Thursday 25 June 2009

GoodBooks: GornBooks

MAL_0214 I was very very sad to hear that GoodBooks are shutting up shop and going their four separate ways. Their blog tells us that their set in Glastonbury this Sunday morning will be their last.

I liked this band. Obviously, my head was turned by the heady days of 2007 when Lottie and I had a glorious couple of gigs deputising as some/all of their horn section. We had, as long-term readers will know, a poptastic time. But that apart, I thought they were an original, interesting and clever band with some wonderful songs.

Of course, they are also four very talented individuals, and nice with it, so I have no doubt that they will prosper in their next enterprises. I'll look forward to hearing more about these.

I hope we'll get the Glasto coverage on some sort of televisual broadcast thing. That would be nice. I can't make my mind up whether I want them to do Passchendaele (great song, nice to hear it) or don't want them to (green with envy and a bit sad because we're not there). Hmmmm and ho hum, eh?

If I have one regret it's that I never got to join in the chanting in Walk With Me. I'd have liked that. Here we go: "Oh, come on, walk with me, I want you to walk with me!" See? I'm good at it! The next time my pop-o-tronic pop music career erupts poptrumpetastically on a helpless and astonished universe (this is scheduled to be in about 2032 I think) I reckon I'll have to be a bit more proactive about asking (nicely) to do (nice) things.

Bye bye boys, it was great.

Update-o-blog-o-irony: I wrote that last night. This morning, in one of those piquant little twists that a slightly bored Fate enjoys teasing us with, the very first two things that came up on Random Pleyel on my Wretched Young Persons' Portable Phonographic Device were the unmistakeable sound of GoodBooks (The Butcher [We All Fear for You] since you ask) followed by the equally unmistakeable sound of the lovely Ian McMillan Orchestra, who of course were one of the other acts in the Radio 4 Loose Ends programme that was such a jolly jape. (Just for the sake of completeness and my mild OCD let me tell you that they were performing The Shanty Attacker.) So the first few minutes of my journey into work were a sort of little recapitulation of the flavour of that enormously enjoyable gig.

Now OK, randomness is random, which is why they call it "random", and a statistician could tell you why this little coincidence probably isn't really so amazing, because that is pretty much what we pay them to do. Even so, it was quite a cool moment, and I liked it.

Photo by courtesy of James at Mallinsons.

Wednesday 17 June 2009

Links-I-Liked

So, farewell then:
  • Living with Bert - very amusing, sometimes tinged with a touch of, erm, affectionate bitterness or something. Not updated since 15th April 2008. Your guess is as good as mine. I miss it.
  • Punclox: inexplicable group writing by Wretched Young Persons™. Do not let your auntie read it. Well that's what it used to say. However, your auntie cannot now read it anyway so that risk is past; indeed only members of the Punclox Inner Circle™ can read it as it is no longer public. Where on Earth will confused people go looking for Donnie Darko hints now? The world is a duller place without Punclox and I salute it (attempts to make complicated saluting gesture but falls over).
I have removed these two from Links-I-Like and I have officially recategorized them as Links-I-Liked. They are now to be found in storage at Wookey Hole caves.

Friday 12 June 2009

ITG 2009 – miscellaneous weebling on about stuff

I thought I might use this page for some miscellaneous weebling on about stuff, if that’s OK with you?

ITG 2009 - travel

Yes it’s a laugh a minute with Vogel’s adventure-o-licious travel stories.

Er, or not.

ITG 2009 - venues

Oh alright then. I’ll regret this, I can see it now.

ITG 2009 – food

Did you really expect me to ignore this important, nay consuming (ahahaha) topic? No, me neither.

ITG 2009 - Harrisburg

About the very pleasant city. Am I including venues in here? Hmm not sure, watch this space.

ITG 2009 – Gettysburg

We went to Gettysburg. I’m working on my write-up. Honest I am.

ITG 2009 - gigs

Well you’ll find lots of coverage online – see my main ITG 2009 page for links – so I am just going to pick out a few things which appealed for one reason or another.

Thursday 4 June 2009

ITG 2009

Well at the risk of stating the obvious I did make it to ITG 2009, the International Trumpet Guild’s 34th annual conference, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Here are some external links:
It became pretty obvious that I couldn’t even attempt to do proper blog entries while at ITG so instead I'm going to try to do some short sketches in the hope of getting something of the flavo[u]r down. I’m not quite 100% clear in my head (well actually I am usually not even 8% clear in my head, but that’s another story) how exactly I will structure this … but I’ll think of something.
I had a wonderful time!

Oopsie bumbum - never wrote a word. Shall I just zap the lot, or keep them here in the hope that one day I will write something, perhaps when the guilt overpowers the laziness? What do you think? Tamsin? Colin? Anyone??

ITGdex 2009

Yes, they’re in alphabetical order after the home page. Or did you think I’d just put food first anyway? Thank you Colin, see me afterwards please.

Monday 1 June 2009

Horrible crap disaster reporting

Distraught relatives prepare for the worst as they wait for news of Air France flight 447, which disappeared off the radar between Brazil and France early on Monday.

Well thank goodness they were allowed to do so in the calm and privacy of, er, having 63 cameras shoved up their noses. I should think that that will have made them feel much better, plus we the public really needed to see those photos. Come to think of it, maybe they could be asked to pose again, looking a touch more photogenic, and with more tears visible please? And get that woman to move her hand so we can see her grief-stricken face better? That would be nice.

I know I sound like a retired colonel, more and more so, but really, is there no room for restraint at all in a story like this? Hmph.