Apparently not! The original "breaking news" story led us to believe Brown was going propose changing the electoral system to PR (n.b. the Tory spokesman's comment, she obviously thought so as well. They've now pulled the breaking news" story. Oh well. On a brighter note anybody that's got Spotify can download the End Of The Road 2009 Spotify playlist from the link on this page .
Posts
No post yesterday due to Middlesbrough Music Live. I was hoping to get back in time but I didn't. I'll double up one day to make up. I was a bit underwhelmed with the day to be honest although (n.b. Ian) Frank Turner was outstanding. It was probably down to bad personal choices (my itinerary and buying drinks at he wrong venues at the wrong times etc.). I was also starving by the end of the night, refusing to risk the burger vans at the Festival. As ever getting round all the stages is nigh on impossible. It looks really exiting when you see the programme but eyes greedier than belly springs to mind. There was decent stuff on but I only realised when I read the official programme in the middle of the afternoon. I took too much notice of the Gazette journos local bands tips. What the hell would they know anyway even if they're not just plugging their kids or mates kids bands. Lessons For Next Year 1 Get an official programme before the event. 2 Don't take any ...
This may not seem a very important news story but I'm going there next week-end to do the Snowdonia Challenge , a 3 day walking "walking" competition with work. I've been training and in the last 2 weeks (I suspect not enough) and in that time I've walked/climbed up the 4 th highest mountain in England (2 weeks ago) and the highest last week-end and believe me walking up mountains is not for the faint hearted. Last week was particularly brutal, the highlight (?) being a 1000 feet climb up Skew Gill pictured below. This is not us by the way, I was actually scared shitless and in no position to either take or pose for a photo! Oh well. it's being nice knowing you.
The hounds are out for Brown and it's difficult to defend him. Whilst I don't loathe him in the same way I did Blughhh I have little pity. His efforts to seem hip and court popularity ( eg did anybody see him on tv last Sunday singing the praises of Simon Cowell and Britain's Got Talent) are pitiful. The Labour Party is a dead duck and I suppose Brown's got to take responsibility but I also think he's right when he says "If I didn't think I was the right person, leading the right team, I would not be standing here. " He's the best of a pathetic bunch. I will simply remember him as the chancellor who abolished the 10% tax rate band. The socialist who robbed from the poor to give to rich, rather than the man who cost Labour the next election, or the man who brought the country to its knees, or the man who saved the country from oblivion depending on your point of view. Let's be honest the last 6 years (Iraq war onwards) have been no b...
Music Live Again
The Fat Lad has pointed me to The Sunshine Underground, second on the bill (7.35) on the main stage. I tried their Myspace - nearly quarter of a mllion listeners of Borders can't be wrong. Cheers for the heads up Mike but probably going to give Future Of The Left a go at the Courtyard at 7.10. Also been pointed in the direction of Such Great Heights , 12 noon at Courtyard. If I go to see them, FOTL and Frank Turner that'll be 3 in the Courtyard. It's usually really shit in the courtyard! Cheers for picking up the blog again by the way. Lot's been going on and I've had loads of ideas for blog entries while I was away but was never quite angry, happy, upset or arsed enough to post. Will see how it goes and might pick up a few of them especially as now that I've suddenly become barren. Also been watching far too much television. Our Chris is round at the moment and we are watching the Big Brother opening ceremony. For fucks sake!!!!!!
The promised free upgrade from Virgin Media appears to have come through and my the speed of my broadband connection appears to have gone through the roof. Yippee! I've been downloading the complete Bob Dylan Radio Hour shows from here . They were taking a miserable 30 minutes plus each but now they're taking less than a minute. For techies I'm achieving downloading speeds of about 1.2MB a second. God knows when I'll find the time to listen to them, but that issue's for another day. Been looking at the Music Live programme in last night's Gazette. I'm planning to watch either General Fiasco or Das Wanderlust at noon at the Empire, Jimmy Bullet And The Baby Shakers, Idiot Savant and Russell And The Wolves on the homegrown stages between 2 and 4 and Future Of The Left (well tipped) at 7.10 and Frank Turner at 9.10 in the Town Hall Courtyard. That'll do for a start. Any other heads ups very welcome.
Yeah, I thought I'd give the End Of The Road festival a go. I actually bought my ticket about 2 weeks ago. I heard about the festival from Dusty, The Young Republic's Drummer (that's right Goffa From The Block, friend of the stars). They were moving on to last years festival to play a covers set the night after they played the Westgarth last September. I checked it out and it looked pretty interesting. I saw saw Steve Earle was playing this year and giving my new love of all things alt.country, folk, bluegrass etc.. on a whim I just thought I'd give it a go. Although worryingly SE's My Space makes no mention of him playing the festival. Deffo cup half full tonight. Current pressures of my (not so) new job mean I can't have a Monday to Friday week off at the moment but that doesn't stop me being of Wednesday to Tuesday! Looking forward to Middlesbrough Music Live on Sunday. I'm planning on getting down early this year and I'd like to in...
With a lump in my throat, a tear in my eye...
Went to Morrisons at lunch-time and checked out the magazines. My eyes were drawn to the free CD with Uncut, a compilation from Damon Albarn's Honest Jon's label. Non Blur lovers do not scoff . In truth the magazine's crap and £4.50 for a CD it's even money I won't play is big bucks so I thought I'd have a flick through to see if anything caught my eye. Crikey mick before my eyes a 4 article (mainly photos thankfully) about the Futurama festival from 1979. Ian Curtis, Mark E Smith, Julian Cope, Peter Perrott , John Lydon and Scritti Politti . It was billed as the world's first science-fiction music festival and took place on 8 and 9 September. Photographer Kevin Cummins accurately describes it as follows - "To be honest the event was grim. The venue was squalid, the sound was muddy , the lighting was terrible. It felt like being shut up in prison for 2 days..... " He then went on about how great Joy Division were and I suppose they prob...