Departure lounge ramblings on music, places, climate change and stuff outdoors

Sleep No More

Sleep Alone at the McKittrick Hotel in New York is a theatre experience that is both a multi-sensory treat and somewhat impossible describe, at least without ruining the effect for anyone who hasn’t yet had the pleasure.

I Am Kloot at Concorde 2

Arriving at Brighton’s Concorde 2 from the Kemptown side, we were greeted by I Am Kloot* and friends warming up backstage, door open to the beach and singing their hearts out to Elton John’s ‘Your Song’. If that was a surprise, the ensuing gig was predictably brilliant. This is a band without a weak spot, aside from two thirds of the trio’s need to pop off mid-set for a fag.

Record Store Day 2015

Record Store Day, the celebration of music imprinted on vinyl in shops staffed by people who still make mix-tapes, heaven in another word, goes from strength to strength. The high street music retailers may have gone, but a hardy nucleus of independent traders continue to survive and, on at least one day a year, to thrive.

Glastonbury 2000

As part of my attempt to catalogue all my music festival experiences, I am today trying to remember the first Glastonbury of the 21st century. John Peel was still the compere, the Park Stage did not yet exist, and neither did Shangri La. Doves were playing their debut album in the New Bands Tent. The Pyramid Stage, making a return for the first time since a previous incarnation burned down “in mysterious circumstances” before the 1994 festival, had been baptised by Robert Plant with a pail of milk from Michael Eavis’ herd. And hardly anyone had a tattoo.

H is for Hawk

‘H is for Hawk’ won many “Best Non-Fiction” garlands last year and so there are no shortages of reviews, yet it is just so good that markontour would not be complete without adding to the eulogies. I have never had an interest in falconry, or any desire to train a wild animal of any kind, but ultimately ‘H is for Hawk’ simply made me want to be outside and enjoying our wonderful planet while it is still a place of extraordinary diversity and beauty.

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is beautiful city of green spaces and white, colonial buildings and, while I can only draw on a couple of days worth of evidence, it is clearly a place to have fun. Here follows the initial markontour guide, hopefully to be substantially updated at some point:

Why does Mr Universe always come from Earth?

Half Man Half Biscuit’s ‘Urge for Offal’ is my Album of the Week #5. I have been addicted to the music of these lads from the Wirral peninsular since first hearing ‘Trumpton Riots’ on John Peel in about 1986. 2014’s offering, ‘Urge for Offal’, get’s all literary with ‘Baguette dilemma for the Booker Prize Guy’, but it would win my Album of the Week award on the strength of a single line in ‘This One’s For Now’: “Why does Mr Universe always come from Earth?”. Now there’s a question that has always bothered me. Aural joy.