hello my little scrumptious little gorgeous bits of scrumptious gorgeousness. and archel. i'm about to fly to glastonbury, so i can't stop. besides, as the buddha once said 'talk is for pussies, silence is WHERE ITS AT!' or he would have done, if he hadn't been busily staying silent at the time. just a quick one, then. no fucking about straight to the point.. yeah! so...here's the point the one you were waiting for its here there will be a PICNIC in BIRMINGHAM the weekend of the 21st/22nd july. i haven't arranged the exact date yet, i will do that soon. the gorgeous dimitra daisy and sunny set will be coming to visit, and i'm hoping i can persuade a few others to come too. (taylor, are you reading?) there will be some room at my house, although not a lot. the picnic will be in cannon hill park, because the cinema there has a bar we can go into if it rains. and because cannon hill park is nice. if you stay out of the way of the roller-bladers and pushchairs. see you there, or i'll want to know why.. and i don't accept 'i live in a different country' as an excuse. (speaking of which, will somebody in australia say 'hi' to jeremy for me?) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- one more thing. some of you may recall a certain cat power gig the night of the greenwich picnic that i was trying to persuade you to go to. the following may be of interest. or it might if you like cat power anyway. otherwise, just don't read it. i would have posted this earlier, but i didn't. 'a cat in the bush is worth.....' cat power at the bush hall Sunday 5th May the bush hall looks like it should be filled with posh ladies sipping tea and saying 'ooh, baroness jocasta, the working classes are FRIGHTFULLY presumptuous these days'. tonight, it was full of smartly-dressed scruffbags and scruffily-dressed smartbags, all looking suitably reverential. they had come here to worship, after all. the support act were called 'somebody (dwight? john? malcolm?) yorkston and the athletes' and they were rather fantastic. they are not exactly stretching the boundaries of alt. country, but when you can make the centre sound this fine, that doesn't really matter. clever lyrics, gorgeous tunes. if you don't hear of them again, then there's no justice in the music industry. so, you probably won't hear of them again. chan marshall, aka cat power, has a reputation for giving 'unpredictable' performances at gigs. this was my first feline experience. i'd heard she lasted 15 minutes at one recent gig. i was hoping they wouldn't talk, or heckle her, or do anything to upset her as she crept onstage with her guitar and muttered something which everyone laughed at. it was probably very funny. a shame i couldn't understand it. i've never been good with muttery people which meant i missed most of chan's asides that evening. judging from the guffaws which resounded around me, she must be a Mistress of Wit. she started off beautifully, delivering material from both 'moon pix' and her covers album in her uniquely unearthly style, barely pausing for breath in between numbers. moving between the piano and the guitar, cracking unintelligable but clearly hilarious jokes as she went, she did a great job of Impressing An Audience Who Would Have Been Impressed Even If She'd Turned Up, Blown Her Nose, And Buggered Off Again. but when you sit in the centre of such a congregation, its impossible not to end up clapping in time to their tune, and, in this case, it would have been unjustifiable. as the gig went on, she got a little more, shall we say, 'quirky', getting bored of songs halfway through, improvising frequently, appealing for audience participation (this seemed to involve sing-a-long-a-can-i-get-a-witness-with-chan on several occasions, and whistling on command), getting notes wrong, stopping, starting and generally fucking about. nobody else would have got away with it. she did. i heard someone else call the gig 'shambolic', and i have to agree. but this wasn't a lacklustre, unexciting, badly drawn boy shambles. this was The World Of Cat Power. she drew us in, she played with us, and she showed us how special it felt to be played with. she broke every rule in the Good Gig Guide. i can't wait to see her again. frustrating, hugely entertaining, amusing, disconcerting. i think i'm in love. ian ------------------------------------------ Tomorrow will bring happiness Or at least, another day Phil Ochs ------------------------------------------ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the 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. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+