275: British Sea Power, Berwick Village Hall, Sussex

Definitely makes a change from Brixton Academy. I'm at Berwick Village Hall, in the peace and quiet of the Sussex downs, for a matinee performance from British Sea Power. It's the first time (I think) I've been to a gig which started so early, not including festivals, and it was brilliant. Walking out into the bright afternoon sunshine with your ears ringing is much more enjoyable than walking out onto dark rainy London pavements avoiding the drunks, beggars and dog turds.


Having been to the odd BSP gig before, it came with the usual quirkiness but with added bonuses - a venue that held just 150 people, a great set (really enjoying Valhalla Dancehall now) and brilliant acoustics.






As usual the merchandise stall is without equal in the Western world.


Made me laugh. "Valet parking £1". It's just a big field.





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West Ham manager betting

I've observed this in the past: bookies love the "next manager" markets as it allows them to put out a load of speculation at short odds.  Don't know if the next manager will come from this lot, I know some of these have no chance!

Sunday 15 May 7.00pm (1 hr after Avram has gone): Chris Hughton 4/1, Sam Allardyce 5/1, Paolo di Canio 5/1 (please God no), Martin O'Neill 6/1, Roberto di Matteo 6/1, Alan Curbishley 7/1, Slaven Bilic 7/1, 12/1 bar.  (Including Paul Ince at 50/1, fanciful).

Monday 16 May 9.15am: Talksport reporting that the job has been offered to Steve McClaren and he will accept. He's now 1/3 so a lot of money going on him. Chris Hughton 8/1, Sam Allardyce 10/1, Kevin Keen 14/1, O'Neill, di Matteo and Bilic 16/1.

Monday 16 May 8.00pm: After the press reports that West Ham haven't made a decision yet, Steve McClaren has drifted to 6/1. Chris Hughton has gone back to 3/1 favourite, with Martin O'Neill and ex-hammer Malky Mackay at 8/1, Neil Warnock at 10/1 and Sam Allardyce and Gus Poyet at 12/1.

Tuesday 17 May 11.00am: As A West Ham fan I can only sigh an almighty "thank God" as Steve McClaren goes out to 20/1, having said he doesn't want the job - the feeling is more than mutual. Still, well done to Talksport for that coup. Chris Hughton still favourite at 2/1, Big Sam at 5/1, Alex McLeish now from nowhere to 8/1, Malky Mackay and Neil Warnock 9/1 and Martin O'Neill 12/1.

Tuesday 17 May 4.00pm: A poll on West Ham Till I Die ranks fans' choices as follows: 1. Martin O’Neill 41%; 2. Chris Hughton 12%; 3. Slaven Bilic 9%; 4. Paolo Di Canio 6%; 5. Alan Curbishley 6%. The managers marked "unacceptable" by West Ham fans were: 1. Neil Warnock 59%; 2. Sam Allardyce 55%; 3. Steve McLaren 52%; 4. Alex McLeish 34%; 5. Claudio Ranieri 35%; 6. Malky Mackay 32%; 7. Dave Jones 30%. Think there might be some rounding errors with that last one, or people could choose more than one as it doesn't add up to 100%!

Wednesday 18 May 8.00am: Not a lot of change, Chris Hughton still favourite at 5/4 now, Big Sam 6/1 but Dave Jones is now 8/1 along with Malky Mackay and Neil Warnock 9/1. Punters obviously looking at the above list of people that West Ham fans don't want.

Thursday 19 May 9.00am: Not much has changed now. Chris Hughton 13/8, Warnock 7/1, Big Sam and Alex McLeish 8/1, Martin O'Neill 9/1, Paul Lambert at 10/1 although you can't imagine why he'd want to leave Norwich after two successive promotions.

Thursday 19 May 3.00pm: Jesus, what's happened now? Neil Warnock is suddenly 7/4 favourite. Chris Hughton a valueless 2/1, Paul Lambert 10/1 and the usual suspects after that.

Saturday 21 May 10.00am: Seems to have settled down, with Chris Hughton 15/8, Neil Warnock 9/2 and Alex McLeish 7/1. Someone's put some money on Kevin Keegan as he's down to 20/1 - I would LOVE IT!

Sunday 22 May 2011 11.00am: Something's happened as Chris Hughton is now odds-on at 1/2, Alex McLeish 5/1 and Neil Warnock thankfully drifting to 10/1. McLeish and Warnock already have jobs of course - like Carlo Ancelotti, who is now at 16/1 after telling Sky this morning he wouldn't mind managing West Ham if he finds himself looking for a job! Surely not ...

Monday 23 May 11.00am: Hughton still favourite at 6/4, Alex McLeish now 3/1 after Birmingham's relegation yesterday. Big Sam 7/1 and Ancelotti as low as 8/1. Who do we really want as manager, another guy who got his team relegated or a Chelsea manager who won 6% fewer games than Avram Grant? I suppose Ancelotti did win the double in 2009/10 which redeems him a little bit. Plus of course the fact that it just ain't going to happen ... The Star today is saying that McLeish is the board's favourite, oh wunderbar.

Monday 23 May 2.30pm: A lot of money has gone on Sam Allardyce this morning and he's now 2/1 joint favourite with Chris Hughton.

Monday 23 May 6.30pm: Another favourite for the job. Dave Jones hasn't left Cardiff yet but he's suddenly gone to 4/7 favourite. Chris Hughton at 5/1 now, Sam Allardyce at 6/1 and Alex McLeish at 14/1 despite Birmingham's board saying he is confirmed for another season there.

For the first time there are some odds too for the Championship winner next season, although a bit pointless since neither Swansea nor Reading are quoted and one of them will be there in August. West Ham and Leicester are joint 7/1 favourites.

Tuesday 24 May 12.30pm: Nothing much changed, Dave Jones still favourite but now 6/5, Hughton 4/1, Allardyce 5/1, McLeish 10/1 and O'Neill 14/1. After that everyone is at least 25/1 including some names that haven't been floating around until now, including Ian Holloway, Steve Coppell and Walter Smith. Really?

Wednesday 25 May 3.30pm: JESUS, Sam Allardyce is now 2/1 favourite, Dave Jones drifting to 3/1. There are a lot of reports in the papers today that the board has spoken to Jones, but David Gold has just denied this. Chris Hughton is no longer one of the top two favourites and is now 4/1, Martin O'Neill 6/1 and Alan Curbishley 10/1.

Thursday 26 May 9.00am: Little bits of movement, only four serious contenders at the moment. Martin O'Neill, who has sorted out his legal problems with Aston Villa and is now "looking for a Premier League job" is 10/3 favourite (sssh, no one tell him), Allardyce 7/2, Jones 4/1 and Hughton drifting further to 11/2. Tony Carr now as low as 25/1.

Friday 27 May 6.00am: A lot of rumours last night that Billy Davies was leaving Nottingham Forest and coming to Upton Park, something that seemed to upset both sets of fans. From nowhere he is now third favourite at 4/1. Allardyce at 3/1 and O'Neill at 7/2 with Jones and Hughton at 6/1 and Malky Mackay at 8/1. Doesn't look like anyone really has a clue at this stage.

Friday 27 May 4.00pm: A clear favourite in Sam Allardyce now, 1/3. Rumours are that O'Neill was offered the job and rejected it, but Big Sam is talking terms. Hughton second favourite at 8/1 so it shows what the bookies think. Jones at 9/1, O'Neill and Davies at 10/1.

Friday 27 May 4.30pm: Allardyce now 1/12. Announcement rumoured at 6pm.

Sunday 29 May: No announcement of course. All gone very quiet. Can't put a bet on any more so it looks like it's going to happen. 10 weeks until the start of the football season, what am I going to write about now?

Tuesday 31 May: NOW they tell us. BFS's Claret and Blue Army!

Living Is So Easy

First post.

274: Thomas Tantrum, Hoxton Bar and Grill, London

This was a first chance to try out my new Nikon D7000. As you can see from the above, it does well in gloomy gig situations (I wasn't too close when I took this) but there's no video tonight as it doesn't do a good job at limiting loud volumes, so back to the perfectly adequate Panasonic Lumix TZ7 for my next gig videos.

Support was from Doyle and the Fourfathers and Ravens In Paris who were, erm, okay. (I'm still not much of a reviewer). However TT excelled themselves, I've really been loving Sleep and Hot Hot Summer and looking forward to their second album, which is coming out in a few weeks' time.

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273: Phoenix FM Fundraiser: Big Dogg, Michelle Ward, Charley Bird, Tibetan Tea Company, Georgia Strand

This was another fundraiser for local radio station Phoenix FM which took place at Brentwood Theatre. I didn't bother to take many pictures myself but I did get some good ones taken by someone else. Which I didn't upload yet.



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272: Jonny Cola and the A Grades, The 229 Club, London

At the poncey trendy 229 Club in King's Cross with a big bunch of students and posers, but I didn't mind too much as I had a first chance to catch the Suedesque Jonny Cola and the A Grades live. I've been playing their debut album In Debt quite a bit since it came out last year and most of the songs on there got an airing tonight.


They were supported by a couple of other bands including Cashier No 9, who I managed to catch 60 seconds off and sounded pretty good.

Didn't take any video at this gig. It was just over too quickly!

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271: Lovely Eggs, Railway Hotel, Southend

All a bit Lovely Eggstastic today. Started the afternoon by joining them at Phoenix FM in Brentwood while they played a session - two songs from their brand new second album, Cob Dominos.



Then down to the Railway Hotel in Southend to watch them headline a gig put on by local promoters Culture Is A Dare, along with Plantman, Ten Tigers and the Tumbledryer Babies.







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270: Phoenix FM Fundraiser: 3rd Rock Revolution and others, Brentwood Theatre

This was another fundraiser for Phoenix FM which starred 3rd Rock Revolution, Tall Dark Friend, Michelle Ward, Roz Ure, Edd Coates, Emma Sweeney and Ash Lewis - all local acts to Brentwood.



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269: Vile Electrodes and Weirdgear, Bar Lambs, Westcliff on Sea

Two electronic bands I've played a lot of before - Weirdgear are a local Essex band Vile Electrodes are from Hastings. The venue was a pretty small bar which had a good sound system - and lost its licence a few weeks later, so I'm not sure if it's even still there now!



Weirdgear are big on the analogue synth thing and the whole bundle sounds very techy.







Vile Electrodes look very scary but I've spoken to the singer, Anais, and they are actually very nice. Plus the music is great too, they should probably be moving on to bigger and better things eventually!

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268: Frank and Walters, Power of Dreams, Sultans of Ping, INEC, Killarney

I was pretty bored over Christmas, had a couple of days off and decided on impulse to fly over to Cork from Stansted and drive to Killarney (which I assumed couldn't be that far away) to catch three bands from the early 90s I loved. Franks and Sultans I'd seen many times before and I was looking forward to seeing POD for the first time.

I'd booked a random hotel in the town and was delighted to find that the venue not even next door - it was attached to the hotel! The INEC is the Irish National Exhibition Centre and the gig itself took place in the hotel ballroom, which was weird. There were tables set out in long rows, like a wedding banquet, which was even weirder. I stuck my head round the door at 7pm and assumed they were going to clear it all away - but they didn't.

Got speaking to one of the bands who I know quite well from going to gigs, and he said "why didn't you come to Cork or Dublin instead? We've sold out, 800 tickets in those places - and only sold 100 tickets here." Apparently Killarney is a redneck town or as close as you'll get to one in Ireland - if it's not country and western, people don't go to see bands. (None of that is meant as an insult, no matter how much opportunity for insulting there appears to be in it). In the end I think about 200 people wandered in so it wasn't too bad, although the room probably could have held five times as many if they took the tables out.

I wasn't bothered because I had a seat on a table near the front, although I was a bit purturbed at the stage times - Sultans 11pm, POD midnight and Franks 1am - I don't do gigs past midnight, not ever!

However I did my best, all three sets were great (about 45 minutes each), I did make it through to the end of the gig (Franks sounded great, definitely couldn't fall asleep on that) and I was in bed THREE MINUTES after the last song ended, beat that for a great night out!



Sammy and Niall from the Sultans of Ping



The Power Of Dreams



The Frank And Walters



The ballroom! I was pretty much sitting at the top end of one of the tables. Apart from about 15 minutes at the end, no one got up and danced, which was nice.

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267: Marc Almond, Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff on Sea

It's been a full ten years since I saw Marc Almond live, and I think he'd had a bit of brain damage in the meantime. However this didn't stop him putting on a great show - he's still got a great voice - at the distinctly odd Cliffs Pavilion, where I had seen Sleeper play in 1998. There were no seats out then, but Marc Almond (and his fans) probably require lots of seating.



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266: Republica, Islington Academy, London

It came as a bolt out of the blue when I heard that Republica had reformed and would be playing their first London gig for many years. I arranged a radio interview so met Saffron before the show and also had a chat with Tim and some of the other band members.



The gig itself picked up where they left off in 2000 – the band still providing a very tight rock/electronic sound and Saffron’s vocals were as strong as ever. The crowd seemed happy to be there too and there were quite a few celebrities in the crowd. (Probably shouldn’t mention I was standing next to Samantha Fox when I took some of these photos ...)



As well as a large smattering from their two albums, Republica and Speed Ballads, there were two new songs – Suck Baby Suck and Christiana Obey, the latter of which may be coming out as a release soon.



Also supporting were half-Billericay/half-Brighton electronic duo TENEK who've also appeared on Phoenix FM in the past. It was great to finally catch them live and their material went down equally well with the crowd who seemed familiar with quite a few of the songs! Tenek mixed Republica’s reissue of Ready To Go earlier this year and will be collaborating on future projects with them too.



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265: The Pre New, Dublin Castle, Camden, London

For a short time in the late 90s and early 00s the music scene was enriched by the presence of Earl Brutus, a band named after an imaginary pub and featuring ex-members of the Jesus and Mary Chain, World of Twist and JoBoxers (good memory?)



The band fizzled out as easily as it formed but earlier this year former members Jim Fry, Gordon King, Stuart Boreman and Shinya “Shins” Hayashida got together and reformed as The Pre New, along with newcomers Laurence Bray, Stuart Wheldon and George Phillips. I managed to catch them live at the Dublin Castle in Camden, but before that got together with them for an extraordinarily relaxed time at the Spread Eagle across the road.



This was definitely one of the less structured and more enjoyable interviews that I’ve done for a long time – not least because I was in a very comfortable chair in a rather nice pub (that’s a familiar part of my life) but because Jim had all the time in the world to talk about the old days, the new days and all sorts of random stuff in between. And just like the Earl Brutus shows of old that I remember, Shins would frequently interrupt the interview with charming yet utterly puzzling random musings.



It was good to hear how an “unlistenable” single made it to number one and was played on national TV, what Shins watches on Youtube and why he’s suddenly picked up a Glaswegian accent, and what Jim really thought of Kenickie. (Now if we could just get them to reform too ...)



The show itself was a typically robust affair, with new songs such as the Pre New Anthem alongside old Earl Brutus songs Navyhead and Universal Plan, and an outing for old World of Twist number Sons Of The Stage (a song since horribly ruined by Oasis novely act Beady Eye). Support came from Cash For Cars, who gave us a slightly heavier and less-glammy rendition of the 1997 Earl Brutus single The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It, joined by Jim on joint vocals.



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264: Rose Elinor Dougall, Southend Village Green

This event's been running a few years but it was the first time I managed to get down there - it's a free festival held in Chalkwell Park. It wasn't a full-blown music festival but Rose Elinor Dougall was playing there and after seeing and meeting her at Latitude I decided to wander down to see her again. The stage was pretty impressive - I like the way it was constructed like some piece of modern wooden furniture, with a surreal backdrop of the River Thames, about three miles wide at this point with the Isle of Grain in the background.



I saw Phill Jupitus wandering around and I bumped into Jim Bob (Carter USM) backstage, was hoping to see his set later in the day but was called away on work-related stuff.







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263: Electio Pop launch party Kingmaker MMX, Bull and Gate, Kentish Town, London

This was a launch party for the Electio Pop compilation CD put out by Helen Llewellyn Product 19, or as I like to call her, Splinx.



This was most notable as being Kingmaker's first live show for 15 years, although they were rebadged as Kingmaker MMX for the occasion. Splinx had been trying for some time to get the whole band together but the original lead singer, Loz Hardy, had gone missing and still can't be found. However the band put together for the evening contained most of the original members, I'm told - my face recognition is poor on a good day - and who cares anyway because they knocked off six Kingmaker classics perfectly, finishing off with a second rendition of Armchair Anarchist for an encore.



The whole evening was pretty high calibre too, particularly Bozwood - with Ed Borrie on vocals they could have been an up-to-date version of his old band S*M*A*S*H.

Don't want to single anyone out really as I enjoyed the other three bands too, who were:



Abdoujaparov



David Cronenberg's Wife



Paul Hawkins and the Awkward Silences

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262: Offset Festival, Hainault Forest, Hainault, Essex

Bands seen: Invasion, Bo Ningen, Egyptian Hip Hop, Male Bonding, Kap Bambino, Comanechi, Good Shoes, Bridport Dagger, Art Brut, Thomas Tantrum, Mystery Jets, Pulled Apart By Horses, Not Cool, Chrome Hoof, Connan Mockasin, Fiction, These New Puritans

Meh. This is another Offset Festival, some great bands, but full of terrible poseurs. It's like Hoxton in the countryside.

Who was great this year? Art Brut are always good. Thomas Tantrum were surprisingly great. This is the third time I've seen them and they did nothing for me previously but they were really good this year. I was drawn in by Megan Thomas's vocals which sounded surprisingly like Louise Wener to me. Kap Bambino makes up in stage performance what their music lacks. It seems like one of the best bands was one I just missed - I would have loved to have seen Oh! Gunquit and their hula-hooping singer on stage.

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