Bye

This blog is over. Thanks for reading!

On A Tune Tip...

Some great singles out today: Yeti, Jim Noir, Morrissey (for the live version of There Is A Light...), and The Arcade Fire (for the packaging alone!) - All worth a listen, but you want just one? Jim Noir.

Piers Morgan's diary is taking up all my time too, and is becoming increasingly difficult to put down. Each anecdote is generally either amusing or scintillating (kind of) and he has plenty of tales to tell regardless of whether or not, (as the MediaGuardian.co.uk has pointed out) all are indeed true.

Funk off Ladbrokes

Right, so, there I was, munching contentedly on a slab of chocolate, coffee in hand. Despite a recent bout of watching the notes slide away I took to the Ladbrokes website for a flutter. My last winnings came from backing Ipswich, otherwise known as a sin. Regardless, I had a look at some pretty impressive odds on the Players Championship golf tournament, and deposited £6 into my otherwise desolate account. At 40/1 we had a Fred Funk. Fantastic thought I, he will do nicely (and had done ok in the first 2 holes of his last round) - I proceeded to throw the £6 onto the ludicrous Funk. Had he have won, £240 was pretty much mine. Far fetched I realise but hey, we're all dreamers right? However, Ladbrokes simply kept returning with 'error' each time I attempted to drop £6 on Funk's world weary head. 'Ahhhh' thought I, 'The Gods are trying to tell me something!' I'm not so much superstitious as I am stupid, so I went back to the list and chose somebody at much thinner odds.
I wake this morning to see Mr Funk, against all the odds (moreover, my goddamn odds) had taken the championship and my 'lame duck' has sunk without trace. Damn you Ladbrokes, damn you. I could, if all had gone to plan, be celebrating a veritable bounty if their damn 'errors' hadn't occured. I feel horrifically vindicated. £240 indeed. bah.

Soap Spot (II)

Right, after the daft soap spotting entry, Manchester has been riddled with Corrie cast popping up all over the city. I shall try and keep this snappy, because I really do doubt my sanity.

Star Spot 1 - Deidre Rasheed (haha) - Zooming down Deansgate in a taxi, heading in the direction of Granada Studios. Deidre was fiddling around in her handbag. No seriously, she was.

Star Spot 2 - 'Our Craig' - Apologies if that's not his name, but it's the only term that comes to mind when I picture his crazy gothic face. 'Our Craig' (his dad's just died, show him some respect) was queuing up for a tenner at Natwest cash machine on Deansgate at precisely 2:42am (getting on for 2:43am) this morning...Taxi money I'll wager, but I thought he was like, 14 or something? 'Our Craig' had clearly been out on the sauce, and was looking flustered and anxious. Poor 'Our Craig'.

Star Spot 3 - Fizz - Fizz was shopping in Salford's Sainsbury's on Thursday evening. Yup. Kitted out in a quite horrendous dark green poncho (that was like, sooooo last year Fizz...even the mornonic chavs have passed up on those in Primark this Spring) - she paid particular attention to the range of spices (what's the point?) and was accosted by a star-struck fan (loser)...He promptly pulled out a photo of his kid (I can only hope that's what it was) to much, 'awwwww' 'awwwwww' 'ohhhhhhh' 'hahah' 'aw that's so sweet' reaction from Fizzle.
Whether she was cursing, 'kindly piss off, I cherish these food shopping trips and you're interrupting my quiet time' between her teeth is something neither I, nor you, should speculate.

Star Spot 4 - Audrey Roberts - Audrey was lurking down the backstreets in an awfully drab looking set of wheels. I'm guessing it was a Nova or something of that ilk, but a slightly modest looking choice of transport considering the lady's immitable stature. She was sat alongside another actor but I can't put a name to the face. He was old.

Happy Easter y'all

Blow in..

Blowout tonight - The Hentchmen + The High Plane Drifters + Jackie O + The Wandering Step - We're on early early 8:30pm, so get in Beerkeller from 8:15ish

Went to Akoustik Anarkhy on Saturday evening for a short while, and saw a psychadelic haze that was The Second Floor, pretty good they were too. Reluctantly missed Blowout's combination of Loose Canon and The Maybes which was a shame but can't be helped.

Recent single purchases have seen a rather poor showing from Hal. The indifferent reaction is awarded to The KBC, Nine Black Alps and Best Fwends. The thumbs up goes to Loose Canon and Havana Guns. I knew you were all wondering, that's all.

Nine Songs

Is utter rubbish. What a wasted afternoon.

Call out the instigator, because there's something in the air

After a spot of light recording, the Stepmobile took across the Pennines (I presume that's what they were) to Nottingham for Wilco at Rock City. Needless to say we got lost again and ended up surrounded by the snowy peaks of Barnsley. As timeless as the view was, it wasn't getting us anywhere particularly quickly.

Now, RAC Route Planner took precedence over the AA's shambles on this voyage, but I may have to take my words back and point the finger squarely at the guy reading the directions. Maybe the car wash as we left Manchester totally messed with the chap's brain (it was good of Texaco's machine to leave my wing mirrors intact), but David clearly can't read simple instructions. Eventually we found our way through Barnsley and onto the M1 before Nottingham's one-way system sent me zooming haphazardly along tram tracks without road markings in the city centre (yeah, we went so very wrong again)...but after the inital fit of hysteria (and infitum cursing) we wound up outside Rock City and into the venue as Wilco took to the stage.

I haven't the time to review the gig but Wilco were fantastic once more. A Ghost is Born and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot made up the majority of the set with smatterings from Being There and Summerteeth. They also slot in a cover of 'Something In The Air' which brought the sold-out venue to its knees. That band are head and shoulders above anything out there at the moment, no doubts.

The journey home gave David the freedom of following a line on the A-Z back to Manchester, but to my knowledge, that line didn't need to include Chesterfield and the 'Derbyshire Dales' (pitch black, winding roads, haunting passages with trees engulfing the road and crazy-drunk one-eyed, one-legged hobos shaking wooden sticks at us in the death of the night - ok that last one's not even true, but yer know, it could have been) and eventually, we fell back to the city at 1:30am with distant Wilco memories rapidly fading into sleep.

West Ham seem destined to prop up the table by the end of the season with three straight defeats. Crewe bring their Ashton-less crew to upton park mid-week desperately looking for points themselves. It could go either way, but undoubtedly won't go ours.

Band of the moment..

Bestest new band is Viva Voce. Their album 'Lovers, Lead the Way!' is brilliant. If you take the pathetic tweedom and irritating brashness of 'Mates of State' out of the equation, there is this cute idea of a married couple making lo-fi genius sounds. Viva Voce (also a married couple) take the best bits of the aforementioned MoS, turn them lush and have made a brilliantly fulfilling album. There's a touch of The Kills about them when they get all fuzzy, but otherwise this is dreamy Joy Zipper-esque brilliance, all with discernible tunes. Currently challenging The Arcade Fire to my favourite sounds of 2005.
The album was out in 2003, so track it down and enjoy.