Navy Bean - Don't ask what it means!

Depeche Mode @ Wembley Arena

2006-04-04T12:33:00.000+01:00

I went to see Depeche Mode last night at the newly refurbished Wembley Arena. I first saw them at Hammersmith Odeon in 1984, on their Some Great Reward tour at Hammersmith Odeon. Then again in 1986 at Wembley Arena for their Black Celebration tour. But it's been 12 years since I last saw them live on their World Violation tour, also at Wembley Arena in 1994. I remember that Wembley show as one of the best concerts I've ever been to, despite the fact that we were at the back of the arena, far from the stage.

So far I haven't really got into their latest album Playing the Angel. When I saw the set list on the official site yesterday, it seemed chock full of new stuff. However, apart from Macro, all the songs from the new album sounded great live. So, I'll have to give it another listen. [A note on Macro: For me the songs that Martin sings are either absolutely brilliant, Home and The Things You Said, or rather boring like Macro.]

Speak and Spell was released in 1981, so that means I've been a fan for 25 years. That makes me feel old! Not that Speak and Spell was a great album, the singles New Life and Just Can't Get Enough were good but there were some rather dire tracks on it (Nodisco and What's Your Name - wich the band admitted is their worst ever track and with lyrics like "Hey, you're such a pretty boy, Hey your'e such a pretty boy, You're so pretty" - who can disagree!) written by Vince Clarke who left for different pastures (Yazoo and Erasure). While I have enjoyed Vince's subsequent work, it has to be said that Depeche Mode only became a truly great band once Vince left and Martin Gore became principal song writer.

The car parking at Wembley continues to be a total rip-off. How they can justify what they charge is beyond me, are we funding the new and much delayed Wembley Stadium perhaps? I phoned in the afternoon to see how much it would be (remembering it was about £10 when I saw Anastacia last year) and was told £8-10. Fair enough, at least it hadn't gone up. However, when we arrived they were charging £15. I protested, and repeated the price I had been told on the phone that afternoon. The guy explained that we were in the VIP parking area, which is close to the arena (it wasn't, it was still a 5 minute walk) and that was why it was more expensive. He asked how much money we had, I said £10 and he gave us an £8 ticket and £2 change but we still got to park in the so-called VIP area. :-)

Yesterday I read the message board on their official site and somebody was complaining that on Sunday they were sitting in a block with a bunch of people in their 50s who wouldn't stand up and kept telling him to sit down. Most of the people near me last night and milling around during and after, were in their late 30s/40s (largely male) so I expect this was a younger fan. Honestly how old does he expect fans to be, for a band who have been going for 25 years? If you want to sit down, and one person is standing and obliterating your view it can be annoying as I found out. We were in front block S10, about half way back on the left side and after one song people in front of us stood up, and we had no choice but to join them, if we wanted to see anything. However I must say that, standing is really the only option to experience the show fully, as I'm sure the guy in front of me would agree. He spent most of the evening jumping up and down, whooping and turning round to take a picture of himself and his girlfriend with the stage in the background.

At arena concerts there should be video screens at the side of the stage, otherwise how are the people at the back supposed to see? Those above the stage last night were more for the sake of visuals than anything else, which would have annoyed me if I had been further from the stage. My only other complaint was that the sound wasn't loud enough. I thought it would be as the support act sounded loud from just outside the arena. However, Depeche Mode themselves should have been much louder. Everyone around me was singing a lot of the time (mostly out of tune) and I could hear them above the music most of the time. Maybe he was the same guy who stood in the row in front of me and spent most of the evening jumping up and down, whooping and turning round to take a picture of himself and his girlfriend with the stage in the background.

Depeche Mode came on stage at 21:05 and were on for about 2 hours. Highlights for me were Home (one of my favourites that Martin sings), Policy of Truth, Walking in My Shoes, Enjoy the Silence, Behind the Wheel, Shake the Disease and Never Let Me Down Again. I shall definitely go and see them when they tour again.

Set list

Intro
A Pain That I'm Used To
John The Revelator
A Question Of Time
Policy Of Truth
Precious
Walking In My Shoes
Suffer Well
Macro
Home
I Want It All
The Sinner In Me
I Feel You
Behind The Wheel
World In My Eyes
Personal Jesus
Enjoy The Silence

encore
Shake The Disease
Just Can't Get Enough
Everything Counts

encore #2
Never Let Me Down Again
Goodnight Lovers

Film: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2006

2006-02-18T18:00:00.000Z

This year's festival programme was announced yesterday, and I'm sorry to say that once again I'm not terribly impressed. There's nothing that looks as good as last year's Girl Play or D.E.B.S. Maybe I'm being too nostalgic but it's not like the old days; surely more lesbian and gay movies are being made now but where are they? In years gone by there were real events at the festival, including talks with Donna Deitch (director of Desert Hearts), Sandra Bernhard and sexpert Susie Bright. There are no such events this year.

Yet again the programme has one too many old films, couldn't they find enough new material? There's even a couple of films included that open a few weeks or months before the festival, Transamerica (starring Felicity Huffman) and Brokeback Mountain, which rather smacks of laziness on the part of the festival programmers (now including Del Lagrace Volcano, the transgendered incarnation of lesbian photographer Della Grace). Bring back Cherry Smyth I say!

My biggest gripe is that Imagine Me and You should have opened the festival. Yes, it was probably all down to bad timing as it was due to open on February 17th but recently got pushed back to March 30th. However, its inclusion would have made it a festival to remember, especially if the stars Piper Perabo and Lena Headey had been in attendance.

I haven't received my festival programme from the NFT yet so I have only perused the web site, consequently I may have missed something but here's the most interesting films that I've found so far:

Thursday April 1st
20:00	Happy Endings	Odeon Leicester Square	Opening gala. Yet again the festival is opening with a film that has been available on DVD in the US for at least 6 months, just like last year's Pray for Rock 'n' Roll. I give up!
Saturday April 1st
12:10	Sévigné	NFT2	Not starring Chloe Sevigny unfortunately.
18:30	Unveiled	NFT1	Released on DVD in the US on 18th April
Saturday April 8th
12:00	Show Me	NFT2	Released on DVD in the US on 21st March, so chances are that I won't wait to see this
20:40	The Aggressives	NFT1	I will only see this if I see Show Me, which is doubtful as I will probably get the DVD when it's released
Sunday April 9th
18:10	We Want Gay TV	NFT3	Clashes with About a Girl. I think this one will be the winner though
18:30	About a Girl	NFT1	Clashes with We Want Gay TV, so may not get to see it
Monday April 10th
18:30	El Favor	NFT1
20:30	The Journey	NFT1	Now available on DVD in the US, so I expect I will have seen it by then

Sky+: Solution for Planner Entries with ..searching

2006-02-18T17:09:00.000Z

From time to time you may see ..searching as the name of the programme in the planner, not only is the name missing but the channel is too. If this doesn't right itself by going out of the planner and then back in, you need to fix it by rebooting your box. I posted about this problem on Digital Spy a couple of years ago, and I've just used it to resolve the same problem I've been having with my box for a few weeks now. At first I thought it hadn't resolved it and called Sky but just as I got through I realised the problem was resolved.

Here's the steps required for the solution:

Remove your viewing card
Put the box into standby
Power off the box at the mains
Put your viewing card back in to your box
Wait a couple of minutes
Power on your box at the main
Wait a couple of minutes until the box has rebooted
Go in to the planner
You may still see the entries with ..searching but if you press the Sky button on your remote, then go back into the planner they should be gone.

It's important to resolve this problem asap. If you leave it then the entries will lose their series links and you will probably miss some recordings.

Film: Final Destination 3

2006-02-12T23:02:00.000Z

The first film in this so-called trilogy was original, a stand-out film that I thoroughly enjoyed in 2000. The 2nd film added something extra where we learned that to beat death there had to be new life. This third installment adds nothing to the trilogy, it simply follows the pattern of the first movie, i.e. someone has a premonition saves some people from dying and then death returns to take them out in so-called spectacular fashion in the order they were meant to die originally. There are no revelations and if you've seen the first film there really is no point in seeing this one.

That's right, Final Destination 3 is a pointless exercise in cinema. FD2 is not referenced; we don't know what happened to Kimberly and Thomas who survived in FD2. Whereas in FD2 we discovered what happened to the FD1 survivors; Alex had been killed in another freak accident and Clear Rivers had herself sectioned. The writer/director of FD1 James Wong, wrote and directed FD3 but had no hand in FD2. That's no excuse for not referencing FD2 or making such a poor film. I wish he hadn't bothered.

3/10

GIG: Katrina Leskanich @ Borderline, London

2006-02-08T23:56:00.000Z

Katrina performed songs from her debut solo album Katrina Leskanich to a packed crowd at The Borderline tonight. She was on stage for just under an hour.

This was the first time I'd seen her solo, so I confess it took me a while to get over the fact that Katrina was wave-less; Kimberly, Alex and Vince weren't there (well, I think I saw Vince heading to the bar at one point). Her band were good but nothing can compare to the live brilliance that was Katrina and the Waves. They were truly the best live band I've ever seen. I must have seen them at least 30 times over the years mainly in London but I also travelled to Brighton and Bristol too. The best gigs were those at The Mean Fiddler. Oh how I miss the old Mean Fiddler in Harlesden!

Once I'd warmed to the idea of Katrina solo I started to enjoy myself. The last few songs were the best, although I have to say I was at turns surprised and rather mortified that Katrina chose to relive her past by performing the 1997 Eurovision winning Love Shine a Light, which I never liked. I guess it was inevitable then that she would end the evening with a jazzed up version of the old classic Walking on Sunshine, before thanking Kimberly Rew for writing the song that changed her life.

Film: Imagine Me & You (delayed again!)

2006-02-07T23:19:00.000Z

Yet again this film's UK release date has been put back. First it was supposed to be released last November, just after the London Film Festival then it was going to be February 17th. Today I noticed it was missing from the list of next week's releases on the IMDB and a check on the BBC website (it's a BBC film) confirmed that it has been put back until March 30th. So that's another 7 weeks to wait.

It was released in the USA at the end of January, and it's a British film and we haven't had it released here yet. The only valid reason (please God!) is that it has been selected to open the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on 29th March, which hopefully means that both Piper and Lena will be there. I await the announcement of the festival programme with baited breath.

Film: Lena Headey interview

2006-02-06T18:56:00.000Z

AfterEllen.com - Interview with Lena Headey (Imagine Me and You)

I have fond memories of Band of Gold, which will soon be available on DVD for the first time. Hoorah!

Goodness it seems Lena and Piper got on better than I'd ever dared hope! ;-)

TV: Desperate Housewives

2006-02-06T16:58:00.000Z

I watched the first episode of season 2 of Desperate Housewives last night and the following mother-son exchange is a classic and made me laugh out loud:

Andrew Van De Kamp: Mom, Grandma's leaving. Alright, you have to talk to her.
Bree Van De Kamp: No, I don't. If you heard the things that she said to me...
Andrew Van De Kamp: Look, I'm sure she was a real bitch, ok, but she's family, so that makes her our bitch.

Book: Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

2006-02-03T00:54:00.000Z

Some friends and I had the pleasure of seeing Sarah Waters at the Purcell Room on the South Bank in London on Tuesday night. Sarah read from her latest novel The Night Watch, just published in hardback. She was both charming and funny. She talked with Erica Wagner literary editor of the Times; who rather appropriately I thought at the time, in the words of my dear friend Mandy 'looks more dykey than most dykes out there'. She certainly looks more dykey than Sarah herself and sent my gaydar pinging off the chart. This was not just because of her appearance but the way she sat and the fact that she brought her ruck sack on stage, which was rather large. Is there a str8 woman on the planet who carries a ruck sack, when they’re not hiking? However, much to my shock Mandy told me the following day, that she had discovered that Erica is apparently married with a son. Perhaps denial is a river in Egypt after all.

The best news of the evening was when Sarah divulged that plans are afoot to make Affinity into a film, scripted by Andrew Davies (who wrote the BBC adaptation of Tipping the Velvet).

If you want a laugh then scroll half way down the latest Libertas newsletter. Yes, it's Sarah Waters in drag. It's almost as bad as Val McDermid's attempt to scare off her readers last year. What the forking hell were Diva thinking, and Sarah too come to that?

Firefox Central | Mozilla Corporation

2006-02-02T08:50:00.000Z

Firefox Central | Mozilla Corporation

Firefox was automatically updated!

Music: Sarah Borges - Silver City

2006-01-28T16:08:00.000Z

I have just downloaded her album Silver City, it sounds good! It was just a random find at AllofMP3.com, I previewed a few tracks, liked what I heard so downloaded the album.

Film: Imagine Me & You (2006)

2006-01-28T15:49:00.000Z

Imagine Me & You (2006) - Multimedia - Movies.com

The trailer, some pictures and some great clips. What more could you want? The film opens on 17th February, only 3 more weeks to go. I can't wait. I know I said that about Underword:Evolution last week and what a dismal failure that was. Oh well... here's hoping.

Film: Match Point

2006-01-20T17:23:00.000Z

When I first saw the trailer for Match Point I remember being shocked when 'Written and Directed by Woody Allen' appeared on the screen at the end. I'm not a great lover of Woody Allen films, I tend to only see them if there's someone I like appearing. His last effort Melinda and Melinda (starring Radha Mitchell and Chloe Sevigny), which I saw on DVD, was decidedly average. I was hoping that 'Match Point' starring Scarlett Johansson would be different, but in the end it wasn't. The movie is set in London and it's a thriller, not what I would normally expect from a Woody Allen film. I saw it on a cold Saturday afternoon, with a fellow audience comprised mainly of a bunch of noisy people, who insisted on talking throughout, giggling and shouting out in suspenseful moments. My repeated attempts to quieten them with a 'Shhhh!', fell on deaf ears. Yes, they were largely teens.

I was expecting a Fatal Attraction type thriller, and Match Point is to a certain extent, but the sex scenes let it down on this score. They are vital for a film of this nature, but Woody appeared embarrassed by the sex scenes as no sooner did they start than we cut to the next scene. What would Body Heat, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction have been like with cut sex scenes?

The first half of the film, which sets up the characters and the basic premise of the film was enjoyable, but things went downhill in the second half. The way the ending fits in neatly with the beginning and underscores the fact that some things are simply more luck than judgement was clever. However, that doesn't explain how someone can go from passionately loving someone to being capable of murdering them in cold blood.

Film: Underworld: Evolution

2006-01-20T01:14:00.000Z

This is the most highly anticipated film for me since last spring's Star Wars episode III. I loved the first Underworld film and am really looking forward to this one. I hope that it lives upto my expectations. I'm going to see it tonight at 9.20pm. I can't wait!

Film: A Cock and Bull Story

2006-01-19T13:01:00.000Z

This was another free preview courtesy of the Daily Telegraph movie monthly offer, which I saw on Tuesday a mere 4 days after last week's unmemorable 'Memoirs of a Geisha'. It stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and tells the making of a film based on the supposedly unfilmable book 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' by Laurence Stern, which was written in 1760. The book can be read online.

As a film it was very funny but lacked structure, however having read a little about the novel online it's not at all surprising as the book does not have a true beginning, middle, and end as you would normally expect. At times the film felt a bit like the Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon show, which in the end was no bad thing. Their conversation over the closing credits lifted the film from its unsatisfactory ending. As for the rest of the cast; Keeley Hawes spent most of her screen time screaming in child-birth agony. Gillian Anderson was hardly in it at all, which was not only disappointing for me but for her too as she stated at the end of the film. Caz pointed out to me that the woman playing Gillian's American agent was in fact Sara Stewart (Kim's mum Stella in 'Sugar Rush'), although you wouldn't know from looking at the IMDB as she's not credited. I'll have to fix that! Caz found the film quite hilarious and had to reign in her laughter when she realised that often she was the only one laughing.

So, in summation it was more of a miss than a hit but considering the origin it's not surprising really. I gave it 5/10 at the IMDB. It was an enjoyable hour and a half but once again it's another free film that I'm glad I didn't have to pay to see or I would have felt a little cheated.

Film: Memoirs of a Geisha

2006-01-13T11:59:00.000Z

First let me say that this is not the sort of film I would normally pay to go and see at the cinema, however a free ticket to a preview screening last night, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, meant I didn't have to. I expected it to be the usual epic tale of love and loss, as most Hollywood movies based on best-selling novels usually are, and it didn't disappoint on that score. It was long (2 and a half hours, actually 2 hours and 20 minutes if you don't sit through the credits). There was loss (a young girl is separated from her parents and sister) and there was love. The love was my main problem with the premise of the movie. I do not see how a 9 year old girl can fall in love with a 40-odd year old man, who curiously does not age as she does throughout the film. Was it just because he was kind to her? I don't know. I didn't relate and that was a major problem for me along with the misogynistic idea of geishas. There is something seriously wrong when young girls are trained in the arts from a young age with the end result being that their virginity is sold to the highest bidder, to pay off their training debts when they make their debut as a geisha. Then what? The film didn't really go any further in explaining exactly what is the point of being a geisha. Some of the plot details were glossed over, and are no doubt fully explained in the book. Her so-called friend 'Pumpkin' (my ex-gf saw it dubbed in Italian and asked me if that was her name because it was funny, I couldn't agree more) bringing her true love to see her in flagrante with an American soldier was out of the blue and poorly explained. Almost as if it had to be included but not explained properly. Why did she sleep with the soldier anyway?

At the beginning the fishermen were speaking Japanese and there were no subtitles, then for the rest of the movie everyone spoke in English. Make up your mind, either do one or the other, there's no point switching between because it simply draws attention to the fact that we're in Japan and people are speaking English. In short I didn't enjoy the film. The performances and cinematography were good but that's about it.

The evening wasn't a total waste of time though, at least I've seen one of the possible Oscar contenders for this year (with another to follow tomorrow, Brokeback Mountain). Well I assume so, as it's been nominated for 2 Golden Globes. But even better was the fact that I got to see the trailer for Imagine Me and You on the big screen for the first time. Previously I'd only seen the US trailer online, which is slightly different.

Music: Sarah Fimm - Nexus

2006-01-12T17:28:00.000Z

I am hooked on Sarah Fimm's album 'Nexus'. I have barely played anything else since I received it from CD Baby 3 weeks ago. In fact it's almost a chore to wrench myself away from it and attempt to listen to something else. Even when I do, invariably I'm playing it again soon.

'Nexus' wakes me up in the morning, courtesy of my CD alarm clock, I then listen to it in the car on my way to and from work. It's on my MP3 player, which I listen to at lunchtime and then hook up to my mini hi-fi system in the kitchen when I get home and cook dinner. It's also on my mobile phone (Nokia N70) and my PC at home. I can and do listen to it wherever I am. I have to!

When I couldn't listen to it often for a couple of days over Christmas, due to the festivities intervening, I got withdrawal symptoms unless I had a 'Nexus' fix at least once a day. Like a good auntie I bought my 5 year old nephew a CD player for Christmas with a CD of his favourite songs from CBeebies. He's a bit too young to appreciate Sarah, but give him time! When the CBeebies 'music' got too much for me (anyone who's heard the 'Bob the Builder' or 'Bill & Ben' songs will know what I mean), I disappeared with my MP3 player and listened to 'Nexus' to regain my calm.

Last weekend 'Nexus' eased the chore of queueing for cinema tickets for 10 minutes. Even when I'm not listening to it, for example when I'm working, I'm singing it in my head. I can't help it. I'd say, 'Help, I think I'm obsessed' but I know I am and I'm enjoying every minute of it!

Just as a note of interest; the last album that had such an effect on me was Evanescence's 'Fallen'.

Film: King Kong

2005-12-16T00:23:00.000Z

I had high expectations for this film from seeing the trailer alone, which is why I went to see it at the first available opportunity on the first day it was showing. I'd not seen either the 1933 original or the 1976 remake with Jessica Lange, so the story was new to me. At 189 minutes King Kong is possibly the longest film I've ever seen. The first hour was very slow and in retrospect was full of unnecessary detail and pointless back stories for minor characters. In comparison the second and third hours picked up the pace and practically whizzed by.

The stars of the film are undoubtedly Naomi Watts (Anne Darrow) and Andy Serkis (Kong). Andy played 2 roles; Lumpy the cook and Kong. The combination of Andy's outstanding performance and incredible CGI made Kong literally come to life. He was real in a way that The Hulk (2003) never was. While Kong is faultless, the mix of CGI and live action in the dinosaur stampede, didn't look real at times. Besides the fact that surviving such a stampede seems highly improbable, especially when it involved an attack by a pack of raptors.

There were some classic movie moments in this film, most of which included the 2 main characters, Anne and Kong. The scenes where together they admire the beauty of the landscape, first on the island and then in New York, were some of the most touching and beautiful moments in the film. Some people have criticised the scene on the ice in New York, as being out of place but I loved it. It simply showed the bond that Anne had developed with Kong, which made the film's climax all the more poignant. There is humour in the film, sometimes at unexpected moments such as when Kong has just killed a T-rex by snapping it's jaw and then plays with the jaw snapping it open and closed, as if to underline his claim that he is King Kong of the jungle.

The rest of the cast especially Jack Black (Carl Denham), Adrien Brody (Jack Driscoll) and Colin Hanks (Preston, who played Alex in Roswell) put in excellent performances. I failed to recognise Jamie Bell from Billy Elliot as Jimmy, although I did recognise Kyle Chandler (Bruce Baxter) from the short-lived US series The Lyon's Den, starring Rob Lowe and Elizabeth Mitchell.

King Kong is rated 12A, which means children under 12 can see it if accompanied by an adult. Personally I think most under 12s would be scared to death as there are some quite scary scenes.

My rating is 7/10 simply because the film is unnecessarily long, even though there is a chunk missing as we never get to see exactly how the ships's crew manage to get a drugged Kong from the island to the inside of a theatre on Broadway. I guess if the dinosaur chase stretched believability including that would have firmly snapped it, so it is perhaps best left to the imagination. A 2.5 hour version would have been a much more pacey affair, especially in the first act with the build-up to Kong's introduction. I think the length of the film will put a lot of people off. Movie buffs like myself will go and see it, but how many people are willing to sit in the cinema for what amounts to 3.5 hours if you include the endless ads and trailers beforehand? I saw it on opening night at 7.40pm in the largest screen at Cineworld, Enfield, which has over 500 seats. There were barely 100 people there, whereas I was expecting it to be packed. I feel that Peter Jackson (no doubt because of his success with the Lord of the Rings trilogy) has been allowed to be way too self-indulgent with King Kong. His love of CGI and special effects have bloated the film beyond reason. At one point there was an almost never ending sequence of peril scenes, where there were attacks from dinosaurs, huge bats and all kinds of gian creepy crawlies. My suspension of disbelief was stretched past its limits. Enough already I thought to myself!

Film: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2005-12-12T22:33:00.000Z

I had an impromptu visit to the cinema tonight to see the latest Harry Potter instalment. I hadn't planned to see a movie, but went to pick up free tickets from the Daily Telegraph's offer for tomorrow's preview of The Producers. Unfortunately, when I got there I was informed that all the tickets had been allocated, so rather than have a completely wasted journey decided to see a movie.

As for the movie, it was okay, but nothing special. I think I'm all Harry Pottered out, and not sure I'll bother with the next one.

The best thing was seeing the trailer for King Kong, which I can't wait to see when it opens later on this week. The trailer for the penguin cartoon Happy Feet, which opens next November, looked very funny indeed. I'm sure Sam (my 5 year old nephew) is going to love it. As for the trailer for Alien Autopsy, that just looked plain weird. Is it meant to be a joke, or is it serious?

Music: Olivia

2005-12-11T22:17:00.000Z

There I was this afternoon re-arranging my DVD collection to make way for my new additions (24 series 4, Girl Play, Star Wars Episode 3, Clara's Summer and The L Word Season 2). I looked at my music video collection and particularly my 4 Olivia pre-recorded videos and wished they were available on DVD. I just let out a squeal of 'Oh my God!' when I discovered via her official site, that there is now a DVD available. There's also a duets CD called 2 that I must have, so that's 2 more things for my Christmas list, my sister will be pleased.

Music: Q & A

2005-12-11T21:33:00.000Z

Last CD I bought:	3 x Sarah Fimm CDs from CD Baby 2 days ago
First CD I bought:	Olivia Newton-John - The Rumour CD single
CDs I Own:	Approaching 1,000
Last Gig I went to:	Alanis Morrisette at Kings College, London in November
Last CD I bought at a gig:	Tracy Bonham's Blink the Brightest (I already had a copy but wanted to get Tracy to sign it.)
Last CD I bought on the strength of a live performance:	Butterfly Boucher - Flutterby (supported Sarah McLachlan in 2004)
Latest Discovery:	Sarah Fimm
Next Gig:	Tina Dico at the Borderline, London on January 30th
Now playing:	Mix CD Warm Sounds, current track is Come Speak to Me by Elisa

Music: emusic Downloads

2005-12-10T23:21:00.000Z

I signed up for a free month's trial of emusic.com a couple of months ago and then forgot to cancel my subscription, but no doubt I'm not the first. So today I cancelled my subscription and used up my remaining downloads as follows:

Artist:	The Weekend
Album:	Beatbox My Heartbeat
Year:	2005
Notes:	The first track on this album is the excellent Into the Morning from the D.E.B.S. soundtrack.
Watch:	Into the Morning video from the movie D.E.B.S.
Listen:	Kick Myself

Artist:	The Weekend
Album:	Teaser + Bonus Level
Year:	2003

Artist:	The Moto-Litas
Album:	For the Greater Good

Year:	2001
Notes:	All girl band signed to Amy Ray's Daemon Records label, who sound like the Go-Go's crossed with early Throwing Muses.
Listen:	Cheated

Artist:	The Perishers
Album:	The Perishers Live (available for download only)
Track:	Pills (featuring Sarah McLachlan)
Year:	2005
Notes:	The Perishers are a Swedish band who supported Sarah on tour in 2005, also on the Nettwerk label in the USA & Canada.

Music: Sarah Fimm again!

2005-12-10T13:19:00.000Z

After discovering Sarah Fimm last weekend on the D.E.B.S. soundtrack, at first I couldn't stop playing Be Like Water and now I can't stop playing Nexus, the title track from her 3rd album.

Resistance was futile, so I succumbed and ordered all 3 of Sarah's CDs from CDBaby yesterday. I got the usual shipping confirmation email with a subject of CD Baby Loves Karen. It always makes me smile when I read:

"Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy. We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, December 9th. I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year". We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!"

Yes I could have put the CDs on my Christmas list, in the vein hope that somebody would get them, but I don't have the patience to wait and wonder. I need them now! Well, I will have to wait a week or more but at least I know that they are on their way.

I listened to a radio interview from Sarah's official site this morning and she said that she personally writes to everyone who buys her CDs from CD Baby, oh my goodness!

I've also signed up for the street team, the mailing list and the message board. Like I said, resistance is futile, so full immersion is the only way to go.

Film: The Family Stone

2005-12-07T23:40:00.000Z

I should start by saying that this is not the sort of movie I would normally pay to go to the cinema to see, and fortunately I didn't have to as I went to a free preview tonight courtesy of See Films First at Cineworld (formerly UGC), Enfield. I'm not a great lover of feel-good movies, I prefer films that are original and make me think.

I had done a little research beforehand and discovered that the director/writer Thomas Bezucha is gay, which surely could only be a plus-point. This is his 2nd movie and he used to work in the fashion industry. I haven't seen his first movie, the gay-themed Big Eden.

On our way in to the screening we were asked to hand over our mobile phones, which was a stipulation by Twentieth Century Fox. My reaction to this request was simply :-o Yes I was gob-smacked, not only at the audacity of the request but also the stupidity. Even if someone had a phone capable of recording the whole movie, the quality would undoubtedly be awful. Besides it is not something you can hide as the light of the screen is a dead giveaway. Oddly our bags were not searched for video cameras. There was no way I was giving up my gorgeous Nokia N70, so I just said 'I don't have a mobile' and walked in unchallenged. My friend Caz did give hers up and got a raffle ticket in return.

The premise of the film is that Everett (Dermot Mulroney) goes home for Christmas and introduces his bride-to-be Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) to his family. However, they all hate her, with the exception of Everett's brother Ben (Luke Wilson) for a reason that is no doubt completely shallow and is never fully explained.

Good Points

Great performances from the whole cast
Rachel McAdams - I've never noticed her before, though I have seen Mean Girls, but I definitely noticed her in this. I shall have to see Red Eye, when it comes out on DVD next year.
Claire Danes - I first noticed her in Stage Beauty and she gave a nice performance in this film.

Bad Points

Predictable - within half an hour it was more than obvious how it would end.
Left me feeling sad - it should carry a health warning because Christmas is a particularly hard time for anyone who has lost a family member due to terminal illness and I honestly didn't want to go to see a so-called 'feel-good' movie to be reminded of this.
Heavy-handed PC attitude which pervaded the whole movie.
Slap stick - although the scene where SJP drops 2 large dishes of her breakfast creation while getting them out of the fridge was funny, it was also stupid. Nobody in their right mind would attempt to get 2 large dishes out of the fridge.

Rating: 4/10

Film: Flightplan

2005-12-06T15:29:00.000Z

I had been looking forward to seeing Jodie Foster's latest film Flightplan for quite a while now. We have a lot in common Jodie and I, besides the obvious we actually share the same birthday.

Jodie plays Kyle, a mother taking her daughter home to the USA after the death of her husband in Germany. When she wakes up on the plane her daughter is missing and everybody denies seeing her. Did she actually board the plane or is this a figment of the grief-stricken Kyle's imagination, as therapist Greta Scacchi tries to make us believe? I probably wouldn't have recognised Greta if I hadn't noticed her name in the credits at the beginning (goodness I haven't seen her for years!)

A lot has been said about the improbability of the events in this film, both in reviews and on the IMDB message board, and I have to agree in some respects. Yes, it was highly improbable that none of the passengers remembered seeing the daughter either boarding the plane or before she disappeared, but that's my only gripe with the plot. The film works well and is rather reminiscent of Panic Room, which I do actually think is a better movie and people had plot grips with that too. I'm with Roger Ebert, who gave the film 3.5 stars; it was enjoyable, thrilling (especially in the last half an hour) and Jodie was excellent. She proves why she is one of the few female stars who can open a film. It was also good to see Sean Bean in a Hollywood movie not playing a baddie for once, as is usually the norm for him and other British actors.

The film is also rather topical as an air marshal shot and killed a passenger in Miami, who allegedly said he was carrying a bomb. When I heard about this I immediately thought of the shooting in London of Jean Charles de Menezez in July, a suspected suicide bomber who turned out to be innocent. However there are parallels with Flightplan as the evil air marshal was planning on killing passenger Kyle, once he had received the ransom money.

Rating: 7/10

Tech: extisp.icio.us - scattering del.icio.us tags

2005-12-06T00:00:00.000Z

If you don't use del.icio.us (an easy-to-use bookmark manager that you can access whenever and wherever you are online) then you really should. Here are 2 more reasons why. Now you can visualise your bookmark tags as text or images. Excellent!

TV: Rachel Shelley

2005-12-05T23:34:00.000Z

Ha ha! My trivia update for Rachel's IMDB profile is now live. Lives in Notting Hill, grew up in London (moved from Swindon at age 1). Yes, that's down to me, courtesy of Rachel herself (you see I met her at the "Meet & Greet" on the first evening of The L Event on 25th November). So, maybe Rachel will no longer be expected to know that Swindon is famous for its magic roundabout, as she moved to London when she was 1.
I didn't even know that fact about Swindon, but it's true. The magic roundabout in Hemel Hempstead looks a tad scarier and being a Hertfordshire lass I've done it once. I think I had my eyes closed at the time, and I swore I would never do it again so I avoid Hemel like the plague.

Music: Tina Dico

2005-12-05T22:43:00.000Z

Tina Dico is playing a secret gig at The Troubadour in London tomorrow night. Tell all your friends!

Tina, who hails from Denmark, was featured on 2 tracks on Zero 7's last album When It Falls. She toured with them in 2004, and performed at Glastonbury and Hammersmith Apollo (one of my top gigs of 2004).

Her new album In the Red is released on January 24th in the USA and January 30th in The UK. You can download Room With A View from the new album for free from her myspace site.

The first single Warm Sand (not that far removed from the Mozez-featured Zero 7 track Warm Sound) will be released in mid-January.

Tina will be touring in 2006 to support the release of her album. I can't wait to see her at the finale of the 6th International Songwriter's Festival at the Borderline on January 30th (not December as it said in their newsletter today).

Music: L'Aura

2005-12-04T17:38:00.000Z

Fra emailed me on Thursday about L'Aura, an Italian singer that she thought I'd like. I did have some difficulty in finding her official site because I was originally told that her name was Laura and all I got when I googled 'Laura' was Laura Pausini - who I have dubbed the Italian Celine Dion. I've listened to some tracks from L'Aura's album today, courtesy of her official site (click Musica, Preview then Album) and eDonkey, and I have to say I'm very impressed. She sounds uncannily like Elisa (another Italian favourite of mine, whose latest single Swan plays when you visit her site). My favourite track so far of L'Aura's is Demons in Your Dreams, when she sings softly in the first chorus she sounds like Elisa. Then she lets rip in subsequent choruses and I can hear Lara Fabian (another favourite of mine, who's from Belgium) . I also keep thinking my oven timer is going off when I listen to that song as there's a beeping in the background! Radio Star with its piano intro and vocal style reminds me of Tori Amos.

5 of the 11 songs on her album Okumuki are in English. It might seem like 7 songs are in English when you look at the titles, however the song Alice is in Italian and the only English thing about If Everybody Had a Gun is the title, which is repeated in English throughout the chorus.

L'Aura's site is definitely worth checking out. Listen to the piano versions of the album tracks, as you get to see an animated L'Aura playing the piano, which is both funny and sweet. Because of that I'll forgive the fact that the annoying background music restarts after a few minutes when you turn it off via the loudspeaker icon.

Music: Sarah Fimm

2005-12-04T11:36:00.000Z

Sarah Fimm is a new discovery courtesy of the D.E.B.S. soundtrack. The song included is the wonderful Be Like Water from her 2002 album Perfect Dream. She is a little reminiscent of another Sarah, my all-time favourite Sarah McLachlan.

Note that the D.E.B.S. soundtrack contains the cleaned up and inferior version; Sarah's site contains the explicit version (as in the link above).

I love the lyrics of this song (before I read them I thought she was singing Don't chase girls!):

Be Like Water
words & music by Sarah Fimm

Don’t chase ghosts, don’t get too close,
don’t get caught, don’t get spent
don’t get bought
Don’t sell out, don’t get bent
don’t fuck your best friend
if everything is just the way it should be
why am I why am I still hungry
Be like Water
don’t be shy, don’t shut your eyes
don’t get high
Expand your Mind.
don’t keep in touch, don’t touch yourself
don’t ever want to be somebody else.
when everything is bad as it can be
never be never be angry
Be like Water
Must be the answer you want
I’m not your slave
I’m not the one who burnt you out
fucked you up and put you on
broke you down
ask someone else
to be that someone
I can’t be that someone who can
Be like Water
Why can’t I be the answer you want?

Music: Veruca Salt New EP

2005-12-03T16:14:00.000Z

Hard to believe, but it's been 5 years since their last release, and at last Veruca Salt have some new music available in the form of an EP Lords of Sounds and Lesser Things, which is only being sold at shows and through their official site. I ordered my copy today.

Veruca Salt scored a 1994 hit in the US with Seether, then after three albums in 1998 guitarist/singer Nina Gordon left the band (along with bassist Steve Lack and drummer Jim Shapiro). I thought they wouldn't be the same again but 2000's Resolver (with a new lineup) proved me wrong. I was fortunate enough to see them live, before the split, at LA2 in London in 1997 and it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to.

In other Veruca Salt news, there is a rather strange remix by Divide and Kreate of the music from Seether combined with the music/vocals from Yazoo's Don't Go, called Don't Seether. I never would have believed it, but the two songs do go rather go well together.

Music: Johnette Napolitano's Latest Project

2005-12-01T00:33:00.000Z

I received an email today announcing the following:

CATFISH SCAR is the brand new project featuring Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde) on vocals and Will Crewdson (Rachel Stamp) on guitar. You can now download 3 new songs here. These are not available to download anywhere else and will only be up for a limited time so act now! Join our myspace friend list here.

I have tried to download the tracks but both my credit and debit cards have been refused. How bloody annoying! (I ended up paying an extra 30p to pay for the 3 tracks via PayPal.)

Err, that picture is scary! It looks a bit like Linda Hamilton's beast on a bad day.

Book: Mothers and Other Lovers

2005-11-09T17:49:00.000Z

Today I received my copy of Joanna Briscoe's first novel Mothers and Other Lovers, signed by the author herself. This is only a mere 10 days since Joanna took my address at the York Lesbian Arts Festival and promised to send me a copy, after I asked her whether her first book was going to be re-printed now it is out of print. I'm now champing at the bit to start reading it, but I'm already half way through Emma Donoghue's Slammerkin, so I will have to resist for now. I've also got Joanna's second novel Skin to read, which is due back at the library on November 17th.

I am terribly impressed at the speed at which Joanna sent me the book, not to mention the fact that she personally signed it to me and included a yellow post-it note, hoping that I enjoyed the festival in York. What a lovely person she is.