Ralfe Band
I found this dude's wallet in the street today. His name is Mike Tweedley. If anyone knows him, tell him to give me a ring and he can come and get it back. I've tried finding his phone number, but he must have moved house. I phoned the random numbers in his wallet (Gary, please pick up!), and tried his work number. I think probably five more minutes effort, and I can justifiably go shopping on the internet with his credit card. Anyway, I think he goes to the bouldering wall in Bonnington, and had been putting up some interesting new bolted rock routes in Argyll. His Dad is called Hugh and has a ferry pass for the Cowan Ferry.
How do I know? It is elementary my dear Watson, I typed his name into google. You stand dumbfounded? Aha yes. It is a little more detailed than Bradshaw's Railway gazette, but far less useful tfor calculating the probable average speed of a locomotive travelling between Chipping Sodbury and Norton Parva.
Other notable excitement has been two (TWO!) pretty awesome baby tiger gigs in two days. On Friday 4 (November) we had The Last Band, whose vocalist - I want to call him Justin, but that's not his name - has splendid diaphragm control and wants you to keepyourhandsoffhiswomanmotherfucker, Supershitbox; some Fence-y types with splendid double bass surfing moves, and a sort of one woman band called Liz (Illease) who managed to pull off a creditable post rock sound sans backing musicians by running backwards and forwards between guitar and drumkit, all the time singing in an affecting upper range yodell.
Last night we had the spiffing King Bear, who have a slow country drumbeat thing going that I really like. They are a bit like the Eels, but not miserable with it. Simon, our web monkey and accountant will be most displeased he missed it.
There was more country-tasticness with the Attic Lights, who not only sing four part harmonies but sport one of those involuntary-shiver-inducing pedal steel guitar things. I hasten to add that they use this fine instrument in the interests of country, and not of western. *phew*.
A slighly bemused Ralfe Band were the Baby Tiger's secret weapon. They couldn't get used to the luxury of drinking until 1AM, having just come up from er... London I think. DJ Dangerous Doug (sorry, Ketch, if you prefer) was at a loss to describe their style, until we remembered that crazy jewish folk music klezmer style thing - we thought they sounded a bit like that. The set finished with an awe inspiring viola solo. Not enough rock bands have really good viola players - I don't know how many times I've had to say that at meetings of the Keep The Interesting Stuff Out Of Rock Music Society.
Oh yes, and I had an excellent comedy falling off a stool incident. I was standing on it you know, in a room crowded with musical equipment, and as I was lowering myself to the floor it upended, leaving me in a spectacular feet-in-the-air position, wedged between a giant bass amp and sundry drum accessories. Michelle, the Ralfe Band's manager hauled me out, and seemed touchingly concerned for my wellbeing, instead of laughing at my stupidity as I deserved. Must revise that baby tiger health and safety policy.