news

	30 September 2007
	Blame It On The Bossa-nova
	I'm glad to be back home after the UK dates. It all went off rather well even though we still can't seem to attract the size of audience that would provide the appropriate massage to our egos and inflate our ailing bank balances to to the kind of proportions where we could openly boast to the world at large that we were living above the bread line. But never mind - we played well and our cult following went away happy, even though some of them tut-tutted about the addition of a bossa-nova beatbox to the line-up. Tut-tutted - an alarmingly middle-aged expression but eminently suitable for the people in question. I could see them getting animated and puffing slightly. The Riga in Southend is a great club. It's a shame that more people don't go there. If they continue to stay away it might not be around in a year or two, and the people who stayed away will probably complain the loudest that there isn't a decent venue in Southend. I love playing at the Plough in Walthamstow, especially now that they got Tony doing the sound. The PA system's never been that good but Tony worked a miracle for us. The Brickmakers in Norwich is a great venue too. The dressing room is a large caravan out the back. By the time we went on I was so far into a rainy holiday fantasy that it felt as though we were playing in the clubhouse at a rundown caravan park on the Isle Of Wight sometime in the early seventies. It was all very laid back - too laid back really. I think now that Norwich has got a decent small venue (rather than the cliquey Arts Centre shit hole) the punters have got to learn how to be an audience. It's no good standing around at the back of the room, it doesn't matter how much they're enjoying it, how much they applaud between numbers - what makes it work is eye contact, touching distance, that kind of thing. Any band plays better to a crowd of people rather than an expanse of parquet. I suppose we should have had some tables and chairs put out in front of the stage. The end of the show was all a bit dramatic - Amy jumped off the stage, fell over and cut her head. Blood flowed freely as we played the last song and we had to make a quick exit. It turned out to be just a flesh wound but it looked like a budget horror film. Charley and the other girls that run the place are great. Amy and I first met in Hull so it's a shame about the Adelphi. The owner always complains how hard it is to stay in business but I think he could make a bit more of an effort. I don't like sharing a dressing room with bags of rubbish and a collection of broken furniture. Paying customers generally expect clean toilets with locks on the door, toilet paper, that type of thing. And it really wouldn't be difficult to sweep out the entrance - I'd think twice about pissing in that doorway. The place is a tip. If he reads this he'll probably take offence. He'd do better to take a trip to the supermarket and buy some cleaning products. It's a shame because there's nowhere else in Hull unless you count the Springhead, and that's run like a working men's club - booked up a year in advance with tribute bands and re-formed throwbacks like The Groundhogs and Nazareth. That said Juicy Lucy are playing at the Adelphi next month. I saw them in 1970 when they first started out, opening for Jon Hiseman's Coliseum at the Dome in Brighton. They got rid of the original singer, Ray Owen - replaced him with a blues shouter and started appealing to boys in greatcoats sporting embryonic moustaches. I've still got a soft spot for the original Juicy Lucy and, seeing as Ray Owen's apparently back in the fold, I think I'd put on a pair of overalls and brave the Adelphi to go and see them. That lot reads like a badly written parish newsletter. I really should practice a bit more, standards are beginning to slip. I'll try harder next month. And thanks to Wolfie for the Riga Bar photos - I put a link in but apparently it went to my myspace instead of his myspace (notice how this myspace crap forces you into bad grammar). And I know an up to date biography would help. And some stuff about The Proclaimers and their impending hit with their wonderful version of Whole Wide World. But it's all going to have to wait until next month now.

	20 September 2007
	www.deadspace.com
	August seems to have gone gusting by in a whirl of festivals and other muddy glamourousness without me writing any crap on the site, so that's probably a good thing. I don't know where the time goes. If I'd been a local radio presenter I could have followed that remark with neither does Sandy Denny, and then played Who Knows Where The Time Goes followed by a time check. Except that the average local radio presenter doesn't usually play Sandy Denny records. Which isn't to say that they shouldn't because they should. But then they'd only go and talk all over the intro. I've been thinking about the way people communicate recently. I've been counting the number of emails I get. You could divide them into four categories: personal, business, fan mail and junk. Junk is easy to deal with - anything with a title like your mortgage details or lists for marketing I delete immediately. Anyway, it adds up to an awful lot of mail and I was wondering - in the good old days before the internet did I ever get that much stuff through the post? I don't think I did, or it would have been like Christmas every day (if anyone remembers Christmas cards). So are we more communicative than before? I don't think we are, it's an illusion. At the Rochefort En Accords festival the other week a fellow artist walked straight past me without acknowledging my existance. 'He's a friend of mine,' I said to Amy. And yet he completely ignored me. It's OK though because we're only MySpace mates and why should I expect to stand out amongst his five thousand one hundred and eleven other friends. Even though it was him who made the original friendship request. I was touch when a personal myspace email came from him, but disappointment followed when I saw it was just a circular advertising the release of his latest album. Friends? It's a lot of bollocks. But having finally met him I can say that Nick Harper seems to be a nice guy and I wish him all the best. In another world perhaps we could become mates. I recently heard of someone who let his friends know of the death of a close relative via a MySpace email. Meanwhile I'm working on having all my top friends be famous dead people. I've got Marc Bolan and Jayne Mansfield but I'm having trouble chumming up with Brian Epstein. When I've finished with this idiocy I'll probably launch ChumLust and Arsebook and make a million. It's about time.