Saturday 12th January:
The Big Chill House, King's Cross, London
Thursday 17th January: The 333 Club, Shoreditch,
London
You know me, antenna forever twitching, fishing for
epiphany in all the unlikeliest places (and where could
be unlikelier than a big old pub on the Pentonville
Road or a grim stone cellar in Old Street, just yards
from a dentist's where I once had two wisdom-teeth pulled
and a mouthful of stitches?) but I couldn't claw much
more than a bad dose of frustration from these two shows.
For the Big Chill (another Arctic Circle do. Lenny's
DJ set was pretty splendid) we'd put together a set
relying mainly on stuff from the new record, just acoustic
guitar, mandolin and accordion, a set even more hushed
than we normally deliver, and, as it turned out, all
the more defenceless in the face of audience chatter:
we had us a great time but more in an alcoholic/social
way than an artistic one. At the 333 gig (the place
was packed, and cheers to all those who'd turned
out to see us, I only wish it could've been less of
a bumhole of a venue for you all) we: 1) hung around
for two hours waiting for other bands to soundcheck
(the time some of these guys take you'd swear they were
planning to launch a fucking space shuttle rather than
just play a show) 2) had to suffer someone from the
club's management instructing us to 'stand behind the
yellow line at all times during the performance' (like
hell we did!) due to some 'health & safety'
regulation! (Doesn't that lady know that 'health
& safety' is just for arseholes!!??) 3) had to contend
with a dodgy XLR lead (part of the house PA) that packed
in twice during the opening moments of our first song.
Again, we had a good time in the end, but that was due
entirely to the audience and nothing else (but mwah
mwah mwah to Jon & Cho for their efforts on the
technical front; holding back Attila's hordes with a
couple of peashooters would've been easier than the
task they faced)..... So, happy New Year, etc., but
to me 2008 already feels like I'm still marching in
lockstep with all the same old bugaboos.
Songdog have a new record out on January 21st and if
enough of you buy it, maybe I'll stop grousing (maybe,
I said). The reviews have been generally good (still,
fuck you, FT and Alternative Ulster) and by
now you can read them right here on this website. We're
also Download of the Week on HMV's
website (if you'd all be so kind as to download it immediately
I'm told it would be good for Songdog. I was asked a
while back to submit a list of cool records I'd been
listening to and that should appear on HMV's site very
soon too).
I
recommend that Brad Pitt Jesse James film that came
out before Xmas, it's long and beautiful and elegaic,
and anyway, aren't Westerns what cinema was invented
for? For Xmas I treated myself to an old Western annual
I found in a Blaenavon second-hand bookshop, I'd been
given a copy as a present when it originally appeared,
a copy I'd long since lost, it had Robert Horton as
Flint McCullough on the cover. As a kid I was mad
on Westerns (Westerns and metaphysics --- metaphysics
in the sense of standing out on the front yard after
dark, gnawing on a hunk of dry bread and watching the
stars, wondering where they'd come from, wondering what
dying would be like; thus did God & Death squeeze
right in there in my imagination alongside Bonanza,
Wagon Train and Rawhide ..... Let's hear it for God
& Death --- the thinking man's Morecambe & Wise).
Sat 2nd/Thu 7th
February 2008
Saturday, February 2nd: The Chattery,
Swansea
Thursday, February 7th: St Bonaventure's,
Bristol
It says here that rock stars
are supposed to purr up to venues in sleek, black limousines,
but that's not remotely how it happened at our show
at the Chattery:
our car broke down on the M4 (just past the sign for
Porthcawl) and we made the last twenty miles to Swansea
roped to the back of a AA truck, but I felt good again
as soon as I walked into the Chattery, it's my kind
of place, and it stands in the same street my parents
stayed in on their honeymoon in the mid-1940s, so it's
kind of hallowed ground too --- Nigel and Alex, the
proprietors, really do know their musical onions (I'm
told you have to be able to name at least 10 Dylan albums
before you get a slot here, and that's the best goddamn
booking criterion I ever heard, so if you're a performer
of an acoustic/rootsy bent and you're good and can handle
the Dylan test and your music needs a discerning and
attentive audience, I strongly recommend you try for
a gig here). Keith S., a friend of mine from our first
year at grammar school (who also played Paperback Writer-style
bass in one of my bands long ago. I remember us trying
to recreate "Punky's Dilemma" on an old tape-recorder
I had. I also remember how struck we both were by Lennon's
first solo album, and I recollect too a night we spent
on the streets of Bristol after a Who show and I caught
pleurisy afterwards because of how cold we'd got ---
but hell, I should be saving this stuff for the biography
they'll write one day after I'm dead) was in attendance,
so the show HAD to go fucking right (he later professed
himself impressed, though he had drunk rather
a lot of Rioja by then....). Stephen
Light did a lovely set before us (he grew up in
Ebbw Vale and I was born there: they should put up a
couple of blue plaques or something) and then we played
15 tunes over two sets and the audience was fantastic
(and I don't praise audiences lightly, as you know:
I go as far as advocating the death penalty for the
noisiest ones). We got paid and fed and watered to a
ridiculously generous degree and then Dave towed us
back down the M4 to Blackwood at 29mph all the way and
Corrinne going hysterical in the back of the
crippled space wagon .... [The car turned out to be
a write-off: for those of you with an interest in these
things, something had 'spun off' a cog and sliced off
the top of the distributor (that's exactly
what I'd like to do to Universal, "Haiku"'s former distributor)
but I really don't pay such shit any heed, all that
matters to me is that we had a great gig, for
cars can be replaced while great gigs are priceless].
So we had to hire a Transit for
the Bristol trip. We did a pre-recorded interview for
BBC Bristol during the afternoon (Laura Veirs
was next door, recording a session), then explored the
city a bit and, pace Julie Burchill, we all
deemed it a groovy place (though Dave and Jon, lechers
par excellence, mostly loving it for the university
girls). St Bonaventure's is a nice venue, an old-style
social club, and the PA they hired in was particularly
good. Blind
River Scare sounded beautiful, and then we did a
set (16 songs this time) to another great audience
(two in a row just ain't natural. Twice
inside a week is just plain spooky
--- there must be some huge boulder of misfortune rolling
down the future towards us, Raiders-Of-The-Lost-Ark-style,
even as I type this .....). I'm told The Bristol Evening
Post was there to review it, so if you see the write-up
(and it's a good one!) send it via the website
or MySpace or something, could you? (If it's a bummer
let's all just move on ..... Incidentally, apologies
for my mangled take on "Owls", the lights were in my
eyes, I couldn't see the fretboard and the chord-shapes
are bastards, it's been bothering me ever since,
these things are so life-and-death to me ....).
We're playing the Roundhouse
Studio, Chalk Farm, London on Thursday March 27th, a
kind of belated album-launch gig, I think "Pilgrim Hill"'s
coming out as a single round about then too, so come
if you can.
Did you know Our Price stock
Dory Previn under Easy Listening!!??! Let's
abolish these meaningless categories, shall we? .....!
Don't you think Joe Brown was
good on "Later ....."? Think I'll buy a ukelele.
Stop Press: We've got a new car.
It's silvery-grey and the upholstery smells lovely.
Wed
27th February 2008
The Ruby
Lounge, Manchester
We've never played to --- is
rammed the word? --- houses in Manchester,
but still, tonight, dotted here and there in the dark
amid the rolling tumbleweed was assembled the elite
of the city's music-aficionados (ie those few hip to
Songdog's cosmic significance and all-round fabness),
for whom we played an all-too-brief set. We
certainly enjoyed ourselves and I think (hope) the audience
did too. In the course of the evening we met some very
nice people, did an interview in a bar near the gig,
were made to feel really welcome and the whole trip
turned out to be a real adventure (when we got home
Pod said "I really enjoyed that", so it must've
been a cool do. The Manchester Evening News was there
too, so maybe there'll be a review?). Back at the hotel
I couldn't sleep; at 4am, I was still at my sixth-floor
window, watching Manchester aslumber.
The Professor and Chair of the
Department of English at Central Connecticut State University
wants to print the lyric to
"Cold Coffee & Ava Gardner" as part of
a book he's publishing on the lady, consisting of writings
about/inspired by her
(he did one on Sinatra a few years back, so I assume
he's a devotee of all things Frankie).
Got name-called in Blackwood
the other day, just like old times. Lifted my spirits
no end! Two guys, lousy with that awful smugness you
manifest when you feel too at home in life. I'd have
yelled after them "Be in this world as if you were
a stranger or a wayfarer," (Muhammad), " you
cunts!" but they were already out of earshot.
Just finished a new song, "The
Dance Of The Cuckold", the first one in a while.
****************
Thu
27th March 2008
The Roundhouse
FreeDM Studio, London
Shed a tear for me, won't you?
Through most of March my health's been a shambles. I
spent a week in Wales laid low with 'flu, then, the
very evening I got back to London I was crawling round
the floor with renal colic (a blocked kidney), puking
and cursing God. I spent a week as a patient at Guy's
Hospital (the good news is I was kept as a 'nil by mouth'
a lot of the time, so I actually lost some weight!),
but they couldn't remove the kidney-stone because an
infection had set in, so as a temporary measure they've
fitted this polyurethane tube inside me until I go back
in a few weeks' time for more surgery (it runs between
the kidney and the bladder --- I'll be putting it up
for sale on eBay once it's removed, so if you'd like
to put in an early bid just contact us here --- and
it hurts, this foreign body in your guts, it
really hurts --- boy does it hurt!
--- Prometheus couldn't have felt less comfortable,
you know? I mean, you get given stuff for pain- relief,
but relief's only relative, right?). I won't offend
the squeamish by going into the details of my torment
but one thing's for sure, playing a gig's the last thing
you feel like doing; still, we had the Roundhouse coming
up, and a true trouper has no choice (I pushed the show
heavily to all my nurses at Guy's in the hope one of
them would show up and in the event of my collapse onstage
there'd be someone there who'd know where to put the
thermometer) ... So, come the night, there I am in the
dressing-room, listening to Joe Wilkes's brilliant set
being piped through from the stage, wondering if I'd
even be able to stay upright for the requisite eighty
minutes or so. It's a lovely venue, great PA and lighting-rig,
we had Nick joining us on bass for the first time in
over a year, and almost all of our set would comprise
songs from the new record, I really didn't want to bugger
all that up by collapsing publicly in a pool
of blood, piss and pus, so at 9:10pm as we trooped out
to the stage I was bricking it, but the audience was
so warm and generous towards us, not only did I make
it through, but the show ended up feeling like something
of a triumph (despite a problem with a guitar
that halted the music for a few minutes ---thanks for
lending me your guitar, Joe! Since the gig I've had
two different Denmark Street guitar-technicians look
over my Gibson and they both declare the instrument
to be fine, that it had to have been a lead or DI-box
problem .....?). The audience really were just brilliant,
and I'd have hugged them all individually except I've
had so many X-rays lately I'm probably radioactive.
We opened with "Owls" (I'd been wanting to
do the song justice ever since I fucked it up at the
Bristol gig), did "Pilgrim Hill" live for
the first time (it's out as a download single on April
14th with "She Said I Kind Of Looked Like Strindberg"
as the 'flipside'. Even if you don't buy downloads,
lobby a DJ you like to play it, huh?) and did "Jezebel"
as an encore (we tagged it directly onto the end of
the set, if I'd had to walk back to the dressing-room
first I'd never have made it back to the stage. I told
the audience as much and they thought I was joking!).
All the books we left for people to take were taken,
every last one (they were all thrift-edition versions
of titles I had rolled-up in my sleeping-bag when I
set out from Wales to London all those years ago, it's
a nostalgic nod to that time and to how big a deal books
like those were to me). Jon did a magnificent job at
the sound-desk and Cho was vital at the stage end (he
was admitted for his own surgical procedure just forty-eight
hours later, says he's OK now). We enjoyed the whole
event so much we think we'll repeat it later in the
year. Thank you to everyone who came.
In the meantime, I've still got
this fucking stent inside me ....................
Another reason why the month
has sucked so much (the Roundhouse gig excepted): Yang,
one of Karl's cats, had to be put to sleep on
March 19th, she was leukaemic and her bones so frail
she slipped and broke her leg; she'd been part of the
gang for 17 years. She was beautiful, and there's a
photograph of her hereabouts.
A couple of albums I must recommend:
"Keep Your Silver Shined" by Devon Sproule
and most especially Ry Cooder's "My Name
is Buddy" which is just as great as "Chavez
Ravine". We are not worthy, Ry, we really, really
are not worthy. I wish I'd thought of the animal parable
thing first (what the hell, I may well nick it anyway!).
Leonard Cohen's playing London
in the summer. Unfortunately, it's the O2 Arena, but
I can't not go, can I? Wouldn't it be just
great if he did the 12-Bar for a hundred nights or something?
I've just read all this stuff
back (I usually don't!) and realise I've been babbling
a bit. Best redo it, I thought, though as Terry Eagleton
wrote recently: "Poets are those who have never
relinquished the sensuous delight of babbling",
so let it stand!
Hot tip of the day: never
get kidney-stones.....
***********************
May 2008
Spent the Whitsun
weekend in Wales, it rained and rained, it was beautiful:
there was red wine, two very decent films ("In The Valley
of Elah" and "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead") and,
on one of those lightning-cock-cunt-and-thunder-type
nights you get in the Valleys every now and then, a
drive down that steep and hazardous track from Manmoel
to Cwm with Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" playing and sounding
like the best record in the world on that particular
evening. When I got back to London I pulled out my ukelele
and played Ted the cat some of the new stuff I've been
writing (he's often quite encouraging in his own impenetrably
mysterious way, even though I know at heart he's really
more of a "Be Bop A Lula" kind of guy. Tallulah
though, his sister, will never sit tight through a whole
tune, like she prefers Snoop Dogg to Songdog) and he
seemed half-impressed. I played one of these songs ("It's
Raining On The Old Cat's Grave". Ted wasn't
so keen on this one) in a little solo set I did at Oliver's
Jazz Bar in Greenwich (a lovely little venue, I think
Songdog should do something there) on May 11th., it
was a strong bill ---- Damien Renouf, Boo Scher, me
and Joe Wilkes --- we may not be trendy, but we have
the music.....
"Pilgrim
Hill" didn't exactly soar up the charts in
my little corner of the materialist dystopia
--- did it in yours? (It couldn't have, I'd have heard).
Anyway, there was an enquiry on our MySpace page regarding
the verse we ended up not using, so here it is (and
looking at it now, over a year later, I like most of
it and wish we'd left it in. In the unlikely event anyone
ever covers the tune I hope they'd use all three verses):
There's a man walking through the blizzard
with no shirt on,
Like he knows only the crazy stand any chance at all,
Like it just don't seem enough that life just happens
....
I dropped some change in the beggar's cup,
He said "The Devil's just a patsy that God fitted up,
OK?",
And flashed a peace sign, said "Have a nice day".
I took the lift up to the roof of the multi-storey carpark
To see if I threw a stone in the wind would it fly forever?
And the night came down like an empty glass on a bar-room
table.
Maybe a miracle will come and it'll be alright,
Maybe I'll rent me a lover to see me through the night,
Have us the time of our lives.....
We intend to start recording another album before the
year's out. (Hey, do you think "A Wretched Sinner's
Song" will get us nominated for the Mercury?
Why the hell not?!! I could really do with
the attention, we'd all maim and kill
for more profile, us arty-fucks, us rock-star wannabees,
we love it more than oil --- and there's no way
I'd let the fame go to my head, I swear).
There I was, zooming
through Soho this afternoon, seething as usual with
another acute dose of saeva indignatio, than
who should I spot but John Hurt. He looked great, very
Beckettian; in my book, he vies with Tom Waits
for the Globe's Coolest-Looking Dude rosette. I'd have
stopped him to pin it to his lapel, but his eyes read
"Fuck off, I'm on my way somewhere, I've got things
on my mind", so I didn't, I just stood and watched till
he disappeared among the hot human herd.
My neighbour's left
his empty cat-carrier out on the lawn in the rain, and
I don't know why, but it just looks so sad, so forlorn,
sat there on the grass, getting wet .... Talking of
leaving things out in the rain, I heard Richard Harris's
"MacArthur Park" again over the weekend, what a monstrously
great record that was/is, one of the most achingly lovely
things ever recorded, definitely in my Top 10 Best Singles
Of All Time. All together now: "Spring was never
waiting for us, girl, it ran one step ahead as we followed
in the dance......".
Fri 18th July 2008
THE ANALOG
FESTIVAL, DUBLIN
Almost a week later and Ollie
from Dollboy wonders if it was all just a dream ---
I know what he means. This was my first time in Dublin,
and I loved what I saw of the city, we had a fantastic
time and met some really cool people. We went over under
the Arctic
Circle aegis --- courtesy of the incomparable
Ben Eshmade, gentleman and man of taste --- along with
Dollboy and The
Sleeping Years (Dale has a track on the
current Word CD). The organisers bussed us
from the airport to the hotel and we had a couple of
hours to ourselves before it was time to head for the
gig; they sent a bus to transport us there too but it
turned out the venue was literally a two-minute walk
from the hotel on Custom House Quay. Things were running
ridiculously late on the stage we were due to play,
but not so late we could leg it over to the main stage
to see Lou Reed, Shane McGowan, Neil Hannon et al doing
their Hal Willner sea-shanties thing, so it was back
to the hotel bar for more Corona (they'd run out of
lime). By the time us Arctic Circle acts took the stage
it was pretty late and all three bands had to cut their
sets short to meet the curfew; I enjoyed the time we
spent up there but it felt like mere seconds --- if
music be the food of love tonight was really just
a few nibbles.
The following afternoon we did
a video shoot for Muzu at their premises in the heart
of the city, two songs perched on a sofa in a room that
looked wonderfully reminiscent of something out of The
Avengers. For me this was the real highlight of
the trip, Sinead and Marina made us feel so much at
home, I enjoyed every minute of the three or four hours
we were there (you'll see the results soon on this website
when 'Songdog TV' gets its launch).
Once the music was done they wickedly filmed us arguing
'Dylan vs Neil Young' (I spoke in Dylan's favour, Karl
for the other bloke) --- I felt outnumbered, Marina
was rooting for Karl, Shakey got her vote too. Anyway,
thanks to all at Muzu for their impeccable hospitality
--- I was so pleased at how it'd all gone, so downright
giggly (hard to imagine, right? -- so don't
try) that I bought a whole round of drinks
at Grogan's, a nearby bar they'd recommended. Later
that evening we wandered over to the main stage for
a while --- the word was the Liars hadn't been up to
much and we left again while they were still setting
up Tortoise's rig, I just wasn't in a 'post-rock' kind
of mood, the day had been too good. We flew out on the
following evening and I really didn't want to leave,
and as we headed back up the M4 into London again I
could've just dumped my heart out the fucking car-window.
Maybe Dublin really was just a dream? (Thanks
again, Ben).
The
night before the Dublin trip we made a pilgrimage to
the O2 for Leonard Cohen and boy was he majestic!
Ridiculous as the truth usually is (Delmore Schwarz)
I wouldn't lie to you over something/someone as important
as Leonard Cohen, he was just utterly amazing,
and his songbook is holier to me than any holy book.
He and his exquisite band performed for close to three
hours and it was all highlights. If I had to
pick just one transcendent moment it might've been "Tower
of Song", but I can imagine anyone else there (a
total sell-out, 17,000 people, among the most successful
shows they'd ever put on) saying as much for anything
else that got played that evening, I doff my trilby
to you, Leonard, I really do. (All that fuss over Jay-Z
and Amy Winehouse at Glastonbury this year seemed so
stupidly beside-the-point when all that really mattered
was that Leonard Cohen would be there). Who's
up for going again in November?
Dave showed me a nice article
published
in the Independent over the weekend, a
hatchet-job on all those awful identikit indie bands
NME and its like champion, such over-hyped, micro-marketed
toss as the Hoosiers, the Fratellis, the Pigeon Detectives,
etc. "Mortgage indie", the author dubbed it,
"indie land-fill". Well said, that man. (Think
of any one of those bands; and then think of Leonard
Cohen ...!).
Another Mercury Prize
shortlist Songdog aren't on: a pattern's forming, wouldn't
you say? (I'm told some people find my lyrics off-putting
--- critics can be so biddyish, so old-maid
like, don't you find?). I think I've asked you
this before, but do you think I'll ever be
trendy? ....
Since
I can't return to Dublin just yet I'm off to Wales for
a few weeks, and while I'm there we'll shoot some stuff
for the 'Songdog TV' thing that's coming, I could strum
"A Prayer to Old Idols" at Keeper's Pond,
"Blind Picasso" at Hayes Island or St Mary's
Street, take you into Remo's where I was sat at a window-seat
drinking espresso when I saw those angels, maybe? (Except
Remo's is an estate-agent's now -- says just about everything,
doesn't it, about these times we live in?). While I'm
away, why not buy Ry Cooder's new LP "I, Flathead"?---
it's the final part of his outstanding trilogy about
old California--- "Chavez Ravine" and "My
Name is Buddy" are the other two records and all
three are brilliant. Us, Leonard Cohen and Ry Cooder
really are all anyone could ever need to see them through
the summer: old geezers are where it's at, pop-pickers).
and
it hurts, this foreign body in your guts, it
really hurts --- boy does it hurt!
--- Prometheus couldn't have felt less comfortable,
you know? I mean, you get given stuff for pain- relief,
but relief's only relative, right?). I won't offend
the squeamish by going into the details of my torment
but one thing's for sure, playing a gig's the last thing
you feel like doing; still, we had the Roundhouse coming
up, and a true trouper has no choice (I pushed the show
heavily to all my nurses at Guy's in the hope one of
them would show up and in the event of my collapse onstage
there'd be someone there who'd know where to put the
thermometer) ... So, come the night, there I am in the
dressing-room, listening to Joe Wilkes's brilliant set
being piped through from the stage, wondering if I'd
even be able to stay upright for the requisite eighty
minutes or so. It's a lovely venue, great PA and lighting-rig,
we had Nick joining us on bass for the first time in
over a year, and almost all of our set would comprise
songs from the new record, I really didn't want to bugger
all that up by collapsing publicly in a pool
of blood, piss and pus, so at 9:10pm as we trooped out
to the stage I was bricking it, but the audience was
so warm and generous towards us, not only did I make
it through, but the show ended up feeling like something
of a triumph (despite a problem with a guitar
that halted the music for a few minutes ---thanks for
lending me your guitar, Joe! Since the gig I've had
two different Denmark Street guitar-technicians look
over my Gibson and they both declare the instrument
to be fine, that it had to have been a lead or DI-box
problem .....?). The audience really were just brilliant,
and I'd have hugged them all individually except I've
had so many X-rays lately I'm probably radioactive.
We opened with "Owls" (I'd been wanting to
do the song justice ever since I fucked it up at the
Bristol gig), did "Pilgrim Hill" live for
the first time (it's out as a download single on April
14th with "She Said I Kind Of Looked Like Strindberg"
as the 'flipside'. Even if you don't buy downloads,
lobby a DJ you like to play it, huh?) and did "Jezebel"
as an encore (we tagged it directly onto the end of
the set, if I'd had to walk back to the dressing-room
first I'd never have made it back to the stage. I told
the audience as much and they thought I was joking!).
All the books we left for people to take were taken,
every last one (they were all thrift-edition versions
of titles I had rolled-up in my sleeping-bag when I
set out from Wales to London all those years ago, it's
a nostalgic nod to that time and to how big a deal books
like those were to me). Jon did a magnificent job at
the sound-desk and Cho was vital at the stage end (he
was admitted for his own surgical procedure just forty-eight
hours later, says he's OK now). We enjoyed the whole
event so much we think we'll repeat it later in the
year. Thank you to everyone who came.
on
March 19th, she was leukaemic and her bones so frail
she slipped and broke her leg; she'd been part of the
gang for 17 years. She was beautiful, and there's a
photograph of her hereabouts.
Tallulah
though, his sister, will never sit tight through a whole
tune, like she prefers Snoop Dogg to Songdog) and he
seemed half-impressed. I played one of these songs ("It's
Raining On The Old Cat's Grave". Ted wasn't
so keen on this one) in a little solo set I did at Oliver's
Jazz Bar in Greenwich (a lovely little venue, I think
Songdog should do something there) on May 11th., it
was a strong bill ---- Damien Renouf, Boo Scher, me
and Joe Wilkes --- we may not be trendy, but we have
the music.....
just
a few nibbles.
The
night before the Dublin trip we made a pilgrimage to
the O2 for Leonard Cohen and boy was he majestic!
Ridiculous as the truth usually is (Delmore Schwarz)
I wouldn't lie to you over something/someone as important
as Leonard Cohen, he was just utterly amazing,
and his songbook is holier to me than any holy book.
He and his exquisite band performed for close to three
hours and it was all highlights. If I had to
pick just one transcendent moment it might've been "Tower
of Song", but I can imagine anyone else there (a
total sell-out, 17,000 people, among the most successful
shows they'd ever put on) saying as much for anything
else that got played that evening, I doff my trilby
to you, Leonard, I really do. (All that fuss over Jay-Z
and Amy Winehouse at Glastonbury this year seemed so
stupidly beside-the-point when all that really mattered
was that Leonard Cohen would be there). Who's
up for going again in November?
micro-marketed
toss as the Hoosiers, the Fratellis, the Pigeon Detectives,
etc. "Mortgage indie", the author dubbed it,
"indie land-fill". Well said, that man. (Think
of any one of those bands; and then think of Leonard
Cohen ...!).
Since
I can't return to Dublin just yet I'm off to Wales for
a few weeks, and while I'm there we'll shoot some stuff
for the 'Songdog TV' thing that's coming, I could strum
"A Prayer to Old Idols" at Keeper's Pond,
"Blind Picasso" at Hayes Island or St Mary's
Street, take you into Remo's where I was sat at a window-seat
drinking espresso when I saw those angels, maybe? (Except
Remo's is an estate-agent's now -- says just about everything,
doesn't it, about these times we live in?). While I'm
away, why not buy Ry Cooder's new LP "I, Flathead"?---
it's the final part of his outstanding trilogy about
old California--- "Chavez Ravine" and "My
Name is Buddy" are the other two records and all
three are brilliant. Us, Leonard Cohen and Ry Cooder
really are all anyone could ever need to see them through
the summer: old geezers are where it's at, pop-pickers).