The Graveyard Shifts (and out come the freaks!)

On Tuesday 29th, it was Neil Gaiman evening! He was appearing, courtesy of The Children’s Bookshop at Holy Corner, at the Churchill Theatre to promote his new release, The Graveyard Book. The theatre was a sell-out, with a mixed audience of both his older fans and many parents & children, who were fans of his books for younger readers…

He read chapter 5 in it’s entirety, claiming to be wanting a change from chapter 1… The book features a young boy living in a cemetary, with each chapter set two years on as he grows up. In C5 he’s 10 and gets caught up in old customs, culminating in a Dense Macabre (or mac-a-bree as it’s often pronounced in the book).
After the reading he answered written questions that people had apparently submitted beforehand (Who knows? Maybe they’re the same at all the events) and then prepared for the mass signing onslaught. We left before that got underway – it looked extremely disorganised when we left, but no doubt some sort of order was imposed… Not sure how much thought had been given to switching from a seated audience, to a frenzied mob wanting to be first in a queue, any queue!
Good fun!

Last night was another Halloween event – Writer’s Bloc held their annual horror event at the Beehive Inn in the Grassmarket – they had a private room with a bar, with another raised area through some connecting archways. It felt a bit awkward initially, as the main room wasn’t really big enough, but it all worked out ok and certainly felt more fun than the Three Sisters ever did…
Several long works were interspersed by beer breaks and short ‘B’ movie trailers they had written, often loaded with puns… Aileron Smart solved a series of dastardly scone-related murders and the reprobates of Boleskin Academy made a welcome 3rd appearance following their pantomime antics a few years ago. And Sidney the Duck gained revenge on a nasty little boy!

Definitely good fun, although the venue still isn’t quite right…

edit to add: if anybody’s wondering, the title’s an oblique reference to a Was (not Was) track, The Woodwork Squeaks, And Out Come The Freaks.

Cool Jazz…

The Bobo Stenson Trio played the Queen’s hall last night.

They’re a Swedish trio, piano, double bass and drums/percussion and very good!

For me, the most interesting player was the drummer, who treated his kit like a giant percussion plaything, seemingly more interested in finding ways to coax odd noises and percussive beats out of it than actually keeping time and actually, well, drumming! Taps, tics, swishes, claps, flicks, scratches, all sorts of quietly percussive noises made with his sticks, brushes and hands on the drums and cymbals… The bassist and pianist generally played interesting stuff; complex, but, at heart, bass & piano – the drummer brought a playfulness to the sound throughout the gig as they all traded looks, signals and wide grins as they riffed off each other, especially on the long final piece (excluding the encore).

Not a huge attendance, but they were very well received. Despite my title, they were really quite hot! But still Scandanavian.

Fun in Glasgow…

I like taking the train, but when all the services to Glasgow seem to involve a 15 mile bus journey, and an extra 20 – 30 minutes transit time, you start to thinking that the bus may not be so bad after all. It’s slower than the standard train time, but when you’d be on an equally slow bus/train combination anyway, it’s less hassle and half the price. And the return bus late at night whizzed through in exactly an hour, which isn’t much longer than the train should be (and quicker than it is, right now)… And they run later as well.

Anyway, last night was Cyndi Lauper night so making the trip through was a given.

I’m not that fond of the Carling Academy, but it was full, and generally a good, friendly atmosphere. The support were Robots in Disguise, a female trio, who cropped up later during Cyndi’s encore on backing vocals, wearing big clown suits!

Cyndi came on at about 21.15 and, instead of counting the band in, knelt down with a piece of board and a hammered  out four beats right beside a mic, ‘bang, bang, bang, bang’ and the band snapped right in. Great start!
Last time I saw her, on the Twelve Deadly Cyns’ tour she had several costume changes but this tour she’s abandoned all the artifact and become a leather-trousered rock chick. The set was half and half old and new (mabe slightly more old than new, including the encores) but the material off Bring Ya to the Brink fitted in well, although the ‘clubier’ beats stood out a bit from the back catalogue numbers…
Several times she prowled about down in front of the stage, almost disappearing at times before re-emerging – the crown down the front loved it! We were further back, almost back at the bar, with variable sight-lines past people in front, so any photos were pretty poor. This one’s sort-of interesting, despite it’s faults:

Girls Just Like to Have an Encore

Cyndi’s the white blob to the left, Robots in Disguise clowns towards the right!

It was a fairly short set – only about 45 minutes, but there was no doubt she’d be back and, in fact, the main ‘encore’ was at least 1/2 the length of the ’set’. We drifted to the back after the end of a great, long ‘GJWTHF’ to check out the merchandise – I bought a t-shirt and a program (to match my Twelve Deadly Cyns one ) and and we turned around just as she returned on stage again to catch her finale – a solo spot without the band. Great, gentle way to finish…

the final song

There was some confusion with the late night buses so we were a bit later than we should have been getting home, but, that aside, great fun.
You can maybe see the pics better on Flickr…

Gigs – good news and bad news…

At a bit of a loose end on Thursday night, I was passing the old Caley Cinema – now re-branded as The Picture House after decades as various clubs – and decided to go see Walter Trout, who was playing that night! Inside it was very nicely restored, with a balcony (closed for this gig) and a relatively efficient bar at the back of the auditorium. The support were The Oli Brown Band, an electric blues power trio, I guess. Not bad stuff but they looked awfullllly young!

A bit of a break, another pint of Guinness, and the Walter Trout Band came on. He’s a top guitarist a lot of people know almost nothing about and plays heavy electric blues – starting with Not Fade Away.  Well, that’s not quite true; he messed around and played a couple of solos before the rest of the band had even played a note!
The 4-piece line up included a Hammond organ player who played some great stuff when WT wanted a bit of a break! And there was an occasional 5th member who stepped in to play a 2nd guitar on a couple of songs. Actually, at the end, when they were really in the groove, he took over vocals and their sound took on a real Zepplinesque feel with Plant-like vocals!

Good gig, huge number of solos, and the rain had gone off by the time it finished!

On a tangent, I had seen one of the bands WT used to play in but I had seen Canned Heat years before he joined them following the death of Bob Hite…

The bad news is that I had been really looking forward to seeing Curved Air for the first time. They’ve reformed and had a couple of Scottish gigs lined up but I found a refund cheque from the Queen’s Hall in the mail this morning  as the gig there had been cancelled ‘due to logistical reasons’. I immediately checked about the Glasgow gig, but it’s gone as well…   And the few gigs left down south are too awkward to get to… Bah!
I tried to see them a couple of times in the 70s but things went wrong both times and I never actually saw them, despite their being one of favourites at the time. And I guess I still won’t see them.