Year: 2007
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Preaching Around The Bush
At the risk of triggering a Dixie Chicks-like backlash, I have to say that George W. Bush is an absolutely appalling public speaker. I’m not saying I necessarily agree or disagree with his policies – as a non-US Citizen (albeit a Permanent Resident) I’m fairly ambivalent to the whole U.S. politics thing – but he really cannot speak for toffee. Every time I’ve seen him on television, he has ummed, ahed, and erred (!) his way through his speech. (For a great example, see What’s Wrong With Bush?.) Despite almost always reading straight from his notes (or autocue) he delivers each speech as… Read more
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Southern Discomfort
After seeing The Road to Psychedelia at the Black Angels gig, I felt compelled to dig into Janis Joplin a bit more. So I ripped my wife’s 3-CD boxed set Janis onto my iPod, and dusted off my copy of Myra Friedman’s book Buried Alive. I’d bought the book almost ten years ago during a spending spree at Tower Books (which also netted me Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, and U2: The Unforgettable Fire, both of which also remain unread) so it was probably a little overdue. Friedman worked for Janis’s record company (Columbia Records) as Janis’s publicity agent. She spent… Read more
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They’re not “just doing their job” – they’re scamming us
So last week, coming back from the Black Angels gig, I got pulled over by the police. I shouldn’t be surprised – I seem to average one ticket a year, and I’d made it to December (actually, November 30th) without getting a ticket so it was about time. What was a surprise is that this wasn’t for speeding! (That radar detector I have is turning out to be money well spent.) This ticket was for “failure to signal” when I turned a corner. That’s right. It was for not using my indicators. At half past midnight, at an almost deserted intersection. … Read more
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Beginning To See The Light
OK, maybe it’s time to admit that I’m finally too old for all of this. Last night I went to see another band – The Black Angels – and I’m starting to feel like I don’t belong. It’s not the music. The band were excellent, and I was shuffling along as enthusiastically as the next person (apart from the guy who was flailing his arms around wildly and making guttural grunts of appreciation at the end of every song, but I put that down to his superior drug intake and not the quality of the music – he would have… Read more
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The Black Angels – The Warehouse, Houston
Despite having heard only a four-track EP by The Black Angels, I thought they’d probably be worth seeing live, so jumped at the chance when they came through Houston. This was again at the Warehouse, but in a different/smaller room than the one I saw The Black Keys in – either that or they have remodeled and significantly downsized. This time the ‘stage’ (a wooden platform that stood at most a foot off the ground) was squashed in a corner of the room, and there were sofas in the ‘audience area’, which I didn’t take as a good sign. The evening… Read more