Friday night
was time for a Beauty Witch gig put on by Sammy Powell who can always be relied
on to pick a quality ear battering bill. Before Cattle stampeded through Soup
Kitchen I met Penfold Kowalski outside who gave me a nice big hug then chatted
with Miriam Ma Ve and Sam and his sister Amy inside, as another confusing game
of reds vs yellows screened. It would be so much easier to understand football
if one team always played nude. Said hello to Nick Georgieu, Karl Astbury and
Al Wilson. Look at me name dropping in a pathetic attempt to get more people to
hit my “like” button. This was the fourth time I’d let Leeds noise punks Cattle
do battle with my hearing. Their double drummer dynamism always gets me moving,
and they were my favourite band at this year’s Sounds from the Other City.
Every time I’ve seen them the screamer has worn a black MC5 T-shirt. I wonder
if he always wears it or if he has a wardrobe full of black MC5 T-shirts?
It was a gig
of two halves where anything could happen. In the break between the first and
second half of the Soup Kitchen gig, I headed over to the Peer Hat just in time
to see Heather Glazzard’s short film about the “True Story” of a beautiful
funny woman with pink hair buying a sea fish to carry around. The soundtrack
was silly burps and grunts, and there was a surprise guest appearance from a
cheeky naked lobster. The pink haired woman seemed a very charming and stylish person,
and I predict this will be the high fashion statement of the season. By the end
of the summer I expect to see Ely Grey, Heather Glazzard, Jen Wu, Simon Morris,
Rachel Goodyear, Martin Warmwidow, Stuart Calton, the facebook free Kate
Armitage and everyone else who watched stripping naked and carrying fish
around. If England win the world cup all the fans will surely strip naked and
carry fish all over Russia to show how much they care!
The second
half of the gig had just kicked off when I made it back to Soup Kitchen
basement and the Cosmic Dead were taking off on a heavy psychedelic trip to the
extreme frontiers of loudness. They’d recently lost half the band, but had
luckily found another half who seemed even noisier. Afterwards the prolific
Vacuous Otiosus gave me a couple of CDRs he’d recently recorded, “Elitism for
the Masses” and “The Burning Mountain” which has a drawing of a squid in a
wheelbarrow on the cover. Sample lyric from Squid Treatise: “If I was 98 %
chlorine I’d be less happy than I am. Fish identifies locust container. Could a
squid in a wheelbarrow propel itself? If so, a staggering invention! Replace
all professional footballers with squid in wheelbarrows: much cheaper and
probably infinitely more entertaining!” The bouncer bounced everyone up the
stairs and out before I could buy a Cattle or Cosmic Dead record. I hung around
a while outside Soup Kitchen with Isadora Darke, Jamie Robinson, Sophie Bee and
Al Wilson before heading back to the Peer Hat for more cider and chat. And more
cider and chat. And more cider and chat and some dancing. I’d better also mention
Michelle Woods, Anne Louise Kershaw and Maria Gutierez in a cynical attempt to
increase the “like” factor as I definitely spoke with them on Friday night. I
ended up heading upstairs to Aatma with Andrew Guest and a few other people
where Dom Jam and Liam Farr kept going until 9am. I started to walk home, but
instead found myself wandering aimlessly around Poundworld. I was very
disappointed to find they had no worlds for sale in their sale. No wonder they
are closing down. After buying a chocolate soya milk sugar fix and booking my
face at the library I felt like strolling pointlessly around the city centre
and eventually found myself in Vinyl Exchange where for a fiver I bought a CD from
Rae Donaldson called “mmmr” by guitarists Loren Mazzacane Connors, Jean-Marc
Montera, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo.
I walked
home along Bridgewater Canal just after the England Sweden world cup game
began. I wanted to get out of the city in case England lost and drunken fans
turned nasty. People were crammed together in and around pubs straining to see
the digitised match. “Get out of the way you prick,” shouted one drinker
repeatedly at a possibly E’d up grinning guy who was prancing about in front of
a screen at a pub near Castlefield Arena. I made sure I squeezed past behind
the angry fan to avoid any unnecessary trouble on my way to the nearby bridge
over the canal. As I headed towards Cornbrook the uproar of men in ball kicking
ecstacy receded, replaced by the whooshing of trams. From a distance it sounded
like a choir of intoxicated lads were singing, “She’s coming home! She’s coming
home! Lowri’s coming home!”
A gang of
kids had gathered under a bridge and were sitting on the towpath, completely
blocking it, except for one girl who began repeatedly shouting, “Get up! There’s
someone coming!” as I approached. As I reached the bridge she told me I’d have
to jump over her friends as they wouldn’t get up, but then they all stood up to
let me past, laughing. I told them they were lucky I didn’t try to jump over
them as I might have landed on one of them and injured them. Perhaps they are
sporting innovators who will grow up to introduce Kid Leaping to the Olympics. Just
past Old Trafford football ground a dead fish about the size of a tennis racket
was floating on its side slowly towards the city centre. Its head had almost
been cut off and drifted at a right angle to its silvery glinting carcass, on
which seven bright emerald green flies were feasting. I’d already stripped half
naked for the first time this heatwave. You can probably guess which half. No,
I was not carrying my black jeans. If I’d fished the fish out of the canal and
carried it home, then I could have made my own “True Story,” but I’m just not stylish
enough to carry it off. It was very hot and I didn’t want to smell of that
damned fish! A relevant fish song:
The Damned –
Fish
Lowri wrote that she was surprised but not surprised that I saw a dead fish in the canal. I replied:
Surprised but not surprised? A rational fish response dictates that I am choosing and editing experiences that relate to earlier experiences. If Lowri had carried a dead heron around for “True Story,” I would instead have mentioned the fish eating heron that landed on the opposite side of the canal when I sat down to cool my feet off. The rational response would also say that a dead fish in a canal is in itself not a particularly rare or special thing, but where’s the magic in that? Had Lowri never invited me to watch “True Story” I may well have still seen that dead fish and thought nothing of it. I’d never have described it, or counted the flies on it and would probably have quickly forgotten
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