of the drums. Not all of them, just the snare drum or something.

The Lake - The Cooper Temple Clause

I adored the first album by TCTC (right kids!). It was lyrically quite dark, yet musically exciting. What more could you want? This track seems to be about drowning in a lake, maybe Lake Metaphorical bordering the Forest Of Analogy. Or maybe it's just about drowning in a lake. It seems to be cold though, so maybe it's not actually a lake but the North Sea.
That's the second nautically themed song. Mark that down in your scorebook.
The second TCTC (kids! lay on five!) album was rubbish.

Your Love Is Mine - Holly Golightly

My dad is a big fan of country and western music. He was quite indiscriminate in his tastes, from the traditional nonsense of Hank Williams or Dolly Parton, through Mr. Cash, Emmylou Harris and out to some bobbins like The Dixie Chicks. He rather enjoys the C&W (right grandpa!) versions of AC/DC records. Anyway, occasionally some of the stuff he'd play (and wake me up with) would sound a bit like this. I've only listened to this album a few times, it seems to be a mish-mash of C&W, sixties pop and bits of indie served in a Nancy Sinatra sauce.

The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders - Sufjan Stevens

However much I'm enjoying Come On…, I don't think this is one of my favourite tracks. I don't mind it, but I think the piano reminds me too much of the Charlie Brown TV show. I feel it should be soundtracking Lucy saying something mean to Charlie Brown, who would then say something droll and cheerless to make everyone feel sorry for the big loser.
I used to read all the Charlie Brown books as a kid and used to love them for some reason. I never found them funny, but I think I could identify with their two-dimensional characters. All children are two-dimensional. They are idiots!
Does anyone find Charlie Brown (I'm not calling it fucking Peanuts) cartoons funny? Who are these people?
Bar from a few forward-thinking people, I believe that comedy was invented in a lab somewhere, sometime around 1988. In the years before 1988 people laughed at any old shit. Have you ever watched a Carry On film? Shit. Have you ever listened to The Goons? Fucking shit.
Actually, I believe the audiences seen wetting themselves at Peter Sellers doing a funny voice, or Spike Milligan being racist, weren't actually laughing, but showing the characteristics of dying through consumption. People don't die from consumption anymore, and are unaware that one of the symptoms was laughing like you were being tickled by a furry octopus.
In Victorian times the most common causes of death were consumption, becoming stuck in a chimney and imperialism.
Consumption was finally cured in 1980 by the use of drainpipe jeans.
(when did TB get rebranded anyway? Did it have a new logo designed at high cost by a bunch of marketing twats?)

Victorian Ice - British Sea Power

Oooh, I like this record. As the lyrics themselves say, It is 'totally wicked, and equally ace'. It makes you want to sway your head and tap your foot. This is a sign of approval for music, yet not for sad films. If you admire a sad film then you shouldn't be tapping your foot and swaying your head. That is just weird, and for a film like Schindler's List, rather inappropriate. You sick fuck.

Karen - The National

Ah, what a beautiful way to finish. I can't stop listening to this whole album, it's gracefully majestic. The lyrics to 'Karen' are rather crude and may be unsuitable for minors. Unless you're one of those bohemian parents who doesn't mind their children listening to or watching filth. I knew a kid called Terry who was allowed to read porno mags in front of his mum. That's not right. I'd feign sleep or ignorance if I was watching TV with my parents and some rutting happened. Jesus, I felt uncomfortable seeing adverts for sanitary towels round my parents. There's no way that I'd get out Razzle whilst having fish fingers and chips.in front of Grange Hill.
Anyway, this is a boss song by a great band.

Cocktail Idea #2

The Cherry Seinfeld

1 measure vodka
1 measure tequila
cheery coke to taste


it's fucking foul.

Cocktail Idea

The Brian Blessed

Gordons Gin
Five Alive to taste.


Can somebody try it?

This Is The Dawning Of The Age Of Incompetence

Hello.
Does this work?
My piss poor knowledge of web design has led me to believe that this may look utter bobbins under various web browsers or resolutions?
If it looks really wrong in any way (bar my odd choice of colours), can somebody let me know?
Chars.