Yes, I saw Ultravox, live at the Roundhouse in London, at the end of April. I came all the way from Greensboro, North Carolina to see them (and do a conveniently timed hen party, too) and they were worth every cent spent. Sadly, I only took one photo that night and it was in the toilet of the Barfly (not of me)…not very reflective really but then again I was much too busy being stunned by actually seeing Midge Ure in person.

Set lists and videos of the show abound so I won’t bother with that here. My lovely friend Mr. Brian Turner came into town from Scotland to come with us, dressed to the nines as always. We spoke with a few other concert attendees before the show and did some admiring of some truly amazingly gravity-defying hair on some Germans. We got in nice and early, suffering through the opening act…the poor girl was lovely but sang too much about peace, something I really didn’t give a crap about as I wanted to hear The Voice, and now!! I’m happy to report that the show greatly exceeded my expectations, which were quite high really…I mean, it was Ultravox! They really can’t go wrong, and they didn’t.

What made the show for me was that the band seemed to honestly be very, very emotional about the response from the crowd. I’ve never seen a crowd like that, where everyone was moving and singing and just getting into everything. I’m more used to the ones where we all stand around trying not to dance. This was heaven.

Money well spent, I’d say.

Here goes!

1.I think w is a vowel. Seriously. It obviously IS a vowel. Sure, it has to be combined with another vowel to become a vowel, but I think that’s good enough. I don’t care how stupid that belief is, I’ll freaking argue it until the day I die an awful death. See how the w in awful is a vowel? Um, and it’s a vowel in the word vowel too.

2.I have a massive teeth fetish. OK that doesn’t mean that I like massive teeth…I just really like people’s teeth, especially when they’re a bit jacked up. Yes, I like a busted up grill. When I saw The Raveonettes live (well they WOULD be live if I saw them, we’re not talking about Kraftwerk) in Seattle in 2007, I already had the big pants for the lead singer. However, when I noticed that he was missing a tooth (and not a prominent one), I loved him even more. Even Ciaran‘s nonstop comments about the hotness of the girls in the opening band couldn’t annoy me enough to stop focusing on him. On the lead singer of The Raveonettes, not Ciaran for god’s sake. I think Bowie looked much better before he got those puppies fixed, actually. I will go ahead and tell you that I draw the line at a total lack of teeth or a mouthful of rotten ones, so you won’t see me with my tongue hanging out over Shane Macgowan or Shaun Ryder. Now I really want to head back to England soon…

I like him better this way

3.I once attended the birthday party of a pig named Mr. T. He has since taken the big dirt nap. Well, actually, he’s been stuffed and is standing guard over his owner’s store according to my sources, who, knowing a pig named Mr. T, may be a bit questionable. Because of Mr. T, I have never stopped wanting to own a large pig who could wear a tutu and accompany me about town. Who’s gonna mess with someone walking a pig??

4.My first “date” with my husband took place at a moonshine joint where the proprietors had caged an opposum (I refuse to call it a possum) and were poking it with a stick to make it hiss, which it did with great showing of scary teeth (again with the teeth.) On the way back home, Jay’s uncle sang gospel and swerved a lot. Oddly, this didn’t put me off.

5.I used to hide in the basement, make lots of noise, and wait for my Grandma to come check on things, placing my hand over the light switch so that I could grab her hand and scream when she came down the stairs. Even though I did this regularly for about 10 years, she never caught on. I also dropped pennies in her mouth when she was asleep and once ate one of her menthol cigarettes.

6.When I got my first car, I immediately drove it to Greensboro, where I live now, and bought a Smiths bumper sticker at the record shop, like you do when you get your first car. I came back home, went inside and had a Chef Boyardee pizza most likely, then listened as my dad told me how the idiots who’d sold us the car had put a damned bumper sticker with their name on it on my car, so he’d ripped it off. I went back the next day to replace it. In fact, I bought many others (Corrosion of Conformity, Sisters of Mercy, Christian Death, Death in June, etc….those were my dark days people!) and a lovely rubber bat which I hung from the rearview mirror. A few weeks later, my dad’s car broke down and he had to drive my death rock Mazda to work for a few days, dressed in his tweed suit and heading into his insurance office. He said he got a lot of odd looks. Served him right really.

7.I have an utter inability to be rude to someone in person. I can be a bit snide online, but if I have to look at someone, there’s just no way. This excludes my husband, of course, although I imagine he’d never admit than I am anything less than perfectly charming all the time. I’ll cuss someone out in my mind but when that person’s asking if I am ok, I will lie through my teeth because my absolute worst fear is being rude to someone, whether or not it’s well deserved. There have seriously been maybe 5 occasions when I have been outright rude to someone in person. I will admit to saying seriously rude things about men who take yoga and wear those large Hammer pants, and I’ve been known to refer to hippie stores as PMS bongo shops, but never to anyone’s face! God almighty I’d never do that. I even have to invent stories for why I won’t buy those stupid candy bars from the kids who hang out at the door to Marshalls, because just saying “no thank you”, to me, feels rude as all heck. I’m about to undergo therapy for this.

Now for my next trick, I’ll tag 3 unfortunate people…yes, I’m supposed to tag 7 but considering I’ve been tagged twice, I have to break it down because honestly, I don’t have that many friends.

Gene Wicker Jr. (yes, again)
DD Kenny
Christian Exoo

Laurie Anderson

There are few performances that I attend where, at some point, I’m not wishing that the damned thing would just end…and some where I spend the whole time wondering what I’m going to wear tomorrow, or thinking about whether or not I uploaded the changes in my robots.txt file. However, Laurie Anderson’s Homeland, which I was lucky enough to attend last week, was one of those amazingly rare instances that I wanted to go on and on…

First of all, if you’ve never seen her live, you should seek her out. Seriously. Her blend of political and social commentary with truly sublime music is about as close to perfect as you could get. She’s never preachy, or TOO in your face about things, but she definitely makes you think, and makes you feel like she could look right through you. Her “Only An Expert” is absolutely mindblowing in its simplicity, yet it speaks volumes about American culture and its desire to focus on problems and solutions, without really doing a damned thing. Here’s a video from last year’s performance…

I take dreadful photos usually, but I do still make the effort, unless the bands are so insanely good that I can’t be bothered to take the time to look away in order to figure out how to turn the flash off. The photos here are from Gene, my show companion and close friend. OK so on to The Big Sleep! I can’t really describe them accurately, unfortunately. They were hard. They were kinetic, they were LOUD, and they were truly and utterly magnificent. I love female bass players (and drummers, can’t forget Georgia!) and I love bands who look so intense when they play, that you feel almost worn out by the time the song ends. Their set went by way too quickly, but I did manage to drunkenly stagger up to the front and buy both of their cds, which fully live up to the sound they had live.

They are a threesome, from Brooklyn NY, with listed influences like Led Zeppelin and Funkadelic, both of which were quite apparent. I thought they sounded a lot like “Red“-era King Crimson, but none of my show companions agreed, being nasty people who enjoy arguing. Their drummer, the lovely Gabe (according to their MySpace page) was soaked with sweat within about 30 seconds of the first song, so I was as happy as a clam. Clem Burke can go to hell now. I’ve no need for him.

You don’t find many rock stars that seem all that nice these days. NONE of them seem to be all that funny either…the members of YLT are definitely an exception to this, however. They honestly seem like the kind of people that you’d want to come over for dinner. OK so I’ll stop gushing and say that I wish I had some good photos, but due to the lighting of the show, it was quite difficult to get anything of value with the flash off. I’m nothing if not respectful.

Recommended song to tell you how great they are: Sugarcube. It’s truly one of the best songs ever recorded.

An amazing songwriter by the name of Kurt Wagner (frontman of the Nashville alt-country band Lambchop) was the opening act. My idiot husband and his friend almost fell asleep but no one said that either of them has good taste. Luckily, Gene Gene the Dancing Machine loved it, as did I, and we’re already becoming big fans of this guy. He was like Randy Newman and Wilco and Warren Zevon and David Sylvian all rolled up in one person. If you have the chance to catch this show, DO it. You won’t regret it, as long as you stay awake.

Gang of Four toured last year so you may have seen them or heard some of their stuff in case you missed them way back when. I highly recommend just about anything they have ever done though, but their cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” is probably one of the best covers ever. OK it IS one of the best. “To Hell With Poverty” is my favorite…check out the video. Their style is insane. I don’t recommend trying to run on a treadmill whilst listening to them though…rhythms will knock you flat.

Then there is Magazine…another amazing band that a lot of people have never heard of. I like bald so I really dig anything with Howard Devoto embarrassingly enough. Here’s a video of my favorite Magazine song, “Song From Under the Floorboards.”

My lack of posting to this blog has more to do with the fact that I’m not usually a fan of new music than my general laziness about writing. The most exciting news that I’ve heard lately is that Siouxsie Sioux is coming out with a solo record. However, I’m not holding my breath that it’s going to be mindblowing. It will probably be better than most crap out there since she’s insanely good at what she does, but solo albums, as a rule, are not my thing. Still, she’s looking good and I look forward to hearing her newest release. It’s coming out September 11th, 2007 and you can currently pre-order it at Amazon…a bit pricey though as this is an import for us in the US.

Kate Bush hopefully needs no introduction but she seems to inspire either insane devotion or total hatred amongst people I know. Those of us who are rabid fans love everything from her theatrical performances to her operatic voice, but I know of several people I was in college with who wanted to kill me every time I played her music. In terms of rock goddesses, she has so much class that I hestitate to even list her. Not saying the others don’t but Kate has something different really. She was one of my idols back in high school–I think it was the hair. You don’t see anyone with that level of creativity anymore, which is quite a shame!

Here’s the video for “Wuthering Heights”–probably the best piece of music she’s ever done. Possibly one of the best pieces of music ANYONE has ever done honestly…