My Top 10 Gigs of 2007

Don't you just hate those end of year countdown shows? Cheap, schedule-padding fodder consisting of cobbled together clips and witless pundits pontificating witlessly. I even wrote about me intense dislike for this pernicious genre here. Oh, how I hate them.

Here's a countdown of my favourite gigs of 2007:


10. Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters, Birmingham Hare & Hounds, 20th October

My third Jeffrey Lewis gig and the best so far. I wrote a lengthy review of it here. In that review I forgot to mention that in addition to Jeffrey's uncle - Professor Louis - there was also support from local ska hipsters Dexter. Let me remedy that now: I thought they were fab. This belated endorsement is a little pointless, however, as Dexter have since imploded-slash-morphed into a new popular beat combo called walk.don't.walk. Oh, well - it's the thought that counts.



9. CSS, Latitude Festival, 14th July

A guilty pleasure, and we're all allowed those. CSS's vibrant set encapsulated the wonderful Latitude Festival for me, and their track "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" was this year's feelgood Summer song of choice with my tinny-but-temperamental car stereo.

The Latitude weekend was one of my highlights of this year for me, and this is the first of several mentions it gets on this list. I've already booked my ticket for next year's. You should, too.



8. Damo Suzuki and his Assortment of Sound-Carrying Biatches : Birmingham Hare & Hounds, August 16th

A mad, mad night of madness and the madness does not diminish with the passage of time. I wrote about it here. Did I mention it was mad?

Here's a pic wot Pete took:

Former Can-man Suzuki played what was possibly the same song repeatedly (it was hard to tell) with a rotating lineup of "sound carrying" local bands including The Courtesy Group, Mills and Boon and the mighty Modified Toy Orchestra (whose gig at the Birmingham Town Hall in October very almost nearly got into this Top 10).

Here some YouTubery featuring Damo at a Courtesy Group event from 2005:





7. Tony Bennett, Birmingham Town Hall, 8th May

The next best thing to seeing Sinatra live. As Stan Lee would say, "'Nuff Said."




6. Jarvis Cocker: Latitude Festival, 15th July

He is Jarvis: that is reason enough.

As an encore he played Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger".

Need I say more?



5. Jim White & Jenny Owen Youngs, Birmingham Barfly, 18th October

A headliner and his support. Is that allowed? Shouldn't that be two separate entries?

It's my list. They're my rules. Deal with it.

Here's Jenny Owen Youngs on the night in question, courtesy of YouTube and a public-minded citizen:



And here's Jim White at a different Barfly on the same tour singing the wonderfully-titled "A Bar Is Just A Church Where They Serve Beer":



4. The Pogues: Birmingham Academy, 16th December

Tough call. I was very tempted to place them higher as they played an absolute blinder of a gig, even by the legendary standards of a Pogues' gig. But it was only a fortnight ago (and I only wrote about it two blog entries ago) and I like to give my perceptions space to breathe, so I'll exercise some restraint.

But, Goddamnit - that was one helluva night...

Here's a taster from the night, courtesy of yet another public-spirited soul & YouTube:



3. The National: Latitude Festival, 15th July; Birmingham Irish Centre, 6th November

So good I saw them twice this year. That should say it all.

This is them quiet:

This is them loud:


2. Devo: Birmingham Symphony Hall, 22nd June

At the beginning of the year, Devo - they of the yellow boiler suits, red plastic hats and New Wave bequirkery - weren't really on my Gigs I Must Really Go To This Year list. But my friends Pete and Jez - two self-confessed Devo spuds - were so excited at the prospect of their first UK tour in 17-odd years that it would have been churlish of me to decline the invite. So I went.

Let's just say that their set lit me up, fused my synapses and left me smiling like a simple-minded child. I'd never thought that such hard-rocking euphoria could be produced within the ornate surroundings of Birmingham Symphony Hall. I wasn't alone: the venue's security staff looked positively bewildered.

I am convinced. I am converted. I am Devolved.




1. Arcade Fire: Latitude Festival, 15th July

I mentioned before that the Latitude Festival was one of the highlights of my year. Well, this was the highlight of Latitude.

Arcade Fire concerts are legendary, so my expectations were high. That can be a kiss of death, but thankfully they delivered. It was everything I'd hoped for and more.

Sublime, awe-inducing, breathtaking. Up there with Radiohead at Glastonbury '97. Really: that's how good it was.


Honourable mention should go to the following who didn't quite make the list: The Modified Toy Orchestra at Birmingham Town Hall [15th October]; Misty's Big Adventure & The Destroyers at Brum's Rootsville Festival [30th June]; Wilco [who I heard but couldn't see so can't include], Rodrigo Y Gabriela [disqualified as I only caught the last 15 minutes of their set, which seemed pretty fucking awesome], The Good The Bad & The Queen, Bat For Lashes and Joan as Policewoman at Latitude; Bearsuit at the Sunflower Lounge [September 7th].

Also, despite the cruel and resentful things I said in a previous post, I quite enjoyed The Police at the NIA, too. Begrudgingly.

It's only now that I realise that 2007 was the year I became a fully fledged gig tart.

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Expletive Deleted, Deletion Retreated

It's a bit late in the day, but I can't talk about The Pogues without at least mentioning the recent brouhaha over the re-release of their classic seasonal hit Fairytale of New York (AKA The Greatest Goddamn Christmas Song Ever).

In case you missed it, BBC Radio 1 hit the headlines exactly a week before Christmas Day when they announced that they would censor the song for broadcast. The offending lyrics were embedded in the song's penultimate verse, in which Shane MacGowan memorably exchanged a barrage of earthy insults with the late Kirsty MacColl:

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

Radio 1 announced they would dub out the words "faggot" and "slut" and told the BBC News website: "We are playing an edited version because some members of the audience might find it offensive." According to BBC News, a Radio 1 spokeswoman said the station's management met on 18th December, discussed the issue and '"had made their decision' and would not be backing down."

Later that day - and with almost textbook comic timing - the BBC News website announced: "Radio 1 backs down in Pogues row."

It made me laugh; things like that always do. But it didn't make everybody laugh. Veteran gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said: "The word 'faggot' is being sung as an insult, alongside 'scumbag' and 'maggot'. In this abusive context it is unacceptable." There was even a lively debate on the rehabilitation of the term "slut" BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. The Pogues, of course, got their name from a quaint Irish expression. Someone should explain to these people what "pogue mahone" means.

The news media seems to have overlooked the fact that a variation of this non-story has happened before. Some years ago former Boyzone frontman (frontboy?) Ronan Keating recorded a cover of the song and changed one of the offending lines to "you scumbag, you maggot you're cheap and you're haggard." I saw him in an interview on a Pogues documentary last year and he claimed that he was pressurised into doing this and - apparently - still feels bad about it. Now, I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that I'm not exactly a fan of Ronan Keating and his oeuvre, but when the former front man of a boy band - a class of performer not renowned for their fierce artistic integrity - expresses guilt over an act of cultural vandalism you know it must be pretty serious.

I don't have the time or the inclination to write a lengthy essay on Neo Puritanism so I won't. Let's just say that it seems to me that if we were to delete from every song, movie or book every word, phrase or pejorative term that somebody somewhere finds deeply offensive we'd live in a world with a lot of dead air. The only safe option for artists would be instrumental-only tracks, silent movies and Bowdlerisation. I don't think I want to live in that world. I'd probably get a rash.

There's plenty of things in this world I find deeply offensive and the list seems to grow every day. Most of what I hear on Radio 1 nowadays offends my sensibilities, but that's just me being an old fart and having an atavistic hatred for bland, production-line pop and charisma-free DJs. Peter Tatchell often offends my sensibilities, not because of his gay rights activism - I've no problem with that - but because I get the impression he's a pinch-faced, self-righteous, humourless churl. I am rather fond of Woman's Hour, however, but that's because I'm an unrepentant Radio 4 junkie.

But while there are plenty of things that offend me, I wouldn't want them to be censored. On a more personal note, as an Irishman I don't much care for the term "mick". I'm sure Shane MacGowan doesn't like it, either. It's a racial slur, and I don't like racial slurs. But I don't let the use of it in one of my favourite films - Withnail & I - interfere with my enjoyment of the film. And I certainly wouldn't want it to be dubbed out or exchanged for something more benign. That would be dumb as rocks.

A spokesman for The Pogues said that the band "found it amusing" that Fairytale of New York "should suddenly have been deemed offensive." I find it all a bit amusing, too. Still, I can't help but wonder whether which other twenty year-old songs would upset the Neo Puritans.

Would Duran Duran's 'Hungry Like The Wolf' be condemned for encouraging binge eating?

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The Pogues, Birmingham Academy, 16th December 2007

I went to see The Pogues the other week. Really, I did.

I suppose I should write a review or something, but it all seems a bit redundant. A Pogues gig is everything you'd expect a Pogues gig to be, only moreso. It was boozy, bawdy, boisterous and - by bloody bejaysus - it was a whole lot of fun.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen them live, and it won't be the last. At least, I pray God it won't be the last. Shane turned 50 on Christmas day and has spent most of those years living on a diet that would make Dr Gillian McKeith question her faith. He and the lads [sadly minus the great Philip Chevron, recently diagnosed with throat cancer] belted out their Anglo-Irish splicing of Irish folk and punk rock like they've always done: with demented passion and shambolic gusto.

They'd mixed things up a bit since the last time I saw them. This time around there was less reliance on their excellent mid-80s masterpieces Rum, Sodomy & The Lash and If I Should Fall From Grace With God. Amongst other things, the capacity crowd were treated to blistering renditions of 'Boys From The County Hell' and 'Streams of Whiskey' from Red Roses For Me, 'Summer in Siam' and 'Sayonara' from Hell's Ditch and 'Rainy Night in Soho' from 1986's Poguetry in Motion EP. There were others, I'm sure, but I'm relying on memory here. This was, after all, a Pogues gig. You don't take notes at a Pogues gig, let alone remember much.

But while there was a welcome extension to the catchment area of their setlist, in all other respects it was business as usual. They're not the kind of band who do radical reimaginings of their classics. You won't hear 'Fiesta' delivered a capella or a 180bpm drum'n'bass 'Dirty Old Town'. No, The Pogues give their audience exactly what they want - and why shouldn't they? This was, after all, a nostalgia gig. And don't be getting sniffy about that: if a man can't wallow in unbridled nostalgia at this time of year - with the band who were responsible for The Greatest Goddamn Christmas Song Ever - than when can he?

The atmosphere, of course, was wild and incandescent. It always is when The Pogues play, but this time it felt even more intense. At times it seemed more like a football match than a gig, although that might have something to do with the recurring chants of "One Shane MacGowan, there's only one Shane Mac-Gow-an" to the tune of the Macarena. You get a lot of that at Pogues gigs.

You also get a lot of drinking. Not that I'm being judgmental: I did a lot of drinking, too. It wasn't really an evening for the cappuccino crowd. But as I found myself caught up in the booze-fuelled, slam-and-embrace-the-bystander carnage, I couldn't help but feel a sudden twinge of irony. Was I turning into a caricature of myself? Were we all turning into characters from a Pogues' song?

Maybe, maybe not. Who cares? I was having fun. Everyone else was having fun. As soul searches go it wasn't exactly thorough. In fact, you couldn't call it cursory.

Brother Younger and I took our dear oul' mum to the gig. Now, I wouldn't normally be so irresponsible as to encourage a senior citizen (however feisty she may be) to go to a spit-and-sawdust, Rock-and-Roll venue like the Birmingham Academy. But The Pogues mean a lot to the Lennon family. Long ago and far away I got my Dad into the Pogues and my Dad got me into Johnny Cash. I like to think of that as a perfect, mutually beneficial cultural exchange programme. Dad passed away twelve years' ago but Mum, Brother Younger and I still have vivid memories of family holidays in the Lake District with a soundtrack made up of 'Sick Bed of Cuchulainn', 'Drunken Ira Hayes' and 'Sally MacLennane'. Like I said, The Pogues mean a lot to us.

The Academy is a standing-only venue and Mum has a slightly dicky knee, so she got herself a seat in a zoned-off disabled section with a perfect view. Mum's very resourceful like that. While she was there she got talking to a middle-aged couple, a lady on a wheelchair and her able-bodied boyfriend/husband/significant other. Mum's very good at introducing herself to strangers, too.

Anyhow, as the night progressed the man got more and more wasted. After a minor altercation with a bouncer, eventually and inevitably he chucked his guts up all over the feet of his wheelchair-bound significant other. She had to clear it up after him.

If that isn't a scene straight out of a Pogues song I don't know what is.

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I've been quiet again

Enjoy the silence, because it won't last. There's a reason for this, of course. There's always a reason.

I'm hammering the keys of my bruised and woe-begotten laptop at 3.15 am on Christmas morn. There's a reason for that, too, but it's not what you might think.

I've just finished building my brother Rob's Christmas present. I hope he likes it. My brother Rob - AKA, Brother Younger - is somewhat more practical and pragmatic than me. He's a carpenter by trade, and a very good one at that. He enriches people's lives through the medium of wood and when he builds something he builds something useful like a kitchen or a staircase or a patio. Being somewhat less practical and pragmatic than him, I built him a website. It involved no heavy lifting and I managed to complete it without getting a splinter. Ree-zult.

It's a fairly modest affair, but I'm happy with the results. You can find it at www.roblennon.com.

Initially, I tried to build the site using Notepad, Paintshop Pro and my somewhat rusty grasp of HTML. I say "rusty", but I doubt my web design skills were ever metallurgically pure. In any case, I tried to build a site the old-fashioned way and the results were squonky to say the least. If I left it as it was it would have looked so late-1997 that the Government would probably have slapped a conservation order on it and declared it a Website of Special Scientific Interest.

In the end I cheated and used a rather nifty hosting and website design package called Mr Site's Takeaway Website, and it did exactly what it said on the tin. Granted, I fiddled around with the HTML a bit, but that's just the way I am.

As a brief aside, Brother Younger - when he's not being more practical and pragmatic than me - is also prone to low humour and theological high jinks. It must be a family trait. Like I said, he's a carpenter, and he once told me that: "In this line of work, the next step on the career ladder is Messiah."

If you live in or around Birmingham, if you're partial to low humour and theological high jinks and if you have a home or a business that contains wood, you really should go here and give him a call.

Merry Christmas, by the way.

Retina Burn

Rol tells it like it is:

And finally, why is it that when you get one of the aforementioned crap-headlight types behind you, and slowing down to let them pass has no effect, they're always going to the exact same place as you? You keep thinking, they're bound to turn off here, they're bound to turn off there, but no, they're with you all the way. All the way to your office parking space, all the way home to your very driveway / garage / onstreet parking area. I'm surprised they don't follow you inside and ask for a cup of tea. Or a cloth to polish the dirt off their headlights... just in case they're not dazzling enough.

The National, Birmingham Irish Centre, 6th November 2007

"I wish that I believed in fate

I wish I didn't sleep so late

I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders."

- The National: Mr November

"Everything I can remember

I remember wrong."

The National: Daughters of the SoHo Riots

It’s been a long time since I last visited Birmingham’s Irish Centre. I remember going there as a child, my Dad supping a pint of Guinness in the lounge while my little brother Rob and I scoffed vinegar-soaked chips and slurped watered-down Coke and tried to play pool on a table we could barely reach. Back then, Rob was significantly shorter than me and “little brother” was more than just a figure of speech. Ah, simple times.

And, look… there I am again: slightly older, none-the-wiser and now I’m standing outside the Irish Centre. I’m waiting for the coach that’ll take my family and me to Aunt Maria’s cottage in rural County Monagahan - via Hollyhead and the Irish Sea - and aren’t I the sulky wee gobshite! Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan was about to be released on the big screen and I was going to an Irish village with one shop, three pubs and no cinema. There was no doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t get to see Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan in the way that God intended, and this caused me great anguish. But I’d more than make up for it in later years, and – for that matter - in recent weeks.

As I got older, the Irish Centre became a regular fixture in my teenage calendar. I went to numerous gigs there – from late-80s seminal indie darlings like The Sundays to raucous Irish folk bands like the Wolfe Tones. It was also the regular venue for my sixth form college’s end-of-term disco. Yes, we called them “discos” and we weren’t being ironic or post-modern. That’s how O-L-D I am.

I can still remember one end-of-termer during my late teens, as the proper old-school, non-superstar DJ – a middle-aged man known as The Mighty Quinn – put on the obligatory Pogues track and the dancefloor erupted, as Anglo-Irish dancefloors have a tendency to do during obligatory Pogues tracks. It was Fiesta, one of the barnstormers from the classic If I Should Fall From Grace With God album, and it wasn’t long before I found myself entwined in a spinning huddle of drunken bodies. Fast, faster then even faster we spun, like some booze-fuelled, high-octane centrifuge of booze. Faces, lights and sounds melted into a dizzying, synaesthetic blur until, inevitably, I lost my grip, flew through the air and crashed into some vacant tables and chairs parked nearby. Within seconds I was back on my feet - dusting off the booze, ash, glass and bits of table – and launched myself back into the fray with tremendous gusto.

These days, my recovery time is a bit more sluggish. If I was catapulted though the air and crashed into furniture now I’d probably be in a body cast typing this with broken fingers. Or dead. Or possibly a broken-fingered corpse.

Like I said, it had been a long time since I’d last visited Birmingham’s Irish Centre. More than seventeen years had gone by since I’d last made an eejit of myself in the main hall, but when I went to see The National last month very little had changed. The same tricolour flag was hanging in the corner, the same Irish lakeside mural was on the wall and – unless I’m mistaken – the same fittings and fixtures were behind the bar. It was as though the place had been preserved in amber, a weird time-capsule of faded 70’s working class elegance. Nothing had changed, only me.

For me the Irish Centre is still loaded with meaning, and few places resonate with my memories – with my personal history and mythology - in quite the same way. As I glanced around the main hall – at the chipped paint on the Céad Míle Fáilte sign, at the school assembly hall stage with its gold foil drapes - it set off a wild cascade of half-remembered moments. Dreamlike glimpses of lost innocence and lurid triumphs, a nonlinear slideshow of images that all run together and never make sense. The shy 16 year-old gracefully disappears in a room while his boisterous older incarnation raises his heavenly glasses to the heavens. Snapshots from a simpler time, when all the wine was all for me and we were heirs to the glimmering world.

It was the perfect place to see a band like The National.

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Did Morgan Spurlock find Osama bin Laden?

From MSNBC News:

Rumors are flying that filmmaker Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" fame may have done what the United States government has failed to do for the last six years — find Osama bin Laden.

The speculation first began at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where Spurlock showed a select group of potential buyers 15 minutes of footage from his new documentary, "Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?" The film follows Spurlock through the Middle East in his search for the elusive leader of al-Qaida. According to Slashfilm.com, The Weinstein Co. quickly snapped up the picture after seeing the clips.

Adding to the belief, Daniel Marracino, the film's director of photography, is quoted in Variety, saying of the movie, "We've definitely got the Holy Grail."

BBC News haven't picked this up as yet, and perhaps with good reason. The way I see it, it either has the potential to be the single biggest body blow to the Bush Administration's legacy or it's a misguided cosmic-scale hoax that would put Morgan Spurlock in the Clifford Irving league and potentially wreck his career. But it does present a tantalising prospect: could a likeable documentary-maker who made his name bingeing on burgers have accomplished what the world's only super power and the global intelligence community have monumentally failed to do?

Sometimes a 'WTF?' just isn't enough.

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Brummie of the Year 2007 is....

(Sustained drumroll. Collective gasp of anticipation. Vigorous wrestling with a glitzy-looking envelope.)

...John Tighe, the Landlord of the mighty Spotted Dog pub in Digbeth.

Congratulations to a well-deserving winner. This man has taken a stand against the gentrified hordes, and for that I salute him. You can read about John's valiant efforts at his campaign website. May his commitment to the authentic live music experience continue to upset the delicate sensibilities of irredeemable gobshites and their polite, James Blunt-soundtracked dinner parties.

So say we all.

Commiserations to the runners-up, particularly my good friend and erstwhile gigpimp Pete Ashton. Here's the full results, courtesy of the award's organisers Birmingham It's Not Shit :

Who’s Brummie of The Year 2007?

• Richard Pawley (1%, 10 Votes)
• Condori : Big Chief Busks With Recorder (hats off to the buskers) (2%, 20 Votes)
• Martin Mullaney (2%, 25 Votes)
• Soweto Kinch (4%, 44 Votes)
• Carl Chinn (4%, 48 Votes)
• Catherine O’Flynn (12%, 133 Votes)
• Lisa Meyer & Jenny Moore of Capsule (16%, 186 Votes)
• Pete Ashton (29%, 336 Votes)
  
• John Tighe of The Spotted Dog (31%, 353 Votes)

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Voix pour Pete.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my good friend and erstwhile gig pimp Pete Ashton is in the shortlist for Brummie of the Year. The deadline to vote is midnight tonight, and last time I checked, Pete was in second place.

As I mentioned previously, Pete has tirelessly encouraged, urged and sometimes forcibly coerced the city's artistic community to use the Internet to their best advantage. Pete is a true renaissance man - a world-renowned neurosurgeon, a leading particle physicist, a record-breaking racing car driver and a chart-topping rock star - and many of us feel that his groundbreaking work in cartography has helped put Birmingham on the map

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think its right that someone with these credentials should end up as number two. It's undignified, and it makes the rest of us look bad.

So - for one last time - I urge you to go here and Vote for Pete.

Yes, you. Don't try to look away. That won't work.