It's a hoot

I've just returned from my little trip to London for Owl Parliament, which was highly enjoyable. I think it may have been one of the most civilised gigs I have ever been to, being set in a beautiful old church, with pews to put your cups of tea on.



I was most excited about Darren Hayman's set, although I felt like I was the only one who really appreciated the presence of Jack Hayter, pedal steel guitarist and Ex-Hefner member. They played "We love the City", the lyrics of which always pop into my head when it takes two hours to get home to someone's house in London in the evening - "This is London, not Antarctica, so why don't the tubes run all night?" - I mean, even Hamburg can do it.

The Go Away Birds were lovely and had a pretty singer, Mariner's Children brought their entire families (including grandma), Jeremy Warmsley has grown a beard and started a new Band, Summercamp, with his girlfriend Elizabeth, Pete Roe sang some nice traditional folk/country.

The second half of the gig was somehow less convincing for me. Maybe I was getting tired, but the Blue Roses were sailing slightly too close to Enya territory for me, and Aidan Moffat was just plain offensive. I don't disapprove of songs about double penetration in principle (I am a big fan of the Hidden Cameras, after all), but when the lyrics are sexist and badly written Daily Mail style rants and the "songs" consist of sense- and tuneless autoharp strumming, I'd rather go off to have a drink for a bit, thanks.
I may have missed the point of Mount Eerie to some extent, but the stripped-down set (guy & guitar) of songs about wind (really, each one of them mentioned the wind) didn't excite me much. A lot of people seem to like them a lot though, so maybe I need to listen to the full band versions.
Headliner Emmy the Great didn't disappoint and delivered her sweet songs about Love & Death, as well as a slightly awkward Cover of Fight for this Love by "Cheryl Tweedy" with a very uncomfortable looking Darren Hayman - clip below.




In further twee news, we spotted Josie Long in the pub where we went for a drink after! She was doing a work-in-progress show.

Preparing for a bombing

That's YARN BOMBING, in case the FBI is going to start reading my blog now.



I've been planning this for about a year now, and the idea isn't really clever/witty enough to have survived this long - but I am stubborn.
Install and update tomorrow evening!

UPDATE:



Let's see how long it lasts until someone nicks it, bins it, or starts a City Council vote on whether it should stay.

UPDATE 2:

Well, in the morning, barely 10 hours later, it's gone. They must have someone patrolling the area with scissors, maybe there's a real problem with overzealous yarnbombing in this city that I'm not aware of.
Didn't think it would stay up that long but this was quicker than expected, meaning it didn't even achieve my one goal of cheering up a couple of people's walk to work.
Well, I'm not giving up now.

Whimsicle Fuckery

Yes, I can spell, but I've been reading Regretsy a lot. Regretsy features the more ridiculous offerings for sale on etsy and it is hilarious, but somewhat dangerous if you want to ever approach craft with an open mind again. I'm pretty sure I won't ever make any genital-inspired jewellery now.

It's been a bit slow on the craft front here, but on the other hand, I've been to a number of fun gigs, so quick reviews are in order.

Mustard Allegro & Stanton Delaplane & Alexander Thomas, Cube Cinema, 23 Jan:
Highs: Gushing review especially of Alex in Venue the next week, sad songs from Stanton, the King of facial hair, fun surf-pop with interesting visuals, knitting in the front row.
Low: the hangover the next day.

OLO worms & SJ Esau, Cube Cinema, 29 Jan:
High: Seeing SJ Esau perform for the first time in ages. Always brilliant.
Low: It was a bit too busy to sneak into the auditorium for the main act as a non-paying volunteer, although what I heard sounded pretty good, in a silly experimental pop kind of way.

Ausform presents: LUR, Cube Cinema, 5 Feb, a livelooping cabaret dance pop act from Sweden.
High: My favourite part was when they turned themselves into a human conductor, with the pitch of the sound controlled by the amount of contact between the two. This called for belly-licking, incidentally.
Low: Not really. Could have been busier though.

There's more good music coming up too, such as the highly twee Alessis Ark with Rachael Dadd on Friday, with a beautiful poster by a man I'm in no way affiliated with (ahem), and in case you are concerned by how Cube-centric my life appears at the moment (so what! I like it there!), I am going to London for Owl Parliament on the 27th! It's all going on.