great fun under the sheets

i'll keep this one short, this being the middle of may, after devo but before atp, but still very worthy of keeping in my head. we did notverymuch due to lack of finances and resting up easy before the weekend's festival fun, however we had a big week anyhow. liz who runs LOOSE was looking to house CATS IN PARIS when they played on wednesday so mostly i was running about the house tidying and sorting out and pottering and staying in to watch TWIN PEAKS. steen only saw a few episodes of the show back in the day whereas i am a 20 year devotee, i remember making my brother watch it when he was 8 so i would have someone to talk to about it. possibly corrupting my little brother was one of the best things i ever did. we're trying to get through my box set at the moment and watching them again is a treat. i see so much more in it now than i did, before i was just rapt with the supernatural storyline and all the weird characters. when i watch it now i appreciate the humour in the soapy storylines and the references. i've seen FIRE WALK WITH ME hundreds of times, it being a bit more digestible in under 2 hours compared to the many many episodes of the series, but seeing the original tv show that came before it makes you appreciate what he was trying to do and makes it more frustrating that the bloody companies pulled it for being too weird.

my one busy non-worky day was wednesday. first up was an ushering shift for THE BOAT THAT ROCKED. i'd heard it had bad reviews but thought that it might just be people having a pop at richard curtis for being smug and middle class and sentimental but it was a truly bad film. it had bad bbc sit com style jokes and reeked of "weren't things good in the 60s" puerile observations. all the characters were sweet and /or glamourous and even someone stealing someone else's wife seemed to have a "oh never mind, he's just a sex god, i'll forgive him" resolution. it was dire. that said, a bunch of recent pensioners in the audience loved it, one man in front of me laughed all the way through but it didn't make me do anything other than groan.

i had a quick meeting (that incidentally i'd forgotten about and made me temporarily stressed out) then had to head home quick to buy breakfast for the cats and managed in my stress and haste to fall off my bike. it was the dumbest accident. i used one hand to scratch my face, then removed the other off the handlebars to fiddle with the light, realised in a beat "i can't cycle with no hands" and went down. i felt like luke not listening to the force and falling when he should have just trusted his instincts. i ignored the hurty chin and hurty hands and carried on to tesco. the bruises didn't show up till a couple of hours later. i wasn't going very fast, nothing bloody or broken, just a stupid purple chin face.

but the fun was about to begin. LOOSE had the best line up in recent memory. CATS IN PARIS (who headlined a night at SWN and were excellent) were the first band on. first band! this boded well. they began with a clip from jurassic park and had great visuals including a decapitated matthew mcconnahey head floating around psychey cartoons. the songs were great too. last time we saw them they had a lady with them and i think they lacked something in losing her but as i found out when chatting to them later this is a bit of a sore point. she went out with the drummer till very recently, plans to reform afoot i believe. the MAE SHI were on next, surprising everyone. they are sharing headline slots with ABE VIGODA on their tour which i think is a bit harsh on abe vigoda. the mae shi are the best band i've seen live for a long time, they had gimmicks without being gimmacky and the crowd were just mesmerised. try coming on after that... they played punky, noisy, shouty multi layered songs with lots going on and treated buffalo like a playground, running into the crowd, getting the audience to hold stuff for them whilst they played, the wackiest of these was getting the crowd under a piece of parachute silk and performing under it like a little mini tent covering the dire buffalo interior. it actually made an atmosphere in buffalo, something i didn't think possible. when ABE VIGODA came on, although they had a great delivery and a stuttering punky style it was a bit of a letdown after that quasi religious moment previously. we had a nice evening with CATS IN PARIS at the house after. us not being majorly rock and roll it was mainly drinking tea and eating biscuits until 2am and then eating lots of toast the morning after and watching the fresh prince of bel air. i felt like a student again and quite glad i wasn't in a band. i like my normal life too much!

we had a quiet thursday in preparation for the very busy weekend ahead! ayteepee!