zotz: (Default)
zotz ([personal profile] zotz) wrote2004-03-14 10:00 pm

Cider with ZooMusicGirl

Why isn't there a band called Mexican Shitbath? This is, of course, a reference to Steve Bell's excellent "If . . ." cartoons, and the one on Friday in particular. I may scan it at some point. Why doesn't the man have a bloody website,then?



It was a good weekend. It was a very good weekend. I picked Fiona up from the airport sometime during 1925 and brought her back to the flat for a mixed veggie fry-up and grill, and then Complicity, from Alphabet Video round the corner, which has for all of the (nearly?) decade it's been there has been about the best video shop I've come across. For a single shop unit it has a staggering array of films out on display, and I was solemnly told that they have almost as much again hidden somewhere, so I should ask if there was anything I was looking for. They don't try the usual stunt of having fifty copies of whatever's just come out. Instead, they have much more world, art and genre cinema than they do of the more mainstream stuff. Well, this is Marchmont, after all. Presumably there's a more extreme version of this down in Stockbridge, but I've never lived there. Anyway, we both claimed to like the film (which I notice featured both of the actresses who starred in Tipping the Velvet a couple of years later), although it could have done with being a bit longer. I had been threatening to make popcorn, but it didn't end up happening.

Saturday started fairly late with mushroom pate on toast, with newspapers and tea. After we'd had as much useful as we could from that, we went for a walk, with the notional goal of finding the first two issues of a comic Fiona's after. The first didn't seem to be in evidence, although deadhead and FP both had the second. We dropped into Greyfriar's churchyard for a brief walk (William McGonagall's buried there, you know) and then bumped into Charlie (Clang!) and Ken (Clang!) just outside, on their way from the comic (or maybe rôle-playing) thing at Teviot. After a further walk down to Princes Street, into a couple of shops and then back up through Princes Street Gardens (I hadn't realised that the ugly fountain is actually cast-iron and was made for the Great Exhibition), up the Kings Stables Road steps, up Lothian Road to Tollcross and home.

A brief trip out to take the DVD back and pick up a couple of snacks (miniature pecan pie for me) from Haddows and then it was roughly time to think about the evening. The rôle-playing (or maybe comic) thing (as already mentioned, in Teviot) had two or three bands on afterwards, and after that a short bit of discoing by myself and the usual associates. I'm not sure who was behind the whole thing. I suspect that GEAS was involved if there was a rôle-playing angle, and the evening entertainment was billed as .Conception, which implies the Goth & Rock society (EdGAR to its friends). Usually EdGAR would have its own DJs, so it was a bit odd to find ourselves working for them, but not odd in any unpleasant sense as they're a good bunch. Anyway, a quick call to Seth and Lara told me the times, and after flirting with the idea of dropping our stuff off and going to Kushi's (fine Indian restaurant - first in Edinburgh, apparently. Established about 1947) across the road, we decided we were too hungry and set to making dinner. Mushroom Stroganof was perpetrated, and then I looked out a couple of boxes of records and we headed over. Everything seemed to be working, including the decks (Fliss, who I think was organising it, said she's never used a turntable, of any flavour. Oh well). They were the inevitable 1210 mk2s, so of course they worked perfectly. I shouldn't have worried. Most of the old lighting-rig is gone. All that's left these days are the roboscans, which really isn't enough. The old pinspots and parcans at least had the virtue of being more powerful than the lights behind the bar.

We didn't hang around for the bands, but went over to the Monkey (Tobias' birthday, apparently) and when we saw how crowded it was, the Auld Hoose, which had [livejournal.com profile] fuzzygoth and his brother in attendance. Looking at the jukebox, it struck me how appropriate the name Evanescence is for a band who have one hit and then evaporate. It also struck me, when looking at the bar, that more pubs should have Addlestones and Caley 80/- on tap.

We got back to the Park Room in time to catch the end of the last band (789 lemmings called Ermintrude, or something similar[1]). Actually, they didn't seem at all bad, if you like fast punky bands. Which I do.

It took us two or three records to persuade people that they did indeed fancy dancing, and it went pretty well. I wasn't at all convinced that we'd persuade anyone to come along or stay, but quite a few apparently had nothing better to do that lounge around in the Park Room until three, which is quite gratifying. We played the usual nonsense, including a couple of McGeoch tracks (Monitor and . . .Under the Floorboards). And so to bed.

Today started even later, which torpedoed the suggested noon breakfast at the Elephant and Bagel with Lara, Seth and possibly others (breakfast in town at noon? We'd only been awake for fifteen minutes). Actually, we did very little apart from breakfast (applewood-smoked cheddar on toast) and papers before it was time to take Fiona back to the airport. I've just been getting on with the papers and doing some washing-up since then.

The Spanish General Election seems to be going to the Socialists, according to the Beeb. Obviously, being filthy commie pinko lefty whalehugging scum, I'm in favour of this (as opposed to the alternative, at least). I don't really know anything about their party or its leadership, though, so it's an abstract pleased rather than any great joy. Putin seems to be getting back in too, though, which is a touch less pleasing. More deaths in Israel and the Occupied Territories, too. A nice weekend, but the world goes on regardless.

[1] Oh, alright. I think it's closer to "25 cats called Joe".

[identity profile] mrph.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 02:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I've got to agree about Steve Bell. In particular, I wish the "Guantanamo Death Rap" run was online somewhere... :(

[identity profile] steer.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 02:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Evanescence is for a band who have one hit and then evaporate

Ach... very harsh... but which one is the hit? I only listen to the album, never watch the charts and there's two or three which get club play. So which one did well in the charts?

[identity profile] naturalbornkaos.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 02:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, "Bring Me To Life" was the number one hit in the pop charts. They followed it up with the far weaker "Going Under" (confusing choice for a single), which also made it quite high in the charts though AFAIK, and have regained momentum by releasing "My Immortal" as the new single, and it's a top track...

I will probably lose all cred in your eyes by saying this but... I really like the album. :o

[identity profile] childeric.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 03:11 pm (UTC)(link)
They're ok, but a bit wussy. An All About Eve for the noughties, really.

[identity profile] nisaba.livejournal.com 2004-03-15 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
I downloaded a whole bunch of songs and liked them until I'd heard them about 3-4 times and they all blurred into one... "Evanescence", as [livejournal.com profile] zotz mentioned, certainly sums up my experience of them. Now I have to admit to finding most of their stuff boring and I want to delete most of it, except for like 1 or 2 songs that do sound different but I haven't yet worked out which ones amongst the blandness that they are.

[identity profile] naturalbornkaos.livejournal.com 2004-03-15 11:36 am (UTC)(link)
Weird, I found it the other way round. I bought the album on the strength of "Bring Me To Life", listened to it a couple of times and thought "bleh, all sounds the same". I went back a few weeks later and had another go at it and found it got better and better with each listen!

I do agree it's it walks the fine line between grandiose and WAY overcooked and perhaps it's not the most challenging or original record ever, but it's got some very nice lyrics and I do really like their 'sound' (ie: it sounds just like Lacuna Coil ;)).

[identity profile] steer.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh yes... that's the one with "wake me up" as a repeated theme? Come to think of it that does get more play than Tourniquet (which I prefer - coz it has that amusing mispronunciation thing) -- I've definitely also heard Going Under played in clubs. Blame the fact that I don't pay much attention to charts. Did it really get to number one then?

[identity profile] childeric.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Oo, Mazza does that too. So you'd rhyme 'tourniguet' with 'fishnet' or 'etiquette', then, would you, Brian? And for a brief while I thought you were actually quite clever. Oh, but bless, poor colonials know not what they do....

[identity profile] steer.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
I like it... and when Covenant sing "gilly o'teen"...

[identity profile] childeric.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Oo, yes. Go, Eskil! Do you have a copy of 'Machines are us'? Is it any good?

[identity profile] steer.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
It's going to be on my next Music Non Stop order... (can't think how i forgot it from the last one).

[identity profile] zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
TheMmushroom Stroganoff was delicious. I am quite jealous of you having leftovers for dinner tonight.

Thanks for a fantastic weekend, and for teaching me to dj.

xxx

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/ 2004-03-14 02:57 pm (UTC)(link)
more pubs should have Addlestones and Caley 80/-
Yes.

Note to self, must actually go to Edinburgh sometime. Maybe if the Telco and I part company.
ext_52479: (Default)

[identity profile] nickys.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
> breakfast in town at noon? We'd only been awake for fifteen minutes

Ah, the nostalgia....

Sounds just like one of my trips to Edinburgh to see [livejournal.com profile] original_aj before we got married....

[identity profile] original-aj.livejournal.com 2004-03-14 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Not only was the Huge Ugly Fountain thing done for the Great Exibition, it was done ny the same artist who did the ones in la Place de la Concorde, Paris (France for colonial readers...) I like the ones they kept in France better.

Have you got the scanner working yet?