Tag: iona

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Another website tweak.

As you can see, I’ve tweaked the site again – added a little header image. It’s actually taken from the back of the Edinburgh Festival flyer that I was working on yesterday – I liked it so much I thought I’d add it to the site.

I also briefly added another picture of me to the whitespace down the right hand side of the screen, but it was a bit much.

The tough bit was formatting the design on the forum page to work with it – took me ages, but I did it. I didn’t even need to get Sarda or The Captain to help me this time! (this makes a change, I’m usually pretty reliant on the two of them for web advice… both are PHP gurus.)

So there you go.

Soundtrack – Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack Dejohnette, ‘Always Let Me Go’; Charlie Haden, ‘American Dreams’; Fiona Apple, ‘Extraordinary Machine’.

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Just booked in to do Edinburgh…

ooh, scary stuff – just booked in to do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival again this summer. Last year, due to a bunch of weird goings on, I ended up doing the festival on a straight 50/50 split with the venue, a deal pretty much unheard of in Ed Fringe terms, so got my intro to the festival in a fairly easy way. It took me a few days to get the hang on how the promo machine worked (basically there’s no substitute for just going out and flyering like a madman), so at least this year I’ll hit the ground running and be able to get lots of promo in before the festival starts.

But (big but), it is costing me lots of money upfront to be there this year – which is scary. I always operate on a worst case scenario, so have made sure that I’m spending as little up front as I can (no speculative capitalism for me, thanks very much!), and the chances of me making some money at the fest are reasonably high, but it still feels weird to have agreed to it.

I’m back in a CVenues venue again – last year I was in C too (St Columba’s By the Castle), this year I’ll be in C Central (the Carlton Hotel, by the North Bridge). It’s nice to be on familiar ground, that’s for sure.

Anyway, now I need to go and write my festival programme entry, which has to be submitted by close of play today.

Soundtrack – Avashai Cohen and The International Vamp Band, ‘Unity’.

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Andrea Dworkin has died

Apparently she died on Friday, but it only reached the press yesterday.

Dworkin was one of the most controversial writers of the 20th century, but also one of the most influential. Rabidly loved, hated and misquoted in almost equal measure, her opposition to pornography as a violation of all women’s rights made her the target of much vitriol from liberals in the US, but her books were read in their thousands, and and she even managed to temporarily get the US law changed (it was overturned at appeal.)

The net is filling up with comments – how sad that it takes the woman’s death for us (including me) to reappraise her contribution. Makes me want to go and read some of her books, having only read articles by and about her before now.

here are a few links to obits and comments –

Guardian Obit.
Hugo’s blog post
Jyoti’s blog
some crappy myths clarified.

There don’t seem to be that many revolutionary thinkers around these days – maybe I’ve stopped looking for them, but it just feels like the substance has dropped out the arse-end of cultural critique. Please, if you can suggest any books I should read, post them in the forum.

Soundtrack – Cathy Burton, ‘Burn Out’; Jaco Pastorius, ‘Jaco Pastorius’; Eric Roche, ‘With These Hands’; John Lester, ‘Big Dreams And The Bottom Line; John Scofield, ‘Up All Night’.

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Make Poverty History campaign goes global.

So finally, the Make Poverty History campaign is spreading out across the planet – in the US, it’s the One campaign, with its own white wrist bands and choice celebs. Click here to check out the One video – it’s good (though it did make me balk seeing Pat Robertson on it… guess it just goes to show how far this campaign is stretching across political divides!)

And that’s not all – there are now nationally focussed campaigns in Germany, France, Canada – Click here to see a list of all the partner campaigns

No excuses not to get involved, people…

Soundtrack – Kings X, ‘Live’; Talk Talk, ‘Spirit Of Eden’; Stevie Wonder; ‘Songs In the Key Of Life’; Renaud Garcia Fons, ‘Entremundo’; Tom Waits, ‘Asylum Years’; Bobby McFerrin, ‘The Voice’.

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Third interview finished…

I’ve just finished my third interview of the last couple of weeks… that’s me being interviewed for magazines, rather than me doing the interviewing or applying for jobs.

The interesting thing has been that each one has been via a different medium – the first one was a phone interview for magazine, which was so much fun we had to do it on two days to get all the stuff in.

The second was a prospective interview for – a magical and unique magazine/compilation CD, that works to a theme each issue. That interview was conducted by a friend of mine, Julian, and was done face to face, after a lovely dinner, and was chock full of fascinating questions (and hopefully interesting answers!) – what could be better than sitting down with intellegent interesting people talking about music?? Thanks Jules!

Tonight’s was with magazine in the US, and was conducted via MSN Messenger! I’ve done this before, for a promotional article for a tour, but not for a mag, and it seemed to work really well. Again, a very interesting set of questions, different from the other two mags, and a lot of fun.

I do like this job!

Soundtrack – , ‘Heartstrings’; Tony Scherr, ‘Come Around’.

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iPod generation?

I keep hearing all over the place about now being the iPod generation – where our music listening is governed by homemade playlists, shuffle functions and genre-specific online radio… Does anyone else still listen to whole albums?

While I do occasionally listen to odd tracks (or even buy odd tracks on iTunes – the latest one was Carly Simon’s ‘Coming Around Again’ – just had an urge to listen to it, for some reason!) I’m still a big fan of the art of constructing an album, programming the tracks in the right order, developing a musical or lyrical theme and packaging it in a way that makes sense. Music just doesn’t seem to have the same significance in a disembodied ‘shuffle mode’ MP3 context.

On the flip side of this, I’ve always been a big fan of Greatest Hits albums, more because I’m looking forward to the day when I’ve got 10 or so albums under my belt and can cherry-pick the best tracks to go on a best-of. That feeling of looking back over your career and seeing how many great tracks you’ve made must be a very satisfying one.

so, my top 5 fave Greatest Hits albums –

  • The Cure (Greatest Hits)
  • Paul Simon (Negotiations and Love Songs)
  • Michael McDonald (Sweet Freedom – the best of)
  • Tom Waits (Asylum Years)
  • Prefab Sprout (Life Of Surprises)

The other great packages of a lifetime’s material are live albums and re-recordings – my faves of those would be

  • James Taylor (Live – mid 90s)
  • Joni Mitchell (Travelogue)
  • Kings X (Live)
  • Bruce Cockbun (Live – late 80s)
  • Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds (Live at Luther College)

So here’s to the magic of the album, long may it continue as an artform…

Soundtrack – Stevie Wonder, ‘Hotter Than July’; Tom Waits, ‘Nighthawks At The Diner’.

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The Crepe'd Crusader

certainly brings out mixed emotions in most people. Firstly he’s the loveable cheeky cockney chap, naked chef, bringing new life to TV cooking. Then he became the overexposed Sainsbury’s poster boy, in all the ads, doing voice overs and generally overstaying his welcome. So he reinvents himself as the crowned king of worthwhile reality TV.

What did he get right? He picks things he cares about. Unlike, say, Gordon Ramsay, who just came across as a miserable bag of turd, belittling B-list celebs live on TV (all the ones with any backbone walked out – respect to the late great Tommy Vance for that!), Jamie picked subjects that would change the lives of ordinary people for the better. In , he took a bunch of relative no-hopers from rough backgrounds and gave them the chance to train to be top chefs. They’ve still got jobs. Their lives are on a different path. Magic.

His next project was in a whole different league. Jamie took on Britain’s school dinners in . It took months to film, and started in one school, with Jamie trying to get the kids to eat properly. What they were eating was truly shocking. The worst kind of junk food, the same crap every day, zero nutritional content. Just rubbish, rubbish that will eventually kill them. And Jamie cared. Really, not for a moment did even the most cynical of hacks question his motives. Watching the programme, it’s inconceiveable how parents have let it get to this stage. The kids couldn’t recognise vegetables!

So he goes on a crusade, getting 55 schools in Greenwich to move over to his new menu. He works within the insane food budget that he’s set, he convinces dinner ladies to work unpaid overtime, he wrecks his homelife in order to make this happen.

Suddenly pain-in-the-arse Jamie is transformed into we-need-more-people-like-you-on-TV Jamie. A hero, fighting the beaurocrats who will sell the kids of the nation’s health for 15p a day.

It’s riveting viewing, and I really really hope things change. Things already are changing. The teachers report back a total turn-around in the kids’ concentration levels, attentiveness and behaviour patterns, just through the change of diet.

Come on, Ruth Kelly, get it together!! As Education Secretary, she’s responsible for the decisions, the one with the purse strings. Jamie’s done the work, written the handbook, drawn up the recipes. All you need to do is ban the junk, and pay for the training.

It’ll reap HUGE rewards in the future when these kids aren’t all rotting in hospital from preventable diseases.

So, let’s get behind Jamie, sign petitions, campaign, make a fuss. The future of the kids’ health depends on it. Go to the campaign homepage, and start kicking up a fuss.

Soundtrack – David Sylvian, ‘Secrets Of The Beehive’ (Evil Harv is generally a malicious and sinister presence in the world, but all is forgiven for introducing me to this album a couple of years ago).

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the revelations from Iraq just keep on coming…

So the death toll of Iraqis who’ve died in US custody in Iraq now stands at 108 according to this BBC report – 25% are being investigated as possible abuse cases.

Here’s the breakdown –

“The AP found that of the 108 deaths in US custody:

  • At least 26 have been investigated as criminal homicide involving the abuse of prisoners
  • At least 29 are attributed to suspected natural causes or accidents
  • Twenty-two are blamed on an insurgent mortar attack on Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in April 2004
  • At least 20 are attributed to “justifiable homicide”, where investigations found US troops used deadly force appropriately – primarily against rioting, escaping or threatening prisoners.

Those are pretty horrific statistics. 29/108 dying of ‘natural causes or accidents’ – what kind of set up are they running??? Accidents doing what? Natural causes? are they imprisoning sever asthmatics without access to medication? that’s a huge percentage to attribute to those two factors.

And the ‘justifiable homicide’ – justifiable in the way that the shooting of an Italian intellegence agent was ‘justifiable’??

It just goes on and on, the list of crimes being committed, the collapse of the rationale in the first place, the further information about the illegality of the British government’s case for war.

The biggest tragedy is that the next election won’t be a proper referendum on the war – Blair has taken us into this mess, but the alternative if we vote him out is so grim.

I just hope that between now and the election the Lib Dems come up with enough good stuff and media profile to dent both parties. They were the only ones that were anti-war all along, and do seem to have the most coherent policy set for this election. I just fear they don’t have the internal infrastructure for government.

Soundtrack – Pat Metheny/Charlie Haden, ‘Beyond The Missouri Sky’ (one of the most beautiful albums ever made); Alison Moyet, ‘Greatest Hits’.

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For anyone having a bad week

if you’re having a bad week, console yourself that you’re not famous for riding a fake ostrich…

What was Bernie Clifton all about? Did anyone ever find him funny?

Soundtrack – Green Day, ‘International Superhits’.

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Five questions…

Right, Marvellous Liz – she of the quite remarkable organisational skillz and highly readable blog – has been doing this five questions thing – see her site for more on it. Anyway, I agreed to have 5Qs thrown at me (I think I need to do the same for five other bloggers reading this, so if you are, feel free to email me, and we’ll make it happen – you then answer them on your blog – sort of new millenial chain letter thingie i guess…)

so, here’s Liz’s Qs for me, answers below…
And five for the lovely Steve L:

  1. Where did you get that coat from (and are you sure no animals were harmed in the making thereof)?
  2. Is blogging all about narcissism and if so what makes you think it’s of the benign variety?
  3. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seems to have the basics covered, but there’s always space for one more – go for your life!
  4. Appearance wise you are clearly the bastard love child of Geddy Lee (the hair, the facial fluff) and David Beckham (the nail varnish, the sarongs), but to whom do you owe credit for your emotional, political and intellectual pedigrees?
  5. You can select a super-human power for the day – choose well my friend, choose well!

Answers –

  1. Long black furry coat was from the late-lamented C&A (£50), short blue furry coat was from some crappy shop on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street (£25), and other short greyish furry one was bought in Zurich whilst on tour with Howard Jones!
  2. Blogging can either be about sharing information from across the net, or randomly inflicting the minutae of your life onto others. Mine’s a mix of both, with very little of the former and far to much of the latter. I think it’s a highly narcisistic persuit, but the benign-ness stems from the lack of harm that comes from it, I guess… I suppose you could use a blog to bitch about everyone in your life that you have a grudge against, then the benignity of it would be blighted!
  3. Human Rights – it’d have to be trade laws – make it a basic human right that the collection of humans in a particular nation have the right to fair and just treatment in international trade, and that the rich humans in other nations be obliged to keep the playing fields level.
  4. Two people, mainly – my mum, who’s a marvellous woman, probably mad, very clever, and who is basically a middle aged woman version of me (and the difference would be??) the other is The Small Person – I remember a bloke I once knew who made this insane defence of marrying thick people by saying ‘you can have fun with your friends and argue with your wife, or argue with your friends and have fun with your wife’ – that’s flawed on every conceiveable level, and I very much like having someone around who’s my intellectual superior, and challenges my rather too black-and-white thinking on a regular basis (I’m sure my Edward VIII faux-pas wouldn’t have happened yesterday if she’d been at home. And I certainly would never have had a journalistic career without her intervention!). So, heavy female influence on my life, to be sure.
  5. A super-power? I think I’d have to go with super-speed-reading-and-information-retention – I’d use that day to fill my head with all the things I really ought to be aware of if only I managed my time better and read more books – hows that for a topical answer on world book day?

Thanks Liz, very interesting questions! :o)

Now, time to get ready for tonight’s gig, I need to pick Theo up in less than an hour.

Soundtrack – John Coltrane, ‘Live At Birdland’.

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