School of Rock

Published on Mon 28 Mar 2011

So here I am at JFK again, sipping white wine having just polished off a McDonald's double quarter pounder meal and played a good half an hour of Tiny Wings, another addictive bird-related iPhone game. My favourite 'stall' was blocked, which was disappointing. The films on the plane last week were of an OK standard. Catfish, if it wasn't a hoax, is a bit crazy, Going the Distance is as good as you'd expect (am I losing my crush on Drew Barrymore? And isn't it ironic that Justin Long's face is really wide?), Due Date is better than you'd expect, mostly because of how the beardy guy flounces and claims to be 22. We also saw Hall Pass in the cinema the other day, which I enjoyed a lot, and School of Rock, which was a bit shit to be honest, but was made more interesting because one of the people in it was putting on the show that Annie played on Friday. It's like a more impressive version of the time I played at a night run by Cameron the leather clad lawyer out of Neighbours.

It's been another fairly music filled week, mostly seeing people who are only really known in New York (if at all). It's interesting the kind of thing that goes on there - before I first went I naively assumed it was all intelligent and lo-fi like Jeffrey Lewis, or intelligent and interesting like LCD Soundsystem, or intelligent and beautiful like Regina Spektor but it mostly seems to be polished catchy pop songs, albeit sometimes dressed up with a bit of distortion and bouncy pounding drums. Maybe I'm expecting too much from people just because they're from New York and big enough to go touring. Still, it was all good fun, and never less than pleasant. Here are a few pictures of a show we went to in a really cool room in Brooklyn.

There was a genius moment just after a country version of Addicted to Love when the singer said something along the lines of "I hope Robert Palmer doesn't mind if he ever hears it". I guess it wasn't big news over there when he popped his clogs. As usual, it really stood out how much more proficient Americans are at playing their instruments than the equivalent people in Britain.

Another thing that America does better than Britain (to add to steak, pizza and bagels) is lightbulbs. You're still allowed filament ones, and they're often completely clear rather than frosted so that you can actually see the wire. It's really atmospheric. Small things...

There were a couple of exceptions to the pop - this band "The Tickled Pinks" who play music that sounds pleasingly like they look like it should sound, and were a great way to spend an hour,

and Matt Sucich who does a Bruce Springsteen/Townes Van Zandt kind of thing, with a couple of songs that really stood out as being Good.

There were a couple of great food experiences too - we went to Jackson Heights, which is an Indian area in Queens, and had a delicious all you can eat buffet (which I think felt the benefit of being busy so having a fairly high turnover) - it was just like being at a curry house here, and on Saturday and I had a quite incredibly nice tenderloin of beef with truffles but I've forgotten the name of the restaurant. It had a tree inside, and the toilet didn't really flush. You know the one.