May Be Busy

A blooming busy weekend beckons in May. Friday 5th sees Martin Stephenson visit Gloucester for an Acoustica session at the Guildhall, Saturday 6th brings Wasps to Stade Kingsholm for the last league game of the season and Sunday 7th I fully intend to travel to Bristol to catch Shack at the Fleece and Firkin, a much underrated venue (and band). I wonder if they have any new material coming out?

This coming Saturday I’m looking forward to seeing, avec famille, the fantastic performance poet and all-round good egg John Hegley at the Bath Theatre Royal before dashing back to Gloucester to enable the Cs to accompany the Ls to the Gloucester Guildhall for the Big Laugh Café comedy night, always a hoot and always an opportunity to have a few pints and relax.

Flat-Packed Furniture

I don’t really want to bang on and on about last week’s Ryan Adams concert but it actually put me off listening to music for a few days. Yesterday, however, while I gleefully constructed an item of flat-packed furniture I listened to Adams’ ‘Heartbreaker’ and ‘Cold Roses’ albums. This was the musical equivalent of climbing back on one’s bicycle after tumbling off. It was reassuring to hear how marvellous these recordings sounded and, despite his failings in the live arena, what astounding songs he has composed over the years. He is forgiven.

There are a couple of albums I desire. The new Durutti Column album harvested a really fine review in last Friday’s Guardian, prompting me to play their soaring – and superbly named – debut, ‘The Return of the Durutti Column’. The opening track, Sketch for Summer is, frankly, as good as ambient guitar music gets. This remains, after 27 years, outstandingly beautiful music. A re-release has caught my eye also. Stephen Duffy’s ‘I Love My Friends’ has been heralded within the media as a lost treasure full of staggering pop moments.

This month’s Mojo hit the doormat on Friday. I’ve saved if for this week but there is plenty I long to read with articles on Wire, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd and Morrissey to pour over. The free CD features bags of sixties Psychedelic gems and I can’t wait to hear it.

Bath loss; pathos

I don’t want to dwell too much on yesterday’s rugby. Any Gloucester loss to Bath is hard to stomach but I have rarely felt as gutted as I did at the final whistle yesterday. However, a day on I feel a little more positive. Judging by the comments of others, I was the luckiest guy in the ground having missed the dire first half because of work. The second half was wonderfully – and often for the wrong reason - exciting and contained plenty of incident and I relished watching the skill of Simpson-Daniel and, to a lesser extent, Peter Richards carving Bath up and creating plenty of chances. The introduction of Fanolua for the underwhelming Keil was fascinating; the Samoan’s spirit seemed to change the match and the presence of a character who epitomises all the club stands for was almost enough to win the match. It wasn’t to be. The last passage of play was unbearably thrilling and that made defeat all the harder to swallow. One level head at the death would have sent the stadium into delirious raptures but a miss is as good as a mile at this level. I’m still disenchanted today but I know that such dark thoughts will help render the next glorious win all the more agreeable. It certainly is not easy following Gloucester at times. At least my mood indicates how much I still care after all these years.

I have been investigating a website I read about in yesterday’s Guardian, http://www.youtube.com/, a huge archive of music videos, both commercial and bootlegged. The concert footage available is mind-blowing. This recording of Gang of Four playing ‘He’d Send in the Army’ from 1981 is simply joyous. Gill et al seem to be wearing futurist shirts and are definitely as po-faced as ever. There’s a gorgeous bit of Go-Betweens too, playing ‘Clouds’ in concert and looking and sounding imperious. Some kind punter has chucked some footage of Ryan Adams’ Bristol gig from a few days ago enabling more poor suckers to suffer as well. Adams apart, this is a real Aladdin’s Cave.

The majestic Shack are touring this year and playing Bristol. I must tell S.

The picture of the kitten is to help embittered Gloucester supporters focus their energies on something more positive and life-affirming. It's the best I can do. Sorry.

What a Pathetic Display 2

It seems that my rather disparaging comments about Master Ryan Adams are shared by others, and others who are quite prepared to be franker than me. The reviewer in the Evening Post attempts to be balanced in his report of Tuesday’s ghastly occasion but to no avail; a series of anguished punters vent their spleen quite merrily on the newspaper’s webpages. I was obviously not alone in my disappointment. I particularly appreciated the comment, 'I don't want to pay £20 to watch an embarrassing drunk. I can see them for free in Trowbridge park on most days.'

Rugby Football

Verily, the fates have conspired against me and, due to work commitments, I shall be missing the first half of tomorrow’s crunch match against Bath. I finish at midday so shall be bounding speedily down the Valley of Gold, listening intently to Radio Gloucestershire’s commentary, and hopefully parking sufficiently near to the stadium to enter the Kingsholm bear-pit as close to half-time as possible. Although Bath are missing some crucial forwards, they should still possess sufficient grunt and astuteness to cause the city some problems. The key should be to attain at least parity up front, provide quick ball and attack with alacrity and verve. Key figures should be Hazell, Mercier and Simpson-Daniel; if they all play to their considerable potential and the forward effort suffices, the spoils should be Gloucester’s. I take nothing for granted though.

What a Pathetic Display

The Ryan Adams concert on Tuesday night could euphemistically be described as ‘different’ and undoubtedly as 'disappointing'. I was certainly looking forward to seeing Adams, who, if not quite a ‘hero’, is definitely a musician I regard extremely highly. Last year’s trio of albums '29', 'Jacksonville Nights' and 'Cold Roses' emphasised the artist’s prolificacy but also showcased a rare talent for producing incredibly moving, melodic and tender country music. Earlier albums, 'Heartbreaker' and 'Gold' are truly superb too. Tuesday at Bristol’s Colston Hall was awful though. Adams played for almost three hours but a refusal to adhere to a set-list for artistic reasons along with, shall we say, a tendency to behave with a certain eccentricity led to a rambling, disjointed and unsatisfactory event. Too often Adams started a wonderful song only to halt after a minute or so because something or other wasn’t quite right, on one occasion because he realised he had two cigarette lighters in his rear pocket and felt he had to walk off stage to deposit them with a road crew member. He incessantly talked gibberish and spent minutes between songs mumbling and murmuring, moaning and sighing. He indubitably has problems and issues but spending twenty quid and a whole evening being forced to voyeuristically witness them was not what I anticipated or desired. And neither did the other punters: I have never heard so much heckling and disquiet at a gig. A few folk walked out in exasperation and I sympathised. Amid the debris a few moments of clarity and beauty rendered the evening a not total disaster but they were few and far between. 48 hours on, I can reflect calmly on a fairly appalling effort. However, at the time it was like watching a car smash.

Ciao!

Possibly not the greatest ever, ever 24 hours in the city club’s history but certainly up there in terms of positive news and feel good factor. First up, the team eked out a crucial away win against the despised Rob Andrew’s mob in the far north. The four points claimed via a try from the old stager Fanolua and eight points from ‘Monsieur Points’ Mercier could prove essential in the lads’ noble quest for European football next term. Today that news was embellished with the signing of Jake Boer, certainly one of my all time favourite Gloucester players, for an extra year that will mean seven years in a cherry and white shirt for the all-action South African. The icing on the cake was a new signing, and one that this supporter finds incredibly exciting. Gloucester have managed to attract to the club the star Italian lock forward and current captain of the Azzuri, Marco Bortolami. This shows we are keen to build a powerful and skilful pack for next season and with the peerless Alex Brown, imposing Will James, underrated Adam Eustace and improving Jonathan Pendlebury also on the roster, things look good for next season’s engine room. I am both mightily encouraged and excited by this news.

Scandinavian Searches

I have been browsing others’ weblogs today. I couldn’t find anything that changed my life but I enjoyed Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset’s wit and humour and wry look at life. It is bright and possesses a self-assurance that I quietly envy. I stole the idea of adding a short list of favourite postings from this site so the right hand side of my blog has grown noticeably since this morning. I have also added a few new links just to liven things up a bit. A week ago I subscribed to something called Stat Counter which tells me how many hits this site receives and also other fairly interesting (well, to me, anyhow) information. Most visitors to this site are from the UK but characters from as far away as France, Bermuda, Italy, U.S.A., Canada and even Chile have popped by. Today I discovered that someone from Sweden had logged onto this blog after searching for ‘Richard Hawley’ on Google. I hope he or she wasn’t too disappointed by my rather insipid comments about the Sheffield songster.

I’m off to see Ryan Adams at the Colston Hall on Tuesday evening. I must telephone B and make arrangements.

Society

I watched Vera Drake for the first time last night and thoroughly appreciated a moving, thoughtful and superbly acted feature. The tagline, ‘Wife. Mother. Criminal.’ sums up the film well; the double life led by the title character dominates the plot and narrative. However, the evocation of an austere post war England is for me the major charm of the film. Nobody has a great deal, cars and televisions are rarer than hens’ teeth and houses and flats are practical rather than comfortable or luxurious. However the sense of community in the London streets is so deep that a lack of consumer goods is not felt and the love of family and friends more than makes up for any poverty. It is telling that the unhappiest people in the film are those keenest to climb socially. Vera’s friend – and accomplice – Lily is ‘on the make’ and driven by a greed that renders her suspicious, bitter and miserable while the Drakes’ sister-in-law, Joyce, is the epitome of the aspirant new middle class that were to ‘never have it so good’. Her resultant shallowness, voracity and lack of beauty all echo a good deal of what I despair of in today’s Britain.

Pat

I hadn’t thought too much about the Gloucester Player of the Season until I read through today’s postings on the Kingsholm Chronicle. I must confess that I agree with most of the messages and that, right now, Patrice Collazo has my vote. The rugged Frenchman has been the pillar of a much-improved city pack and his uncompromising grittiness must be a real hassle to play against. Taking the silver and bronze medals for me – and it is only February, mind – are the elegant and dashing Oliver Morgan and the noble Alex Brown. Good players.

Chance Meetings with Folk

I downloaded 'Coles Corner' by former Longpig Richard Hawley today. It is one of those albums that appeared on various best-of-2005 lists and generally received glowing reviews. On first listen I must confess that it isn’t my thing but I shall not give up yet. It is a bit too ‘croony’ for my liking; I have gone off big arrangements and overblown orchestrations. I’ll probably love it tomorrow.

This morning’s visit to the barbers proved stressful and uncomfortable. A former teacher of mine strolled in, a fellow who is now in his mid 80s and who retired twenty years ago, a couple of years after I left school. He was not my favourite then and I fear the feeling was mutual. Today’s brief meeting and exchange, facilitated by my affable hairdresser who knew no better, was a touch awkward and one I could have done without. Part of me feels a bit shoddy that I could have rather negative thoughts about someone who was part of my life so long ago and who is now a very elderly and harmless soul. He was welcomed into the shop by the barbers like a long-lost returning hero. My heart, frankly, sank. I probably felt guilty remembering what a terrible fool I was at school as much as everything.

My haircut was cracking so it wasn’t a totally desperate half hour.

Heading South

Some weeks off need to be packed with fun and incident but others require leading the simple life in order to recharge and relax. This week certainly falls into the latter category. Listening to the radio, checking out a few albums, playing word games with the family, making decent progress with the current reading material: all simple pleasures but so worthwhile nonetheless. Today the Coles are heading to Bristol but separating on arrival. The female 60% is trotting purposefully to the zoo gardens in Clifton while T and I are staying around the docks and intend to visit the Watershed, the Arnolfini Gallery (where we may watch a film) and At Bristol, the science place. I’ve been dragging my heels purchasing the Calexico tickets for April so might nip up Park Street then down the steps to the Bristol Academy to buy direct for a change. The forecast was lousy for today but right now, at half past eight, the sun is cascading through the blinds and causing me to squint a tad: a good omen. I hope the weather is suitably splendid in the south of the county.

A Frequent Returning And Leaving Unnoticed

It is funny when you have known and loved a record for over twenty years then, heck, you discover something rather marvellous about it that means you’ll never be able to listen to it in quite the same way. I speak of Talking Heads’ 'Remain in Light' and specifically the final track, The Overload. According to this month’s Word Magazine – excellent as ever – Brian Eno had described to David Byrne the kind of music Joy Division made, prompting the band’s front man to produce The Overload, a pastiche of the gothic, atmospherically charged work associated with the Manchester post-punk giants. Listening to The Overload with that information is rather stunning and truly fascinating; apart from the American accent, it could well be any outtake from the Closer era, a sparse and haunting piece in the style of Decades or 24 Hours. What is remarkable is that Byrne had never actually heard any of Joy Division’s music before creating that song. That is currently my favourite rock fact.

With a bit more time on my hands I am able to listen to plenty of sounds and am revisiting some old favourites as well as hearing some new stuff. Filed under ‘old faves’ is 'Disintegration' by The Cure which sounds really marvellous, superbly produced and teeming with fragility and haunting melodies. This sounds downright old-fashioned but the album is full of fabulous songs from the melancholic Plainsong to the charged Untitled. A lost classic methinks. I also played Nick Drake’s final album 'Pink Moon' at the weekend for the first time in ages. I know this sounds daft when one considers how commercially unsuccessful Drake’s work was but I always think of 'Pink Moon' as the album without the hits. No Northern Sky, no Hazy Jane, no Fruit Tree but a studied, consistent array of delicate essentially English folk songs. Lovely. The new stuff has included the Antony and the Johnsons album, 'I Am a Bird Now' which is stunningly arranged and full of tender, very emotionally charged numbers. I had always obdurately considered it to be a tad over-rated, its success down to a media hungry for something different but I am wrong. The eulogising reviewers were right. This record moves me and is as good as it gets.

Winning Team

Gloucester 34 – Leicester 16

After the torpid frustration of the London Irish loss, this proved the perfect antidote to murky mid-season blues and a firm response to those dejected detractors (me included) who doubted that today’s set of players possessed pride and passion in the shirt and the colours. This was a splendid, Technicolor happening, vivid colours, sharp as a razor, clashing and etching a thrilling screenplay before the gathered. Floodlights add so much to the Kingsholm theatre; tackles appear keener, breaks more rapid, contacts, collisions and interactions more telling and potent. This was a great occasion and I had forgotten how ardently great occasions at the remarkable old stadium make the blood pump through the veins, focus the mind on nothing, nothing but victory and reaffirm one’s firm affection for the old city club.

Friday meant more than a fine result against traditional rivals. The sense of a steely collective standing shoulder to shoulder and demanding nothing less than victory proved tangible and irresistible; the Gloucester fifteen were desperate to win and the levels of concentration, single-mindedness and desire ebbed within the squad and permeated the spectators. It was electric and exciting and transcended mere entertainment. It mattered.

Unlikely heroes sprang forth. Jon Goodridge, for this punter often a gaunt, complex, almost haunted figure, banished demons and produced one of those moments that harvest footballing immortality for the individual athlete. His run from 22 to the shadow of Leicester sticks was brave, shrewdly intelligent, breathtaking and sublimely agile, swift and confident. The lad produced art. Not a hand was placed on him until too late and, importantly, the resulting score was telling, a psychological blow to a confident and streetwise visiting team. The exultation was immense, the buzz and thrill colossal. It was a vast, vast moment.

The rest of the game didn’t disappoint either. From hope emerged expectation and from expectation sneaked a lurking fear that the big names from the Midlands could conspire to deny the braves. The resolve paid dividends and all players contributed immensely. The proud skipper Boer, led with power and purpose and the forwards responded with a passionate doggedness to give not one inch and to fight for every scrap. All were heroes from the pillars in the front row to the more expressive back rowers, Forrester and Merrimen, who grafted like Fowkes or Fords to eke out every last inch and second of territory and possession. Behind the pack were nuggets too. The uber-competitive Amor harried and carried all evening, Mercier attacked with poise and kicked with precision and guile, the wings were busy, the warhorse Fanolua was the warhorse Fanolua and Rudi Keil, the South African newcomer to the colours, oozed class and self-belief. And we’ll be speaking of Goodridge for decades after that run.

As I mentioned earlier, Friday was more than a good result. For me, it restored a good deal of faith in the old team and in the old stadium. This was a passionate hour or two and reminded me of why I turn out for less stirring fare and why I shall always support the city. A great result. A great occasion. A great club.

Fast Team

I have played the Mogwai album a couple or three times now and it is superb. I feel a post-rock phase coming on and I and keen to investigate more Mogwai (I already own Come On Die Young) and other bands dealing in brooding melancholia and atmospherically building mood pieces. It’s got to be the way forward. ‘Young Team’ is by no stretch of the imagination a bundle of laughs but its studied intelligence and understated melody render it a pleasure to savour.

To Kingsholm tonight and a decimated Gloucester outfit hosting a decimated Leicester. A speedy Gloucester forward pack will take the field and it will be interesting to see how the likes of Merrimen, Forrester and Pendlebury play against bulkier and more uncompromising opponents. The stadium under lights always adds something to the occasion and I anticipate a fine atmosphere this evening.

Young Team

Despite having half a dozen or more albums on my MP3 player that I haven’t really played enough – the Antony and the Johnsons long player springs to mind – I have spent the last twenty minutes searching my favoured download site for something new and challenging to purchase. I’ve plumped for Mogwai’s debut album, ‘Young Team’ and, judging by the reviews on Amazon, it should be right up my street. ‘Beautiful, life-affirming music’ states one punter and that’ll do for me. The cover is lovely.

I must ask D what he thinks of the Kanye West album he bought recently. I wouldn’t mind checking out some intelligent hip-hop. It might make a change.

I was roaring Senegal on to defeat the hosts Egypt in yesterday’s African Cup of Nations semi-final. I would suggest that Egypt have been the best team in the whole competition while the Senegalese have struggled with form but I appreciated the underdogs’ valour and attacking zeal. A 2-1 score line saw Egypt home but they were fortunate as the referee ignored Senegal’s claims for the most blatant penalty ever in the last minute. Ivory Coast are the other finalists, a pragmatic, well-drilled side that I’m tempted to chuck an each-way wager on for the World Cup. Paddy Power have them at 100-1 for the tournament. I would fancy them to squeak a result against Serbia and Montenegro but would have to rely on either the Netherlands or Argentina slipping up too. It’s a tough group but stranger things have happened.

Feeble Effort

I’ve struggled to work all week but, my word, I have felt rather poorly and feeble and unable to attend to my weblog duties. I thought I had better explain myself. I’m a touch better today but not out of the woods yet. I even missed Acoustica on Friday which was a real shame.

I have watched a fair bit of the rugby this weekend. The England win against Wales was bullying and pragmatic but a reasonably complete performance. However I have to confess that I kept on furtively flicking over to the soccer on the other side. The African Cup of Nations has subtly cast its exotic net and wheeled me in. The penalty shoot-out between Ivory Coast and Cameroon was incredibly exciting: two-and-twenty consecutive successful penalties. The finest oval ball action of the weekend was at Murrayfield where a rejuvenated Scotland played some majestic stuff against a subdued French team to end up 20-16 winners.

I’m keeping an eye on this thread on the Gloucester message board which is discussing an allegedly racist shout that emanated from The Shed during last weekend’s match. I was pretty near to this incident. I didn’t witness who shouted out a rather pathetic Love Thy Neighbour style attempt at humour but I have my suspicions that it might be a rather boorish large fellow whom I’ve stood behind a few times this season. I’ll be watching him like a ruddy hawk from now on.

I've enjoyed one or two very pleasant lunchtime meals at The Guildhall recently and, having checked out the cafe-bar's website, think I shall be returning for more fare soon. The family sat by the bar is particularly stylish and very much 'my types'. The guy in foppish scarfly attire reading a daily journal just exudes a certain je ne sais quoi.