Highlights + lowlights of an intents weekender: I'm still tired + I think I've permanently damaged my back sleeping on a slope of 45-degrees on "the thinnest most crappy rollmat in the world"TM. - does anyone know of any good massage parlours? -- Actually, for that matter, does anyone know of any seriously dodgy + illreputed ones ;] It was ace meeting the miniSini kids though, hello everyone <paul waves enthusiastically like a loon, but continues doing so for just a wee bit too long>, despite a shaky start involving the shocking absence of an easily-identifiable inflatable play-thing on my behalf and a couple of shy preliminary fly-by's of the people I was supposed to meet. Hey Lixi, did Cedric (or was it Alfonse???) the squeaky-legged grasshoppa' make it home in one piece? - Sorry I tried to kidnap him, but can you really blame me what with all those deranged words of wisdom + drunken wonder scrawled all over him, and besides by the end of the evening I was quite attached to the little fella' (literally). It was a magical time where expert timing + random luck strolled hand-in-hand for 3-days down the corridors of the moment, ie: I somehow managed to meet everyone I'd arranged to meet and see all the bands I really wanted to see - An unprecedented event and no mistake. I bumped into my good friend Andy completely by accident on the Friday night just before Badly Drawn Boy came on. You should have seen him, he looked impressively gnarly + spent (like: "Grizzly Adams - the early years") - which I reckon is because he misses his girlfriend Karen (who's a tattoo artist in South Carolina this summer) so much that nothing else is important to him right now, rather than anything to do with the fact that most people looked haggard + spaced-out by that point in the whole festy-thang. - Apparently the poor little pet had been handed some cake earlier in the day and his ailing tastebuds were far too slow off-the-mark to inform him that it was of the 'space' variety packed with plenty of 'groovy space-rocks', and he'd spent the rest of the day wandering around in a bit of a wide-eyed stupor <ha ha> - I shouldn't laugh I know but then again I was pretty badly off my own gourd by this point so it struck me as hilarious at the time. I'm sorry I lost you Sinister kids on Friday night, I wanted to make sure Andy was alright, but then he disappeared across the field to grab some food, never came back, and I didn't see him again - which was a bummer cos I then couldn't find any of you in Elliott Smith's big gay lurve tent. - Although Mr Carsmile did find me the next night, but I think I just kept blathering on about the 101 reasons why Burt Bachrach simply had to be playing the next day no-matter what the vicious rumours said - sorry about that Steve, it won't happen again honest, you just caught me at an emotional moment. I was just such a staunch disbeliever when I discovered that Burt "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" Bacharach wasn't playing, it just wasn't fair <hummmph!> - so I threw a massive strop + sulked like it was going out of fashion or something, for like... oh minutes + minutes. - the rumours were flying I can tell you, I heard many tales of woe including: he broke his collar-bone somehow, his arm had just fallen off (as they tend to do!), both his arms had fallen off, his arms + legs had fallen off meaning that he'd get arrested in-a-second if he tried to sing along + tinkle on the old Joanna at the same time, it was a lawnmower accident of sorts, a crash involving trains and boats and planes, a wayward frisbee removed a section of his nose, and also that he'd just gone and died for no apparent reason what-so-ever!!! -- its was incredible, the gossip-mongers were loving it (hey ian, aren't one or two of these your creations???). I still don't know what did happen to him but the collarbone thing was the only feasible + repeated story I heard - although I tend to favour something involving a bottle of scrumpy and a ferret... but maybe that's just me. So a no show from Mr Bacharach was a considerably menacing cloud over an otherwise immaculate vista... That is until David "he's a metro-gnome" Bowie stepped confidently into the fray and rocked like a chicken to save the day. - He was great, no really he was, and hearing him belt-out rebel-rebel was one of the most perfect moments in my life thus far - sadly I didn't get a chance to tell him he's a beautiful person (everyone else was making far too much noise for him to pick out my little voice) but its ok cos' from his heroic performance + stance you could tell that he knew it and he knew that we knew it too. After Mr Bowie the best thing I saw was definitely The Flaming Lips... WOW what a f*cking amazing show - I saw them twice last year and they played pretty much the same stuff, but 'that' stageshow they've put together is a truly wondrous thing that left me feeling awe-struck, tingly, and even a wee bit sick inside - but even the slight icky sick feeling was good cos' it made me feel more alive, a fleeting sickness of the heart not the body. Who else was any good then... St Etienne were tops creating smiles + shiny magic, Badly Drawn Boy was a funny bearded man who even played the odd crackin' song just to break-up his comedy repertoire, Elliott Smith + Hank Williams III (yes a Hank Williams cover band!!!) both crooned their way around my heartstrings, Nearly Dan (yes a Steely Dan tribute band!!!) played 70's music in a great 80's stylee which made me laugh for about an hour, Yo La Tengo were nice'n'spicy, It's Jo & Danny played a haunting acoustic set of beauty + orchids, Spearmint + Ooberman were absolute stars + kings of everything cheesy, jangily, + indie, Black Box Recorder were frightening but in a good way (and it took me about 3 songs to realise that the female lead was actually wearing some kind of a skin-tight light-coloured outfit and that she wasn't just standing there in the buff), and the best of this lot was a fantastic all-girl funk outfit from Bristol called Mooz who played on a tiny wee bandstand in the market area and managed to groove everyone out with a selection of excellent choons (they were so happy as well, it was probably their first big'ish gig, and the smiles + energy they extolled was contagious sweeping through the throng like wildfire through a briarpatch). Who were pants then... I can't actually think of much that I really didn't like, I was dead lucky with my choices, although Dark Star + Feeder were dull as dishwater, and Rae and Christian (or was it Doves???) made me throw-up just outside the New Bands tent - it was definitely the music, honest guv', I mean what else could it be? - well that's my story and I'm sticking to it ;P Other top/pop moments: - Reading all the comments emblazoned on a certain inflatable grasshopper after he did an impromptu whirlwind tour of the beer tent - especially the one that went "I'm only writing this because the girl who handed me this thing is really scary" - Seeing the brief horrified look on Mr Carsmiles face after I offered him a giant Parma Violet in the New Band tent which he must have thought was a horse tranquilliser, or superfun-mauve-happypill, or something. (sorry Steve, but your face was a picture;) - Discovering that I'm not a Glastonbury rain-God placed on this barren sphere to bring dampness + trenchfoot to poor unsuspecting revellers of any denomination (well, for some reason I still think I AM the Glasto monsoon deity, I just had an off weekend that's all, but at least I now know I'm not the only one - thanks Cress ;) - Finally managing to leave the bloomin' place on Monday after taking 5 + 1/2 hours to traverse a small shadeless field in cramped shambling queue's awaiting an ever elusive bus to the train station. All in all though it was a bit of a top weekend. Ouch, how long + boring is this? fly away, paul. ps: Cress, if you got this far, check out the following URL for Hobotalk info: http://the-raft.com/hobotalk/ hugs + raspberry slushpuppies. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* ------------------------------------------------------- (__)(__) (__)(__) (oo)(oo) (oo)(oo) /-------(..)(..)-------\ /-------(..)(..)-------\ /| p || || a |\ /| u || || l |\ * ||++---|| ||---++|| * ||++---|| ||---++|| * �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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