Submitted by Him
Hah, just kidding. I saw The Shins tonight, and I didn't even have to buy the tickets from a scalper. Take that, London! You can hold me down, but I can still come up for air every now and then.
Thursday, 29 March 2007
Thursday, 15 March 2007
Concerts I Never Went To: The Killers (a story of love and loss)
Submitted by Him.
I wasn't one of the first to discover the happy, disco-esque joy that is The Killers. This is a sad side-effect of not being a radio-listener. A friend introduced me to them well after they'd reached hit status, as we were driving in her car around Perth. I remember it well - she spilled petrol everywhere at a service station, and then we argued about exactly what Mr Brightside was supposed to be about.
I still have discussions about that very thing, even now. Is she a prostitute? Is she cheating on someone else to be with him? Who knows? Does it matter? It's a fucking great track.
When I returned in February to the action-packed unscene of London, UK, I arrived just in time to not be able to afford to see The Killers, who were touring to promote their new CD, Sam's Town. They're a band that I'd love to see live. In my opinion, live concerts exist to give you an adrenalin rush, an uplifting experience, a night to remember. Bugger shoe-gazing for a joke. Mellow bands are best experienced in your earphones, wandering along the grey river on a grey day, in sad, solemn solitude. In a grey jacket. With grey stripes. Clutching your dead baby in your arms. You get the picture.
The Killers - get your groove on, sink a bunch of lagers, or pills, or whatever turns you on, and get into it. Well, sadly, I couldn't get into it, because I currently have no work and no savings. The scalpers were flogging their wares online for four times the original price. My old housemate went. He drove down from Leeds just for that gig. My current housemate went too. My ex-girlfriend dropped off a phone charger I'd lent her last year, and told me she was going also, and she had a problem. She had two tickets for the seated area which she didn't want, and was hoping to exchange them for one in the standing area, where the rest of her friends were going to be.
What do you do? You want to see a great, fun concert, but could you sit next to an ex for the duration, desperately enjoying the gig and guiding the small talk around any possibility of mention of the past, the present, and stuff that really pokes the ol' heart and the memories it steadfastly embraces to its little beating chest?
I told her that if she couldn't trade the tickets, I'd be happy to buy the spare one off her. "Let me know how you go," said I. "It's better to enjoy a concert in company." I don't know who I was trying to kid.
She's a stronger person than I. I never received a call on the day, so I can only assume that she found someone to trade the tickets with, or sat alone, preferring the atmosphere to be laden with merely smoke and sweat, rather than the oppressive weight of the past and the nimble dance of chitchat which desperately avoids things that were.
Everyone who went said it was a great gig. I've heard some of their earlier shows were actually pretty crap, and so I prefer to believe that was the case this time too, and they're all just trying to maintain their pride. Me, I have no pride to maintain. I just wanted to shake my booty.
I wasn't one of the first to discover the happy, disco-esque joy that is The Killers. This is a sad side-effect of not being a radio-listener. A friend introduced me to them well after they'd reached hit status, as we were driving in her car around Perth. I remember it well - she spilled petrol everywhere at a service station, and then we argued about exactly what Mr Brightside was supposed to be about.
I still have discussions about that very thing, even now. Is she a prostitute? Is she cheating on someone else to be with him? Who knows? Does it matter? It's a fucking great track.
When I returned in February to the action-packed unscene of London, UK, I arrived just in time to not be able to afford to see The Killers, who were touring to promote their new CD, Sam's Town. They're a band that I'd love to see live. In my opinion, live concerts exist to give you an adrenalin rush, an uplifting experience, a night to remember. Bugger shoe-gazing for a joke. Mellow bands are best experienced in your earphones, wandering along the grey river on a grey day, in sad, solemn solitude. In a grey jacket. With grey stripes. Clutching your dead baby in your arms. You get the picture.
The Killers - get your groove on, sink a bunch of lagers, or pills, or whatever turns you on, and get into it. Well, sadly, I couldn't get into it, because I currently have no work and no savings. The scalpers were flogging their wares online for four times the original price. My old housemate went. He drove down from Leeds just for that gig. My current housemate went too. My ex-girlfriend dropped off a phone charger I'd lent her last year, and told me she was going also, and she had a problem. She had two tickets for the seated area which she didn't want, and was hoping to exchange them for one in the standing area, where the rest of her friends were going to be.
What do you do? You want to see a great, fun concert, but could you sit next to an ex for the duration, desperately enjoying the gig and guiding the small talk around any possibility of mention of the past, the present, and stuff that really pokes the ol' heart and the memories it steadfastly embraces to its little beating chest?
I told her that if she couldn't trade the tickets, I'd be happy to buy the spare one off her. "Let me know how you go," said I. "It's better to enjoy a concert in company." I don't know who I was trying to kid.
She's a stronger person than I. I never received a call on the day, so I can only assume that she found someone to trade the tickets with, or sat alone, preferring the atmosphere to be laden with merely smoke and sweat, rather than the oppressive weight of the past and the nimble dance of chitchat which desperately avoids things that were.
Everyone who went said it was a great gig. I've heard some of their earlier shows were actually pretty crap, and so I prefer to believe that was the case this time too, and they're all just trying to maintain their pride. Me, I have no pride to maintain. I just wanted to shake my booty.
Monday, 15 January 2007
Shows I Never Went To: New Year’s Eve
Submitted by Her.
Two thousand and seven is here.
So, what did you do on New Year’s Eve, the 31st of December, 2006?
What did you do in this city packed full of things to do and places to go and music to dance to and people to smut and things to see?
Did you – like me – go for the cheapest possible event option as long as it bore even the slightest resemblance to a Big Night Out?
I bet you did!
Those ultra-cool, big warehouse rave parties probably didn’t hold a candle to the crowds that some dodgy make-shift disco with £1 entry pulled!
And you know why?
Because all of those promoters – yes, all of them - wanted to charge you upwards from £30 just to get into the door.
Ridiculous and unnecessary, I said! So I spent £15 on a ticket to a nearby indie club night* and had a blast.
Although, here are some things that I could have done:
- Issst NYE Warehouse Party – Held at a SECRET SHOREDITCH WAREHOUSE LOCATION (oh! The splendid wankery of it all!), you get ‘early bird’ tickets for £25 + bf. Performing that night were Tiefschwarz, the Klaxons, Simian Mobile Disco and Kevin Griffiths & Bobby M. Tickets were being sold specially from Rough Trade Shops, if that’s any indication to how cool this would have been. Plus, a warehouse? Yesss! Hello, old school rave vibe (remembering that all in attendance would probably have been too young to ever have been around when the 90’s rave scene was active)! I imagine that the venue would have been lit up by an abundance of glowsticks being clutched by an oversupply of beautiful, sexually-ambiguous boys in overpriced, neon ‘nu-rave’ hoodies and gorgeous girls wearing dresses over colorful leggings and too much make-up. The gig finished at 6am but all was not lost because punters were offered entry to the (presumably secret) after party from 6am. Guaranteed to have been at least two overdoses before midnight after some punters swallowed some cheap pills which turned out to be nothing more than dichlorophene and talcum powder.
- Together NYE – It was held at Turnmills and it would have cost you £45 in advance to get in. Playing that eve were The Chemical Brothers, Justin Robertson, Anil Chawla, Silversurfer, Terry and Stuart Geddes. Plus, there was a “Rock Idol” fancy dress theme for the night. Come on! Going hard to the Chemical Brothers! With a room packed full of people dressed as rock stars! Nothing bad could be said about how this gig would have gone down. We missed it and we are slowly dying inside.
- Kylie New Years Eve GAY Party – Held at G-A-Y at the Astoria, it would have set you back £14. Who doesn’t like the thought of ringing in the New Year with Kylie Minogue tribute and “great camp pop songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s”? Add to that a huge venue full of gorgeous, semi-dressed young men and the promise of dancing hard all night without having to worry about long queues to the ladies toilets or being felt up? Sounds like heaven to me (which incidentally is the name of another London gay club that holds big NYE parties).
- School Disco – At the Hammersmith Pallias. The price was £39 + booking fee. I’ve always been a sucker for costume parties. Make them school-uniform themed costume parties with the promise of 70’s and 80’s disco hits, and I’m practically salivating. My guess is that this party would have been absolutely excellent to start with. Then the novelty would have worn off as the place inevitably turned into a 4000-capacity grope fest featuring disgustingly drunk, short-tartan-skirted women and men still nursing hard-ons for schoolgirls back when it was socially acceptable (and legal) for them to copulate with girls of school age.
- Masquerade Extravagasm – Held at saucy burlesque and cabaret venue, Volupte, this would have set you back 34 squid. What can I say? London’s finest burlesque artistes, cocktails, cabaret sing-alongs and the chance to smooch a mystery masked stranger when the clock strikes midnight? You should have run over your own mother just to get a ticket. But you didn’t, you ethical bastard.
- New Year’s Eve Circus Of Fools, hosted by Craft Night London – It was held at The Notting Hill Arts Club (where the club is regularly held) and cost £20. I’m told that there were cheap drinks and “quirky bands and DJs from all over the world [providing] the music and entertainment” while the attendees worked on their “DIY masterpiece”. Very cool. I like the idea that New Year’s can involve doing something creative and productive instead of just getting so inebriated that you can’t walk home. Ten pounds sez that there was a drunken knitting needle-related injury before the new year had officially been rung in.
- Feeling Gloomy’s Unhappy New Year – Bar Academy. 15 pounds. ‘Feeling Gloomy’ is a rather celebrated club night held every Saturday at the same venue. Promising to bring you “the saddest, most melancholy music known to man” that you can also dance to, it would have been a brilliant way to share a midnight kiss with a skinny boy with dark, foppish hair and glasses fogged up by his tears. I cried that I missed this. Although I’d probably have cried had I not.
- Fabric New Year – Held at – wait for it – Fabric, it cost: £35 in advance plus the money you would have spent on drugs for the evening. Featuring Craig Richards, Terry Francis, Tobi Neumann, Booka Shade (Live), Jay Haze aka Fuckpony (Live) and Jamie Jones in Room One; Justice, Meat Katie, Erol Alkan, Joakim & The Ectoplasmic Band (Live) and Sick Rick in Room Two; and Ame, Dixon, Marcus Worgull and Rob Summerhayes in Room Three. Fabric is legendary as a club and that was a pretty tight lineup they had going. I predict that everyone in this club would have an excellent NYE being drugged put of their skulls as they clung to the stranger that they had just made their new best friend and shouted out “We! Are! Your Friends! You’ll never be alone again!” So come on.
* For the record, it was the Afterskool Klub/Heat NYE party.
Two thousand and seven is here.
So, what did you do on New Year’s Eve, the 31st of December, 2006?
What did you do in this city packed full of things to do and places to go and music to dance to and people to smut and things to see?
Did you – like me – go for the cheapest possible event option as long as it bore even the slightest resemblance to a Big Night Out?
I bet you did!
Those ultra-cool, big warehouse rave parties probably didn’t hold a candle to the crowds that some dodgy make-shift disco with £1 entry pulled!
And you know why?
Because all of those promoters – yes, all of them - wanted to charge you upwards from £30 just to get into the door.
Ridiculous and unnecessary, I said! So I spent £15 on a ticket to a nearby indie club night* and had a blast.
Although, here are some things that I could have done:
- Issst NYE Warehouse Party – Held at a SECRET SHOREDITCH WAREHOUSE LOCATION (oh! The splendid wankery of it all!), you get ‘early bird’ tickets for £25 + bf. Performing that night were Tiefschwarz, the Klaxons, Simian Mobile Disco and Kevin Griffiths & Bobby M. Tickets were being sold specially from Rough Trade Shops, if that’s any indication to how cool this would have been. Plus, a warehouse? Yesss! Hello, old school rave vibe (remembering that all in attendance would probably have been too young to ever have been around when the 90’s rave scene was active)! I imagine that the venue would have been lit up by an abundance of glowsticks being clutched by an oversupply of beautiful, sexually-ambiguous boys in overpriced, neon ‘nu-rave’ hoodies and gorgeous girls wearing dresses over colorful leggings and too much make-up. The gig finished at 6am but all was not lost because punters were offered entry to the (presumably secret) after party from 6am. Guaranteed to have been at least two overdoses before midnight after some punters swallowed some cheap pills which turned out to be nothing more than dichlorophene and talcum powder.
- Together NYE – It was held at Turnmills and it would have cost you £45 in advance to get in. Playing that eve were The Chemical Brothers, Justin Robertson, Anil Chawla, Silversurfer, Terry and Stuart Geddes. Plus, there was a “Rock Idol” fancy dress theme for the night. Come on! Going hard to the Chemical Brothers! With a room packed full of people dressed as rock stars! Nothing bad could be said about how this gig would have gone down. We missed it and we are slowly dying inside.
- Kylie New Years Eve GAY Party – Held at G-A-Y at the Astoria, it would have set you back £14. Who doesn’t like the thought of ringing in the New Year with Kylie Minogue tribute and “great camp pop songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s”? Add to that a huge venue full of gorgeous, semi-dressed young men and the promise of dancing hard all night without having to worry about long queues to the ladies toilets or being felt up? Sounds like heaven to me (which incidentally is the name of another London gay club that holds big NYE parties).
- School Disco – At the Hammersmith Pallias. The price was £39 + booking fee. I’ve always been a sucker for costume parties. Make them school-uniform themed costume parties with the promise of 70’s and 80’s disco hits, and I’m practically salivating. My guess is that this party would have been absolutely excellent to start with. Then the novelty would have worn off as the place inevitably turned into a 4000-capacity grope fest featuring disgustingly drunk, short-tartan-skirted women and men still nursing hard-ons for schoolgirls back when it was socially acceptable (and legal) for them to copulate with girls of school age.
- Masquerade Extravagasm – Held at saucy burlesque and cabaret venue, Volupte, this would have set you back 34 squid. What can I say? London’s finest burlesque artistes, cocktails, cabaret sing-alongs and the chance to smooch a mystery masked stranger when the clock strikes midnight? You should have run over your own mother just to get a ticket. But you didn’t, you ethical bastard.
- New Year’s Eve Circus Of Fools, hosted by Craft Night London – It was held at The Notting Hill Arts Club (where the club is regularly held) and cost £20. I’m told that there were cheap drinks and “quirky bands and DJs from all over the world [providing] the music and entertainment” while the attendees worked on their “DIY masterpiece”. Very cool. I like the idea that New Year’s can involve doing something creative and productive instead of just getting so inebriated that you can’t walk home. Ten pounds sez that there was a drunken knitting needle-related injury before the new year had officially been rung in.
- Feeling Gloomy’s Unhappy New Year – Bar Academy. 15 pounds. ‘Feeling Gloomy’ is a rather celebrated club night held every Saturday at the same venue. Promising to bring you “the saddest, most melancholy music known to man” that you can also dance to, it would have been a brilliant way to share a midnight kiss with a skinny boy with dark, foppish hair and glasses fogged up by his tears. I cried that I missed this. Although I’d probably have cried had I not.
- Fabric New Year – Held at – wait for it – Fabric, it cost: £35 in advance plus the money you would have spent on drugs for the evening. Featuring Craig Richards, Terry Francis, Tobi Neumann, Booka Shade (Live), Jay Haze aka Fuckpony (Live) and Jamie Jones in Room One; Justice, Meat Katie, Erol Alkan, Joakim & The Ectoplasmic Band (Live) and Sick Rick in Room Two; and Ame, Dixon, Marcus Worgull and Rob Summerhayes in Room Three. Fabric is legendary as a club and that was a pretty tight lineup they had going. I predict that everyone in this club would have an excellent NYE being drugged put of their skulls as they clung to the stranger that they had just made their new best friend and shouted out “We! Are! Your Friends! You’ll never be alone again!” So come on.
* For the record, it was the Afterskool Klub/Heat NYE party.
Saturday, 13 January 2007
Movies I Haven't Seen: Night at the Museum
Submitted by Him.
Slated as the must-see movie of the 2006 Christmas Season, the marketing behind this film left me less than anxious to join the streams of victims herded in the direction of the nearest cinemaplex. Tonight I had the dubious honour of being invited to go and watch it post-holiday-season, and still found it in me to pass up the opportunity.
I must admit to cringing at the thought of Ben Stiller running around a museum full of special effects, and the fault isn't entirely his. Rather, I'd lay the blame squarely at the feet of the new breed of Monty-Python quoters: fans of Zoolander. You cannot escape the hordes of twenty-something women who find endless glee in that movie, and quotes thereof, much like the plague of geeks in the seventies and eighties who could, and would, quote ad-infinitum and verbatim every last line from every last Monty Python sketch, and all of the movies too. In fact, I don't doubt that they continue to harass their poor families and associates with tired old quotes ("I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!") and inane references to an innocent absurdist take on life that should have long since died a quiet and dignified death. If any movie deserves such devoted and perennial affection, it should be Top Gun.
So, Ben Stiller, I apologise that my opinion of your talents has been marred by my opinion of your fans, but that's life in the modern world. I'd rather watch Top Gun and admire the fact that Tom Cruise successfully popularised one of the dumbest haircuts in the history of the world: the flat-top (second only to the mullet) and appreciate the cinematic masterstroke of silhouetted tonsil hockey to the sexy sounds of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away." Not to mention the homo-erotic scenes of half-naked pilots diving around in the dirt under the pretense of playing volleyball. It was a world in which there were no points for second best, and I will continue to follow that philosophy tonight.
Slated as the must-see movie of the 2006 Christmas Season, the marketing behind this film left me less than anxious to join the streams of victims herded in the direction of the nearest cinemaplex. Tonight I had the dubious honour of being invited to go and watch it post-holiday-season, and still found it in me to pass up the opportunity.
I must admit to cringing at the thought of Ben Stiller running around a museum full of special effects, and the fault isn't entirely his. Rather, I'd lay the blame squarely at the feet of the new breed of Monty-Python quoters: fans of Zoolander. You cannot escape the hordes of twenty-something women who find endless glee in that movie, and quotes thereof, much like the plague of geeks in the seventies and eighties who could, and would, quote ad-infinitum and verbatim every last line from every last Monty Python sketch, and all of the movies too. In fact, I don't doubt that they continue to harass their poor families and associates with tired old quotes ("I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!") and inane references to an innocent absurdist take on life that should have long since died a quiet and dignified death. If any movie deserves such devoted and perennial affection, it should be Top Gun.
So, Ben Stiller, I apologise that my opinion of your talents has been marred by my opinion of your fans, but that's life in the modern world. I'd rather watch Top Gun and admire the fact that Tom Cruise successfully popularised one of the dumbest haircuts in the history of the world: the flat-top (second only to the mullet) and appreciate the cinematic masterstroke of silhouetted tonsil hockey to the sexy sounds of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away." Not to mention the homo-erotic scenes of half-naked pilots diving around in the dirt under the pretense of playing volleyball. It was a world in which there were no points for second best, and I will continue to follow that philosophy tonight.
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