graeme.blog

Category: music

  • Don’t want to be a rock superstar, live large

    Don’t want to be a rock superstar, live large

    Jani Lane talks about Cherry Pie. This is what happens when rock goes bad.

  • Flight of the Conchords – Ladies of the World

    Flight of the Conchords – Ladies of the World

    New video from the Flight of the Conchords. Enjoy!

  • Yelle – A Cause des Garcons

    Yelle – A cause des garcons

    Love this video, great track and crazy tecktonik dancers

  • Songkick – Track your favourite bands

    Songkick may be worth a look if you want to keep track of your favourite band’s gigs, or see what’s on in your area. They’ve even got a downloadable client which will scan your music collection, and see if any of the bands you have listed are on tour. Nice (except the client doesn’t work in Linux. Makes grumpy geek face).

  • The Fall live at the Oxford Academy

    Technically speaking, I think that counts as assault. I’ve just been shouted at, beaten with bass, drop-kicked with drums, kerb-stomped with keyboards. It hurt a lot. And sounded great. Beautiful messy enormous noise. Tiring, not tiresome. Mark E Smith wandering about a lot, turning knobs on things in a manner that suggests he knows what he’s doing, but not necessarily convincing. Singing/shouting into two microphones at once, alternate ones, other peoples. Having a go on the keyboard himself if he fancied it, hitting the odd cymbal. No respite. For an hour or so. No muses on the wonders of Oxford, no telling us we were a great crowd, just a second or two to allow them to let any feedback out for a moment, then right on with the next track. No encore. Seemingly. Let people leave, put the lights up, put music on, do everything to convince people they are doing, then come back on for one last ten minute workout of noise Ah. The ringing and static has mainly subsided now, drained, but sated, for now.

  • Upcoming Gigs in Oxford

    Soon we shall be speaking no more of The Zodiac on the Cowley Road, it shall now be the Carling Academy Oxford. It does look like the new owners are going to get it off to a good start. There are a lot of gigs due there over the next few months, but my personal recommendations are:

    • Ska Cubano – Carling Academy Oxford – 27th September 2007
    • Happy Mondays – Carling Academy Oxford – 5th October 2007
    • Super Furry Animals – Carling Academy Oxford – 26th October 2007

  • No Truck Festival, just lots of flooding

    I was expecting that round about now I would have sorted through a mass of photos from Truck Festival, and would be writing a lengthy piece about my experiences there. However it was not to be. About 4pm on Friday, I received a text from a friend to warn me it had been cancelled. A quick check on the site revealed what was going on; Steveton, and in particular the Truck site, was now under several feet of water due to Ginge Brook bursting its banks. As it now turns out, parts Oxfordshire had two months of rain in the course of an hour on Friday, and this quickly started to take its toll.

    I was disappointed, but over the next couple of days it became quickly apparent that this wasn’t just a local problem, the Thames (Isis as we call it round here) and several other rivers throughout Oxfordshire and several other countries has started to overflow. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been flooded, whole towns are without water or electricity, basically it is carnage. It seems we’ve been “lucky” in Oxfordshire compared to Gloucestershire, but we still have many people in Oxford and the surrounding towns and villages who have been flooded and evacuated.

    The warnings for Oxford itself starting coming on Sunday, when it became apparent that the Thames was rising rapidly, and that in particular the Botley Road and Abingdon Road were flooded. What annoyed me was that a warning went out for all of Oxford, but it was really hard to figure out using the local information where it was going to affect. The council sites made it clear that residents most at risk were being notified, and sandbags were being issued, but there were no maps, and relatively vague information. Now I know we’re just off the floodplain here (by a few hundred yards), but we’re not obviously uphill, and given how widespread the flooding had been elsewhere, what if the flood maps were wrong by a few hundred yards? I decided to trust them, but I’m sure the emergency and council services must have been inundated with calls from people less trusting than myself, whose minds could have been laid at rest by more information. Something that needs sorting out, I reckon.

  • Oxjam, Oxford, October 2007

    This October sees 31 days of gigs and activities in Oxford to raise money and awareness for Oxfam. Oxjam is a nationwide event, and Oxford seems to being really going for it with Oxjam Oxford. It opens here slightly early on September 29th 2007 when Cyberscribes  play a gig atop the Carfax Tower. Looking at the programme so far, it does appear that there are going to be a lot of gigs, so I’ll keep an eye on it to see if anything particularly takes my fancy.

  • Upload and convert videos to any format with Hey!Watch

    May be worth a go, an online app that converts youtube videos and the like to any format you like. You can only do 10 a month before you have to subscribe, but for the odd must have video it could be worth it.

  • The Ramones – I wanna be sedated

    One of the things I regret about my teenage years was missing out on liking The Ramones. I should have done.