more

I did enjoy listening to Camera Obsura play. They are a local Glasgow band, but I did manage to pick up a CD when I was living in Liverpool. But somehow I was surprised by the Organ sound. I also liked the band who played before Yo La Tango. Looking at the list of bands they could be "Broken Social Scene". I will investigate more...

gang of four

I am not totally sure, but I think I saw the gang of four play on Sunday. They seemed to have an angry postpunk like sound. The band had a huge amount of energy. I have already forgotten why I started to listen to the gang of four, but it was a really good set. The singer hit a microwave oven with some kind of bat as the precusion section of one song. It is really bad that I only liked the "old" bands play at the festival. It is not clear that I can stand in a field for 6 hours listening to music. I did seem to be able to cope with pounding beers, but my legs really hurt the nexy day.

more festival stuff

So it rained a bit last sunday while I was at the festival. It wasn't real hard rain, but just spitted for a while, just to let everyone know that with fun comes pain. The last band I saw on Sunday was Yo La Tengo. I thought that a long time ago that I had listened to and perhaps even owned a Yo La Tango CD. I wasn't really expecting a ballad based singer. I thought that Yo La Tango were some kind of interesting indie pop band, but the guys seemed to be a coldplay like clone. I never really understood why anyone liked bands like Coldplay. Wimp assed crap. This opinion is based on the fact that I have never managed to listen that long to a coldplay song. My record is maybe ten seconds. I did manage to listen to Yo La Tango a bit longer, but it is not wise to block your ears while walking away from a fsetival in am empty park, when you know that you still have to walk through two underpasses and over a motorway before you get to some Glasgow high rise buildings. Umm, now that I look at the band listing, I now think that the lats person to play was Antony and The Johnsons. And actually the band that I liked who were second to last were Yo La Tango. This makes more sense. Perhaps the review would have made more sense if there were like programs to but and I had not drunk so much beer. Still, I would like to point out that I still think Coldplay suck-- I didn't get that wrong.

indian summer

I spent Sunday at the indian summer festival in Glasgow. This was held at victoria park that is on the outer edge of the West End of Glasgow. My review of the bands is going to be confusing mostly because I didn't see any program for sale, so I was a bit confused to who was playing. Look if youy want "facts" read the NME (or perhaps not). The festival link is here. I will post my review after watching the last episode of Tinker, Taylor soldier spy on TV.

the naked ape

I have been at my my mum's house to help her move. On the journey from Glasgow I read "the naked ape" by Desmond Morris. This is a zoologisrt studying humans and putting them in context of our animal relatives. Very insightful. Modern life is not so different to animals fighting on the planes.

the jage letters

I have just finished the book the yage letters by William Buroughs and Allen Ginsberg. This is a book of letters between Burroughs and Allen as they search for yage in South America. Yage is some kind of vine that is used as a drug. When Burroughs first finds and takes it, he starts vomiting and almost ODs. Scoring yage didn't look to be so much fun, but I guess that these things have to be experienced. I now want to travel in South America, but I doubt that it is very safe. I should do more research than watching the film city of god. (None of the yage letters is set in Brazil). The junkies in the 1950s were very literate, almost stylish.

Indian summer

I am spending tha weekend at a summer musical festival in Glasgow called Indian Summer. This a two festival in park fairly close to where I work in the West End. The weather behaved itself. It was drizzling in the morning, but stopped when the bands came on stage. I am beginning to doubt whether I am still an Indky kid, because some the bands didn't to to much for me. The headliners were the "yeah yeahs". The lead singer was cute, but the sound was too happy for my gloomy taste. Of course I enjoyed the fall play. They had an angry intense sound and Mark was in good form. The audience liked it as well. I gave my thoughts on the fall to a microphone for radio6. I don't think I let Mark down, but I had drunk a large quantity of beer (just in case it started raining). I did spout conventional plattitudes. I am going to enjoy today's bands more

I am going to allow Keanu Reeves to ,live

I have just been to see the film "a scanner darkly". This is the film of the book by Philip K. Dick. I was worried that Keanu Reeves would be bored and totally fuck this film up. I would then have to go round and give him a bit of a slap. Any way Reeves was on fine foem. As many of the reviewers have noted a large of the film is about stoners talking bollocks to each other. I can't help feeling that they are having a better time than me. It was first time I had been to the Grosvner cinema in the West End of Glasgow. There was a lonely corridor that I walked down. No one to take tickets. I was on my own at the start of the film. At the end of the film, I saw a couple in the half darkness huddeled together in a profesional manner staring at me. I walked back down the lonely corridor and out from the bar into the soaking rain. The puddles glistened and I walked over the bridge to my flat.

Being number one

I was explaining to my mum that even although I hadn't produced any grandchildren and that I don't have a full time job, I don't see how I can viewed as a failure because my web pages are at the top of the google rankings for "mcneile". As I was looking down the rankings I saw some very disturbing wikepedia enteries. The entry I worry about the most is that of Hugh McNeile. I am told that Rev. Hugh McNeile was an ancestor of mine. There will no doubt be some vast christian consperancy of people linking to his page that will knock my pages from number one. What hurts the most is that there is already a big statue of rev Hugh McNeile is St Georges's hall in Liverpool. The dude is dead. Why can't I be number one on google. I will take my fall from google grace with good cheer. Certainly no one should worry when the inevitable happens people will come into work and see a pool of blood seeping under my office door. When the door is kicked down, they will pull my blood stained finger from the screen where my lifeless corpse points to my web pages being second on google Perhaps I should set up a MySpace page for Rev Hugh McNeile. If he was a friend of Bryon, he probably liked chicks.

lastFM

I have been playing with the LASTFM site. This is a social networking site where the software records what you listen to. Then other people can suggest similar tracks. I am still learning how to use the site. I am listening to what lastFM describe as a hardcore station. Umm, the first band was called Mr Bangles.....

The

The BBC linked to a Times story about the 100 top web sites. As part of the comments, someone noted that they look at Julian Copes's web site for new underground music. So I checked out the site. Julian recommended the band "Vincent Black Shadow" as an album of the month. I am ashamed to say, that I looked up "vincent black shadow" on Amazon. I know that I have probably failed you for my lack of committment to underground music. Amazon found, a band called "The Vincent Black Shadow". But the the is different. I clicked on the link that Julian provided and his band provide tape and vinyl, and are below Amazon and myspace. I felt so ashamed. I frankly don't see how following Julian Cope's album of the month is going to get me laid more, still onward we must go. The Vincent Black Shadow is some kind of motorbike. How is this related to the vincent white lighting that Richard Thompson sang about? But what do I do about the amazon listing for the "The Vincent Black Shadow". One of the track listings looks cool. What would Julian do? Perhaps "The Vincent Black Shadow" are cooler than "Vincent Black Shadow". I have seen Julian Cope play at the student guild in Liverpool. He is the man, but for five pounds can I go wrong? There was a film where the woman split with a guy becaue hw used "my child" rather than "our child". Can we fall out over "the"?

In search of excellence

I have just finished reading the book "in search of excellence" by Tom Peters and Waterman. This was about the besr run companies in America during the late 70s and early 80s. Some of it is sort of dated. They really like the IBM that made mainframes, and are also very enthusiastic about the IBM sales force. I remember that many people hated IBM because the sales force would sell computers to the IT managers, but the people who used the machines hated the systems. This book was meant to be very influenciable, but after it was written many US companies started to downsize their workforce. Another thing they got wrong was "pringles". One of their favourite companies had developed pringles crisps. They originally lost money. I am actually scared of pringles crisps because if I buy a tube it usually lasts about 2 hours. So I fondly look at them (as well as Tesco vodka) at the supermarket, but usually don't buy them. I can't believe somethibg so addictive is a failure.

music hunting

Soem songs I hear on the radio just haunt you. I still remember hearing Kevin Coyne play "keep on cycling " on the John Peel Show. Some of these tracks live with me for a while, but at some stage they need to be found and played. One track I heard was about Syd Barret. The band went for tea at his house. In ths past I would have to search for these things. But now google is my friend and the band istelevision personalities. Flushed with the success of that I looked for a song with the chorus "if I had an Armalite Rifle". I now think this may have been the the gang of four But I can't find the track on itunes...

post Moscow

I am back from Moscow. I would have blogged from the hotel, but the people at the cyber cafe never seemed that happy when I wanted to use their computers. The guardian has an article on visiting Moscow. Personally I was looking fowrad to talking to some gangsters and watching a drive by shooting, but alas I never saw any part of the Russian criminal scene. There was an hour comutte from the hotel to the conference site. I had to go on the Moscow metro. The escalators seem to go down for miles.

Moscow

I am going to Moscow next week for a physics confernce. One very important question is what to read during the trip. If I can get a copy, I am going to read: The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. I think I am ready. There is a great review on Amazon that starts:

I'm not one to entertain myself reading boring books told by some dodgy loner while I got a DVD player. But this is an intellectual book. It's a story told by an author who's been through a lot, mentally and physically, so what he writes he can back up with experience.

The last time I was in Russia, I read Memoirs from the House of the Dead. This freaked out the person who very kindly guided me around Moscow

Some spirtual stories

To win this Templeton prize, I am going to need show some proof that I am a deeply spirtual person. Here are stories of my tangling with religon during my disolute life. When I was young my mum went through a stage where we some of the family were forced to go to church. Something to do with moral devlopment. About the only thing I can remeber about my church going days is a sermon by the priest that goes something like this. Some dude went to church on Sunday and then went for beers in the pub. In the church he put his beer money in the collection pan, and kept his collection money foe the pub. His friends in the pub, after the service , told him he should go back and ask for his money back from the priest. And the guy went "what the church gets, the churchs gets". Even at 12, this sounded like a weird sermon. What was this message. This event was before the time of ATM machines. I have thought about the spirtual meaning of this for many years. As I hit twennty, I realised the real point of the story was that the church will steal money from drunks. I very rarley step inside a church these days. Note that I am pretty sure that this priest went crazy and was kicked out. This didn't seem to trouble anyones faith, but then what would. OK, I can see the Templeton foundation being too happy with the last story' Let me try another slice of my life. I was on a plan in the US. The plan had landed and we were waiting to disembark. A kindly old preit with white hair said to two college girls he had been sitting with, "good luck with your exams". My heart started pounding, and I clenched my fists. The people in fron of me, looked at me in a strange way, as I almost pushed in front of them because I wanted to hit the priest. As I was walking on the runway, on the way to the terminal, in the bright sunshine. my heart rate hit normal and I was calmed by my cold sweat. Where this rage from, I don't know. I am not as rational and in control as I think. Perhaps, my final story will be more suitable. I was at a physics confernce in Durham. This was held in a theology college in the centre of town. I was in a seminat watching a talk. A priest walk in to the room. He was fat and rudy from fine College claret. His study of theology had not diminished his fondness for the meat tray. He stood there for 10 seconds like some confused dim witted peacock, then walked out secure in his faith and stupidity. I thought "what a dick". I had obviously grown as a human being because I didn't want to do him any violence. Umm, ok storty three gives me something to work with. I will have to change the ending though.

Steven Jesse Bernstein

For reasons still unclear to me I stumbled on Steven Jesse Bernstein. Sometimes I find things by reading a review or some bastardised history. In Bernstein's case I just got a tape in a record store because I liked the cover. When I searched on the web and Amazon maybe a year ago, I could find no information about him. Another lost hero. The magic of wikipedia and myspace, his legacy lives on. I have both tapes "a sad bag" and "prison". "A sad bag" is apparently rare. I used to play it a lot late at night, when I was geting depressed enough to sleep. My favourite track is "the man upstairs." I played this to someone I cared about, to their total lack of interest. I guess it is no fun to share your own self inflcted private hell. I like the nerdy picture of Steven on myspace. from wikipedia I learnt that he used to read poetry with a live rodent in his mouth. How cool is that! No wonder he opened for Nirvana.

books by sir john templeton

I see my very good drinking buddy "Sir John Templeton" has written some books. They look a bit like vanity publishing to me. If my spirtual facard is pierced, I may need to do some serious sucking up to get my hands on the prize money. "I really really enjoyed reading your book. I was deeply moved". (This this is just a little white lie -- I don't want to hurt his feelings). Here is what amazon stock. I can get one of his book for 14p. I am not sure I can face reading it though.

The innovators dilema

I have just finished reading "The Innovators Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen. This is a business book about firms trying to market new technology. Big firms listen to their customers, but miss new markets. The products developed for new markets eventually take over the older established markets and the old companies go bust. The arguments in the book make a lot of sense, but then it is still hard to know what to do about it. That is a being a bit mean to the author, who does offer much sensible advice on how to sell new things.

more radio stuff

I am listening to a new (for me anyway) radio station called resonance FM. There was an article about this station in todays on line gaurdian. There is a jazz show on at the moment. At least I think it is jazz show, some of the tracks are almost white noise. When I lived in Kentucky I used to get a lot of cassette tapes from a label. This was the first time I heard the mountain goats and Simon Joyner. I really liked "paste" who was a guy screaming with a guitar. Either past or one of his buddies would just turn up at gigs and not tune, but scream, rant and power through the set. I thought past were awesome, but he seems to have vanished. Life is so cruel to creative people. Amazon can still sell me some new Simon Joyner CDs.