It's a Viola

On Saturday, which we had planned to be a day of boring old "sorting out" ready for our visitors from across the sea, @magic_walnut let us know that he was buying tickets for Noah & the Whale that night. The three of us are good at adventures, and his girlfriend's brother Jason was coming along too. It was at The Independent and very quiet (which is always nice as Bluessinger's not a fan of crowds at gigs); if you're going The Madrone is close and good for a drink beforehand (and not as pretentious as the website seems).

Noah & the Whale were good. Much better and less twee than the single, which I liked, but played to death (27 plays according to Last.fm). They were supported by Ferraby Lionheart, who was good when he did the faster, folky stuff and minor torture with the slow, introspective, poetry-with-a-piano, whingey stuff.

The best bit for me though was Anni Rossi. She started the evening, slightly nervously when half the crowd had yet to arrive, and she was great. She plays a viola, whilst beating her own percussion by standing and stomping on the viola case and singing. She reminds me a bit of Regina Spektor (if she was Scandinavian), or maybe Bat for Lashes, but grown up and no longer raiding the dressing up box. I've been trying to find a video or version of one of her tracks that does her justice, but they don't really. She's much better live. Which doesn't help you at all, but she's playing gigs all over so you might be able to catch her.

Anyway try and imagine the following, a little faster, more impassioned and with stomping. Look out for covers of Ace of Base's Living in Danger and Radiohead's Creep too.

Stains that are suspect...

I was recently reminded of this piece of genius from 1998. The All Seeing I, Jarvis Cocker and Tony Christie encapsulated in one excellent video.



I'm off to walk the aisles of Safeway like a panther.

Smattering

That's a funny word isn't it? It looks very odd on its own. It is apt for this post though:

The Penguin Blog produces one of the most stylish blog posts I've ever seen here.

Roo Reynolds of the BBC (who has one of the most extraordinary job titles I've come across) gets caught in the G20 protests and captures the situation well.

@rotek (also known as Shane of O:SC) drew my attention to Omegle which connects you to one-to-one chats with a complete stranger (probably). I've tried it once and had the following conversation:

You: Hello!
Stranger: god?
Stranger: is that you?
You: Yep - here I am
You: what seems to be the problem
You: ?
Stranger: wonderful, can I confess my sins to you
You: I know them already
You: That thing with the hamster was a bit weird, but it takes all sorts
Stranger: Gayto and Kane got nasty with each other and I seen it and now I feel really dirty.
You: Oops, got a call on another line - gotta go

As you see, I got out of there just in time. There was a short pause between "is that you?" and "Yep - here I am" as I decided to play along. That was probably my first mistake. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I can't stop playing the following song repeatedly:



Finally, tomorrow Operation Sprinkle goes into action. I'm going to add some sesame seeds (they don't sell grass seed in Whole Foods) to the ants and see what they make of it.