Bob Dylan - Live at the SEC Armadillo Halloween Night 2022

 The last time I saw Bob Dylan was in the SECC in 1998 when he was supported by Van Morrison (who was not great).  That night was almost a Dylan greatest hits show with fairly faithful versions of tracks like 'Blowing in the wind' and as a 20 year old I loved it.  For a variety of reasons it took me nearly 25 years to see him again.  My memory of that last show is ghostly faint but positive.  Tonight was crystal clear and very different.

Dylan played an upright piano all night.  His band was just brilliant.  A great drummer, great guitarists, a great bass player and a multi-instrumentalist on steel guitar and others.  Tone, sound and music was everything tonight with Dylan's voice, his vocal tone, another lead instrument.  He played some big songs from his past but the versions while musically excellent were almost a parody of the more familiar versions.  When I paint my masterpiece, gotta serve somebody, most likely you go your way and I'll go mine and I'll be your baby tonight were just tossed out, taken apart and rebuilt in very different.  This was not a pop hits night, this felt like an improvised jam band that was punching above it's weight.

The bulk of the set was from the excellent Rough and Rowdy Ways and I was glad to hear that album live.  Dylan is 81 and I'm not sure that he will play Glasgow again.  Surely the never-ending tour must pause with time.  I would love to see him again but I'm not hopeful.

we often forget how lucky we are

 on a Friday night I'm often knackered after a week at work.  A week at my well paid, comfortable job.  after putting the baby down to sleep I'm often sitting and, as always, I feel a bit brain dead.  sometimes I listen to music.

This evening I was listening to some jesus lizard music and remembering the great times when I saw them play live.  Then I realised that I was once lucky enough to see scratch acid play.  And then I remembered seeing the elephant 6 orchestra play enlightenment by sun ra. twice. and that was really fucking special.

and then i remember how fortunate I am.  how lucky I am.  I have a great wee family and a nice house and a good job and i've had amazing experiences over the years and nothing is perfect but it's important sometimes to just remember how good things actually are.

I hope all of you out there get to feel this good some times.

WANDAVISION

 I spent a lot of my childhood reading Marvel superhero comics.  I think the first one I read was the UK weekly Secret Wars comic although I also read Spiderman and Zoids.  Prior to that I read the Beano and Battle Action Force, Star Wars Weekly and Transformers Weekly.  I loved it all and it was all mind rotting garbage but in a good way.  Comic books and punk rock made me who I am today.

I was always a bit of an obsessive kid, always wanting to read more and know more and understand more. I'm still a bit like that which is good and bad.  I was into Marvel in a big way, I read the official handbook of the marvel universe cover to cover and I learned all about the crazy, colourful minor characters of the Marvel Universe including all of the B listers and the C listers, like the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Now the Vision and the Scarlet Witch had a couple of limited series published in America in the early '80s and the stories in those comics were very off the wall.  Some of the weirdest comics out there with a mind bending storyline.  Definitely not mainstream and probably the product of some serious drugs.  Bad hippy drugs.

And it seems that Disney have made that mad shit into a TV series.

And I think to myself what a wonderful world.....

being a dad

I've been a dad for a couple of months now and it's amazing, better than anything else I can think of.  My son has an amazing smile and great eyes.  He mainly seems to poo, puke, eat and sleep but he giggles a bit too.

I'm looking forward to doing lots of father son things and making him watch star wars, read marvel comics and listen to punk rock.  He may or may not like these things, it will be up to him.

I wish my dad had met him and that his mothers dad had met him.  Sadly, life isn't always what you want.  He does have an uncle which is good too.

Fatherhood and pregnancy have kept me busy over the past few months so only getting a chance to update the blog now.  Will post more stuff when I get a chance.

Beastie Boys Book

I've been digesting the Beastie Boys Book for the last month or so.  It's amazing, disjointed and brilliant just like the band.  I've been listening to the audiobook due to my lack of free reading time.  It's one of the best audiobooks I've ever encountered.  They have invited a stellar cast of narrators including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Kim Gordon, Chuck D, Will Ferrell, Bette Midler and Steve Buscemi as well as many many others.

The narrative jumps about from their childhood, through early punk adventures, Bad Brains and Black Flag concerts, New York Discos, career low-points (Def Jam), clothing labels, recording with Lee Scratch Perry and lists of equipment, recipes and mix tapes.  Everything is in this book.

Much of the book is a tribute to Adam Yauch, MCA, who died in 2012 from parotid cancer.  His fellow Beastie Boys clearly and understandably miss him.  In some ways he appears to have been a pathfinder for the band and is credited as being the Beastie who made things happen.

The physical release is beautifully illustrated with photos and comics strips reminiscent of the old Grand Royale magazine from the 90s.  It's a thing of beauty but the audiobook is worth your time too.

A fitting legacy for a great band.  Sadly, I never saw them and I deeply regret it.  I am glad I had their music (and their music videos).

The land of your forefathers

I'm lucky in that I grew up with a strong sense of identity.  My parents told me about my family history, I knew my grandfather well and I spent time at the places that were important in the family history.  I spent time in the wilds of the west of Scotland enjoying the rain and the wildlife.

My partner has some non-Scottish heritage and she had never been able to visit the place in Italy where her family came from.  Sadly, her father never got the chance to take her and her mother had never been.  Last week we were, as a family, on holiday about 60 kilometres from the village and we decided to go there.  I'm really glad we did.  It was amazing.

We decided to club together and get a taxi to take us on the drive to the village and wait for us as we did some sightseeing.  Initially we went to the local tourist office and picked up a bunch of maps and leaflets.  We didn't know much about the area but it turns out that it's an alpine ski resort that is very busy in the winter.  We then managed to find the church where her grandparents were married.  It was a beautiful building in the middle of town and we were able to go in and look around.

We had an address for the building where her nona (gran) had lived as a child.  Thankfully the village was small so we managed to find it.  I also managed to find a bunch of really cool wee lizards which is always enough to keep me happy.  My partners' aunt had managed to give us the phone number for a second cousin, who as luck would have it, had the day off.  After a quick phone call distant cousins were introduced and we had a guide for the next hour or so.

The Italian cousin drove us to another, older church, decorated with a fresco of the danse macabre, that stood within the village graveyard.  It was beautiful, well kempt, with family gravestones adorning the walls of the graveyard.  We found one of the family stones and it had a photograph of nona, beside her siblings.  Sadly, the stone for nono's (grandad's) family had been moved and we couldn't find it.

Outside the graveyard was a war memorial.  On it was the name of my partners great uncle who had died during the first world war.  He was 21.  I was reading a kindle book on world war 2 history which has been driving home the insanity of war and this brought some life to it.  I was also reminded of my dads cousin who died during the second world war in Burma.  In the beautiful alpine surroundings of this village at the foot of the dolomites why would anyone want to leave and die for rich men?

Tourist season had just ended and we sat down to eat a late lunch in a local bar.  I had some cheese and cured beef with bread.  It was a hot day.  Unfortunately we had to get a taxi back to the resort but we were ecstatic with this brief look into family history.  We will go back at some point and stay for a week.

I know how I feel when I stand on a certain beach in Kintyre and watch the seals with the wind blowing so loud I can't hear.  I wish I could stay there, in that old house above the stables, beside the sea, but that is not my house and I cannot have that life.  The choices I have made have given me a different life.  I also know how I feel when I stand at the top of the hill at the croft on the island in argyll and I wish I could be there too but my life is in the city and the populated areas but I know where part of me came from and I know that it was not perfect.  I hope my partner felt that way when we were in the alpine village and we will go back and explore it more.

Sigur Ros live at the Glasgow Clyde Auditorium

This was the third time that I've seen Sigur Ros and probably the most enjoyable.  A lot of my enjoyment was because of the venue, the excellent 'Armadillo' at the SEC in Glasgow.  Watching a chilled out band with great lights is much better in a comfy seat and it's always a bonus if there are no drunk twats about to pour beer over you.

I first saw Sigur Ros in 1999 supporting Godspeed You Black Emperor at the Garage.  I remember Jonsi, the singer, using the violin bow on the guitar at that point and having a great voice.  I remember watching from the balcony at the back of the Garage but I never thought the band were destined for greatness or (moderate) superstardom.

I didn't pay much attention to Sigur Ros after that until I was visiting friends in Bristol and I went to a dinner party (very middle class) and Sigur Ros was being played in the background.  I think it was the brackets album but I'm not sure.  After that I bought up a few of their CDs and got up to speed.

I saw them live again in the SECC about 4 years back.  The old halls at the SECC have very bad sound and generally are not  great venues.  My main memories of the show revolve around trying to find friends and not having anywhere comfortable to sit.

On this occasion all my physical needs in terms of seating were met.  I didn't really recognise much of the material in the set but the sheer sound and spectacle of the show was enough.  The lights were amongst the best that I have seen.  I understand that the most recent Sigur Ros album had a bit of a metal edge to it and this was certainly evident.

If you get a chance to see Sigur Ros on this tour take it.  You will enjoy it.  They are playing some shows in Iceland around New Year and I am very tempted to fly up (I am fond of Iceland).  They seem to be at the height of their powers just now.

Jerusalem by Alan Moore

I've just finished listening to the audiobook of Jerusalem by Alan Moore and I'm a bit blown away.  I chose to listen to the audiobook because of the sheer size of the book.  The hardback is 1200 pages long and I think the word count is more than a quarter of a million.  The audiobook is 60 hours long but at least I could listen to it on the train, in the bath and while I was doing housework.  The audiobook narration also helped me get through some of the more challenging sections such as the bit about the daughter of James Joyce.

I will read bits of the book again.  I will dip in and out.  I really want someone to write a book about this book and I look forward to character guides and websites becoming available on the internet.  What a ride!

I wonder if Jerusalem is a reworking of Big Numbers, his abandoned collaboration with Bill Sienkiewicz.  That work was to be set in Northampton and the plot was intended to rotate around the building of a new shopping centre.  Even if the two works were not destined to tell similar stories I am sad that we don't have the complete Big Numbers to compare with Jerusalem.  I will need to dig out my old copies and have a look.

I was also reminded of Voice of the Fire.  This is not unreasonable as both books mythologise Northampton and are written by Alan Moore.

Moore deals with life, death, existence and time.  The book is funny and full of supernatural elements.  There are moments of horror and you worry about what fate will hold for the characters.  The narrative is also complicated by multiple viewpoints and multiple identities for some characters.  A few diagrams and annotations would add a lot to this book and I feel that multiple re-reading will pay off (although a kindle copy will probably be much more portable).

This book could be Moore's best work.  It's a different beast to Watchmen.  At times he appears to have thrown everything into the mix, possibly even the kitchen sink.  At one point the KLF even appear, burning a million pounds.

Much of the book is thinly veiled autobiography.  Alma Warren is a cypher for Moore, sharing the same year of birth, the same eye problems and much of the same style and characteristics of Moore.  Her brother Mick shares a name and a year of birth with Moore's younger sibling.  Melinda Debbie, artist and partner of Alan Moore is a character in the book.  I believe that other parallels with the reality of Alan Moore's family history in Northampton exist.

Should you read this book?  If you have the time and patience, yes.  It is rewarding.  I got a lot from it.  It resounded with me emotionally and it cheered me up a bit shortly after the death of my dad.  I wish he could have read it.  The audiobook is a good way to tackle the book.  People will pick this apart for years.  I know I will.

living in a science fiction present

My grandfather didn't have a television until 1980.  My father grew up in a house without electricity, heated by coal fires, in a remote costal area in Scotland.  They lived 200 metres from the sea and they saw seals every day.  They didn't always see other people on a daily basis.  A lot of time was spent reading books or out living a rural life.  And shooting stuff.

My grandfather died in 1987/1988.  I don't think he ever saw a computer (although I'm not entirely sure).  He was born in a croft in 1903.  I'm writing this on a fancy laptop.  I'm streaming music onto my iPad beside me.  Technology like this only existed on Star Trek and in the science fiction novels and comics my father read.

My grandfather left the UK twice (as far as I know).  In the late '70s/early '80s my parents brought him to Lanzarote and Malta with us for family holidays.  Until then he had never been in a plane.  He did live in London where he worked as a servant in the 1920's and 30's so I guess it is possible that he may have travelled abroad at that time.  I don't know and I guess I never will.

As a kid I never imagined that I would at some point own something like an iPad or a smartphone.  I could could conceptualise a mobile phone as I had seen walkie talkies.  Early chunky mobile phones were available in the '80s but only for the very rich.

Possibly the most amazing thing now is the internet.  Vast amounts of knowledge, science, music, media and art are available free, instantly at the touch of a button.  I did my first degree before scientific papers existed as PDFs.  I had not used the internet or sent an email before I went to university.  I spent years looking for books, comics and music.  Now it's all there.

Our ability to communicate has improved too.  I play scrabble and chat with someone in Hong Kong every day.  I know and care about someone in Hong Kong.  As a child in the West of Scotland I would never have imagined such a thing.  I dreamt of America in movies and comic books and later in records.  I was lucky enough to visit Europe and I knew about World War 2.  Beyond that I knew that other cultures existed but I didn't really believe that I would ever interact with these distant places in any meaningful way.

When I was a kid for a while I wanted to be a spaceman.  When I was very young I wanted to be a soldier but thankfully I got over that idea very early.  Most of the time I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write comics and novels.  As a teenager I wanted to be a rock star or a journalist.  I had a vague childhood idea of being a scientist but only in a sort of very vague science fiction/spaceman way.

I never thought I would be a doctor.  Doctors were the people my mother worked for, a class apart. Twenty, twenty-five, thirty years later, here I am.  How the fuck did this happen?

I sit in a posh flat in Glasgow living in a science fiction present, parts of which echo the William Gibson books I read when I was 10.  Parts of this are so much better than I ever thought would be possible.  When I watch the television news and hear borderline racist, anti-immigration political beasts from UKIP talk, I hear echoes of Mosely and Enoch Powell and it's all gone a bit dystopian.

What would my grandad think if he was alive today?  His generation fought the nazi's and gave us the Scotland we have today.

Jerry Sadowitz live at the King's Theatre, Glasgow

People sometimes forget about Jerry Sadowitz which is wrong. In a perfect world Sadowitz would be everywhere, spreading his genius. Sadly this is not a perfect world and we don't get enough Sadowitz.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jerry Sadowitz he is a Glaswegian Jewish comedian/magician. He has been ripped off and watered down a thousand times by people like Frankie Boyle. The stand-up comedy of Sadowitz contains as much aggression as Damaged by Black Flag or Screaming at a wall by Minor Threat. He is an angry man and a funny man.

I've liked Sadowitz since I was a kid. I remember watching him on TV in the late eighties/early nineties and thinking that he was a genius. Unfortunately the conservative media in the UK think differently and it seems to be almost impossible to either buy a Sadowitz DVD or see him on TV. Life is unfair.

So I picked up a couple of tickets to see Sadowitz at his late night comedy festival show. He was great. He probably said the words 'fucking cunt' about ten times a minute for the duration of his 80 minute show. He managed to offend every liberal sensibility that I have but I still fucking loved it. Frankie Boyle can only dream of having the presence of Sadowitz. Where Boyle feels like a bully Sadowitz feels like a messiah.

I was fairly tired when I saw the show and my throat hurt from laughing so much. Sadly, my brain wasn't working quickly enough to catch all the rapid fire jokes in the show but I would love to see him again. I really hope he puts out a CD or a DVD at some point. It would be great to see some of his old TV stuff again but that may be unlikely.

http://www.jerrysadowitz.com/

Jerry Sadowitz is a fucking genius. Cunt.

His comedy is like an enema - cleansing and refreshing.