Happy birthday Kevin Rowland

Edna O'Brien - gone beyond the velvet rope

When I worked freelance post-production, I was asked to help on Alan Yentob's IMAGINE Edna O'Brien. Everyone who was interviewed to talk about her had something to say about her wit and her courage and her passion for living, and her parties.

 I just loved her books. They fit in my pocket and went with me everywhere as a young woman leaving  home on my own, and living away from home for the first time.  

I have her books on my shelf and Country Girls, especially, brings back memories of rain on the windows of London busses. They made me feel so much braver.

Thank you, Edna O'Brien. 

RIP

I DIG -- Brian Jonestown Massacre

He was so much older then, he's younger than that now. I remember being at the CMJ show in New York. I was working at SPIN at the time and this was the first year the CMJ thing was going on. Hard to believe but New York had been empty of new music since the West Coast Seattle thing had taken over. I remember at the office we got a huge  pamphlet that opened out with all the venues and gigs. LOADS. And some bands were giving the journalists business cards! Strange times. 

BJM played the Mercury Lounge. One of those small bars that you could call a sweet shop from the front. You walked along wooden floorboards, thin bar area, towards these tall red velvet curtains that opened to this little square room with a low stage. The sound was always pin-drop clear. 

Brian Jonestown came on to a packed room and they kept stop/starting. Lighting cigarettes. A guy at the back of the stage getting cross from time to time. This was Anton. But they didnt stop the show. 

Maybe at the end of the second hour someone was drunk-sick near the stage and we moved back a bit and I noticed there could only have been ten people behind us, 19 max.  

I felt like I was witnessing their rehearsal and it was brilliant. Anton was shouty. They just were NOT running out of material. 

Someone told me James Brown was particular like this. You just knew he was, well off his head but lemme tell you he shared the other planet he was on. That's where I went. Never forgot it.

This is from DIG, the documentary. This is when they got to Cleveland, Ohio.