I wish I had the energy to write about last night’s DMZ, but I really don’t (mostly because I was there). It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
Instead I’ll just briefly mention an album that I’ve been listening to on repeat pretty much all this week: Rise and Doug‘s Tanzwa Nekutambura (We’ve Suffered Enough). I heard Rise and Doug completely by chance at this year’s Big Chill Festival (something else I need to write up before it’s a too-distant memory), and their gorgeously chiming guitars have been stuck in my head ever since. Rise Kagona was a member of the Bhundu Boys, the Zimbabwean band that brought ‘world’ music to the UK’s attention back in the eighties – there’s a pretty tragic interview with him here. It’s such a beautifully summery sound; I can’t listen to it without being transported to a sunny field in Herefordshire, dancing barefoot on the grass… Back to urban grittiness, and a full report of DMZ, tomorrow.
Wow, I’m really quite amazingly rubbish at this blogging thing. I have about eight drafts for things I’ve been meaning to write about but have somehow failed to actually get on and do it. I think I never quite recovered from going to Glastonbury/moving.
Anyway I can’t not write, even just briefly, about the Beastie Boys last night. I’ve been a fan since I was about fifteen I reckon, and this was the first time I saw them live, unbelievably enough. They were absolutely awesome – so much energy, so much fun. I was really pleased by how much of their old stuff they played – I was expecting it to be the new stuff (although I wasn’t even aware, before yesterday, of their new album The Mix Up, which is apparently ‘post-punk instrumentals’ – what kind of a fan am I?) and the big hitters from Ill Communication and Hello Nasty, but they played lots of old favourites. Just brilliant. Of course they ended their encore with ‘Sabotage‘, which almost killed me… we were a bit too close to the front to avoid some quite ridiculous pogoing.
The sound wasn’t particularly brilliant, but it was great to see them at the Brixton Academy – I’ve not been all that many times, but it’s a pretty cool place. Just the right size for that kind of a concert. I think that’s what’s put me off going to see the Beasties before – not wanting to contend with massive venues. Of course if I’d have got tickets I’d be off to the Roundhouse tonight for one of their ‘gala’ gigs, which would be less of a party but perhaps a bit more special…
Updated (in red) setlist: Super Disco Breakin’/Sure Shot/No Sleep Till Brooklyn/Posse in Effect/Time for Livin’/Live at PJ’s/Remote Control/B For My Name/Body Movin’/Ch-Check it Out/Paul Revere/Pass the Mic/Egg Man (I was so pleased they played this one – awesome)/Egg Raid on Mojo/Off the Grid/Suco de Tangerina/Tough Guy/Root Down/Triple Trouble/Hello Brooklyn/So What’cha Want/Three MCs and One DJ/Gratitude/Shamabala/Sabrosa/Heart Attack Man. Encore: Intergalactic/Sabotage
I managed to track down the ones I wasn’t sure of (all new ones, apart from Posse in Effect) from this brilliant Beasties news blog, Mic to Mic, which is worth a click if you’re a fan/would like to see some videos from the night I was there. And here is my favourite Beastie Boys site, a samples and references list for the classic album Paul’s Boutique, and one of the first websites I remember looking at back when I didn’t really know what the Internet was. And here’s a picture I took last night, of everyone’s favourite Beastie Boy, Mike D. Well, he’s my favourite anyway.
Apologies for the month in between postings, after only two posts… Things have been rather hectic for me recently, with house moves, holiday and searching for gainful employment all in the mix. Lots to catch up on.
First off, dinner at the Bonnington Café, where my brother took me to cheer me up after a sadder day last month. It’s a community-run, vegetarian café in Vauxhall – local, non-professional types take it in turn to cook. It can be hit and miss foodwise, but it’s a lovely place, set in a really tranquil part of town, good and cheap… After a dinner of noodles Matt and I swung on the swings in Bonnington square, another community-looked-after spot, near the site of the old Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (‘a major feature of London for three centuries; a place of curiosity, promenade and play’). It’s just a small square (the physical space created by bombing in the Second World War), but it’s an unexpectedly beautiful, calm haven in an already surprisingly peaceful part of London. And it has a huge wheel at one end:
The wheel at the end of the garden is a classic piece of Industrial Revolution Art dating from the 1860s. It was rescued from a nearby marble factory (under demolition as we were constructing) where it was used to ‘wet cut’ marble. Legend has it that once a year the wheel turns, bringing forth beautiful, crystal clear champagne from the worlds below… a delightful fishing boat that floated above the pergola on a sea of wisteria set sail one midnight eve ne’er to be seen again – but only ever for believers.
Bonnington Square Garden
There’s something achingly beautiful about gardens at night in summertime, and especially trees. This is a beautiful poem by Elaine Feinstein from her most recent collection of poetry, Talking to the Dead(2007, published by Carcanet) – I heard her and Michael Schmidt read at the launch of their respective books back in March, and have been slowly reading both volumes since.
Moving House
We used to travel light. Grandparents knew
how to pack up and go in a single night,
with house spirits in a shoe.
Three generations on, we’ve lost
the knack.
Watching, from bed, a full moon caught
by nets of leaves in a familiar tree
I thought
while we live here, a planetary fruit
belongs to me.
How can I bear to leave that glow behind?
Walking today, I laugh at the conceit;
the niche we make on earth is all we share.
As for the moon, we’ll find
her everywhere.
If only I could learn to travel light; just tonight I finished bringing up the last of my boxes from the cellar, ready to be moved into my new room on Saturday.
I ain’t got no money, and I don’t care
I’ve been sitting down in this well I swear
And I ain’t getting nothing but the same old shit every day
I’ve been waiting from sunset to sunrise
Living in vain and why I cry
No one’s giving a damn thing
I close my eyes, I’m lost in place
I’m running fast to a quiet space
And I take my hands and cover my face from the sun I’m in a sadder day, oh it was my favourite day All my hope was gone, and I love sadder days
I’ve been down baby for you
Love was great when it was new
And I paid my dues, cos I was living for you
Ain’t nothing gonna change
I been sending you a final message
And I’m walking away from your sadder days
I’m feeling crowded in this small space
I’m walking round with a simple faith
And I got a plan to make my stand and move on I been fine in your sadder day Oh I was loving you cos my favourite place Was a sadder day, sadder day
Oh I’m working hard every day
I got this plan with my boss’s pay
And I keep all my plans for the fire high I’m in your sadder day Oh it was my favourite place And now my hope is gone And I love sadder days
This is the tune that I’ve been listening to on repeat for most of the past week. I find it simultaneously an utterly heartbreaking evocation of the way I’ve been feeling recently (I’m in a sadder day) and an uplifting, inspiring track (I got a plan to make my stand and move on). I suppose sometimes it’s good to wallow – although maybe wallow’s not quite the right word. Good to really fully experience your feelings, no matter how painful they might be? Anyway there’s something very powerful about this song, and it’s encapsulated a few rather emotionally fraught days for me, so that’s worth celebrating in some kind of a way isn’t it. It’s by Stephanie McKay, from her 2003 album McKay. I got it just last week on the strength of one track, Take Me Over, that I’d heard out a few times and on a compilation that a friend made me (Skylarkin’ and Beck vs Bach respectively: thank you Aidan and Ade). Take Me Over is a beautiful bit of summery soul sung over a classic reggae track, Double Barrel; the rest of the album is very, very different: think a slightly less RnB Jill Scott, as produced by Geoff Barrow, and you’re getting there. Not at all what I was expecting but very good – a real grower. In a weird way you can hear Barrow’s production, but it’s subtle – dense, textured, cinematic. Beautiful.
So this song is going to be the key track in a mix I’m working on – my ‘mystery mix’ (although it’s going to be more of a misery mix it seems). The Big Chill Forum, where I’ve posted for the last few years, has a Thursday night mystery mix slot, where posters upload a track and as it streams, others try to identify the tracks. It’s a chance for the DJs of the community to dig a little deeper, and everyone else to have a little fun. For various complicated reasons I missed my slot this week, so I have a little more time to select my favourite miserabilist tracks, but as soon as it’s all done I’ll post a link here. Or of course if you ask me nicely I’ll burn you a copy. Happy days!
Next episode: the remedy for my sadder days. To whet your appetite, it involves food, gardens and brotherly love. Aww.
Since this blog is meant to be a record of all the things that I enjoy from day to day, to start off with here are three things that I’m currently loving:
vignotte. The cheese that brie aspires to be. It’s a triple-cream farmhouse cheese (45% fat content!) with a really beautiful sticky, melting texture. If there were any interesting articles on vignotte on the web anywhere I’d link to them, but all I can find is this rather lovely looking recipe for tartiflette, which I may just have to make. In the meantime, go to your nearest cheesemonger and get some: it’s a truly gorgeous cheese.
The Fermata, by Nicholson Baker. It’s a sexy, funny and very beautifully written novel, which I first read when I was eighteen and am just re-reading (and having read to me) now. I think in fact it’s even better than I remember it. Here are the first lines:
I am going to call my autobiography The Fermata, even though ‘fermata’ is only one of the many names I have for the Fold. ‘Fold’ is, obviously, another. Every so often, usually in the fall (perhaps mundanely because my hormone-flows are at their highest then), I discover that I have the power to drop into the fold. A Fold-drop is a period of time of variable length during which I am alive and ambulatory and thinking and looking, while the rest of the world is stopped, or paused.
It’s about an office temp who uses his time-stopping powers to undress women, pretty much. But although it sparked some outrage when it was first published, I think it’s really rather tender. What I really like about it is the narrator’s absolute (almost obsessive) attention to and enjoyment of the minutiae of everyday life; I love that quality of wide-eyed appreciation in people.
Losing stones, collecting bones, by Norwegian piano jazz trio In The Country. They were the support for Hanne Hukkelberg at the gig I saw her play at the Luminaire* a couple of weeks ago, and they had me spellbound from their very first note. Recorded, for me it’s lost some of its magic, and sounds much more straight-up jazz; but it’s still a very beautiful, rather melancholy album. If you get the chance to see them live, do: they’re magical. If you don’t, get their album(s) instead, from the incredibly speedy Cargo Records.
That’s it: three things I’m loving, which I recommend wholeheartedly to you.
*The Luminaire’s a great live music venue: small and intimate, with plenty of signs around telling you that if you’re chatting, you should leave. Take your own felt-tip pen and decorate the toilets while you’re there. It’s just a shame it’s on The Wrong Side Of Town.
To make is such. Let us make. And set the weather fair. 