Winter drags on

Kruse Leave a comment

Still winter.  Apparently the vernal quinox this year is the 20th March – after which date I’m assuming there will be sunshine.  And no more snow.  Snow in March, what the hell?

I prematurely gambled on the weather warming up last week – shaving off the February beard, and optimistically stopped wearing an overcoat to work.  That lasted about two days.

Enough inane chit-chat about the weather.

Have refrained from buying any tickets to gigs this year… although a few have really piqued my interest.  The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in particular, curating All Tomorrow’s Parties this year.  But – will I be in the UK, or on a plane headed to NZ?  I do not know, and therefore I won’t book any tickets one way or the other.

Gigs I’ve been to this year though, with tickets bought last year – or because it was free… Brad, Frightened Rabbit, and Fargo Fatale.  Brad was good, I was disappointed with Frightened Rabbit, and Fargo Fatale was also good… brilliant self-indulgent birthday party.

Haven’t taken the Spectre out this year yet.  I’ve wanted to – I don’t want to be a fair-weather only rider… but I figure as an inexperienced rider, snow’s probably not a good idea.  And I had the key sitting on my desk this morning, to remind me to at least start her up today… but it seems I may have a broken foot.  So I’m currently trapped in my apartment, and nobody has heeded any of my text messages asking for crutches to be brought.  This is worrying – as this coincides with my wine ‘cellar’ being very nearly dry.  And, the end of my “grocery cycle”.  Trapped, with limited food, limited booze (relatively), and nobody to do errands for me.  The only places I’ve found to sell me crutches wouldn’t ship until Monday (and therefore arrive on Tuesday).  I tried the ironing board… didn’t work as well as I would have expected.  I am bang in the middle of one of the greatest cities in the world, and I’m going to starve (or sober – that’s a verb now) to death.

New Year’s w/ Sun

Kruse Leave a comment

Trip home was very very good, was well pleased with it.  In no particular order:

  • Great weather.  Got a sweet red base-tan.  40°C when I landed in Melbourne on the way back.  -1°C when I landed in London, with snow.
  • Didn’t spend enough time with family – for various reasons.  Mostly my own doing – just being dumb.  Trip to Taranaki was understandably short as I was driving sister, niece, nephew – and then had weird block in my head about “going backwards – wasting time”.  Then had weird hang-up about only spending as much time with one side of the family as I had with the other.  And then Brent went and got married, and I had to postpone visiting Mum.  Then I got sucked into Hawkes Bay – weddings, beach, sun, drinking… just general “being on holiday”.
  • Definitely should have spent more time with niece & nephew – but never sure how much help/hindrance I’m really being.  But the time I did spend there was awesome… Meiken asked me to stay instead of going back to London, which was nice as I figured she must actually kinda like me… but also tugged the heartstrings a fair bit.  Helped Cohen out with his engineering a bit… at 18 months he’s actually building towers of blocks – not just smashing them down.  Which I don’t know if it’s normal or not, but it impressed me anyway.  And when I built up the nerve to hang out with Masen too (he’s the loud intimidating type), we seemed to get along well enough.  We’ll see what he really thinks when he can walk and talk.
  • New Year’s Eve on the beach.  The way it should be.  Purple Goanna’s at 10 paces.  A spot of night-swimming.  Watching the dawn.  Daiquiris.  Beach cricket.
  • New Zealand – wow.  I never really agreed when Katie talked about going back, and being surprised at how ‘small-town’ everything seems.  But this time, I did kinda get that.  But then – I guess I was in small towns.  Driving into Hastings Pak’n’Save carpark, was a moment.  But, I rather suspect driving into Scunthorpe’s Asda carpark, if it’s got one, would be a similar experience.  So yeah – no Katie, I still disagree.  Same shit, different logos.
  • Coromandel – that was certainly some stuff to show off how ‘rural’, or ‘small-town’ NZ can be.  A couple of nights in Coromandel Town – providing the social glue at a backpackers, doing some swimming, cooking and eating heaps of seafood, introducing foreign backpackers to the Swappa-Crate.  Good times.
  • Taupo – got myself a fishing license, went fishing, caught so many fish – but we only had a little boat, and they were all too big, so threw them all back.  For the taniwha to have.
  • Ate so much icecream.  Drank so much beer.  Ate so much seafood.  Ate some pies.  Ate some pig.  Drank so much wine.  How much?  Soooo much.  So much that I don’t fit any of my clothes now.  Need to spend some time exercising so I can fit in all my new suits and what-not… but still too relaxed from holiday.
  • Wedding #1: Brent married Daniela.  Who I introduced myself to with a “nice to meet you”.  Only to be reminded that it had also been nice to meet her two years ago, at Matt’s wedding, when I had in fact insisted on being her bridesmaid at this wedding.  So yeah – good start to being Head Bridesmaid.
  • Wedding #2: Claire married Ludek.  I didn’t say “nice to meet you” this time, being once-bitten.  It would have been suitable on this occasion, but not going to risk it.  Cooked a pig, with Hayden’s assistance, for the wedding.  Did some karaoke.  Played the piano, and nobody shot me.  Looking forward to the Away leg of that wedding – Czech Republic in July… do I motorbike from London, or train from Vietnam?
  • Melbourne – hot.  Visited people, kept Nathan’s dog occupied, put the finishing touchs on the base-tan.  Read some Faraway Tree to Eli.  Got all jealous of people who live in places with an actual outside area.
  • London, cold, snowing.  Landed, got home – walking through snow in my non-waterproof kung-fu slippers.  Showered, found I didn’t fit any of my suit trou any more.  Went to work… managed to stay awake all day.  Came home – went to pub for dinner to force myself to stay awake.  Managed to stay awake (or close to) until 9pm or so.  Off to bed.  Jet-lag, sorted.  Managed the same on arrival in NZ actually… with opposite technique.  Slept all the way from Auckland to Rotorua, got there… an hour or two of pretending to be another day – then off to bed at 11 or so… slept all the way through to 6am-ish.  Jet-lag, sorted.  Man, I’m good at this international travel nonsense.

Now – waiting on some reasonable temperatures to see if the Spectre still runs.  And trying to save some money so I can do all (or most… well… some) of this again in May.

Year-End

Kruse Leave a comment

I guess I’d better recap my last gigs of the year.  Well – it’s either that, or get ready for the international flight I should be on in a few hours.

Rufus Wainwright – gay.  Not in a derogatory way.  Just… gay.  Possibly – no, definitely – the most “camp” gig I’ve ever been to.  Opened by Leonard Cohen’s son.  Who, as chips off the old block go – as you can probably guess by the fact you’ve never heard of him – a very small chip.  But apparently also has a sister, who has a child with Rufus (quote: “… and none of us can figure how that happened!” …cue laughter).  None of which I knew beforehand – and couldn’t figure out how much of this banter was serious.

Glasvegas – went along with a workmate who had tickets.  And yeah, it was Glasvegas.  Solid standard rock gig.

Martha Wainwright – much better than her brother.  Allusions to family much more muted, but still there.  The Wainwrights – syndicated drama series – or so they’d like to think.

Beth Orton – at Union Chapel… a brilliant combo.  Good gig, very good.  Charming crowd banter, that voice, in that venue.  Cool.

Wye Oak – gave a spare ticket to random guy outside the venue.  He didn’t even buy me a drink… said he would, then didn’t.  Which maybe put me in bad mood, as I didn’t really enjoy the gig as much as I did the previous time I saw them.  Or maybe the venue was just a little too big for the show?  Although Scala – not exactly a big venue.  Or maybe I was just too tired.  But – good gig, just not up to my very very high expectations after last time I saw them.  But watching a youtube clip just now – I should have enjoyed it more.

And two gigs got cancelled on me – Felice Brothers & Cat Power.  Was looking forward to both very much.  But, hopefully next year.  And that leaves my gig count for the year on 69, I think.  Far too many, and I am going on a gig diet in 2013… try to get my bank balance to rebound.

Autumn Slump

Kruse Leave a comment

Very tired – so going to try and quickly sum up using bullet points…

Gigs:

  • Dirty Projectors – at the Roundhouse, so I was sitting pretty in my Members Bar… favourite thing about that bar is the top/side-on view of the stage.. I like to think I see what the band/support are actually doing, rather than what the show is supposed to look like.  But while being able to read what the show is supposed to be… if that makes sense.  Anyway – I say that because I watch the youtube videos of how it looked from the crowd, and that kinda matches what I was seeing from the side… a decent performance, but… strained?  Not natural?  Not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable – the crowd loved it, and so did I… but maybe the band/music doesn’t really ‘fit’ a stage/gig environment?
  • Couple of nights later – Hot Chip, Brixton Academy.  Met up for some base work drinks before hand, and I don’t think anybody really believed I was off to see a band called “Hot Chip”.  But – I was… and within half an hour, I was very pleased that I was.  Starting with the entrance to the gig – the normal people were trying to thrust flyers into my hand… and then inside the gig, there more more.  But these seemed more determined, and once one actually listened to them (after having done a similar job for Rough Beats, I do try to at least listen)… there were people handing out free ‘merch’… Oyster-Card holders (or just generic card-holders for non-London folk) stamped with Hot Chip album cover art, and some other stuff which I still ignored because that’s what I do.  And then the gig.  About 30 minutes in, as I usually do, I start thinking about how I would describe this if I can remember in a month’s time when I might write about it… and the words that sprung to mind were “Constant Awesome“.  And at no point throughout the gig did that thought dissipate.  Constant Awesome.  That was Hot Chip.  Energetic live show, original-as-possible light-show, solid stage-presence… just really constant awesome.  Bassist tossing his guitar to start playing some “side-drums”, vocalist running around jumping up on semi-mezzanines to help out on some percussion also, … just Constant Awesome.  If labels had to become involved, last year’s The Roots gig, but modern Indie (the 80srevival I never thought could work).
  • A few nights later – I saw Grizzly Bear at the same venue.  It came into conversation recently, and I couldn’t remember it.  Looking it up on youtube – yeah, now I remember it.  Not the best commendation, the fact that I nearly forgot the entire gig – but to be fair, I’m getting old, and maybe can’t handle a handful of gigs in a fistful of days anymore, or whatever.  And also – nice music, but not memorable.  Don’t regret the ticket, won’t be on my top 10 of 2012.
  • Possibly helping my amnesia of Grizzly Bear, was MUSE a few nights later.  Now… I’m not a big Muse fan.  Although I’m not  huge Grizzly Bear fan either – it’s just that after being to a Muse concert – I now feel obligated to stress… I’m not … ‘that’.  I’d always heard great things about Muse gigs, and what songs I’ve heard… yeah, I could listen to that.  So – booked myself a seat at the O2.  And – yeah, great show, terrible fans, alright music.  A really good show… with unusual consideration shown for people in side/rear seats.  Spectacular use of recent technology… I spent a lot of the gig thinking “if only Radiohead had put this amount of effort into their gig”.  The reverse pyramid of TV screens… good.  When they reverse that, so that they all get lowered to form an actual pyramid on stage, hiding the band… yeah… impressive.  And searching for videos of that, I just remembered the roulette wheel to choose the next song.  Fake, but impressive.
  • The following night – I had tickets for the Muttonbirds.  But I had some work in the morning – a couple of hours of easy work… which somehow led to my still sitting at my desk at 2am, waiting for certain people to just do their….. f*&%…ing job.  And yeah, I missed one of the last ever opportunities to see Don McGlashan sing Nature.  I sent an email of preliminary resignation the next day.
  • The Walkmen – I was still tired/grumpy after weekend of work leading to me missing the Muttonbirds.  But tried to enjoy it.  Unfortunately – the best moment of the evening was poorly captured as such.
  • Animal Collective – one gig where sitting up to the side (it was at the Roundhouse) probably hindered things… the stage set-up was very much designed for front-on viewing.  Watching the mechanics of the band – sure… but when I peeked in from the front at one point… the stage set-up looked cheap and crappy from the side.. from the front, the main crowd – it actually looked impressive.  But by the time I realised that, I was a tired old man who couldn’t bear thinking of standing with the crowd listening to ‘experimental psych-indie-rock’, or whatever this is called.
  • Two nights later, returned to the Roundhouse, this time for some more mellow tunes… The Civil Wars.  Took Jess along… and showed off my membership.  But for some strange reason, on this night the Members Bar was packed.  We were both happy to sit in the back, on a couch, with no view – but just listen to the gig.  To be fair – the Civil Wars aren’t exactly a visual show.  And yeah, it was good.  Their original songs, really good.  They tried some covers… bravely trying to cover Portishead and Michael Jackson… each time, I thought, coming off the worse for wear.  I mean – who tries to cover Sour Times?
  • Ladyhawke, the other night.  Good…?  Yeah – I think, good?  It was pretty much a pub gig in a venue.  Songs I liked, played on a stage, in a venue.  Very, very standard gig… I think I’d expected more… maybe her album cover being featured on Beck bottles had made me think she was a lot more successful than she really is?  But yeah – nothing to complain about… pretty much a kiwi musician-ess playing her pub-rock… with typical kiwi stage presence.

Other than that:

  • Commuting is not cool, but mostly because I haven’t figured out how to adjust my bedtime… am still refusing to even consider sleep until midnight, and then suddenly realising I have to be up at X
  • Have booked flights back to Aotearoa for late December, early January… have got nearly 4 weeks there… but already, trying to think of places/people/dates… it’s looking like not long enough.  Have been looking at hiring a motorbike for the period, but all the places I can find seem to be aimed at rich british/american tourists looking at ‘touring holidays’… and yeah, probably out of my price range.  Anybody who could recommend a company which hires out bikes, for locals/etc – please let me know.
  • Speaking of biking – managed to get a ride in last weekend – made a short run out to a country pub to watch Scotland vs NZ rugby in a pub filled of people watching ‘football’.  Am hoping on going on another short run tomorrow.  Work & weather look to make these rarer and rarer.

Weekend rides and gigs

Kruse Leave a comment

Constantly feeling tired – as now my weekends don’t consist of slothing around the house, but rather researching a random place to ride to for lunch.  And then mid-week gigs, a ridiculous commute to work, and yeah… not cool.

Gigs:

Gemma Ray – really good.  Small gig at the Borderline.  Zero expectations, but she was very very good.  Just cool music.  Playing the guitar with a butcher knife seemed like a bit of a gimmick at first, and it was – but it worked.

Beirut – I was very very tired.  Nearly falling asleep during the entire thing, grumpy and disliking being in the midst of so many people.  But obviously good, judging by the irritating enthusiasm of all the people.

Kimbra.  Her first biggish headline gig, I believe.  And where better than Union Chapel.  I was a little confused at what she’s trying to be… serious soul singer, Amy Winehouse with tutu, pop with talent?  But I guess that’s a good thing – she’s none of those things, just doing what she wants.  But the dress… what the hell?  Good set, I get the impression she’s still trying to nail her stage persona – or else she’s got it, but it’s just crazy.  Played pretty much her entire debut album, plus the song she did with Foster The People (still gutted about missing them, passing them over for chinese with an Ex).  But now I guess I kinda saw a bit of that gig, because even played by Kimbra’s support band – a Foster The People song can’t be mistaken for anything else.  I’ve seen her effort at SXSW linked to from a certain website dedicated to awesome stuff, so here’s hoping she goes on to big things.

We Are Augustines… missed these guys earlier in the year due to a clash with something, can’t remember what.  Snapped up a ticket to this one… and got the impression it was their last tour or something?  Don’t know – can’t be bothered researching the veracity of that.  I’ve had the impression from their videos that they, or the lead at least, are earnest earnest young men.  And although it comes across as a little annoying in the videos (albeit, I believe there is justification for that) – it was kinda ‘sweet’ in the flesh.  He really seemed blown away by playing in a ex-theatre-type venue like SheBu (that’s the Shepherd’s Bush Empire).  Which, fair enough – the first time I went there, I was all like “wow… cool… gig in a London theatre”, and then the 10th time I went there I was all like “wow, the toilets are a pain in the arse to get to, and there’s a friggin’ Walkabout next door”.  But – the earnestness actually made the gig – they seemed genuinely stoked to just be there.  And an enthusiastic crowd to egg them on… made it a really enjoyable gig.

Next up was Radiohead.  With paperless ticketing, which ended up being more hassle than dead-tree-ticketing.  My card expired, I hunted for hours to confirm that my replacement debit-card would still get me in, then I got an email disclaiming that – asking me to call and give them my new card details.  I don’t like calling companies like Ticketmaster – they spend an hour with an automated voice telling me I can do anything I want on-line, while I’m swearing at them, reciting in turn that if there was any chance, ANY CHANCE, that I could do something “on-line” rather than picking up a phone and talking to somebody… it would have been done yesterday.  But…. rant over.  Radiohead – fairly high expectations for this, as one would assume.  And…. a little disappointed.  It was a good gig and all, but… just not spectacular.  Well, spectacular in a way, but not… innovative.  I couldn’t help thinking – Snow Patrol did the whole floating TV screens better than this, and Jay-Z/Kanye West absolutely smashed the whole concept of big-screen TVs.  It just seemed like they were just doing their job.  Which they were.  I had something in my head when I thought “Radiohead gig”, and what I got did not match that.  And I lost my debit card.  But I’m not going to be one of those “they only played the new in-accessible stuff, I wanted to hear only their first two albums” humbugs.  I’ve got a workmate who went as well, and he complained about “they only played their self-indulgent stuff, screw the fans”.  Nope.  Incorrect.  By now, if you haven’t figured out that their Kid-A onwards stuff isn’t that much different, well… you might as well go to a Bod Dylan gig and yell at him “Judas!”.

The Gaslight Anthem – last night.  Very good.  Very pleased about that gig… pure pleasure in playing exhibited by the band.  Check them out, they really are rather good.  Just wholesome blue-jeans rock-and-roll.  Imagine The Boss, if he’d had a couple of Clash records in his collection.  Or something.  That was only last night, so can’t find any decent videos yet – this will have to do.  Boring last encore.

Rides:

And on the weekends, I can’t really remember – every weekend possible I’ve gone out for a day-trip somewhere.  I’ve now done over 2,000 miles – and am ticking over each fraction of the bike’s total mileage as I do it.  The bike’s nearly 30 years old, and I am now accountable for nearly 1/7th of it’s total mileage.

Brighton, tick.  Hastings, nice bike parking facilites, but terrible seaside.  Cotswolds – inland, so no seafood, but beautiful ride… little villages, great pub at the end of it, good food – seriously considering a repeat.  Southend-on-Sea – terrible seaside.  Dover/Deal – “10th Best Seaside Pub In England”, I certainly hope not.  And then there’s just the random places I looked up, as they’re on the ends of peninsulas, to get there and realise they’re industrial ports.  But – all good fun… the Spectre’s running fine, and it’s something to do on the weekends… until I go broke.  (Petrol for a bike is fairly cheap, but dining every Saturday & Sunday at a ‘gastropub’ – not so much).

My plan for upcoming weekends is to start going to more touristy venues… and eat at cheap(-ish) pubs.  A photo album of the Spectre in front of Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, Leeds Castle, etc, etc.  There’s got to be a very very niche market for that.

The Spectre

Kruse Leave a comment

So – faced between buying a cheap boring ubiquitous Japanese bike, or a twice as expensive much more exciting European bike – I opted for a cheap odd 30-year old Japanese bike.  Behold The Spectre – the shaft-driven Kawasaki KZ750 which nobody in this country has ever heard of (although I believe they are widespread in North America)…

According to the nice man, and the odometer – nearly 30 years old, yet under 15,000 miles under the belt.  And – I nearly believe it… it’s either been sitting unused in a shed for 30 years, or somebody really has done an amazing job in making it look like new.

Anyway – within a week, I’d added 1,500 miles onto it, having visited Hastings, Scotland, and Wales.  I have also figured out how to check the oil – realised I have a serious leak (although only overnight – perhaps leaking from the oil tray when cold?), and that it is very likely I rode all the way up to Scotland with zero oil.

Also – gigs…

Afghan Whigs – I can’t remember going to this… I must have skipped it for some reason?

Of Monsters And Men, again… and again – good.  They’re starting to play to the crowd a bit more, which I’m not sure is a good thing (the whole getting guys to sing one lyric, girls the next… it’s just divisive, you know?  And anyway – I paid to listen to them sing, not the tuneless jerks around me).  But yeah, good – had bought multiple tickets, meaning to insist that some people come with me – as it’s music which is impossible to not enjoy… but forgot until the actual evening… managed to get Jess along, who claimed to enjoy it – so all good.

Tiki Taane – claiming to be an acoustic/solo gig.  Which it was, sort of.  And then he used the loop-hole of claiming the gig was over.  BUT – he would stay on stage and sing over some phat beats for a while.  So – rather than being a solely acoustic gig, it was really more of a game of two halves Bob-Dylan-at-Royal-Albert-Hall type deal.  I left once the use of dub-step was becoming the overwhelming factor.

And Leonard Cohen – went to see him.  Was ultra tired, and fell asleep a couple of time.  Not happy with myself.  Excellent gig – amazing voice on the old fella.  And next time he tours, I’ll definitely take the time to head into Europe to see him playing in some awesome old castle or roman ampitheatre, rather than at bloody Wembley Arena.

And that’s about it – much more happened, but I’m still ultra-tired, and just trying to put my life, and house, back together after an extended visit by australians.  Luckily, champagne didn’t raise its ugly head until about 1.5 hours before Ben’s flight left.  And yet we somehow managed to get through 2 bottles.  I believe we actually started the second bottle after he was supposed to start boarding.