Blog Gigs Facts Music Shop Links
home >  blog :  current /  archive /  RSS Feed

Blog: Collective Curry Shins

< previous next >
As you might have guessed from yesterday's post, i wasn't QUITE sure how good the album was. Actually i went to bed convinced it was 50% RUBBISH and would need completely re-doing, and i woke up NERVOUS, even tho i DID remind myself that I've thought like this before, and been proved wrong.

We spent most of the morning watching the CRICKET (for the first time in my life i am officially Following The Cricket - i've never cared a HOOT for it before, but having watched it all week i woke up this morning EAGER to get watching today's play. "We forced the Australians to follow on for the first time in 191 test matches!" i confidently explained to the, doubtless, AWESTRUCK kitchen) whilst Mr Machine checked that the DVDs we'd burnt actually WORKED. Scarily, most of them DIDN'T, but after several hours work we got 9 of the songs safely onto disks, and Mark promised he's burn us another of the remaining 5 songs, so all should be well. I'll worry until we get them though!

We all said our goodbyes, and myself and Mr Machine were soon FLYING off to BRISTOL. He plugged in his MP3 player, and we listened to the album. A few songs in he turned to me and said "Actually, this isn't too fast at ALL, is it?" and i had to agree. Actually, it was GRATE! It appears I wasn't the only person to have worried - whilst he and i sat and listened with mounting JOY to what was, actually, REALLY RATHER AN ACE collection of songs, The Pattisons were doing the same - later I recieved a TEXT from them saying "It isn't fast - it's fantastic!" and, again, i AGREED. Tim suggested we were suffering from collective CURRY SHINS (Information overload: when he eats a lot of curry his SHINS go STRANGE and sweaty), and I think he must have been RIGHT. Also the version we'd listened to had been RESEQUENCED, and I think we'd had all the VERY FAST ones at the start too, which can't have helped.

Anyway, RELIEF flooded the car, as indeed did the terrible odour of Francis Albert's BOWELS (we'd been EXTREMELY non-ROCK all week with our "Driving the session", not drinking until BEER O'CLOCK, collective excitement at being ON SCHEDULE, and all going to bed early, so I think some LADDISH WIND was allowable, if not inevitable), and we listened to what SHOULD have been the GRATEST ALBUM EVER: "Motown sings the Beatles". It was actually pretty awful, as it was mostly "sophisticated" Motown with really pernickety arrangements of everything and vocals that followed neither the melody or the rhythm, so instead we switched to "MELLOW DUBMARINE", the REGGAE Beatles collection. It was BLOODY BRILLIANT, and thus we reached again the central TRUTH of all music: Reggae Is Better Than Soul. YEAH!

With this truth established we reached Bristol, where he went off to see his young lady and his SON, and i got on the train. I was WHISKED to London where i was met by The Glass In My Greenhouse, who a) took some photoes of me "arriving" and b) made clear her opinion of my moustache. SIDEBAR: it never really occurred to me before, but this DOES explain the 1967 Image Change for The Beatles - "Sgt Pepper" took AGES to record, and it was the first time the band hadn't HAD to be presentable at all times, so obviously they didn't bother shaving as much. One day one of them must have come in with a COMEDY MOUSTACHE which went down SO WELL that everyone else decided to have a go, just for a laugh. As i found myself, when trapped in a confined space with a moustache you soon get a) USED and b) to LIKE it, and THUS i surmise that by the time final mixes were being heard they were ALL swanning about smoothing down their fine handlebars, and it appears Jane Asher LIKED the new look a lot more than The Blade In My Razor did, for LO! mine is now GONE!

It feels MUCH better... anyway, we then made our way home, only stopping when a HORRIBLE member of London Underground staff was RUDE in the extreme to us, and THEN challenged me to come outside and FIGHT him! It was all VERY STRANGE INDEED, but DID give me an ADRENELAINE jolt and wake me up a bit. Aaah! Back in the big city for half an hour and ALREADY back in the swing!

Soon though we were home, and it was LOVELY. The wide open spaces! The extreme cleanliness! The cats! The remote control in MY hand! I BATHED and SHAVED and felt GOOD, and we listened to the new album in full. I was RELEIVED to find that the household opinion was EXTREMELY FAVOURABLE, especially to "We Only Ever Meet In Church" (partly for my HOT SOLO, mostly for Tim's BOINGS!) and "The Fight For History" and it's MINERS' CHOIR. It sounded ACE!

This morning I awoke, as I say, with thoughts of CRICKET, but also MISSING the Vlads. We've had a FANTASTIC week together, they're SUCH lovely people, and I'm PROUD BEYOND MEASURE of the way we've all worked together, got stuck IN and got ON so well with each other, and the various FUN and ADVENTURES we've had. I know I'll always look back on this week as one of the BEST EVER - so many PHRASES and THORTS and Actual Human Relationship Advances have come out of it, I'd hoped it'd be GOOD, but it's actually been BLOODY FANTASTIC. The trip to the beach! Emma's homage to The Beatles! The Toad On My Toes (NB not a euphemism, a baby toad crawled over my foot in the back garden on Friday)! The Barbershop Quartet! A week of Edie and Lola Pattison! Tim's BOINGS! The MIXING Book (and Rob's "hilarious" illustration)! Tom driving down the ROUGH TRACK at 100 mph! Beer O'clock! The LOT!

I just hope it sounds as EVEN MORE GOOD when we do the proper mix as it does in MY HEAD, and that it sounds THAT good to people listening to it. I'm SO happy we did it - even now it's all fading into the realms of MYTH as i think "Did we REALLY go and do all that? Are we ALLOWED?" It was LOVELY - and watch out next week for the GALLERY UPDATE: FACIAL HAIR AHOY!

posted 28/8/2005 by MJ Hibbett

< previous next >


Comments:

Your Comment:
Your Name:
SPAMBOT FILTER: an animal that says 'to-whit to-whoo' (3)

(e.g. for an animal that says 'cluck' type 'hen')

Twitter /  Bandcamp /  Facebook /  YouTube
Click here to visit the Artists Against Success website An Artists Against Success Presentation