Tracklist from Saturday Night.

Back djing for the first time in a month. Kicked off with Human League and co to follow on from the in-house jukebox which was ploughing through an 80's Mastermix selection.
Then into the usual selection.  Quite a mixed crowd tonight.  A few oldies in as well. All fell into place quite well although not helped by the unimaginative idiot who comes up and says, 'Haven't you any good music'.
'Well haven't you any good clothes? You look like you were dressed by your mother for your first day at school' Nice v -kneck jumper and dad jeans combo there. The muppet couldn't suggest any better songs and when I suggested E.L.O., in an ironic way, his little face lit up and he was so pleased. So sweet. How do these people get allowed out after tea? 

Apart from him, an ok night.
My faves : Mumford and Sons, Mark Ronson, Jamiroquai(Calvin Harris mix) and 'That's the Joint' by B.E.P.
Back in a fortnight.

Track Listing from Saturday Night at Smugglers

1 (Keep Feeling) Fascination - Human League
2 Temptation - Heaven 17
3 Ready For The Floor - Hot Chip
4 Ready For The Weekend - Calvin Harris
5 Walking On A Dream - Empire Of The Sun
6 We Are Golden - Mika
7 In My Arms - Mylo
8 Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas
9 Rock Wit U Awww Babe - Ashanti
10 Celebration - Madonna
11 Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap
12 Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
13 Ashes - Embrace
14 Oh La - The Kooks
15 Honey In The Sun - Camera Obscura *
16 Find Yourself Caught In Love - Belle & Sebastian
17 This Charming Man - Stars
18 Little Lion Man - Mumford And Sons
19 Here Comes My Baby - Cat Stevens
20 I Don't Want You Now - K T Tunstal
21 Flowers In The Window - Travis *
22 We Weren't Born To Follow - Bon Jovi
23 Vertigo - U2
24 Molly's Chambers - Kings Of Leon
25 Are U Gonna Be My Girl - Jet
26 Spaceman - The Killers
27 Canned Heat (Calvin Harris Remix) - Jamiroquai
28 I Can't Wait - Another Chance
29 Million Dollar Bill ( Sol Dub Edit) - Whitney Houston
30 Break My Heart (Cassette Club Mix) - Taio Cruz
31 One Love - David Guetta
32 Touch Me - Tom Novy
33 One More Chance (Tiesto Remix) - Bloc Party
34 Mr Blue Sky - Elo *
35 That's The Joint - The Black Eyed Peas
36 Haven’t Met You Yet - Michael Buble
37 Bad Boys - Alexandra Burke
38 Fight For This Love (Cahill Mix) - Cheryl Cole
39 Dance Dreams - Lady Gaga Vs Eurythmics
40 Flashback - Calvin Harris *
41 Fade To Grey 2009 (Future Mix) - Future Breeze
42 Cafe Del Mar - Energy 52*
43 Downpipe - D.Ramirez, Mark Knight
44 On Off - Cirez D
45 Groove Is In The Heart - Deee-Lite *
46 I Got You - James Brown
47 Express Urself - Tinchy Stryder
48 Fight The Power - Public Enemy*
49 Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns N Roses*
50 Back In The U.S.S.R. - The Beatles
51 Spaceman On Fire - Bootleg
52 Laid - James
53 Rocks - Primal Scream
54 Bulletproof - La Roux
55 Just Can't Get Enough - Depeche Mode
56 I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
57 Gettin' Over - David Guetta
58 Ready For The Weekend - Calvin Harris
59 High - Mark Ronson
60 Mr Brightside (J Le Cont Mix) - The Killers *
61 Don’t Stop Believing - Journey*

* Request.

The Fall - Glasgow 13th November

Think of band names. Name the best. Name those that have stood the test of time. From America comes The Grateful Dead, Love Metallica. From Britain hails Joy Division, The Smiths and The Fall.

The Fall, formed in 1976, by Mark E Smith and still standing resolute, if a little shaky, on the stage of the Ferry in 2009. Count those years. 33.

Named after Camus' book of the same name and loosely based on Dante's levels of Hell, Mark E has kept his band on the edge of the inferno as seers explaining to the travellers through the levels that life is absurd, wisdom comes with age and acceptance of one's place retains our dignity. It would appear that few would listen with any attention as many of the vices of the '70s still resound today.

Mark E is no poster boy for Whitehall ministers preaching to us to walk ourselves fitter, or to eat more vegetables. Like Keith Richards, Mark wears his age on his face. Similarly you feel he will be with us for eternity, or at least until closing time has passed and he sees if there is the slight chance of a lock in.

Smith moves across the stage creating both verbal and physical mischief whilst the younger band mates power on through the songs with a relentless rhythm. He drops microphones, places them inside the drum kit, turns all the knobs on the amps up to eleven and footers about with a portable recording device and more sweetly has a D90 cassette tape that, even in this part of Glasgow, appears to be obsolete.
The band members are fit for him. This is no scampi in a basket tour. No let’s play the heritage LP from 30 years ago in its entirety. What band surviving a third of a century would be able to choose to play a visceral set comprising mainly of songs from their last two albums? Can you imagine The Stones restricting their live show to songs only from their last two LPs? Bonus points to anyone who can even name their last two albums.

Yet Mark E and the band are raging through 'Wolf Kidult Man', 'I’ve been Duped', and 'My Door is Never'.
Metaphorically, the band is ripping the skin off songs like, 'Bury’,’ Sloppy Floor' and 'White Lightning' and spreading the entrails over the stage. This is a band as relevant to this day as they were when they first formed in the Seventies. There is no pandering to commercialization, no diluting the message to attract the fickle interest of fame, no collaboration with some ex-member of some sales plummeting band, no respite in the sound. This is The Fall. An hour of relentless rhythm with barely decipherable lyrics. An hour of primal white noise. A warning of the perils that continue to await us on the journey ahead. This is The Fall sound.

The audience has an element of karma to it. There are a group of young folk, who are probably all in bands, with long hair and a larger group of older guys, who were probably all in bands, with no hair. This is Mark E's 'Great League of Bald Headed Men'. The women, not many, but those that are there are the descendants of the Amazonian tribes that ruled the world before Rachel Welch. They throw themselves into the noise with a memory of the days when opportunity, adventure and love were awaiting to be embrace.

We guys acknowledge that the spark of lost youth can be re-kindled but find the match of hope has been buried beneath layers of I.T memos, dates for the car service and the knowledge that the aisle for washers comes before the plumbing section in our DIY superstore. We applaud generously but keep our pogoing memories in the safety of the past. My advice to the young at heart, when you walk down the church aisle make sure it is with a partner who likes The Fall.

What keeps this mighty force of a band going?
Let Mark E describe it from his interpretation of Merle Haggard's song 'White Line Fever'.

'I wonder what keeps me singing this old highway song  

I've been from coast to coast

Many miles I've gone

And there ain't one town I haven't seen before

The past keeps going down like the tele' poles

The wrinkles in my forehead show the miles I've put behind me

And continue to remind me, the fact I'm growing old

I've still got that fever in my soul'

The Fall troubadours from an age past, musically they link the 50's rockabilly sound and the touring ethos of the sixties country singers with the sound of today. Long may that fever in his soul burn.

This is the set-list:
Friday, 13 November The Ferry, Glasgow
New instrumental / Wolf Kidult Man / My Door Is Never / Cowboy George / Chino Splashback / Hot Cake / I've Been Duped / Psykick Dancehall / I'm Not from Bury / Sloppy Floor // White Lightning / Over! Over! / Reformation.

Eddie Izzard - Glasgow

You have friends and then again you have friends. For me Eddie Izzard was a blue litmus test that differentiated between friends you could talk long into the evening with and friends you would discuss a mortgage deal with. If folk didn't get Eddie you would smile wanly but know that this person would never be clutched to your bosom with your head as a pillow. Everyone will have their own nerd like list. Just for the sake of completion I would also like to fling in the cartoons of Kliban, and not the cat ones, as another deal definer between those you love and acquaintances.


There is also a moment in time, as Whitney once reminded us, when your love of an artist coincides with his/her art being at it's peak. I was lucky to see The Clash in '77 and U2 in '80. I paid to see The Who in '78 but missed them in '68, I danced to the Stones at the Apollo in '76 but was listening to Ed Stewpot in 1969.
Eddie Izzard I finally caught in 2009.

I laughed a lot. I still giggle at the idea of the friendly sharks. But the whole experience was the perfect marriage of consumerism and having your minimum expectation met. For £30 + booking fee and the Ticketrapist tax Eddie would do his Eddie thing, as seen on DVD, for us all.  You can't really justify a complaint. He told some stories, many of them very amusing, in his surreal but today more whimsical manner and we all laughed and next day told all our friends and acquaintances that we'd seen Izzard last night.

 Izzard structures his comedy along the time line of the Earth with his humour aimed at the impact religion has played and continues to play on subjugating our own humanity. He opens with the statement that 'there is no God'. We all watch the news we all know there is no god. We can all visualise the bodies across the globe dismembered by one groups belief in a different deity. So Eddies structure for his joking is from the start fairly lame. He doesn't take it any deeper either but fills the humour out with his thoughts of consciousness asides. One or either would be fine by itself. Together it don't go. He should mercilessly satirise the role of religion. These golden calves should be verbally slaughtered with a viciousness that would lay the foundation to make his surreal tangents by contrast really funny. Unfortunately, he doesn't.

 Playing to 10000 people in a huge barn must result in the intimacy being lost and the message being thinned out to play to the many.
 Heaven knows, if I could dj to 3000 people every week-end rather than four codgers awaiting the racing results and a collie that has one leg and suffers from tinnitus then I would before you could say Pete Tong.
Similarly, if offered the hand of Mammon I would less grasp it than gnaw it's whole arm off from the shoulder.
You cannot criticise with any fervour a man who has honed his god-given talent to such an extent that nearly ten thousand good citizens will  suffer the seats in the SECC, the bar queue and the parking nightmare to see him. Izzard may have talked about Moses in the desert but that prophet never had to get his camel out of the SECC car park after a sell out gig. That would sorely have tested his faith.

 I sympathise. When I play to twelve folk I try to gauge what they all like and select songs that they will appreciate. I try to lead them to songs they may not know but could learn to love. I take risks. I wonder 'can I get away with this?' When I am djing to a big crowd I play the hits. It is what is expected. It is what works.
Sure I will clear the dance floor and do this quite deliberately at times. But I'll always bring it back quickly to where the punters think it should be i.e. songs folk know, dance tunes people like and no surprises. I can't blame Eddie Izzard for the same thing.

Where once in my heart he was Eddie Stardust, now he is more Eddie Starbucks.When once he was the double espresso of eye watering, sphincter loosening comedy, now he is the latte of mirth .

I wish him well and thank him for the memories. It was me who was once again just out of time.

Meanwhile,  there are two old geezers in my bar talking about my djing prowess and telling their friends that they should have been here years ago when it was just the two of them nursing whisky and hangovers how good was dj alan then.

 This Christmas I may buy my acquaintances Eddie's new dvd. They are sure to like it.

The Airborne Toxic Event - Glasgow

ABC 1 is sold out. This for a band who have spent the last two years touring and touring. This for a group with a solitary album to their name. Mikel Jollet tells us from the stage that this is the seventh time the band have played this city. The first time to a small group of twelve at Barfly, then back to play to a hundred, return once more double that, last year they were on stage in front of several hundred more and tonight the packed venue with over a thousand is ready to illustrate the reward of hard work.  The band are keen to finish the tour and get home. There is an air of de-mob happiness about them tonight. All smiles, jokes, energy, shouts out to the crowd all cascading together in an enthusiastic thrash through Jim Carroll's 'People who Died'. 

Stunning stagecraft is evidence of their time on the road. They are a blur of energy, shape throwing and crowd pleasing banter. Confidence stemming from the large festivals the band have played over the summer making a venue like the ABC an intimate soiree.

Alongside the professionalism in their approach lies the small band attitude of making each gig special for the punters. So the crowd get the album played with respect and then the bonus of an almost acoustic version of 'Wishing Well', a couple of new songs and a vocal flirtation with The Smiths 'Ask' and 'Panic'.

Huge cheer for Anna Bulbrook's viola start to 'Sometime Around Midnight' as everyone sings along with one of the best songs about the aftermath of heartbreak. 'Gasoline' has us all yelling the story of how we let our only true love slip away to be replaced by a succession of paper thin imitations, the other songs tell of lonliness, loss and isolation all hidden underneath power pop chords and anthemic hues. 'Happiness is Over rated' and 'This is Nowhere' are more explicit about lives damaged and hope extinguished.  Under the sugar coated surface the songs of The Airborne Toxic Event contain more than just traces of despair and distance. You can understand why they reference Jim Carroll at the show. His 'Catholic Boy' lays down the template for Jollet's songs. 'I was a Catholic boy, Redeemed through pain, Not through joy.' in other places Carroll sings, 'Everything you ever wanted, Is passing with the driving rain.'  Compare with ATE's 'Happiness is Overrated', 'But you know those words that you said, They get stuck here in my head, And this feeling I dread, it makes me wish I was dead, Or just alone instead.'   From the smiles on stage to the sing-a long crowd you'd never know what lies beneath.

Where will that leave the band in 2010? One new song played was 'Goodbye Horses' which was both bold sounding and infectious. But this is a cover. So will the band have the depth of songs for another class album and will success and the love of 1200 Glaswegians affect their muse? In future releases, will the inspirational sound of Airborne Toxic Event be matched with uplifting lyrics of hope?  

It'll certainly be fun finding out. I, for one, will be back to cheer them when they return to play to thousands more at the SECC.


                                            Sometime Around Midnight

And it starts...
sometime around midnight
or at least that's when
you lose yourself
for a minute or two

As you stand...
under the barlights
and the band plays some song
about forgetting yourself for a while
and the piano's this melancholy soundtrack
to her smile
And that white dress she's wearing
you haven't seen her
for a while

But you know...
that she's watching
She's laughing, she's turning
she's holding her tonic like a cross
The room suddenly spinning
she walks up and asks how you are
so you can smell her perfume
you can see her lying naked in your arms

And so there's a change...
in your emotions
and all of these memories come rushing
like feral waves to your mind
of the curl of your bodies
like two perfect circles entwined
and you feel hopeless, and homelss
and lost in the haze
of the wine

And she leaves...
with someone you don't know
but she makes sure you saw her
she looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door
your blood boiling
your stomach in ropes

and when your friends say what is it
you look like you've seen a ghost
And you walk...
under the streetlights
and you're too drunk to notice
that everyone is staring at you
and you don't care what you look like
the world is falling
around you

You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her

and you know that she'll break you
in two .

November Flagrant Self Promotion

Wrong side of the decks.

At Little League's Halloweentastic Indie Pop Disco on Saturday night. Dancing shoes gleaming, imaginary Morrissey quiff groomed and genuine original Orange Juice badge glinting on the lapel.

We arrived early as I had offered John, who runs the night, some disco lights and a projector to throw some spooky black n white classic horror films up on to the wall. Wow, looks like I have just taken a quiet walk down the lonely street of adjective avenue.
It meant we were there from the opening song of 'Sandman' by The Chordettes followed by John Carpenter's Halloween theme to the closing chords of The Associates, 'Party Fears Two'.

Watching the place fill up was interesting. It would appear that the more vacant seats there are the more indecisive folk are about where to sit. The first two punters sat in their first choice seat for all of ten minutes before the dreadful feeling that their seats may not be the best in the place and hastily scrambled to other ones. If Mr Malcolm Gladwell wishes to discuss this phenomena as a basis for his next best-seller I will very happily suggest a co-authorship and a share of the profits.

By 10pm the place was rammed and no seats were to be had. The night had sold out weeks ago.

Danced with gay abandon (and when he was tired with the wife) to Stone Roses, Tindersticks, Roxy Music, Go-Betweens, Smiths, Camera Obscura, Weather Prophets and Orange Juice.

Really enjoyed but couldn't get the zimmer on to the packed dance floor for Public Enemy, REM, Pavement, and Arcade Fire.

Best Dance Floor reaction was to X-Ray Specs with'Oh Bondage'.

Fave song of the evening 'Judy and the Dream of Horses' by Belle and Sebastian.

Next event is just before Christmas and we have tickets.  Heigh Ho!