Fish and Heather Findlay have announced their engagement. And read the whole thing; I know Fish is an incurable romantic, but you couldn’t make stuff like this up!
After hearing of Fish’s presence in the audience at Mostly Autumn’s Astoria show two weeks ago, I’m sure I’m not the only person who isn’t really surprised by this. Congratulations to both of them.
Friday night’s derailment at Grayrigg seems to have brought out the worst in some sections of the media. We have banner headlines in the tabloids about ‘Train Crash Carnage’, a lot of ill-informed rubbish spouted by self-appointed ‘experts’, and that appalling ambulance-chaser Louise Christian baying for blood. Not that the 70s dinosaur Bob Crow is any better.
What’s noticeable is the remarkable way the Pendolino coaches stood up to a high speed derailment. Compare this with the last serious crash, the derailment at Ufton Nervet in Berkshire, where an HST set derailed at the same speed, and came to a halt in roughly the same distance. In that crash one coach ended up folded in half, and six people died. At Grayrigg all nine coaches remained substantially intact with not as much as a broken window. The relatively low number of serious casualties resulted from people being thrown around inside.
Saying that, the fact that it’s caused by a catastrophic failure of a set of facing points is worrying, especially as it appears very similar to the Potter’s Bar accident in 2002. But passenger deaths on the railways are declining year-on-year, so all the talk about ‘profits before safety’ is just bollocks.
While any death is tragic, we need to keep a sense of proportion. Potter’s Bar was five years ago. In that time, Fifteen Thousand people have died on Britain’s roads. And a good proportion of those were the result of criminal recklessness an order of magnitude worse than the maintenance failures that cause Friday’s derailment.
A few weeks ago, a National Express coach overturned on the slip road connecting the M4 to the M25. The casualties were worse than Grayrigg. Many people suffered horrific injuries; there was an entire family all of whom lost limbs. The story lasted one news cycle in the media. The coach was towed away and the road reopened within 24 hours; no suggestion that the whole area be sealed off as a crime scene for days before any work started clearing the wreckage.
It’s impossible for anything to be 100% safe. It’s quite likely that we’ve reached the point where any attempt to eliminate the last 0.0001% risk might actually endanger lives, either by raising costs or reducing network capacity and forcing people onto the far more dangerous road network. I bet there are dozens of badly designed road junctions more deadly than any set of facing points on the national rail network.
Deep Purple don’t want people to buy their newly released album, a dodgy live album recorded in 1993 as the Mk2c lineup of the band were in the final throes of disintegration. As quoted in The Guardian:
Speaking on this morning’s Today program on Radio 4, Gillan explained that tensions within the band led to a dreadful performance on the evening in question, saying, “It was one of the lowest points of my life - all of our lives, actually.”
Gillan believes his label Sony BMG were wrong to release the record and that they were “opportunist fat cats”.
It seems that every time a band changes labels, their old record company always churns out as much cynical cash-in product as they can get away with; too often they manage to find creative ways of ensuring the band don’t get a single penny of royalties from the sales. The other victims are the fans, especially new ones, who find themselves having to sift through dozens of dodgy compilations containing the same songs in different orders, or dubious-quality live recordings.
When the revolution comes, the cynical record company executives who oversee the production of this drek will be sent to the same re-education camp in Rotherham as the people who invented DRM.
Interesting interview with Deep Purple, in, of all places, The Sun. Ian Gillan says some predictably rude things about Ritchie Blackmore (“I was brilliant and he was a tw*t”), and doesn’t think much of Blackmore’s Night. But he also has some telling things to say about the music business. On downloading, for instance:
It’s short-sighted. They should have embraced the digital revolution. All the creative people I knew in the studios � managers, producers writers � were thrilled when this whole thing came along.
We all had this vision of the great jukebox in the sky; how great it would be to download movies, anything, how great it would be. The industry itself saw this as a threat. Instead of embracing it, they fought it.
I’ve often said that it was a digital revolution is a threat.. to their existing business model that revolved around maximising sales from the smallest possible roster of massively hyped artists. The digital revolution could result in a completely different model; much more of the ‘long tail’ with a huge range of artists playing different styles of music, promoted by electronic word-of-mouth, and a vibrant live scene.
The big media cartels just don’t get it. As Ian Gillan says:
There are a lot of people who have no respect for music.
There was a meeting at AOL/Time-Warner, which a friend of mine was at. And the great Ahmet Ertegun from Atlantic Records � one of the great record company guys, what a history � was summoned because he hadn’t spent his budget for the previous year.
They were going to cut next year’s budget and he was trying explain to them that sometimes he invested it, sometimes he saved it, so he could work on an artist he was nurturing.
Anyway, he was told, just a buy a yacht just spend it. And there were these two blokes who had just joined the board and one said about Ertegun: “Who the f***’s that guy?”
And the other said: “I don’t know, some sort of content provider”. That pretty much summed it up how much interest these mega corporations have.
It’s looking like I’m going to exceed last years’s 14 gigs; I’ve been to four already and it’s only February! This is what’s coming up in the first part of the year. I’ve also got one train show and one RPG convention on the diary so far; both of these have clashed with gigs I’d liked to have gone to in previous years..
March 18 - Karnataka, Manchester
23-25th March - Mostly Autumn Convention, Ringwood (Tickets booked!)
April 19 - The Reasoning, Crewe
April 20 - Porcupine Tree, Preston
April 22 - Deep Purple/Styx (Gotta do one enormodome show once in a while)
(2 June - DEMU Convention in Burton on Trent)
7 June - Either Mostly Autumn at Crewe, or Marillion in Liverpool (awkward dilemma!)
8 June - Mostly Autumn, Bilston
16 June - Marillion, London
30 June - Mostly Autumn, Bury
(6-8 July, Stabcon in Stockport)
Not all these are definite yet; I still have to decide who to see on 7th June, for instance. April’s three gigs in four days is going to be a killer; Monday at work is going to be hell.
I’m really looking forward to the MA convention; at the last count there were going to be eight sets by four different bands over the three days, plus a whole load of other fun events.
Update Tickets ordered for Marillion (in London), Porcupine Tree and Purple. There’s also a gig by Breathing Space in Newton-le-Willows (of Vulcan Foundry fame) on June 22 which I could well be going to.
I’ve just about got my brain functioning again after the weekend. Not only did I take in the Harrogate model railway show, I went to two gigs in York, Breathing Space at the Roman Bath on Saturday night, followed by Odin Dragonfly at Fibbers on Sunday, neither of whom I’d seen live before.
Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of the Viking festival taking place in York that weekend, which meant there were no hotel rooms to be had on Saturday night. That meant I had to catch the 1:50am train back to Manchester, and finally arrived home at a quarter to five. After a few hours sleep I got up just in time to catch the train back to York in time for Sunday’s show. The whole weekend meant I saw a lot more of the inside of First Transpennine’s shiny new class 185 Desiros than I’d bargained for. The overnight trip even featured the scenic delights of the Calder Valley line, which was wasted on me because (a) it was dark and (b) I was completely knackered. I know the train reversed at Leeds, but have no idea what route it took from York.
Fortunately I did manage to find a B&B room the second night.
The Harrogate show was a bit of disappointment; not nearly enough N, and not quite enough D&E era either, although I did meet up with a few familiar faces.
As for the gigs, Breathing Space, for those who don’t know them, is the band formed by Iain Jennings and Olivia Sparnenn after Iain’s departure from Mostly Autumn. Currently they’re looking for a permanent drummer; in the meantime Livvy’s dad Howard is filling in on the drumstool.
To give an impression of the venue, I think there were four rows of people between the front of the ‘stage’ and the bar. And everyone had to get through this area to get to the loos. And I thought the Uplands Tavern in Swansea was weird.
In this impossibly cramped venue with the audience wedged in like sardines, Breathing Space overcame some quite severe equipment problems that delayed the start by more than half an hour, and still gave us a great show. Previously I’d only seen Livvy on stage as Mostly Autumn’s backing singer, sharing lead vocals with Heather on just one song. To see her fronting her own band, it’s apparent that she’s as good a frontperson as she is a singer. And she sounded and looked fantastic.
Material from Iain’s solo album, rather poppier than Iain’s old band in direction, made up the core of the set, with the addition of a great version of ‘Hollow’, some new songs which will presumably appear on the next album, plus a few covers, including Pat Benetar’s ‘Heartbreaker’ and a version of Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’ that owed a lot instrumentally to Muse’ version of the song. I may be completely wrong, but I take this as a hint that their future direction might be a bit harder-edged and guitar-driven. High spots were ‘Shades of Grey’, one of my favourites from the album, with a strong dance music element, and the excellent ‘Hollow’.
At least when playing on home turf, they’ve outgrown this size of venue. When do we get to see them play on our side of the Pennines?
Sunday’s show was in the rather larger Fibbers, a rock club with a proper stage. Odin Dragonfly are a side-project of Mostly Autumn, consisting of vocalist Heather Findlay and keyboardist/flautist Angela Gordon performing as an acoustic duo. This was supposed to have been the launch party for their album “Offerings”, but unfortunately the release has been delayed. When I walked in I recognised a good third of the audience, including Bryan Josh (who recognised me!), Andy Smith, Livvy and Howard. The whole place gave off an incredible friendly vibe.
There were two support acts. First up was vocalist and harpist Sarah Dean. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen a solo harpist live; I don’t think I have. Heather gave an introduction and asked the audience to keep quiet during the songs - and you could have heard a pin drop throughout the set. Second support was Hijack Oskar, a six-piece playing a semi-acoustic sort of folky pub-rock that makes perfect sense after two or three beers.
Odin Dragonfly played for about an hour, with Heather on acoustic guitar, Angie on piano and flute. It was a stunningly beautiful set, with the two of them sharing vocals. While I’ve always known how well Heather can sing, I hadn’t realised what a lovely voice Angie has when she sings lead.
Since the album’s not yet out, I didn’t know the majority of the songs, apart from some acoustic versions of Mostly Autumn oldies such as the seldom-played ‘Steal Away’ and ‘Eyes of the Forest’. They included an arrangement of ‘Caught in a Fold’ that sounded totally different from the hard-rock version I’m used to, though still recognisable as the same song. They also played a couple of covers, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ (not a song I know) and the encore, Jethro Tulls’ ‘Witches Promise’, both of which I believe are going to be on the album.
The evening ended with a few hardcore fans visiting the Old White Swan pub after chucking out time at Fibbers, to be joined by Bryan, Andy, Livvy and Howard.
I’ll be seeing both Breathing Space and Odin Dragonfly at the Mostly Autumn Convention in a month’s time. If you’re going, or thinking of going, see you there!
Last night was the official launch party for the new album Heart Full of Sky, at the Astoria Theatre, London.
It’s been a while since Mostly Autumn played a gig in London; I think the last one was more than a year ago when Iain Jennings was still in the band. This was an important gig in two ways; not only was it the showcase for the new album, but was also the debut of the new lineup of the band, without Liam on the second guitar, and with Gavin Griffiths replacing Andy Jennings on drums. Tonights show also featured special guests Peter Knight (from Steeleye Span) on violin, and Anne Marie Helder on backing vocals, both of whom had made guest appearances on the album.
Support was a short solo set from Anne Marie, just voice and acoustic guitar. I’m not usually a fan of solo singer-songwriters, a genre that seems to consist of people warbling tunelessly about their personal problems. But AMH was something else entirely; some very powerful songs with a lot more energy that you often get from full bands.
Mostly Autumn hit the stage at the ridiculously early time of 6:45 with the now familiar opener “Fading Colours”. Any doubts over how the new lineup might perform were rapidly dispelled; it was one of their strongest performances I’ve ever seen, even though one or two songs sounded a little different without Liam’s guitar. Chris Johnson doubled up on keyboards and guitar, adding that second guitar where it was really needed. The whole band were on top form, Bryan’s guitar playing was as good as ever, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard Heather sing as well.
The setlist included the whole of the retail single CD version of the album, interspersed with older favourites such as ‘Carpe Diem’, ‘Evergreen’ and ‘Heroes Never Die’. One unexpected highlight was “The Night Sky”, a seldom-played oldie from the first album, featuring Peter Knight’s violin. The new songs came over very well indeed, with superb versions of the emotionally intense “To Find the Sun” (With Peter Knight again), and the sparse ‘Broken’.
This is the beginning of a new chapter in the band’s history, and a start as good as this bodes very well for the future.
With the early curfew (the venue turns into a gay nightclub at 10pm), everybody decamped to the pub round the corner, where the bar staff were overwhelmed by having to serve an entire Astoria-full of people all at once. There I met up with a lot of familiar faces I’ve seen from gigs at Crewe and Manchester, spoke briefly to some of the band, and drank too much Leffe (You’re not supposed to drink that stuff in pints!).
Roll on the convention in March.
In just a few minutes, I’ll be off to the Astoria Theatre for the official launch party for Mostly Autumn’s new album “Heart Full of Sky”. Just the thing I need to get over a really crap week at work.
The Times’ Roger Boyes trots out some tired clichés about model railways.
Part of the attraction of model trains has always been the order of the landscape. The trains may sometimes fall off the rails but on the whole they run on time. Everything is prim and proper: the plastic fir trees are untouched by climate change; the towns are tidy clusters of gabled homes rather than slum tenements and the little people never talk back.
Clearly he’s never some of the superbly-modelled scenes of urban decay on the exhibition circuit. Yes, there are the rather dull chocolate box models of a fantasy steam era past that never really existed. But there are plenty of layouts out there with things like abandoned shopping trolleys in rivers modelled in loving detail. And who can forget the topical “No Poll Tax” graffiti on the motorway viaduct on the Model Railway Club’s “New Annington”.
But Roger Boyes visited the trade fair at Nuremberg, and his head exploded.
But visitors to the trade fair in Nuremberg have been gaping at the antics around the railway lines. Merten, which makes train-set figures, is offering a nudist beach, a waitress wearing only an apron and stockings and a couple of lascivious pole-dancers. One scene shows a man urinating against a wall, watched by a woman. Another shows a couple performing oral sex. Look carefully at the scene depicting a brothel raid and, behind the naked prostitutes, you will see the figure of a priest trying to make a quick getaway.
Hate to break it to you, Roger, but they’ve been making HO scale nudists for years. And it’s not just those wacky Germans; there’s a big O gauge British layout on the exhibition circuit with about a dozen nekkid wimmin on it.
Link from Spinneyhead
I’ve always thought the worst thing about Apple Macs is the people that use them. Unlike Acorn Archimedes users (remember them?), who were just to be pitied, Mac-heads compound their deliberate choice of the computing equivalent of a Betamax VCR with an air of insufferable smugness. They think lame cartoons like this are actually funny.
Charlie Brooker thinks the same way. He takes as his starting point Apple’s current ad campaign.
Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show - probably the best sitcom of the past five years - in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, “PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers.” In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.
I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don’t use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.
Predictably the comment thread gets deluged with indignant responses from humourless Mac-heads.
(Link from The Ministry of Information)
