The Next Big Thing

I always set out with the best of intentions but somehow these never get off the drawing board of late. It's official, my old pc is past the point of rescue but it seems that the hard drive is accessible at least so maybe I'll be able to retrieve some of the gubbins from that. This one is perfectly good but I miss some of the bells and whistles.

I should qualify that with saying that I consider myself lucky to have access at all at the minute but fear that I may never catch up with myself? Still, being able to hear Eric's podcasts is a plus and those are singlehandedly keeping me afloat. I'm having some problems with some of my other internut radio haunts and coming to terms with the fact that you really don't need to have a collection anymore.

The length and breadth of what is available on NoFoSo, WFMU and Wreckless Wradio is utterly exponential!!

So, still getting my bearings with this kit, Brother Don filed this report on his Camera Obscura experience at The Fillmore in SF last night.

"i was too wasted to write a report last nite. and i'm still not really up to a doing a proper one. but as ye say back there, they were, in a word, "crrrackin". it's quite clear they have arrived. and they haven't forgotten how they got here either. i mean, it was halfway thru the set before they got to their new single. which by the way, sounded sooo much better without those stupid disco strings. still the same musicians. but all new gear.

tracyanne's got a couple of gibsons (hollowbody electric and jumbo acoustic), the bass guy's got a shiny new fireglo rickenbacker. guitarist has a killer white jag. keyboard gal has some fancy new roland. and there was a blue tele and strat being traded back and forth. they had little fender amps. fillmore was nearly full. i missed the opening act but one of them -- a girl with a violin joined camera obscura for one song. me and my buddy james were about 3/5's of the way back, dead center. one thing i'll say is that even tho they've picked up a LOT more fans, the crowd was not at all obnoxious as happens when a band starts to make it.

sound wasn't great but it improved a little over the course. mainly you couldn't hear tracyanne's vocals enough. but i could tell she was singing a lot better than ever. so much more confident. and making jokes and talking to the crowd. i rememember the first time they came (this is the 3rd time i've seen them here) she was nervous and off key at times. then last time she was better but now she's totally got it under control. the band was always good but now they're really sharp -- super tight. the drummer's great. he uses mallets a lot.

she's lucky to have such a great band and they're lucky to have a great writer. it was one perfect song after another... i'm not familiar with the titles as i still haven't gotten round to buying the albums (something i'm going to do immediately). i know they did "let's get out of this country". which was great. and in the encore they did "lloyd, i'm ready to be heartbroken". and that old one about "you're not a teenager..." always liked that one. when it was over my friend said exactly what was on my mind: "it's great to see a band develop like this. every time we see them they get better". but i can't imagine them getting much better than they were last night.
- dc

There's a NY Dolls film event on at The Barbican this week. I can't figure out if it's a screening of New York Doll with Nina Antonia for a Q&A or something else but it'll probably be a hoot anyway. You can check out the info here. (Thanks Martin)

Got letters to "write" and other guff to attend to so I'll bid you a goodnight.