This is where I long to be, La Isla Bonita

I haven't been blogging for a little while, because I've been on my holidays! I spent 10 days on Crete, staying at the gracious villa of two good friends of mine, near to Panormo. And it was just fantastic. I hadn't realised how much I needed a holiday - it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

The place itself is verging on idyllic. What can be nicer than to get up in the morning and sit on a terrace overlooking olive groves and mountains (it even makes up for the tea not being quite as good as I am used to!). The villa is set on high, surrounded by gorgeous bougainvillea, and the view just takes your breath away. The picture here is not quite the view, but it is pretty close. You can see Mount Psiloritis, which also provides part of the view from the villa.

Days were idled away lazing by the pool, walking amongst the ruins and swimming in the sea. There is something just so liberating about swimming in the sea, don't you think, even if you give the lifeguard a few anxious moments when you jump the waves and the riptide pulls you under. The people are friendly and the food just divine. Somehow eating fried cheese doesn't seem that unhealthy. And the raki! You learn to grade it so you know the difference between the palatable and the paint stripper, but when you are on your holidays, it doesn't really matter.

I explored a little more of the island this time, going down south to Plakias. This took me through some truly beautiful gorges, some of which I am looking forward to walking next time. And one of the nicest things for me are the churches that you just come across suddenly while out walking. You go in and they are just lovely - incense burning, icons on the walls. You just couldn't get it in this country, sadly. They'd be locked up.

If you haven't been to Crete you are missing out. Big style. Do I sound like I can't wait to go back?

Oh what you do to me, no-one knows

Number One of An Occasional Series

There are some songs that you hear for the first time and you think "how is it possible that this song doesn't already exist". I have many songs that I feel that way about, and were I ever to compile an album of the best songs ever written, you can bet most of them would fall into this category. They are songs that touch you in some way, send shivers down your spine, give you goosebumps, whatever.

Number one would be No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. The song is just utterly awesome. It was my introduction to them and I fell in love with them from that moment onwards. I can remember the first time I heard it - it must have been January 2003 and I was watching the Oxford Music Channel and the video came on. The opening riff made my heart soar and I was hooked from then on drawn in by this 6ft 5, ginger manly genius who possessed the coolest falsetto in rock.

So what is so special about the song? It is hard to put into words, since how music touches you is an intensely personal thing and not always easy to describe. For me, the vocal delivery makes it a perfect mix of hard rock and uber camp (from the aforementioned falsetto to the decidedly homoerotic backing harmonies); you feel like you've heard it before, but you know you haven't; it makes you want to shake your hair all over the place and dance round your living room like a loon. It makes me want to learn how to play guitar, cos I know I would look cool playing it (please please SingStar, include this on a disc soon. My friends are fed up with my rendition of Go With The Flow). It oozes sex appeal while retaining a sense of humour (kind of like the man himself) - you just have to watch the video to know it doesn't take itself seriously.

Best of all, it just sounds great turned up really loud.

Come come drink some port wine with me

My friend Paul enjoys drinking in a nice pub. But he has rules about where he will drink.

1. He won't drink in any pub called The Red Lion.
2. He won't drink in any pub that is painted yellow.
3. He won't drink in any pub that has a flat roof and looks like a 1970s community centre.

My thoughts?

1. I think he is being a little harsh here. I'm not sure that I have ever actually drunk in a pub called the Red Lion, in spite of it being the second (at least according to Wikipedia) most common pub name in the UK. I'm not really sure what his objection is here. But I bet a nice pint of Waggledance on a hot day would make him break his rule.

2. I am with him all the way on this one. Yellow pubs just seem wrong.

3. Absolutely agree. When I was a student, our local pub looked just like this. Did we ever enter? No chance. It looked scary enough from the outside and looked about as local as a pub could be. There is something about pubs like this which don't exactly make you feel like venturing in.

When he told me about his rules, it made me realise that I don't really have any of my own. There are things that you look for - good jukebox, decent selection of beers, staff who can manage to work out who has been standing at the bar for a while rather than serve the next pretty girl (if they are male) or pretty boy (if they are female). But I am not sure I have anything hard and fast enough to make me not go into a pub.

Unlike Paul.

My favourite pub in the world (at least so far visited) is the Usige Beatha on Woodlands Road, in Glasgow (see photo). It's lovely and welcoming and just a really nice place to drink. It isn't called the Red Lion and it doesn't look like a 1970s community centre. Neither is it painted yellow, although it does appear to be a little bit beige. I think Paul would like it fine.

Glasgow Belongs To Me

Glasvegas at the Zodiac - 5th June 2008

Well, I've been well and truly hoist by my own petard tonight, but more of that later. Tonight's venue was again the Zodiac, for Glasvegas - yet another band that I had seen a few months earlier at the Jericho Tavern. They were utterly fantastic that night.

For once we had actually managed to get there in good time, and it was still pretty empty. Rather wonderfully, we got to listen to Little Fish on the PA (see my Supergrass post). Support tonight was provided by The Winchell Riots and Thomas Tantrum. Both were rather good, but the audience seemed a little lacklustre. We bagged our place right at the front (hooray! I avoid having the 6ft 2 man standing right in front of me) and waited for the dry ice to start.

And start it did. We listened to Moon River and then the band came on, the guitars began to swirl and we were off. All dressed in black, the band exuded effortless cool and this amazing cacophony just filled the room. Musically, it's as if the Jesus and Mary Chain has jumped in the DeLorean and gone back to the late 1950s/early 1960s. I love the way that some of the songs reach a point where you think it's over and then it just kicks off again. James Allan has an amazing voice, all the better for singing in his own native accent (the Proclaimers this ain't tho); it just suits the whole feel of the music. And Rab Allan's backing vocals complement perfectly and just add to the whole build up. They don't go in for a massive amount of stage banter, which is fine by me (half the time you can never understand what any of the bands are saying anyway) - they don't need to. I recognised most of the songs that they played last time and again, Daddy's Gone was glorious. The album is going to be fantastic and I can't wait for it to come out.

There was only one drawback - it was all over far too soon and they didn't play an encore. So, given my previous comments, I was well and truly hoist by my own petard. I would have loved it if they had come on again. Actually, I would have loved them just to have played longer. But this way, I went off wanting so much more. I can't wait for them to come back.

Feel the high, yeah cause the kids are alright

Black Kids at the Zodiac - 3rd June 2008

I saw this band a few months ago at the Jericho Tavern and was sufficiently impressed to go and see them again, in a bigger venue. They've been touted as the next big thing (number 312) by various music papers, and so this time they were playing the larger Zodiac (the upstairs room). I'm notoriously bad at estimating the capacity of venues, but I would hazard a guess at maybe between 150-200 at the Jericho and perhaps about 400 in the Zodiac. I was especially interested in seeing if there was any discernible difference between then and now.

And there was - a much larger stage seemed to suit, giving them more confidence and their performance was full of genuine enthusiasm and energy. They do a nice line in bouncy rock pop, with the female vocals providing a nice foil to the main vocals of Reggie Youngblood (whose vocals do vaguely remind me of Robert Smith, which is interesting as a friend of mine had earlier that day described them as being reminiscent of "mid 1980s Cure, but without Lovecats"). And they know the power of a good title - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You and Look at Me (When I Rock Wichoo) being two cases in point. They romped through their set and got better as the night wore on, so that by the end, they left the crowd wanting more. Or at least most of them - I was there with 3 others and I was the most enthusiastic, with the comments ranging from "I'm not sure I'd buy their album" to "I think I would have enjoyed it more had I known more songs" (OK, I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist). Well, I think I probably will buy their album, which is produced by Bernard Butler, interestingly.

There was no encore, and I kind of approve of this. I love when bands play encores but it is all supremely artificial really, especially when they haven't played particular songs and you know they are being saved for the encore. Was there ever a time when bands actually didn't intend to come back and only did so because of the reaction of the audience? Having said that, I also find it a tad arrogant when bands refuse to play encores, pointblank.

Anyway it was refreshing when they didn't, even although crowd wanted them to (I am assuming this was the case - we did leave when the house lights came up and the incidental music began playing. The crowd were hopefully chanting Black Kids, Black Kids, Black Kids, so if they did come on again, at least it was down to demand). Of course, it might have been down to number of songs, but no matter.

In any case, the Kids are alright.

Everybody Wants A Little Something

Another day, another gig. And this time it a chance for me to provide someone else with a gig revelation. The setting? Duke Special at the Venue Formerly Known As The Zodiac. I'd seen him (or is it them? I've never been very sure) last year at the Zodiac and it had proved my gig revelation of that year (I am very fond of this phrase, as you can see). I knew nothing about him and had no idea what to expect. When I heard he might be accompanied by cheese graters and whisks, I feared the worst. I don't really do whimsical when it comes to music.

However, he was amazing. A singer songwriter who plays piano and sings just the most melodious heartfelt songs you could ever hope to hear, in a Northern Irish accent. And sporting a fine line in weirdly hot eyeliner.

So, forward to this year. May 28th, to be precise and he was back. And I took along my friend Bev, so she could witness the magic. She didn't really know what to expect either. Apart from the fact that the guy is just wonderful, she is so much more open-minded than me when it comes to music, so I was confident she'd enjoy it. Anyway, it was the first time I had been to the upstairs part of the venue, which was interesting in itself. The sound downstairs can be pretty ropey, and even although I had only ever been upstairs to dance, it sounded much better. And indeed it was. He was toute seule, this being a solo tour. Just one man and his piano (plus his projector), with a mixture of old and new, and he had the audience in the palm of his hand. He handed out a song sheet so that we could have a bit of a communal sing-a-long in places (this could so easily have been cringeworthy, but it just wasn't). The vocals were crystal clear and you could hear a pin drop amongst the audience (most unusual, as I would say Oxford audiences tend to be amongst the noisiest I have ever been in, and not in a good way). He mixes in a bit of vaudeville and theatre, using old scratchy records to great effect (the scratchiness of old vinyl has to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing sounds ever) and his lovelorn lyrics, with a twist, just tug at the old heart strings.

Bev's verdict? Amazing! And finally I had returned the gig revelation favour!

Oh and a special mention to the support. Voluntary Butler Scheme - a veritable one man band, who entertained with a quirky mix of odd sound effects, guitars, kazoos and goodness knows what else. And all that on his birthday too.