funkypancake

there are a load of 10 foot high gibson guitars on the southbank near city hall and the tower of london (and tower bridge). they are very smart. go and see them

the guitar in the cage is signed by bruce dickinson - obviously too dangerous to leave roaming like the others

they are ten feet tall

the photo at the top was an attempt to use fill-in flash with a teeny weeny aperture to get the sun effect. not sure if it worked. i'd forgotten my remote trigger otherwise i could have had even more fun

Our friend John asked if we would like to join his family for a trip to the Blue Peter Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall yesterday. it was most excellent

the weather even stayed good long enough for us to have a speedy picnic before dropping on our car at great strength seconds after we started driving home. the weather has been a bit bonkers recently.

work outing to jools holland on tuesday night

and our landfill picnic

there were various orchestras playing at esther's music concert yesterday. at one point 8 double bass players lined themselves up along the front of the stage and did their double bass thing. although, being cool bass types, they waited for the main orchestra to play an intro for them for a bit first.

however, when you see 8 double basses (bassii?) in a row like this, it does funny things to your brain (at least it did to mine). it was rather like repeating the a word to yourself over and over until the word changes from being a word in to a collection of sounds and loses its meaning temporary. do you know what i mean ? say 'chicken' to yourself for a minute and see what happens [experiment best tried in solitude to avoid people thinking you are mad].

anyway, seeing all those double bassii (8 double makes a 16th), which are essentially giant violins, suddenly seemed really surreal and quite funny to my brain.

so there you go. an insight in to the funkypancake brain there.

monday night was music night, as i was invited by a work colleague for a musical jam in acton. much blues ensued.

i went to see julian cope last friday evening. bit weird. musically excellent as ever, but some of his rants seemed a little more aggressive than usual and the audience reaction was polarised leading to tension. still, a great night out, but a dreadful sneaky picture !

last time

i saw this band two nights in a row when i was in edinburgh. i've not done that since a julian cope double bill back in 91 (or something). anyway, go see actiongroup live (much better than their recorded stuff i think)

is this really a disco for the elderly ?

we saw gruff rhys on saturday night. magical musical bonkers genius brilliance

these boxes would have contained lots of lovely christmas presents for peoplel. a rock and roll christmas.

i had two meetings in london a few weeks back with an hour between them, so i sat in on a 45 minute organ recital. london is great.

we went to see delirious? yesterday. most excellent

jane and i went to see jason spaceman on monday night. fantastic stuff, but we weren't as close as last time, which i think is reflected in these pictures !

Ian organised an exclusive evening with Bill Mallonee, a singer of americana (and friend of top american musicians like peter buck etc apparently)

between his songs he did comedy patter and all was good.

like all the best musicians he did lots of gurning whilst playing

this looks fantastic - i can't wait ! Order yours now. you know it makes (charitable) sense !

on saturday night in vienna, jane and i stumbled upon an austrian drinking event type thing where everyone sat on long tables etc. there was an oompah band playing and people were waltzing and jiving and other dance moves. when they had finished playing their songs everyone clapped so loud they had to do an encore. And what an encore it was.

They ended up playing a medley of all sorts of songs including the classic austrian song - agadoo. You can't really see in the video here, but people were still waltzing down the front whilst a giant conga was flowing round the room. fantastic stuff.

franz ferdinand

kaiser chiefs

yeah yeah yeahs

belle and sebastian

The Mystery Jets

Peaches

Gogol Bordello

Guillemots

these photos are more to prove that i was there than offer any insight in to what the various bands actually looked like. this year i decided not to take too many photos. so i only took my small camera.

sometimes london is so civilised. last week, when there was all the kuffle about planes, there was this nice little jazz festival in the park next to Paddington station.

if your flight had been cancelled you could have drowned your sorrows with a jug of Pimms (£7.95), some trad jazz and perhaps a little dance down the front

there's a new FOPP poised to open near my office and although it's got no CDs in yet, they have put up the Bob Dylan sign.

fopp is prolababbly my favourist shop

ok - i'm the only baldy in the picture and it wasn't real bowling, but yesterday we went round to esther and kezia's prayer-parents for a barbyqueue (i know i spelt that wrong). In attendance were jon and andrew from pure reason revolution who challenged me to a game of petanque. which i lost (after a good start)

it looked like these people were admirers of empty stages. you know the people in to extreme mime where the artists are invisible as well as silent.

but not so, they were the ones laughing a few hours later when the orchestra turned up

this chap was measuring the noise on Park Lane coming from the sound check on the main stage in Hyde Park.

and here is the entrance fence. Ready for the Foo Fighters tomorrow i think.

(from last february)

there's some fancy music thing going on in Reading's forbury gardens at the moment. you get to borrow MP3 players and wander round the gardens listening to different compositions in different locations.

at one point a choral ensemble ensembled themselves near the lion and sang a special piece which was really good. kezia was transfixed

we got to stand behind the major too

esther had a concert yesterday where she sang and played her recorder. it was in a proper theatre and everything.

kezia loved watching her older sister and afterwards said "well done Esther, you did well and you did exactly what you had to do". i think that's quite a good compliment coming from a 4 year old.

when the children weren't performing they had to sit on the stage. i noticed two children (a boy and girl) at the back punching each other and having a proper fight which was quite interesting. Meanwhile, the older ones practiced balancing their recorders on their ends which regularly resulted in clonks during other people's performances.

esther was not involved in either of these misdemeanors

it's pure jon

last night, after doing my business schmoozing, i went to recyclart and saw this band (and another chap who was a bit like a goth/industrial/new romantic moby)

i bet you wonder what they sound like ? watch here(30 seconds of fun)

in search of a restaurant last night i came across one of Brussels main music venues and saw the decemberists instead of eating. i think i made the right choice as they were very good.

here's some sheet music i found in the street. i've left the photo big enough for people to read and play

on wednesday night i went to see Faust in london. it was probably the best gig i've ever been to. completely madness

the singer sets up an ironing board and (hot) iron and very nicely irons one of the audience's shirt.

and afterwards looking very pleased with himself

you can see all my faust gig photos here. go on. they are quite good !

this is what people off the Internet look like.