When shadows take your hand...

Bumped into an old friend, Maz, on the bus yesterday. She runs Chicks Dig Jerks (the title of a Bill Hicks song off Arizona Bay, I think), the Birmingham gig promoters. They have put on Quasi and Franz Ferdinand on in the past and their new fanzine is out now at Swordfish Records and The Sunflower Lounge. Within it has an interview with the ever-eloquent James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and DFA Records.Maz is DJing at the Camden Lock soon, where I went fairly recently and they played Elliot Smith's XO from start to finish.

Went to see Buck 65 on Sunday at Bar Academy in Birmingham. My mate LCE came up from Bury St.Edmunds. We actually went to see him last year at the Custard Factory and I saw him at this years ATP. This review sums it up pretty perfectly to be honest.

Buck 65 is not a happy man. He has broken his mixer, and as the man says "For a
DJ, that doesn't leave a lot. Maybe I'll try and dance a little". During the 2nd
song, he actually does try and dance - this causes his backing CD to skip. It's
not going well... he then reveals that his backing singer has chosen that day to
leave the tour "It's a long story... don't try and sleep with people you work
with".Luckily this is Buck 65, and the small venue is full of people for who
this man can do no wrong. In the end, all he can do is rap to a backing CD, with
little room for improvisation given the broken mixer, but it's still going down
a storm. We don't even care that the end of almost every track is accompanied by
Buck saying that "There'd be some awesome turntable effects right here"... It
doesn't really matter though, a Buck 65 concert is all about the poetry of road
trips in beat up cars, dead end jobs, and small towns in the middle of nowhere -
it doesn't need a light show. Go see Buck 65 - I'll see him again, after all,
maybe everything will work next time...

Too right...

The Bill Fay fansite now seems to be up and running and its excellent with some good Jim O' Rourke links and the lyrics to his first two albums. The quality of any lyric can vary when viewed on paper. It would be interested to hear the views of others when reading the lyrics to 'Til The Christ Come Back, below. They are ingrained with the music for me, so it's genuinely hard to objectively assess their quality:

When soldiers spoil your sleep

And writers steal your dreams

Don’t strain to hear the screams
When the light goes out

When the light goes out

Pain was all you knew

But I think you’re coming through

Like applause inside a zoo
When a lion gets out

When a lion gets out

When shadows take your hand

And mist is on the land

Hold on to your minds

Finally finished F.Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night after 5 years and several aborted attempts. I think it was the quality of his short stories that inspired me to persevere with it. And it was worth the wait. I feel like a philistine to mention it but Dick Diver always sounded like a porno actor's name to me. The story is exhilirating and harrowing all at once and the urge to be in Paris or on the Riviera is now even stronger. Highly recommended.

It's my 25th birthday tomorrow and I have to say that it means nothing to me. It has no relevance in my life at all. Strange, really. I wasn't going to bother going out for a meal with friends or whatever, but then their reaction sort of forces you to. Going to the new Tapas place in Moseley with T, Evans x2, Sholto, BB and others. Should be interesting.
literature,Buck 65,songwriting,lyrics,fanzine,gig reviews