Friday 2nd of March, 2001
Gill Willis calls about me doing a possible typeface - apparantly it's snowing in Euston. Look out the window. So far snowless.
I take to noodling with the new guitar. i should be practising on the classical - I'm doing a spot at the Bread and Roses tonight, where Tom Robinson is performing. Instead I'm reminding myself that I can play most of UFO's repertoire during the Schenker years. Except Doctor Doctor, for some reason. Probably that it's quite difficult.
Another trip to the supermarket. I have to go so much more now I can't just get a kebab and be done with it, now I have to cook all the time. Now I run out of yoghurt. I never used to run out of yoghurt. I either had it or I didn't. Now, because it's an important component of my breakfast, I run out. I'm going to pretend this is progress towards some kind of maturity.
If you've got this far and decided you're not interested in what I have for breakfast, there's more in the same vein to come (and duller yet), so perhaps you should click this: somewhere else. It will take you somewhere else. I hope you like it.
Back so soon?
So I've been going to the supermarket a lot. Mainly dairy products and fruit. Until recently "Cheese" was orange or yellow, bought as cheaply as possible and eaten in sandwiches. I now have five different kinds of cheese in the fridge, and eat it wherever possible or necessary. This scares me.
Of course, when I go out, the snow hits from Euston. Gill had reported big white flakes, but it's not quite like that - a more urgent kind of snow, more vicious. The inuit undoubtedly have a word. But then Euston's up north, so...
More UFO, cheese sandwiches, Divine Comedy on Front Row. For some reason (like possibly that they've hired Nigel Godrich as producer) they sound like Radiohead. Which is interesting.
I get to the Bread and Roses late, I think, but find Robb Johnson sitting at the bottom of the stairs looking unconcerned, so it's alright. I go up and find the room full of people. It's a nice room, and even nicer when there are people in it. I should talk to the management and see if I can get them installed permanently. It appears that I'm on in the second half. Des de Moor is in charge for the evening, and does a couple of songs to begin with and then introduces the Official Support for the evening (I am Official Floorspot) - Alan Clayson. I describe him as "John Otway's Grandad", not that he is. There is a level of chaos to the performance that could be either calculated or not. It really is difficult to tell. His lead guitarist (who turns out to be Dick Taylor of the Pretty Things) is playing through a Marshall stack whilst everything is virtually acoustic, so there was a definite imbalance there. A bit of an outsider artist himself, Mr Clayson is an officionado as well - it appears that he has written a book about death stars and did an affecting song dedicated to David "Lord" Sutch, of whom he was also a friend, so there. Phil Jeays arrives and informs me that he also did a book about Brel. Not rated amongst Brellistes, but the only one in English, almost, so it has an exaggerated importance.
After the break, another couple of songs from Des and then I'm on. I play it relatively safe and do Secret Agent (with the new "rectal concealment" introduction) and Iodine. It goes really well - lovely supportive audience. Iodine gets quieter and quieter, and seems to work better that way. I suppose I could have (should have?) used it to promote myself, but that would have been... clumsy, out of place, a violation somehow. Goodwill is very important to me in these situations, and somehow the "mailing list... blah blah ... CD ... blah ... buy me, buy me" thing would break that.
Mr Robinson is mighty. Admittedly the room is there to see him, but he more than lives up to it - one box provides backing vocals, another a complete backing to Atmospherics. He calls up Robb Johnson to do a song. He tells the story of doing Yuppie Scum (a translation of Brel's Les Bourgeois) at Eton, and then how he got them to sing along to the chorus of Glad to be Gay - that someone who refuses is obviously a closet. I'm in the front row and sing lustily.
Getting home proves to be a chore - the train that claims to be going via Bank is doing nothing of the sort. My ticket won't let me out at Waterloo, so I have to go south. An announcement at the Bakerloo line says that there won't be a train for an aeon. Try the Northern line, but the announcement board is alternately saying that the train will be arriving in a minute, that it is here and going blank, but with no actual train. And the couple who are beginning their night's congress right there on the platform are beginning to get me down. I go back to the Bakerloo to see if the Aeon is up, and after a couple of minutes it is.
Train littered with drunk people, more snow, bed.