Live in Edinburgh This Week – 29th July 2008
Well after last week, which was basically just a great big week of Meursault gigs, this week is a week of just one single gig. Just one. I know! Needless to say the scurillous Bart has managed to weasel out a few things, but honestly, the man likes everything. I was in the pub with him last week and I heard him utter the immortal words ‘I don’t like them. I think they’re shit.’ I feel as if some sort of plaque should be erected to commemorate the occasion. I’ve known the guy for a year or so and I have never heard these words, or even sentiments vaguely to that effect, ever pass his lips.
Thursday 3rd July 2008: Vandaveer, free gig at Cabaret Voltaire.
This one sounds sort of promising. I don’t know much about Vandaveer apart from the fact that I have a couple of his songs floating about on my music drive which I rather like. It’s folk-pop with a sort of drift from melancholy to sunny and back and should make for a fine evening.
Vandaveer – Marianne, You’ve Done it Now
In other news, I won’t be at the above gig because I will be attending Born to Be Wide at the Voodoo Rooms instead. This month’s topic is Inside the Mind of a Music Journalist and, scandalously, I wasn’t invited to be on the panel – imagine that, and me all Web 2.0 and everything! Anyway, I shall be going along and I think the chances of me being able to keep my mouth shut are very slim indeed, don’t you? Then again it might be funny to let them all start talking about Teh Internetz for a bit and see where they end up, be0fore sticking my oar in at the last. Not, of course, that I’m an expert anyway. No-one really is, with respect to internet stuff, at the moment are they? We’ve all got ideas and hunches and instincts, but I’d be sceptical of anyone who claimed to really know.
Anyway, yesterday I was at some sort of radio conference thing in Glasgow, which was quite fun. The tricky bit was that I didn’t really know what I wanted out of the whole thing – I mean, do I really want a full-time job in radio? I doubt it really – but it was interesting to hear what people had to say. They were generally quite impressed with what we’re doing here, I think, in terms of the combination of media and so on, so maybe we’re moving things in the right direction.
Anyhow, I drove home to Edinburgh at about eleven and it wasn’t really dark out, yet. I forget, sometimes, just how far North Scotland is. Really fucking far North actually. I know we’re not far off the Summer Solstice, when all those mental Druid loonies descend on Stonehenge and knit homeopathic aubergines or whatever the fuck it is they do, but still: the middle of the night and nothing but an eerie twilight. It was weird, but sort of fascinating too. And I can’t think of a better song, or song title at least:
The Wedding Present – I’m From Further North Than You (Klee Remix)
The other song that jumped to mind was Yo La Tengo’s beautiful version of Sandy Denny’s By the Time it Gets Dark. I love this – the normal domesticity of it; the sense of resolved conflict; the image of a day full of harrassment and annoyance that ends with you and your other half sitting down late in the evening with a cup of a tea or a glass of wine, after everything’s finally been dealt with, and before you ever start to talk about all the hassle of the day you know from the look in their eyes that everything really and truly is okay.
When I got home last night Mrs. Toad was in bed with her copy of the Economist and a cup of tea and the wee bedside light was on and things were just… nice, you know?
Yo La Tengo – By the Time it Gets Dark
For the record, I don’t like everything. Far from it.
But I’ve always been of the inclination that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
If anything I think I have a tendancy to be overly optomistic about edinburgh musical landscape. But I think that’s because I’m sick of hearing people bad mouth it – and for me it just keeps getting stronger and stronger.
Or maybe it’s cause I don’t like slagging off bands as you never know who’s listening/reading. I to find myself holding my tongue a lot. Maybe I should come up with some sort code or elaborate hand gesture.
Ah, keeping quiet: a lesson certain of us around here might do very well to learn for ourselves!
I’ve certainly fallen foul of not being nice about bands and then being directly confronted with the people in question, but what else can you do? If someone asks what you think, and what you think is negative then where do you go? I know there’s ways of saying it and ways of saying it, and I’m really bad for falling foul of that one, but I’m really bad at not saying what I really think when asked. Tactless, I think, is the term for it!
And there’s the other question with bloggers: who actually is asking?
Hey! Vandaveer! He’s from Washington, D.C. Actually, he’s a labelmate of the great John Bustine. Well worth seeing.
i try to stick to the policy of “if some one asks if you like it, tell it like it is. if no one asks,and you’ve nothing constructive to say…zip it.”
Yes, but no-one asks me to write all this bollocks, although that doesn’t seem to stop me. At least with magazines people are making the request by paying money. Ah well. There are some unsolicited compliments as well, so fuck ‘em.
C&B – unfortunately there are too many other things I need to do tonight so I’m going to have to skip it, but I’d like to go along.