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Filed under: In The City

In The City 2010, Day Three...

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Day three, and absolutely my favourite night of In The City.  I’ve had an excellent time and met and hung around some truly fantastic people.  Even my stupid miserable and cynical face could be seen smiling and happily chatting away to people.  Imagine that!


Last nights trend moved away from the deck shoes and having no bass players of the previous two nights to moustaches (mostly which looked glued on) and stupid hats.  One blokes hat looked like it was an enormously ridiculous haircut until you looked closer.  I’d like to think it was actually made of human hair that he’d stolen from from the floor of barber shops before they had a chance to sweep it away. I fully expect to see him soon running down the street and laughing maniacally, with a plastic bag full of hair and an angry hairdresser chasing him with a broom.  It’s not a very beautiful dream, but it’s my dream.

Last night I got to see: Brown Brogues, Plank!, Black Daniel, The Bewitched Hands, Slow Motion Shoes (watched through a window), Porcelain Raft (another excellent stripped-down 1 man band experience), Youthless (my definite favourite of In The City), Spectrals, Glasser, Dutch Uncles and Kisses (again) - the last three all at The Ruby Lounge.  After a load of running around it was nice to stay in one place for a bit and watch more than a handful of songs.  And indulge in that drink of kings, JD & Coke.

And guess what?  My old adversary the toilet guy was back at Ruby Lounge!  How I have missed him.  I didn’t make eye contact with him though, because he’d only spray his knock-off CK One at my mouth if I did.  Instead, I waited at the urinals with 4 other blokes, all of us seeing who would be the first to crack, as whoever finished first would have to go and pay the man and the rest of us could all use the other sink and escape unmolested while Toilet Guy was busy  handing out his paper towels and lollypops.

 

 

As I’ve probably told you a million fucking times, I speak Dutch. So if I ever met the Dutch Uncles, naturally the first thing I’d say would be:

spreken jullie Nederlands?”.  

There’d be a really awkward silence.

And after a bit of staring at each other, someone would say “What?”.

And I’d blush for a bit and then I’d mumble “I was speaking Dutch.  Maybe you didn’t like what I said because it was said very informally and we’ve never met before, so I should have said ‘Spreken U Nederlands?’ instead”.

And nobody would say anything.  So I’d plough on obliviously:

“Or maybe it’s because I said it with a Flemish accent rather then a Dutch one because I watch a TV Show called ‘Brussel Vandaag’ everyday and can imitate it”.

And then there’d be an ever longer silence.  And then someone would ask “Why?” again, a confused tremble in their voice.  “Why are you saying these things to us?”

And I’d mumble again “Because your band, the band that you are in, is called Dutch Uncles. And I spoke Dutch.” And my voice would trail off.

Then they’d say “This isn’t even funny, it wasn’t funny when you thought it up last night in the back of a taxi, and it’s certainly not now when you’re sober”.

I’d reply “How do you know what I thought about in the back of a taxi last night?”

And the Dutch Uncles would say “Because this conversation isn’t real, it is another figment of your imagination.  I suppose we should be only glad that you’ve decided to type up this part of your imagination and not some of the really depraved stuff”.

And I’d say “Sorry”.  And nobody would feel very good about themselves.  A bit like you lot who have bothered to read this far I expect.


Bring on the next In The City!

 

In The City 2010, Day Two...

Day Two. Or as it's now being called (by nobody else) Night of the Laptop Bands.


Same drill as before – there are loads of blogs you can read to see how good the bands were. I got to: Beans on Toast, a couple of minutes of Fictions set, Kisses, worriedaboutsatan, Chad Valley (he was awesome), Crystal Fighters, Stricken City, Mount Kimbie (a bizarrely short 2 song set from them), and topping it off magnificently, HEALTH.


You could read here
, for example.  But not until you've finished reading this.  Come back you fickle bastards!


Thing seemed to really be in full swing now, there was a nice vibe in the Northern Quarter and some of the more er...hipster...(and I swear I'll try and limit the use of that word from now on)...element seemed much calmer than Wednesday. I only saw one bloke in deck shoes and I wasn't sure if he was a hobo or not so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.


My only lament is that, as a bass player (of no repute) myself, so many of the bands I saw tonight saw fit not to have one in their group. This makes me sad.


At least HEALTH's John Famiglietti had the good grace to play one. Loudly. So loudly it was like being punched right in the chest, like that night in Hamburg when I had to pay to...er...wait, that's not a story for this time.


Onwards to day three. I'm knackered, hence the succinctitudious manner of my post today. Yeah. That is a word. It's a new word. You probably haven't heard of it.


More tomorrow. 

 

In The City 2010, Day One...

No Age, Male Bonding, D/R/U/G/S were all excellent...yadda yadda yadda.  Yes, they flipping were but there are far more talented writers than I writing about how amazing they were so I'm not going to labour the point here.  Google is your friend.


Anyways - for fucks sake - surely the most important thing to so far come out of In The City so far is that it must now time to ban men wearing boat shoes and tight jeans rolled up their horrible, spindly, hairy calves.  Unless you're actually sailing a boat.  But I'm pretty sure the people I saw last night would be too busy masturbating over American Apparel shop window displays to bother doing something like that.

Yes, literally spunking right there on the windows and letting it slowly dribble down to the pavement, like a sad, joyless and non-child friendly mockery of silly putty.


I forget the point I was making.  Talk amongst yoursleves for a moment...


Ah yes, I remember now.  I know I'm not saying anything remotely original here.  Easily-led Hipsters are an easy target to take the piss out of. But, you see, they have to have the piss taken out of them because they're an easy target.

And so, like Ouroboros, the circle is complete...

I'm not working tomorrow, so tonight I get to see more bands, drink more alcohol and stay out later then I did last night.  And probably get more offensive about and offended by fashion I probably don't understand.
*sob*

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