Black Marx

CAREY MARX / BISHOP & DOUCH / NICK PAGE, 28TH APRIL 2008, OXFORD CELLAR

How to get people out to comedy gigs on a Monday night? That was the dilemma faced by Paddy Luscombe, the man behind The Free Beer Show. Can you guess how he manages it?

If the students who comprise the vast majority of the audience are aware who compere Nick Page is, then they do a good job of hiding it. Perhaps in these times of tuition fees and rising academic expectations, they're just too conscientious to spend their days sprawled in front of daytime TV, in which case they might not recognise the former presenter of shitey BBC property series 'Escape To The Country'. But somehow I doubt it.

Having begun by getting an uncomfortable laugh with a topical quip about us being squashed together into a confined underground space, Page does briefly savage the programme on which he prostituted himself, but gets more mileage out of his home county, Gloucestershire, being famous for only two things: the bizarre practice of cheese rolling and Fred West. Apparently there's so little to proud of if you're from Gloucester that if you badmouth West someone will come up to you and say "Yeah, but he was a fucking good builder..."

The fact that when Page reappears, some twenty-five minutes later (though it feels like twenty-five hours), he has a bemused smile plastered across his face should tell you something about support act Bishop & Douch (and friends). That that bemused smile raises a far bigger laugh than they could manage certainly should. That his first words are "Anyone need a drink?"...

Tonight's set consists of an amorphous and incoherent sketch that shifts in content and location. It begins with the hapless duo being chastised for a dereliction of duties by their boss at Disneyland, then becomes a tiresomely repetitive deconstruction of the familiar unmasking of Old Man Winters from 'Scooby Doo' with the backing cast stepping out of role to hijack the script, and ends up in a grim place called Sesame Lane.

Whether or not these three phases are deliberate nods to the first series of 'The Mighty Boosh', Charlie Kaufman's 'Adaptation' and David Chapelle's take on 'Sesame Street' respectively hardly matters - it all hangs together by the most tenuous of threads, and elicits far more awkward silence and bewilderment than it does laughs. Page has confessed that the thing he's inherited from his father (other than an excess of body hair) is the inability to avoid saying or doing something if he'll thereby amuse himself, even if only for a moment. I get the feeling I'm not alone in thinking it's unfortunate that Bishop & Douch seem to suffer from the same affliction.

Page welcomes us back after the interval by recounting his fondness for finding lists of names on noticeboards, very deliberately highlighting just one with a fluorescent marker pen and then making his escape, chuckling at the panic his mischief may have unleashed. But any whimsy is soon swept aside as he tells us, in the accelerated style of delivery he uses at times, of the night (which I suspect may be fictional) when he accidentally dosed himself with Rohypnol.

Tonight's billed headliner Rob Deering, who's had to pull out due to family illness, has been described on Chortle as an "easy-going act" whose "audience rapport is in the Eric Morecambe league, with a natural, non-threatening geniality that only the hardest of hearts wouldn't warm to". The same could hardly be said of his last-minute replacement, who apparently once made Princess Beatrice cry for more than an hour - quite probably not with laughter, one suspects.

For the most part, Carey Marx deals in the comedy of cruelty - or what he repeatedly refers to as "harsh jokes". Most are about midgets and women, and most are pretty unfunny and forgettable. All are delivered with a self-satisfied smirk. If there's anything worse than gratuitous offensiveness purely for the sake of it, then it's gratuitous offensiveness purely for the sake of it that tries to dress itself up as something more noble and purposive. Rather than pressing on regardless of the offence his material might cause, Marx irritatingly feels the need to try to justify and defend himself - but just doesn't have the arguments to do so.

It's a shame as much as an annoyance, though, because there's undoubted potential in some of the material, which has been culled from his diary and which is likely to form the basis for an Edinburgh show called 'Careyness' (and hence why I feel a bit like Herod, sticking the knife into the show in its infancy). We follow him out of his front door, through London, up to Scotland, in and out of hotel rooms, and back again - all the time on the look-out for subjects and incidents to riff on. It's a revealing window into the world of the professional stand-up, and the creation of a set, though much of it will probably rightly end up being filtered out when he sits down and seriously pans for the gold.

When he does dwell on something for long enough to probe a little deeper - such as Australian MP Ann Bressington's call for the introduction of "sex contracts" - it's clear that there's a perceptive wit lurking beneath the laddish exterior. Arguably the best element of the set is the mystery of the various bald men spotted around London folding and tearing up newspapers. But Marx's delivery of the punchline, which would make a neat conclusion to the set, is flat and hurried - and indeed would have been forgotten altogether if not for a prompt from a curious audience member.

Perhaps, to adopt a culinary analogy, you shouldn't sample and criticise what the chef's rustling up when it's still undercooked and far from ready - but even still the evening left rather a sour taste in the mouth.

Feel good hits of the 8th May

1. 'Out Of Reaches' - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
2. 'Night Of The Lotus Eaters' - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
3. 'It's Summertime' - The Flaming Lips
4. 'My Way' - Frank Sinatra
5. 'Dudley' - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
6. 'Soft Sugar' - Noxagt
7. 'Great Waves' - Dirty Three feat. Cat Power
8. 'Olv 26' - Stereolab
9. 'Zionist Timing' - Aereogramme
10. 'Objects Of My Affection' - Peter, Bjorn & John

I should add that, strictly speaking, it wasn't Frank Sinatra's version that stuck in my head - it was the karaoke effort belted out by the snaggle-toothed old chap who held a drunken crowd spellbound in the Black Bull in Morpeth on Sunday night. Make that seven things I didn't expect to see over the course of the Bank Holiday weekend...

Meanwhile, another song from Real Emotional Trash tops the pile. At this rate, I can see every song putting in an appearance at the summit of future installments of FGH -it's hands-down my favourite album of the year so far.

Quote of the day

"You may not believe in an interventionist God, but you're starting to look like Mr Kidd from 'Diamonds Are Forever'".

The last line of today's Guardian Fiver teatime football email. Whether it was Paul Doyle or Tom Lutz who went to the Hammersmith Apollo last night, they've got a point.

I, of course, am not in the slightest jealous of anyone who's already seen or is about to see the disconcertingly libidinous 50-year-old and his Bad Seeds on their current tour. No. Not one bit.

Six things I didn't expect to see over the course of the Bank Holiday weekend

1. The inside of a former Little Chef that's been converted into a superb Indian restaurant. I remember eating Black Forest gateau in there many a time, back when I were a lad and it were all fields.

2. Golf balls disappearing beyond the 200m mark on our visit to the local driving range. Perhaps I should get over the cost and take up golf? After all, I am now of a certain age, and it would give me an excuse to wear silly clothes.

3. A man with a perfect monk haircut (shaven at the back and sides and on top, with a halo of hair left) helping to pack up the stalls on the Quayside in Newcastle at the end of the Sunday market. He must have either done it for a bet or had been on his stag do the previous night. Or maybe it's just the latest fashion that hasn't yet made its way down the country.

4. An aerial runway from the Tyne Bridge over the river. Not so long ago, that really would have been taking your life in your own hands, as one gulp of what passed for water would have probably caused you either to instantly vomit or sprout a third arm. As it is, fall into the Tyne in central Newcastle these days and you're more likely to find your fall broken by an otter.

5. Jimmy White on the M1, en route back to his manor from the World Championships in Sheffield. To be honest, the black Bentley with the number plate 'CUE 130Y' was a giveaway.

6. A Mad Hatter's Tea Party in the courtyard space between Cafe Coco and Kazbar on Cowley Road in Oxford. It was a while before I realised that the reason the wine-swilling fop in the regal cloak looked familiar was because I'd seen him representing his college on 'University Challenge'...

Quote of the day

"A lot of gangsters and Radio 4".

Pete Doherty's comments on prison life upon being released from Wormwood Scrubs.

You can just imagine the scene, can't you?

"What you in for?"

"I done a copper. You?"

"I broke this geezer's ... oooooh, 'The Archers'!"

Death of a nobody v death of a somebody

Anyone like to hazard a guess which of these two news stories about gun crime in the capital is likely to receive the most media coverage in the coming days: this one, which features a Polish immigrant being fatally wounded in New Cross, or this one, which involves a "leading barrister" and a "£2.2m Georgian flat in one of London's most prestigious neighbourhoods"?

Is it just me...

... or is the news that a Talksport presenter has been sacked for forthrightly expressing a personal opinion rather bemusing? Can I vote that Jon Gaunt's next to go?

The rating game

I'm sure I won't be the first to do this, but anyway...

What do you think of the new ratings function that suddenly seems to have been tacked on to the bottom of all my posts? You can use it to record your opinions...

(Seriously, if anyone knows how to switch it off, let me know.)

Feel good hits of the 1st May

What, so soon? Yup, I've been listening to a lot of music this week, though not all of it new...

1. 'Dragonfly Pie' - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
2. 'Victory Gardens' - The Icarus Line
3. 'Bright Tomorrow' - Fuck Buttons
4. 'Lime Tree' - Bright Eyes
5. 'The Story Of Jazz' - Yo La Tengo
6. 'Get Innocuous!' - LCD Soundsystem
7. 'Superman' - Peggy Sue & The Pirates
8. 'The Stations' - The Gutter Twins
9. 'Who's Gonna Find Me' - The Coral
10. 'Crimewave' - Crystal Castles

Some brief notes:

Boy oh boy is the Malkmus album good.

I think I had a bit of a Eureka moment with Bright Eyes' Cassadaga tonight. The same can't be said of The Coral's Roots & Echoes, which continues to underwhelm hugely. Where did it all go wrong?

Anyone else found themselves earworming #6 as a result of the ad for 'Grand Theft Auto IV'?

Seeing red

BLOOD RED SHOES / THESE NEW PURITANS / PEGGY SUE & THE PIRATES, 3RD APRIL 2008, OXFORD ZODIAC

Ever felt like you're the anomaly responsible for raising the average age of a gig crowd above 18? Well, I don't tonight. The dads chaperoning their daughters are doing that...

Fact number one: Peggy Sue & The Pirates have nothing to do with Pete & The Pirates. Fact number two: judging by the absence of peg-legs, pieces of eight and shoulder-perched parrots, neither are they particularly piratical.

The Brighton-based duo - yes, there are only two of them - have supported Kate Nash and so it's no great surprise that they come across as being in a similar vein, albeit possessed by the maverick spirit of someone like Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes. Instruments come and instruments go, but always centre stage are their voices - strong, dovetailing, busily improvising additional sound effects (standout song, the single 'Television', ends with them imitating static), but for these ears too often irritatingly accented. Blood Red Shoes drummer Steven Ansell appears for an acoustic cover of his band's 'Take The Weight', but that's about the only time the chattering classes of sixth formers actually pay them much attention.

Slightly less straightforwardly cast in the role of prelude to the main act are These New Puritans. The Southenders played here as recently as January and have actually cancelled a headlining show of their own later in the month to appear in this support slot.

At times, there's something promising about the violent disco created by the two nerdy-looking mop-heads on stage, as thin as anorexic streaks of piss. Take single 'Elvis', for example: an indiefied Fall set to a thwacking great synthetic beat. But at others - the jackbooted Missy Elliott stomp of 'Swords Of Truth' (over which I guarantee you'll find yourself singing "Get your freak on"...) - it's distinctly underwhelming. And then there's 'Numbers AKA Numerology', on which they think they can get away with singing embarrassingly idiotic piffle like "What's your favourite number? / What does it mean?" by virtue of the fact that they're referencing mathematics, just like all good young angular NME-favoured bands should.

And so to the headliners.

As a wise man once opined, anger is an energy. That same wise man may have gone on to appear on ‘I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here!’, but his point remains valid – and that’s why the room is soon positively crackling with energy.

There’s no denying the fact that Blood Red Shoes are mightily miffed. Halfway through the set, Laura-Mary Carter furiously flings her guitar to the floor and storms off stage right, her partner Ansell following sharply after.

This is no inexcusably arrogant diva-ish strop or childish temper tantrum, though. With long-awaited and unfortunately delayed debut LP Box Of Secrets finally about to hit the shelves, the duo have been bedevilled by malevolent technical gremlins from the off (the set delayed for the best part of ten minutes, the intro tape left to loop over and over again), so it's hardly surprising they've become increasingly frustrated in their attempts to showcase a bunch of songs in which they passionately believe. "It's hard not to get worked up sometimes", Laura-Mary admits to me afterwards.

When they reappear, apologetically, the anger hasn’t dissipated and - further riled by The Man’s joyless limiting of the stage invasion encouraged by Ansell to just Peggy Sue & The Pirates and one lone fan - they set about those same songs with a ferocity that the recording process just can’t capture, mainlining their furious art-punk assault straight into our earholes. An explosive live act at the best of times, tonight their abrasive reimagining of Nirvana if they’d been on Kill Rock Stars rather than Sub Pop is in a different league altogether.

In truth, Box Of Secrets is ingenuously titled, a whole clutch of the songs – ‘It’s Getting Boring By The Sea’, ‘I Wish I Was Someone Better’, ‘You Bring Me Down’ and most recently ‘Say Something Say Anything’ – having already seen the light of day as singles and on the band’s numerous jaunts the length and breadth of the country.

But there’s the rub. It’s fitting that such serious contenders for the title of the hardest gigging band in Britain should take their name from a story about Ginger Rogers having to rehearse a dancing sequence so many times her white shoes turned red. After all, it’s precisely that kind of dogged tunnel-vision determination and dedication, even at risk of exhaustion and personal injury, that defines them.

Safe to say that suffering sabotage at the hands of the fucking Academy and its goons is unlikely to stop them.

Let's get muddy and listen to CSS

The official SWSL reaction to this year's Glasto line-up, revealed today on the Guardian site? Meh, by and large - though it's never just about the music. Man.

That said, there are the odd alluring sequences (CSS, Battles and MGMT heading the Park Stage bill on the Saturday, and particularly The National, Spiritualized, Crystal Castles and The Brian Jonestown Massacre closing the John Peel Stage on the Sunday) and unexpected gems lying in wait - many of them with "black" in their name (Black Mountain, The Black Lips, Black Kids...).

And do my eyes deceive me, or is Shakin Stevens really opening up before The Hold Steady on the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday? Either someone's having a laugh, or Betty was closer to the truth than she could have imagined...

Look who's squawking too

How do you cheer up a feathered fellow whose faithful companion has just flown off to the great birdcage in the sky? By getting him a harem of nubile ladyfriends.

Their names? Rita and Sue, of course.

While Rita has a bluish tinge, which is appropriate because the name conjures up images of blue rinses, we're not actually 100% certain that her companion is female. But then you've heard of a boy named Sue, haven't you?

And what of Bob? Well, he's currently playing the role of the grumpy old grouch whose feathers have been ruffled by the adventurous new arrivals having their beaks in his Trill - but no doubt he'll get used to them before long, once he gets over his shyness at talking to girls.

Feel good hits of the 27th April

1. 'Real Emotional Trash' - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
2. 'This Odd Modern' - Truckers Of Husk
3. 'I Hate Myself And Want To Die' - Nirvana
4. 'God's Children' - The Gutter Twins
5. 'Other Cars Go' - It Hugs Back
6. 'More News From Nowhere' - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
7. 'Kokomo' - Black Dice
8. 'Mr Ladybird' - Lily Green
9. 'Eraser' - No Age
10. 'CCD' - Orcop

Warning: the Black Dice song and video may do funny things to your eyes and mind.

Monsters of rock

Inevitably it's impossible to watch Metallica documentary (or rockumentary, if you will) 'Some Kind Of Monster', as I did recently, without immediately thinking of 'This Is Spinal Tap'.

After all, the behind-the-scenes access-all-areas film made during the tortuously protracted recording sessions for their 2003 album St Anger features ridiculously petulant feuds and childish tantrums on the part of James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich while a wearied Kirk Hammett, forever shaking his head, tries to keep the peace with a futile whine of "Hey guys, can't we all just get along?" And that's not to mention the psychologist / relationship counsellor they're paying $40,000 dollars a week to be call day and night...

But the other film that sprang to mind was 'DiG!', because both made for equally entertaining viewing despite my not caring much for the bands they focus on (in the case of 'DiG!', The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre).

And with 'Some Kind Of Monster' it isn't all laughs at the expense of the protagonists. It's actually a grippingly revealing insight into a world that music fans rarely see - one in which egotistical multi-million-selling musicians can suffer from envy and a crisis of confidence just by seeing their former bassist performing with his new band, and in which a band who have founded their career on being loud and angry but who now find themselves in comfortable middle-aged affluence feel the pressure to come up with something that stands up to their back catalogue.

And that's not to mention the way the film unpicks and exposes the creative process itself, showing the trio noodling away in the studio with little clue of how things might take shape - or, rather, be moulded into shape by ever-present producer Bob Rock.

Perhaps most curious is the feeling, unspoken but evidently shared by all involved, that no matter how bad the tensions and arguments get, they should persevere because ultimately they have something special together that should be preserved - misplaced though that feeling might be, when their collaborative brainstorming session for lyrical ideas throws up the line "My lifestyle determines my deathstyle" and they all decide it should make it onto the finished album...

Know Your Enemy

"[He] gets so excited by the sound of his own opinions that his voice rises to a childish squeak. For me, he has an unwavering cloth ear, glass eye and polythene soul for culture, a flat-pack intellect of received truisms and committee-correct cliches, but is carried along by an innocent and meritless belief that his views are spring rain to a parched wasteland."

A A Gill on 'Newsnight Review' regular Ekow Eshun, director of "that zoo of onanistic, worthless pretension" the ICA.

Gill may know how to be entertainingly spiteful - I'll give him that - but he's a complete tosser and seems to have no sense of irony or self-awareness. His tirade against 'Newsnight Review' concludes with his admission that he "simply can't abide culture consumers who think criticism is point-scoring in an argument. It's not. That's a dinner party. THIS is criticism". But what is all the above if not public point-scoring of a particularly vindictive kind?

It's not every day...

... you're looking through an engineering book and come across a subsection headed: "Indirect measurement of the fundamental natural frequency of a chicken".

Unintelligent design

I'm sure that, like me, you've spent a good portion of your life wondering what Ben Stein, the actor who played the tranquilliser-voiced teacher in 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' ("Something-d-o-o economics"), did next.

Well, the short answer is I don't really know.

But what I can tell you is that most recently he's written a documentary film called 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed', which is about the alleged expulsions of American academics from universities for their belief that creationism should be taught alongside evolution. Not only does it take aim squarely at Richard Dawkins, it also seeks to lay the blame for the Holocaust at Darwin's door. Yes, really.

Not surprisingly, the film has been met not so much with the uncomprehending silence of the Bueller's classmates, but with sharply critical reviews and claims that interviewees and situations have been grossly misrepresented. Needless to say, as one interviewee Michael Shermer has pointed out, this dishonesty is "especially serious in a film attacking scientific honesty".

So, anyone buying the concept and unable to contain themselves at the prospect of seeing the film? Anyone? Anyone?

Moving on

As of 1st May, Pete Ashton, whom you may know from such blogs as his own, will be formally handing over the reins to Created In Birmingham. It may have been over two years ago now that I left the second city, but since then I've still been a regular visitor, and Created In Birmingham has been a really excellent source of information about its vibrant cultural life and much more besides - all largely thanks to Pete's hard work. Long may that continue under new co-ordinator Chris Unitt.

The question is, does a similar site exist for either of the two cities where I currently spend most of my time, Oxford and Cardiff? And if so, feel free to point me in the right direction...

This be the verso

FUTURE OF THE LEFT / DEGUELLO / BITCHES, 2ND APRIL 2008, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

What, me, at a gig at the Jericho Tavern, with not a Glaswegian artist in sight, with my reputation?

Anyway, what can I tell you about the evening's openers BITCHES? Next to nothing, as it happens - my usual crutch the internet has proven useless, and in any case the foursome aren't exactly ideally named for the inquisitive googler. So, with nothing to go on but their three song performance, I can only say that Bitches' brew is unfortunately akin to a dog's dinner, thanks in no small part to the over-enthusiastic synth assault. Perhaps it's a sign of age, but watching the percussionist hunched over smashing out a beat on a mic'd-up metal dustbin, I can't help but fear for his back - maybe their set is so short on doctor's orders? (An aside: they should team up with locals Witches for a split single, if only for comic effect.)

By contrast, I'm already familiar with Deguello, having encountered them two years ago when they came to Cardiff under the wing of Winnebago Deal. On that occasion, bassist Rusty Needles lambasted the crowd for being "lame", but tonight the shoe's on the other foot, the trio seeming to have lost their way somewhat since then.

Stretching to straddle a musical divide, though often admirable and occasionally inspired, can often be perilous, and that's the problem here. Two-thirds of the band seem to want to be in Melvins, and the other member - guitarist The Earwig, preoccupied with playing a miniature bell and then some tape-recorded vocals into her pick-ups - pulls in the direction of the trippier, freeform material of Sonic Youth's early career. The result is an uneasy and not very convincing amalgam - a neither/nor, rather than a best of both worlds.

Two-thirds of headliners Future Of The Left - whom I've repeatedly missed seeing in their native Cardiff - WERE actually in a different band. All you need to know about Mclusky is encapsulated in the fact that they once released a one-minute-long blast of head-drilling noise called 'Joy' as a single and then included it on an album called My Pain And Sadness Is More Sad And Painful Than Yours. Fond of the same eardrum-scouring guitar sound and caustically black wit as Steve Albini's Shellac (one of their final B-sides was christened 'Dave, Stop Killing Prostitutes'), they were very much the anti-Stereophonics.

If Andy Falkous and Jack Egglestone's new outfit Future Of The Left - completed by former Jarcrew man Kelson Mathias - don't quite match up to their former incarnation, then it's not for want of trying. Aggression and bleak humour still skip along merrily hand-in-hand in Falco's world; debut album Curses kicks off with a track called 'The Lord Hates A Coward', and also features the single 'adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood' and diplomatic fence-sitter 'Fuck The Countryside Alliance'.

What's new are the keyboards, which means that some songs are - shock horror! - guitar-free zones. It's bemusing to think that the odd long-time Mclusky fan has been decidedly less than gruntled by this new development, given that Mathias's bass remains reassuringly bone-rattlingly heavy. If the pitbull that is their music occasionally gets close to licking your cheek, it's never far from clamping its slavering jaws around your head and puncturing it like a cheap balloon.

For a band no doubt used to crowds going bezerk, they do a good job of hiding any disappointment at the by-now familiarly reserved Oxford reception with which they're confronted, pondering why the restaurant over the road undersells itself as the Standard Tandoori when the fayre merits the description "fine" ("Is the It's OK Chinese just down the road?"), and urging us to visit the merchandise stall to keep Egglestone's "beard trimmed and eyes hopeful" and roadie/tech Mitch in snazzy blue trousers. When the tempestuous and lengthy set-closer is brought to an end by Falkous and Mathias gradually dismantling Egglestone's kit while he plays, it's clear that most people don't need much persuading to part with their cash.

Leaving the Jericho Tavern after Malcolm Middleton's gig last month, I noted how it somehow felt appropriate that it had been pissing it down before the gig but had stopped afterwards. This time I've barely got ten yards down the road before I have to sidestep an enormous pile of beige and orange vomit. Somehow appropriate, again.

Reasons To Be Cheerful II

(If you're wondering what this is all about, click here.)

#6 - The Big Bang

Fancy a change from "all that foreign muck" but annoyed that our own so-called "cuisine" is sadly all too often best described as "hearty", being stodgy and bland by comparison? Then acclaimed Jericho restaurant The Big Bang is without doubt the place to go.

Founder Max Mason’s Eureka moment was seeing the potential in the humble British dish of bangers ‘n’ mash, and he and his chefs have subsequently made it their mission to elevate it the status of a gourmet delicacy. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life, and at The Big Bang the variety of different but equally mouthwatering sausages on offer includes some which are indeed spicy. The merguez, Toulouse and chilli pork in particular come highly recommended, allied with pretty much any of the speciality mashes. Quite why you'd want to be a vegetarian when such things as sausages exist is beyond me, but suffice to say that the restaurant also offers a selection of meat-free sausages to cater for less enthusiastically carnivorous diners.

Just down from the Jericho Tavern and practically across the road from Oxford University Press's imposingly pillared stone offices, The Big Bang offers a discount to "OAPs and OUPs" - but even if you happen to work for a less favoured publisher (sniff) the meals are extremely good value for money. Like the décor, there’s no fuss or frills – the references to "jus" rather than gravy sound the only jarringly pretentious note – but it’s little wonder the Independent has labelled the restaurant the third best place in Britain to eat for under £50 and that it was one of three finalists in the sausage and mash category of Restaurant Magazine’s UK Best Dishes Awards 2007.

It’s not just your stomach and wallet that’ll thank you for visiting, though; Mason's philosophy of trying to ensure that ingredients are ethically and locally sourced – many of the sausages come from David John in Oxford’s Covered Market, while meals are washed down with Hook Norton ales and Cotswold Brewing Company lagers – means your conscience will be satiated too.

(A word of warning, though: steer clear of the recently opened second restaurant in Bristol - it's not a patch on the original. When we went on Good Friday, the food was nearly as delicious, but the choice was restrictive, the wait seemingly interminable and the service the wrong side of narky.)

Quote of the day

On a note one of my production colleagues got as part of a book handover package from editorial the other day:

"The author can't be contacted as she's dead."

Such a defeatist attitude, don't you think? Who says her passing necessarily makes her incommunicado? I think we should arrange a seance: "If you're happy to approve the cover, knock once, and if you'd like the blurb changed, knock twice..."

Appropriately enough, the book in question was a revised edition of 'On Death And Dying'...

A-ha!

Halloween - all about pumpkins, bobbing for apples and pelting pensioners' houses with eggs and flour whether or not they fend you off with sweets, innit? Well, not for me this year - I've got a ticket to see Steve Coogan's new tour, 'Alan Partridge And Other Less Successful Characters', when it comes to Cardiff's Millennium Centre that night. Back of the net! Jurassic Park! etc etc.

Sweeping the nation

A quick round-up of some recent small-scale gigging action around the country, recorded as much for posterity so I can track my movements as much as anything else...

STRANGETIME, 14TH MARCH 2008, BIRMINGHAM RAINBOW

Locating The Rainbow makes me feel like an intrepid voyager into uncharted waters - walk as you must into Digbeth past the newly razed coach station, past Sanctuary and the Barfly, past the Irish Centre, past the Custard Factory - but when we arrive it's not just with a sense of relief: this is obviously a very welcome addition to the list of music venues in the heart of the second city. A spacious old Victorian pub that's been refitted with more of a yoof edge, it has a permanent stage set up in a roofed courtyard at the back.

It's one of The Rainbow's regular 444 Club gigs (a commendably simple philosophy: four bands for £4 until 4am), and we've been drawn here tonight by the presence of StRANGEtIME, first on the bill. It's been some time since I last saw the trio (over two years, to be precise), during which time they've changed bassists (Chris Maher's the new man), released a single which got airplay on Kerrang! Unsigned, and had a Mercury-nominated act claim enthusiastically that lead singer Kate Finch "sounds like an angry dog" (Fyfe Dangerfield of Guillemots).

Of the material aired tonight that's new to these ears, aforementioned single 'Personality Disorder' and the title track of their first EP 'Oneitis' impress the most, but 'Ex-Boyfriend' still packs the biggest punch, its ferocity and directness leaving a bloodied nose, a contrast to some slightly soggy moments or over-complicated drumming elsewhere. That 'Dressing Up' appears to have been dropped from the set is inevitably a source of disappointment, personally speaking, but everyone has to move on at some point.

As do we - just as the smell of sizzling burgers begins to get me salivating, we head off in search of a karaoke party at a Chinese restaurant in the Jewelry Quarter. The name of the restaurant? Wok 'N' Roll. I believe I may at some point have provided wine-fuelled backing vocals for Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun', but hopefully it's all just a bad dream...

(You can read my West Midlands gig-going companion Kenny's take on the night here.)

ORCOP / LONE PINE, 20TH MARCH 2008, CARDIFF 10 FEET TALL

Buffalo may be a decent enough (if pricey) watering hole, but as a venue its upstairs room could hardly be worse - long and narrow, with the stage at one end and around a corner which means that half of the audience funnelled in to watch has got a partial view, at best, of the performers. So it makes sense that the owners might decide to branch out and open a new establishment.

10 Feet Tall, on Church Street, is an ambitious attempt to bring together a street-level delicatessen and cafe-bar, a mezzanine restaurant "individually styled with high ceilings and an array of period lamps and chandeliers to create a truly modern twist on a gentleman's library" and a gig venue all under one roof. Time will tell if it works out, but the upstairs room has already played host to Son Of Dave and Johnny Foreigner, amongst others.

Tonight, though, it's the first Mish Mash, an eclectic night of music set to become a regular feature on Thursdays. A great meal from Canteen under our belts (more about that some other time), we arrive to discover we've just missed a band playing what's described to us as "Arabian funk". The Gentle Good - aka Gareth Bonello, who played last year's Green Man and whose sweet finger-picked folk has charmed the ear of 'Whispering' Bob Harris amongst others - was also on the bill, but he too has been and gone.

In the event, then, our first live action of the evening comes courtesy of Mish Mash organisers Lone Pine. I've seen them once before, almost two years ago to the day, and I'm automatically predisposed to be unkind, simply because of the way that, on that occasion, their idle, inconsiderate chatter intruded upon the quieter moments of the headline act My Latest Novel's set. In the wake of that support slot, they played three dates with Radar Bros, and that certainly figures - authenticity be damned, they desperately want to be My Morning Jacket. But they're kept grounded by leaden-footed songs, and, lacking the experimental ambitions of the likes of Wilco, they're unable to alchemise what is essentially solid and staid Americana into something much more interesting.

The evening's nominal headliner is Orcop aka Gwydion ap Hywel (yes, he may well be a Welsh native, fact fans). A purveyor of ambient laptronica, Orcop was recently asked by Lily Green to monkey around with her sweetest song to date, 'Mr Ladybird' - the result sees the dreamy quality of the original retained but set to a sharp and ever-so-slightly sinister beat that sounds like balloons being pricked. While his songs aren't totally obtuse, however, they are a radical departure from what's gone before - that's the point, of course, but, with many of the taps behind the bar having been drunk dry by a thirsty crowd determined to mark the beginning of the long Easter weekend in style, the fractured beats aren't exactly conducive to dancing, not matter how hard a handful of spectacularly arrhythmic punters try.

AUTONS, 29TH MARCH 2008, CHICHESTER LA HAVANA

Saturday night, and all’s quiet. Seriously, Chichester town centre is deserted. It’s like we’re in the middle of the opening scene from ’28 Days Later’, only it's the low-budget version set in a sleepy and frightfully middle-class market town.

Thankfully, though, there are signs of life if you look hard enough - in La Havana, to be precise, an underground bunker of a bar / club which is tonight playing host to Autons. (That's the Portsmouth electro-rockers recently expanded to a foursome by the addition of a bassist, not the Australian band with a song called 'Pooing A Brick' or the Texan metallers who released Big Girls Look Better In Sweater Weather, in case you were wondering.)

The gig is in effect something of a warm-up for an imminent mini-tour, organised to promote their second single 'Election Singer'. In truth, twitchy debut release 'Snakes', which benefited from airplay courtesy of both Steve Lamacq and Rob da Bank, is much stronger than a follow-up that overdoses on stodgy, reheated pub punk guitar. Set highlights include 'Maybe' (though the new concluding mantra perhaps lays on the environmental message a little too thick), the glam-stomping reworking of the 'Dr Who' theme tune 'Recondition', and 'Snakes' B-side 'Ice Major', propelled by a fast and furious fist-in-the-air beat.

I'd probably recall more if I hadn't cracked my head off the curved low ceiling so many times...

Feel good hits of the 15th April

1. 'Say Something Say Anything' - Blood Red Shoes
2. 'New Pastures' - Hreda
3. 'Panther Party' - Truckers Of Husk
4. 'Lions' - Jonquil
5. 'Names' - Cat Power
6. 'Hopscotch Willie' - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
7. 'Bright Tomorrow' - Fuck Buttons
8. 'For Agent 13' - The Besnard Lakes
9. 'Dirty Boots' - Sonic Youth
10. 'Let's Jump In' - Dead Meadow

Blood Red Shoes and Jonquil/Hreda gig reviews to follow at some point (note the avoidance of committing to this by a particular date - I've learned from my own laxness...). And if you're ever in need of cheering up, don't go anywhere near that Cat Power track - it makes the self-loathing fest that is 'Hate' on The Greatest seem positively cheery...

In memoriam

Remember last week's post about John Loughrey, the bloke who thought he'd go down in history for attending every day of the Diana inquest with her name written on his face? Well, thanks to Jon for pointing me in the direction of this story (courtesy of the Onion, of course), which might alert Loughrey to the fact that you can't determine what you'll be remembered for. If he wasn't a completely delusional idiot, that is.

A birdhouse in my soul


Vic Swettenham (b. circa 2000 d. 10th April 2008)

Born some time around the year 2000, Vic Swettenham fluttered his feathery little way into our lives in the summer of 2006.

With his fondness for good-natured squawking, scampering across the carpet, perching on cable wires and embarking upon regular short-haul flights before stopping to refuel, he soon became a much-loved member of the family.

For a budgie, he was remarkably well travelled, on one occasion visiting Nottingham, Northumberland and Bury in the space of seven days, and on another heading off to the Gower for a weekend of bunk barn frolics.

Sadly, after a short illness and despite the best efforts of the vet, he passed away peacefully back at home this morning.

Vic is survived by his runty, bossy, flightless friend and constant companion Bob.

Nos da, little fella. RIP.

False advertising

A few weeks ago, I was puzzling over the Army's latest advertising slogan: "Like football? You'll love the Army". Now, I'm no logician, but even I can detect some fallacious reasoning in there.

Anyway, in the light of the dismissal of calls for an independent inquiry into the Iraq War and Lord Bingham of Cornhill's summary that "the lawfulness of military action has no bearing on the risk of fatalities", perhaps a more logically sound slogan would be: "Like the thought of signing your life away, possibly for an illegal war? You'll love the Army"...

Quote of the day

"I'm going down in history for this. It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't a portrait of me hanging in Kensington Palace in 100 years time".

John Loughrey, who seems to believe that quitting his job to be able to get up at 5am for the duration of the inquest into Diana's death and sit in the gallery with "Diana" and "Dodi" written on his face, is worthy of commemoration. Obviously he now finds himself at a loose end, but - just in case you were in any doubt as to his sanity - doesn't know when he'll paying his own unique facial tribute to the Queen of Hearts.

A man's world

"Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are meanwhile taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband".

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to whether the "self-proclaimed prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is male or female?

"You want a fucking balloon? I'LL GIVE YOU A FUCKING BALLOON!"

Daisy Asquith's hour-long documentary film 'Clowns', shown tonight on BBC2, may have gone a little too obviously down the "tears of a clown" route beloved of those who dramatise the troubled private lives of publically successful comedians - focusing on one (Mr Pumpkin) forced to watch as his beloved mother succumbed to Alzheimer's, and another (Potty the Pirate) who was a Peter Pan type figure who found it easier to relate to children and puppets than to his nominal girlfriend (who understandably found his propensity to make "pirate noises at very inappropriate places" rather strange) - but it was rescued and dominated by the third main figure, Tommy Tickle.

The living, breathing embodiment of Krusty, the embittered, misanthropic and gravel-throated Tickle had fallen into clowning through a simple need to put food on the table. Short of temper and patience, he spent his screen time drinking, smoking and swearing and had a nice line in sharp wit - there can't be many children's entertainers incorporating material about Robert Mugabe into their routines...

That said, magician The Great Velcro wasn't far behind - disgraced for snapping and hitting an irritating kid, he was reduced to playing to the nearly-dead in old people's homes but said he was still available for parties on request, if parents wanted "a particularly violent magician"...

(The full film's available on iPlayer for the time being, but if you missed it and want a quick preview, here's the trailer.)