moving in, moving up

the week started well, with another adventure to bristol. it was a dark and stormy night, the weather had broken at last and it broke with aplomb. after all this hot weather it felt almost pleasant to be in a thunder storm by the sea, it feels very appropriate looking out of the portholes in a boat on a night like this. we were in the THEKLA to see ST VINCENT on the promotional tour for her new album, "actor". the thekla is a wonderful venue for intimate gigs and it was with a bubble of excitement that we went downstairs to discover a wall of warm noise from THIS IS MY NORMAL STATE. going down the harsh metal steps of the boat was like descending into a different realm, the echoing vocals pulling you into a subterranean world. the female japanese singer on stage sang trance-like, channelling the stylings of sigur ros accompanied by a cellist and grungey guitar loops. it was a magical moment and when they finished and the lights came up i felt like i had been woken up from a blurry dream. for the first band on to have this effect is rare and precious and made me curiously excited for what was to come. a couple of cans of strongbow was to come next, folllowed by the beautiful psyche folk of BLUE ROSES. she seemed nervous as she took the stage but the nerves slipped away when she began playing, first on the piano and then acoustic guitar. these were hypnotic, meaningful songs with dreamy melodies sometimes harmonised with her violinist but often alone, speaking to a spurned lover with sorrow and hope. a little wait for ST VINCENT and we're getting anxious. bristol is a great place, with a great number of venues and ace promoters but a shit train timetable. its pushing 10pm and we're going to have to leave at 10.40pm to get the last train. people get on stage and get off stage, she is testing the mics from off stage so a disembodied annie clark voice trills over the dj. and we wait. this is not her fault but it does mean that we miss the end of her set as she doesn't come on till 10.15pm. arse. but what we do see is an amazing musician playing around with vocoders and effects pedals without detracting from the powerful melodies that have you humming her songs down the street for weeks. live she comes off as far warmer than the porcelain, chastising voice that dominates her album "marry me". i was expecting someone far more poised and cold but found her friendly and coltish on stage. she engaged with the audience to the extent that she turned her routine into a impromptu stand up routine when technical difficulties struck. standouts from the set were the powerful "now, now" the sarcastic "marry me" and the mesmerizing "the strangers". turning to run for the train with pained expressions on our faces we will definitely be catching ST VINCENT and indeed everyone on the bill, next time they come to town.

tuesday was PANEL 9 FROM OUTER SPACE day! the boys from the DRONES comedy club in CHAPTER (whom i never get to see cos i'm always downstairs in the other bar) have a panel game and it is a lot of fun. clint, dan and laura bryon are the regulars and joined by guest comics, this month being spencer mcgarry, huw evans and some bloke also called dan (who i thought was rubbish but turned out to be dan glyn who is very famous for doing a very good kids programme on s4c - maybe he's a better writer than performer...). as with most comedy its pointless telling you how good it was without telling you the jokes, which always sound awful when written down and repeated. rest assured, it was a good time and i laughed a lot. huw tended to whitter on about peados, spencer was a comedy natural (he's like this in real life, i can vouch for his comedy chops) and clint was sardonic as always. my friend anwen even got to win a book that from the front cover looked like bill bailey in a hitchhikers' guide scenario.

wednesday i ushered for FRENCH FILM, a sub-richard curtis "comedy" that wasted wonderful acting talents with its poor script. the story is of an urbane posh london journalist is doing a piece on a director of romantic french films and it makes him think about the romance in his own life. everyone in this film (whether they are employed or not) seems to have very swish apartments in the heart of london with gardens and well designed furniture. they partner swap and the urbane journalist talks a lot. remind you of someone? this whole plot could have been lifted from a woody allen but the silly "oh arn't we everso english, it'll turn out in the end" script was pure richard curtis and also reminded me of THIS YEARS LOVE and that spate of sub-FOUR WEDDINGS films that came out in the 90s. it was pretty dire. the cast were very good: hugh bonneville, anne marie duff, douglas henshall, victoria hamilton in the lead roles and it seemed to me to be such a shame that we're still making films like this. some moments in the film i could just see the script written in front of me, which is obviously a very bad sign. the saving grace was eric cantona playing the film director that the journalist is obsessed with, he seemed to be the only one having fun.

thursday was will's day off work that week so we did a blitz on the house. will moved in at the start of the month but the first week we were busy with casey's video and this was the first day we'd had to really put stuff away properly. when he temporarily lived with me last year we kept stuff here so there was just cds and a few books to put up and clothes. ah yes, the clothes. i already have too many clothes and two wardrobes (comes of filling up two wardrobes in my previous house) so we had to do some moving around of furniture to make room for more storage. we mostly just put amalgomated our badge collection and put these badges on a curtain. lazy! but it was an enjoyable job and got us talking about other things we were going to change around. very exciting! in the early evening we made a tasty italian style pasta meal with lots of red wine. then continued to drink the bottle and another. then went to the FUWCH GOCH POP QUIZ and drank another bottle each. wankered. i haven't been so drunk since, um, the last pop quiz. we came third AGAIN! and went to DEMPSEYS for afters but still had loads of fun apart from the guilt at realising that i'd given a couple of wrong answers (in the picture round mistook miles davis' bitches brew for miles smiles and said it was the doors' la woman instead of strange days. ooooh the shame). i felt awful but happy the next day. the next two days in fact. ooof. i had some great soup in CHAPTER on the friday for lunch which perked me up, a very creamy tomato. you know when you taste something and it seems like the best thing you've ever tasted? well, that was my experience and rounded the week off nicely.