Hello!
Struan has been mentioned in PHYSICS WORLD, of all places!  
"The world of entertainment is also home to a few real people with physics degrees.  Big-haired musician Brian May abandoned an astrophysics PhD at Imperial College to join Queen and indulge in guitar histrionics in front of millions of adoring rock fans all over the world.  At the other end of the scale, Stuart Murdoch, the reclusive lead singer and guitarist of Scottish indie band Belle & Sebastian, was kicked out of Glasgow University after failing his physics exams three times.  His band now enjoy a small but extremely devoted following."


OTHER END OF THE SCALE???????

.....was I really the only person on the list to spot this?  Probably.

On Friday night I went up to London tahn to see Trembling Blue Stars at the Spitz.  As I hurried to the bus station, Carsmile Steve passed me (also hurrying) in the opposite direction, destination unknown.

It was my first visit to the Spitz, but it has already become one of my favourite venues in London.  The downstairs bar area is actually in Spitalfields market, which is truly bizarre.  Then you climb flights and flights of stairs until finally you get to the venue and even that's not the top of the building coz there's a dressing room on the next level from which band members can ogle the punters below.

How many of you, I wonder, can have an evening at a gig made (or spoilt) not only by the gig proper, but by what the DJs play before and after?  Strange Fruit's Verity Clarkson and Paul Haswell both played some excellent stuff, including Felt's "Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow" and Furniture's "Brilliant Mind" from Verity and Associates "Party Fears Two" and "Don't Leave the Light on Baby" by you-know-who from Paul.  All fantastic!

Harvey Williams is a really inconsistent guitarist.  I mean, when I saw TBS in April, supported by Tompaulin, he looked (and sounded) as if he really couldn't be bothered (as documented at the time by Liz Daplyn...are you still with us Liz?) but was much better on Friday.  Maybe it something to do with the fact that they were playing new material.  Or perhaps it was the fact that they were playing old material, because this performance featured not one set but two, the first being of songs by the Field Mice!  Bands playing their old bands' songs seems to be a recurrent theme at the mo, with New Order having played "Transmission", "Atmosphere" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" at the Brixton Academy.

For the second set, Bob Wratten reappeared wearing a Ryan Adams t-shirt, leading to some banter with the audience "It's not Bryan, it's Ryan!", he stressed.  "There's no B!"

Someone shouted out for "Ripples" and Bob replied, somewhat petulantly I thought, "You obviously weren't at the Garage", presumably expecting us all to attend every gig he plays.  I say "Hmph!" to that....

I bought both "Alive to Every Smile" and the "Ghost of an Unkissed Kiss" ep.  I haven't listened to the ep yet, but will do so tonight.  My verdict on the album so far is that it's not as good as "Broken by Whispers" or "Lips that taste of tears", but it is significantly better than "Her Handwriting".

Tompaulin at the Cellar on Thursday.  Yay!  Last time I was there it was to see Oxford's very own Rock of Travolta.  The Cellar is rapidly becoming my venue-of-choice, due to dubious gigs at the main one, the Zodiac (Therapy? per-lease!) and others closing down.  Horror of horrors, the Point is becoming a Sports Bar, and what's more the closing bash is the highly questionable "Your Song", where the local bands play cover versions.  What is a sports bar?  Sounds very nasty indeed.

Must admit that I was quite stunned by what Peter Carter told us about Essex Green's bassist's opinions of B&S, but then we shouldn't assume that bands will like bands that sound like they do.  I remember being quite surprised when St. Etienne raved about Dinosaur Jr in the NME uh-hem years ago.

Asm, Archel etc may be interested to know that the whole of my company has been subjected to having their names msesed aorund with!  For some unaccountable reason, they decided to change the display names from first name first, surname second to surname first, first name second, with no comma in between .....my colleague Ben Strange was not impressed!


Mark.

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