especially for you

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Last weekend was a fairly tame one.

Saturday I went to the New Islington Urban Folk festival which was a free festival on the grounds of a new housing development just outside the city centre - think East Perth during the redevelopment phase. Lots of random, local folk and rock type acts with a smattering of poetry, electro and other activities. Everything was well run and it was quite fun just walking the three tents and checking out random acts. Happened to run into a friend which was good as well.

Favourite tent was a tiny little tent with a vintage clothing stall and a cake stall (yum) and a small stage for the performers and room for 10 or so people only, the rest of us having to listen from outside. Saw a couple of cutesy folk singers, the first girl was pretty awesome just her on her keyboard.

Oh and the strange poet doing an ode to Diana titled “Crash Bang Wallop” was brilliant but not suited for Diana fans! lol

After the festival I went and saw Hallam Foe a new film staring Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott) - a brilliant but very disturbing film.

Sunday I checked out the Kylie Costumes display at the Manchester Museum, the last day of this free exhibition of many of Kylie’s video and live outfits.

Normally I’d get in the mood and play some appropriate tracks but I’m glad to say I have no Kylie songs on my computer so instead I listened to some death drone to totally counteract all the Kylie pop playing in the exhibition.

I had to switch off the ipod when the clip for Especially for You came on, Scott and Charlene’s lovely duet!

Lots of Kylie’s outfits were on display including the gold lame hot pants from the Spinning Around video and Charlene’s mechanic’s outfit from Neighbours (so cool!).

Maybe the coolest thing was Kylie’s first Silver and Gold logie awards. I saw a Logie!

After that I watched the Bourne Ultimatum, best Hollywood movie of the year. The early scenes around Waterloo Station with the CIA displaying scary powers of surveillance and Bourne’s even more unrealistic but still brilliant tricks to evade capture were just brilliant. Eat your heart out James Bond.

Last Tuesday saw me head to Liverpool to see Russian (via New York) singer extraordinaire Regina Spektor. The gig was amazing, it was just Regina and her piano (guitar for one song) - all very simple but her voice is so amazing it had the audience pretty mesmerised for the whole set. Regina’s lyrics are a real highlight, often kooky and a tad non-sensical and eliciting laughs from the audience and also when she does vocals tricks in parts of some songs.

A lyric that might be close to home for some Mallies friends (sounds better when sung, on paper it looks a tad boring):

"He was perfect except for the fact that he was an engineer
And mothers prefer doctors
And lawyers"

Liverpool, for the very brief time I was there, looks quite nice. A lot smaller than Manchester and although there are some very nice buildings, the city centre is blighted by an awful shopping mall. Also hear the locals speak, it shocked me to think I was only an hour from Manchester, the accents are totally different. Definitely worth a longer visit, I have another gig their in October so might try to stay for at lease a day.

Thursday was more music for me. First up was a talk at Urbis by Peter Hook (bass play with Joy Division/New Order) and journalist Paul Morley. Hooky basically just rambled on about the old band days and the Hacienda club whilst taking questions from the crowd. It was actually really interesting (well for the music nuts like me) and Hooky was very down to earth and honest with his answers (a little to honest ripping into New Order front man Bernard Sumner on more than one occasion - they have a very love/hate relationship these days).

In a sign of the digital age we live in, the event was also held simultaneously in the virtual world of 'Second Life' although most people on there probably don't have a first life to start with (and didn't take to well to being called 'fools' by Morley - lol).

Straight after it was a mad dash to the Academy (yet again) to see Architecture in Helsinki, Melbourne twee indie popsters. Not being a huge fan (I was trying to offload my ticket earlier), I wasn't expecting much but was pleasantly surprised by Architecture and support band Caribou.

Personal highlight was the rather cool cover of Mental as Anything's 'Live it Up’ aka ‘Hey There You With the Sad Face' - good to see them supporting some classic Aussie music ... lol

Anyhow, all else is well with me, work is alright, things are a tad quiet (we haven’t even rolled over end of month yet - slack huh?). In London (again) for the weekend.

P

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Photos

Regina, drum stick and chair
The sounds she made with the drum stick and chair were amazing

Regina and guitar
The shoddy camera work makes it look like a dull boring gig but the lighting was actually really good.