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Blog: Dynamic Weekend of ACTION
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Things began delightfully on Friday night with a trip to the Buffalo Bar, ostensibly to see Lardpony and The Retro Spankees, but in the end ot see MORE. The evening commenced with Life With Bears who, during their first song, i thought were rotten. HOWEVER! They were doing that WEIRD thing that (as far as i have ever seen ONLY) Bands In London seem to do of doing the Long Monotonous Song FIRST - WHY do people do this? Is it because they think this is what The Cool Scene likes? Personally i didn't like it much and was considering popping upstairs for a Refreshing Beer when the next song they did came around and was GRATE. And so was the next one! Also, THE NEXT! They were a duo who were sort of a cross between Krautrock and DOLLAR, and when they veered to the DOLLAR end of their personal spectrum it was ACE, with dancing around, TOONS and general GOODNESS. Some of the KRAUT also was good, but when it got too far that way it went a bit "Look At Our MOOG!" for me (MOOGs may not have be present but you know what i mean). Hmm, if this sounds Overly Critical i apologise, as what i mean to say is just that they were REALLY GOOD and EXTREMELY enjoyable, also GRATE!
Next were Lardpony who ALSO were GRATE. It felt like i KNEW most of the songs already, as i have listened to their first album A LOT and also a CD of new tracks I got last year. Tom from Them gave me an ADVANCE COPY of their second album (yes, look at me, GLAMOUR!) which I spent a large part of Sunday listening to - it is ACE. It's THICK with words NEARLY all of which are a) funny b) touching c) clever IN A GOOD WAY (there IS no BAD way, but some twits seem to think there is so i thought I'd best get THAT out of the way) and d) FRESH AND NEW. I say "Nearly" however because there is one bit in the song about MATHS in LOVE with says "because I'm really 'integer'" as in "into her" which is, frankly, A PUN TOO FAR, but other than that it was ACE. This one seems to have yet MORE tunes and some particularly BRILLO Guitar Soloes, of the OLD SKOOL, which I am always in favour of.
After THAT was meant to be The Retro Spankees but was instead Das Wanderlust who I'd never heard of before but ALSO rather enjoyed - they were of the A Bit Like Bearsuit GENRE, which THE KIDS seem to be DIGGING quite a lot these days, and i like them. They'd meant to be on last but had lost a drummer so swapped round with the Spankees, which was a shame really as it meant i had to MISS them in order to get my train home. BOO!
SATURDAY saw The Slogan On My Placard and i head out into central London to go on a MARCH against Trident and also to say Please Get The Troops Out Of Iraq - i'd thought people would be holding placards saying "Thanks for getting the troops out, but also Trident!", what with Mr T Blair saying he was going to MEET that particular demand, but nobody seemed to have them. Maybe they'd not read the papers?
It was a nice day out in the fresh air, and we stood behind a group of Longstanding Campaigners from WALES, who were GRATE as they were all in a good mood and SANG the whole time. First it was Popular Songs With New Lyrics in the WELSH CHOIR stylee, followed by Protest Songs From Around the World, ALSO as sung by a Welsh Choir. They kept it up for HOURS (as we had to stand in Hyde Park for about two hours waiting to get moving - turns out we were ALL going through a tiny gate so it took AGES) and it was LOVELY - SO much better than standing near the usual Arsey Sods With Megaphones.
And there were a LOT of them - later on we walked alongside The Hari Krishna, who were ALSO GRATE, especially as they had an ELECTRICAL UKELELE. I have a LOT of time for the Hari Krishna, as, like for instance THE SALVATION ARMY, they find something they believe in and then ACTIVELY DO STUFF ABOUT IT (e.g. doling out GRUB), rather than, say, just bang on in the pub about how GRATE they are. However they were DROWNED OUT for much of the time by some gits behind us bellowing "Tony Tony Tony Out Out Out". What Gordon Brown was doing on the march I don't know.
POLITICAL HUMOUR! What it ACTUALLY was was a branch of one of the MANY MANY MANY far-left splinter groups, each with their own newspaper, who seemed to spend the entire time we were there a) trying to shout more loudly than anyone else b) advertise themselves and say how BRILLIANT they were and c) try and SELL as much merchandise and newspapers as they could. It's the sort of thing that turned me off Active Involvement In Protest Movements when I lived in Leicester and the sort of thing that tends to wind me up NO END nowadays too, but as I say we managed to position ourselves for most of the time between Nice, Also CONCERNED, Older People and The Hari Krishna, so it was pretty much fine.
Anyway, we got to Trafalgar Square after 3.5 hours of standing then walking to find it RAMMED - ODDLY The Met said there were only 2-3,000 people on the march, which is somewhat AT ODDS with my memory of spending 15 minutes at the start of the day walking alongside the END of the march (which was DOUBLED OVER) to get to the back where we could join in. The police walking along WITH us seemed perfectly nice (I jabbed one in the foot with my placard by accident and he DIDN'T brutally DO ME OVER - ooh, it's not like the eighties) so why they wanted to say daft things like that i do not know.
World: SAVED, so we went to the PUB for a VERY MUCH DESERVED pint then did a bit of shopping - it was strange how quickly things returned to normal once you got more then ten feet away from the marchers, but i guess London, she is BIG, and can contain such things. We got home just in time for me to watch Harry Hill, have a BATH, watch The Dinosaur Programme (it's Quite Good isn't it?) then eat CURRY. HOORAH!
And then on SUNDAY there was even MORE to do, as I had some FREELANCE DATABASE work to do (if you have a relational database problem, and you can find me, maybe one day you can hire ... ME. All proceeds go towards feeding the EVER HUNGRY MONSTER OF ROCK), as well as recording demoes of new stuff (all sounding good), rejigging artwork for the single, and also arranging PRACTICES. I am WELL chuffed that we've finally got this latter sorted out, as the latest batch of new songs are sounding GRATE, and I'm eager to get GOING again. It's funny, EVERY time we gather to start learning new stuff i ALWAYS have a big batch of songs which i like AT THE TIME but turn out to be at least 50% Unsuitable For Validators. This was certainly the case this time, though AS EVER it prompted the FLOOD OF TUNE which regular visitors will have noticed lately, pretty much ALL of which is sounding VALIDATOR COMPLIANT. We're now talking about starting doing some recording in MAY - WHOOO!!
In the meantime though I've got re-jigged art to send to manufacturers, a Licence For MORRISSEY to pay off, and then some press releases to start writing. As I say, it's nice to be back at work to get some time to do it!
posted 26/2/2007 by MJ Hibbett
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