SJC Recruitment, Bath. 

Thank you for the Crunche.

That's all!

1000 free songs for your iPod?

This year's SXSW conference has made a huge amount of music freely downloadable.

Share and enjoy!

Biomechanical, Birmingham. We *heart* these guys. 

Art statements, Pitchfork, and fancypants analysis

This amused me. Since "becoming a photographer" I've been extremely wary of trying to elevate what I do to the level of "art". Sure there's the learning of the craft of lighting, all the nooks and crannies of the settings on the camera and all the post-shoot stuff and working with the subject. But is it art? Not my problem! I'll do the work to the best of my ability but it's up to someone else to elevate it.

I take my cue from Jean-Loup Sieff: do it for the love of it. Everything else follows.

The Ga*Ga*s at the Camden Underworld

I was lucky enough to blag permission to shoot these guys. A friend in Bath had been raving about them (hi Matt!) but I was sceptical. However, they banged out a good set of rock. I'd see 'em again!

Cuban Heels, 93ft East

Someone sign these guys ASAP please!

Virgin.net scam

OK, folks the virgin.net "no 12 month contract" thing is a lie. They *will* impose a £50 cancellation surcharge if you terminate even 6 months into the contract: "we do reserve the right to..." is just crap.

Bah.

Grand Rose Band at the Purple Turtle

Again, the guys took a fairly indifferent audience who'd been pummeled by the opening act into some kind of narcolepsy, and got them dancing a bit!



Looking forward to the next one!

Gingered Spam salad?

Interesting. The google ad on my gmail spam page:

http://www.recipesource.com/main-dishes/meat/pork/spam/gingered-salad1.html

It's The Wrong Bradford, Gromit!

My train pain this evening paled into comparison with the poor lady sitting at Bradford-on-Avon train station. Having arrived at Waterloo Eurostar terminal from Guadeloupe via Paris and asked for "the train to Bradford", she was put on the train to a Bradford, just not the Bradford. Worse still, she was then told to go to Bristol where via the legendary Virgin Cross Country and a couple of dodgy changes in Manchester, she might just have reached Bradford at half past midnight. A few clicks on the Nation Rail website demonstrated that going from Bath to London then from Kings Cross northwards would have been quicker and with better fallbacks if there were delays.

I hope she complains and gets both a grovelling apology and compensation.

To the lovely young lady currently doing "email marketing" but wanting to be an epidemiologist, who I met on the Central line tonight, heading West, with the tray of mince pies (which she shared freely) on her way to another pub quiz, the word I was trying to think of was "Bioinformatics".

This was a public surreality message.

Grand Rose Band at Dirty South, Lewisham.

I've seen these guys a couple of times and have a few of their tracks on my iPod and they Rock! It was the most bizarre gig in the back of a pub, but it's the pub where Kate Bush once served, so that's all right then!

Quireboys and Planet of Women at the Mean Fiddler

Great show ladies and gents, lots of pictures on my flickr account. But sometimes you just take the picture that's The One:

Fame! Can Fortune be far away?

Some of my pictures are now the bio pics for the band Fortune Drive!

Quireboys at The Fleece, Bristol (again)



You'd have though that after twenty years in which they'd played tens
of thousands of people in stadiums and festivals all round the world
that playing to a couple of hundred people in a pokey club in Bristol
would be a chore. Not a bit of it! They blasted through the set with
two encored. Keith tucked away at the back, Pip rock solid as always
and the front guys, Spike, Guy and Paul jumping around as much as the
confines of the Fleece's stage allows.

Afterwards, the guys were really up as Big Things are on the point of
happening again.

Looking forward to the recording of the DVD at the Mean Fiddler on
Friday!

Oh, dear...

You Are a Henna Gaijin!

You're not Japanese, but you wish you were! You can use chopsticks with your eyes closed, and you've memorized hundreds of Kanji. You even answer your phone "moshi moshi." While the number of anime videos you've seen is way higher than the number of dates you've been on, there's hope. Play the sexy, mysterous gaijin, and you'll have plenty of Japanese meat.

What's Your Japanese Subculture?

Blackbud and Fortune Drive at Moles in Bath.

Having been in a bit of a gig drought pretty much since pigging out at Donnington, I was looking forward to seeing the lovely Blackbud in London this week. Unfortunately, I got called away just as they were about to go on and while the Barfly was briefly hit by a power cut andtoo!

However, they also played Moles in Bath last night so we trolled along to have a good chill. But! It turned out that Fortune Drive were supporting. I'd seen them in Bristol about 18 months ago supporting (or being supported by?!) the lovely Clumsy lads. They were OK, but nothing to write home about.

What a difference a year makes! Last night they were tight, raucous, edgy and downright confident. Their songwriting craft has also taken a major leap forward pulling out every trick to get and keep the audience on their side: tempo changes, dead stops, vocal hooks, the lot. Excellent!

Blackbud's homecoming is always good. Is it really only two years since these callow youths won the battle of the bands there? Moles was compeltely rammed, seemingly with adoring young ladies muttering "I was at school with them you know"! We weren't disappointed. Old songs, new songs, slow songs breaking unexpectedly into longer, faster jams, strains of, dare I say it, Dire Straits, a drum fill nicked from Deep Purple, shades of Stone Roses, Pink Floyd but all mashed into Blackbud's unique style.

Nice.

WWWAC Hang night - oh the fun, the debauchery, oh no, someone had a camera!

Arrr!!!! It's that day again, me hearties.


You are The Cap'n!

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some slit the throats of any man that stands between them and the mantle of power. You never met a man you couldn't eviscerate. Not that mindless violence is the only avenue open to you - but why take an avenue when you have complete freeway access? You are the definitive Man of Action. You are James Bond in a blousy shirt and drawstring-fly pants. Your swash was buckled long ago and you have never been so sure of anything in your life as in your ability to bend everyone to your will. You will call anyone out and cut off their head if they show any sign of taking you on or backing down. You cannot be saddled with tedious underlings, but if one of your lieutenants shows an overly developed sense of ambition he may find more suitable accommodations in Davy Jones' locker. That is, of course, IF you notice him. You tend to be self absorbed - a weakness that may keep you from seeing enemies where they are and imagining them where they are not.

What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

Legendary Steward at the Snickers Stage.