Don't expect too much activity here over the next couple of weeks, as I'm relocating from London to Belfast!

I'm aware that there are a lot of live reviews to upload and these will be sorted as soon as possible, but there certainly won't be any new interviews or features until I've settled.

I've found few things whilst I've been packing.
First of all, I have a TON of black-and-white promotional pics of all sorts of bands from the 90s which I will endeavour to upload as soon as we get a scanner sorted out. I reckon enough people are interested in them to make this worthwhile.
Secondly, I have unearthed FIVE copies of Weedbus issue 13 dating from December 1997. If anyone wants these please email me before Monday 15 July and I will post you a copy. It's 32 packed A4 pages, mint condition (!), a lovely cover by Ruth McCarthy, an absolutely shocking amount of reviews plus interviews with AC Acoustics, Archers of Loaf, Baby Bird, Built to Spill, Griswold, Labradford, Luna, Stephen Pastel, Salaryman and Tunic (all by me), Gene (by Elena), the Make-up (by Iain) and Sugarplant (by Terry). The Tindersticks are also interviewed but I can't remember who did it!! Free to a good home if you catch me before I pack up my van on Monday....
Thirdly, I found my sad trainspotter list of all the music used in Chris Morris's excellent third series of Blue Jam (Radio One 1998). These details seen to vanished from the internet, but I found a list safely stored away under the sofa. I'll either post it here, or offer it to one of the Morris fan pages, very soon.
Finally, I recovered the Guardian reprint of Don De Lillo In the Ruins of the Future, which was his response to the attacks on the World Trade Center on the 11th September. I knew I hadn't thrown it away, but couldn't find it for ages (even on the net!). It was safely hidden with the Blue Jam stuff.

I now have a place of abode in Belfast which is great. Once I've gone through the ritual of playing 'My New House' by the Fall it'll really sink in! I'm due to leave London week beginning 15th July.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking that All Tomorrow's Parties have had a great idea.

It is a terrible habit, but I always seem to start these posts with an apology. That's what years of fanzine editing does to you!
You might think that because the World Cup is nearing an end I would be able to get on with this site (I have almost given up on Big Brother thankfully), but oh no, I have to prepare for my move to Belfast in the next few weeks.
Despite shirking my responsibilities here, we spent last weekend in Paris (pour l'anniversaire!) doing all sorts of touristy things as we'd never been there before. We returned knackered and I had to go into work and then go to see Sonic Youth. Thank God I had a seat! I'm also glad I'd heard 'Murray Street' before I went as they played ALL of it, in fact the set was almost entirely different from the one I saw in the same venue two years ago. Nothing from 'Goo' or 'NYC Ghosts and Flowers' (odd considering I thought it was part 1 of a trilogy of which 'Murray St' is part 2) but lots of old stuff too - 'Eric's Trip', 'White Kross', 'Shadow of a Doubt', 'Candle', 'Skip Tracer', 'Drunken Butterfly'.

World Cup fever today with the Turks honking their horns all around Green Lanes this morning, and the Koreans running about all over central London in a state of near hysteria! Where were they watching the match I wonder?
I'm guilty of neglecting this site again, but the World Cup has just taken over everything. Still, two days without football may give me the chance to do something.

Meanwhile, last week I went to see the very brilliant Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall who was absolutely head and shoulders above most things I've ever seen and miles better than his televised jubilee performance. 'Cabinessence', 'Sail on Sailor', 'Surf's Up', 'Heroes and Villians' were all in the first part, and the second part was ALL of 'Pet Sounds', played exactly as it is on the record! Lots of the hits at the end too, and he left us with a lovely version of 'Love and Mercy' from his first solo album. I was expecting great things and he delivered.
Tomorrow, I am going to see another old favourite of mine - Television- who are playing David Bowie's Meltdown festival.
While I'm in retro mode I noticed a this bizarre story about Arthur Lee of Love, who has been honoured by some British MPs. After six years in jail I bet he thought it was odd too.

This World Cup tends to really eat into your day, doesn't it?

Anyway, I noticed that rumours about the White Stripes relationship (brother/sister or ex-husband and wife?) have been in the news again. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here is a copy of their 'alleged' marriage certificate. There are claims that it is genuine.

Sorry, I am rubbish, but the relentless march of new content has been halted because I've got flu. Also, I had to completely rearrange the archives as they all vanished from the blogger site. The last three months can be found at the bottom of the left-hand column, the rest of them have gone forever. By the way, that column seems to have narrowed itself in the process...

Old farts at play in London during June => Damo Suzuki, New Order, Brian Wilson, David Bowie, Television, Sonic Youth, Arthur Lee and Love....
Apart from Bowie (which is well sold-out) I'll probably go to most of these. Mainly due to the rave reports from everyone I know who saw Brian Wilson in January, I am still looking forward to his show, although at his brief appearance at the Jubilee nonsense yesterday he looked kind of spooked. I suppose after years of mental illness and inactivity I guess it's amazing he's even doing these shows again.

I'm off to an Irish- Australian wedding in Donegal tomorrow, back to "normal" on Saturday. My flight lands at 12.30 which is the exact kick-off of the Ireland-Germany match, which is mildly frustrating to say the least!

A few new releases to look out for -
Piano Magic - Writers Without Homes Debut full length for 4AD at last. Also playing the Spitz in Spitalfields tomorrow (5th)
Olympic Lifts - Horizontically Vertical 12" and Cd single out at last in UK, album follows on July 8, big launch in London July 6th.
Dj Shadow - The Private Press Mixed reviews so far but I like it! Long awaited follow-up to the classic 'Endtroducing'.

Feeling a bit under the weather this last couple of days, I struggled out to see Múm and Four Tet in an excessively hot, sweaty packed Dingwalls, both acts were well worth it. In case you don't know Four Tet is Kieron from Fridge, whom I may have been a bit hard on the other week, because his solo laptop/ turntable set was great yesterday. I found Múm absolutely fascinating, although they didn't live up to their recorded work. I took about 15 minutes to really click, and the crowd had dwindled a lot by the end, but I'm glad I stuck with them.

As for this site, the blogger archives can now be accessed in a tidier form from this page. World Cup and Big Brother stuff is on the discussion board.

The archives should be back to normal tomorrow. This means that the new-content-per-day has fallen behind, though here's a review of Ballboy to keep things ticking over...

Slight panic today when I realised that a lot of the blog archives have vanished. Although anything before February seems to be lost forever, the rest is being backed up right now. Hopefully this will also mean that those archives will be more manageable.

I seem to have a compulsive urge to talk about Big Brother and the World Cup at every opportunity, but I've decided to take it to the discussion board in an attempt to keep this blog page a BB/WC free-zone, and also to breathe a bit of life into that ailing message board!

Oh yeah, and the DJ Shadow sample I've been curious about seems to be from a record by Colonel Bagshot - thanks to the Audio Galaxy discussion page for helping solve that.

Even more stuff - a review of Solex has been added.

How am I supposed to concentrate on this when the World Cup, Big Brother and best of all 24 seem to taking over my life. I spent a while last night trying to work out some complex spread betting on the group stage of the world cup, but I haven't committed to anything yet. I'm not sure if I should fill this site with football when you can get that all over the web, so I'll try and stay off it here.

Despite all this, I have updated the Yo La Tengo gig page with a review of their fantastic "Sounds of Science" show in London recently. Incidentally, if anyone is having trouble getting a 'The Sounds of the Sounds of Science" CD try the band's own website.

Happy birthday Mum (and Bob Dylan!)

I still haven't resolved that DJ Shadow puzzle but I'm now convinced it isn't Jon Anderson, although it must be from an early 70s prog tune. By the way, there's a rumour that the 'Six Day War' will be Shadow's next single, although the title will be changed to 'Six days', I imagine because of the sensitive nature of the Middle East at the mo. (The Six Day War was the point when Israel claimed its current territories from Egypt and Jordan.)

Anyway, back to more trivial matters - new reviews of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Joie/ Dead Blonde Girlfriend have been uploaded.

Don't forget that this weekend in London sees a lot of gigs organised by the fine Track and Field Organisation. Check their website for more details.

Funny, I was just listening to the aforementioned John Kennedy show (yes, Desert Hearts are on in about half an hour) and he was singing the praises of DJ Shadow as he had seen him in the Astoria tonight. He played an almost soft-rock tune called 'The Six Day War' from the forthcoming Shadow album, which sounds a bit like Yes if you ask me, but who is that singing - surely it's not Jon Anderson? Does anyone know?

After four years in London I finally got to a test match (England v Sri Lanka) at Lord's. I should really make a list of things I haven't done, and do them before I move away. That's one down today!

I forgot to mention how good Desert Hearts were the other night. I haven't seen them in about four years and they really have gone up a few gears. The new drummer (well, he's new to me but he plays on the album) is outstanding. I'll put up a review soon but hopefully you can hear the gig this week on XFM. It'll be on the John Kennedy show on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday (check the XFM listings for proper details). Don't forget you can also get XFM if you've got Sky Digital.

Well, I could have spent tonight uploading new stuff but Geocities are doing "scheduled system maintenance" so I can't even amend the A-Z !!! Anyway, I'll update the links tonight and try to get this blogger archive into decent shape as well.

I've had a funny week actually.
In the course of my work I spoke to Bono (!) on Wednesday and I was on Thai TV on Friday. Oxbow at the Verge on Wednesday night was actually quite an unnerving experience (Jason from Wolf Colonel said afterwards that he was "scared pretty much all the way through it"!), and most bizarre of all I found a broken folk fiddle on the tube on the way home! If anyone genuinely wants it back please email me.

Gigs to go to in London over the next few days-
tonight: Wolf Colonel + Econoline + Stanton + Oxbow, the Verge, Kentish Town £5
tomorrow: X-FM XPOSURE LIVE: Ten Benson plus 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster / Desert Hearts £5.
Wolf Colonel are great, with a kind of Guided By Voices/ early Lemonheads influence, and I think the Desert Hearts show is their London debut, so get there early!

Meanwhile Lambchop play the Empire in Belfast, maybe that's an excuse to dig out both of our Kurt Wagner interviews, one of which was actually never published come to think of it.

Hmmm, too zonked to add new stuff as I'm inbetween nightshifts and I'll be en route to Belfast for the weekend very shortly. I'll be at the Sun Ra Arkestra show on Saturday night, which is also the finale of the most successful Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival to date. Gillian was at the sold out David Kitt show last night, apparently it was brilliant so she may even write a review of it for this very site.

A new live review of the Feline Dream has been added. If you go to their own Gigarama pages you can see some of the stunningly repetitive photos I took that night with their disposable camera.
I had a strange coincidence the other night as I decided to go and see Cornelius in the Royal Festival Hall (capacity 2,600) and my ticket number meant that I was sitting beside Nick from the Feline Dream, although neither of us knew the other was going! Cornelius was fantastic, gig of the year so far and all that, although the Gentle People (main support) wore the crowd's patience very thin with their Rod Jane and Freddy shenanagins. Oh boy.
More reviews tomorrow hopefully, I really should have added Jon Spencer and Joie tonight but I'm using the PC in work and they're on the Mac at home - doh!
And finally, it looks like I will be living back in Belfast from mid-July onwards.

I'm a bit behind as usual, not least because I've been going to a lot of gigs. Friday saw a great show from Clinic, which somehow turned into a bit of an all-nighter with Jarvis Cocker DJing at Electrowerkz. I realise that this sounds highly glamorous but it meant that I spent most of Saturday in bed!

Recieved safely but drifting aimlessly amongst the backlog is the first demo from Belfast band the Embers (ex-Nation's Spies) which I promise I will do a review of very soon. Meanwhile this glowing review can be found on Fastfude.

Finally, I've been very distracted from the site as I am planning to move back to Belfast quite soon. Expect proper details later in the week, as I'm just awaiting for dates to be confirmed. Whoooo-hoooo!

Web hosting news - GeoCities will be performing scheduled maintenance starting Friday, May 17th, 2002 at 3:00 pm BST (GMT+1). Service will be restored the morning of Sunday, May 19th, 2002. What this means for us is that most of the reviews and interviews will be inaccessible for that time, therefore it would make sense to come back on Sunday night with the reviews completely up to date. The blogger pages, discussion board and link page will be unaffected.

Another thing is that, if you visit the message board without being logged in to ezboard you won't see the most recent announcement at the top. Strange.