Amanda Palmer in London

Miss Palmer, she who is half of the most fabulous Dresden Dolls, is in London at the moment. Tomorrow night Miss Palmer is a DJ at the Curzon Cinema for its pre-show party for the midnight filmshow. She's also (ahem) likely to join Ben Folds on stage at Glastonbury on Saturday and might (ahem) play a song or two from her new album (which, ahem, is produced by Ben Folds).

And then, let joy be unleashed, she's not just playing at the ICA on 21 August, she's also playing at Koko on 10 October! I already have tickets for the ICA (of course) and tickets for Koko go on sale tomorrow. Tickets will be obtained, you may rest assured. After all, it does have a nice ceiling, not that I'll be looking at the ceiling with Amanda on stage. I shall wear my new shirt - I am sure that Amanda will appreciate my new shirt.


UPDATE 27 June: Tickets secured. Naturally. The tour covers:

Thu 21/08/08 ICA London
Sat 27/09/08 The Academy Dublin
Sun 28/09/08 Auntie Annies Belfast
Tue 30/09/08 Cabaret Voltaire Edinburgh
Thu 02/10/08 King Tuts Wah Wah Hut Glasgow
Fri 03/10/08 The Custard Factory Birmingham
Sat 04/10/08 Brighton Concorde 2 Brighton
Mon 06/10/08 Manchester Club Academy Manchester
Tue 07/10/08 Thekla Bristol
Wed 08/10/08 Carling Academy Sheffield
Fri 10/10/08 KOKO London

The Most Beautiful Shirt In The World

One of the up sides of having time to spare is that you can do shopping, picking up and putting down and, occasionally, not putting down. That happened to me at the weekend as I went for a wander around Newcastle for the first time in ages. I meandered into John Lewis and saw a shirt. I looked at it, touched it, picked it up... then went to have lunch. But the shirt called out to me and I had to go back and pick it up again - and then go to the till to pay for it.


It's grand isn't it? It's the Most Beautiful Shirt in the World. That's official.

Land of the Prince Bishops

I've been away for the past week on a sojourn to my ancestral homeland, the Land of the Prince Bishops, or, in terms most of you will understand, County Durham in the North East of England. I was born in Newcastle in Northumberland and grew up in a small village just south of the River Tyne in County Durham. Both were proud counties that had bits nicked to become "Tyne & Wear" in the boundary changes in the early '70s.

Durham city is the home to a thousand year old castle and cathedral, and the cathedral is one of the best in England, resting place of the Venerable Bede of Anglo-Saxon chronicles and Ecclesiastical History of England fame. Durham was a political powerhouse back then, with bishops of the early church wielding the powers of princes, hence the name. Somewhere between Darlington and Durham the countryside magically changes and it becomes wilder and less tame and I love it. When the train pulls into Durham station you're on the top of one hill with a valley for the city and then, on the opposite hill, a glorious view of Durham castle and the cathedral. It's a great sight.

Then it's another 15 minutes to Newcastle, passing the wonderful Angel of the North by Anthony Gormley standing on a hill just south of Gateshead. I didn't like it when it was first erected, thinking it was a mis-shapen piece of rusty iron. But now I love it. You can see it from the train and it welcomes me home, the signal to start pulling my bits and pieces together and get ready to leave the train as it heads into Newcastle. It's the 10th birthday of the Angel and it is rightly being celebrated in Gateshead.

Many cities straddle rivers but, for some reason, the River Tyne isn't only the ancient boundary of the two counties, it also creates two different towns. Gateshead is south of the Tyne in (what was) Durham and Newcastle is north of the Tyne, the real city and home to Geordies. Lots of bridges cross the Tyne to Newcastle and it's another great sight. The train passes the old Black Gate of the Norman city and keep and pulls into the ever-so Victorian station of Newcastle Central. Us Geordies can be rightly proud of our industrial past, where Stevenson invented the locomotive engine and the railway, where our coalfields powered Empire and, unfortunately, where thousands died in poverty and appalling conditions while the ruling families grew rich. It's an interesting history. The Queen Mother was a Bowes-Lyon with a home in Alnwick castle (one of the 'Harry Potter' film locations). In the centre of Newcastle there's a statue on the top of a column to Earl Grey of the tea fame. It's all there if you look.

My great-grandmother on my Dad's side owned three or four pubs around Gateshead. That was rich in them days. The family lost them before the Second World War but one of them is still there and still a pub. My Dad was born in one of them.

The Northumberland coast is wild and harsh and beautiful. Lindisfarne, the Holy Island, is a windswept hide-away accessible by a causeway that is covered by the North Sea for half the day. The mighty castle at Bamburgh is a glorious sight, perched on a rocky hill overlooking the cold sea, placed and designed to protect the area against marauders from over the sea, the later Vikings. It's wild up there, a harsh landscape that's beautiful to my eyes. Give me the untamed lands of the North to the soft rolling downs of the south any day.

I probably won't be going back very often though. I'm a soft southerner myself these days. I've lived in London for 25 years, for more than half of my life and I'm proud to live in one of the world's great capital cities, but part of my heart will always be on the windswept coast of Northumberland. My Dad left us at the weekend and his ashes will join my Mam's at one of their favourite places on the coast.

Jane Aire/Jane Ashley

Some of you might remember my occasional mentions of Jane Aire & The Belvederes in this blog, including my entry about 'The Complete Jane Aire & The Belvederes' last summer. Every now and then someone comments on that blog, which is always a pleasant surprise. Today I received another comment. This time it was from Jane Ashley, otherwise known as Jane Aire herself!

Jane's message says:

Greetings All and Blessings!

A great gal I play with Rhonda Robinson told me about the website and I had to visit. I've also recently hooked up with a jane aire yahoo group too.

I'm delighted and amazed to still be remembered and touched to be regarded so fondly. You can see some more recent live footage of me singing on the Majesticsband. com website and I'll be performing some original material at a concert with the Spiritual Empowerment Center on Saturday, hopefully to be released as part of a cd later in the year. Thank you so much.

Peace, Love, Light and Prosperity

Jane Ashley

I was, needless to say, stunned. Jane Aire had sent me a message! I didn't know about the Yahoo group so scooted on over there and joined immediately. Jane recently uploaded the text of a recent interview which includes a paragraph about time in London:

During my ten years in London I spent a lot of time with the Boomtown Rats, Kirsty MacColl, she was my maid of honor when I married Pete, The Records, Anthony Thistlethwaite, The Ghastly Girls, Eddy Reader and Mark Nevin. I’ve sung, recorded and/or appeared with all of the above as well as with Robert Plant, Erasure and Def Leopard.

I wonder if Jane knows about Last.fm and the Jane Aire pages there? Jane seems happy to just be remembered but if you go to Last.fm you'll see that her music is still being played. I must post about Last.fm to the Jane Yahoo group. The real challenge is to get her records properly re-mastered and released digitally. I feel a campaign coming on ...

'The Harder They Come' at The Playhouse Theatre

I saw 'The Harder They Come', the stage version of the Jimmy Cliff film, at The Barbican back in March and it has magically transferred to the Playhouse Theatre, so had to see it again.

It's largely the same cast (except Victor Romero Evans now plays the preacher and Marlon King plays the rastaman, Pedro) and they work excellently together. It must be very tiring for them since almost all of the cast are on stage the entire time, many are around the theatre and on stage as we all trooped in, making it feel like we're part of the event, and some are on stage during the interval watching a spaghetti western projected on the back wall. I was worried to see Chris Tummings as the police chief standing outside the door to the stalls, glowering at the theatre-goers as we entered and I avoided eye-contact - I didn't want him to pick on me in the second act and call me 'hugly'! He's got a great line in put-downs for hecklers when he confronts the audience in the second act for hiding Ivan and I didn't want it aimed at me! It was fun that they stayed in character throughout, like when Pedro said we could have a 15 minute ganga break at the end of the first act (but they didn't have any behind the bar).

The star of the show is Rolan Bell as Ivan (the Jimmy Cliff role), energetic and very likelable, bounding round the stage, singing and dancing, flirting with Pinky, rude boy and hero rolled into one. He's got great stage presence and a great voice. It'll be interesting to see what he does next.

The other star, for me, is Pinky, dance-hall queen and rude girl in her tiny red mini-dress, white boots and big afro. She knows she's good looking and makes sure you know she's good looking, flirting with everything in trousers. She's played by Susan Lawson-Reynolds (who is also credited as assistant choreographer) and she gets all the best moves. She bounces well off her co-rude girl, Precious (Karlene Wray) but it's Pinky all the way for me!

The rest of the cast and musicians are all excellent as well and it's a thoroughly enjoyable production, sending us out into the night at the end singing along to 'You Can Get It If You Really Want'. And that's quite odd in a way since the play is about violence and death and corruption and drugs, but the music and performances are uplifting.

Go and see it. If you like good theatre - go and see it. If you like good music and reggae - go and see it. If you like a good night out - go and see it. If you hate theatre and music - go and see it and it'll change your mind. The message is - go and see it! I will see it again and, if they do a cast recording, I'll definitely buy it! I hope it plays for a long time.

What am I saying again...? O yes, GO AND SEE IT!

Happy Birthday Jim!

Today is the birthday of Jim Lea, the Lord of Noize now known by his full name of James Whild Lea. I feel a SLADEfest coming on...

Happy birthday Jim!

Combine Harvester hits Hammersmith

Now, I know I was bemoaning the absence of any Sex Pistols gigs in London in their current Combine Harvester tour and voila! The Pistols will play Hammersmith on 2 September! I need to be up bright and early tomorrow morning to get tickets to see what Mr Lydon called 'The best band in the world!'.

What a week that's going to be - the Pistols on 2 September followed by X-Ray Spex on 6 September. Punk heaven indeed!


Update 15 June: Tickets secured for the balcony, seated of course. I'm going to see the Pistols again!

Bye bye Caxton

Tomorrow is my last day of working in Caxton House - my department transferred the lease a while ago but we had squatters rights while a new building was refurbished for us to move into. Tomorrow is our last day in the building. Government Departments change their names on an increasingly frequent basis but tend to stay in the same accommodation - I've been in Caxton under the guise of five departments of state. But no more after tomorrow.

Since so many people have worked in the building for many years we held a leaving party yesterday. I didn't go to it since I was engrossed in post-tender clarifications meetings for a supplier for a new computer system, but it made me think.

I realised that I first set foot in that building nearly 25 years ago. 25 years, gosh. I'd started working for ACAS shortly after arriving in London and, at that time, ACAS looked to Caxton as it's HQ so it housed it's finance section and I was sent there to pick up a giro for my first week's pay. It was the first time I'd set foot in a big office building, people bustling all around me who knew where they were going and there was poor little me, wondering where the cashier's office was... There's no cashier any more and hasn't been for a long time. The world has moved on so much.

I started going into Caxton a couple of times a week from 1990 and then was based in it for the first time in 1996. I've moved in and out of the building a few times since then, but this current move out of the building is a bit more permanent. I wouldn't be surprised if I turn up at the building for meetings or whatever, but I won't be able to just walk in, I'll have to report to reception and fill in a form for security. It won't be my building any more.

I've spent most of the afternoon packing stuff into crates ready for the move over the weekend. It's surprising what you find in drawers that raise a memory or a chuckle and then the thought, 'why did I keep this?'. Loads of stuff has been binned (the cleaners will hate us) and more will be binned tomorrow. I've got a couple of meetings tomorrow but, other than that, I'll be packing. Our computer system goes down at 2pm, we're chucked out at 5pm and I have a meeting in another building at 3.15pm so that gives me a timetable.

Tomorrow will probably be a strange day with a mix of memories. It's only a building.

No Tom Toms

O dear. Me Dad isn't too good at the moment so I need to head up North for a little while to cover for me baby brother who's off on holiday.

This means I'll miss the Tom Tom Club/Gang Of Four gig as part of the Meltdown season. The ticket's on a first refusal basis to Mr WeeDonKerr. The last time I saw the Tom Toms Tina threw her warm knickers at me. I doubt that'll happen again but, hey, you never know.

Dresden Dolls Bonus Tracks

OK. You turn your back for 5 minutes and what happens? Those punk cabaret ragamuffins, The Dresden Dolls, sneak out bonus tracks on the digital download version of their new album, that's what happens. Head on over to your download store of choice and buy 'Glass Slipper [Live in St Louis]', 'A Night At The Roses' and 'I Would For You'. Like, cor!

I've got an older live version of 'Glass Slipper' on 'A Is For Accident', but this version was recorded on the last Dresden Dolls tour so is brand spanking new. 'A Night At The Roses' was originally released as the B-side to the 'Good Day' 7" vinyl and 'I Would For You' is a Jane's Addiction cover.

Go on folks, go and do the downloady thing and make yourself happy.