| days
in the life... November 1999 ...its cold and the world is still a nasty
place - what can a 20th century girl do but go out to play, get warm and get happy?
it was good to attend the steve lamacq fantasy record panel thingy at liverpool sound city
and learn from the show of hands that only a few people in the room first found out about
bands from the radio, only a few from the music media and that nearly the whole room found
out through word of mouth! hooray for fanzines etc!
went to the bonkers snuff gig at
the london astoria on thursday - this band, who have no media profile, packed the place
out and proved the previous night's show of hands correct!
there are some fantastic music
scenes going on that aren't "fashionable" enough to be written about. shame, cos
some legendary nights out get missed by people who may really enjoy them...
on the saturday night a lot of
people were dressed up for halloween, we were on our way to see the duvals and
fatty jones at the bull & gate (party pam, lucy, the ag, steve, jenny and stresshead-kath as remy zero call her). the house of rock wrecking crew were all out, as well as our mates erika, carly and
sarah, and a percentage of revellers from briton ferry/neath, on a saturday
night "berserk". one of the lads from neath was the spitting image of kelly jones, which didn't go un-noticed (continually!) in london! the duvals pulled, due to illness, but fatty jones were still
able to rock the foundations of the venue with their first london gig. our mate mack the lovely was so impressed that he asked them if he could manage them as they walked
off stage...
sunday was also eagerly awaited and
that evening i was looking at a dark stage with around twenty flashing halloween
pumpkin-heads waiting for a band to come on. of course the band matched the occasion. the
lights went up and jeffrey, cedric, cinjun, gregory and shelby were all halloween heads
and make up. remy zero are so cool that their costumes only accentuated the eerier aspects
of their music. we were treated to the delight of songs from villa elaine and much more. i
was on level one balcony, jigging like a loony (you get put out of your seat, and behind a
little wall if you actually dance as purple spice and i discovered seeing mansun
at shepherds bush empire once). remy zero had certainly picked up quite a few travis fans
on this tour and were more loose-limbed and relaxed than their first uk shows months ago,
really rocking out and enjoying themselves, by the end of their set, cinjun was loudly
applauded just for switching from a broken mike - a whole new set of people have
discovered the joy of zero worship. word of mouth rules indeed! after, we were in the pub
next door and so were kelly jones (the real one) and richard jones of stereophonics who
were about to pop next door and see travis, between flights to europe and back every day.
i told them they'd missed remy zero!!! (and kelly that his double was in town!) captain
summers was there and invited them to his new years day party before leaving them to the
"it's them!" subtle-ish stares they were getting.
monday night, groundhog day,
shepherds bush empire again, this night's crowd were thrilled by the poptastic art-nut
sights and sounds of ooberman who were literally scaring some of the travis audience and
obviously delighting loads more! danny was a man possessed! "physics disco"
always reminds me of a song that lennon & mccartney failed to write and was just one
highlight of a set that you couldn't take your eyes and ears off from start to finish. on
the way out to some food after ooberman, bumped into the very gorgeous mark morriss (whose
hair hasn't quite returned from the lunacy of the night of scott's birthday!) and thought
mmmmm fwwwwrrr!
tuesday night was out to play
again, caught the end of melodic bloke, ben christophers and when, about half an hour
later, remy zero came on stage the venue may not have been packed to the rafters but word
of mouth had done it's thing and the atmosphere was that of the second coming with
audience fever pitch increasing with every song (among the devotees was colin greenwood of
radiohead, remy zero have many fellow musicians among their admirers - of course! - and
don't need to wait for the media to really start pushing them) the embassy rooms on 2
november ranks as an amazing musical experience and the gang of us that went (all word of
mouthers) were spluttering in awe for hours after. they all stayed and met them after,
scarily fab musicians rz may be, but engagingly friendly people they are also! everybody
left even more in love.
i walked away from the venue even
happier than i already was cos the lovely sarah h had given me a piece of heaven, i held
in my hand a ticket for the super furry animals gig at brixton academy the next night!
on wednesday morning i arrive home
at ten in the morning, throw clothes off, shower, throw clothes on and am in central
london by half twelve for a pop shin-dig. there i see friends and stars (that marti pellow
bloke from wet wet wet, travis, tony from terrorvision, tim booth from james, keith allen,
macy gray, new order, jo wiley, stereophonics, johnny vaughn, gomez, the beta band, some
rolling stones, chemical brothers, blur etc... and yes blur etc is how the afternoon
became as i downed every free drink that went past on a tray and at 11pm woke up and
wailed as super furry animals had PLAYED! waaaaah! i think i had a good time anyway,
but... but... but...
i sulked long and hard until waking
up next morning and listening to the news; sorrow, tragedy, accidents, an abundance of
natural disasters, inequality, religious strife, sexism, greed, murder, lies/corruption,
bigotry, global warming, gm food, planet destruction, war, ruined lives, cruelty,
homophobia, tittle tattle, abuse, hypocrisy, weapons, money, political bullshit, peace
talks, pollution, rape, unemployment, media standards, injustices, homelessness, y'know
all the usual stuff. whatever next? from despair to where? i sat up and decided to try
harder to be good, spread more love, peace and logic and smile more cos i'm having a good
life. i even do some housework.
my happiness escalates even further
that night as the camden barfly hosts witness to a mo solid gold show. they were solid
gold and as inhibitions were increasingly thrown to the wind as the audience realised its
okay to be superfreaks, they just got higher and higher and so did we. l left on cloud
ten! mama, what a week...
 (the very lovely steve and rich of the beta band at
above mentioned pop shindig- love the hat, it says "if assholes could fly this place
would be an airport" and went great with the huge wooly football scarf - gotta doll
yerself up for these occasions, eh!) more beta at - click between the brackets ( Rocklands B+A Page )
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