It's been a while again. I'm not sure where my time is going lately. I've still not written about The End of the Road festival. I'll maybe try and find the time before I go to New York again at the end of the week or too much will have happened again...
Highlights of the last month or so then:
I made it to my second Cambridge game of the season yesterday, which was excellent fun, despite nobody scoring. Having a season ticket was starting to feel like chore towards the end of last year (I guess it was bound to after 4 or 5 years) so I decided not to get one this time. It's clearly the right thing to have done as I've been so busy, and going less often makes it more exciting when I do. The game was on ESPN (there were guys there with those weird cameras that look like they're flying) and if they repeat it I'm going to try and find out if we all imagined a Huddersfield player punching the ball clear or if the referee really was as bad as he seemed.
I've been to a few gigs. Josh Ritter was excellent at The Barbican however long ago that was - I don't much like the venue, and the muesli munchers that frequent it (and the impossibility of finding your way out of it) and I only decided to go on the morning of the show, but I'm very glad I did. Dawn Landes was (not that surprisingly) the support, and I liked her much more than I had in New York - I think she felt that she could play some less upbeat numbers. I don't remember any details now of her set now though. Josh Ritter must be the happiest man in the world. He certainly looked it what with all his grinning and jumping around. I guess it must have been one of the more impressive places he's played. I think I just got put off it when the guy from the Hothouse Flowers for a huge ovation for singing in Swahili while playing the arse flute when I saw him support The Swell Season there. Anyway, Ritter was exhilarating to watch and I was grinning almost as much as he was for most of it, though the set might have been 15-20 minutes too long, despite missing The Temptation of Adam and Girl in the War. Or maybe I was just tired.
Did I ever write about Steve Earle at the Corn Exchange in August? That was really nice, though not as moving as End of the Road last year. He said he missed Cambridge out of his last tour and was going to Orkney or Shetland or somewhere to make up for a date that got cancelled, so sorted a one off thing out. As it wasn't promoting anything in particular we got all the hits. There was a lovely moment when he was fumbling for a harmonica and someone in the crowd cheered and he said something along the lines of "I don't come to your work and hassle you". Then it happened again, someone cheered again, and he had to resort to a jovial "fuck off". The encore was a slightly surprising "Little Rock 'n' Roller", though I guess he's had a baby lately. I bet my friend Jack, who was coincidentally sitting behind us, despite having had his tickets for months, that it'd be Rex's Blues/Forth Worth Blues. Shows what I know.
Steve Earle talked a bit about how he had a bit of an affinity with Cambridge and namechecked (with only a slight mispronunciation) Boo Hewerdine, who was good at the Folk Club last week. I've been to a lot of his gigs over the years, and this is the first time that a fight almost broke out. A group of ladies had sunk a white wine too many and were talking a bit (a bit too loudly to be fair), and it offended some of the surrounding people, who presumably had never been to a gig before. I'm not sure when his audience got so old. Ten years ago the people who went to see him were in their 20s and 30s, and now they're in their 50s and 60s. It's not like he's lost much intensity, so I'm surprised that anyone of that age would even like it - the words mean things and there are no songs about fishermen. I guess he does have a folk music connection now that he didn't really have before. We didn't get 16 Miles, but it was nice to hear Joke for a change. That was the first song I ever heard of his, back in about 1994 on VH-1. I couldn't believe it when I moved here and it turned out he lived round the corner. The support act Jake Cogan was pretty good too - she's got an incredible voice and consequently went down a storm with the aged punters.
I had a good time watching Singing Adams, and some old faces the day after too, though I ended up a little worse for wear. I don't love them like I loved The Broken Family Band yet and the playing is (maybe deliberately) less tight, but, as someone or other said to me in the loo, maybe I just need to hear the songs more than once or twice. The support act were really nice too - ((((Oh Dear from Ipswich.
That might be all I've really done other than work, lose at squash and underperform in quizzes. Oh, we've had a couple of Travis Waltons practices ready for a show with Magoo and The Judge Reinholds at The Portland in a couple of weeks. Sounded pretty great from where I was sitting.
In other news, the steam powered computer that I used to record Scars finally died (taking with it the only known recording of that song I wrote about how the world would be a better place without the likes of Tunstall, Coldplay, Johnson, Jones (N.), Melua etc. etc., which is pretty out of date now anyway. I don't think it ever got a name, but now I think of it "Fish in a Barrel" would've been good. I wonder who'd be in it if I rewrote it now - I've managed not to have any nicely produced but essentially meritless pop music inflicted on me for a while. The only times I've accidentally heard Radio 2 they were playing Miley Cyrus, Frank Sinatra and showtunes, and while I can't stand any of that either, it doesn't really qualify. I suppose Tunstall has resurfaced recently - I saw some reviews at least. Oh hang on I do know - China Soul) so now I have a shiny new one. Then it turned out that the steam powered sound card I used to record Scars isn't compatible with modern computers, so I got a shiny new one. It's all coincided with my 7 month decorating saga being virtually done with, so I think that album I was making of old and or overly happy songs might actually get finished. Though the old computer took all the effects with it, so I'm going to have to start the mixing process again, which is filling me slightly with dread.
I was going to bet on Liverpool to win, Torres to score first and Newcastle to beat Arsenal today because I thought all the odds were too long. I really wish I had.