Smoke me a Kipper

I’ll be back in time for………August?
Off on holiday on Saturday, a week away in the gorgeous little coastal town of Seahouses in Northumbria, I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been on holiday there, yet it never seems to loose it’s charms.
This may be in no small part to the utterly *legendary* smoke house that is Swallows. When I return, no doubt I will do so reeking of fish.
And with photo’s! on this blog! If I can be arsed!
KILOVEYOUBYE!

Oh, also, Christopher Nolan’s Inception made me do this face :O
Bloody emoticons, what have I turned into.

STEPHEN?! JUST COMING!

This is Michael Lyons. He is a beautiful, beautiful man. If I ever met him, I would kiss him on the mouth. In your fuzzy ginger-bearded git-face Mark Thompson. HA.

If you hadn't heard, 6music isn't closing.

Midlake & John Grant. Leadmill, Sheffield. 29.6.10

Mere miles out of York, and I had already resigned myself to missing this gig. In the sweltering early evening sun, heading towards Tadcaster, cars had stopped, their drivers and passengers hopping out to stretch their legs and avoid baking, meanwhile, no cars had driven past on the other side of the carriageway in quite some time. We were in this for the long haul. Or so I thought. Within an hour, we were moving again and soon passed the reason for our delay, a car had left the road, mounted the grassed embankment and thundered into a tree (luckily, according to York Press, the driver wasn't seriously injured).

After some fruitless searching for a particular car park, and taking a very not-short cut (despite the fact that one of our number had lived in Sheffield for 19 years) we eventually made it to the Leadmill, as we entered we were greeted by the rather powerful lungs of Mr John Grant (not literally though, which was rather rude, “oh, hello” it’s not that difficult. “Hi John” I’d reply. Tuh.) who really was the ideal support for Midlake (his label-mates, who, incidentally played on the debut solo album ‘ The Queen of Denmark’ released earlier this year) Equally Moving and funny, with a voice like a pissed off Tim Buckley and lyrics like:
"And I feel just like Sigourney Weaver. When she had to kill those aliens. And one guy tried to get them back to the earth. And she couldn't believe her ears"
(from 'Sigourney Weaver') how could I not be impressed?

A prolonged bar visit later, on to the stage ambled one drummer, one keyboardist/flutist, one bassist, and four guitarists and many beards, it’s a good thing that the Leadmill stage is as wide as it is (which is quite wide).

Whilst Midlake’s two most recent records, 2006’s ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’ and this years ‘The Courage of Others’ are on the surface, very different, the former referencing 1970’s American rock, and the later, English folk, they are both resolutely mid temp records. Which would have not been a problem if they had perhaps played something from the considerably livelier; The Flaming Lips influenced ‘Bamnan & Silvercork’. But they didn’t. So it was.

All seven of them are clearly incredibly accomplished musicians, and are very tight as a unit, but their set landed just on the wrong side of monotony. When they did let rip, such as the extended jam prior to the utterly brilliant ‘Roscoe’, and on the similarly magnificent ‘Head Home’ (which I just mistyped as ‘Head Gnome’ hehe.) they are simply captivating.

I’m under no illusions that the fact I didn’t enjoy the gig as much as I’d expected was in no small part down to my mood. I’d been on edge since we passed that car. A weird night.