Bath time, Boris and Bowie

I'm still feeling guilty after Thursday night.
Sophie was in her luminous green bathtub, gifted to her by her Uncle Colin and Auntie Jillian, kicking and bobbing about the usual for seven o’clock on an evening. As it was Thursday it was my turn for bathing baby Sophie, as I’m generally never home in time Monday to Wednesday. Holding her small body semi afloat in the tub Sophie lay back, a looking around little uncertainly as usual, but generally content. Sophie’s big wide eyes gazed up at the ceiling taking the occasional break from the plaster to look up at me as I struggled to keep her at the same horizontal angle.
Sophie likes to moves around, you see. She likes to try and turn herself around in the shallow depth of water and explore it as she lies but then usually changes her mind at the last minute as the water hits the side of her big eyes and it’s usually at this moment she’ll start to freak out and moan for help. Generally speaking she does like the bath. Sophie certainly doesn’t cry and scream when in the water but she also doesn’t laugh and giggle, she merely lies back and looks around, sometimes with a look of wonder upon her face, as she sporadically kicks her legs out to splash the water over the end of the bath on to whom ever is bathing her. Her arms remain outstretched at either side, evidence of her uncertainty with the wet surroundings, occasionally jerking and moving as she sometimes grabs for the side of the bath or the hair on your arm with her small hands, which are topped off with her unclipped long nails. Sophie will usually be quite content until it’s time to leave the water, at which point she’ll then start screaming the place down.
Thursday was different, however. Sophie started screaming early.
Whilst holding Sophie with my left hand, her head cradled in the palm of my hand and my arm under her back, I reached down to grab one of her toy plastic fish with my other hand. These plastic fish only occasionally join Sophie in the bath. They are small, colourful plastic toys with a hole at the mouth where they will fill with or, if squeezed, release water from. Sophie sometimes likes getting the water squirted from the fish on to her tummy so, in order to keep her entertained, I reached for one of the fish with my right hand. Unfortunately, just as I did this, Sophie decided to take one of her exploratory turns and swivelled her head round on to it’s side in the palm of my left hand. Looking up I realised Sophie had moved and was inadvertently gulping water. Spinning my baby back round on to her back I accidentally forced Sophie to gulp down the water she’d taken into her mouth and after a rather heavy gulp, worthy of the best Scooby Doo impression after seeing another particularly scary ghost, her gulping mouth grimaced and an intense scream was released from within her. The crying and screaming refused to cease. No matter how much I tried to placate my wee daughter, she was not having it. Not even to put her pyjamas on. Ka trudged upstairs to investigate the intense screaming and ended up taking over. Sophie would not be pacified. Her father had tried to drown her and was no longer trustworthy. So that was me for the rest of the night. Riddled with guilt. Waved away with a frown and an impatient hand whenever I approached.
It’s quite worrying when Sophie goes into those fits of grief. A grimace will come over her face which will turn a pale shade of scarlet and Sophie will start shaking her head slowly from side to side as a loud scream slowly emits and grows from within her. It often reminds me of the lion in the opening credits of an MGM movie, except fiercer, louder and scarier.
Thankfully, Sophie seems to have forgotten the watery incident in the bathtub on Thursday evening and is now far more relaxed around me again after a Friday spent shopping with her Mum and Auntie Chris while I sat in the Central Quay office making up the promotional adverts for the week to come.
The estate agent dealing with the flat, (what are we calling them, “Your Maneuver”?), called today to inform me that our new tenant had now picked up the keys. Yes, finally. After six months the estate agent has finally found someone. Whether they’ll last or not is a different matter. Fingers crossed.
Ka and myself were back in the flat yesterday, giving it a little wipe down and taking photographs for an inventory, an itemized list of the flat’s fixtures and fittings.
That’s inventory, pronounced “invintory” rather than “invent-ory” as I have been inadvertently pronouncing it. Even though I know it is pronounced “invintory”, I somehow struggle to enunciate it this way. On more than one occasion during the conversation with Liz, the estate agent, I accidentally pronounced it “invent-ory”. This makes it sound like some form of waterway where you go to devise new creations.
Kelvin Okafor. Now there’s a guy that comes up with some fabulous creations. Ewan, my boss in the studio, showed me the BBC report on this guy yesterday. Okafor, an artist from Tottenham, draws with pencil and charcoal to create the most amazing photo realistic portraits you’ve ever seen. To look at them you’d think they were simply photographs against a plain white background they are that impressive. The report even said that a lot of his work is drawn from memory, which reminded me of another brilliant London artist, Stephen Wiltshire.

Wiltshire draws whole cityscapes, intricately detailed, all from memory. Recently Wiltshire was on the news once more after drawing the view of London city from the top of the Shard.
At 800ft high the triangular Shard is Europe’s newest and tallest building. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the Shard is part of a £2 billion redevelopment in its area of South London. The tall, triangular glass building is filled with offices, luxury apartments and restaurants and sure to be another major tourist attraction after its grand opening yesterday. Boris Johnson, with yet another of his fantastic, colourful, speeches described it as “the tip of a cocktail stick emerging through the skin of a super colossal pickled onion”. That’s one hec of a cocktail stick. Bigger than the one I seen in Edinburgh when U2 brought the Popmart tour to Murrayfield. They had an olive though, not a pickled onion, not to mention the giant mirrorball lemon on stage. The band must have been having some sort of mid life creative crisis back in ‘97.

Something David Bowie has presumably been suffering for the past decade after being away from the music scene for so long. You could argue that it’s not exactly “mid-life”, (that may have been Tin Machine) but on the Tuesday morning of January 8th on the dawn of his 66th birthday news broke that he had released a surprise single to the world. I heard the single “Where are we now?”, on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show in the car on the way into work. The slow, melancholic music was not what I had expected as a “comeback” single but, as the weeks have gone on, it’s grown on me none the less. Throughout the song Bowie reflects back on his Berlin days, where he escaped to in an effort to battle his drug addiction and whilst doing so produced ‘Heroes’, ‘Low’ and ‘Lodger’ hanging out with Brian Eno and sharing an apartment with Iggy Pop, surely a strange choice for a flatmate when you’re trying to get off the drugs.
Anyway, it’s now 5.30pm on Saturday evening. Ka is out for Agnes’ retirement shindig, in which they’ll be dining in luxury at Jamie Oliver’s George Square restaurant. Just as they’ll be tucking into their main course and sipping their wine, served up by the finest chefs and waiting staff in the land in the splendour and convivial surroundings of the tv chef’s Glasgow restaurant branch I’ll be taking Sophie back up to the luminous green bathtub. Wish me luck.

Coloured hexagons and dashings of ELO

Music moguls everywhere and somewhere have voted Muse's 'The Resistence' album's sleeve artwork the best of its kind from 2009. Designed by London firm, La Boca, the cover depicts a sole figure standing on a bright platform leading straight to the planet Earth breaking through a strange landscape of coloured, interlocking hexagons suspended in space. A fantastic cover illustrating the weird and wonderful epic themes of the music on the album itself. The parents got me this album for Chrimbo and I've only had around three or four listens so far. Like U2 and Coldplay, to name but a few, Muse always get a bit of a slagging in the press for being pretentious with their lyrics and themes but Muse never fail to make a pulsing, energetic album this time with lots of dashings of dance and ELO and even a suspiciously similar version of the Doctor Who theme tune in the track 'Uprising'. Just in time for the new Doctor Matt Smith getting onboard the TARDIS.
Jenny Saville's fantastic painting on the Manic Street Preacher's 'Journal for Plague Lovers' came a close second in the vote with Fever Ray's artwork in third place. Fever Ray's artwork was designed by Martin (Mander) Ander who came from a graffiti art background as did Robert Del Naja (3D) of Massive Attack who also appears in the top ten for the design work on their latest EP album, 'Splitting the Atom'. 3D's work is always exciting, weird, challenging and crazy to look at, just as his band's music is to listen to.
LaRoux's cover also appeared in the list and immediately makes you think of classic photographic album covers such as David Bowie's 'Heroes'. Obviously La Roux ripped off Bowie's hairstyle from the same cover for her whole look and it's probably not the only thing 'ripped off' either.
It's nice to see that CD artwork still get's recognised with some respect in this downloading age and makes you realise just how great it would be if these works were still widely available as proper vinyl sized cases.

Magnificent

U2 rocked Hampden on Tuesday with a fantastic concert. Ka, Chaz, Tracey (a friend of Ka's) and myself headed into the stadium around six and met up with Colin and Heather who had already picked their spot. A rather good spot as it turned out almost directly infront of the stage, facing the east side of the stadium and directly infront of the circular walkway which surrounded the stage. Above us stood the massive 'claw' stage with it's giant screen circling the upper part of the claw and the tower of lights at it's centre spewing out dry ice as David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' roared from the eight sets of speakers hanging above us.
Then Larry took the stage pounding on his drums, the opening beats of 'Breathe' welcoming Adam, The Edge and then Bono to the stage. I had been moaning about the sound quality at the last Hampden gig with the Vertigo Tour back in 2005 (ish) but there were no such problems this time round, whether this was to do with the stage being more centralised in the stadium or not I have no idea but it just sounded ten times better and as a result made the whole gig far better. There was a slight problem later in the gig when the sound was lost during 'Walk On', one of the roadies must have tripped on a plug wire or something. The sound loss only lasted around a minute or so and things soon kicked back in making everyone breathe a sigh of relief. 'Walk On' was sang in tribute to the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose prison sentence was extended last week, and sang in protest and support for her with volunteers from the stadium's crowd taking to the stage with masks of photos of her face. A face I had mistaken for David Mitchell's upon arrival in the crowd when the masks were being dished out.
There were countless folk holding their phones up for the near entirety of the gig, filming the whole thing. You only have to have a quick look on You Tube to find loads of clips of varying quality from quite clear and sharp to just plain rubbish. I only took a couple of short little clips, the longest of which I've put on my You Tube page but most of that picture quality comes from the enormous circular screen which was really something to see, especially when it expanded down over the stage and gave us the incredible light shows which accompanied some of the songs such as 'Unforgettable Fire' and 'City of Blinding Lights'. In all a great concert and a great night out.

Byrne in full swing

During the weekend Ka and myself took a brief and deliberate break on the Saturday night. We went through to Edinburgh to see Mr. David Byrne again. We last seen him in Glasgow at the end of March as he hit Scotland on his Everything That Happens tour and I was delighted to find he was going to be part of Edinburgh's Edge Festival and booked the tickets with a mere week to go before the gig. Unfortunately after Gran passed away I was unsure whether to still go through for the gig but after various relations told me not to be silly and what Gran would have said I agreed that it may still be a good idea and would maybe even help take our minds off the grief that was to come on Sunday and Monday.
It worked, if only for the Saturday night, and Mr Byrne and his band were great. There were a few teathing problems for the first half hour however as Byrne had to restart the third song after realising the guitar he had started using for that song was completely out of tune. Unfortunately there was also a couple of gobsh*tes in the audience who revelled especially in the guitar tuning break yelling at the musician and his band in the first half hour or so whenever they got the chance. Presumably they were shut up at some point as they went quiet after the first half hour or so once the music was back in full swing. In fact, after Byrne had tried and failed with that guitar he seemed to start up full throttle again as if in answer to the critics in the crowd and after a couple of songs more everyone in the Playhouse was on their feet and dancing. Byrne's dancers were excellent, spiralling, jumping and swaying over the stage, behind, in front and around Byrne and his band as they played a good mix of new tunes and old, mixing new material from the 'Everything that happens...' album and the Talking Heads material, mostly from the Eno produced albums. The sound in the Playhouse was not great (certainly not as good as Byrne had sounded in the Royal Concert Hall in March) but was certainly not the worst, being a hundred times better than any stadium gig I've been to in recent years.
Talking of which, U2 will be at Hampden next Tuesday with their new sci-fi looking spider stage. U2's sound at Hampden had been a major disappointment the last time on the Vertigo tour so hopefully things will have improved since then.

Infinity is a great place to start

Have been listening to 'No Line on the Horizon', U2's latest album, and have finally come to a decision. It's pretty brilliant. On hearing the first single 'Get on your boots' over a month ago I was not so sure about their return but have found the track to be a bit of a grower, however, now I feel it to be one of the weaker tracks on the album and very unlike the rest of the accompanying songs. In fact, the whole album is a definite 'grower' taking more than a few listens to get into, which I usually find to be a good thing. Again working with Lillywhite, Lanois and the brilliant Brian Eno, U2 have produced an exciting group of songs, pushing at their own boundaries and comfort zones, mixing noise and tempo with smooth quiet and echoes resulting in a really contrasting, varied collection. Tracks such as 'White As snow' and 'Moment of Surrender' drift soothingly whilst tracks such as 'Magnificent' and 'Breathe' grab your attention and punch you across the face, making you sit up and listen. The album closes with the excellent Cedars of Lebanon written from the viewpoint of a journalist in the Middle east, a long way from the crazy, non sensical 'Get on your Boots' a mere five tracks earlier. 'Fez-Being Born' is a great track, inspired largely by Eno I suspect, taking the listener on a journey through Morocco, where the album was made. Certainly not their best album, but certainly one which proves U2 are still producing great music.

Springtime and music pirates

Springtime is coming! Bono shouted this during Live Aid in 1985 during Feed the World, even though it is a song about Christmas. This exclamation is made even more puzzling by the fact that Live Aid took place in the summer, July 13th to be precise. So even though Bono was completely wrong at the time, it is an accurate assessment of the weather that greeted me this morning on leaving the flat. The sun was out this morning, at least it was up there somewhere among the clouds, and there is the growing feeling of winter leaving us once more. Hopefully. This is Scotland I suppose. Our summers usually last approximately one week, or if your thinking back to 2008, probably around three days.
As I thought this getting into my car I turned on the radio to hear the one and only Irish singer once more in another repeat on Radio 1 of the latest U2 single. 'No Line on the Horizon' hit the shops yesterday and is apparently another big seller after only one day on the shelves. Unable to purchase until thursday,however, and am steadfastly refusing to download it, unlike certain other friends of mine (they shall go unnamed). One of them has even had the album for at least two weeks. This is exactly the reason why the music and movie industry is suffering at the moment. All the pirates wandering the web, illegally plundering the downloads for their treasures. I work with a few of them too, I should know. Limping into work everyday, all innocent, as if butter wouldn't melt. I'll watch them as they go about their business, working away at their desks, growling abuse down their phones through their rotten teeth and feeding their parrots perched on their monitors. Okay, they're not all that bad. Some of them do floss apparently. Not that I'd know, of course (I prefer a simple brush with Colgate and a quick rinse with Plax myself). You used to hear of these raids down the Glasgow Barrowlands every now and again where Police would swoop in on the occasional Saturday morning and seize thousands of pounds worth of pirated material. As much as I liked getting the bootlegs I used to dread buying them. You'd approach the stall hesitantly, looking round you at all times, giving the occasional peer over the shoulder. You'd then set to work, ferociously flicking through the mountains of CDs at breakneck pace until you found the one you were after. You'd throw the money at the smelly owner of the stall and quickly hide the CD under your jacket and slink off into the Glasgow market crowds. Maybe buy some doughnuts on the way. I always hated the idea of the police disturbing me as I found the rare bootleg version of Bowie's original cut of Scarey Monsters or some lost live album from Talking Heads' past. "Officer, please, this is listed as the fifth rarest bootleg of all time!". "Put it down son, your nicked". It wasn't so much the nicking it was more the fact I'd found something worth buying.
Most of the smelly stall owners in the Barras were always suspicious at the best of times anyway. One Saturday morning, during my time at Art School, I was quietly sitting drawing a book stall when all of a sudden the lady owner realised I was there and started hurling abuse as she ran at me. Apparently she 'knew my game'? I had not been aware of playing any game at the time, though I was a bit of a Games Workshop nut at the time. Still, you don't expect that kind of abuse for that do you? Maybe a bit of a slagging from your mates (if you have any) but not an attack from a female vigilante book stall owner. Almost dropping my sketch book with alarm I just managed to get away from the crazy old bird feeling a little more hesitant to sketch the market scenes afterwards. Maybe she thought I was an undercover agent for Strathclyde police or something. Which means she must have been feeling rather guilty about something. Perhaps her books were off the back of a lorry? It was a shame really as it was a bloody good book stall. There's hardly any decent second hand book shops or stalls left. Sometimes I wonder into the Oxfams and Cancer Research charity shops for a browse though. Most of the time their shelves are only filled with fifteen year old Guiness Book of Records, Maeve Binchy novels or the Daniel O'Donnell - My Story. My Great Aunt Mina used to go to that cheery, irish warbler's concerts. We used to joke that she threw her knickers at him on stage. She would join us with a smile and laugh rather uncomfortably, then go strangely quiet...

Great on your boots

Just finished watching the Brits on ITV, and for the first time in years, I really enjoyed it. U2 opened the show with their usual blistering performance singing their new song 'Get on your boots'. A song thats been on the radio for a few weeks now and did not really grab me. In fact it wasn't until I heard it live tonight that I decided I actually liked it. Coldplay were great, Duffy was great, The Pet Shop Boys were great. The Kings of Leon were great (a band which I'm finally listening to after years of meaning to). Elbow even won an award! Plus the fact it was all hosted by Kylie. You can't argue with that. Here's the video for 'Get on your Boots'... which is also great.

A new hope

Barack Obama is now officially the new President of the United States of America, opening up a whole new chapter in American, and the world's history. A great moment to watch. When I eventually did get to watch it, after work, sitting infront of the tv with Ka. We were not permitted to watch, as Tuesday is our busiest day in the office, but I listened in to Radio 4 to hear it live. You couldn't help but feel optimistic listening to Obama's speech following the inauguration. Obama wisely warned of the coming hardship and difficulties he, his Government, America and the world face but expressed confidence, defiance and determination. Obama is exactly what the United States needs right now to improve their damaged reputation, relations and standing. It certainly will not happen overnight but I'm pretty confident Obama will make it happen. He has already swept into action this morning by halting all trials in Guantanamo Bay, perhaps the first move in shutting the camp altogether. He is a leader with vision and authority with a voice that will be listened to. One that will not be 'misunderestimated'.
Beforehand, on Sunday, other voices reverberated around the National Mall. Bruce Springsteen, U2, Stevie Wonder and Beyonce, to mention but a few, performed for the President elect. From the few moments I seen on youtube, it looked great with each of the artists performing at the feet of Abraham Lincoln. Sringsteen started things off with a message of unity in singing 'The Rising', together with a full gospel choir. Afterwards U2 sang Pride (In the Name of Love) written for, and about, the great Martin Luther King, back in 1984, who himself had stood on the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 addressing the crowds with his 'I Have a Dream' speech. A dream that Barack Obama has successfully proven to be a complete reality.

Don't look back in anger

Enjoyed Chris Moyles' show on Radio 1 this morning. On Friday morning he talks less and plays more, playing great tunes from years gone by, chosen by him and his team. Whilst driving to work I was pleasantly surprised when he played Sleeper?! The small, britpop band from the early to mid nineties fronted by the superbly beautiful Louise Wener (slightly unfortunate name there). My first ever proper gig back on the 26th May 1996. At least, I think that's when it was. The first of many, and the first visit to the Glasgow Barrowlands too. Chaz, Colin and myself being successfully crushed, battered and bruised in the rocking Glasgow crowd. It was absolutely mental and I'm pretty sure we were lucky to survive. The sheer pain involved I don't think has ever been surpassed at any gig since. U2 at Murrayfield in 1997 came close though. At the beginning of the Popmart gigs the band would march down an avenue cutting through the crowd, fencing off the fans at either side with waist high, metal barricades. My stomach was pressed up against one of these barricades by the 50,000 people behind me. Not pleasant. I'm surprised I did not crack a rib in that crowd as I managed to stay up against the front of that barricade for the majority of the concert, up ahead of the others who suffered behind. Great gig though considering it was a fairly middling point in U2's excellent career. It's about time we had some new material from them. Going back to Britpop, we heard yesterday Blur are getting back together again for some special gigs next year. Always liked Blur but for some reason opted for Oasis in my younger, foolish, days when the whole Blur v Oasis Britpop war was going on. When Blur grew more experimental with their tunes I definately started liked them more and more, their sound moving away from traditional Britpop and maneuvering into more electronic, atmospheric art rock with the '13' album and 'Think Tank'. Something Oasis have never done. They've stuck firmly to the good old strumming and whining routine most of the time. However, I have to admit to almost liking Oasis' new tunes that are getting the airplay at the moment. After 'What's the Story Morning Glory' I mostly lost interest with them, revisiting them briefly with the 'Heathen Chemistry' album a few years back but again, not paying much attention following that. A band that have had definite flashes of brilliance in their music over the years but have suffered terribly with ego problems. That was always a Manchester thing though wasn't it? The Stone Roses were the same. Egos the size of Manchester itself. Liking the new tunes from Snow Patrol and the excellent Killers. Not sure what the new Killers' Song lyrics are all about ('Are we human or are we dancers'?) but who cares, U2 and Oasis have got away with shoddier than that (not that the two of them are in any way alike). You'd have a field day in a shoddy lyrics competition with Oasis.

Strange Overtones

David Byrne and Brian Eno have once again collaborated on a joint project and are releasing a new album and singles. They are also touring with it. No UK dates yet but hopefully they will cross the pond. You can find out more here.
Byrne is, you may already know, one of my all time favourites and Eno is definately a favourite producer (he made U2, amongst others, the success they are today) so looking forward to hearing the new material. 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' was their last collaboration together back in 1981 which was recently remastered and rereleased. My Uncle Tom bought it last year not long after it's rerelease much to Aunt Linda's indifference as she did not particularly appreciate it. Personally I always thought it was wonderful, but like most of Eno's music, not everyones' cup of tea. Eno's music is often quite strange, moody and experimental which is probably why I like it. He done a project with U2 back in '95 called 'Original Soundtracks 1' where the band and Eno called themselves collectively, The Passengers. This album was fantastic and definately not deserving of the slating it got on release. I think people just expected another U2 album with a few twists, very different to the fascinating music that they actually got. It's probably the most experimental music U2 has ever produced, thanks to Eno. It's definately their most abstract piece of work anyway. They should do more of it! Same with Bowie and Eno. They produced some brilliant music together. It's a crying shame they never got round to making Outside Part 2!