The end of the year thing
Well, the time has come to take down the Belle & Sebastian ‘A Toast to Glasgow’ 2008 souvenir calendar. And what a strange year 2008 has been (almost as strange as B&S claiming that Stow College is a highlight of Glasgow, up there with the Necropolis and Kelvingrove Museum).
Cocktails
This was the year that I discovered Green Chartreuse. It tastes good straight with ice, it tastes good with soda water, it particularly tastes good in a Bijou. And like advocaat and blue curaçao, Green Chartreuse’s lurid and unappetising colour keeps the picky house guest at bay from the cocktail cabinet.
Records
After too many miserable live music experiences my live gig ban came into effect this year. Fortunately I have no self discipline whatsoever or I would have missed the Portico Quartet, Pentangle, Robert Forster and Africa Now, all of whom were brilliant.
Staying on the stereo from this year:
- The Last of the Shadow Puppets’ The Age of Understatement, Rachel Unthank and the Winterset’s The Bairns, Paul Weller’s 22 Dreams and Fleet Foxes were probably the only records actually released in the past year that I’ve really liked.
- James Yorkston and the Athletes Moving Up Country. It’s taken 6 years for me to get around to buying this album and well, it’s so good I should have bought it 6 years ago.
- The Nostalgia 77 Octet’s LP Weapons of Jazz Destruction came out last year but it’s ace ‘nu-jazz’ feel (cringe) is definitely staying fresh.
- Strange Pleasures: Further Sounds of the Decca Underground. A 3 CD boxset featuring the likes of Caravan, Ten Years After and Genesis playing epics with names like ‘Space Shanty’ and ‘Cosmic Bride’ can only be good.
- Still hanging around on the stereo from last year is the Carousel soundtrack. ‘June is bustin’ out all over’ might well be my favourite June song of all time.
- Singles of the year include several songs of the week: ‘Divine’ by Sebastian Tellier, ‘Two Doors Down’ by The Mystery Jets and ‘The Promise’ by Girls Aloud. Also ‘Paris is Burning’ by Ladyhawke (as recommended by Hoops Hooley).
- Old rediscovered singles of the year: ‘Look in My Diary’ by Reparata & the Delrons (thanks to BLTP) and ‘Cut Me Deep’ by the Jasmine Minks (thanks to Ill Man).
Everything else
Bad things
- Financial meltdown. I have friends who’ve been made redundant and know plenty of other people who are worried. It makes all those news reports depressingly real.
- Walthamstow Dog track closed for racing because it’s unprofitable, but is available for evangelical church services…
- Humphrey Lyttleton and Rick Wright going to the great gig of noodly solos in the sky.
- The continued woeful state of the music industry – music bloggers being harrassed, overpriced vinyl, under-investment in new music, EMI still being owned by a private equity company/asset stripper, DRM etc. etc.
Good things
- Financial meltdown. Yes, there is a positive side. Firstly, our local council have abandoned plans to build some horrible high rise flats in our area and secondly, it has made Robert Peston’s career.
- The 42 day pre-charge detention bill has been dumped. For the moment anyway.
- At least two good films came out of Hollywood this year – No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood – that’s probably two more than last year.
- I went to China. It was great!
Good-bad things/personal failings
- I have become addicted to the ghastly, but amusing, TV programme Come Dine With Me.
- After a year of reading books on religion, science and French grammar I still don’t understand any of it.
- The fact that I actually heard the infamous Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand prank phone call on the radio and failed to be mortally offended, let alone realise that this was the start of a media furore. I just thought ‘that’s a bit nasty’, switched it off and went to bed. Just imagine what this country would be like if I ran it…
Happy New Year everyone!
Tags: music = opinions
December 31st, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Stow College a landmark? Yr shitting me! Just because the singer guy did a course there…………. (I’ve heard the demos he did there too…)
Your two positive aspects of the credit crunch are mine too, oddly enough. Robert Peston amuses me, and gap sites not being turned into executive condo’s for moneyed cunts means all the more space for merry gangs of guerrilla gardeners to make themselves busy in, adding a bit of colour to the urban greyness.
hurrah!
January 1st, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Yes, indeed Stow College is a landmark. As are Nice & Sleazy’s and the lock on the Forth and Clyde Canal near Maryhill – which I entirely agree with.
And the death of poxy poorly built single bedroom appartments/’investment properties’ for fools is quite possibly the best thing that could come out of the credit crunch. Although I do pity the folk of places like central Manchester and Salford who are going to be surrounded by millions of the empty things now.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
They’re trying to sell the flats they built at the bottom of my road for £350,000 each at the moment. I wish them the best of luck with this, obviously… it’s like me setting the starting price of a 10,000 copy limited edition Wedding Present single at £100 on ebay.
Anyway, as for the music industry, I couldn’t agree more. Some lawyers at Warner Brothers have decided to pull down a lot of my video content from YouTube for including incomplete snippets of material which violates their copyright restrictions. In an age where people are watching music videos on YouTube rather than engaging with MTV or VH1, their policy makes zero sense, and undoes a lot of my work in ripping and uploading the bloody things for no reason I can see. If anybody gets made redundant in 2009 I hope it’s a shedload of lawyers, because they clearly have nothing better to do (and how I wish this was the only area in my life which lawyers were being an obstructive pain at the moment, but it’s not).
January 2nd, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Well Dave, if I was a lawyer the first thing I’d do after a hard day pursuing villains such as yourself would be to rush straight out and buy one of those overpriced flats! £350,000?!
Hope the lawyers are less pointlessly obstructive for you this year.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 am
Happy New Year everyone
January 4th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Good points, well made as ever, Cocktails. Brighton and Hove Council recently shelved plans to build a load more horrible overpriced flats down at the horrible overpriced Marina, so despite the grimness there IS something of the ill wind around. As for live music I’ve just booked my first three gigs of 2009 so will be keeping the live flag flying, despite my burgeoning despair at chattering audiences and some indifferent performances.
And, Dave…I’m quite interested in that Wedding Present single.
Here’s to ‘09, come what may.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:46 am
Hey there. Great post. I’ve really enjoyed your blog this past year. It’s one of my favorite to check out and comment on. Hope you had a great holiday season. Happy New Year! Cheers!
January 5th, 2009 at 10:22 am
ISBW, I will be adhering to my gig ban (in an ad-hoc manner of course)this year as well. However, I will also be relying on your gig reviews so that I can attend viscerally.
Keith, thanks for your comments in 2008 and happy new year to you too.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Happy New Year, Cocktails!
January 7th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Thank you Haru. Here’s to 2009!