All in All

Mac and I are just back from our honeymoon in Krakow, an absolutely fabulous time despite the constant rain, and an amazing experience of hero spotting. Why Krakow? Well it just so happened that Kraftwerk announced three dates as part of a music festival in the town, and were to play in an old disused steel works. We were not going to miss this. As a treat, we booked ourselves into the swankiest hotel going and packed our trunks to make sure we took advantage of the pool, spa and saunas.

We arrived in constant rain, so had something to eat and drink and went to bed. Waking too late for breakfast, we noticed that there were still people eating so tired our luck and were happily seated. But to our surprise, guess what? Kraftwerk were staying at out hotel and having breakfast at that time. It was almost too much for Mac. After this first spot, it became a regular thing to see them everywhere (except the former video operator who has taken over from Florian - I guess like Wolfgang and Karl before him, he was sent off to a less luxurious hotel). We walked into Fritz in the lift, shared a very hot sauna with Henning, walked out of a strange exhibition of statues of John Paul II straight into Ralf, the list was endless.

The concert was great, and we were about 6 rows from the front on the Saturday night. Just about here in fact


I recognise the hair of a person coming into shot a lot so for information, we are about one pace to the left of this man filming (and he spent the entire concert either with his eye through the viewfinder or watching out for the security folk who were trying to stop people doing exactly this. I doubt he actually watched them once. I mean, what is the point? We followed the rules and left the camera and cameraphones behind, and just enjoyed the show)

However, the crowning glory was to come on Sunday night after their last show. Have you ever seen 'Abba: The Movie'? The bit at the end where the journalist is about to give up and calls the elevator only for it to open and they are all in there and prepared to give him an interview? Well, we came back at about 12.30am, went up to our floor ready for bed and the doors opened and standing outside the elevator, right by our hotel room, Ralf (Mr Kraftwerk himself) was chatting to the tour photographer. It was too much for Mac, he went into our room, grabbed a ticket and very respectfully went out and asked for an autograph. Ralf (perhaps surprisingly considering his reputation) was happy to, was very charming and even chatted for a second ('Did you see the show?' Yes, on Saturday 'It was better tonight'). the autographed ticket is now Mac's prized possession.

A final breakfast with them all on Monday (well, we were on the next table and didn't intrude on them) and it was over, but unforgettable. For information, Ralf's breakfast of choice was just toast and coffee, Fritz had cereal and a latte whilst Henning had an ommlette. In civvies, Ralf looked like any other German gentleman of his age, I don't know why that surprised me.

A perfect honeymoon (although I could have done with a little less rain)

Labels: Kraftwerk

There hasn’t been many comments on comics for a long time, I fear this is due to my slowly getting bored with them, partly perhaps through declining standards and mostly through apathy on my part.

On the Vertigo side of things, I’m still reading Hellblazer and enjoying Andy Diggle’s take although sadly his run is coming to an end soon – I just hope he’s replaced by another British writer, I’ve said it before but as he’s a quintessentially British character he needs a British writer and to be based in the UK. The stories that relocate him to the States never quite work.

Fables remains one of my top reads, but I fear Rose Red is about to die sadly. Jack of the Fables is also good, but sometimes the more frivolous aspect of it annoys me a little.

Top Vertigo read is Vinyl Underground, which is scandalously under appreciated and has been cancelled from the next issue. I guess I can see why it hasn’t done well though – firstly it does swear a lot which always seems to upset the readers in Middle America, but more importantly it is a very English story which whilst hitting all the right notes for me just probably doesn’t translate to the larger US market. Face it, they won’t know who Calum Best is (who at least in a small part must be the basis for the central character, and I bet Best wishes he was that cool)

On the main DCU/spandex front I fear there are more misses than hits at the moment. I am a huge Titans fan, after all that was what got me into spandex comics in the first place, but having spent my time reading the Wolfman/Perez Titans, I have very little empathy towards the current team line up on Teen Titans (and I hate Miss Martian with a passion, horrible pointless character). I also had so much hope for Titans (grown up), and do like Winick’s writing mostly, but so far this has been lazy crap. Okay, so it seems they are aware of this and have had to instigate major changes after just 3 issues, but I worry that it will all be too late.

Wonder Woman’s good again. JLA improving but suffered badly from the rather bad crossover just when the new writer started. JSA is just a bit too slow for my liking.

Didn’t bother with the new weekly, Trinity. Probably though disappointment over Countdown. Checkmate dropped before it was cancelled, Manhunter close to being dropped.

The other two I’m reading are the big Final Crisis event and Batman, both by Grant Morrison. All I will say is that I am enjoying them both, and finding them extremely well-written, well-written enough for me to find myself finishing them and wishing I had the next issue already.

BUT, I guess one of the reasons why I very rarely post on messageboards is my frustration at the comments about both of them that I read. I’d probably be banned within posts if I responded to some of the comments.

I guess its difficult writing comics in this age of internet, messageboards, and immediate response. More than anything I fear that patience levels are dropping – pre-internet you never heard of people moaning between issues, you waited for issue 5 and were hit by the payback and realised that the story was actually great and intricately written. Now, it seems people want everything to be within that one issue otherwise it doesn’t make sense or, is slow, or is simply rubbish. How would Watchmen fare if it were released monthly these days? I'd bet it wouldn't receive the praise it does.

Comments on Final Crisis and Batman's RIP storyline seem to be getting a lot of these criticisms when it doesn’t take rocket science to see where the story is going and appreciate the intricacies. These are two of DC’s biggest properties, do people really think they would vigorously promote and publish these stories if they were incomprehensible? I also get really pissed off with the comments about needing to be on drugs to understand them, simply because Morrison has mentioned in the past that he dabbles.

I’d hate to be a comic writer. These characters have been around longer than a lot of the readers, who can be any age, any nationality, and of any viewpoint (especially in the US where I would say 85% of the audience is). You’ll never please everyone, and the occasional anonymity of the internet makes the nay-sayers more vocal and on occasion aggressive.

Music update next!

Last year, we attended the new London 1-day festival and I like so many other blogged at length at all the faults from poor organisation which made it a less than enjoyable day all round. However, in the way that with bands I am nearly always prepared to give a not well-performing band a second chance, Mac and I braved the (mostly not working yet again) Tube system to Victoria Park to see if the Field Day team would be true to their word and learn from last year’s mistakes.

Last years main failings were: appalling queues for the toilets, bars and food, and bad sound. They advertised that they have appointed new bar/caterers with plenty of experience, doubled the number of bars and increased the number of toilets, including adding gents urinals. How did it go then?

On entering the site and making our way to the main stage to see Wild Beasts (for the third time this year, which considering they were terrible the first time we ever saw them just over a year ago just proves how we are prepared to give anyone a second chance – they are now Mac’s new band of the year so far). The first thing we had to do to get to the stage was the cross through a very long queue for the toilets. Uh oh, not a good sign. Sound at the main stage was fine (at least fine for my perma-damaged ears), Wild Beats were fine. On to a bar, served instantly, prices what you would expect. Unfortunately the way to beat queues for a pint seems to forego draft beer for cans, but this is a minor issue if I’m being totally honest, and I’d rather get a can in 2 minutes than a pint in 45 minutes. Food had lost the organic selling point from last year and in turn had turned to standard festival kiosks, but I can easily live with that.

Queues for the toilets seemed to stretch all day, although I guess part of this was poor sign posting – the urinals were tucked away behind the main area but unless you looked hard you wouldn’t have known this at all. As the day went on they added more urinals too – not sure if they were moved from other areas or just added through supply and demand. So better but still a little room for improvement – maybe a few more and better signposted urinals may help next year.

So on the whole, yes, they had learnt a lot from last year and had largely delivered. However, this can always lead to new problems. The main one which was their problem was the constant reshuffling of the set times – there was one posted on the website two days before, that was changed by the morning of the festival, which in turn had changed by the time you got there. This rather made their free programme pointless as it was giving all the wrong times. Now the changes did come about due to things outside their control (acts unable to turn up at the last moment) but I would have thought it better to not upset the programme too much to cater for this problem than to drastically change things – The Homefires stage was worst hit. I also understand that the Security were over heavy-handed ejecting people early on for peeing against the fence due to the length of the queues. I can’t comment on this too much as it is always the word of the disgruntled person sounding off loudest. If this was an eviction policy, however, I do think they should have clearly stated it on entry.

So, organisationally, last years 2/10 has been increased to about a 7/10. Still room for improvement but a good show on the whole. Onto the festival itself.

The worst part of the festival was the thing no-one could do anything about – rain. Constant rain for most of the day. I don’t know if there were fewer acts than last year or just fewer that I was interested in seeing but the problem with constant rain and an average hour between acts I was interested in meant, that sad wimp that I am, I got cold. By the time I had seen an excellent set by Efterklang and realised that I had about an hour and a half before Foals, I’ll have to be totally honest here and say that the cold got to me and it was time to mooch off, dry off, and have a wind down pint in Brixton before bed. Sorry Foals, but blame global warming.

The other downside to rain? Umbrellas. Selfish twats with umbrellas. Thankfully, the long gap between acts meant we could get to the stage well in advance and so we were always able to get pretty close to the front and not be obscured by people’s umbrellas. However, when you see a photo like this you can’t help understand the hatred for people using them




So will we do Field Day again? Line up permitting, of course, but yes. Please can we have a decent summer next year Mr Weatherman?

There’s been a bit of a hiatus in my blogging of recent so what’s been happening (other than all the wedding planning and dealing with all necessary domestics while Mac worked every hour under the sun on the NHS film)? The usual, I guess; cooking, gigging, comics, walking Marfa. There’s not a lot of mileage talking about walking Marfa (enjoyable though it is), or cooking, and I am slowly moving away from comics I feel, so that leaves me with live music.

It’s now the end of July and I have seen a total of 64 gigs and 80 separate bands/acts so far this year. Not bad, eh? As usual there have been highlights and lowlights – the highs include Tom Waits, Baby Dee and Grace Jones, whilst I’ll express a little boredom at Smashing Pumpkins, disappointment at Dragonette being cancelled at the last minute (despite them arriving at the venue ready to play), and last night’s support of Post War Years were pretty awful.

But there’s been one live event this year that so far has eclipsed everything in terms of scale, excitement, anticipation, and general bravery, which is Sparks’ 21 shows, where each show was each of their 21 albums in sequence. I’ve said it before, I love Sparks, and so the only thing to decide for this was which gigs we were going to. Time-wise, every show was not going to be an option. In the end we went to 7, and still regret missing a couple.

However, considering what a big thing this was, I cannot express how disappointed (if not angry) I was at the lack of press the whole thing received. I only recall one review – Simon Price in the Independent on Sunday reviewing Indiscreet, I think. We saw one of the main writers from Word magazine at a number of gigs but was there ever a review? No, so I hope he didn’t get press passes. We assumed everyone was waiting for the last show (the new album), but nothing followed it, which was a great shame as this would no doubt help cd sales. I mean, no-one has done anything like this before. Few people have such a large back catalogue, so it really should have been acknowledged.

The shows we went to were all incredible, with the atmosphere really building up as they progressed towards album 21. We saw Kimono My House (excellent, but slightly annoying audience), Indiscreet (if we could we would have done Propaganda too, but for this one we had to choose between the two and I do feel we did choose the more exciting and adventurous album), No 1 In Heaven, Gratuitous Sax (incredible), Plagiarism (with a guest appearance from Jimmy Sommerville), L’il Beethoven (better than ever) and finally Exotic Creatures. With more time we would have added Propaganda, Hello Young Lovers, and maybe Angst In My Pants too.

Once the tour had finished, the rest of June felt rather deflated, knowing that it was all over, let alone that it may be a couple of years before they are back again. At the rather emotional end of the Exotic Creatures show, just after Ron set fire to each album cover, Russell said ‘It’s been fun, we must do this again some time’. If they ever do, I’ll be there.

Labels: Sparks

On 12 July, Mac and I were the two happiest, proudest people on the planet as we held our Civil Partnership. I still cannot truly put into words how happy I have been and what a fantastic day it was.

Mr Mac, I love you so much and look forward to our future together.

Long time, no blog, but a miriad of excuses, al to be summed up in the next blog entry.

No promises now, but a return to blogging and catch up will entail all the news of the Sparks Spectacular of May and June, comics (perhaps. I fear my love of the comic matter is fading), and other music. But first the big news...

Just before Christmas we met up with a friend who was over from Germany. He is a smoker and at that point the German smoking ban was not in operation. His big observation on British puns and bars post ban was that he was very conscious of how many people had bad breath. I still haven’t noticed this but I have become very aware of just how many people fart at gigs, safe in the knowledge of approximate anonymity. I’m rather pleased to say that I am not the only one – there was an article on the same thing in the online Guardian the other day (I won’t link to it, as it was a bit puerile and the comments after it turned into a series of playground level fart jokes). I guess it’s gassy beer and bad diet but some gigs, especially those in smaller venues, have been quite vile.

And talking of gigs, February was a pretty busy one for Mac and I. We saw Vampire Weekend again, even though the gig was temporarily abandoned due to a fire alarm going off about 2/3s of the way through (Damon Albarn was there but apparently he denied setting the alarm off). They are not having a lot of luck, are the Weekend, as after our partly abandoned show, they had to cancel two gigs through illness and then the drummer got run over.

Black Kids have been great – we have seen them twice this year and are back again next week. Not quite sure why though, considering they only have about 8 songs and we know the full set list by now. Sons and Daughters are at their greatest ever at the moment. Smashing Pumpkins probably shouldn’t have bothered reforming. Rachel Unthank were even better than last time (although I’d like to know why they have replaced the lesbian piano player). CSS were great but the audience made me feel old. Queens of the Stone Age rocked (Josh Homme, whilst not my normal type is very sexy). British Sea Power were better for not reading an interview with them beforehand. Andre Williams was a bad motherfreaker (and very burnt out)

First gig of the year goes to New York band, Vampire Weekend.

First venue of the year is the Hoxton Bar and Grill. Full of people who watched Nathan Barley thinking it was cool without realising it was laughing at them, not with them.

First support came from Damn Shames, three young lads from Edinburgh who we also saw support Wildbeests at the same venue a few months back. They were crap then and sadly have not improved with age. I’d rather not have them support anyone else I see this year if possible.

First audience irritants go to two painfully trendy twats wearing old men’s shirts with skinny ties and (on one) skinny red braces. They danced like friendless students to Damn Shames and then in the break, what rebels! They had a few sneaky cigarettes! Take that smoking ban, your law doesn’t apply to us Hoxton wannabees! Now, I’m a non-smoker but have been largely indifferent to the ban – yes, it’s nice not to go home stinking of cigarettes but people smoking around me rarely bothered me. But a law has been passed so why did these twats think it schoolboy-cool to break the rules? People around them complained but they just laughed. They didn’t laugh when the security guard came and threw them out! I cheered because they were twats. They were let back in eventually but did miss over half of Vampire Weekend so that’s a form of justice I suppose.

Vampire Weekend were great. Jangly guitar pop-rock. I loved them. They are one of the 10 tips for the greatness this year in many papers. We shall see and if they are, we were there at the beginning. (I shall be saying that again in a few weeks after Black Kids, too)