how quickly this time passes..

It's been a little while since my last blog post so I thought I'd roll eveything that's happened over the past week in to one concise post. Sadly the copious amount of pictures I took over the past seven days are on Apryl's Macbook and as I forgot to transfer them onto my memory stick this post will sadly be picture free. Maybe I'll upload them when I get a chance...

Anyway, on Friday after a fairly lazy day I went for food in the evening with Steph and Jack at 103 on Unthank Road. I hadn't eaten here before, but both Steph and Jack spoke highly of it and it certainly lived up to the standards that they'd created for it. The owners bill it more as a café than as a restaurant and this is reflected in both its size and choice of menu. There are maybe 6 or 7 tables inside, as well as a bar running along one wall with stools which is where we sat to eat. The menu is focussed towards a Spanish style of cuisine with lots of rich sounding chicken, pork and paella dishes. Fortunately there was also a grilled aubergine and rocket salad which was vegan suitable once they took the goats cheese out so I ordered that. It turned out to be half an aubergine, grilled and topped with a hot vegetable salsa style mixture and a rocket salad; and was delicious. It's always nice to find places where you live that serve good food at a reasonable price, especially when your diet is a vegan one. This is definitely somewhere I'd recommend and Jack said his seafood and chicken paella was brillaint too, so meat eaters are well catered for too it seems.

After bidding farewell to the punx I drove to Cambridge as the next day meant Morrissey at the Corn Exchange.

I won't bore you with just how much I adore Morrissey, if you know me then you already know but suffice to say I was incredibly excited to see him again. This current tor has seen him playing 'smaller' venues too, which meant the prospect of seeing him in the 1800 capacity Corn Exchange, something which only raised my expectations for the evening. It didn't dissapoint. We managed to get to the front (2nd row) and after what seemed like an age the huge film screen that had been playing various segments of old stock film footage (the New York Dolls on German television, James Dean casting sesions, etc - you know, all the things Moz holds dear) dropped to the floor and out walked the man himself, flanked by his now well established band.

Last time I saw Morrissey he drew heavily from his more recent outputs as well as including some of the lesser known Smiths songs (Stretch Out and Wait!) but this time he delved slightly further back into his musical archives and overlooked tracks from 'Ringleader of the Tormentors' entirely. The Smiths songs he chose were excellent as ever (Girlfriend In A Coma, Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others and How Soon Is Now? among others) and the songs he played from his newest record slotted in to the set seamlessly. It seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye, but then this is always the case when every song highlights songwriting at its best. In my eyes, Morrisey can pretty much do no wrong so this short analysis isn't exactly unbiased, but this was a better showing than when I saw him at the Roundhouse last year, mainly because his voice was a great deal stronger. He celebrates his 50th birthday this Saturday, but with a touring schedule as heavy as this current one it may be time for him to take it a bit easier over the next couple of years. He's previously stated that he plans to retire at 55, but I would hate to seem him afflicted by the throat troubles that plagued his last UK tour and forced him to cancel the Royal Albert Hall and Birmingham shows on this current outing before that. Part of me would give anything to see him perform every night for the next year, but realisticaly I accept that he needs to protect is voice to a much greater degree than he once had to. He is a cherished vocalist, lyricist and songwriter and I would hate to see him permanently affected by voice troubles, simply because of his hectic performance schedule.


Monday night, I left Apryl at hers while she caught up with her friend Sophie and headed out to the Portland Arms in Cambridge with Ams to see Sam Russo who was suporting Cheap Girls and Chillerton.

I've seen Sam Russo perform a few times before and every time I'm struck how about beautifully touching and affecting his songs and lyrics are. In an age when faux emotion is marketed to within an ince of its life in order to sell more records to the kind of people who reguarly attend V-Festival, his songs are remarkably honest and forthright and acompanied by just his acoustic guitar it makes his songs sound all the more taught and raw. Think an English Sundowner, or a throatier sounding Frank Turner if you want an easy comparison. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already.

The next band Apologies I have none... sounded good, but Ams and I had some catching up to do and Lonewolves issues to discuss so unfortunately we missed them. What I heard from the room next door was good though as I say and one of their number gave me a free cd afterwards which I'll definitely be checking out this week.

Next up were Chillerton who I'd heard a lot about but never actually heard for real. On tour with the headliners Cheap Girls, Chillerton play melodic punk rock in the same vein as Lawrence Arms, Jawbreaker and Dillinger Four and although kind of sloppy at this show, I was impressed. Definitely need to pick up their new record at some point.

Finally Cheap Girls took the stage and although the first song didn't really grab me, every song that followed had me hooked. They list their influences on their MySpace as The Lemonheads and The Replacements among others and this certainly comes across in their songs. I thought they sounded kind of what The Get Up Kids covering Weezer would sound like, which is a definitely a good thing. I picked up their LP at the end and chatted to the drummer briefly who seemed like a good guy. The venue was also pretty full for the entirity of their which was good to see as it must be demolralising if you come all the way from America only to play half full pub backrooms. This is only the second show I've been to in Cambridge but both have been brilliant and I'm definitely going to keep my eyes open for others, even once Apryl has finished uni and moved home.


Tomorrow I head off on tour with Polar Bear Club (and Ruiner and Defeater) for two weeks selling merch for PBC so blog posts may be a little thin on the ground. I bought a new digital camera (I saw knew, I mean my first) today though so expect a tonne of pictures of nothing really that exciting.

xo