Lambchop with a side order of curate’s egg

.... Oh and Hold the Noodles

4th Nov Union Chapel Islington.

To the Union chapel with BLBW (who's got a new book you can order to have delivered next year).

Can I say from the start that I’m not a Lambchop aficionado but I enjoy going to gigs that are unknown territory every now again.

The support were “Paper Cups” who area young lad (the son of the piano player from Lambchop) who treated us to half an hour of vocalless “bedroom guitar”. Lots of intricate picking and effects which although technical accomplished was strangely uninvolving, it didn’t help that the last tune was called “Crystal Palace” which probably sounds ethereal to an American freed from it’s associations with Penge and the Eagles.

In short order Lambchop ambled on almost unnoticed and we had to be encouraged to give them a cheer!

This is where the curate’s egg comes in as the first 50 minutes or so were new songs (all their songs are mostly new to me) which unfortunately seemed to all played on a laid back noodley jazz country vibe. The first part of the set lacked any dynamic and sort of blended into a mass.
Kurt Wagner more so than on record has a vocal style that’s going towards affectation where he swallows the last word of every line, which to my ears grated. It was all slightly passionless which was strange as between songs Wagner would whoop and cheer as if he’d just finished singing “Born to run”.
Between every other song we also got the sort of intra band wackiness that American bands seem to do which is endearing if you are enjoying the band but annoys if you are not. You know the sort of jokes that would get you bottled off at comedy gig but get roars of laughter at music venues. It was all good natured and the crowd enjoyed so it may have been just me.

Luckily the music picked up in the last 5-6 songs which were older material and covers. This is not just because they were recognisable but because the band realised there were 7 people on the stage and put some oomph some energy into their playing. I’m not saying we need 10 minutes guitar works out all the time but as PB said if you’ve got 30 plus strings on stage why not use them? You do have to wonder about a gig where the drummer doesn’t even break sweat.

So in the end a patchy evening and one maybe for more ardent fans I doubt Lambchop will change having been a round for ages but maybe they can save the noodling and joshing for the rehearsal room and bring more groove to their live performances.

What, sorry Who comes after W....

Hopefully the last George Bush cartoon Steve Bell will ever have to draw? SB seems almost sad to see the warmongering man-chimp going.

New Music:
The Social Services:
"It’s not personal. It's National Security "
Stereo Test Kit Records

I mainly post old music, largely culled from stuff I find on the market, mainly this is to free the tunes from their crackly charcoal circular prisons. Hopefully a few people will hear the tunes for the first time and enjoy them enough to track down a more of the artist work, god this is sounding pompous I like to find new music and I’ve always been a gobshite and so if I like something everyone else must like it too!

But as well as 10 year old malt you need this month’s crispy fresh brews as well.
Anyway here’s some new new music.

Thanks to Swedesplease I found this gem. One of Sweden's seemingly endless supply of bright intelligent catchy pop bands.
They are actually only 1/3rd Swedish the rest being made up of Scots.
I knew I was going to like them as soon as in the lead track The Baltic Sea they not only alludes to Sweden’s stereotypical furniture company but uses the marvellous adjective “ruddy” to describe the complex of the country’s kids. The rest of LP doesn’t disappoint.

The tunes are mainly in English with occasional Swedish phrases and verses the more I hear the Nordic languages the more poetic they become. The songs swing from sweet matter of factness to sweeping drama.
The lead singers I think are Scottish but the singing has slight nasal folky Scandinavian thing going on it is however delightfully precise rich and involving. The music is acoustic pop with elements of the Delgados (?), but also has a French ye-ye feel but also experimental electronic sounds and a element of Weimar cabaret sorry this makes it sound a mess but it works really well honest.

As to theme of the songs well they range from the perils of the fear of foreigners, war, dried mango and Greta Garbo.

Go here and you can get two tracks for free.
I got the album off Amazon a week or so ago and played it 3-4 times a day ever since.
Stand out tracks: Baltic Sea, Hailstones & Electric Brae.

ps. Spanish word of the weak delgado means thin in Spanish.

It's a record

49/365 Rememberance Sunday
Originally uploaded by S4RAH

10 minutes :
The time from me buying a poppy until magically it wasn't there, even with the new little nodule on the stem. Ahh well I'll have to get another tomorrow.

"Rain not tears"

Lewis Hamilton World F1 Champion

Well that was exciting. well done Lewis. Don't leave it to the last corner next time!!!

By far the greatest team the world has ever seen

Charlton 1-3 Barnsley.

That's all you really need to know. How else would you rather spend the afternoon .

But no we had a pint, a pie, sung our version of the red flag, abused W*dn*esday, chanted the praises of our wonderfully multicultural team and won for the first time in a while.

The mighty Tykes did cause us some turmoil as they scored in 3 or 4th minute and as any fan of a lower league side will know this isn't always a sources of joy, as it's impossible for Barnsley to defend a 1 goal lead for 85 minutes thankfully they banged in 2 more and apart from a wobble when the Robins got one back we controlled the goal playing not bad football. Oh and the pies were good!

Football questions:

Why apart from at village fetes are football matches the only public occasion where they tell you the attendances?

Why do I need to know this?

Why did Charlton make their ball boys walk out into the centre circle and stand in a circle in the pouring rain while the pa played that pompous music from the Champions leagues?

It was really risible and pointless.

UPDATE: GRRRRRRRRRRRR! I've just read the Observers "coverage" of thematch now I know football fans have thin skins but would it kill them to cover Barnsley fairly; as according to the un-observant the story of the match wasn't that we walloped Charlton the story is that robins lost, according to the Guardian group no team other than Moan united outside London are allowed to win. It would be really nice to have the paper I read actually just say that my team were any good. People slag off the tabloids but at least they cover every match as if fans of both teams might be reading.

last night I had a premonition that today I'd have deja vu

Neil Young night:
Just watched the BBC4 NY programmes and they were all pretty good. The doc about his life was ok if I thought a bit short, they seemed short of footage, there was a lot of that faked up faux super 8 shots that pollute documentary now a days. You feel they could have shown more of the interview with Neil himself. He comes over fairly well, coherent and funny with a degree of self knowledge, he's obviously incredibly driven and artistically selfish in the way that only a few 60's era rock stars can be. Arriving in LA in '65 he's had the fame money, kudos to do whatever he's liked ever since for good or evil.

I think the CSNY:Deja Vu tour film (on afterwards) was if anything even better. The film is a record of the DSNY tours playing Young's anti Iraq war songs. A strange mix of concert footage, interviews and films about audience members. It's got scenes of really angry crowd members complaining about and berating the band for their anti-bush songs but also interviews with veterans and the families of dead GI's. The film is narrated and partly authoured by a senior CNN war correspondent their equivalent of John Simpson who is dispassionate in showing the sometimes negative reception the band gets.
The striking thing about the protestors against the Band's stance is that they shelled out 70-80 quid for tickets seemingly unaware of the Band's view point which although Liberal was actually (from the film quiet balanced). You have to think that some American's do live in bubble of unchallenged patriotism, if they went to the concerts expecting the Marakesh express it's not as if many of CSNY sixities songs weren't overtly political. Their outrage seems niave.

It's a fascinating film and a very rare one you can't imagine the Stones having a film were they are seen being booed by their own fans and having shots of "hockey moms" storming out of gigs giving the finger to the camera all cut to " brown sugar". This youtube clip gives a good flavour of this remarkable film. It may get shown again this week on BBC4 if not you'll have to track down the DVD.