Camera Corner

I'm off to Manchester tonight, to see Low, a wonderful slowcore Mormon rock band (enticing, no?). Ben hates them, I think they're one of the best bands of the last 15 years.





I'm taking my camera - and just read this very good guide to taking good shots in such places. The last time I did gig photography (David Wrench and Julian Cope) it came out very well - though my Richard Thompson shots weren't quite as good (but his violinist liked them).

Keep on rocking

After the excitement of almost starting the revolution in Manchester, I found myself crammed into the back of a car with four nerdy pensioners, off to see Richard Thompson at Warwick Arts Centre.

If you don't know his work, he sounds like a nostalgia act: Thompson started out in folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention in the 60s. Then he became a solo folkie, then a double-act with his wife Linda. Then he went rock in the 80s and indie in the 90s. He holds the record for the least copies sold on a major label (Henry the Human Fly, Warner, 1972)

What marks him out from all the other heritage acts is that you don't go to see Thompson hoping he'll reel out all the Fairport tracks or whatever (though it didn't stop my friends high-fiving each other when he played their favourites, sadly). Thompson's still writing fantastic, full-on rock and pop songs which are every bit as good as his back catalogue. Saturday's show was a loud electric affair, in which the new material really stood up. Highly recommended.

More pictures here or click on these ones to enlarge.

This is Richard Thompson

Look into my eye…

Another dull weekend…

I have a huge amount of work to do this weekend: writing lectures and planning seminars. However, I'm finding time to do a few pleasant things:

Rally for Jobs and Education in Manchester: meet outside the Museum on Oxford Road, 10.30 a.m. It'll be boringly tame, but it's important to remind the government that we've neither forgiven nor forgotten. Come along! There's a big one planned for London as well which might be a little more interesting.

Then it's off to see Richard Thompson play a gig in Warwick: he's the backbone of Britain's folk movement. I've seen him a few times and always enjoyed it. Here's June Tabor singing 'Out of Winter' and then Thompson's 'Waltzing's for Dreamers', one of my favourite songs.



Finally, Sunday lunchtime sees Emma and I off to watch Wolves v. Stoke in a cup match. Unfortunately, we could only get tickets in the Wolves end, so I'm going to have to keep my mouth shut as Tuncay smashes his eighth goal past a static Wolves goalie. Alternatively, they could win. I just don't know.

Testing… Testing… 1, 1 2, 1, 1 2

Let's see if this works - then I can torture you all with my 'taste' in music. A gentle one to start with: Deer Friend and Zoot doing 'Waltzing's For Dreamers'

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I used podbean.com - slightly fiddly but got it working in the end.

Weep, you brutes

I'm off home now - the first time in months that I've gone home before 7 p.m. Before I go, I'd like to plug a song I heard for the first time today.

Unfortunately, I can't post The Deer Friend (vocals) with Zoot Horn (guitar) performing 'Waltzing's for Dreamers' utterly heartbreakingly, as this blog can't do sound files. Instead, here's Richard Thompson's original, followed by June Tabor's slow, sadder version - which is still not as evocative as Deer/Horn's version (see what I did there?). I thought I knew a lot of Thompson's stuff, but he always has something more to surprise us. I've just had to buy the Tabor album, The Quiet Eye.

Have a good weekend. I'm calling into the Great Western later, then off to Doves at Delamere Forest tomorrow, so won't be blogging at all until Monday.

Fun-packed weekends

Instead of going to watch Rochdale FC from an executive box (pitch frozen), we ate a lot of cheese, went to Manchester's finest Japanese restaurant and tried not to get annoyed by fashionable types, then went sledging above Heptonstall after paying our respects (!) at the grave of Sylvia Plath. I bought a lot of books and got heckled by lesbians in Hebden Bridge in the style of Drive-By Abuser. All in all, a great weekend.

Apologies to Jo's parents. Despite my best man's speech at their daughter's wedding opening with a Rohypnol joke, they tried to say hello to me at the Richard Thompson gig, but I didn't hear - I feel really bad. 

Oops…

Welcome, fans directed here from Richard Thompson's site. Come for the music criticism - stay for the cheap sarcasm…

For the rest of you, last night I went to Richard Thompson's '1000 Years of Popular Music' show. He's the brilliant folk/rock guitarist formerly of Fairport Convention fame, of whom you should have heard. I was definitely the youngest person in the audience, which was a shame as the show was astonishing. 

I missed the first 15 minutes, so arrived in time for 1603 - madrigals, some Purcell, then a stream of strikers' ballads, music hall, light opera, country, jazz, rock'n'roll, Australian Beatles-light, The Korgis, a Beatles medley (would the purists approve?) and finally a Nelly Furtado track, all sung by Thompson, Debra Dobkin (a cool drumming singer who looked like Marsha from Spaced) and Judith Owen who rather over-egged some of it, such as Down By The Sally Garden. What a raconteur RT is too - almost as good as Julian Cope, who actually made me cry with laughter at the Glee Club a couple of years ago.

Here's Thompson doing his party-piece.