A guid St Andrews Day to all of you. Celebrations will take place in Glasgow with The Primevals and in "the London" with honorary Scots Combo Suzy and the Fower! Not sure how many kilts will be involved in that. No time to gab, I'm having a saltire tattooed on to my map in about tewnty minutes. Catch you on the flipside, or at the bar in the DWC.

THE PRIMEVALS LAUNCH THEIR NEW ALBUM "THERE IS NO OTHER LIFE AND THIS IS IT" in GLASGOW, TOMORROW NIGHT (30th).

The show is at The Twisted Wheel in Queen Street and the band "should be on at 10pm-ish". Plus it's free, but you'll want to score a copy of the cd, natch. St. Andrew's night might actually go with a bang this time out...

Sure was good to get a bulletin frae J. It never got what you'd call light here until it was practically time for the sun to go down. On top of the rather depresso outlook on that score, I've trapped a nerve in my left should/arm and it isn't half gowping so I'll keep this brief. Paracetamol and Codeine for tea, yummy!

There's a broadcast of Säkert! live from the summertime back yonder somewhere, I think recorded in Ms Norlin's hometown of Östersund?

You remember the summer? When there's actually daylight? Anyway, that's on p3 live tonight at 9.30 Stockholm time (8.30pm in the UK).

It would be good to experience some light, day or otherwise... however, those in Bristol, London and Brighton will be catching considerable rays from these fine folks starting tonight...

"Calling Brother Jeroen, where you at?" asked our chief in command.

Well first off, I've been dealin' with some digi-phobia where my pc was taken over and used to send out ungodly amounts of spam, slowin' down my pace on the information highway considerably! But the main thing I was "bein' at", and still am as a matter of fact, is bein' busy. Not in the hip-hop sense of "gettin' busy" but life in general. You know; raising my son, reading books, work, preparing meals, shopping or just going out for a short hike to catch some fresh air. That, and a lot of other stuff kinda puts the rockin' stuff on the back-burner at times. Not that I'm living in total silence these days; I carry my iPod around wherever I go: the train, the kitchen, just plug it in in whatever is available and hit shuffle mode. Havin' the time to sit down and listen all the way thru' a 70 minute CD is a rarity these days.
That said, I'm diggin' the heck outta Norton's long promised Dictators archival waxin' Every Day Is Saturday! It's effin' great to finally have this stuff at hand on a proper format instead of hissy tapes or accident prone CDRs. A mandatory purchase for every NBT reader! From the same label comes a solid collection from the Justice label vaults, full of prime six-o garage scree that's well worth part of your paycheck. Good, good stuff...
If you dig yellowed age old fanzines as much as I do, you'll be happy to learn that the legendary Canadian 'zine Denim Delinquent now has a cool website where you can get a taste of what in recent years was only available to big spenders like Chris Stigliano. D.D.'s contributors included both Lester Bangs and Jeremy Gluck, so you know you're in for a cool ride...

There's more, plenty more, but I gotta go catch some sleep...

Indeed, tired of leftovers, dear friend? Then kindly let the good folks at Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. set the table anew!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29th /OTTO'S SHRUNKEN HEAD TIKI BAR & LOUNGE /
538 East 14th Street (just west of Avenue B) in Manhattan's quaint "East Village", NYC / Two piping hot shows, from 8:00 sharp until 10:00 / No cover charge -- and featuring a FREE RAFFLE of SEMI-FABULOUS PRIZES conducted by the mysteriously alluring RAFFLE GIRL! /

Holiday on- Sincerely, Michael
Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co.
"Ballads, Boogies & Blues"
http://www.SITandDieCo.com
http://myspace.com/sitanddieco
http://www.ottosshrunkenhead.com

Sohodolls get in the spirit with this old Hanoi Rocks chestnut...

And if you can't make it yonder in NYC, then stop off at the Soul Shack in cyberspace from the comfort of wherever you fiddle about on this contraption o' yours. Bit of a primer for your Hives fix next week and a bunch of other stuff from them Netherlands. Calling Brother Jeroen, where you at?

RIP - Michael Blodgett (Lance Rocke)

My mind detector is on the blink again but while I figure out if it's just the batteries or something more serious, here are a couple or three things to keep you amused...

Groovy record sleeves of every persuasion (link courtesy of Lloyd)

Dion was on "Later with Jools Holland" last night. That was a surprise.

Francis Macdonald's directorial video debut for the new Attic Lights single, "God". Coming as a limited edition 7" on December 3rd. Reminds me of The Mockers - that has to be a good thing.

And talking of them, SUZY Y LOS QUATTRO are at the DWC this coming Friday night (30th). See you down the front.

Teenage Fanclub Benefit Show

& Exhibition at Mono

Tuesday 4th December 2007

Mono is hosting a Fundraising Benefit Gig for Project Ability on the 4th December.

The night kicks off with the launch of a new Project Ability Exhibition at 7pm.

Doors open for the concert at 8.30pm featuring: Teenage Fanclub plus Pastels DJ set

Tickets on sale at Mono - £5 (in aid of Project Ability)

I hope our US friends are whooping it up on their Thanksgiving holiday today. There was definitely a twinge of jealousy present as I drove through the murk toward Mordor this morning. There were a bunch of things you might care to check out in the dying embers of that NMD travesty yesterday. Your old mate and mine, Sid Griffin was on on Tom Morton's show talking about his new book, Million Dollar Bash. And on Iain Anderson there was Amy (W)Rigby, Wreckless Eric and Kapt. Kruickshank. You can listen to these via the Listen Again feature. There are a lot of great stations in the ether these days and Radio Weasel is a must listen. You almost don't have to collect anything these days. It's possible to hear stuff that's new to you all over the shop. An attractive alternative to clutter. Listening to some of the "talking about music" piffle on Radio Scotland yesterday certainly has me thinking about jettisoning the whole sorry palaver.

Scunnered. That's the expression that best describes the vibe around here at the minute. It seems to take forever to complete the simplest task. The general outcome is generally fraught also and largely results in wondering "why bloody bother". I honestly don't care whether Led Zeppelin will tour or not. However, I did find this little STEREO TOTAL interview thing and figured I'd share it. If the world cared more about seeing Francoise and Brezel then maybe it'd be a better place. And oh yeah, I saw Zeppelin in 1972 for £1. The tickets will have to be the same price for me to even consider it. But anyway...

It seldom, if ever, comes any better than this...

So what about this No Music Day bollocks then? BBC Radio Scotland seems to have bought into this Bill Drummond chestnut and tomorrow (Wednesday) will be NMD. What will they do with the money they save?

You heard of WMD and where that got us, well I wonder what'll happen as a result of this? Most likely sod all but talk about disenfranchising your audience. But anyway, it's happening and some of the more inspired methods of circumnavigating this stupidity will become apparent throughout the day. No Shite Music Day, I could live with and, of course ,any day without the completely stage-managed "Get It On" is perhaps not all bad, so maybe Drummond has done us a favour on that score.

It's all done under the auspices of appreciating music more by giving it up for a day. Will the common five-eighth give a crap? I expect not. Somebody told me that the idea came from a situation of the brains behind this being in HMV and there was nothing for him to buy or something. It's possibly not even true but if it is, why the hell was he in there? Was Zavvi or whatever it's called, shut? But for part of a one-time institution like the BBC to rubber-stamp such a venture? Now that's simply wrong. And what about we licence payers, don't we get a say?? Not tomorrow but there will be repercussions down around the bend. There have to be, if only in the name of mischief. I hope there will be a no talking day or a no sports day to follow, in the interests of fairness and balance. No compy's and now this. How many more rungs is this once proud "brand" set to slip down? E-mail the BBC in CAPITALS! Tell them that their collective "jaicket" is on a shakey nail and make sure it's the heirarchy that get it in the neck. Divots.

Still not making much progress on the Facebook front. All that biting and attacking by werewolves and other creatures of the nights isn't really doing it for me. It staggers me to think about how much time some folks must spend on there. And i'm not easily staggered but anyway, I'm off now to look at the Skeleclips that I didn't have time to check out this morning.

The Skeletons - new live hootch (link courtesy of Lloyd)

I don't have the energy or the notion to blog tonight. My eyesight is shot to buggery from the glare of headlights and concentrating on driving though heavy rain. Reading the miniscule print on cd packaging? Not happening. I've lollygadded this far another day or so ain't gonna upset any applecarts. If this mood changes or I'm assaulted by anything that resembles inspiration then I'll be back. But don't hold them breaths...

Woah, Roy's back with a solid smoker that could well be his most consistent album since "Out After Dark". "Shake It" runs a little over 36 minutes in total and leaves most collections I've heard recently in the dust. By the time we get to "The Great Divide", the patented jangle is hitting all the right spots. What an amazing sound, taking a Dylanesque backdrop and turning it into a heartstring tugging tour de force. Roy Loney is one of the great rock'n'roll singers. Period. This latest Career Records release is a complete testament to that. Utterly timeless, there's quite a team on this 12 song belter. The cast includes one Deniz Tek, Jim Sangster and Scott McCaughey all weighing in to provide the perfect bolster. Be it psychedelically psonic on "Subterranean Waterfalls" or psychotic reactionary ala "Don't Like Nothin'" (not the Amy Rigby song) there are many cool subtleties on display. Great songs played damn well with no hint of mollycoddling. You almost never hear that anymore so that makes this all the more disarming. That oboe on "Hamlet's Brother, Happy" is bloomin' exquisite.

I can think of no higher compliment than the fact that it sounds like he's being backed by The Skeletons except that he's not. That's how complete that these guys have nailed it. "Looking For The Body" is top notch pub rock, or I think they'd call it tavern in the climes that this was made. Anyway you call it, this'll put a big fat smirk on your chops.

Brother Patrick tells me there's a Spanish Ep doing the rounds too. I'll have to get back to you on that score. Meanwhile, I hope he can bring some of these vibrations in the direction of Europe sometime soon. One of the nicest guys in the business has made one of the best albums you could hope to hear in these times of relatively slim pickings. "Shake it or Leave It" swings. Cop an earful and you will too.