Greetings from 2006

I've fallen through a hole in the space-time continuum and I'm writing this from 2006, or it sure feels like it.

Disaster struck at work the other day, and for once it wasn't work related. I dropped my Blackberry, the trackerball fell out, and the wee chromed ring bit rolled off under a cage. I managed to recover all the bits, but I was quite distraught.

Somehow it still worked, I called up the nice people at Orange and they said they'd send me a new one if I paid £60. I said I'd think about it.

Luckily the internet told me that the trackerball is just held in by magnets. So I popped it back in, making sure everything was the right way round and it worked, almost as good as new.

Until the next day when none of the keys worked. People would phone, I couldn't answer. Emails would come through, I couldn't read. Blogging needed to be done and couldn't be.

The internet had the answer this time too, moisture had gotten into the phone, and sticking it in front of a hairdrier would fix it, sometimes.

So I gave it a try, the keys came back to life, I called my attractive young ladyfriend to assure her I was still alive. Then the keys died again, and no amount of hair-drying would fix it.

My sim card is now in my old 2006 Nokia, the battery life is about six hours, and it doesn't do email or internetting.

All the stored phone numbers from the last three years have been lost, so I just have the number of people who I was still in touch with in 2006. Hello ladies.

The great and tedious saga of me trying to get an internet connection of my own, as documented previously here, as drawn to an uncomfortable close as I've abandoned the plan of getting my Ubuntu netbook online and had to settle for my old cranky desktop computer which takes half an hour to boot up.

When it finds an internet connection, all by itself it loads up MSN messenger/Live messenger. Does anyone still use that? I fear not.

On the way walking to work, through Wembley, there's a wee independent computer game shop, in the window on Monday I noticed amongst the preowned PS3s and XBox 360s, they had a preowned original Xbox, only £15. Now way back in another life I used to test AV and hifi systems and we got an Xbox at work, I used to spend weeks and weeks playing Project Gotham Racing, nipping round Edinburgh and Stockholm, and now this was my chance to get back.

Alas, when I went in the shop, it had been sold. Still it would have been just like 2006.

On Sunday I wandered out to the Hangover Lounge at The Lexington, where in with the chilled out music, it was also Scrabble Club, hosted by Ken Chu. I hadn't seen him in months. I couldn't help but think, there's few people more 2006 than Ken Chu, bless 'im.

This is what the past feels like.

Hopefully a courier should be bringing round my replacement Blackberry this evening, and the nightmare can start to end.

Tied to the 00's #15

Way back in the mists of time, at the start of the 00's, I was the life and soul of Strathclyde University.

In our first photie you can see Simon dressed as a vicar for the 2000 Halloween party taken in the Fusion Radio offices.

The second photie is from a German beer party in the Barony Bar, I think that was the coolest hairstyle I've ever had, check out those sideburns ladies.

The third photie is from the 2000 RAG Christmas dinner, I was just involved with charities enough to get invited. Half them peoples in the picture are on my Facebook friends list, but I don't speak to them half as much as I ought to.

Tied to the 00's #14

This one time towards the end of 2006, Rachel was back up in Glasgow and a few of us met up in a pub on Great Western Road. I dunno about you but it was a weird night for me.


I think it was StereoDonut who made gingerbread men, one of them looked like Robbie.

Tied to the 00's #13

I seem to be missing any decent photies of me and people from towards the end of the decade. This is a nice one from 2008 and the final Bowlie meetup weekend, some pub in Kensington that Rups lead us to when torrential rain opened up on us in Hyde Park.

My return to the good graces of that messageboard only occurred in its death throes. But I telegraphed it with a storyline in my old attempt at a webcomic, ill theatre, its still out there on the web. Alas my imagination is failing me to do that sort of thing again.

Tied to the 00's #12

In the absence of any decent photies of me from 2005, this is from the New Years party that Idles arranged at Mental Sarah's back then.

Mostly Bowlie folk from all over the world, I vaguely recall around the moment this photo was taken either Dave in the Dumps or Radar was playing The Divine Comedy's 'My Lovely Horse'.

We'd all met up at The crnrvn beforehand, and whilst I hadn't specifically been invited to the party, at the time I was under a secret alias known only to a few, anyhoo, I just hung around in the pub until folk were heading off to the party, my old Ford Fiesta parked nearby, and then offered my taxi driving services.

God knows precisely how we got seven fully grown men in a Fiesta, but we did and we got to Mental Sarah's house.

Tied to the 00's #11

So way back in 2004 at the first Bowlie Alldayer, I'd somehow negotiated my way into playing. So it was that my first ever gig in London was a sell out show at The Pleasure Unit in Bethnal Green.

From memory my setlist was mostly songs about ex-girlfriends and girls who I fancied. It was a little bit nerve racking cos Jax was in the audience. Luckily no one was really listening to me, just clapping and cheering politely between songs. John Waz from the Gresham Flyers recorded it all, it sounded okay later, well, not as bad as I envisaged.

From memory the setlist was:-

• Naked (about some girl who I'd never seen naked, but wanted to)
• Lets Get Worse (about some girl I went out with in Glasgow)
• Bacon Sandwich and Vokda (about teenage love and IRA bombs in Manchester 2006)
• September (about some girl I used to go canoeing with)

So, that was the start and end of my London live career. Thank god.

Tied to the 00's #10

Back in the day, back in Glasgow when we were all friends and we used to do stuff, once or twice we all piled into the cars of people who had cars and headed up to Loch Lomond. We'd potter about on the shore, building fires, and prod them with sticks, whilst waiting for other folk to turn up.


Actually, I think it only happened twice when there was loads of us, the other times was just me and a girl. Still, those were the days, were they not?

This photo's from 2004 according to the metadata, seems a bit early in the decade. Robbie in the foreground is poking a fire with a stick, I think King of Partick is crouched on grounded blowing on his fire. I'm wearing my old Utah State Buckeye's t-shirt and the kind of neat jacket that I found outside the Halt Bar at Christmas 2003.

Tied to the 00's #9

Way back in 2008, Glasgow indiepop legends The Just Joans played train-based indie music Festival Indietracks.

You don't want to know about how I used to know them up in Glasgow, its nothing like The Strawberry Switchblade story, but here's a shot of us chilling out in Derbyshire.

From left to right there's Dave Pope, Holly, some gentleman writing in my notebook, Kaite Pope, Fraser from The Just Joans, Anastacia So Tough So Cute and Chris Elkin from My Legendary Girlfriend, Dot to Dot, Bricolage, The Just Joans and many many more.

Tied to the 00's #8

This one time there was like a Bowlie Alldayer gig in London in 2005, and then the day after there was the Belle and Sebastian 'If You're Feeling Sinister' show at the Barbican. So we had this great flock of internet people trekking across Regent's Park.
Some random names of some people in the photie from left to right:-

• Lambkin
• Robbie
• Middle Fidelity
• Maybe Justin
• Hupsalit
• Poth Some chap
• Lauren
• Yael's friend
• Some other girl
• Definitely Justin
• Dave in the Dumps
• Kevin
• Johnny

Where are they now? (Facebook, or possibly Blueveins)

I had no ticket for the Barbican gig so I just tagged along until we got there, then with a stroke of inspiration I grabbed Nal's cute friend Jo and walked straight into the auditorium, purposefully past the tickety people. Aw man, I used to rule.

Tied to the 00's #7

In the late noughties I was forced to vacate Glasgow and only returned sporadically.

This photo from 2007 shows me and Robbie at The Flying Duck acting just a little bit gangster whilst Colin doesn't (also on seeing the photo Nina says he looks a bit secret agenty). It was one of Gave King Of Partick's club nights where he used to play music, ah crazy days.

This next photo proves incontrovertibly that I can and do dance.

Tied to the 00's #6

Here's a scene from a New Years party in Glasgow, the first few hours of 2007.



How many of these guys am I still in touch with?

Tied to the 00's #4

I don't think the 00's really got going in Glasgow's Indiepop scene until Nal arrived, she was like this flag round which scenesters rallied and rising bands would seek out. Her parties were also pretty ace too.


In this photo from one of her southside soirée's in 2003, we have Camera Obscura's John Henderson from Camera Obscura joining a sofa with Gav King of Partick from Stabilizer and Camera Obscura, Adam J Smith from The Hector Collectors and Alan 'Wolfknuckle' Patterson, later of The Deep Fried Wolfknuckles.

It was these indiepop conferences that help define each band's unique sound as ideas were bounced around and cross pollinated. You can definitely hear the Hector's influence in some of the Mighty Ob's later work.

Just off shot to the left is Nal herself, looking stunning and relaxed, and to the right of the shot, I think it's someone's ass-cheek in jeans, judging by the toned curves I'm guessing its Colin or Robbie.

Tied to the 00's #3

I think perhaps one of the greatest club nights of the 00's would be National Pop League. It was a monthly night at the Woodside Social Club in Kelvinbridge, hosted by John Blain Hunt, now of Butcher Boy

From about 2002 to 2009, every month Glasgow's finest indie fans would trek along and spend a few hours boogying. It was a scene, it brought us close together, we'd gather in crowds to watch 'The Dancey Guy' dance.

He set the floor on fire with his moves and his shapes. Without him, the music would be almost dreary.

Soundtrack - The Smiths - You Just Haven't Earned it Yet Baby

Tied to the 00's #2

In the summer of 2003 there was to be some sort of All Tomorrows Parties festival thing in Los Angeles, I'd never been to America before and flatmate Alan 'Wolfknuckle' Patterson suggested we went along.

I've always assumed it was because of organisational reasons, but the festival never happened. Sure, a couple of the bands that were due to play, like Trail of the Dead, and Mogwai, played gigs in the city around the time that the festival was due, but without the ATP moniker.



This is a sandcastle I built on Santa Monica beach the day after seeing the Kings of Leon play at The Viper Rooms to an audience of about ten people, including at least four members of the cast of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

I feel all Englishmen have a duty to build sandcastles when on holiday in foreign climes.

Tied to the 00's #1

There's only a few days of this decade left, over on Facebook my old Glasgow mucker Adam J Smith is dredging his way through his analog photo collection, and sling up images of the last ten years. Whilst he has a great well of experience in the Glasgow/Motherwell music scene to dwell on, my own is a little more modest, more of a niche of my own carving.


This is a photo from a rehearsal of a band I was in called Johnny Utah and The Buckeye System. We had about a dozen rehearsals, recorded no songs, and played no gigs. At the time of the photo, 2003, the lineup consisted of me, Alan Wolfknuckle Patterson, Lyndsey Smythe, Adam J Smith (here on lead guitar) and Wee Patrick (here on bass guitar). This line up lasted all of three hours as we scared off Patrick.

He went on to play in many of Glasgow's other bands, Belle and Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, Clockwork Teddy Bear, Sexy Kids and The Royal We before moving to London and became the drummer in Veronica Falls that we know and love today.

Adam currently plays guitar for The Hector Collectors and does backing vocals for The Plimptons.

Actually, on checking out the old 00's internet, it turns out that Johnny Utah and The Buckeye System did actually record a demo. This is My Love For You Is Like a Running Battle, with Alan Wolfknuckle on vocals.
Johnny Utah and The Buckeye System - Running Battle by manc_ill_kid