Watching Laura Veirs at the Faversham in Leeds. She was excellent as usual - it’s the third time I have seen her - but I didn’t like the venue too much. It was too big and I couldn’t get a good view. I prefer my venues small and intimate but hadn’t been to the Faversham before and do like to try out new places now and again. Laura Veirs was excellent as usual with her unique blend of old and new American folk music. Some beautiful picking on the acoustic guitar and a couple of foot stomping banjo numbers thrown in. Top stuff - nerd girls rock! Listen here
Unintentionally recovering my kitchen worktops. Having taken the trouble to make pancake batter on Tuesday, the air turned blue as I picked up the bowl to pour the first one into the pan and it slipped from my grasp. Batter everywhere, language abominable and cats scarce in the blink of an eye and the clatter of the cat flap door. Still, I managed to save enough for a couple of pancakes and delicious they were too with freshly squeezed lime juice and a dusting of sugar and if I hadn’t lost half of the mix I’d have been laid out on the sofa, top button undone, with a bellyful.
Roasting a slightly skinny but nonetheless tasty free range chicken (without mishap). Lipsmackingly tasty and satisfying it was too, accompanied by a Yorkshire pudding (courtesy of Aunt Bessie), crispy roast potatoes (courtesy of my culinary skill) and some veg. Chicken butties for lunch tomorrow!
Last night I went to see No Country for Old Men, the new Coen Brothers movie. It was back to something like their best too. The film opens with glorious shots of the stark yet beautiful Texan desert. This sets the tone wonderfully for the whole film. The wide open country of the setting is as much a star as any of the actors.
The story centres around three main characters. Local lawman Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) who is about to retire, violent assassin Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) and Vietnam vet turned welder Llewelyn Moss and $2million of drug money. It was kind of strange as the story seemed to be about these characters and the way they deal with life’s path rather than the chase - Moss finds the money, Chigurh is hired to track him down and Bell the Sheriff chasing them both. I think the Coens are more interested in the characters and their philosophy and outlook than who gets the money. There was no background or incidental music throughout the entire film either. I noticed this fairly early on but others didn’t notice at all until I mentioned it. It is packed with nasty deaths, mostly at the hands of the ridiculously coiffured Chigurh and his captive bolt gun, dark and witty dialogue and an almost abrupt ending.
Thoroughly enthralling, beautiful, black and witty. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it’s taught me that a new shirt is the answer to most of life’s problems.
On Wednesday night the excellent Stewboss came to Fibbers to treat us all to some good ol’ fashioned Californian rock. It was a little surprising to see the bill on arrival though. Dead Rock West were headlining? It turns out however that Dead Rock West is the band of Stewboss lead axeman Frank Lee Drennan. Stewboss lead man Greg Sarfaty making a guest appearance on guitar.
The two Stewboss boys opened up with an acoustic set. Understated and accompanied by the mandolin it was nice but, not what we came for. After half a dozen, or so, numbers and a short break the rest of the ensemble entered the stage, the acoustic guitars were put away and we went electric. Rock music was the order of the remainder of the evening and it was great. Dead Rock West are in a similar vein to Stewboss and the set was interspersed with Stewboss numbers - which is really why I was there at least.
It was a good night. I liked the new band and with a girl vocalist along with the usual Stewboss boys there was a nice little difference to their sound. They like to give those guitars some stick too which surely can’t be a bad thing. Frank Lee played a mean mouth organ too!
King Creosote tomorrow night followed by the excellent Laura Veirs next weekend and Richard Hawley in the not too distant future makes for veritable feasting over the coming weeks. The famine will inevitably follow though as it always does!
Over the past few weeks the increasingly depressing results Boro have been getting have made me think it’s about time I switched allegiances. Looking at the premiership the obvious candidate for me was the Gooners. They are flying high and are playing extremely attractive football and there’s no way it’s going to be vermin.
Anyway after today I’m doing an immediate about turn. The mighty Boro finally came good and gave ‘the Arse’ a mammoth 2-1 stuffing this afternoon. The scoreline well and truly flattered a very lacklustre Arsenal. However, I don’t care how well they played. I don’t want to take anything away from Gareth’s red and white army. They were first to every ball, harried and chased their opponents down all afternoon and scored two good goals. Tuncay and Alliadiere ran and ran and ran, constantly giving headaches to, what is supposed to be, a solid Arsenal defence. There isn’t an inch of the pitch that George Boateng didn’t cover at least thrice and O’Neil and Downing provided good width.
We always seem to give one of the big boys a shock when they visit The Riverside and this time it was Arsenal’s turn. It’s quite sweet really as we have an appalling record against the Gunners. They regularly put 4 past us (7 times so far in the Premiership) adn have beaten us more times than they heave beaten any team in the Premier League.
Last night I went to the Band Room in Low Mill, West Farndale to see the excellent Sam Baker. It was an nteresting drive up there via the fish and chip shop in Kirkbymoorside. The weather was crappy, it was foggy and there was snow on the road. It made those long country miles even longer!
He played a long set, kind of, supporting himself. That is he came on stage and played for about an hour and then after a 10 minute break came back on stage for another hour and a half or so. His gritty tales of middle America were sad and dark but all the better for it. He looked kak-handed playing the guitar with his left hand but needs must. He was on a train in Peru that was bombed and lost the top of his left hand as a result. This means fingering the frets of a guitar is impossible with his left hand and he had to switch and relearn the instrument.
He played many numbers old and new taking requests most of the night and interspersing the songs with talk of what they are about and the trials and tribulations of the British newspapers. This mainly amounted to the story of Mr & Mrs Canoeman. Someone from the audience then told him the tale of the monkey hanging folk of Hartlepool (where the Canoe man hails from) in Napoleonic times and he was fascinated by this too.
Excellent banter and top drawer music in an interesting little venue albeit with bloody uncomfortable chairs to numb your arse!
York’s latest festival is called Illuminating York. As part of it the west entrance of the Minster has had a diplay on it each night. It is basically lit up with fluorescent lights that react to sound. I took a little video and a few photos on my way to the pub yesterday. It looked good though not as good as the installation a couple of years ago.
Tonight was the York Civil Service CC dinner and awards and I only gone and picked up the duck award for the second time in three years. I knew that shocking late run would came back and bite me!
