GoodBooks: GornBooks

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.

• GoodBookDex™

Photo by courtesy of James at Mallinsons.