Another new festival is happening in Belfast next week - it's Rhythm in the City, which has a very varied programme of events between 20th-26th August. Check out their website for full details. Particularly interesting is 'Andy's Factory', which will attempt to recreate Andy Warhol's legendary Factory in the QFT, with multiplicity screenings, DJs and a Velvet Underground tribute set by Go Commando. It's on Sunday 25th August, £5, doors 10pm.

In advance of the site overhaul which will taking palce over the next couple of weeks, I just though I would mention how much I enjoyed Chris Brokaw on Sunday night in Katy Daly's. Chris is probably best known for his work with Come, but his solo set really showed him to be a very gifted guitarist in the vein of the late John Fahey. 'Dresden Promenade' was particularly outstanding.

Well, I had forgotten how noisy Belfast audiences were until last night at the Menagerie when Jeffrey Lewis and Jacob Golden battled against some quite appaling audience chatter. Most people had paid a fiver in, in fact most people seemed to enjoy them, but at the slightest hint of a drop in level from the stage, up went the chatter. I've seen Jacob play against noisy crowds before (though London noise is a much tamer beast than Belfast noise), and he can handle them very well, but Jeffrey's more subtle solo stuff got a bit lost. Thankfully his band managed to make everyone sit up and take notice. The crowd didn't actually spoil the show for me, but I now understand why the Smog show I went to late last year in the Empire (before I lived here) had 'please be quiet' notices on the tables.
Unfortunately, as I legged it just before the end due to having a seriously early start this morning, I missed the PA falling to bits and Jeffrey Lewis leading the audience outside to finsih the gig in the car park! I'd thought that by staying until he'd played 'The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song' I had seen all the best bits, but apparently not!
By the way, an interview with Mr Golden will be on this site very soon.

You may want to hit me (or at least avoid me!) because I have seen the last episode of 24 which was shown on RTE last night. I promise not to breathe a word of it on this site though!

Meanwhile just a reminder about Jeffrey Lewis and Jacob Golden at the Menagerie in Belfast tonight. Special guests and various DJs are also involved and there are special goodie bags which include stickers,badges, sweets and a special and totally amazing 21 track Rough Trade compilation CD (featuring David Kitt, Desert Hearts, Hope Sandoval, Beechwood Sparks and loads more) to the first 40 people through the door. Only £5 in, doors open at 9pm.

Yesterday was the day that the consortium judging the bids for European City of Culture 2008 visited Belfast, and although the shortlist has yet to be drawn up, it seems that Belfast is the bookies favourite.
I wasn't really expecting much to happen here music-wise over the summer months, but I've been proved wrong. Some events happening in August...


Event list - August
7th Rough Trade night: Jeffrey Lewis and Jacob Golden, the Menagerie, 9pm £5
9th My Electric Life, new club night at the Edge featuring Jean Jacques Smoothie and residents Jupiter Ace and Mark Gordon, 9pm - late, £5/£4
10th The Streets, Limelight, £11, 9pm
11th Chris Brokaw, Panda Kopanda (acoustic), Robyn G Sheils, Katy Dalys, £4/£3
13th Kidd Dynamo + Drat, Auntie Annies - apparently it's only £2 in!
20th Royksopp + support, Shine at QUB Mandela Hall, £10
26th The Dangerfields+ Rikmandu + Abase + Star Residue, the Front Page, 9pm-late £3
27th Guided By Voices, Limelight, £10.50

I know I haven't lived in Belfast for over four years, but I don't remember the weather being this crap! The last two days it has rained constantly, while London is having an absolute heatwave. Still, I always thought it was too warm over there!

I'm about to migrate this entire site over to NTL (my new broadband hosts) so expect some changes, and a few hiccups along the way I suppose. If there are any broken links you know to drop me an email. The move should make the site pop-up free and the ezboard will finally vanish, because let's face it, nobody really wants it.

Other stuff - congratulations to Olympic Lifts for getting their debut album 'Do One' out at last. It was XFM's album of the week last week. Here's what Rough Trade says about it - "as slick and interesting an album as you'll hear all year - catchy hooks,cut up samples and breaks, a dose of attitude and a pop twist. the betas vs the beasties." - reviews of it and their launch night in London will be on here soon.

Also, the tracklisting for Blue Jam series 3 mentioned below is now up at Cook'd and Bomb'd - an excellent Chris Morris archive site.

So here I am in Belfast, still surrounded by tons of unpacked crates, but hey, at least the computer is back to life (and connected to broadband - hello 21st century!). I have had a reasonably hellish time getting here - one damaged van, one missed flight and one bastard of a tube strike - but I'm nearly back to normal now.
July isn't known for having a major events calendar in Belfast but I ventured out last night to see the Embers and Drat in the Front Page. I was very impressed with the Embers and they got a really warm reception for what was in reality their first show in six years (they used to be Nations Spies). A full review is imminent, as is their second show in six years, tonight at Morrisons with Colin Campbell (Kidd Dynamo).

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!