A Night Out:
I had a fun night out.
I got to Tottenham Court Road a little late, queued up at a cashpoint for 15 to get cash (all of the cashpoints in Leytonstone are either depeleted, not working, kicked in or a variation of the above).
I paid to much for a ticket to Social Distortion but it was actually a really good show and I am glad that I went. Mike Ness has a mournful quality to his voice that can convey a lifetime of confusion and pain with a single note. Besides that, he looks drop dead cool. It turns out that this is the first time that Social D have played in London for ten years.
Outside I ran into Rich or Paul or whatever his name is. He used to be in the Blood Idols, now he's in Vanlustbader, who I just found out moved to England in April. They were brought over here by a label putting out there single or something.
He was quite surprised to see me here. He also introduced me to his friend Amy, a punk from the Gold Coast who is a teacher over her, living in a Squat in Stoke Newington.
Apparently half her street is all Jewish, and the other half is Lesbians. I'm trying to think of a famous Jewish Lesbian, but I can't think of any right now. Answers on a postcard please.
After that it ws the tube to Angel to go to Slimelight. While I was finding it I met a couple from Nottingham who had come down to go to the club. They told me that Nottinghams Famous Rock City club is actually in a slow decline, its best days behind it. Interesting. I'll tell Adam.
In the queue to get in I ran into Janet, the South Afrikan writer from the company I did a shift at just over a week ago. She was also at the party where I stupidly drunk too much cheap run and got sick.
It turns out that what felt like ten minutes at the most of puking was in fact over three hours. Geez. That explains a lot. Like why there were still people around when I started throwing up and the entire party was deserted when I finished. And why the last time I checked a clock it was just after four and the next time I checked it was nine.
I'm freaking out that it was three hours, though. It really didn't feel that long. It was horrible, painful and really undignified, but it felt like a really short period of time. I must have blacked out or something, at least the higher functions. A disturbing concept, really. Alcoholic Amnesia is really not my style.
Anyways, I also got talking to an American name Steve, wearing a KMFDM shirt. Turns out that he's a Graduating Law Student, previously a Journalism Graduate, from Tennessee and Birmingham Alabama. But besides that, he's pretty itinerant. He told me that he had just taken the channel tunnel back to London that Day from Paris.
He also told me that he had been studying Law in Durham, and that his favourite city on the face of the Earth was Glasgow. He gave me a list of websites to look up.
The club itself was fun, even if I did feel the usual kind of loneliness that I tend to feel at these shindigs. I felt the same at most of them in Brisbane. Am I just wired to feel alone?
Upstairs they were playing hard, noisy electronic that had me moving involuntarily. Since I'm feeling the opposite of manic right now I wasn't quite energetic enough to actually dance as I should have to the music, but it was fun hearing it.
Downstairs a set of trad Goth gave way to crappy eurodisco... sorry, EBM. I hate EBM. If I wanted to hear lousy techno I'd build a time machine back to 1993.
Funnily enough, the Trad Goth DJ played Spiritual Cramp off the first Christian Death album, the first time I'd heard that song in years. Playing guitar on that song was a bloke name Rikk Agnew, who was also in the original lineup of... Social Distortion.
Is it Kismet, or is it just me drawing lines between random points. I'd say a bit of both. The DJ told me that he plays Christian Death every week, it's just me who hasn't been there since November.
At this point I could go into an exploration of the idea that at 28 I feel too old to enjoy clubs etc, but I don't have time and I don't like where this idea could take me. I'm not in the mood to unravel at this point.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Funny things about the club: a bloke was dressed like a brownshirt while his girlfriend was dressed like a WAC. They danced nonstop in the electro-noise room. Standing besides them was a bloke with a shaved head, black buttondown shirt whose method of dancing was to wave both hands in time to the music as if he was conducting a Wagnerian Opera.
Anyways, at about fourish I took the bus back to Piccadilly Circus, bypassed my usual slice of Pizza at Leicester Square, kicked alond Charing Cross Road until I got to Oxford Street and stumbled on Club 100, which was still going, and still charging £10 at the door.
I've been here this long and it has taken me til now to find this particular basement Jazz Club.
Not having £10 I decided to jump on the next bus and go home. Perfect timing for a change, as soon as I ascended the stairs back to street level the N8 bus was there and I jumped on.
A scenic ride through Holborn, The Bank District and some of North East London (progressively less scenic as it went) and I was home.
Yay!
And now I'm off.
Over and Out.
J
I got to Tottenham Court Road a little late, queued up at a cashpoint for 15 to get cash (all of the cashpoints in Leytonstone are either depeleted, not working, kicked in or a variation of the above).
I paid to much for a ticket to Social Distortion but it was actually a really good show and I am glad that I went. Mike Ness has a mournful quality to his voice that can convey a lifetime of confusion and pain with a single note. Besides that, he looks drop dead cool. It turns out that this is the first time that Social D have played in London for ten years.
Outside I ran into Rich or Paul or whatever his name is. He used to be in the Blood Idols, now he's in Vanlustbader, who I just found out moved to England in April. They were brought over here by a label putting out there single or something.
He was quite surprised to see me here. He also introduced me to his friend Amy, a punk from the Gold Coast who is a teacher over her, living in a Squat in Stoke Newington.
Apparently half her street is all Jewish, and the other half is Lesbians. I'm trying to think of a famous Jewish Lesbian, but I can't think of any right now. Answers on a postcard please.
After that it ws the tube to Angel to go to Slimelight. While I was finding it I met a couple from Nottingham who had come down to go to the club. They told me that Nottinghams Famous Rock City club is actually in a slow decline, its best days behind it. Interesting. I'll tell Adam.
In the queue to get in I ran into Janet, the South Afrikan writer from the company I did a shift at just over a week ago. She was also at the party where I stupidly drunk too much cheap run and got sick.
It turns out that what felt like ten minutes at the most of puking was in fact over three hours. Geez. That explains a lot. Like why there were still people around when I started throwing up and the entire party was deserted when I finished. And why the last time I checked a clock it was just after four and the next time I checked it was nine.
I'm freaking out that it was three hours, though. It really didn't feel that long. It was horrible, painful and really undignified, but it felt like a really short period of time. I must have blacked out or something, at least the higher functions. A disturbing concept, really. Alcoholic Amnesia is really not my style.
Anyways, I also got talking to an American name Steve, wearing a KMFDM shirt. Turns out that he's a Graduating Law Student, previously a Journalism Graduate, from Tennessee and Birmingham Alabama. But besides that, he's pretty itinerant. He told me that he had just taken the channel tunnel back to London that Day from Paris.
He also told me that he had been studying Law in Durham, and that his favourite city on the face of the Earth was Glasgow. He gave me a list of websites to look up.
The club itself was fun, even if I did feel the usual kind of loneliness that I tend to feel at these shindigs. I felt the same at most of them in Brisbane. Am I just wired to feel alone?
Upstairs they were playing hard, noisy electronic that had me moving involuntarily. Since I'm feeling the opposite of manic right now I wasn't quite energetic enough to actually dance as I should have to the music, but it was fun hearing it.
Downstairs a set of trad Goth gave way to crappy eurodisco... sorry, EBM. I hate EBM. If I wanted to hear lousy techno I'd build a time machine back to 1993.
Funnily enough, the Trad Goth DJ played Spiritual Cramp off the first Christian Death album, the first time I'd heard that song in years. Playing guitar on that song was a bloke name Rikk Agnew, who was also in the original lineup of... Social Distortion.
Is it Kismet, or is it just me drawing lines between random points. I'd say a bit of both. The DJ told me that he plays Christian Death every week, it's just me who hasn't been there since November.
At this point I could go into an exploration of the idea that at 28 I feel too old to enjoy clubs etc, but I don't have time and I don't like where this idea could take me. I'm not in the mood to unravel at this point.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Funny things about the club: a bloke was dressed like a brownshirt while his girlfriend was dressed like a WAC. They danced nonstop in the electro-noise room. Standing besides them was a bloke with a shaved head, black buttondown shirt whose method of dancing was to wave both hands in time to the music as if he was conducting a Wagnerian Opera.
Anyways, at about fourish I took the bus back to Piccadilly Circus, bypassed my usual slice of Pizza at Leicester Square, kicked alond Charing Cross Road until I got to Oxford Street and stumbled on Club 100, which was still going, and still charging £10 at the door.
I've been here this long and it has taken me til now to find this particular basement Jazz Club.
Not having £10 I decided to jump on the next bus and go home. Perfect timing for a change, as soon as I ascended the stairs back to street level the N8 bus was there and I jumped on.
A scenic ride through Holborn, The Bank District and some of North East London (progressively less scenic as it went) and I was home.
Yay!
And now I'm off.
Over and Out.
J
posted by the.exile at 5:02 pm
1 Comments:
Three points to Gus!
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