timesnewroman
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So what is timesnewroman? It's not the font, rather my take on the age we live in. The USA is the new Rome and the times we live in are timesnewroman.
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timesnewroman is listening to: Tiken Jah Fakoly, Arctic Monkeys, Biffy Clyro, Kings of Leon, Bloc Party, Led Zeppelin, Jimi, Franz Ferdinand, Youssou N'Dour, The Strokes, REM, The Kings of Leon, Curtis Mayfield, Jefferson Airplane, The Trashcan Sinatras, Jeff Buckley, Phil Ochs, Stan Kenton, The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Mogwai, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, The Zombies and Orange Juice amongst many others.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Possibly the greatest event of the 21st Century so far!
No this is not the Jefferson Starship (complex history here) that made "We built this city" This is the Paul Kantner version, who are playing two gigs in London, the first of which will feature a set consisting of the greatest album ever recorded plus some from the band who recorded the greatest guitar album ever recorded. How good could this possibly be? I did see the original Jefferson Starship mk1 at the Knobworth festival in 1978. Grace Slick was missing from the lineup I was disappointed, the sound where we were was attrocious, although I believe this might have been down to borrowed equipment and the people I was with, mostly knobheads apart from my mate Bobby weren't interested in moving to a better location and needing the lift home, I was afraid of losing them.
Labels: Gigs, warm and fuzzy, Wonderful
posted by timesnewroman at 10:47 AM
Friday, November 09, 2007
Are You Mad?
We said we had tickets for Beirut. "Are you mad?" they asked No, we meant Beirut the band. We went, we saw, we loved. At times the sound went a bit awry. I guess the sound engineer is used to guitars and the like. There were moments when the feedback from the brass was sore on the ears, but overall they were magnificent. Its refreshing to see a bunch of young folks doing something as fresh and as exiciting as this. I just love the whole sound the whole ambience and young Zach Condon's voice. The Arches is an excellent venue to boot, we had a fabulous dinner in the upstairs cafe before the gig and an excellent vantage point for the show. thewife even had a personal cooling vent above her which helped enormously with her age related tropical moments. If you missed them, you can get a feel of them here.
All this and a holiday in Lanzarote in a week. Yowzah, Yowzah Yowzah!
Labels: Gigs
posted by timesnewroman at 11:30 PM
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible You leave it too long and then there's too much to write so you can't be arsed and then it just sort of lays there doing nothing and everyone else seems to be doing the same.Nevertheless brief recap of the past week or so. We were visited by Reidski and lad, who now is taller than Mrs TNR and possibly catching TNR to boot (lad that is not Reidski!) Thoroughly enjoyable time doing nothing but drinking wine, watch TV, introducing Reidki (too late) to the world's greatest ever television programme that was Life on Mars (slightly more of this later) and the Apprentice. God did we even talk much or listen to much?
Then 'twas Easter weekend where we did very little but relax, barbecue a whole sheep (I made that bit up it was really just a leg) drink wine and visit friends where we spent a great deal of time chatting, catching up and generally having a great time. The following day, Easter Monday thewife fell sick and called off participation in the day in its entirety. Which meant that she missed the marvelous Midlake in Concert at the ABC. Excellent gig excellent vibe man, they really have a seventies thing going on there which I really like.
Tuesday and all eyes on the biggie no not Manure v Roman Nazi Scum which I must admit catching the incredible 1st half and a bit of the 2nd, no the biggie was the final episode of Life on Mars, of course there were guesses as to the ending and the mystery within, however truth is, it didn't really matter it was an entertaining drama on its own so much that you didn't really need a resolution. Oh and there were two really important words that television producers should take note of: Entertaining and Drama. You see neither very much on TV nowadays. Yes the ending was a classic and I'll miss it but I'm glad they finished it when they did. You loose the sparkle, I think after 2 series and there's the spin off which will be excellent I'm sure. Thing is, were the seventies really that brown? There ye go Father Bell meant to hundreds of times and finally got round to it. You don't know what you got till its gone! Have you got your mini-sam?
Labels: Gigs
posted by timesnewroman at 6:14 AM
Sunday, April 01, 2007
From the Ridiculous to the Sublime It was indeed a fine day for football yesterday, but that was no reason to tempt fate by playing Rolf Harris's Fine Day Cup Final song again, particularly so soon after the debacle that was the cup final. But no that wasn't going to affect us at all to day, despite having that chube Smith in goals yet again because of a Coombe injury. Nope we started spritely indeed and Momo Sylla was dancing down the wing with the ball at his feet putting inch perfect balls into Naismith in the box. The wag behind us remarked 1 minute into the game that Naismith had seen more service than in the entirety of the Cup Final. Truth is we totally dominated the game in the first half and should have had a penalty. Aberdeen were never in it for a moment. Second half started same as the first with Killie very much in the driving seat. Then, unbelievably a defensive header back to keeper turns into farce as Smith, a man known for being rooted to his line actually comes out for a ball only to see it glide unbelievably over his head into the net. Ten minutes later there is a fracas between Sylla and an Aberdeen player which the referee hadn't seen and which only came to his attention because of the crowd reaction to a boot being directed at Sylla. Nevertheless, this clueless idiot decides to award a free kick to Aberdeen from which they score! I promise you it was a fucking travesty, to be 2 goals behind having totally dominated a game where Aberdeen have barely been out of their own half. Finally we get a penalty for a clear hand ball, courtesy of the linesman as eagle-eye Winters hadn't seen it. From thence on in, we pounded the buggers' goalmouth only for our super talented striker Nish to waste every sitter that came his way. Fine Day my arse, we gubbed them 1 - 2.I find it incredible to believe that Aberdeen are where they are in the league if this is what they are capable of. Bitter as I am I feel I must share a particularly poor joke about the good burghers of that city.
A research student was studying sheep shagging across the rural sheep farming areas of the UK. She first visited Wales and discovered that the most common approach to sheep shagging seemed to be where the sheep's front legs were put over a fence, and the back legs were thrust into the front of the shagger's wellington boots and from there the business so to speak was gone about. She then went to Devon and a local farmer explained that he would get his wellingtons on, take the sheep's front legs and put them over a dry stone wall and then tuck the back legs into his wellies and a jolly good time he'd have. Next stop was Yorkshire where she spoke to a number of folk all of whom stated their preference for the sheep's front legs being hung over a hedge whilst the back legs get stuck down the front of their wellingtons. She then went to Aberdeen and spoke to the area's leading sheep shagger who said that in Aberdeen, they usually would tuck the sheep's rear legs into the front of their wellies and then put the animal's front legs over their shoulders. The researcher found this very interesting and explained to the farmer that all over the UK sheep shaggers more or less used the same technique except here in Aberdeen. Ah he replied, we used to do it that way as well, but we found out we were missing out on all the good kissing. That's one for the Sheep Shagging Bastards.
And a dash straight from the football for a night at the opera where at the Theatre Royal we were going to be seeing Madama Butterfly. We had very little time to get something to eat before the performance, so we popped into a little Italian place in Cambridge Street, Fazzi's, famous apparently for first bringing Italian foodstuffs to Scotland in the 1940s. Food was okay but they got the order wrong and brought us tuna and pasta rather than chicken and pasta, but we didn't have time to complain and then the waitress forgot our espressos so not tip, sorry. We were though entertained in a way that only Glasgow on a Saturday evening can. Nope I don't mean the opera, we were still in Fazzi's looking out of the window at Elvis working his way slowly up the street serenading passers by, complete with quiff, sideburns and drainpipes. I kid you not, slightly pished he grabbed onto a pole to guide him towards the chip shop opposite us and indeed a few minutes later there was a man in the chip shop who looked like Elvis. It was priceless and I wished I'd had my camera with me.
Onto the opera. Most excellent it was and tempted as I was I didn't boo the baddie , well not until the curtain call anyway. All in all a superb evening.
Labels: Gigs, Kilmarnock keeper Smith is a chube
posted by timesnewroman at 9:12 AM
Friday, March 30, 2007
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous This is going to be the year of Gigs. Last night we went to see Tinariwen at The Arches. Awesome, absolutely awesome. They have a sound that is just incredible, a look that almost requires a Kalashnikov as a fashion accessory. But its the sound most of all, a sweeping curling guitar blues with just a hint of desert. A beat that hypnotically calls the audience to sway in unison. A piercing ululating that brings a song to a frenzied crescendo. This was so good.
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Stick with me, this might get confusing. I received 5 emails from a guy at work today, none of which he needed to send at all if he had only read an earlier email properly. This guy though used to be called Captain Chaos by our team, but after a number of years dealing with him on and off he has swiftly risen up through the ranks to become in turn, Major Catastrophy, General Mayhem and yesterday briefly Field Marshall Fuck-Up.
It started with an email from our solicitor to him that I was copied into asking for a copy of a lease that another dept. was sending to him by internal mail as they only had a hard copy. He was advised that this was happening by email by the person sending it. Our solicitor asked him to send a copy by fax to her as she was dealing with this. He replied in an incredibly spartan (for him) email, that I was dealing with this. I then sent him an email advising that I was, however as the lease was being sent to him, could he fax it to the solicitor. He replied saying that he would send it to me when it arrived. Solicitor emails him asking him to fax it to her, rather than wait for it going to him, him sending it to me and me sending it to the solicitor by internal mail to three locations across the city. He then replies that he didn't realise it wasn't an electronic version and agrees to fax it across to the solicitor on arrival. He then copies us all into an email to the person who had sent him the lease, asking him to send him the lease and by this time, I have overcome the frustration to become a large bundle of hysterical laughter tears streaming down my face. Moments later the final email arrived: "Leased Faxed to Solicitor 11:08 am." I was disappointed that it didn't conclude with "Mission Accomplished"
I said earlier he briefly became Field Marshall Fuck-Up because after today he has reached the zenith of his career and shall henceforth be known as the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse. Everything he touches turns to shite.
It started with an email from our solicitor to him that I was copied into asking for a copy of a lease that another dept. was sending to him by internal mail as they only had a hard copy. He was advised that this was happening by email by the person sending it. Our solicitor asked him to send a copy by fax to her as she was dealing with this. He replied in an incredibly spartan (for him) email, that I was dealing with this. I then sent him an email advising that I was, however as the lease was being sent to him, could he fax it to the solicitor. He replied saying that he would send it to me when it arrived. Solicitor emails him asking him to fax it to her, rather than wait for it going to him, him sending it to me and me sending it to the solicitor by internal mail to three locations across the city. He then replies that he didn't realise it wasn't an electronic version and agrees to fax it across to the solicitor on arrival. He then copies us all into an email to the person who had sent him the lease, asking him to send him the lease and by this time, I have overcome the frustration to become a large bundle of hysterical laughter tears streaming down my face. Moments later the final email arrived: "Leased Faxed to Solicitor 11:08 am." I was disappointed that it didn't conclude with "Mission Accomplished"
I said earlier he briefly became Field Marshall Fuck-Up because after today he has reached the zenith of his career and shall henceforth be known as the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse. Everything he touches turns to shite.
Labels: Gigs
posted by timesnewroman at 6:09 AM
