They bought the bullets but there's no-one left to shoot
Soundtrack:
Aztec Camera, Haircut 100, Kid Creole and the CoconutsCripes, bit busy here. Have been off work for a couple of days with high temperature and general fatigue caused by last weekend's last-push DIY efforts, but am feeling better now. Back at work, the full import of the project management stuff is becoming clear. I have about three days to finish configuring a website...bollocks!
So, the DIY is finished, apart from the building of a couple of pieces of flat-pack furniture. It's a huge relief. I can't wait to have a weekend that doesn't revolve around sanding, painting, more sanding, more painting...it's been tiring, and stressful, and messy. But
goddamn if those rooms don't look
gorgeous.
JJ looked at me last night and said 'it's a bit like living in a really nice hotel isn't it?'. He's right. The bathroom in particular looks like an expensive spa. We rule.
On Sunday night we went to see
the man who invented Disco DJ at a do in East London. We were so exhausted it was impossible for us to properly enjoy ourselves, but I can vouch that it was pretty good stuff. Mancuso is a short, paunchy, hairy chap with his spectacles on a chain, like an old lady. He takes it seriously and rightly so, he's good. There was no mixing as such - just looooong 12" mixes and some well thought-out segues. The only song I recognised was 'Miss you' by the Rolling Stones.
JJ knew rather a lot of the tracks and spent a lot of the time cheering and jumping about. I had a painting-induced bad back, so shuffled gamely about until I could shuffle no more.
A week today at roughly this time, I'll be landing at JFK, and to say that I can't wait is the understatement of the century.
A rare positive post
Spring has sprung. The DIY is progressing quickly. Work is going (reasonably) well. The delights of New York are just over a fortnight away.
Dare I say it? Things are looking good.
Personality crisis
Soundtrack: the new Arcade Fire and Grinderman releases
The
Arcade Fire still leave me cold. It's not for want of trying, they've been jumping around me like a bloody giddy terrier for two years or so now, and I wish they'd leave it out. The
Grinderman album is alright, but it is a well-worn path I think, it sounds consciously like a return to the old Bad Seeds template - which is no bad thing in a way. Then again, it
is 2007...
Another weekend full of painting, and we are beginning to resent each other as much as our flat. The work seems never-ending and the chaos we're living in just seems to worsen daily. This is a low, as a once-good English band once used to say.
BBC4 is currently running a
New York Week, which is great - they are showing a lot of documentaties about the music that has come out of the city in particular. On Friday evening I watched
New York Doll, about the New York Dolls' bassist Arthur 'Killer' Kane, and I wept like a baby. The man saw his dream of the Dolls reuniting and playing a gig come true, then he died a few days later of leukemia. I remember being in the Royal Festival Hall bar on the night of the gig to meet with
Mr Weaver and
Nige, and it was like there had been a clarion call to all the freaks in Europe (and Jonathan Ross). Wish I'd seen the gig now.
Have also caught a bizarre Arena documentary about the Chelsea Hotel, complete with appearances from
Warhol,
Burroughs,
Jobriath and
Nico (the latter honking away like a Teutonic car alarm on a version of 'Chelsea Girls'). All this is making me salivate for the Big Apple all the more. For those of you whom I haven't already bored to death with it, I'm off there in about three weeks.
I can't wait to get out of this country.
