Rock and Roll Friends

A long overdue phone call to Birmingham Academy has acquired a brace of tickets for the wondrous Go-Betweens on a Friday night in May. This will be at the middle of the three Academy venues where S and I saw a mighty set from Calexico a year or so ago. This more intimate setting will suit the whimsical, homely charms of The Go-Betweens well. I hope they play plenty of old songs. I note from this set-list from a year ago that the band is quite happy to mix and match newer and classic material. I would personally love a ‘Bye Bye Pride’ and would swoon at a ‘Part Company’ or ‘Mexican Postcard’. So many of this group’s songs make me sigh. I worship The Go-Betweens. They’re cooler than cool.

I’m being a bit offish and ignoring - well, trying to - all the latest news and rumours from Gloucester RFC. I have missed, through illness and a chess tournament, the last two matches at Kingsholm and, frankly, I’ve coped well with not attending games and every indication is that the club has coped perfectly well without me. I shall peer through my fingers as the club attempts to recruit for next year and shall probably slope back through the turnstiles for the Leeds match in a few weeks.

I’ve been playing, back to back, The Futureheads’ and Franz Ferdinand’s debut albums in the car. Franz Ferdinand received all the plaudits last year but I prefer The Futureheads. Their songs are meatier, beatier, bigger and bouncier and are solidly produced by the earnest Andy Gill. The Futureheads possess a tad more wit, intellect and a certain soupcon of danger and edge that the foppish Franz Ferdinand boys can only hint at.