![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Jools in the crown
Jun. 17th, 2006 09:45 pmA 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.
++++++++
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.
________________
