Some Time Later...

First of all, I'm sorry I haven't posted for a bit, it's not easy at the moment for me to get time to write my blog, or on a computer that has internet access at all for taht matter. Can't do it at work, although having said that, that's where I am now just on my lunch break, and don't seem to have much free time to write on the internet. There's a couple of reasons for that. The first is that it was my birthday last week (the 22nd) and all the going out that those birthday things usually involve, along with the birthday of my housemate who was born less than 24 hours before me.

The other reason for this, and this won't come as a surprise to most people that read this, is my new girlfriend. Now for those of you that this is a surprise for, let me assure you that this is actually James Grinnell's blog you're reading and not someone else, who has accidently posting on the wrong blog. It's actually true, I have a girlfriend! For those of you who don't know, her name's Lizzy and she's a music teacher (who can sing, hurrah!) and after three weeks it's all going incredibly well.

Anyway, enough of that. Was trying to think of something interesting to write about it being my birthday, but couldn't, so I looked up my birth date on wikipedia and these are some of the things that happened on my birthdate:

JFK was assasinated.
The Beatles released the White album.
C.S. Lewis died.
Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister.
George Eliot was born, as was Benjamin Britten, Terry Gilliam, Jamie Lee Curtis and (joy of joys) Scarlett Johansson.
It's also St Cecilia's day who is the patron saint of music!

Anyway, got to go, I encourage you to look up your birth date and see if you have any cool things that happened on your birthday. Will try and post again sooner rather than later.

Happy Birthday NME

This week, NME has published it's 3000 edition. The first issue I brought was sometime back in the early 90's. As a teenager I actually let NME decide my taste. If they said something was good, I'd like it and if they hated something, so did I. The music scene seemed exciting in the mid 90's in a way that I haven't felt since. As Pulp, Blur, Oasis, Radiohead made life changing albums at a time when my life was changing as I slowly turned from child to adolesecnt to adult (although I'm probably still on that particular journey) and NME was there through all that.

Obviously as I grew up a bit I realised that at time NME can be as biased and wrong as any other person. Their constant need to seem much more with it than anyone else has at times frustrated me as they champion bands for months until they become popular and release a second/third album which means that they've either become boring, sold out or just plain bad. Which to be fair, is sometimes true. However in those cases NME has sometimes managed to get it spectacularly wrong (Be Here Now has NEVER been a 10/10 album!)

But on NME's birthday, I don't want to dwell on the negatives, I just want to say that without NME I might not even know some of the music I now love, or would at least have discovered it much later.

On a seperate note, went to see Elizabethtown last night, had a great night and really enjoyed the film. At times it feels like the film has lost its way a bit, but it's a great, life affirming (literally) story with a great soundtrack and I even thought Orlando Bloom wasn't bad in it.

And Kirsten Dunst is as loveable as ever in it.

Birthdays, Comedy Clubs and gigs

Feels like I've not written anything on my blog for ages and for once that's not because I've got nothing to say but because I've got loads to say and no time, up til now, to write about it.

A couple of weeks ago I ended up going to 3 birthday parties. The first was for Denise, my friend from the bar who was turning 22, which was an interesting night. Mainly because I got there late because I was working. My friends from the bar felt that I had missed out on a few drinks and to make up for that brought me a quadruple tequila that they told me to down in one which, since they challenged both my manliness and my country (they were all South African or Australian), I was forced to drink. The second was Jake's surprise/fancy dress party. I ended up going as the edge, which mainly meant wearing what I usually wear and growing a goatee and putting on a wooly hat. I'm not usually into fancy dress, but this was a great party, if only because it was with all my new(ish) Roehampton friends and it's always good to spend time with them. Plus it was wonderful to see Jake's face as they took off the blindfold, he looked completely shocked and touched by it all. The final birthday party was James Underwood's 30th which was a great evening spoilt only by a guy who apparently was a professional musician playing guitar and singing all night. He wasn't good. In fact that's probably putting it mildly, there were various conversations based around the best way to get him to shut up, destroy the guitar, the PA or, in extreme though possibly valid cases, kill him.

Last week was also a pretty busy week. Besides the fact that work is starting to get busier, I spent every evening out at some place or another. Monday night I went to see one of my housemates debut performance at the comedy store. There were just three of us there with him and he did really well. It was a gong show, so the aim was for him to keep the audience entertained for 5 minutes. If they started booing, the compare would hit the gong and the act would have to leave the stage. Nev managed 2 minutes and 44 seconds before getting sent off, but his act was so different and he'd done it so well that he was referred to throughout the rest of the night and got to go back on stage a couple of times. They asked him back for the next gong show too, so he's obviously doing something very right.

On Wednesday night I went to see Paul Frith play a gig. Paul plays acoustic guitar and with him was a string quartet (which included James Underwood) and a trumpet player. I don't want to say it was the best gig I've ever been to, cos once you've seen the likes of U2, Paul McCartney, Radiohead a gig at a little club is never going to have the same feeling. Having said that though, although you can't compare it to those gigs, it was something very special. Paul is an amazing songwriter with an amazing voice and he created an atmosphere of true intimacy. No one spoke during his songs and there was a depth to the music that you found yourself getting completely lost in as the music seemed to inspire you on to do something yourself. It felt like he was only playing to you and the songs seems to speak directly to your soul. Sorry for the cheesiness there, but it was that sort of night.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll try to be a bit more regular with my postings for the next couple of weeks. My main plan for this week is to see Elizabeth town, which is not only directed by Cameron Crowe (who also did Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky and Jerry Maguire) but also stars the wonderful, talented, amazing, beautiful Kirsten Dunst.