tangles says...

This weekend is going to be hot in London. I fear retribution from the Gods of Comfort, cause I have been living in perpetual summer and sun for 9 months now. The hotter it is, the scared-er I get.

You can live on £10 for a week and have change. Enter stage left, four cans of chick peas for £1 in Brixton.

This project below will be worth checking out ...

“Salute MUMMER - the new amazing versatile project of Stefan Jungmair (from former Klein Rec.-based duo MUM) and vocal goddess Betty Semper. With -Soulorganismstate- the composer/producer and the gifted singer have created an soulorganic album way beyond the " It's an ecclectic mix of this and that" bull. The two wizards of sound reanimate and masquerade Electronic Groove and Blues Funk genre elements into never-known timbres. A debut of a special kind & flavour: Sweet and sour, mellow and yellow, high- and lowdown. With vocal featurings of Wayne Martin (cooperated with Boozoo Bayou) and Angela Reisinger aka Angel Rice (Konsorten TM and Mirize).”


Actually - can someone do me a little favour and have a listen here and tell me what you think? I don't have headphones....

Not much but so much

Last night I got my first taste of Sunday evening blues for a long while, and it tasted distinctly of hot chips with gravy. Weekend was spent wandering around Angel, quite possibly simply because I like the name of the place. The shops are also good, which is saying something cause me enjoying shopping is like a person who hates shopping reporting a positive shopping experience. In fact, the resemblance is scary!!

Just watchin the Aussie game over my shoulder at work. We have a nice big screen TV up one end of the room, but I do think I will be nipping down to the pub to watch the last 20 mins,,,

I will leave you with a shot from Awesome; I fuckin shot that!

The beastie boys handed out 50 video cams at one of their gigs and this is the resultant edited film. Review say that it takes “keeping it real” a little too far and is visually not much better than watching a friends boozy phone camera shots from gig you missed. I say, “…it’s the Beastie Boys!” and rest my case. In a good way.

“It’s not like I’m playing London or anything” – Chan Marshall aka Cat Power

Her voice is like a wild cat that has just had hot treacle poured down its throat crossed with a neurotic dusky blues singer of the mid 1930s. That is about the best description I can come up with. But it isn’t just the voice, Chan Marshall’s melodies are just so .. well .. “hauntingly beautiful”. So whacking her in front of a 12 piece rhythm band was, in my mind, a little odd. However it soon became clear that the band was just there to sing. The were there to provide a sort of onstage emotion support for Chan. Just as, as it turns out, we were. During the set on countless occasions Chan broke down mid song to move a microphone, take of her jumper, complain that the lights were in her eyes and exclaim that she has just wanted the gig to be really good and that New York would never have been as nice to her. The audience would call out, “No no it is beautiful!!” and “Keep going!”

So why was this one of the best gigs I have ever seen? Cause Chan is truly brilliant. Normally a song break down the melody would slip, but she just would wander back into the song without missing a beat. You get the feeling that she exhales in little melodies while she sleeps.

When I left I was chatting to a couple who said they had seen her play about 8 times, “Oh she is much more confident than she used to be! It is just so lovely to see her grow like this.”

I have never seen anything like it. She came on to three encores and couldn’t stop waiving to us as she bowed out. One of the other band mates came on stage to get her of and she kept hiding behind the piano.

What would the community think?

Just a few hours til I get to see Cat Power. I am thrilled. I have been reading some reviews online (naughty me), and it confirms what I have heard. She is well known for being strange. Strange music, onstage antics including crying, calling friends, talking to babies, asking how long is left in the set, playing with her hair and apologizing non stop. I can’t wait! I will give you my own review tomorrow.

Work is going well. It is, as I worried, a little dull, but feels very much under control so I guess that is a good thing in contract work. The company is located in the city and I had my first proper morning tube ride today. It included having my face pushed into the groin of a perfect stranger. Life in England is looking interesting.

My house scenario is brilliant. I am living with two other girls. This is my first all girl household and I must admit it is wonderful. I am really getting into the evening girly chats. One housemate is Canadian and the other is from up North and is a cracker at impersonating English accents. She has me in tears laughing. We watch big brother and the footy and I get the English tabloid backgrounds on everyone.

I have also been getting into baking cakes, much to the pleasure of Katie’s household who got a sticky date drop-off on the weekend (this went down better than it sounds). I am thinking along the lines of an (X-treme) lemon semolina cake with cherries as my next cake-ish exploit.

up and atom!

Well... I am once again bainfully employed. It is a wee spoty o' contract work with a dollop of cash and I guess it is a nice step forward. The work is with a company that I find interesting, spanning the finance and international telco world.

Other than that - I am going to see Cat Power next Wednesday!! I am going to be seeing her all on my lonesome. This is partially my fault, cause I keep introducing her to the unknowing as .."the girl who is notoriously bad live". Er, yeah. Nice build up! Still, I am happy and the guy that sold me the ticket at the theatre was quite cute, so I will take it all as a good omen.

I start work on Tuesday, concert is Wednesday, so next week is lookin fun! Also, I am getting my foot in the tech world here meeting with a guy at channel 4 tomorrow. Not sure where that will all lead, but it is a lead so I will follow it!

The perils of a good mood

Today I am up and about. This is an improvement. Yesterday I discovered the depths of midday Brit free-to-air TV due to the fact that I got home at 5am Wednesday morning. Phewy!! It was, I believe, the perils of a good mood. Tuesday was such a lovely day. London was sunny as a happy bunny, and I set out to visit The Tate, go for a wander and then visit an open mike poetry night near West End. This all went exceeding well according to plan.

The Tate was brilliant. So well curated. While this sounds like a toffy comment, curation is a little like cheese. You barely notice it until you hit some good stuff and then it is whammo!! Everything is cohesively in laid out in movements and includes contextual as well as critical evaluation of the pieces. I could only do about 1 1/2 floor before deciding that my head was thrumming a little too loudly and the rest would have to wait.

After the Tate I walked around the city taking vague road signs in directions that I recognised. This meant that I ended up in Elephant & Castle with sore feet. Elephant & Castle is, apparently, notorious in the bad way. And I can vouch for that. It made Brixton seem positively prosperous. Then I walked back through West End towards my date with the Poetry Cafe where I had a brilliant night. Seeing as though I was on my own, I made to chat with as many people as would sit still for long enough. This was the continued theme til I felt weary and checked my watch. 5am!! And ragingly hungry!!! There was nothing for it but to catch my virgin taxi ride home, made a big salad and pass out. So, my first night out on London town has been had. It was thoroughly enjoyed and my only regret has been a two day headache.

Ah well. The perils of a good mood should not be faced lightly.

New house!!

Tonight is the first night in my new house(!) Actually, Saturday night was meant to be my first night .. But I didn't actually make it home. Katie's housemate was having a garden party and, in a rare turn of hospitality, London decided to be stinking hot. Many white wine spritzers later I decided to crash in Katie's bed. So after having a lazy Sunday over at katie's, I have finally branched out on my own two feet and made the short bus ride down to my new abode.

My new room is lovely!! It has a pretty little sloping roof, wooden floor boards, and a double bed decorated with soft, flower shaped red Christmas lights so that I feel like I am some sort of porno version of Mary Poppins. There is a cool jazz-ish pub on the corner called the Effra, and one of my new housemates is having her birthday drinks there this Wednesday. There are also a lot of people selling ganga on the corners, some evangelists blasting out words from our savior, and a chorus of arguments coming from most houses at most hours. Brixton is "colourful".

I am a bit interested in a job that I came across last week. It is working in product development for an SMS aggregator who specializes in "social networking" products. Bizarrely, perhaps, that stuff is really up my ally interest-wise so I am thinking to follow it up this week. Other plans include an outing to Brighton at some point in the next week or so. The girl whose room I am subletting is doing work experience down there for a few months, so it would be nice to visit and have a look around while the sun shines.

Update

Sorry I have been a little quiet, but I have actually been having quite a quiet time. I arrived a little over a week ago. Since then I have been keeping a lid on things. Went to a couple of outings with KT over the weekend managing to not drink at all but ONE of them. Yes, the one where KT caught me with her camera. I found a lovely place to live last week. The details have been mentioned in comments, but I will repeat. It is in Brixton and just down the road from KT's house (nearer the tube!). There is a nice big park around the corner with rolling hills and coffee shops and an outdoor pool that the Brits call a "Lido". I have borrowed some sneakers from KT's housemate and it is nice to be out and walking briskly again.

I started looking for jobs on Tuesday. This is great, but now it makes me feel unemployed rather than on holiday, and makes my midday naps feel lazy rather than luxurious. Damn job hunting! I have applied for a couple so we will see. I have been rather ambitious in my scope with some of them so it should be intersting.

I am feeling a bit guilty about not rushing out to see all of London. I think it is a bit of a hangover from rushing around and trying to see all of Europe ... "Oh gee!! You have a church too! Who would have thought?" But I think that perhaps there is a more subtle reason. Unlike France or Italy where it was all very new and different, in London I feel like I have just accidentally stepped onto the set for The Bill. It all seems oddly familiar.

Anyway.. that is about the news to date.