keep on trucking

heh. i completely forgot that i'd sent a late pleading application to steward at the sold-out ninth truck festival, the weekend before my birthday (end of july) in abingdon, oxfordsire.

imagine my joy and delight to find a message in my inbox this morning telling me that i've got a place.

now that's sorted, anyone want to join me and run a zine stall? i'll pay your fee..... ;)

edit: sweet god. all i knew of the line-up was that thomas truax might be playing.
just found this via drowned in sound:

"We're awfully pleased to announce the first raft of bands for this year's Truck Festival

As official media partners and programme-makers for this year's Truck Festival, we're insanely happy to be the first to give you the lowdown on the initial raft of bands.

This year also sees the involvement of our friends at BBC 6music, another fantastic string to Truck's bow as the best alt. radio station in the country. We'll be getting down and dirty with them and between us will have the whole festival covered in our own unique styles.

Truck Festival tickets have well-and-truly sold out now, meaning that the not-for-profit festival can benefit more charities than ever, this year donating to a whopping forty-seven.

So, without further ado, please find the first bands to be announced for Truck Festival 2006. Also be reminded that there is more to come, including a rather special headliner for Saturday night...

65daysofstatic,
Alva,
Anat Ben David,
Buck 65,
Chicks On Speed,
Chris McMath,
Chris T-T,
Colony,
Emmy The Great,
Fell City Girl,
Foals,
¡Forward, Russia!,
Gaptooth,
Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly,
Goldrush (TBC),
Harlette,
Hundred Reasons,
Jakokoyak,
Jetplane Landing,
Katchafire,
KTB,
Manic Cough,
Morrison Steam Fayre,
My Mayo Mai,
Mystery Jets,
nervous test_pilot,
Ninja Banjo Handjob,
Persil,
Piney Gir's Country Roadshow,
Rachael Dadd,
Rebecca Mosley,
Regina Spektor,
Seth Lakeman,
Shimura Curves,
Skindred,
Sow,
Suitable Case For Treatment,
The Black Madonnas,
The Dusty Sound System,
The Epstein,
The Lodge,
The Madeleines,
The Neutrinos,
The Organ,
The Research,
The September Girls,
The Schla La Las,
The Sound Movement,
The Tyde,
The Walkoff,
The Young Knives,
Thomas Truax,
Tim Victor,
Toob,
Tough Love,
Total Science,
Trademark,
Xmas Lights,
Youthmovies

my god :)

catch up

well now.
the move is set - i head for manchesterish climes a week on wednesday. the garden shed is going to be turned into a writing den :) gonna be having a housewarming 'ball', and i've got myself a new frock for the first night of pizza and champagne.

i had an incredible week and a half in welsh wales. the first part of it was spent helping turn an old barn into liveable, teachable-in space. we didn't get as far as the straw baling, but i helped to brick up an old doorway, make a window frame and build an entire new doorframe. i'm a dab hand at mixing cement now, and have got muscles. i was lent a fantastic lesbianian outfit of waterproof dungarees, safety goggles and para boots - a comedy picture will be posted :)
i stayed with some fantastic women, made some firm friends (including a cat called amber who slept on my belly every night) and am going back in summer. outdoor baths coming up - huzzah! and a field of cows next door, who come to say hello if you sing at them. also wood-chopping, long walks, drumming, horses, owls, bats, big spiders, magic rooms and a thousand trees growing in the next field.

the second part was the cwwn conference, which was amazing. maj, who i met earlier in the week, came along too in her romahome with a crazy dog - which, at one point, made biting advances towards internationally renowned lady novelist sarah waters. hehehe - something to tell the grandkittens. so yeah, i had unexpected excellent company, and an ally for charity shopping and coffee breaks :) at one point we got mistaken for kitchen staff - i think we were the only un-academics there, and it got quite fun at times..
i have a posh-looking delegate badge with my name on, and obtained a poster for the new house, along with an armfull of second hand books i'd meant to pick up for ages. and a shedload of notes to write up, along with uni applications (english lit and lang, or combined studies to include both of those and maybe a little french). one of the conference organisers is moving to be the head of english at salford, which is quite a happy coincidence...

if uni doesn't happen, then i'm gonna try enrol on a beginners welsh course :)

the zine has halted production temporarily - more copies will be done in the next fortnight though, and should hit the streets of manchester too.

on a zine-related note, the new issue of no quarter magazine is out and heartily recommended, as is the fantastic knockback magazine. check them out :)

musically, i'm in love with shattered star's music links page click the 'stairs' icon on the far right) - thank you for those!
i have a 'novel 23' album to collect from jumbo, which im really excited about, and a plethora of manc gigs to go to from the day after i move in - hurray!

devastations

wohooo!
the devastations, a fine trio of aussies, are touring!
*dances*
i think they're in just about every town that my lovely uk readers live in, so i strongly urge you to catch them if you can.
they left leeds off the dates, but that's ok - looks like i'll be in manchester by then, and will have ample crash space :)


links to them on the right of this post in music and downloads.

"tropical goth". hehehe!

so, the dates:

May 2 2006 Glee Club Birmingham
May 3 2006 The Scala London
May 4 2006 Life Cafe Manchester
May 12 2006 ABC2 Glasgow
May 16 2006 Louisiana Bristol
May 17 2006 Bush Hall London
May 19 2006 Roisin Dubh Galway
May 20 2006 Dolan's Warehouse Limerick
May 22 2006 The Village Dublin
May 23 2006 An Cruiscin Cork
May 29 2006 Academy Newcastle
May 31 2006 Fibber's York
May 31 2006 Koko w/ The National London
Jun 1 2006 Academy 2 Liverpool
Jun 2 2006 The Point Cardiff
Jun 3 2006 Zodiac Oxford
Jun 4 2006 The Spitz London
Jun 6 2006 Life Cafe Manchester
Jun 7 2006 Glee Club Birmingham
Jun 8 2006 The Musician Leicester
Jun 15 2006 Lemon Tree Aberdeen
Jun 16 2006 King Tut's Glasgow
Jun 17 2006 Liquid Rooms Edinburgh
Jun 20 2006 Cargo London
Jun 21 2006 Arts Centre Norwich
Jun 22 2006 Louisiana Bristol

All shows start at 8pm.

defense de fumer

well.
i've just got back from a wee break in glasgow (following a manchester pit stop, a thomas truax gig, a rave ring/zine swap and a missed train).
being an enthusiastic smoker with intentions to quit "sometime", i didn't have a clue how i was going to get through my pool and beer arrangements, apart from my plastic cigarette and nicotine bullets (read: nicorette inhalator).

in reality, it's actually been really good.


the point that i could smoke *outside* had completely escaped me. however, my hostesses flat was on a third floor, and the smoking out the kitchen window had been abolished along with smoking in pubs.

i ended up having 2 fags while i was out, and going outside for two before i went to bed.
(on the last one, i got propositioned - didn't realise that an orange duffle coat, dm's and wild hair were 'working girl' uniform - and offered 'brown' within the space of about 5 minutes. i don't think they meant hp sauce).

i really enjoyed the unsmokiness of the pub. i don't think i've ever actually experienced that before.

i also realised, on my climbing back *up* three flights of stairs post-fagarette, that i really *do* need to quit. also, how smokey i smelled - i noticed this more so than i normally would (socialising with smokers kind of makes it a lot less noticeable, i guess).

i was surprised that the smoking ban in scotland also covers 'open' train station platforms, but i guess it makes sense.

i'm also amazed that i haven't even contemplated ripping anyone's head off, having spent twelve hours on coaches and trains this weekend sans fags (and weirdly not getting the urge to bother with the plastic one).
in the past, the closest i've really come to trying to quit was a 24 hour good-intentioned nicotine patch trial. i smoked within about six hours of putting it on, and took it off again shortly after.
otherwise, it's been whenever i've been so poor that i can't afford fags (those, cat food and litter are the three 'basics' that my house will not function without) and my immediate reaction was to sob hysterically and seek out wine. that only happened a couple of times about five years ago, so i've been more or less fully nicotined up since the age of eighteen, i guess. i'm feeling like it might be time to try and stop and see what happens.

i never thought i'd say this, but i'm quite looking forward to the ban coming in force over here...

relocation relocation relocation!

okay. my time in leeds is through. i'm moving out of my current abode in the next few months. my home and my uni course (see comments) were the two things really keeping me here.

i'm tired of having a morally and ethically bankrupt social circle; tired of having scary people know where i live, work and socialise; tired of having constant reminders of my fuckups; tired of reminders and associations with unfortunate events; tired of my job (which, having had my hours reduced from 13 to 5, isn't really worth keeping any more anyway); tired of feeling alone. i'd rather feel alone in a different city with a clean slate than here. that said, i know at least one good person in every one of the options...

so. yes. time to spread my wings and find a new horizon to look out onto.

but where?
	manchester
	sheffield
	glasgow
	edinburgh
	brighton
	dublin
	sweden
	brooklyn
	other
Free polls from Pollhost.com

readers, suggestions are welcomed! there might be a couple of red herrings in the options though :)

new ways of identifying terror suspects.

good grief. whatever you do, kids, don't listen to the clash.

we have to be very careful with "the magnificent seven" in our house, for fear of scaring the cat. why? the following lyric:

vacuum cleaner sucks up budgie

tetris. but with cats.

clicky here

internet, i love and curse you.

jo shapcott

hasn't entered my head for about eight years, until this morning.
she wrote (writes?), amongst other things, a series of 'mad cow' poems. she rocks. i'm getting as many of her books as i can at the end of this month :)
here's a couple - enjoy x


The Mad Cow Talks Back

I'm not mad. It just seems that way
because I stagger and get a bit irritable.
There are wonderful holes in my brain
through which ideas from outside can travel
at top speed and through which voices,
sometimes whole people, speak to me
about the universe. Most brains are too
compressed. You need this spongy
generosity to let the others in.

I love the staggers. Suddenly the surface
of the world is ice and I'm a magnificent
skater turning and spinning across whole hard
Pacifics and Atlantics. It's risky when
you're good, so of course the legs go before,
behind, and to the side of the body from time to time,
and then there's the general embarrassing
collapse, but when that happens it's glorious
because it's always when you're travelling
most furiously in your mind. My brain's like
the hive: constant little murmurs from its cells
saying this is the way, this is the way to go

The Mad Cow In Love

I want to be an angel and really think
I’m getting there with this mind of mine,
shrinking every day toward the cleanness,
the size of a baby animal’s brain.
Trouble is, I want you to be an angel too─
and want that more if anything. It’s one
of those demands I can’t raise just like that,
evenings, when we’re reading our different newspapers
you scanning your pages and me mine for an item
to start speech, make mouths smile, knees touch─something
in all that murder and mayhem to launch love.

You tell me you’re looking for news of the self.
Do you want to be an angel? I know
the answer already and it’s rough medicine.
But think of all the kinds there are, as many
as the different degrees of reaching
for the good. You might get away without
searching for the soul at all those places,
today at least, you’d rather not get to know.
And angels do a variety of jobs:
the post of perpetual adoration might suit,
or divine messenger but I fancy for you
the government of the stars and all the elements.
I know you well enough to choose, after all this time
as foreign correspondent on the track of who you are,
looking for leads: your last screw, the food
you threw away, your strategic approaches
for living through the next hour.
I don’t mean it,
though, any of it. I want you earthly,
including all the global terrors and harms
which might come when we fall backwards
into the world of horn and hoof.

The Mad Cow Tries To Write The Good Poem

The police came when I was doing my death dance
to the amazing circular music which had entered a gap
near my cortex and acted as powerfully
as a screwdriver on my soul.
I wove in and out of the green trees.
I used my hooves as gentle weapons in the air.
A bit of newspaper fame came my way that day, but shit,
it was a performance ephemeral, and certainly not the good poem.

Lasting. How can I last when I live in a shed
and even the postman doesn't know where to find me?
It's dark in here. Light would echo the
gaps in my brain coils and set off a fizzing reaction,
not so much pounding, more an explosion
followed by a flowing moment when the taboo people arrive.
They're dressed in red and stand formally around my
skull as though staged for an opera. And when they sing
- sometimes as many as seven at once -
then, friend, please, the good poem is sounding all round this hut,
my head, the world,
I hear it written in the streaky emulsion on the walls,
in my own messing on the floor,
in the nation's smeary dailies,
in lovely people's ears, their breath, your breath:
it's new every time, always wanted and easy to spot
because I know what it looks like with my eyes closed.

the great gatsby

for anyone interested enough to click on the links or my profile on here, i have a second page, which has chunks of books i love on it.
i would put this on there too, but i thought it went better here.... so. an extract from 'the universal story' by ali smith, taken from 'the whole story and other stories'.

"There was once a 1974 Penguin edition on F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel The Great Gatsby in the window of a quiet second-hand bookshop in a village that very few people visited any more. It had a hundred and eighty-eight numbered pages and was the twentieth Penguin edition of this particular novel - it had been reprinted three times in 1974 alone; this popularity was partly due to the film of the novel which came out that year, directed by Jack Clayton. Its cover, once bright yellow, had already lost most of its colour before it arrived at the shop. In the film-still on it, ornate in a twenties-style frame, Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, the stars of the film, were also quite faded, though Redford was still dapper in his golf cap and Farrow, in a very becoming floppy hat, suited the sepia effect that the movement of sun and light on glass had brought to her quite by chance.


The novel had first been bought for 30p (6/-) in 1974 in a Devon bookshop by Rosemary Child who was twenty-two and who had felt the urge to read the book before she saw the film. She married her fiance Roger two years later. They mixed their books and gave their doubles to a Cornwall hospital. This one had been picked off the hospital library trolley in Ward 14 one long hot July afternoon in 1977 by Sharon Patten, a fourteen-year-old girl with a broken hip who was stuck in bed in traction and bored because Wimbledon was over. Her father had seemed pleased at visiting hour when he saw it on her locker and though she'd given up reading it halfway through she kept it there by the water jug for her whole stay and smuggled it home with her when she was discharged. Three years later, when she didn't care any more what her father thought of what she did, she gave it to her schoolfriend David Connor who was going to university to do English, telling him it was the most boring book in the world. David read it. It was perfect. It was just like life is. Everything is beautiful, everything is hopeless. He walked to school quoting bits of it to himself under his breath. By the time he went up north to university in Edinburgh two years later, now a mature eighteen-year-old, he admired it, as he said several times in the seminar, though he found it a little adolescent and believed the underrated Tender Is The Night to be Fitzgerald's real masterpiece. The tutor, who every year had to mark around a hundred and fifty abysmal first-year essays on The Great Gatsby, nodded sagely and gave him a high pass in his exam. In 1985, having landed a starred first and a job in personnel management, David sold all his old literature course books to a girl called Mairead for thirty pounds. Mairead didn't like English - it had no proper answers - and decided to do economics instead. She sold them all again, making a lot more money than David had. The Great Gatsby went for £2.00, six times its original price, to a first-year student called Gillian Edgbaston. She managed to never read it and left it on the shelves of the rented house she'd been living in when she moved out in 1990. Brian Jackson, who owned the rented house, packed it in a box which sat behind the freezer in his garage for five years. In 1995 his mother, Rita, came to visit and while he was tidying out his garage she found it in the open box, just lying there on the gravel in his driveway. The Great Gatsby! she said. She hadn't read it in years. He remembers her reading it that summer, it was two summers before she died, and her feet were up on the sofa and her head was deep in the book. She had a whole roomful of books at home. When she died in 1997 he boxed them all up and gave them to a registered charity. The registered charity checked through them for what was valuable and sold the rest on in auctioned boxes of thirty miscellaneous paperbacks, a fiver per box, to second-hand shops all over the country.

The woman in the quiet second-hand bookshop had opened the box she brought at auction and had raised her eyebrows, tired. Another Great Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Now a Major Picture. The book was in the window. Its pages and their edges were dingy yellow because of the kind of paper used in old Penguin Modern Classics; by nature these books won't last. A fly was resting on the book now in the weak sun in the window.

But the fly suddenly swerved away into the air because a man had put his hand in among the books in the window display in the second-hand bookshop and was picking the book up.

Now:

There was once a man who reached his hand in a picked a second-hand copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby out of the window of a quiet second-hand bookshop in a small village. He turned the book over as he went to the counter.
How much is this one, please? he asked the grey-looking woman.
She took it from him and checked the inside cover.
That one's £1, she said.
It says thirty pence here on it, he said, pointing to the back.
That's the 1974 price, the woman said.
The man looked at her. He smiled a beautiful smile. The woman's face lit up.
But, well, since it's very faded, she said, you can have it for fifty.
Done, he said.
Would you like a bag for it? she asked.
No, it's okay, he said. Have you any more?
Any more Fitzgerald? the woman said. Yes, under F. I'll just -.
No, the man said, I mean, any more copies of The Great Gatsby.
You want another copy of The Great Gatsby? the woman said.
I want all your copies of it, the man said, smiling.
The woman went to the shelves and found him four more copies of The Great Gatsby. Then she went through to the storeroom at the back of the shop and checked for more.
Never mind, the man said, Five'll do. Two pounds for the lot, what do you say?
His car was an old Mini Metro. The back seat was under a sea of different editions of The Great Gatsby. He cleared some stray copies from beneath the driver's seat so they wouldn't slide under his feet or the pedals while he was driving and threw the books he'd just bought over his shoulder on to the heap without even looking. He started the engine. The next second-hand bookshop was six miles away, in the city. His sister had called him from her bath two Fridays ago.

James, I'm in the bath, she'd said. I need F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
F what's the what? he'd said.
She told him again. I need as many as possible, she said.
Okay, he'd said.
He worked for her because she paid well; she had a grant.
Have you ever read it? she asked.
No, he'd said. Do I have to?
So we beat on, she'd said. Boats against the current. Borne back ceaselessly into the past. Get it?
What about petrol money, if I'm supposed to drive all over the place looking for books? he'd said.
You've got five hundred quid to buy five hundred books. You get them for less, you can keep the change. And I'll pay you two hundred on top for your trouble. Boats agasinst the current. It's perfect, isn't it?
And petrol money? he'd said.
I'll pay it, she'd sighed.

Because:

There was once a woman in the bath who had just phoned her brother and asked him to find her as many copies of The Great Gatsby as possible. She shook the drips off the phone, dropped it over the side on to the bathroom carpet and put her arm back into the water quick because it was cold.

She was collecting the books because she made full-sized boats out of things boats aren't usually made out of. Three years ago she had made a three-foot long boat out of daffodils which she and her brother had stolen at night from people's front gardens all over town. Shew had launched it, climbing into it, in the local canal. Water had come up round her feet almost immediately, then up round her knees, her thighs, till she was midriff-deep in icy water and daffodils floating all around her, unravelled.

But a small crowd had gathered to watch it sink and the story had attracted a lot of local and even some national media attention. Sponsored by Interflora, which paid enough for her to come off unemployment benefit, she made another boat, five feet long and out of mixed flowers, everything from lillies to snowdrops. It also sank, but this time was filmed for an arts project, with her in it, sinking. This had won her a huge arts commission to make more unexpected boats. Over the last two years she had made ten - and twelve - footers out of sweets, leaves, clocks and photographs, and had launched each one with great ceremony at a different UK port. None of them had lasted more than eighty feet out to sea.

The Great Gatsby, she thought in the bath. It was a book she remembered from her adolescence and as she'd been lying in the water fretting about what to do next so her grant wouldn't be taken away from her it had suddenly come into her head.

It was perfect, she thought, nodding to herself. So we beat on. The last line of the book. She ducked her shoulders under the water to keep them warm.

And so, since we've come to the end already:

The seven-foot boat made of copies of The Great Gatsby stuck together with waterproof sealant was launched in the spring in the port of Felixstowe.

The artist's brother collected over three hundred copies of The Great Gatsby and drove between Wales and Scotland doing so. It is still quite hard to buy a copy of The Great Gatsby in some of the places he visited. It cost him a hundred and eighty three pounds fifty exactly. He kept the change. He was also a man apt to wash his hands before he ate, so was unharmed by any residue left by the fly earlier in the story on the cover of the copy he bought in the quiet second-hand bookshop.

This particular copy of The Great Gatsby, with the names of some of the people who had owned it inked under each other in their different handwritings on its inside first page - Rosemary Child, Sharon Patten, David Connor, Rita Jackson - was glued into the prow of the boat, which stayed afloat for three hundred yards before it finally took in water and sank.

The fly which had paused on the book that day spent that evening resting on the light fitting and hovering more than five feet above ground level. This is what flies tend to do in the evenings. This fly was no exception.

The woman who ran the second-hand bookshop had been delighted to sell all her copies of The Great Gatsby at once, and to such a smiling young man. SHe replaced the one which had been in the window with a copy of Dante's The Divine Comedy and as she was doing so she fanned open the pages of the book. Dust flew off. She blew more dust off the top of the page then wiped it off her counter. She looked at the book dust smudged on her hand. It was time to dust all the books, shake them all open. It would take her well into the spring. Fiction, then non-fiction, then all the sub-categories. Her heart was light. That evening, she began, at the letter A."

i loved this the first time i read it. the other week a friend came to visit with a weighty rucksack of books (just so i need to put more shelves up - but thank you em!)... among them was 'the great gatsby', which i've never read. it's got the 'film' cover. i've started reading it today.

and when i looked at the back of my most recent purchase, i saw this....




i do like life's little coincidences sometimes :)

ramble

well now.

about thirty copies of the zine are across the globe (one's in oz, or on its way there...). and one has randomly reunited me with someone lovely that i haven't spoken to for over five years...

i'm off to wales in a fortnight, and the exam and essay and deadline hell is over, as of yesterday lunchtime. *counts on fingers* i had five essay deadlines, a presentation and two exams in something like a seven day chunk. and a list of mitigating circumstances the length of my arm.

about half the stuff was re-sit/re-submission. well, sit and submission, to be more precise - i had a huge crisis of confidence last semester, bottled the december exams and didn't hand coursework in (despite having done it. educational shrink, here i come... ) one of the exams was a pre-seen paper, so i had plenty of time to prepare (what i thought were) fairly good answers for the re-sit.

it was on wednesday. i checked the exam timetable on monday, to find the questions were posted on there too. they were a completely different set, and had a bit underneath that said they had been mailed to all students re-sitting.
the office, up until three weeks ago, had been sending my mail to an address i haven't lived at for over a year (except, for some reason, the corporate style leeds met xmas card, which reached me just fine). it took them fifteen minutes to tell me that they 'think' the stuff got sent to my current address.
i bumped into my course leader after the exam, who reckons the questions are sent out recorded delivery, so they should be able to confirm if and where mine got delivered to. i'm well pissed off, at them and at myself for not realising that the questions would be different. oh well, all i need to do is pass, and i think i answered ok enough to manage that.

i weirdly enjoyed yesterday's exam. the role of women and gender divisions in victorian england, debating whether the industrial revolution could actually be dubbed an industrial evolution..

for one of my history modules focussing on west yorkshire, the industrial revolution and its legacies, i have a presentation after easter. i'm going to talk about the rhubarb triangle and take my group up the town hall clock tower (not a euphemism). the joy of having a housemate who works in high places :)

so. last night i had a budget celebratory night in with a bottle of wine and longdistance catch-up with glasgow ladies (who i'm visiting next weekend - hurray!) and various other cross-country reprobates. thank goodness i didn't go out. i ended up in bed at half past ten, and woke up this morning to find i was still wearing my boots and had half a bottle of wine left. that was at an alarming twenty past six. i went outside and watched the sunrise with a cat, a coffee and a cigarette. screeched quietly on the violin for a bit (the housemate keeps weird hours and was already up and about, so no worries about waking him) and did a bit of blog reading...

which leads me on to the point of this post.

a while ago, i heard david byrne for the first time. really liked it, and promptly forgot to check some out when i got home. until this post popped up on the quiet road. so i soulseeked a little, and this is the first thing that's come through...
great stuff.

David Byrne - U.B. Jesus

Sunrise, I'm still dancing
Girlfriend, she's my champion
Swing low, pull me over
Hey - be my savior

Blood, Skin
Show me the book
Don't understand the language that they spoke

Don't pity me
Have pity on yourself
You might know Jesus but you'll all join in hell

Shine On Sister!
Don't need a book to put your hand in the fire
Shine On Sister!
Come on in cause it's cold outside

Kiss Me!
Kiss Me!
I can tell your name by the markings on your face

U. B. Jesus
Makin' my way & I'm lovin' my life
Kiss Me!
Kiss Me!
Swing so crazy like the way you ride

Maybe I'm gonna fry in hell
But I feel good when I'm dyin' myself
In a smokey place, In my girlfriends car
Threw out the map when we drove to far

Jesus is big
Jesus is strong
Jesus'll kill you if you don't get along

Jesus can swing
Jesus has skills
Go on & try it if you don't believe he will

Jump Back, Jump Back
Givin' me a heart attack
Fall down, Fall down
Sweeter than a cherry bomb


Sweet Thing, Sweet Thing
Steppin' on your violin
Space Boy, Fly Girl
Living in the underworld

Shine On Sister!
Don't need a book to put your hand in the fire
Shine On Sister!
Come on in cause it's cold outside

Jesus is cool (or cruel?)
Jesus is scared
Baby you are the only car I drive

Foolin around
Foolin myself
Baby you are the only car I drive

Easy to touch
Easy to find
Baby you are the only car I drive

Melts in my mouth
Melts in the hand
Baby you are the only car I drive

Outta my skin
Outta my life
Baby you are the only car I drive
The only car I drive


i shall check out 'remain in light' over the next three weeks of glorious easter holidays.

all the wires

well, i had all the wine. all of us are too hectic at the moment to properly sort out starting up again, but we did get involved in a bit of promoting recently.. kind of by accident.



pocket's mate's band, detwiije, asked him to sort out a gig at our local, and said they would bring the fantastically-titled beyond this point are monsters with them. so he roped me and laura music in... we arranged for a couple of other acts, the divine fran rodgers and the mighty quack quack to play too, and we dj'd in between sets.

it went well, considering we were too skint to do 'proper' flyering and stuff.
the bands and fran were excellent.

cheered by the relative success, i'm looking to put some stuff on at the holy trinity in town at some point. i have a few bands in mind, and they're pretty diverse. the only thing they have in common that i can think of (other that i like them) is that some of their instruments have strings. emails to send and updates to be given later..

ooh and quack quack have a new single out. it's very good. isn't it time you treated yourself? go on, you deserve it...