Goin Giggin ~ Daughters ~ Caitlin Rose

Standing outside Farringdon Station waiting for middle-daughter I took a moment to OCD our tickets a tenth time and now, of course, I notice what I hadn't noticed the previous nine times: Strictly Over 18. Hmm, middle daughter is just sixteen - Panic!

Caitlin Rose - photo efsb

I consider our predicament: I can imagine the only thing more embarrassing for MD than being thrown out of a pub for being under-age, is being thrown out of a pub for being under age accompanied by her Dad. But surely all teenagers pass for can eighteen nowadays? Especially if not self-conscious, I think, and I determine I will not warn her... and simply hope for the best,

"Hi Dad, so, where is this place we're going to?"
"It's called the Slaughtered Lamb"
"so, is it a pub?"
"Well, it's sort of, kind of a pub thing, yes, I suppose it is"
"Well, I hope it's not over 18 only!"
"Just look inconspicuous."
"Inconspicuous?"
"hmm, no - look grown up and, um, inconspicuous"

We were headed to see Caitlin Rose, an exciting alt. country singer from Nashville, so new she is unknown to wikipedia, barely out of her teens herself, and currently on tour in the UK. She played last week in Clerkenwell  the kind of show that I sometimes imagine travelling 3000 miles to hear in Austin, TX¹

Sigh, I am not cool, we arrived at exactly the wrong time for a gig: too early for the main act (an hour and a half to wait!) but too late to secure one of the leather sofas directly in front of the stage (curses) . Unwilling to stand up we lounged on an uncomfortable bench behind a pillar and waited until the friends and family of the (quite dreadful) first support act got up and left; and then craftily nabbed the empty seats.

When the support² was finished, a group of fresh faced kids invaded the stage to get it ready for Caitlin and her band. Then, to our astonishment, they picked up their guitars and stood ready at the mics. It was Caitlin's band: lead guitar Jeremy Fetzer, in particular looking like he had just obtained 11 A* at GCSE, and feeling excited about wearing his own clothes in the sixth form. He turned out to be a smooth guitarist, but he didn't like to sing, and shifted uneasily if a mic came too close.

Caitlin Rose, on the other hand was assured and effortless. Her voice and delivery reminded me of Iris Dement, she handled the crowd with aplomb, only momentarily disconcerted by losing her special pick. Caitlin is heralded as alt. Country, but to me her songs are slap-bang in the country tradition: funny, heartfelt, simple in lyric and telling story.

Now, I wouldn't say Caitlin Rose was obscure exactly, its just that precious few in the Uk have heard of her, and to tell the truth I had heard her only once on Bob Harris country, and just before she came on MD shamed me by asking for my favourite Caitlin Rose track and - when I was forced to prevaricate, astonished me by naming three of hers. She had done her research. (And a week later is still listening: a teenage country music fan in London. Thus do parents influence the lives of their daughters.

At the gig, MD and everyone else in the audience were able to recognise and welcome the highlight songs Learnin to Ride, Own Side, Things Change and a sing-a-long Answer in one of these Bottles. Only I was mouthing the words.

Here's a song she did earlier



On her recordings Caitlin's voice is mellowed and softened, and the arrangements sometimes slightly lush. At the Slaughtered Lamb her songs benefited from the stripped down band (lead, bass, pedal steel) and unrestrained vocals, emotion allowed to bleed in to the melody. "Are you having a good time?" she asked, at one point, "because you're all very quiet" "We're English" came the apologetic response, and to make up for our poise of apparent indifference we clapped, dutifully, all the way through to the Gorilla Man.

There were about 150 or so people there I suppose, a small gig, but her support is is growing. Her UK tour includes a dozen dates, and where she is top of the bill she is selling them out.

She comes from Nashville (of course she does) and I wondered what it takes to get the breaks in that competitive town, to get listened to in the first place. How do aspiring young singer-songwriters get noticed? Is it luck, or is talent so plain that even the dimmest A&R can recognise it when he browses myspace? Or is it something else? Cynically I googled, and whaddyknow? her father is mainstream country singer, and her mother an award winning co-writer for Taylor Swift.  Contacts, then. Thus do people achieve lift off in a competitive world, and thus do parents influence the lives of their daughters.

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¹I have a plan, myself and two mates. Well perhaps more of a whim: a six week journey through the southern states every night listening to country music bands playing live. Moving from town to town, from bar to bar we'd hear the old and broken, the new and hopeful, the tired and the bittersweet artists that I imagine are the country music scene, travellin' light, hittin' the road, staying in motels with screen-doors slammin', always going where luck and the music took us, a journey partly spontaneous, partly planned. Oh yes, and one of the friends used to work for the BBC, so surely we could meet famous bands and interview them in the comfortof five-star hotel rooms, recording sycophantic interviews and, each morning, making a video diary in which we mocked, in a very British way, the unsophisticated acts we'd seen the night before. I'll write blog and book, my exBBC mucker a podcast and hour-long reflective programme for channel four and my other friend, a sober lawyer, would drive the RV and keep us out of trouble. And write poems. (Yes, I am practicing my pitch). It will be called The Judge the Journalist and Jerk, in search of real Country, it would start in the Smokey mountains and end at the Grand Ole Opry for CMA Awards. Would you like to sponsor us? Just £100 will buy a Budweiser a day for one person for the whole trip. Our just giving page will open soon.


²The first support was bearded Eyore from the Isle of Wight ("You are the most amazing people - you have actually come to watch a support band! Oh, my guitar player isn't here, sorry, he's at a funeral"). He wailed, dismally, for half an hour, then left. The second support band (and some might say two support bands is one support band too many) were the Lost Brothers a pair of earnest young Irishmen, one sweating in pork pie hat and overcoat, who sang tightly worded simple songs in close Everley Brothers harmony, in between murmuring at the audience as if they were the Shy Brothers (get some patter, boys)

Taylor's Mom was there as well

OK. I wasn't necessarily the oldest person watching Taylor Swift's gig at Wembley Arena on Monday night.  For instance Taylor's Mom was there as well.

taylor swift by whittlz

And younger daughter certainly wasn't the youngest person in the Arena either - for instance Justin Bieber (that would be the guy on the stage, with the microphone and the backing dancers) is only 15, going on 11... and I have to say he didn't look like he'd last long in the U16s at my local rugby club.

But even if I wasn't the only Dad in attendance, neither was I exactly a typical audience member: let's just say it was a high-decibel, oestregen rich environment, with more than a little shrieking. And clapping along: watching Bieber (who was actually quite good) I felt like Prince of Wales at the Royal Variety Performance.

But he was the mere fluff compared to Taylor Swift herself: Tall and striking, playing up the girl-next-door goofiness but at the same time more than slightly fierce; she is never vulnerable, always focused and perfectly in control of herself and her show. The demure look and shy smile that occasionally played on her lips in "London, England" was each time belied by a fiery glint in her eye: she owned the gig - and I can't help it if she looks like an angel.

But all the same: there's something different about Taylor and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that, at home, she alphabetizes her herb drawer, pairs up her socks and arranges her scarves and gloves in different ziplock bags.

Stars out of 5 : 5
Worst part of the journey home: Willesden Junction
Best Song that night - Hey Stephen. Taylor accompanying herself on by fantastically earthy-sounding 12 string.

Here's a video of her playing that song.. on a different day.

Madison Violet

Madison Violet enjoying themselves

There's nothing like a late Sunday evening for a crush in the  overheated room over the Cabbage Patch that plays host to the Twickenham Folk Club (now cunningly rebranded as TwickFolk@CabbagePatch)

We were there, Mrs Botogol and I, to hear an obscure Canadian country roots/folk duo called Madison Violet (as featured by whispering Bob Harris on Radio 2)


Doors were at 8pm so, obsessively punctual, I hurried us there for 7:59. But there were two support acts. Of course there were; it was very hot and the wine was warm. Mrs Botogol was not amused.

But it was worth it!  If we had not been entirely warmed up by the slightly sulky¹ Good Intentions who preceded them ("We've come from Shoreditch. Just now that is. Actually, we're from Liverpool. Well Gaby's not") it wasn't our fault, but when these two upbeat, wise-cracking  women took the stage, positively revelling in each others' company, it was impossible not to smile.

In a packed set they played almost all of their new album - No Fool For Trying - the upbeat title track contrasting with the bitter and angry tones of Woodshop and Black and White, the yearning of Ransom and charming nostalgia of Small Of My Heart

There were a couple of Flight of the Concords moments as very dedicated tour-following fans fresh from New Brunswick and Switzerland made themselves known, Lisa and Brenley handling with aplomb, and the crowd sang cooperatively when called upon.

Here are MadViolet singing the most moving song of the evening -  Woodshop - Brenley MacEachern momentarily choking up in her introduction as she recalled the death of her brother, and the family tragedy about which the song is written.

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The set finished with singular - and sinister - cover of Simon & Garfunkel's Mrs Robinson, the  somehow menacing arrangement and heartfelt, angry vocals emphasising the less than wholesome nature of the story - and the familiar song suddenly took on a unexpected hue.

Exclellent. They are touring UK and Ireland in next two weeks - go see them.




1 - I reckon they had a row in the traffic, for their music was actually laced with some wry country wit "I was a poor boy this morning / and I'll be one again tonight / there is nothing I call my own / and I will not need my 12 string / when the angels call me home"

An abundance of woo

So, on a scale of implausible silliness ranging from reflexology through Cranial Osteopathy Homeopathy to Crystal Therapy... whereabouts would you rank Chiropractic?¹

(bones by kevinzim)

On Monday evening I witnessed comedian Dave Gorman bravely inform a packed meeting of anti-chiropractic rationalists that, of all the 'complementary' medicines, Chiropractic has the least woo.  I was surprised, initially, that he didn't get hissed; but the meeting was only partly a demonstration and mostly a love-in in support of Simon Singh, currently snookered in the libel courts; and it's not the done thing to heckle at love-ins, not even the comics.

The British Chiropractic Association may or may not have an abundance of woo, but it has no shortage of sharp lawyers and last week in front of a sympathetic judge (in a still little reported case with far-reaching implications) they won the first round in a libel action against Simon Singh who described the BCA as happily promoting bogus treatments for childhood asthma and ear infections.

Wait a minute, you say, ear infections? are you telling me that chiropractors are in the habit of manipulating children's spines to treat their ear infections?²   Well, yes, that's (if you will) the rub - chiropractic actually treats everything, you see. It's to do with subluxation (at so at least slightly wooy, then).

The meeting was in the basement of Penderel's Oak, a confined, confusing and noisy space designed to intimidate autists, and it was packed with an intriguing mixture of besuited lawyers, TV personalities, journalists, MPs and angry rationalists. And me. I must be getting younger: last year I went to me very first demo, this year to my very first activist meeting.

"What can we do to help?", asked an earnest young woman, with a moleskine "Write about it on your blogs!", said Chris French³ , "Tweet about it! Join our Facebook group!" Yes, this was Activism-2.0.

"I have a blog", I said to my neighbour, an equally earnest young man who was surreptitiously sharing my pint. "Yeah", he said, "we've all got blogs." and he eyed me up disdainfully, "A fiver says you still use blogger", he said, suddenly. "Am I right?".

I eyed him up right back, and next moment we got out our technorati authorities out and slammed them down on the table... his blog was bigger than mine. "I've got my own domain name!", I said "and.."
But he was updating his Facebook status and he wasn't listening..

Nick Cohen raged amusingly against the injustices of the English libel system, Evan Harris talked calmly about the poor understanding of science in parliament, and Brian Cox bounced about and grinned a lot. I wondered if it was too late to give up banking and become a journalist, an MP or a theoretical physiscist (cum TV presenter). Or best of all: a libel plaintiff ⁴ ?

At the end we heard from Simon Singh himself, and when he was done we all cheered and clapped enthusisatically and felt very glad that it wasn't any of us, cornered into making a principled stand.

While I whooped I gazed around the crowd: The meeing had been quite well publicised and I had no doubt that the audience would contain an undercover chiropractor or two listening out for actionable statements. I wondered if they give themselves away, by not cheering as loudly as the rest.

Looking right round I cricked my neck.


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¹37th
²wouldn't any normal person use reflexology for that?
³Although a large proportion of the population believes in the paranormal, the evidence presented to support paranormal claims is generally not very convincing in scientific terms" Great Stuff
⁴ please make defamatory comments below, being sure to leave details of where a writ may be served.

Paradise Lost last night

picture by AHMED...

Yes, the performance was in a church, yes, a real live vicar introduced it enthusiastically  [ "I just know this is going to be excellent. Unfortunately I can't stay to hear it myself. Bye"  Why do people do that?]

Yes, the subject matter is theological, and yes God, Satan, Adam and Eve all have speaking parts and yes it was written by a devout man - but still, but still. . .I reckon Paradise Lost is a deeply irreligious work.

And that's probably why I like it so much.

Perhaps, like any great work, there are so many threads, so many levels in Paradise Lost that every reader can find in it the narrative they want, and no doubt the other members of the audience in St Giles in the Field last night (the retired and aged, the rapper off the street for the free wine, the young earnest muslim, and the half-dozen assorted A-Level Students) no doubt they all heard, through the prisms of their conventions, something else entirely; but for me Milton is a subversive: Milton believes in a god, of course, but he believes in a god that no one could possibly worship:  A god that is cruel and humourless. A god that is sentimental and yet pitiless. A god of entrapment and condescension. I can't believe that Milton worshipped this god.

Whatever: he certainly didn't manage to justify His ways to this man.


The vastly likeable and entertaining, but slightly cheesy, Lance Pierson performed Book IX, in an assured and compelling piece of theatre, and it was excellent, but dispiriting:  a young married couple, idealistic and naive, commit a foolish deed in the pursuit of an illusory goal, and the roof simply falls in on their world, destroying the contentment they had.

But they were suckered, taken for a ride, and manipulated; as defenceless as the poor snake that Satan enslaves and are as badly treated. They have been advanced a loan they can't possibly pay back and suddenly it's the mother of all credit crunches.

It all ends in tears and, worse, mutual recriminations, Eve and Adam momentarily forgetting that they are on the same side.


It was an abridged version - of course it was - and naturally some of my favourite passages, it turned out, were not Lance Pierson's favourite passages and they were omitted. So in case any of the other forty people present are blog-searching for reviews tomorrow morning  (yeah, right) - here's two they missed:

Satan's state of mind as he approaches Eden.

                                          the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries; all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heavens Supreme;
Nor hope to be my self less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts

hasn't everyone felt like that. Doesn't everybody hurt, sometimes?

And here's Eve's defiance in the face of danger.

If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a Foe,
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met,
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?

And so out she goes to face down whatever is out there. Doesn't everyone wish they were brave enough to feel like that?


Lance Pierson ended as Milton ended, and if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. Here's Adam and Eve as they leave paradise (It's kind of like being made redundant but being sent to a good outplacement consultant)

Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

From the Fringe..

Translation: It isn't very funny. With PR
like that, who needs critics?

The fringe festival is raw market capitalism at its best: while the official festival ballet and opera rest on their arts council subsidised backsides (more money than on wind farms, but less than on Olympic Cycling) the High Street throbs with hoards of performers pressing flyers into the hands of would-be play-goers, with hardly any hyperbole to speak of (we went to three world premières and fourteen five-star shows)

"Do you think they target who they give their flyers to" asked the Botogol girls, and their friend, after a particularly arduous ascent of the Royal Mile. We sat down over a deep-fried Mars bar with cider on the rocks, and compared our stash: the three teenage girls had received invitations to a dark drama about teenage suicide, the Women's stand-up comedy awards, a dark drama about bulimia nervosa and the Chippendales. I had scored a leaflet for The Scottish National Trust's Georgian House in Charlotte Square.

Later that evening, in an iconoclastic defiance of stereotype, I woke up Mrs Botogol to take her to the Supper Club in the Assembly Rooms at Midnight. I promised her relaxing cabaret, soulful jazz, tearful blues, the whole spiced with erudite and witty comedy. What we got was sub-1930s Berlin Cabaret, but more squalid and more low-brow. It's a good job we are broad-minded.

The lowlight of the show was the German MC in wig who sang songs of unbearable crudity, without rhyme or metre and totally devoid of wit. Perhaps in the original German they rhymed

The highlight? Well, Mrs Botogol told me not to mention the pale stripper who excitingly fought her way out of a gigantic parcel in a bikini (the stripper, not the parcel) for Mrs Botogol doesn't like strippers. So let's, rather, go with the middle-aged luridly eye-shadowed black man, 23 stone if he was a kilogram, encased from top to tail in a neon-pink lycra body suit, singing... well, I quite forget what he was singing, I was too busy shrinking into my chair trying to avoid attention, for I recognised him - indeed he knew us - for he was none other than the big guy who had plonked down in front of us earlier, and politely apologised for blocking Mrs Botogol's view "Don't worry, I'll be going in a moment".

Now on stage he picked us out of the crowd with no trouble and beamed and waved enthusiastically, flickering his mascara eyelids at us, until the music stoppped. I knew what was coming next.
"So what's your name dear", he asked me, "yes, yes, I do mean you"

I swallowed, sat up straight and looked him firmly in the eye: "I'm Brad Majors, and this is my fiancee, Janet Weiss"

Bon Mots

picture by divedi

The citations in the Oxford Book of Quotations must be a google-game now..... "That's a good! I wonder when they said it first. . . . so, let's see...ooh look, somebody blogged it in 2008"

So here's two for posterity....

Kelvin Mackenzie "I like rich people, I wish there were more of them - I'm fed up of being surrounded by the dim and skint" At the Intelligence2 debate on taxing the rich (more)

Lisa Reichelt "We registered his domain name before we registered his birth" At Interesting2008, on having a child in the digital age

I was there.

(Aside - could you make money by cybersquatting names? Could a shortage of domain names reinforce the trend for silly-made-up-ones? Like botogol?)

Interesting2008

photo by rooreynolds

Well it was .... well, what do you know: it actually was interesting.

It was also a little bit thirtysomething, Mrs Botogol and I must have been - what? - 10 years above the average age. Well, judge for yourself, there we are in the picture... if you can spot us.. Either way, I was glad I had had my one-and-a-half on Thursday.

Twenty-Nine speakers, with between 4 and 20 minutes each on a range of topics from Lego (a highlight) to Winston Churchill; from Acoustic Cosmology (cough) to scotch eggs and all led by the lugubrious yet excitable Russell Davies

I guess eclectic is the appropriate word.

My favourite: a cleverly constructed ten minutes from Matt Webb where a stream of apparently random ideas dovetailed together to prove that before the Europeans arrived there was a different sort of physics in Patagonia. Yes, you at the back, you can smile.... but....

A lowlight: don't you just hate Mexican Waves?

An interesting fact: did you know that horses have a great big blind-spot right in front of their faces? Given that this is an animal capable of forty-miles an hour that seems to pretty much spell curtains for intelligent design.

I spent the breaks planning my smash-hit appearance at Interesting2009. But what to talk about? I am torn between My-experience-on-the-fourth-plinth, and J P Alibert: Hero of Botogol

The dawn of Blogger power

dead at computer by badcompany_6

I had that Perry de Havilland on my blog once.

I don't suppose he's a regular reader of Green Ideas, but I still read him and it was odd to see him in the flesh Curbing the Crap Artists at the Adam Smith Institute this evening, sharing a table with giants of the blogosphere Guido Fawkes and Tim Worstall.

Politics neeks and blogging geeks are strange breeds and there were many of them (us?) crammed in a tiny front room, directly off the street. When each person spoke he (there were few women) introduced himself not by his profession but by his blog. As well as Samizdata, Devil's Kitchen, Englishman's Castle, Spinwatch, Great Simpleton, Despatchblog were all there although, much to my disappointment even surrounded as I was by early adopters, I spotted no one live-blogging, twittering or even rickrolling

From the panel it was all heady stuff: new technologies are empowering the common man to confound his betters armed the sword of accuracy, the rifle of knowledge, the rapier of complaint, the dagger of wit and, unfortunately also, the rubber cosh of coarse language. The blogosphere may be small but it's influential, it punches above its weight, it shines sunlight into the hideouts of the corrupt, and it exposes the ruses of the self-important.

Well, I'm buying it.

Tim Worstall's careful cynicism failed to conceal an infectious optimism for the growing power and influence of the ordinary blogger. Guido Fawkes - the rhythm, and cadences of his speech sounding unexpectedly and uncannily like Diane Abbot - bewailed the multiple failings of politicians and their trough-sharing lobby, but was strangely subdued compared to his lively on-line persona, while Perry de Haviland eschewed Samizdata's natural political stamping grounds for a paen to the new power of the complaining customer.


I'd like to hang out with those blogging guys. Perhaps I should quit procrastinating and start that single issue political blog I've been thinking about off and on this last year. (I've got an idea... and I know the time is right) But the thing is, I told Mrs Botogol over a London Pride and sun-dried tomato sandwich, I'd have to quit my indescribable job to find the time. If, that is, the credit crunch doesn't get me first.

Mrs B opined that I could, instead, quit surfing the net and emailing her 'interesting' tidbits all day long and use that time saved to write my blog from work.

Its not such a bad idea.

Diffordence

I will admit: I don't get invited to many album launches and it was with some diffidence that Mrs Botogol and I presented ourselves at the firmly-closed front door of Hurst House in Covent Garden. on Friday.

Before knocking I glanced again at my printed-out email

From: Chris Difford
Subject: Boo Hewerdine
Message: ...says your tickets are at the door

It didn't seem, well, it didn't seem very official. It didn't seem very authentic. Are all album launches publicised this way? What is it like to given the bum's rush? And what exactly is a bum's rush anyway? Does it hurt?

In last minute change of heart, and clothes I took off my jumper and stuffed it into my rucksack, wishing one more time that au pair hadn't ironed a crease into the front of my black jeans; and I knocked.

"I'm Botogol", I said, "and this is my wife"

And that was it - we were in: a small subterranean room, one corner cleared for action and, in another, a bar dispensing London Pride and chilled chardonnay. In other words: perfect. There were about 80 other assorted misfits there: Difford fans, Hewerdine fans and Paul Gambaccini.

The beers were free, so I had seven of them, and it was with blurry eyes that I caught sight of a familiar face - "She looks like Rosalie Deighton", I ventured to Mrs Botogol "Don't be silly dear - she is Rosalie Deighton". The room suddenly felt very hot.


It was with some some more diffidence that a round-looking Chris Difford eventually took the stage heading a four-person band of whom only the lean-looking Boo appeared completely relaxed and confident. An inappropriate anecdote about an inappropriate T-Shirt only compounded the unease and it was with some relief that the band eventually broke into music with the entertaining Fat as a Fiddle

(here's the official video)

The theme of the album is age: Difford's rapid-fire, quick-witted story-songs tell of memories, regrets, physical decay, nostalgia and missed opportunities.

My Mum played piano... she loved Gracie Fields
she would have been famous.. but we dragged at her heels

It was Squeeze, but submerged with a certain bleakness. Is that's what's life is like in our 40s? On stage Chris fiddled self-consciously with his old-man glasses, apologised for the coarseness in his lyrics, and shifted uneasily when he mentioned Squeeze and the old days. A softer, sadder version of Up The Junction didn't break the mood, either.

I liked it!

The album is called the Last Temptation of Chris, and is written by Chris and Boo, which is actually an intriguing combination when you think about it: how to combine Chris' long, densely-packed story lyrics with Boo's concise idea-in-a-single-phrase style?

At the launch there was no publicity material so it was impossible to determine who wrote what, but while Battersea Boys, and Fat as a Fiddle seemed all Chris, I fancied I detected Boo's style in When I am on my own I'm never bored. (I am probably hopelessly wrong)

Set list (so far as I can remember)

Fat as a Fiddle
Battersea Boys
On My Own I'm never bored
Never Coming Back
My Mother's Handbag
Up the Junction
Take Me I'm yours
End of the Party

The album launches Monday,but you can hear a few tracks on Chris's myspace page, and some previews on 7digital - via this clever little widget:

After the gig was finished we went to Asia de Cuba for a margarita. Because we could.

Smiles and Goodbyes

It's not often that Mrs Botogol and I go to the pub of a Friday evening, but last Friday we did: we found ourselves with a small window of time: after some oohing and aahing at a riverside firework display and some 'yes, butting' at John Humphrys In Search of a Decent Mic, and prior to collecting a Botogol child from a party (100 noisy teenagers crammed into a biggish suburban Victorian house, all texting their absent friends).

"D'you know what I fancy doing, Mrs B", I said, "in this snatched and precious child-free hour we find that we have together?"

"Scrabble, I suppose?" she said, not entirely unenthusiastically.

"Nope", I said , "well, actually, later on, yes, possibly, but nope: right now I fancy going down the pub, so fetch your coat".

An old joke, but a good one, and a cheap laugh is always worth a smack round the back of the head. That's what my Dad says, anyway.

So that's how, dear reader, we found ourselves sharing a jumbo packet of cheese and onion in the Twickenham Tup, snucked up hard against each other on a large leather sofa shared with two spotty teenagers, all of us watching the house band Cambio strum out their very own version of Babylon (yes, indeed: they made it their own)

I say 'band': it was actually two kids with guitars; and less Pet Shop Boys - more Flight of the Conchords.

To be frank I thought Their Good Riddance (Time of your Life) worked better than their Moonlight in Vermont but, at the end of day, I'm a sucker for live music of all sorts and as Mrs Botogol sagely observed: if they haven't ever rehearsed Mustang Sally they can't really be expected to play it for any random bloke in the pub just because he shouts loudly, now can they?

So it came to pass last Friday evening, while two unappreciative old men in a far corner of the cavernous suburban pub nursed their quiet pints of London Pride, unseeing, unhearing and while, behind the bar, three strappy-topped young barmaids danced and pranced, Mrs B and myself, on our leather sofa shared with two young texting teenagers, well: we rocked.

While we rocked our sofa-companions texted blurry camphone pictures to absent friends, and eventually I went off to the bar for two more glasses of Australian Pinot Grigio before the second set, then at 10.25 we had to put our coats on and left: no encores, no cheers, no vote of thanks, no epitaphs, we just slipped away.

I'd honour Cambio with a link, but they appear to be the only band in the Western Hemisphere without a page on MySpace

John Humphrys, since you ask, was rubbish. Well, for anyone who, perhaps, hadn't realised that Humphrys has met quite a few famous people, some of whom have been mildly funny, it would have been a revelation. But for the other 569 people in the building, the ones who had come to this Book Festival event hoping to hear about his book it was a tad disappointing. "Thank you very much Mr Humphrys", said the hapless MC sending Humphrys off into the deep, dark night with a few well chosen words, "for coming here to talk about your book. Although you didn't actually say much about it did you?"


We could hear the teenage party a good three roads before we got to it: music, voices and dancing, merged with the bleeps of incoming text messages and missed calls. In the shadows of the front garden our particular teenager answered her call, and we set off for home. What was the party like, we wondered "It promised a lot, Dad, but yielded little"

We took the short-cut home, over the railway station bridge, and it was there, high above the platforms and the electrified tracks, in the neon gloom of an autumn night that we spotted our S J Harvey's peculiar and poignant notice, and we paused, and we hurried on.

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There have been 107 green ideas since I started in Oct 2006, and it's been a lot fun.

I'm not stopping now, not exactly, but I have a new project in mind and I'm not sure I will have time to manage both. If the new thing works I'll be back in the new year, I reckon; if it doesn't - well perhaps next week. Or perhaps once a month.... or once a week :-)

I know what I like...

...and I like what I know.

Without a hint of a shadow of a doubt, the absolute best part of an all-round excellent gig by Genesis at Twickenham last week was Phil's tambourine dance solo in the rain. Not because it was funny - which it was - not just because the dance is a traditional feature of Genesis live - which it is - but because of the heart-wrenching, unashamed, sentimental, sheer bloody nostalgia that led the band to put on, on the big screen behind him, footage of a younger, hairier, bearded Phil from the 1970s doing the exact same dance.

You can make it out here (just about)



Before Sunday, the last time I saw Phil Collins live was about 2004. I was on my own in New York for a weekend and Phil was playing Madison Square Garden on the Friday. Unaccountably no one I knew at work wanted to come with me, so I went alone.

It's not great going to a concert on your own at the best of times, but evening was really made up when I found myself sitting a row of seats that seemed to have been reserved specially for lonely, billy-no-mates-losers like myself: the entire row of seats were singles; every single one of the occupants were male. On my left was a vast middle-aged baby from New Jersey, at least 300lbs, dressed like a seven-year old in pink t-shirt and billowing shorts, sucking on the teat of bottle of isotonic sports fluid. On my right was a Korean who had brought his laptop.

How desperately I wanted Phil to realise that I was with them, but not of them.

The audience in Twickenham were completely different, hardly geeky at all :-)

Boo Hewerdine

An enthusiastic band of the faithful squashed into the noisy back room of the Cabbage Patch pub in Twickenham on 26^th November, for a lively gig from a witty and on-form Boo Hewerdine.

Belying the slightly uncomfortable performance on his 'Live One' album, and his sometimes brooding on-stage presence behind Eddi Reader, Boo smiled and joked his way through a baker’s dozen of songs accompanied by the winsome, if breathless, Rosalie Deighton on vocals, and the talented fast-learner Dave Marks on bass.

The small back-room at the Patch, which doubles as the home of Twickenham Folk Club each Sunday night is intimate in the way a top oven is intimate, and it's hardly an ideal venue for a softly-spoken singer. Indeed, from time to time in the gig Boo, like Rosalie before him was accompanied by the not-so-faint sound of bar chatter the other side of the door, and occasional crashing of saucepans from the nearby kitchen. The lack of space was such that come the interval, the trio were forced to hide, hilariously, behind a velvet curtain - hapless Manie Krugers: ‘off-stage’ but with feet and elbows clearly visible.

Nevertheless the homely surroundings seemed to suit Boo, perhaps in some part accounting for the stronger, meatier delivery than typically heard on his records – and beneath the plaintiveness and sadness easily associated with Boo’s music, on this hearing I detected a thread of anger running through the gig, beginning in a powerful Bell, Book and Candle (complete with introductory Emmerdale synopsis), and continuing through to Slow Learner, normally dismissed as slightly too self-pitying, which came alive with the added bite. (Has Eddi recorded this song? I think it would suit her).

That’s not too say our heartstrings went untugged. Teasing his audience by inviting requests (‘Nope, sorry, it’s got to be the one that’s in my head already’) Boo seized on a thrown-out shout of Ontario to set up a trio of ‘dead puppies’:

Ontario, complete with slightly anomalous sing-along chorus, segued smoothly into Murder in the Dark, Boo's depressing, pessimistic picture of married life, and then (abandoning any pretence of requests now) a tight I Felt Her Soul Move Through Me finished the section. Credited on the album to Hewerdine/Reader/Henderson/Dodds, to my mind this song is nevertheless Boo’s own - and possibly his finest. Written after the death of Boo’s mother and Eddi’s father in just a short space of time, it’s a simple but powerful piece with clever and subtle images. Hearing anything sung live often brings out different aspects, and this time the couplet ‘Too late I landed / To say goodbye’ suddenly struck me as the keystone of this short song.

But it wasn’t all miserable. We enjoyed Patience of Angels and - this being a folk club after all - Boo obliged with a new song Harvest Gypsies written for up-and-coming folk artist, Kris Drever as well as the sentimental favourite Follow my Tears; the choruses of all accompanied by an enthusiastic audience.

Boo finished with Peacetime, which will be the title song of Eddi’s new album out in January. Peacetime’s not a new song - it’s on Anon. I’d never really thought of it as a ‘protest song’ before, but that’s how Boo described it, neatly extending and tying off the angry thread that I detected weaving in an out of all his songs that evening.

Boo has recorded eight albums with Eddi, and he told us that Peacetime is the best of the lot. Listening to the song last night it wasn’t hard to imagine it with a Simple Soul type arrangement, with Eddi’s vocals soaring over the top.

A new album! Eddi Reader sings the songs of Boo Hewerdine, perhaps? A great prospect.

Boo’s on tour for a while longer on his own before he joins up with Eddi in the New Year. See him if you can.

Rosalie Deighton

Set List

Stone in your shoe
Bell Book and Candle
Harvest Gypsies
Patience of Angels
Slow Learner
59 Yards
Honey be Good

Follow My Tears
Ontario
I felt her soul move through me
Murder in the Dark
16 Miles
Peacetime