Sinister: The empire strikes back

[Mark Hester]

Last week I went to a gig by Holy Roman Empire, who are my favourite Oxford 
band at the moment.  The felt-tip pen drawing seems to be more low-key these 
days.  The first time I saw them the singer, Ste, had drawn a heart on his 
chest with black marker pen.  As I was watching from a fair distance I 
thought that he either had a heart-shaped chest wig or had shaved his chest 
hair into the shape of a heart.  This time he limited himself to a few red 
streaks on his arm.  But, "arkk!", cymbal player Martin has abandoned his 
cymbal (apparently it was too much of a hazard when it fell into the 
audience) and now just poses around behind a keyboard draped in leopard 
skin, though he still waves the stick about.  More about them on 
http://www.bejo.co.uk/lpeach/html/hrehome.htm, if you're interested.  The 
gig was also notable in that I met a former colleague who told me that the 
computer system I used to look after had crashed and they had to have an 
crisis meeting to try to sort it out.  I couldn't resist emitting the kind 
of YAAAAY that only someone in possession of a redundancy cheque and P45 can 
muster in such situations.  Then on the way home I met an old housemate who 
told me that her college won't let her have her degree until she pays them 
the five thousand quid she owes them.  I suspect that this will entail a 
very large number of shifts in the Quod Bar.

"Who are the Blue Aeroplanes?" asked Sarah.  The Blue Aeroplanes are unique. 
  Gerard Langley is more of a poet than a singer and has a very particular 
vocal style which is complemented by rodney allen's more conventional 
singing.  IMHO, Beatsongs was their best album, with Rough Music a close 
second, though Swagger is very good as well.  Their latest is called (I 
think) Cavalier, though I haven't heard it.  Has anyone else....?

Mark.
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