********************************************************************* INK POLAROID This is my friend and I standing in Sheffield Station – I’m the shorter one, wearing jeans and a yellow t-shirt – he’s much taller, also wearing jeans and a black hole hooded top (as in Courtney Love’s old band, not the things in space), I can’t stand hole, incidentally, he knows this but we don’t talk about it much, I’ve often wondered, and I’m sure he has too, quite how we’re able to tolerate each other’s wildly different musical tastes (actually they’re not all that different in the grand scheme of things, but in the rarefied world of indie they’re miles apart). We both look a bit bored and annoyed I suppose, this is partly because we’ve been waiting for people to arrive for ages – they’re very late, we were told on the phone that they’d be here in twenty minutes time, but that was over an hour ago, and while I think we both appreciate that British Rail minutes are just that little bit longer than regular ones, we didn’t expect it to take quite this long at all. We aren’t speaking much, having pretty much exhausted topics of conversation – we’ve been together nearly all day and by now we just want our friends to arrive and bring new things to talk about, and so that we can leave too. Rush hour is just taking hold, you can’t see outside because the camera is facing the wrong way, but if you could then you’d notice that the roads are full of rushing headlights tearing up the rain-slick roads - but all around us hundreds of people are flowing back and forwards, getting on trains and getting off trains – all sorts of people, schoolchildren, business people, families, alone, in groups, in couples – I always think it’s fascinating to see people just going about their business like this, hearing tiny snippets of their conversations, little fragmentary windows into their lives. I like the ones that look purposeful best I think, perhaps because they have that real dynamism that I sort of lack – complete conviction – of course they probably don’t and I’m just projecting, but it’s nice to think that maybe somebody does. Anyway I also look a bit annoyed, or perhaps a bit puzzled is more accurate because I’ve just turned to my friend and told him that I could spend hours in stations just watching people, because it’s really interesting just seeing them to-ing and fro-ing, basically what I just told you up there and he replied “I don’t know, they all seem pretty boring.” Just like that. And so I’m standing there next to him thinking that maybe we don’t have so much in common after all. ********************************************************************* I realise that is somewhat after the fact, more than a week late even, but my dog ate the first copy, then the computer crashed and then I had a dental appointment Miss. Honest. An update on my last post now, as promised. After mulling things over for a wee while I’m afraid I opted for the cowardly option and said nothing. I even ran home for the whole of last week, but now that I’m back things seem to have calmed down a bit, so I suppose it’s ok. My apologies if you were gunning for me grassing him up, and I know a couple of people sort of were, but to be honest I don’t think, even if he would’ve been chucked out it would’ve made all that much difference, they all seem to be about as bad as each other and the small respite that would have afforded as they reeled from his departure would, I fear, have been short lived and would not have merited the hassle and guilt that telling on him would inevitably have brought on. Or that’s how I’m justifying it to myself anyway, the rest of you are entirely free to make up your own minds. In better news, whilst at home for the week I managed to catch The Delgados live who were pleasant in a straightforward, workmanlike fashion – I don’t think gigs like that are going to win them any new fans, but if you like the songs, and fortunately for the most part I do, then you probably wont be disappointed. It’s a bit disheartening, though, to hear bands play like that, renditions which are as close to the records as possible, it must get very boring playing like that, and it’d be nice to hear a bit of improvisation (not in the serious, eyes shut jazzer way, though that’d be nice in itself, but more in the loosening up and having fun way). Which is sort of what Pram, the other band that I saw that week did and, ok, Pram aren’t nearly as lush as The Delgados, in fact some of their records are pretty out of tune (but far better for it, I think) and they’ve been known to put in some fairly shambolic live performances in the past, but I think they’ve gotten the balance of pretty and fragile about right now, and the new material sounded excellent too. I dunno if they’re touring properly, I think they did another date in London, but if they are and you get the chance, then I’d heartily recommend seeing them. The support acts were fantastic too, though one veered towards that dangerous musical philosophy that says that putting a breakbeat over anything is automatically funny, not the best territory to be on really, though he operated it pretty well – the other on the other hand brought to mind Muslimgauze, if he’d been concerned with the fate of people living in long defunct seaside towns rather than the Middle East. Brilliant. I do have more things to say, but I’ll leave them for another time, I should really get to bed now. Love, - Kieran _________________________________________________________________ MSN Messenger - fast, easy and FREE! http://messenger.msn.co.uk +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ 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. 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