I was recently in London for a few days. I guess the main point of the trip was to check out Benji B‘s night called Deviation. Its on the first Wednesday of every month at Gramaphone. It was one of the best club night’s I have been to this year. Electric Wire Hustle were playing live and although I had never heard of them before they were pretty tight, check them out if you can. Joy Orbison was there as well playing a house set rather than what he usually plays, which was great, but the real reason it was great was Benji B DJing, it was just like his radio show, which I have been listening to every week for the last couple of years. It was great to hear Quest’s Smooth Skin as I went into the club. The tune that got me on the dance floor was the instrumental of Mingi by Mim Suleiman. He just played loads of great music. The venue was tiny and the drinks were reasonably priced. I’ll definitely be heading back there again next time I am in London.
As usual I checked out some shops. Bought some new t-shirts from Slam City. I bought the Penrose Triangle t-shirt from Palace, a new dry fit pocket tee by Nike SB and I also bought the Emerica charity t-shirt which sees all the money going towards the Southbank project. More info about it in the video below.
I went to an amazing Japanese restaurant called Koya. It specializes in Udon noodles. It was super busy and we were lucky to get a table looking into the kitchen. I had hot noodles with beef, which was great. I think the highlight of the meal was seaweed salad, which tasted of the sea. I also checked out the Design Museum and also the maps exhibition at the British Library. Oh yeah, I also bought this cheeky little t-shirt too.
Yesterday I went to St Peter’s Seminary up at Cardross. Apologies for quality of the photos. Just took them on my phone. Check out the video below for how it used to look. Thanks to The Sidepipe for the link to the video.
I had the great fortune of being able to go up the Empire State Building on my birthday in 2009. I’ve been up it before, but it is amazing to look out over the whole of New York in one go. It was just a great experience and a brilliant way to start your day on your birthday.
Phantom Band video
One of my friends at work is in The Phantom Band and when they needed some people to appear in their video he asked if I wanted to be in it. Of course I said yes, luckily I only appear for about 1 second in the video, but it was still cool to appear in a music video.
London Eye on Easter Sunday
I love looking out over cities and I was fortunate enough to go on the London Eye on Easter Sunday. It was a special Easter Sunday trip and they had someone in the Eye with you telling you all about the Easter Bunny and how the Thames was actually a river of chocolate and that at the Mint they made money out of chocolate and mint. It was pretty funny.
Boozing in Barcade
My friend Steve told me about Barcade. Its a bar in Brooklyn where they have loads of old arcade machines. When I was over in New York I definitely had to go there and I did. It was great fun, though after a few beers your skills definitely disappear. Some of the machines are knackered though, the buttons don’t work and the joysticks don’t work, but its still cool and they have a great selection of beers. Just don’t have the Caledonian one. It was way too sweet.
Warp20 Mention
Haha! You get a poster with the Warp20 box set and it lists mentions from the Warp20 website. When you voted for a track it gave you the opportunity to write a few words about it. I’m not going to say what track I wrote about or what pseudonym it is under, but it was still cool to get something on that poster.
Supersonic 2009
I didn’t think I was going to go to any festivals this year, but I managed to make it down to Supersonic in Birmingham. It was good to hang out with some friends and see some excellent music. I think the highlight of the weekend was to see Goblin. I love their music and to see them live was impressive. I also went to the Q&A session but I didn’t ask any questions. Still, there were some other awesome bands there like Nisennenmondai and Remember Remember and Head Of David were pretty sick too. I’d definitely go back, but I wouldn’t stay at the Etap Hotel.
My Bloody Valentine ATP
I was hyped when they announced that My Bloody Valentine would be curating The Nightmare Before Christmas for ATP. Though as it went on I wasn’t too fussed about alot of the bands that they had chosen, but once I got there it was brilliant. I had such a relaxed time when I was there and it was great to see J Mascis and The Fog, EPMD, Bob Mould, Yo La Tengo and of course it was great to see My Bloody Valentine twice! They are an incredible band. I couldn’t stop smiling when I saw them on the Friday night and finishing off the Sunday night with them was great as well. Oh yeah, Sonic Youth were pretty decent too.
Starting the radio show again
Its been great fun starting up the Build + Destroy radio show again with my friend Sally. It was good to have a year off to refresh the batteries and its hectic moving down to a one hour slot on Subcity. Its not gone to plan so far this year due to lots of incidents happening, but I think we will settle down and produce some good shows this year.
Wedding in Plymouth
I travelled down to Plymouth in October of last year for a wedding. It was a fantastic wedding and I really enjoyed myself. The journey down was great, it was split between two trains and a car and then the journey back was split between a bus and a plane with short stop off in London giving me time to stretch my legs. I wish Sadie and Luke all the best in their marriage. Thanks for inviting me to a great wedding. There was lots of dancing, drinking and eating involved. I loved all the mini foods and the main meal was excellent. The buffet was brilliant too, but I was just too full to eat alot of it. I loved the pasties. Also having individual fairy cakes instead of a wedding cake was a genius idea! They were amazing. Thanks for inviting me.
Mentions on Benji B’s 1xtra show
I’ve really got into the Benji B show on a Sunday night. Now that it has moved times I can usually catch an hour or two before going to bed or I listen in again. I started up the twitter account and started following Benji B. He’s good at asking for requests and hyping up the radio show on it, so I guess that is why there are so many Build + Destroy shout outs on the show.
Finishing Akira Graphic Novel
Ok, I ran out of things that I had done that were great last year, well, I am sure I did loads of great things, but this does stand out. It had taken me about 3 years to read and get hold of all 6 parts of the Akira graphic novel. It is worth it though. Its much better than the film.
A Norwegian TV channel, NRK2, showed an incredibly long documentary called Bergensbanen. It chronicled the scenic train journey from Oslo to Bergen. The programme shows every minute of the scenic journey along the West coast of Norway. I’ve not had a look yet, but you can download all of the footage from the TV programme. It clocks in at seven and a half hours. It is free to download under the Creative Commons License. Fantastic!
