Indian summer II

One thing I really regretted was not seeing Michael Gira play at the Indian summer festival. He used to play in a bad called "the Swans". I don't focus on the detail, like remembering people's names in bands. I thought the tent he was in was only for dance music. I don't have anything against dance music I might add, I just didn't bother to walk the 30 yards to the next tent. I did see the swans play in Edinburgh in maybe 1992 or 1991. The swans sort of had two sounds. They were first very loud. Then they got very low, slow and gloomy. You can guess what stage of their musical evolution I was more interested in. The only reason I know that he played was because I read a review in the Scotsman.The festival was closed by the flaming lips. I am sure I saw them play in Liverpool. I think I saw them play in Lexington Kentucky. I enjoyed seeing them play before, but now they are stunning live. The flaming lips set was just amazing. Wayne Coyne went into the crowd in a plastic bubble. There were huge balloons set lose into the audience. Confetti was fired into the audience. The whole set was a positive vibe.

Indian summer I

The Indian Summer festival just started last year. The maximum capacity of the festival is 6000, so it is small. There were three music areas. One big stage, and two tents. The festival area is in enclosed in trees. It only rained for a short while. I had not heard of many of the bands, but I liked the idea of hearing some new sounds. I didn't see a band that I thought sucked. All the guitar sounds were crisp and clean. After last year, I took the running order with me so I had a better idea of who was playing this year. I particularly wanted to see Daniel Johnston play. He was playing the headliner in the radio 6 tent. Before I knew of his history, I used to search out his records. His voice was so full of pain. Now that I have seen the documentary about him, I know that he stopped taking his medication to get those performances. When he was close to getting a record deal, he was in an insane asylum. This was a long time ago, so he was old. Anyway the tent was half full when Daniel played, but the people there were very committed. I have to admit the highlight of his set was "speeding motorcycles". They played a set from Daniel Johnston on the George Lamb radio show. He hadn't heard of Daniel and had been in LA to cover the Beckhams. He didn't get it. As another radio 6 presenter said, Johnston is an an acquired taste.

Indian summer

I went to the Indian summer festival in Glasgow last week. I had a great time. This is a small festival in Victoria Park in Glasgow.

We are the physics

I went out to see "we are the physics" play at the Glasgow Barfly last Friday. When I saw the band name on the barfly listing, I thought that gig looks a bit nerdy for my cool self. This was of course hypocrisy of a high order since I work in a Physics department. I did listen to a live set they did for Marc Riley on his radio 6 show. It sounded as though furniture was being rearranged when they played and young Marc was blown away. So I had to go and see them play. The first minute of their set was not so promising, but after that the set was awesome. The music is fast and there is fast hand clapping. They complained that they had played to 10 people in the Liverpool barfly the night before. None of the people at Liverpool wanted to dance. Well if I had still been living in Liverpool there would have been 11 people who didn't want to dance. They have a song called "action", which I wanted to chant "Lagrangian", but didn't. "We are the physics" deserve to be big, but life is cruel. I didn't stay for the clubbing night, so I got home before 12:00, so the next day wasn't lost.

the Elvis suicide

A week last Friday I went out to see "the Elvis suicide" play at the Glasgow barfly. I had the choice I could have seen "hell is for heroes", but the magic of myspace, helped me chose the local Glasgow band. I enjoyed their set. The first band on, I thought were called "capacitors", but looking at the ticket, they may have been named "Kino Box". The sound was Eastern European and it reminded me of "Beirut". Somehow the Elvis suicide were not the last band to play. (If you want proper gig reviews I suggest you buy the NME). On Friday the bands stop playing at 11:00, so they can have a clubbing night. As I got out of the venue at 2:30, I decided that it is probably not a good idea for me to stay for the club night. I did try and chat someone up, but the person told me that they were born in Florence which frankly was more information than I needed to know at 1:00 in the morning with a brain addled by Carling. There is a reason that the Glasgow underground stops at 11:20.

events in Glasgow

Given the disturbing events happening in Glasgow, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am safe and I have managed it through the day. On Saturday I heard the very sad news that the fopp chain of CD shops has closed. One of the fopp shops on Byers Rd was the main place I bought CDs from. What am I going to do now on a Saturday afternoon? I still like CDs. Ok, I can just go around the corner to the shop called "Lost in Sound" This is actually a much more independent record shop than fopp. I could also go and get CDs from the avalanche shop near Queens railway station. There is also Amazon and Itunes. Ok, so I will survive. Now that my supply of music is secure I can now start to worry about the threat of terrorism.