Postscript

While I was writing my post about feeling a bit lost, I was also listening to back to back Gil Scott-Heron, having only just heard about the loss of someone who could fill such a big space. I only saw him live once, but it was one of the best gigs of my life. Merits a post all of its own, and maybe it will get one soon, as part of the upcoming 'leaving town' series...

When I ran out of obvious GSH I turned to Diana Jones, who does lonesome and bleak pretty damn well. But that wasn't quite working for me, so I clicked around the related artists on Spotify and decided to check out Iris DeMent's Infamous Angel. Five songs in, she sang Kate Rusby's Our Town, a song off Sleepless which was what took me to see her play live in 2004, and which, though she didn't play it that night, has stayed with me ever since.

I had a little cry, and dug out the album to hear what I thought was the original, only to find, thanks to the sleeve notes (you never get those on Spotify, do you, huh?) that it was in fact an Iris DeMent original. Respect to her for that, it's amazing.

But having given them both several listens, I have to go with the English interpretation. If your head's at anywhere near where mine's at, this song is a killer.

joella

PS I'm fine though. Don't go fretting.

When I grow up, I want to be an old woman...

I took time out to go and see Michelle Shocked play the Drill Hall yesterday. The Drill Hall is one of those venues where my possible pasts catch up with me big time, and I am amazed to see how so many of them have made it into the present.

I went (up) to Cambridge in October 1988, aged 18, outwardly stroppy and inwardly terrified. I look at some of the photos from that first year and I really cannot believe my own balls. But I guess that's what being 18 is all about. There was nobody like me (there still isn't, but hey, there's nobody like anybody, I know that now) but after a couple of weeks I met E, who was from Cheshire and wore leggings and DMs. I was from Lancashire and wore leggings and DMs, and for a good while we clung onto each other like two ports in a storm. She had a very cool older brother, who was in a band called Wild Bill Harzia and the Malarial Swamp Dogs (if memory serves) and who, more importantly, was in a position to get me a ticket to see Billy Bragg play the Corn Exchange.

Now, I'd had a ticket to see Billy Bragg before. In September 1987, he'd played Blackpool Opera House and E had sorted us out with good seats. But then about five days before the gig, round at our friend D's, he'd held me by the throat and punched the wall next to my stomach. It was one of those nights that creates a spike on the graph of your life. That was the end of me and E, and not before time, but I always kind of regretted not holding out for my ticket.

So there I was, on 16 November 1988, at my first Billy Bragg gig. I went on my own. I still have the T-shirt. And the poster. It was another of those nights... and the support act was Michelle Shocked. She blew me away. Short Sharp Shocked is still one of my favourite albums of all time.

What I didn't know then was that 1987 was a big year for her too - she came over to the UK for the first time, played the Drill Hall, and that was the start of something big. This was a kind of 20 years on celebration of that, and the journey. And it was moving. Michelle Shocked has made it into the present big time. She played Memories of East Texas, and I cried, like I did when I first heard it 20 years ago. It's so weird to have an adult life that stretches out so far, with these powerful constants in it. In many ways she's a thoroughly modern heroine, and I am in awe. But these days she's also a serious god-botherer, and, you know, whatever works, but personally I can't be doing with that sheeeeeit.

I came away with a whole range of things to think about, none of which I'd really expected. And I'm still thinking about them. I feel a bit like the walking wounded. And not just because of my foot.

joella

Wok 2.0

We have a bit of a carrot glut at the moment, so I went looking for carrot recipes while M watched The Simpsons. I did this via old skool cookbooks... you get a feel for the author whose recipes you are in the mood for, and I was feeling a bit Prue Leith. I can't find her carrot fritters recipe online, but there is an Anthony Worrall Thompson one that is remarkably similar.

We got to work. I don't get on with the wok (partly because it lives on top of the cupboard and I can't reach it without standing on a chair, and partly because it has a complicated aftercare ritual), so M was doing the honours. He was grating away, and I was whizzing yoghurt with herbs and shredding lettuce. I only have one thing to ask of you, he said. Please don't Twitter about your fritter*.

As soon as the carrot hit the hot oil I had an urge to hear Neutral Milk Hotel's King of Carrot Flowers Part 1 - a song I just can't get enough of, but I worry that I play too much. Saturation means I might go off it, though come to think of it that's never worked for gherkins, The Wire, sleeping or any of the other things I indulge in too much of. Patience, joella, I thought to myself, and instead I lined up all 58 of the songs that come up on Spotify (today) if you search on 'carrot'.

There are worse ways to choose the soundtrack for dinner, though there was rather too much Beefheart (=any Beefheart) for my liking.

joella

*and I'm not, see?

Reflections on power, cheese, and deserts

Last week at work, a decision I have been pushing for for nearly a year finally got made, and got made in the direction I'd been pushing for. I was momentarily jubilant, then I went for a wee and when I came back the person who had been pushing just as hard in the other direction was a bit tearful. And I know, if it had gone the other way, which it so easily could have, so very nearly did, then the tears would have been mine. I had shed some only the night before. Yes, I thought it was that important. And so did she.

I wonder if my currency is higher, or things are moving faster, because of what happened in the Hot Place. Crises make careers, everyone knows that, even if you happened to be there by accident. For years I have had nothing but carrots, now, briefly, there is a small stick, and I get to wave it. My report about learning points has been read by high-ups and pissed a couple of them off, and I'm not used to that either. I am used to toiling in the detail round the edges of the main story, taken seriously by a few people (and I love you all) and reassured that my stuff is of course *important* but not, you know, important enough to do anything *about*. So I don't bother pulling my punches, because I'm not usually hitting anyone who's noticing.

It might be an interesting week.

Meanwhile, my personal equilibrium swings like a pendulum do. Well, maybe more like Newton's cradle do, as I think it's slowly coming back to rest somewhere manageable. Sunday evenings are warm times chez joella, as M and I both love to listen to Freakzone, which seems to occupy the interesting part of the intersection of our respective musical tastes. Freakzone listening happens in the kitchen, where one of us will tidy up while the other cooks dinner.

But tonight we both wanted to cook. I made lentil soup, which I have been making for ten years, can make with my eyes closed, and relies on a failsafe combination of good olive oil, cheap red wine and bay leaves. We didn't have any bread, so M baked cheese scones to go with it. I have never had a home made cheese scone before. What have I been doing with my life?

Towards the end of the programme, Freakzone played us Water is Life. Immediately, over wine, cheese and lentils, we hatched a plan to visit next year's Festival Au Desert. And this just two weeks after I swore never to leave the country again.

So I guess hope springs eternal. And amen to that.

joella

The interconnectedness of all things

I do heart Last.fm. I don't use it all the time, as I have a big CD and small vinyl collection (not to mention the tapes) but I listen to Last.fm radio a lot at work -- 80s electronica when I'm trying to write something, Scandinavian post-rock when I'm trying to read something, other things when I'm just trying to shut out the noise and think. Some people can't work to music but I'm the opposite -- I think it occupies the restless, anxious part of my mind so the rest of it can focus on something. 

But of course you get lots of other lovely Web 2.0 type stuff along with your music, and it was while listening to Damon and Naomi tag radio that I discovered they were playing last week at the Luminaire in Kilburn: a venue I have now been to twice and can't recommend highly enough. There's open parking after 6.30, there's a South Indian restaurant that serves masala dosas just round the corner, and there are signs everywhere saying things like 'you've come here to listen to the music: if you want to talk to your friends go to the pub downstairs'. 

Last.fm also lets you see which other last.fm'ers are going to the gig, which is good as you can then go and listen to their radio stations, but best of all it provides a Flickr machine tag for photos, which is a genius idea. I was right at the front and I did take a couple of photos, but a) I don't really have the camera for it and b) I hate that thing that happens at gigs now where all you get is a sea of cameras and mobile phones pointing at the stage, like it's more important to record your experience of being there rather than just be there. And anyway, Damon and Naomi don't exactly put on a show, their magic is to be found in stillness and space. You need to involve yourself. 

So I was rather hoping that someone else would take some photos and machine-tag them, and indeed someone did -- the guy who was standing next to us, by the looks of the angles, and his photos are great, a lot better than mine would have been however many I'd taken. We should come to a citizen's arrangement that there should only be one person taking photos at a gig and they should put them up on the internet. Think how marvellous that would be. 

Anyway, it was a gorgeous gig, and I was very thankful to have found out about it. Thank you, Last.fm. 

But there are always drawbacks. We had people round for dinner on Friday. The kinds of people who know how to make an occasion. I don't exactly remember going to bed, but I knew when I woke up on Saturday morning that there would be chaos downstairs. I had memories of an impatient taxi driver, a struggle over the volume knob (with me on the side of caution, but *you* try arguing with J when he's had a few) and some headbanging. 

And there was Last.fm still open, and able to inform me that the last song we played was Ace of Spades, at 2 am. I'm not sure I wanted to know that. 

joella

I scream, you scream, we all scream

I was at my absolute most irritable time of month last night, and my mood was not helped by the fact that I had to bring some work home. I did it after dinner, sitting at the big table, drinking beer in an effort to feel less irritable, which sort of works, but has an obvious knock-on effect on one's ability to process information and articulate sensible responses to it.

The table is practically *in* next door's house, so if the students open the windows and start screaming, as they do with tedious regularity (what can be so exciting? Did I spend my 20th year making mindless screechy woo noises? I don't think I did, but perhaps I've just forgotten) it can get oppressive pretty quickly. Sure enough, the noise started and I gritted my teeth, glared pointlessly in their general direction, and stabbed away at the keyboard. 

But then there was a genuinely horrific scream and my blood went cold. It sounded like one of them was being attacked, or someone had cut their head open. I ran out into the garden and looked over the fence into their back room, trying to see what was wrong. 

But they were all in there, drinking and smoking and laughing away. Then I realised the noise was coming from our house. 

Turned out it was housemate P listening to Diamanda Galas Really Pretty Loud. Drown out the screaming with more screaming, well, why not? 

I laughed, went back inside and turned up the PJ Harvey. 

joella

Of rats and rock stars

I was stashing my plumbing stuff in the shed on Monday afternoon when M came out to empty the mixing bowl of compostables into the compost bin. He took the lid off the bin and then yelped. He yelps rather fetchingly, but it's always hard to tell whether it's something serious (eg he's fallen off a ladder while holding the electric hedge trimmer) or not (eg there's an episode of The Simpsons on that he hasn't seen yet).

It was a rat, rapidly disappearing into the cabbage leaves and coffee grounds. And no, we have never added any meat, fish, bread, or cooked food to the compost, nor, for the last couple of years, any egg shells. And still we are infested. I blame the cold. And the students. Most things are their fault.

Our local council offer a free rat management service (which gives you an idea of the extent of the rat issue in these parts) so, after a little vegetarian soul searching, I booked a visit from the rat man. Those who have already met him claim he is exactly what you would expect -- "there's something medieval about him" -- so I'm kind of looking forward to it in a life's rich tapestry sort of way. But also oppressed by having vermin to deal with as well as a leaky roof and a global recession. No fair.

And it's absolutely freezing, and I've got a cold coming on, so the next day I was beginning to wish I *hadn't* agreed to go all the way to sodding Birmingham to see Jarvis Cocker on a school night. I just wanted to stay in with a hot water bottle and a good book and forget about the world out there.

But, as my Significant Ex used to say, it's amazing how wrong one person can be. For it was a near-perfect gig experience, despite being held in a Carling *spit* Academy, where there is no proper beer and they won't let you buy water in a bottle, never mind take it in, and the annual toilet paper budget is used up by the middle of February.

Against all odds, we found the venue and managed to park close by, then bought our Guinnesses and found a spot that was acceptable for me (5'4"), for P (boyfriend of one of M's daughters, who is something like 6'6"), and for our respective companions (both somewhere in between). The place filled up benignly around us, the support band were pretty good, we gradually warmed up and then on he came.

For the first half of the set, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr W, the man who taught me Physical Geography in the sixth form. This was quite confusing, as I do not recall finding Mr W remotely attractive, though he did unknowingly play a cameo role on the day of my deflowering.

By the end he looked much more like the beardy one out of Parts & Labor, or indeed several other beardy geek noise merchants, and calm was restored.

And from start to finish, he rocked, in a funny, clever, cool, Northern, totally right on but not at all earnest sort of a way. I don't think there's anyone else who can do that. I was completely into it, in that rest of the world falling away, nowhere else I'd rather be sense. I don't get that feeling very often, but it's up there with the best feelings in the world when it happens.

And it was even better because it was unexpected... we have a copy of Jarvis in the house but I've never got into it. Seeing it live, it all made sense.

The first encore ended with Don't Let Him Waste Your Time, which is a beautiful song to hear a rock star singing. I was suddenly reminded again of Mr W, and had a little vision of him shrugging off his anorak and flinging himself around the playing fields singing it to me as I blinked back my first 'was that it? And why is he ignoring me?' teenage tears.

I don't think I'd have listened to him, though. You have to find some things out the hard way, and thank god we have music for when we do.

joella

Recession playlist: track #3

The Bevis Frond's Maybe - part obliteration, part all seeing. A mainstay of my soundtrack to the last recession, and important for other reasons too. At least one boat is named for this song.

And are we the worst, who see it all, and still refuse to act?

Yeah, maybe.

joella

Middle room finds fame

M's band's first YouTube video - shot by M himself (he asked me to do it, but I was too embarrassed: I am possibly fleetingly visible making soup in the kitchen) in our middle room.

Advisory: mostly work-safe, but does contain the clearly discernible word "wanking".

joella

Loving The Eels

That's it really. It's no surprise to find that Mark E's father was a dead clever physicist. He is a dead clever lyricist.

My favourite line is from I Like Birds:

"If you're small and on a search
I've got a feeder for you to perch on"

I can never work out if it's supposed to be rude or not.

joella

Just when I thought I could not be stopped

All hail YouTube and last.fm for bringing the early 80s back to life. I am currently convinced that Ghosts is The Best Song Ever By Anyone, just as I was 25? 26? years ago when it first riveted me to my seat in front of Top of the Pops.

Ah. What the 80s did for us.

joella

Home run, ballerina!

I don't do much television, but I am in love with Mad Men. Not so much the men, more the madness. It should be compulsory viewing for every educated woman who has ever asked 'and what has feminism ever done for me?'. It is big, and it is clever, and it is very funny. At times, it takes my breath away.

It's also reminded me of the existence of Sketches of Spain, the only Miles Davis I can really seen the point of. I am so taking that to the lake this summer.

joella

Bonjour tristesse

There has never been a more inappropriate item of clothing than a high-vis cycle vest at a Diamanda Galas gig. I tucked it into my bike helmet and tucked my bike helmet under my seat, but still it glowed, like a radioactive ingot in a post-apocalyptic world.

What I should have been wearing, of course, was black. All over, from the inside out. That's what most everyone else was wearing, including the lady herself. I'd call her something like the High Priestess of Goth, but I don't think that would begin to cover it.

She sings of love, of despair, of death, of bleakness, of grief, of injustice. She does this in three languages and over three octaves. When singing isn't enough, she screams. I went with A, who has been waiting to see her live for 21 years, and his friend J, who said afterwards 'I can see why they made us drink out of plastic. She'd have shattered every glass in the place'.

I spent most of the set grinning like an idiot. Halfway through, A said 'is this *really* what it's like inside your head?'. Yeah, I said. Sometimes.

Her new album is called Guilty Guilty Guilty. Let's just say that as a lapsed Catholic, on Maundy Thursday, I could relate to that.

Right, I'm off for a shriek.

joella

It says here...

In Praise of ... Billy Bragg.

Happy 50th, first hero.

joella

Have you ever been experienced? Well, she has.

Patti Smith and her band by Pirlouiiiit 17102007
Originally uploaded by pirlouiiiit. (This was taken a couple of gigs before Oxford - visit the set for some amazing photos!)

There are gigs... and there are Gigs. I ventured to the all-new Cardiac for the first time on Monday night to see Patti Smith, wondering if they'd have fucked the venue up, wondering if she'd be any good, wondering if it might all be an expensive and not that rewarding Monday evening (never a great night for going out, face it).

And it was a Gig. She is a force of nature. I was blown away. We got two hours of passion and storm and fury. She screamed at us and it was scary, but then she smiled at us, and it was all ok. She played Are You Experienced on *clarinet*, which was astonishing, she played Because The Night, which made me feel about seventeen years old (only with worse knees), she played a glorious White Rabbit, with an Oxford-themed stream of consciousness intro, and then at the end, just when I'd figured she wouldn't (though I was of course hoping beyond hope that she would), she played Gloria. And it couldn't have been better.

There is not a chance of this happening, but I want to be like Patti Smith when I grow up. She embodies something timeless, ageless, fabulous.

And the Cardiac is ok. I can live with it. The beer is worse (as in, there's only lager and it costs a fortune), but the toilets are better (as in, the doors lock and they have paper). Oxford crowds are always interesting, and this one was no exception. It was full of interesting looking women of all ages, including a surprising number of under-21s. And they were not Brookes-alikes, they were beautiful. Such hair! Such eyebrows!

So in all, I am inspired. Let's hear it for the provincial gig, where you can always get down the front.

joella

The painters are consulting their colour charts

I was feeling verrry spiky last night. Usual reasons. I had dot to dot spots, churning innards and a sense of impending doom. M kept out of my way, though did furnish me with a big heap of spaghetti in the hope that it might help. And it did. A bit.

It's been a murky, fuzzy, unproductive month, and I want it to be over. It was tempting to head out for something strong enough to blunt my razor sharp edges, but when it gets to be like this, that's the shortest of short term solutions. Safer to retreat inwards and avoid major life decisions. Safer, in fact, to avoid most things.

I went to my CD collection in search of spiky music. I have tons of it, obviously. But then I couldn't find the box for the CD that was already in the player. I looked all over, I swore a lot and then I thought well fuck it, I'll just listen to that instead.

It was Tim Buckley's Happy Sad, which is about as unspiky as things get. I curled up in my big red chair and got myself lost in his big, big voice. It was like being wrapped in a blanket and told that it will all be all right, in the days when you believed 'all right' existed somewhere.

Onwards.

joella

Happy 40th, Ms Y

Here's the track listing of my special birthday compilation for Ms Y's impending canal-based fizz-quaffing rain-dancing celebrations. Because she's worth it.

Word Up! - Cameo
White Lines - Grandmaster Flash
Relax - FGTH
Praise You - Fatboy Slim
Only Living Boy In New Cross - Carter USM
Hung Up - Madonna
Don't You Want Me - Human League
Hippy Chick - Soho
Ghost Town - The Specials
Get Ur Freak On - Missy Elliott
Funkytown - Countdown
Freak Like Me - Sugababes
Dancing Queen (extended version) - ABBA
1999 - Prince

M is upstairs making *his* Ms Y-inspired compilation. If it beats mine I will eat my sou'wester.

joella

More money than sense

Some people don't know they're born. A couple of weeks ago I heard about a rented house in Oxford where the tenant managed to drop her toilet cistern lid, smashing the basin, cracking the toilet bowl *and* damaging the bath. Impressive. J got the refit job, and last week passed it on to me. Start with the basin, he said, seeing as she's already had that off for you.

So this morning I got up, loaded my tools, my boots, my drill, my pipe benders and my various plumbing substances into the car, drove to Berinsfield to pick up the taps, connectors and isolation valves that J had left for me on top of the guinea pig cage; drove to the plumber's merchants to pick up a basin, a waste, a trap and a pedestal, drove to the letting agents to pick up the keys, and drove to the house in question.

Where I couldn't get in, because none of the keys fit. It turns out the tenant lost her keys, so got a locksmith out to change the locks, and didn't leave a copy with the letting agent. Oh, and then went back to the US on holiday, leaving a leaky pipe (presumably something disturbed by her bathroom smashing) dripping into the downstairs study. And her mobile number is unobtainable, maybe she lost that too.

What a spectacular waste of time and space she must be. The job sheet says 'please attend urgently'. Well I would, I said as I dropped the keys back, if I could get through the bloody door. I was extremely pissed off. But on the bright side I had a free day, and I will be able to occupy the moral high ground with the letting agents for at least the next couple of encounters. So I went to buy some posh French cakes and took them round to see my friend C, who conveniently lives round the corner from the letting agents and is home on maternity leave. Then I drove home. And now there's a sink in the shed. Thank god I didn't pick the whole lot up in one go, though I still haven't worked out how to get a bath into a car. J says I can borrow his Land Rover. I'm not sure how to get *myself* into a Land Rover. But I haven't told him that.

Moving on, I am wanting the new White Stripes album *a lot*. Which should pose no great logistical problem, but I tell you what does: does anyone have an mp3 or aac of Hippy Chick by Soho (released 1990, samples How Soon Is Now)? It's not on iTunes, it's not on allofmp3, it's not on last.fm, it *might* be on emusic but I never outstayed my free trial, it might be in a number of other places but none which don't look dodgy. I know Mr B has it, but I seem to remember that was vinyl... any thoughts?

Some brave new world this is...

joella

I never took the advice in that book

A couple of weeks ago, and apropos of nothing as far as I know, M asked me about the T-shirt that's been hanging on the wall since we moved into this house together in 2001. It's a badly-made, once-white garment bearing the following message (hand-painted, in block capitals):

"Don't saddle me with your ideals
And spare me all your guilt"

What *is* that quote, he said, and what did you mean by it? And why is it hanging on the wall?

I was hungover and sitting on the loo at the time, so it took me a while to explain. But the basics are as follows: it's a line from Billy Bragg's I Don't Need This Pressure, Ron -- one of the B-side tracks on 1985's Days Like These 12". I can (and did) quote the entire song by way of big-picture context, but that line was the one that I cared about most. 'Don't saddle me with your ideals' is a fairly obvious teenage feminist statement: I don't want to be part of your world, and watch me not be. 'And spare me all your guilt' is a bit harder to articulate. I'm still not sure what BB meant by it, but I'm not sure that matters. What *I* meant by it is perhaps best expressed by something Yoko Ono said on this week's Desert Island Discs: "My life is not about appeasing other people. My life is about being myself."

I painted it onto a T-shirt when I was about 17 because I wanted the world to know that this was how I felt. But it never really worked: every time I wore it out men would read it and say something along the lines of 'I wouldn't mind straddling you'. No, I would say, you haven't read it properly. So then they would stare at my breasts a bit harder. V quickly I realised that this T-shirt would only bring me grief, and I stopped wearing it. But I could never bear to part with it. I created it with the best of intentions. And it's hanging on the wall 20 years later because it's still true.

Fair enough, said M. I thought there must be a story behind it. I felt warm inside.

A few days later, I was sorting through photos upstairs when I heard Scholarship Is the Enemy of Romance playing loud downstairs. This could only be C, our new housemate, who has a sticker on her bike which says 'I'd rather be listening to Billy Bragg'. I've never lived with a Billy Bragg fan before. I grinned like a lunatic, knowing which track was coming up next, and ran downstairs to catch it -- I have it, obviously, but I don't think I've played it for about five years. 'So don't saddle me with your ideals, and spare me all your guilt', I sang from the middle room. 'For a poet with all the answers has never yet been built', she sang back from the kitchen.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

joella

You can't have a cupboard if there ain't no wall

Ah, in late spring a young-ish woman's thoughts turn to Neil Young.

I don't really like driving except when I'm by myself, I more or less know where I'm going, the shadows are long, the traffic is light, the music is loud and the windows are down. Then I love it.

It was best of all when I still had my 2cv. There weren't many songs you could hear with the roof off and both cylinders roaring, but the ones that made it through were the best songs in the world. And one of my best tapes had Ragged Glory on one side and Nothing's Shocking on the other.

I parted with Cherry five years or so back, and I left the tapes with her - the rain used to drip through her cassette deck so I don't think they would really have worked in any other setting. But I still think driving is a time for the familiar, not for the strange, and for the epic, not for the fey.

Tonight I drove out into Oxfordshire after work to help fit a bath in a bungalow in Carterton. I was tired before I started, and completely knackered afterwards (though strangely manic once I got home, hence stupid late blogging). I should have resented it, or at least part of me should. But instead I got a perfect late May sky, with the sun shafting down through the clouds, framing half an hour of contemplation set to Neil Young's Unplugged.

Left me helpless, helpless, helpless.

But in a good way.

joella