The Return...

Sky have hooked up broadband in the flat, its costing £10 a month for Sky for unlimited downloady and £13.50 a month from BT. Sure the whole thing could be cheaper, but £23.50 a month between two people ain't so bad, heck its's barely two beers.

In the weeks and months since I've had such bandwidth, I've had loads of ideas of stuff to blog about in detail, such as:-

• That advert where the girl makes whale noises and says she's like a 'fish out of water', with no idea what 'fish out of water' means
• How the Housing Benefit cap affects very few people and just those in London, and possibly proposing a lower cap for other parts of the country, based on regional average rents.
• More videos of me playing cover versions on guitar and dreaming of being in a band
• Madcap money making schemes
• Drawings
• Reviews of stuff
• Photies of the dinner I cooked today

But really my heart isn't in it so much.

I went to The Plimptons first ever London gig last Thursday night, it was the first time I'd since them in about two years, maybe more. I took lots of photies. Its taken me a few days to get round to putting them through Photoshop and upload to Flickr and Songkick.

Actually, there's a wee gap in the website market there, maybe its been filled by various applications and more recent version of stuff, but the gap in the market is this:- to upload a batch of around fifty photos to Flickr, Songkick, Facebook, blog and MySpace, I need to upload them five times, I'd rather like to just upload them once, fill in the titles and tags and descriptions once, and some web app/service copies them to each of the aforementioned social networks.

Sure, you can share Flickr photies on Facebook, but its much better to have natively hosted photies there, and you can't link photies into Songkick, they host their own.

I don't care about all those network's server space, not my problem if they all hold duplicate photies, I just don't want to have to upload it all five times.

Anyhoo, so I slung up a few dozen photies, and I'm quite proud of them. My style is black and white, blurry, dark and high-contrast.

I feel very self-conscious using the flash on my camera, its not that I think people will mind, its more of that they'll see it at all. By raising the black level and lowering the white level, its brings out more detail in what would otherwise be dark shots in dark venues.

It was only after I'd taken a few photies that I realised the candle in the shot would just be a big white spot rather than anything recognisable.

Cropping shots so that they are wide and narrow, I like those too, it makes up for if I've accidentally cut someone's head off in the original shot, I just cut everyone up, and it helps draw the viewer's attention to stuff like the pint Martin's holding.

I'm also quite fond of crowd shots, not only to show that there are actually other people at the gigs I go to, but also, the type of person, whether they're paying attention to the band on stage or talking amongst themselves, how many other photographers there are.

I like to think that this sort of photo is iconic, the act of the singer being photographed is more important than the shot itself.

Sometimes the shots are so blurry, there's nothing for it but to crank up the cropping and the levels so much, and it kind of ends up looking good. This could be an album cover, or a t-shirt or wallpaper or something.

So, The Plimptons third album "00s Nostalgia with The Plimptons" is launched 20th November 2010 at Nice n Sleazy in Glasgow, and its great, I know, cos I've heard it.

Origami and Insects

Was a little bored at work, I was idly fiddling with a post-it note and made a little origami bird. Then I wondered if I quartered the paper could I make a smaller flapping bird?

My office is near some sewage works and as such we are plagued with flies and the spiders who prey on them. They are forever crawling about on my desk and terrifying me.

The School and Allo Darlin - Bush Hall

I was possibly a bit negative in my earlier review of The Loves Rocknroll Circus, they are one of my most favourite bands in the world, ever since a solemn oath I made to one of their original members in '97.

I mentioned that they keep swallowing members of other bands, Pocketbooks and Arthur and Martha, but on the other hand they also spin out bands too, such as tonight's headline act The School.

Who do I like better The School or The Loves? Its hard to say. Five years ago it would be teh luvs, but now, I'm not so sure.

Tonight the venue is Indiepop Central tonight, if I were more reckless I'd do a London Indiepop Eyespy blogpost, to my right is Camila from the WeePop record label, over to my left is Iain HDIF, and away behind is the mighty Hibbett, I think I even saw the cute one from Little My. I wish I'd had a shower this morning.

The lights dim a little, a lone chap takes to the stage, with guitar strapped on he approaches a MacBook, clicks a few things and tentatively throws himself into his set. He is Pagan Wanderer Lu.

Its noisy clanking stuff, with squelches, squeak, beeps and grinds. Drums and backing vox too. This is a guy who sure knows how to use GarageBands.

Some mighty deep songs, in the context of the universe what about the Mona Lisa, and some mighty shallow stuff about going to PizzaExpress. Imagine MJ Hibbett crossed with Denim and you'd be in the right brane.

Some touching moments, the new sound his guitar makes when he plays it wearing a wedding ring and how one of his pieces of kit broke on the way to the show so he explains he's playing lessy gadgety and more guitary than usual. Is this what Robbie IoMoPS would be like, thrust on stage on his own?

Suddenly, tonight feels like a 1995 Flyer gig without Zee. The lighting is red, familiar bands are on stage, (Facebook) friends all around and I'm crouched in a corner, head down in a notebook/blackberry. Christ, what is wrong with me?

I think a made a poor call in the toilets, the urinal is wide enough for two and not quite three gents, I chose wrong.

Second up are local favourites Allo Darling. Earlier today my niece visited a petting zoo and met some ducklings and some baby chickens, quite rationally called chicklings. So, clearly a baby star is a starling, and what do you call a baby Dalek? Darlin'.

They've been on tour with The School and are clearly loving it. Elizabeth Darling starts the set solo, just her, her ukulele and a tiny tiney ukulele capo. But soon joined by the rest of the band.

No Stephen Hawking, no You Shook Me All Night Long, no Henry Rollins Don't Dance. These are all classic songs from their repertoire, how long has it been since I last saw them, how many albums away have I drifted past. There must be a rational reason why they're not in the set?

The new temporary bass player was on fire, strutting his stuff, and everything. The usual guy is off on paternity leave. When he comes back they're gonna have to have some kind of bass-off, there can be only one.

Monster Bobby comes on for their duet, its seems more polished than last time I saw them, almost growing on me, he's got a little of the Divine Comedy about his voice here, but there's doesn't seem to be much chemistry between Bobby and Elizabeth.

Headlining tonight are The School, its not quite the final night of their tour, but its a big one. There's eight of them in the band now, Liz teh singer reckons is the final line up, but I still miss Spud on glockenspiel, although Guido playing tonight is pretty good. They have two violinists which ought to give for a richer sound than usual. Occasionally when I've seen them live before, they've been a little flat compared to the what I'd spent the day listening to on my iPod, but tonight they've hit the mark.

There's happy banter on stage, and joshing between band members. I sink into a happy place, its all glittery, sparkly and sweet. Some would say sickly sweet, but you get used to that.

The mixing is good and with more people on stage for backing vocal duties they're getting closer to the motown girl-group sound that always been just there under the surface.

Aw man, I've been writing this for hours and hours now, from scratching away at my 'berry at the gig, to lying in bed tapping away, and then the next day, still picking my nose trying to spool out enough text to fit the photies round.

And well, I can't do it, sure if I'd bought the album I could be having more of a listen and give the textures and subject matter a more thorough going-over, but I'm skint, and I'm not going to be buying any music if there's gigs to go to instead. Its a bit of a trade off.

Ah well, the show was good, getting home was a pain though, the underground stopped before I'd got all the way, so I emerged into the middle of nowhere in Harlesden, so there was much trudging and trying to fine stops serviced by night buses. Thank god I didn't go to the Come Out 2Nite night, or it would be daylight when I got home.

Photographer locations at The Battle of Bolton

Fond as I am of Bolton, I was somewhat saddened to here of the trouble there over the weekend. Two baying mobs decided to congregate in the town square and have a ruckus cos that's what they're into.

Flickr has a handful of photographers on location and I can't stop myself from putting together a google map of their locations across the day.

If you click through to the larger version, the photies are listed in time order, so you can follow the progress of each photographer. To be honest the most exciting point is around 1:00pm where a smoke bomb goes off and some UAF bigwig is arrested, dragged off and has his toothbrush confiscated.

View The Battle of Bolton in a larger map
Its a bit of a work in progress, but I'm finding it immensely satisfying.

Any suggestions about improvements I could make, warmly appreciated.

365 Days - Week 1 update

So, a week has passed since I started doing the 365Days flickr meme thing where I take a self-portrait photie every day for 365 days

These are the top three most viewed pics for the first week:-

22 views

14 views

10 views

And the least viewed pic

1 view

The full set is here

365 days - Day 1

Inspired by Lauren over on Walk You Home, I have decided to do that flickr 365 days thing, you know, the one where you post a self portraity photo every day for a 365 days.

This is Day 1's photo



The lighty bit reflected in my eye is the mirror in my attractive young ladyfriend's flat.

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 #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 #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

Just Like Delia (part 2)

Another attempt at making something from Delia's cookbook in order to impress.



Should make a fine breakfast to snarf on the way to work tomorrow.

A parochial weekend

It's been a knackering weekend. On Friday I was running about sorting the latest iteration of my CV and my Housing Benefit and lots of other stuff.

Earlier in the week my brother had mentioned that there was a cake making cotest at a flower show near where he stays and as there was a cagetory for cakes made by man, we ought to enter.

I made a victoria sponge, but in the absense of two cake tins the same size, and areading the recipe properly, I made a very thin stepped victoria sandwich.

I tried to build up the height with loads of jam in the filling layer and a thick blanket of icing sugar dusted over the top.

There are still run-up to Indietracks gigs going on that I just have to go to, so, still on Friday night, I headed into town to the Betsey Trotwood to see Lets Whisper, 'Allo Darlin' and Sweet Baboo.

I arrived just a wee bit too late, missed Lets Whisper, but with a nice place to stand to see 'Allo Darlin'.

They do make jolly nice music, beautiful and innocent and stuff.

Just before I wrote this blogpost, I was on iTunes, buying their latest EP, Henry Rollins Don't Dance.

I didn't really know what to expect with Sweet Baboo, but was pleasant surprised, I think they could be a tightly rehearsed comedy act rather than an indiepop group.

As with Allo Darlin, I was on iTunes buying up a couple of their tracks too, but I gotta say, I preferred them live to them recorded. The MP3s seem to have lost much of the character they had on stage.

So, aye, I race back home, look at train times to get to the Essex coastal village where my brother lives by 9am on Saturday morning, figure I'm going to have to get up at 6am to do it, and then I go to bed.

My neighbours were having a bit of a row at 3am. I think the chap hates his job and thinks the girl, who wasn't shouting so loud, has ruined his life. Its possible I guess. Maybe he was just stressed. Aw man, there've been times in my life when I've felt as exasperated as he sounded, but I've survived, and most of my baggage was lost on the way. It was difficult at times, but now I'm unemployed and have a beautiful young ladyfriend who I bicker with constantly, but I don't blame her for any of my problems.

Anyhoo, so I slept through my 6am alarm, woke at 7am and decided the only way to make it on time was to drive.

We managed to get our entries to the various contests entered in time. My brother's victoria sandwich looked far more victoria sandwichish than mine, but I tried not to worry about it.

Whilst the neice was at her Saturday morning dance class, my frere and I were at a driving range. He's perfected the technique of making the ball go vertical, I'm still struggling with hitting the ball at all.

A few hours later we reassembled at the Southminster Flower Show to check out how we did in the competition.

I'm proud of my attempt, but it didn't look much like the other entries in the viccy sandwich by man category.

The neice didn't do much better in her colouring in competition but to be fair, she was up against 4 1/2 year olds and she's only 3 1/2. That extra twelve months is probably when kids develope their colouring in skills. Next year the trophy will be her's.

However, the sister-in-law, she came second in the brownie contest, her's were marvellously gooey. I think that's the secret to great brownies, the ones you get in supermarkets are always too dry, they have no soul.

The rest of the flower show was nice, the flowers a little boring to me, but the horticultural tent was packed with wonders.

and the hog roast stall looked lovely, but we gave it a miss.

Glorious sunshine all round, old people and young people all enjoying themselves. Ooh, it was great, I felt so English.

Fell asleep as soon as I got home.

More photies from the Southminster Flower Show 2009
More photies from the Sweet Baboo and Allo Darlin gig at the Betsey Trotwood

The White Horse

Its been a blazing hot weekend for the most part.

I have no interest in going to Glastonbury, but I do like the countryside. The other week, The Guardian was doing a series of guides to walks round the country, the only one left that I haven't chucked out with the waste paper was the one with a walk round the White Horse thing in Oxfordshire. So the missus and I made a break for the countryside.

The route in the article was miles and miles and up all hills and stuff so we gave up after about twenty minutes, and chilled out under a tree, getting bitten by friendly insects and speculating on what the various crops were in nearby fields.

I want to be a farmer. I want to be part of the sacred lineage, the bond we have with the land, where the same bit of dirt has been poked with sticks and churned out the same sorts of crops for hundreds of years. Techniques and varieties may have changed, yields increased and productivity optimised, but for hundreds of years the land has fed people.

So aye, we abandoned the walking, got back in the car and drove to the National Trust carpark, so it was just a wee stroll up the way to the horse and all the earthworks and stuff.

It makes me feel dizzy sometimes, just thinking about it, like standing on the edge of a cliff and peering down. Three thousand years ago, people in this land were gazing at the same white horse. They probably thought it was pretty neat too.

The various flies on my potatos plants

Hi, its been weeks and weeks since I last blogged about the various foodstuffs I'm growing in my garden, maybe I never will again, other website do that sort of thing far better. Anyhoo, the other day I noticed my potatos had some greenfly on them, and on closer look, there were other wee beasties too.

So I took some photies.

Green


Brown


Black


White

I'm not sure if they're doing my potatos any good, but will they harm my yields?