![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Snowsnowsnowsnowsnow! I love snow. I don't even mind that it's Spring, because as far as I'm concerned a new Ice Age would be very welcome, or at the very least one of those Victorian-style mini ones. However, two questions present themselves:
1) Why the blazes do I not own a sledge?
2) How come Finny P was blanketed in snow, but Victoria has none? It's not that much further south!
A slight deviation from the normal programme at the Barge (whose cuisine, incidentally, has gone a bit nouveau of late) last night; the acts are doing two sets each, and this time Jeays and the Speech Painter are supported by Blyth Power. Or maybe Red Wedding - it seems to be one of those Devant/Carfax situations.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beingjdc informs me that they are like Ben Elton crossed with Billy Bragg, and I will hate them. He is a fool. The singer may look like a bit of a flid, but he has a voice somewhere between Hawksley, Bowie and the guy from the Bathers. I may not agree with their politics, but there's a visionary intensity to the way they express them; this is music to read The Red Star by, an alternate leftism that's not so bloody corrupt or dull. And it's not all proest songs from another world (the singer has a mug which commemorates Labour's 1992 election victory) - they have a sequel song to 'The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy' which is genuinely chilling.
(I love sequel songs. I only heard it once, but Johnny Cash did a track with some violinist where the Devil goes back to Georgia after Johnny is old and past it, but still fool enough to agree to a rematch)
The Speech Painter is The Speech Painter. As performance poets go, he's pretty good, but ultimately I can't quite see the point of performance poetry. Why not just make it into songs? Songs where the lyrics are paramount, sure, but that's what Murray Lachlan Young and Project Adorno did, and suddenly it worked for me.
Even spread over two setsmissfrost's fantasy boyfriend Philip Jeays doesn't get to play as many songs as usual, but he's still brilliant. It's a more stripped-down performance than I've seen from him in a while, but really all he needs is that voice, those songs and a bit of backing and he's ahead of most anyone out there today. The only song tonight that's new to me is 'The Antelope', with which I am most impressed; ksta does quite a god job of passing off her increasing somnolence as rapt musical attention.
Is anyone familair with the music of John Wesley Harding? I have his debut novel, under the name Wesley Stace, which is compared to Mervyn Peake and Middlesex, but am a little nervous because the last debut by a musician I read was Henry Shukman's execrable Darien Dogs, and that was compared to Graham Greene.
(Now I am on the second floor there is a box of free books which I pass every time I go to get a drink, or outside. Those who have seen the teetering towers of tomes in my room will know that I am very acquisitive when it comes to books. And I am also up for pretty much anything which is free, except perhaps Carling. I fear this will end badly)
Case in point as regards free stuff: my boss was just about to throw out a spike. I couldn't bear the thought of this, so now I have a spike. Yay for my spike!
1) Why the blazes do I not own a sledge?
2) How come Finny P was blanketed in snow, but Victoria has none? It's not that much further south!
A slight deviation from the normal programme at the Barge (whose cuisine, incidentally, has gone a bit nouveau of late) last night; the acts are doing two sets each, and this time Jeays and the Speech Painter are supported by Blyth Power. Or maybe Red Wedding - it seems to be one of those Devant/Carfax situations.
beingjdc informs me that they are like Ben Elton crossed with Billy Bragg, and I will hate them. He is a fool. The singer may look like a bit of a flid, but he has a voice somewhere between Hawksley, Bowie and the guy from the Bathers. I may not agree with their politics, but there's a visionary intensity to the way they express them; this is music to read The Red Star by, an alternate leftism that's not so bloody corrupt or dull. And it's not all proest songs from another world (the singer has a mug which commemorates Labour's 1992 election victory) - they have a sequel song to 'The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy' which is genuinely chilling.(I love sequel songs. I only heard it once, but Johnny Cash did a track with some violinist where the Devil goes back to Georgia after Johnny is old and past it, but still fool enough to agree to a rematch)
The Speech Painter is The Speech Painter. As performance poets go, he's pretty good, but ultimately I can't quite see the point of performance poetry. Why not just make it into songs? Songs where the lyrics are paramount, sure, but that's what Murray Lachlan Young and Project Adorno did, and suddenly it worked for me.
Even spread over two sets
missfrost's fantasy boyfriend Philip Jeays doesn't get to play as many songs as usual, but he's still brilliant. It's a more stripped-down performance than I've seen from him in a while, but really all he needs is that voice, those songs and a bit of backing and he's ahead of most anyone out there today. The only song tonight that's new to me is 'The Antelope', with which I am most impressed; ksta does quite a god job of passing off her increasing somnolence as rapt musical attention. Is anyone familair with the music of John Wesley Harding? I have his debut novel, under the name Wesley Stace, which is compared to Mervyn Peake and Middlesex, but am a little nervous because the last debut by a musician I read was Henry Shukman's execrable Darien Dogs, and that was compared to Graham Greene.
(Now I am on the second floor there is a box of free books which I pass every time I go to get a drink, or outside. Those who have seen the teetering towers of tomes in my room will know that I am very acquisitive when it comes to books. And I am also up for pretty much anything which is free, except perhaps Carling. I fear this will end badly)
Case in point as regards free stuff: my boss was just about to throw out a spike. I couldn't bear the thought of this, so now I have a spike. Yay for my spike!
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}