....a week in a post

...let me take you back to last sunday before i tell you about this sunday.....
[rhian.... keep reading past the music stuff there's stuff about the diet later ;-)]

last sunday so me at the sage for the absolutely wonderful mogwai.... the sage was fabulous and the band also... it was the first time i'd ever been to the sage and the drama of the venue lent itself to the soundscapes and layered sounds of mogwai. there music has an engaging simplicity that other bands have now moved on. i felt that, while they were wonderful, they felt a little dated. a but like listening to a new duran duran album (bear with me!) it sounds like it's been produced in the noughties but you just know that really it belongs in the eighties..

monday saw two wiseguys in the studio pulling together the half hour set they will play at gigs for a while.... and this sunday saw us "on location" with photographer tanya gourley having some new publicity shots taken.

the whole week saw various forms of exercise, a couple of runs, and a game of football, in the main.

friday saw the great weigh in and i'd lost 3 pounds. this was cause of great celebration as the previous two weeks and seen no weight loss at all! what was the difference this week? i actually stuck to what i needed to do.... see... like i say... of you just do it it works... too often i kid myself that "i've not had a bad week", which translated means "i have had a bad week where i have eaten things that i shouldn't but don't want to admit it to myself and want to blame the scales, or my genetics, or the best one that i always come up with... "well i weight trained once last week i could have put on muscle!" bollocks! it takes weeks to put muscle on and putting muscle on helps burn fat... so please slap me if i try to use that one! lol!

[ok rhian you can bail out now there's nothing more about the diet ;-)]

friday night saw the millers over for delicious home made pizza's.... and a late night playing trivial pursuit led to an early morning for a 5 mile local walk around the newton hall area which led to a late saturday night in leeds for the vessels album launch....

the album launch was part of the leeds based british wildlife festival... let me tell you who we saw in what i though (vessels aside) was quite a disappointing night.
blacklisters opened proceedings and (apart from vessels) were the highlight of the event with their shouty aggressive rock. nice and loud. enjoyed these alot.
ultrahumanitarian were two guys - one on drums and one on a moog.... interesting? well an interesting idea, but any good? possibly not... we lasted about 6 minutes and then left to go back to the main stage area but got diverted to a local fast food emporium for can only be described as a cracking burger!
gum takes tooth held my interest for a good while with great drums and lots of excited knob twiddling but it was interesting rather than good.
the trumpets of death didn't improve on the previous band in the games room and back on the main stage we got...
kong.... who were polished and slick, very tight considering they all appeared absolutely pissed but not appealing. intricate and loud but not very exciting after the novelty of the masks and partial nudity had worn off!
juffrage promised much and came highly rated. pete raved about him. the guys had seen stuff on the web which meant out interested was aroused. and was he any good? no idea! he had his guitar turned up so loud that the pa guy couldn't get his vocals over the top of it....
for three trapped tigers we sat down... well the knees and back were hurting a bit. too much going on... too intricate.... too samey... they were obviously talented guys but we had drums doing elaborate stuff, guitar in noodling mode, and loops that added nothing ...not impressed ...although found it interesting.
finally in the games room was serious sam barrett ...and he was great ...it was wonderful to finally here some songs. some nice guitar picking and some nice intimate lyrics ...lovely
and then vessels ...seriously on top of their game, slick, wonderful new songs and a couple of cracking old favourites.... it takes a lot of balls to stop a song mid way through to retune a guitar because it's badly out... but it was the right thing to do and was an endearing moment and pete's speech about it being cool to do this 'cos this was live and sometimes this kind of thing happened was well placed and appreciated by the gathered throng....

....tired now ....sleep ...and a whole new week to play with! excellent
the picture? oh i finished the weekend with a 6 mile run and ran through finchale abbey in the semi dark.... lovely....