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Neko Case at Paradiso, Amsterdam, 19 Sep 2009

Middle Cyclone album coverI was somewhat miffed when I discovered that Neko Case was playing Amsterdam in February this year by checking her web site a few days after the intended gig, and finding that she had had to cancel it because of an illness. On the one hand, I had missed seeing her; but on the other hand I would have missed seeing her anyway. Hmm.

Fortunately, her autumn tour brought her back to the Netherlands, where she played Paradiso on Saturday 19th September. Abi and I managed to wangle babysitting for the evening, so we could both go. It was a lovely Saturday, and we cycled in to town and had a burger at Burgermeester before the gig. We had a delightful evening, but as concerts go it wasn’t that great.

Although Neko was in fine voice, she looked tired and unhappy. Kelly Hogan, the second vocalist in the band, did all the talking between songs, occasionally throwing a line to Neko only to be rebuffed with a shrug. It was only towards the end of the set, when the end was in sight, that she even cracked a smile and started to engage a little with the audience. I know that she had had to cancel at least one gig earlier this tour because of illness (Edinburgh), so it’s possible she still wasn’t feeling right. However, the overall vibe I got from the stage was aloof and reluctant, which was disappointing.

Having said that, the actual performance was good. Neko’s voice is one of the modern wonders of the world, and Kelly Hogan’s provides a great accompaniment. The band was clearly comfortable playing together, and Jon Rauhause, hunched in intense concentration over his banjo and steel guitar, was a special treat.

They played through most of the new album Middle Cyclone and a helping of favourites from earlier albums. “Maybe Sparrow” was a definite crowd-pleaser early on, but the songs from Blacklisted were the ones I liked best, with “I Wish I Was The Moon” in the middle of the set being my personal highlight. It seemed to me that “The Train From Kansas City” right at the very end was where the band really seemed to shake loose and enjoy themselves the most. It’s just a pity that they didn’t light up earlier on.

Neko Case European Tour Fall 2009 Print

Set list:

  1. Things That Scare Me (BL)
  2. Maybe Sparrow (FCBTF)
  3. People Got A Lotta Nerve (MC)
  4. Fever (MC)
  5. Hold On, Hold On (FCBTF)
  6. I’m An Animal (MC)
  7. Middle Cyclone (MC)
  8. The Pharaohs (MC)
  9. Margaret vs. Pauline (FCBTF)
  10. Deep Red Bells (BL)
  11. I Wish I Was The Moon (BL)
  12. Polar Nettles (MC)
  13. Red Tide (MC)
  14. Prison Girls (MC)
  15. The Tigers Have Spoken (TTHS)
  16. Alimony (Harry Nilsson cover)
  17. That Teenage Feeling (FCBTF)
  18. This Tornado Loves You (MC)

Encore:

  1. Vengeance Is Sleeping (MC)
  2. Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth (MC)
  3. Train From Kansas City (TTHS)

MC = Middle Cyclone, FCBTF = Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, BL = Blacklisted, TTHS = The Tigers Have Spoken

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Malcolm Middleton at Paradiso, Amsterdam, 14 Sep 2009

Growing up Limburg in the 1980s, Paradiso in Amsterdam held a special musical mystique: it’s where all the cool bands played when they came to the Netherlands. Whenever pop radio or TV shows rattled off gig listings, Paradiso was top of the list. But Amsterdam was the big city, two and a half hours away by train, and I was such a nerdy teenager that making a pilgrimage northwards to see my favourite artists was practically unimaginable. So I’m glad that my first visit — at age 37, and now living within cycling distance of Amsterdam — was suitably awesome.

Malcolm Middleton, with his introspective and self-pitying lyrics, was an appropriate choice given how I was feeling that day. I had had a traumatic operation to extract a wisdom tooth the week before, and I had been back to see my dentist that afternoon to find out how the gaping wound was healing:

Me: Is it normal for it still to hurt this much after a week?

Dentist: Dude! I can see your jawbone right through the hole! No wonder you’re in pain. Here, let me squirt some ice cold saline solution on it.

Me: Aaaaauuuugh!

I had taken a healthy dose of ibuprofen before I left the house, but by the time I got to Paradiso my jaw was still throbbing painfully. Still, the buzz of excitement in line for the doors lifted my spirits. Most people seemed to be there to see The Jesus Lizard, who were playing the main stage later that evening, but all the 30-something Scottish ex-pats were clearly there to see Malcolm upstairs in the “kleine zaal”.

Because I had got lost a couple of times on my cycle ride into town, Johnny Lynch (The Pictish Trail) was about half-way through his warm-up set already. Malcolm himself was selling CDs and merch at the back of the room, and I got myself a “Happy Medium” T-shirt and a copy of Secret Soundz, vol. 1 before slinking off to the bar for a beer to help numb the pain.

I don’t know what the last song was in Lynch’s set, but it was a belter — it started off quiet, and built up an insistent electronic beat to a thrashing crescendo with synthesized bagpipes skirling away in the background. The sound system is enormous for such a small space, and my ears were ringing when he finished.

I love loud music — like, really loud. There’s something about having my eardrums assaulted by the supercharged amps of a live band that fills me with euphoria. (I get the same feeling from extraordinarily hot food.) For some reason I had got it into my head that this gig was going to be a quiet affair — Malcolm alone with an acoustic guitar plucking away at acoustic versions of his quieter songs — but this opening act (as well as the drums, keyboards, and electric guitars sitting around on the stage) made it clear that we were in for a full-on experience.

And sure enough, when Malcolm took to the stage with Johnny Lynch back on guitar next to him, he opened with two songs that positively bathed the audience in sound. It was as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room and replaced with pure music. “Crappo The Clown” started slowly, its slow beat plodding on inexorably, rising in power with every verse, eventually crashing down in a tidal wave of wailing guitars. “Choir”, a song I had never thought of as particularly loud before, took on a pulsing new intensity played live.

By this point, I didn’t care about my toothache any more. The painkillers, the beer, and the CPR-strength bass frequencies had blasted me into a state of bliss where all I could do was sway to the beat and let the guitars flush out my head.

“Subset of The World” was the first of four songs they played from the new album Waxing Gibbous. Malcolm’s performance was controlled rather then energetic, his face intense and concentrated even on the frenzied “A Brighter Beat” when the drummer got his chance to go wild. Johnny Lynch’s light vocals, also present on the new album, are a good fit live, never more so than on “Don’t Want To Sleep Tonight” which they played as a very brief encore. I hadn’t made an emotional connection with that song before the gig; now it is one of my favourites (even if they did fluff the ending).

It was all over too fast. There was another act on later that evening, so they were under a tight curfew, and were only on stage for an hour and a bit. (Also, I think they wanted to catch The Jesus Lizard next door.) I drifted out of Paradiso on a cloud of contentment, my face plastered with a silly grin. As cycled home through the centre of Amsterdam, bustling with nightlife even on a Monday evening in mid-September, I was struck by how beautiful the city is…

…and I didn’t think about my toothache until I got back home an hour later.

Set list:

  1. Crappo the Clown (514)
  2. Choir (ITW)
  3. Love Comes In Waves (SOH)
  4. Subset of the World (WG)
  5. New song? “Sitting on my fat arse on a Tuesday”? (See also Manic Pop Thrills)
  6. Zero (WG)
  7. Stay Close Sit Tight (ABB)
  8. **? Another one I didn’t recognize, but really liked.
  9. Box & Knife (WG)
  10. Blue Plastic Bags (SOH)
  11. A Brighter Beat (ABB)

Very brief encore:

  1. Don’t Want To Sleep Tonight (WG)

WG = Waxing Gibbous, SOH = Sleight of Heart, ABB = A Brighter Beat, ITW = Into The Woods, 514 = 5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine

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Optimistic perfectionist

To an optimistic perfectionist, the initial outlook is always rosy; but the reality is always more complex than expected, and the work always takes longer than anticipated.

(Managers have a love/hate relationship with us. They love the final results, but they hate the fact that they have to double our initial estimates, add contingency, double them again, and finally add a fudge factor to compensate.)

See also: xkcd: Success

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Radio Sunpig 2008 – The Seeds Of Something Better

Around 2006, we were operating at a local maximum; 2007 was the big disruption. If you look back at Radio Sunpig for 2006 and 2007, you can infer some of this from the music I was listening to. In 2006, I was featuring songs like See The World by Gomez and Use It by the New Pornographers. 2007 was much darker, with harder riffs, melancholy chords, and a significant dose of Malcolm Middleton. The cover I made for Radio Sunpig 2007 captures a lot of my state of mind for the year: not so good.

2008 was still not great, but at least it showed promise. Hence the title for Radio Sunpig 2008.

Radio Sunpig 2008: The Seeds Of Something Better

As for the fact that I’m posting this at the end of August 2009, well. I did actually put the compilation together in December 2008 — it has just taken me some time to write about it.

  1. The Bird And The Bee – Again & Again
    I first came across the Bird And The Bee by watching Dennis Liu’s delightfully playful video for Again & Again. The official video does a better job of capturing the 60s retro tropicalia vibe that suffuses the song, but nonetheless I will always think “Mac” whenever I hear it.
  2. Friendly Fires – Jump In The Pool
    Another slice of electro pop with tropicalia influences. The smooth 10cc-ish harmonies and keyboards give the song a laid-back background, while the drums and vocal exhortations to jump in the pool drive it forward. It shouts “summer!” — but in a cool and understated way.
  3. Los Campesinos! – Death To Los Campesinos!
    Jangly power-pop chaos! Rainbows! Unicorns! Kittens! Simply awesome.
  4. Mates Of State – My Only Offer
    I came across Mates Of State via The Yellow Stereo. They’re a husband and wife duo, and here they sing about a marriage that is not going so well. The insistent kick/hat drum beat and simple piano line walk the song forward at a brisk pace, while a glockenspiel drops tiny tinkles of sad tears along the way. Kori and Jason alternate vocals, playing the parts of the couple in question, dealing with the life they feel trapped in. Upbeat and poignant.
  5. Spoon – Finer Feelings
    Not my favourite track from their album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (that would be the hauntingly sparse The Ghost of you Lingers, but the one that fits best here in this mix. This is comfortably mature indie rock – practiced, but not worn.
  6. Ladyhawke – Paris Is Burning
    The first Ladyhawke song I heard was the thumping Magic, which comes at you like a dancefloor zombie, relentless and hungry for synth. Paris Is Burning is a lighter track, but still bursting with shimmering disco flavour.
  7. Tegan And Sara – The Con
    A roiling song full of bitter lovesick emotion and heartfelt vocals, harmonizing and clambering over each other.
  8. Deastro – Light Powered
    I found Deastro’s album Keepers as a special exclusive on eMusic. 2008 was a bit of an electro-rock year for me, and I was blown away by it. Light Powered in particular sounds like a mad experiment from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It would not be out of place as as the title music for a bizarre 70s BBC science fiction adventure, filled with classically trained Shakespearean actors, well-intentioned special effects, and lots of Welsh quarries.
  9. Boulder Acoustic Society – Does It Really Matter
    You’re not going to have heard of this, but it’s great. It won the Best Song award in the Americana category of the 7th annual Independent Music Awards. It’s a 3 1/2 minute slice of peppy fiddles, guitars and accordions that sounds like it belongs in a Pixar film. In fact, the track sounded so familiar to me even on first listen that I was convinced it must have been used in the credits for one of their animated features…but no.
  10. Of Montreal – A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger
    “I spent the winter on the verge of a total breakdown
    while living in Norway”     If anything sums up Radio Sunpig 2008, this is it. Crazy sweet electro pop, with spot-on lyrics.
  11. We Are Scientists – After Hours
    Just a perfect simple indie pop song built up from a few simple drums and guitar layers, full of easy fills and hooks. The video has a great sense of fun that perfectly matches the track.
  12. Guillemots – Get Over It
    The common theme of MASSIVE POWER-POP SOUND is apparent here again. I loved this song from the first time I heard it. Fyfe Dangerfield’s shouty vocals are backed by a subtle but insistent drum groove that keeps up the pressure from the opening to the fade.
  13. The Futureheads – The Beginning Of The Twist
    This is the Futureheads in all-out rock mode. Great fun.
  14. Attic Lights – Never Get Sick Of The Sea
    Guitars, pounding drums, sweet Beach Boys harmonies, full of infectious energy. If this doesn’t put a spring in your step, nothing will.
  15. Elbow – One Day Like This
    This is a glorious sweeping finale for 2008. Sudden love revealed. The shock of remembering that beauty exists. Eyes wide open to the potential of the road ahead.
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Is dit jouw poes?

There are many reasons for me not to have a cat:

  • I’m allergic to cats, dogs, and pretty much anything with fur or feathers.
  • I’m uncomfortable about the idea of getting emotionally attached to a creature that is likely to die before me.
  • When I’m lost in thought, I’m very easily startled (to the point of jumping and shrieking) when someone approaches me unexpectedly. How would I react to a cat slinking around quietly?
  • The kids are finally old enough that I don’t have to run around after them cleaning up their pee, poo, and barf all the time. I have no desire to start doing that again, with the added bonus features of hairballs and dead mice.
  • I don’t want to set a pet precendent, because sooner or later the kids will want a puppy, and there’s no way I am getting up every morning at 7 to walk a dog when they get bored of actually taking care of it.

Nonetheless, I do actually like cats, and I find myself in the awkward position of getting attached to the one that has made his home in our back garden. We found him mewing pitifully in one of our plant beds on 22nd July. His left foreleg had got stuck stuck through his collar, and he was walking with an awkward limp. He was extremely thin, and very skittish. We fed him some tuna, and put a cushion in the garden shed, so he would have some place to shelter from the rain. He has been with us ever since.

Our first theory was that his owners had gone off on holiday, and their feeding arrangements hadn’t worked out. Perhaps the cat flap had got jammed shut, or the person they had asked to feed the cat while they were away had forgotten about it. We have been feeding him twice a day, but trying not to make him feel too welcome, in the hope that eventually he’ll give up on us and return to his owners.

That’s…not really working out so far.

We’ve treated him for fleas. We’ve bought him a cat toy. He has made himself a comfortable home in our vegetable patch. And even though we chase him out of the house with a water spray whenever he sneaks in the back door, I think he kinda likes it here. We call him “Lol.”

So now we bring out the heavy artillery: posters. I’m going to put some up around the neighbourhood to see if anyone recognizes him and wants him back. He has a small wound on his left hind leg, and it looks like the fur there has been shaved, so it’s possible he has had an operation recently. Next week I’ll take him to the vet and see if the vet recognizes him.

Is dit jouw poes? poster

Ideally, someone will claim him, and the decision about what to do with him will be out of my hands. I’m looking forward to missing him when he’s gone.

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Writing and coding: doing it right

First, some back story: The Wheel Of Time® is a massive and enormously popular 11-volume epic fantasy series by Robert Jordan. The first book was published in 1990, and Jordan sadly died in 2007 before he could finish the highly anticipated twelfth and final book. In December of 2007, Tor Books (Jordan’s publisher) announced that Harriet McDougal (Jordan’s wife and editor) had asked Brandon Sanderson to complete the last book in the series, “with scheduled delivery of the manuscript in December 2008 and a planned publication date of Fall 2009.”

Big job, power to him. Now fast forward to the present day:

Tor Books is proud to announce the November 3rd, 2009 on-sale date for The Gathering Storm, Book Twelve of The Wheel of Time and the first of three volumes that will make up A Memory of Light, the stunning conclusion to Robert Jordan’s beloved and bestselling fantasy series. A Memory of Light, partially written by Jordan and completed by Brandon Sanderson, will be released over a two-year period.

The final volume has expanded into a three-volume set! Brandon Sanderson has written an excellent post on how it came to be that way. Here are some snippets, but if you have an interest in writing and publishing, it’s worth reading the full post:

Around January or February, I posted on my blog that I was shooting for a 200k minimum. This surprised a lot of people, as 200k would not only have made AMoL the shortest Wheel of Time book other than the prequel, it seemed a very small space in which to tie up the huge number of loose ends in the book.

…

April 2008. I had to make a decision. I realized that the book would be impossible to do in 200k. I’d begun to say on my blog that it would be at least 400k, but even that seemed a stretch. … And this is where the first decision came in. Did I try to cram it into 400k? Or did I let it burgeon larger?

…

I wrote all summer, and the next point of interest comes at Worldcon. Tom [Doherty] and I were on a panel together, talking about AMoL. I noted that (by that point) I had around 250k written. He said something like “Ah, so you’re almost done!” I looked chagrined and said “Actually, I feel that I’m only about 1/3 of the way there, Tom.”

…

By December, after my book tour, I was pushing hard to even get 400k done. I still had this phantom hope that somehow, I’d be able to spend January, February, and March writing harder than I’d ever written before and somehow get to 750k by the March deadline that Tom had said was about the latest he could put a book into production and still have it out for the holidays.

Anyone who works in software will recognize the process at work here: you start working on something, and it turns out to be much larger than you expected. It’s not scope creep — that’s a different beast entirely — it’s a matter of doing it right. Ian Hickson magnificently put it like this:

Someone asked for onbeforeunload, so I started fixing it. Then I found that there was some rot in the drywall. So I took down the drywall. Then I found a rat infestation. So I killed all the rats. Then I found that the reason for the rot was a slow leak in the plumbing. So I tried fixing the plumbing, but it turned out the whole building used lead pipes. So I had to redo all the plumbing. But then I found that the town’s water system wasn’t quite compatible with modern plumbing techniques, and I had to dig up the entire town. And that’s basically it.

There are a lot of similarities between writing and coding. They are both intensely creative occupations, and both can be frustratingly unpredictable. There are some types of project that you can estimate and write or build fairly accurately, but in many cases (a novel, the next Twitter) you’re breaking completely new ground. You can start with an idea, but until you get it out on paper, or down on the screen, you really don’t know how it is going to turn out.

Sure, you can write a detailed outline or specification, but you still have to hammer out the details on a line-by-line basis. Unless you take a lot of time to extend that outline or spec down to the line level, unexpected stuff will slip through the cracks, and you’ll find yourself dealing with the unknown.

Which is where the magic happens.