Jools in the crown
Jun. 17th, 2006 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksA couple of years ago a scheduled act on Later With Jools cried off sick. The replacement was one KT Tunstall, who performed solo with her echoey bag of tricks. Next stop, stardom.
Yesterday it was Keane, you know, Coldplay on Valium, who cried off sick. And once again the result was perhaps the most interesting show of the series. To be frank, I can take or leave The Dixie Chicks, although I am sure that they go down well with most of the Steve Earle/Neil Young fan club. Depending on your point of view, they might be politically sound, but that doesn't change their music from being middle-of-the-road stodge.
Compare and contrast with three of the other bands on last night: The Automatic, The Dresden Dolls and Gogol Bordello.
I'd heard talk of The Automatic before, part of the Hard-Fi/Arctic Monkeys rise of last year, but I hadn't seem them perform live. Now I can see why they have caused such a stir. Very exciting.
But absolutely no comparison compared to Gogol Bordello, whom Phill Jupitus likened to "The Pogues and The Clash on stage together, having a fight". "Gypsy Punk" is the style attributed to them, but, like The Pogues, this band is quite clearly some kind of one-off. Utterly sensational and if they are on live anywhere, not to be missed.
Dresden Dolls were a duo who were clearly drafted in at the last minute. They are a good example of what goes in modern music these days, in that attributing any style to them apart from, perhaps, post-Berlin cabaret jazz chic, is difficult. But, once again, fascinating to watch.
And to think that we might have had to put up with Keane.
For those of you abroad, Later With Jools is now watchable online in a rather poor-quality streaming video. go to the BBC TV site, click on the TV button, then BBC2, and then on the "watch again" bit for Later With Jools.
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My mother told me today that her erstwhile dancing partner and ex-sister-in-law had been rushed into hospital with late-diagnosed leukaemia, which is somewhat sad. Apparently they are giving her the choice of chemo or going straight to the hospice. If it weren't for the fact that she was a relatively fit 77-year-old, they wouldn't have given her the choice.
Elkan Allen too is rather poorly with septicaemia and has been in hospital for a month now. Elkan was a regular at Russell Square and at Steve Bennett's home game, whence Gutshot made its early beginnings.
All of this impending mortality leaves me realizing that life is very much for living. Well, I'd been thinking this for a couple of weeks, but these two bits of news confirm it. I don't like making the blog too introspective a product -- even when I am asking questions of myself about what stakes to play and my emotional state, it has in part an aim to make it easier for other players to cope with similar experiences. But of this matter, well, it tends to put certain things into perspective.
Of course, knowing that life is for living and having the courage to do something about it are two different things. But it made me shovel certain things that I had fretted over to one side as "really, in the grand scheme of things, not worth one nanosecond of worry". Hardly an epiphany, but certainly a kind of life-changing fortnight.
________________
Yesterday it was Keane, you know, Coldplay on Valium, who cried off sick. And once again the result was perhaps the most interesting show of the series. To be frank, I can take or leave The Dixie Chicks, although I am sure that they go down well with most of the Steve Earle/Neil Young fan club. Depending on your point of view, they might be politically sound, but that doesn't change their music from being middle-of-the-road stodge.
Compare and contrast with three of the other bands on last night: The Automatic, The Dresden Dolls and Gogol Bordello.
I'd heard talk of The Automatic before, part of the Hard-Fi/Arctic Monkeys rise of last year, but I hadn't seem them perform live. Now I can see why they have caused such a stir. Very exciting.
But absolutely no comparison compared to Gogol Bordello, whom Phill Jupitus likened to "The Pogues and The Clash on stage together, having a fight". "Gypsy Punk" is the style attributed to them, but, like The Pogues, this band is quite clearly some kind of one-off. Utterly sensational and if they are on live anywhere, not to be missed.
Dresden Dolls were a duo who were clearly drafted in at the last minute. They are a good example of what goes in modern music these days, in that attributing any style to them apart from, perhaps, post-Berlin cabaret jazz chic, is difficult. But, once again, fascinating to watch.
And to think that we might have had to put up with Keane.
For those of you abroad, Later With Jools is now watchable online in a rather poor-quality streaming video. go to the BBC TV site, click on the TV button, then BBC2, and then on the "watch again" bit for Later With Jools.
++++++++
My mother told me today that her erstwhile dancing partner and ex-sister-in-law had been rushed into hospital with late-diagnosed leukaemia, which is somewhat sad. Apparently they are giving her the choice of chemo or going straight to the hospice. If it weren't for the fact that she was a relatively fit 77-year-old, they wouldn't have given her the choice.
Elkan Allen too is rather poorly with septicaemia and has been in hospital for a month now. Elkan was a regular at Russell Square and at Steve Bennett's home game, whence Gutshot made its early beginnings.
All of this impending mortality leaves me realizing that life is very much for living. Well, I'd been thinking this for a couple of weeks, but these two bits of news confirm it. I don't like making the blog too introspective a product -- even when I am asking questions of myself about what stakes to play and my emotional state, it has in part an aim to make it easier for other players to cope with similar experiences. But of this matter, well, it tends to put certain things into perspective.
Of course, knowing that life is for living and having the courage to do something about it are two different things. But it made me shovel certain things that I had fretted over to one side as "really, in the grand scheme of things, not worth one nanosecond of worry". Hardly an epiphany, but certainly a kind of life-changing fortnight.
________________
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Date: 2006-06-18 12:18 am (UTC)Substiute Acts
Date: 2006-06-18 11:07 am (UTC)I wasn't impressed with Gogol Bordello - striking me as an emperor's new clothes situation. Nor did the Fratellis appeal. But the Dixie Chicks I liked pre-fuss and I still like. Good current country music - they actually remind me a little bit of the songs of Gram Parsons, just polished up by Rick Rubin.
More interesting was Muse's performance on Jonathan Ross, where they turned the fairly ordinary Supermassive Black Hole into something well worth the effort. Definitely the band I would most like to go and see live, apart from Peter Gabriel of course whose I/O tour is due 2007. I'm sure you'll be booking tickets now you've gone all carpe diem on us.
Re: Substitute Acts
Date: 2006-06-18 04:03 pm (UTC)The standard practice is to bring in one last-minute sub, give a one-song act two songs and give a two-song act three songs. Or perhaps give two one song acts a couple of songs each.
I was unaware of any hype surrounding Gogol Bordello, so I can't have fallen into the Emperor and his new wardrobe trap. (I also saw the Pogues live before I had heard of them, and in that case I was less enthusiastic than I was for the other support act - The Men They Couldn't Hang.) But I could not take my eyes off them when they were on-screen. I'm not sure that a CD would be as impressive.
I'm unsurprised that Mr GC falls into Dixie Chicks are great camp. Like I said, I would imagine that most Steve Earle fans would be fans of the DCs. I'm not the most avid supporter of Steve Earle, is the trouble (a bit like Garth Brooks and Gram Parsons in taht respect -- I can understand the crossover appeal, but I just fail to be one of the converted).
I never watch Wossy. If I'd known that Muse were on, I would have. I remember me and Rob Thomasson discussing Muse when they were seen as little more than Radiohead lookalikes (or, worse for them, a revival of Emerson Lake & Palmerish "prog rock").
Needless to say, now that the blog is going to be renamed carpe diem, I wouldn't dream of doing anything so gross as booking tickets well in advance in order to save money. The idea is obviously to do everything at the last minute and have to pay three times as much as a result.
Speaking of which, IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN GOING TO SEE JOAN AS POLICEWOMAN AT THE SPITZ, COMMERCIAL STREET, TOMORROW NIGHT?
I have no idea if it will be sold out, or indeed how well-known she is, but her album is very interesting in an Antony & The Johnsons kind of way (and Antony Hegarty does backing vocals on one track, returning the favour for her backing vocals on his tour).
PJ