Dearly Beloved, It's that time of year again, when ponytailed A&R men crawl lift their noses from the Colombian Marching Powder and venture to the frozen tundras of the North, to Manchester, in fact, for the In the City festival. For us residents, this means three days of trotted around the city's bars and clubs watching bands with crap names who assure us "we're going to be massive", and laughing at them. All for free. Sometimes, someone interesting plays. Three years back, I saw four teenagers from Sunderland who wanted to be the Shangri-las. The drummer looked like a bit like me. They were called Kenickie, and I must admit I thought they were ace. I got into a row with one of the ponytails who refused to believe they were 17 (apparently, they were "too clever to be 17"), I told him he'd never been 17 in his life so what did he he know. And for extra effect, I said it in a Noel Coward voice, and turned him into a blubbing wreck. But I digress. Last night we saw The Kings of Convenience, from Bergen, Norway, who I believe some of you have seen doing their thing at Old Mother Trousers' Po Caf. No-one told me they were good though. And they were. They played on the roof, like the Beatles, and wooed the crowd all of a-smile, with natural star quality (Erlend, a dead ringer for Dennis Pennis, did an impromptu impression of Isaac Hayes in "South Park"), and warm and lovely accoustic songs. "Free Design without the girl singer", according to Emma, who knows about things like that. Lord Northy wrote (he's only interested in David and Katrina's "juicy bits" so I can say what I like about him):
the best trax are, in my humble opinion of course, IIWNTC and TBWTAS
Trax? IIWNTC and TBWTAS? Is this English? You know Roly Birkin QC, the unintelligible drunken posh old soak on "The Fast Show". That's Northy.
Didn't the DJ look like Fatboy Slim?
You what???? In much the same way that Stuart Murdoch looks like Humphrey Cushion on "Hickory House". It's a sad reflection of our times that someone who, in the past, has had a passionate anti-drugs stance should obviously be currently caning it like there's no tomorrow.
gotta go
Don't let us keep you. Funkyseb wrote:
Fairly good review of london gig in NME,
More drugs, obviously. Seb, in what way was it "good"? "The Spirit of Sarah Records went stadium"? Sneering at "sweet" mugs? "Giving back as little as they can"? Where I come from, that's fighting talk. Oh and Stuart, thanks for all the mentions, but I'm afraid I'm spoken for. Love, Tag xxx +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+