Musings | Matt Hobbs

Stolicht da Mighty Boosh! Gript!

Through a random sequence of events (thanks Kate) I found out that The Mighty Boosh were doing their last ‘pre-tour’ show at Riverside Studios tonight. And through an even happier sequence of events I managed to get a ticket. This combination of events means that I’ve now, finally and very happily, seen The Mighty Boosh live – and not only live, but in a relative intimate, few hundred people venue. Huzah!

As you can imagine I’m pretty darn happy right now, high on the buzz of seeing Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett, as well as their talented accomplices, execute some fine Boosh magic live and unleashed. The show was a little bit on the haphazard side, as this is their pre-tour previews where they get to iron out the glitches, but then with the Boosh you feel that the glitches and subsequent recoveries are all part of the general mishmash of comic wonder. And wonder it is. There’s something simultaneously childish and childlike in the Boosh, and it’s good to see it brought across in the live show – even in this embryonic form.

Ahead be spoilers… be ye warned…

For those of you planning to attend the relatively sold out tour this year – expect to see some, if not all, of the following as the fine fellows refine and condense their mayhem; Future Sailors performed live (with the added bonus for us of ‘False Howard’ being in the audience watching), Bob Fossil leading a sing-a-long ‘I Can’t Go For That’, Tony Harrison’s genius chat show – complete with badly constructed, only partially Noel hiding, chair and special guests including Rudi with a blistering guitar solo, Bolo with David Attenborough and the genius of Rich Fulcher’s Eastern European taxi driver who does his act without English – Grip!, the crack fox, plenty of new songs and the culmination of the show with Howard’s genius post-apocalyptic epic play about how a failure to recycle will destroy us all (with notes from Chris Martin and an extra-extendary performance from the Fulcher tin man that you won’t forget – believe me I’m trying). Phew! I’m sure there’s more I’ve forgotten to mention, but by the time you see it some or all of it will have changed and, most likely, the chaps won’t be working pretty much directly off their scripts the whole time (to oft hilarious effect) so you can expect more audience interaction and banter as they get comfortable.

Thanks to The Mighty Boosh for an epic night. As always.

Hilarious Olympic Handover Antics

Well the Beijing Olympics 2008 is now over, and amazingly Britland managed to come fourth – following China, USA and Russia. Congratulations ‘Team GB’ – but please don’t take this as a reason to stick with that ridiculous, over branded name. What is it in the British mentality that can’t take pride in things that have been the same for a long time? We just have to re-brand and re-invent it all the time, normally to the embarrassment and frustration of most people. I think it’s something to do with the fact that, as British people, we don’t fully embrace the re-branding process but just pay lip service to it. Brand is something that has to represent your character fully, it isn’t just a flashy new logo (however jaggy and unreadable it is) or a nice tagline, everyone has to buy into the brand.

So with all this heroic expenditure on new Olympic logos for London 2012, and the general excitement/lack of government support for the Olympic re-generation in east London how come no-one spent a few minutes telling London Mayor Boris Johnson how to act at an international event? On stage we have three men in suits – the Mayor of Beijing, the head of the Olympic committee and Boris Johnson. Two of those man manage to stand still, with suits smartly closed – one of those men is moving back and forward on his feet, suit open showing an expanse of shirt clad belly, occaisionally waving into the crowd. Guess which one? Then there was the flag ‘waving’. To be fair though, it is a big flag. My only question is this – did no-one think, amidst all these millions of pounds of expenditure, that teaching Boris how to act would be helpful in representing our country? Or did the extra money go to really nice stickers on the London bus that was our main contribution to the handover ceremony? I would link to the video on BBC, but for some reason it’s hard to find now…

Of course if all this Olympics-ness raises a feeling of ‘nuh’ in your soul, then check out the Hipster Olympics instead. Whuh?

The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins (4/5)

Hey, guess what – Richard Dawkins is an atheist. Who’d have thunked it. Actually pretty much everyone these days, since it’s all he really talks about. I remember the old days, when he used to explain Darwin’s theories of evolution, and genetics with such popular appeal that we all started to understand it. Now, all everyone talks about it how Dawkins doesn’t like God, or gods for that matter, which means that many people around the world have now linked teaching evolution to being godless heathens. Such is life.

Dawkins tries to explain his stance in The God Delusion, a book that is now at the ‘you have to read this’ level of popular acceptance. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not, the book will come up in conversation at some point so best read it now to save later hassle. That said, I don’t think it’s such a ‘must read’ as everyone makes out. Dawkins makes a lot of good points and tackles the defenses that most religious people put up to his arguments with aplomb, as well as re-polarising some mis-used quotes. This is all interesting stuff, but it ends up being a bit too much about Dawkins rather than about religion in general and its social impact. In the last chapter, Dawkins rushes along pointing out key observations of human evolution that might even indicate why we believe in something bigger – but this point is not adequately expounded upon to my mind. Perhaps if Dawkin’s detractors had focussed more on the quality of his writing, rather than kicking up a fuss and drawing more attention to his book they might have had more success. Either way, I leave the last word to XKCD.

Back from Beautiful Days

Tim with Glowstick @ Beautiful Days
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

There’s something comfortingly familiar about a British music festival that consists mostly of hippy music and mud, even when it isn’t Glastonbury. Beautiful Days was very much that this weekend, as the Levellers run festie went off relatively as planned with a side helping of torrential rain and foot deep mud. Did I mention the torrential rain? Yep, on Saturday, after a beautifully dry Friday, my investment in 25 quid wellies before I went turned out to be my best idea ever, in the same league as not bothering to re-waterproof my goretex jacket turned out to be the worst idea ever. Thankfully I had packed a change of clothes for my soaked upper half, and my feet were blissfully warm and dry.

That said it was a great festival. It’s small, intimate and much like Glastonbury in style and delivery, but without the really big name bands. The Levellers themselves kicked off and closed the festival, but my highlights were a very happy hour plus dancing like a loon to Eat Static, and sheltering from the torrential rain in the company of the delightfully hilarious Ross Noble, who we’d missed at Latitude due to over-crowded comedy tent issues. He was well worth the wait. There were other bands that we happily splattered about in the mud to, but those two acts, along with hanging out with friends with glow sticks/light sabers, made the entry price well worth the while – even with the British weather in full effect.

I’ll put some more pics up once I get a mo to dry them out and upload them, in the meantime you just get to enjoy Tim in full light saber swirling action. Lovely jubbly.

Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Haruki Murakami (4/5)

Chubby girls who only wear pink, subterranean creatures that don’t like paper-clips, unicorn skulls and a delight of cooking come together in a mix that could only come from Murakami. Or Franz Kafka if he liked cooking more. There are definite similarities between the two authors in this book, which seamlessly combines an internal and external adventure through the mind of the protagonist – a government sponsored data encrypter who has no idea of how to live a meaningful life outside of his number crunching.

Doesn’t make any sense to you? That’s OK, the story pulls you along with its own insane logic which though it may not provide understanding, does provide high levels of entertainment and page turning excitement. After all, this is Murakami we’re talking about here.

Latitude 2008: Final Day

Richard Ayoade Reads @ Latitude 2008
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

Well, that’s it for this year… Latitude 2008 is over, just as the warm weather hits England.. Bugger. Luckily it didn’t rain that much.. So how was the final day?

In summary – splendid. We got in for midday to see the wonderful, ethereal Joanna Newsom play to a huge, reverently silent audience. Then it was straight back down to the literary tent to catch Maureen Lipman and Juliet Stevenson read us stories. Back to the BAFTA tent to see some of Chris Sheppard’s wonderful animations.

Then it was time some more Word Theatre fun with Richard Ayoade braving a cold to read from the hilarious Submarine. Followed by a bit of a break, wandering through the forest before catching a bit of Patrick Watson, a Montreal friend of friend, play to a packed uncut crowd. Then up to the main stage to catch the Breeders, haphazard but very enjoyable.

At last the main event of the day… Blondie in the Uncut tent – which was totally rammed with excited Blondie fans. She didn’t disappoint, with the whole crowd singing along to almost every song while jumping up and down energetically. Amazing.

The night was topped off with a bit of Interpol – dark, lovely music from ol’ New York City that finished a lovely weekend, just in time for some torrential, freezing rain that seemed to come out of nowhere. Ah, the English Summer – but still it didn’t dampen our elevated Latitude spirits.

What did I wish I’d seen now? Grinderman on the final night – though it would most likely have meant not getting anywhere inside the tent for Blondie. Seeing the comedic newspaper review every morning in the literary tent. More comedy – but there was no way we were ever going to get in the comedy tent (next year Latitude folks try turning the tent sideways and opening one whole side.. or just put big comedic names on the main stage!). Any of the dance nights – apparently I’m getting to old to stay up past my bedtime these days…

More final day photos here: Latitude Festival. Thanks to everyone for a very enjoyable three days.

PS, There’s a post about Latitude Festival Photography over at Digital Photography Hints if you want to read more {:)

Latitude 2008: Day 1

Beth Orton @ Latitude 2008
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

Ah, the wonders of writing a blog out of order when you finally get a chance to upload photos… The current batch of pics is from the first day of Latitude 2008 and you can see them here.

Highlights of the day? Well after we finally got into the arena after a) being directed all the way round the wrong way to get our wristbands and b) finding out that ‘cameras with detachable lenses’ were not allowed into the festival – thanks for that pre-warning Mr Latitude – and consequent walk back to the car to hide it, the good news is that there were plenty of highlights.

Hanif Kureshi read some wonderful excerpts from his books and short story involving his own turds – probably not auto-biographical. Beth Orton lulled our ears into happiness. The Aliens, formed out of the sadly defunct Beta Band, rocked out in their own wonderful, special way and the day was topped by the excellent Franz Ferdinand on the main stage. A good full day indeed.

Latitude Festival: So Far

Iain Banks
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

Yesteryday was the second day of the Latitude festival – and it was another blinder.

After our first day’s confusion from being mis-directed to ticket booths a few times, we now knew the ropes and got to the arena pretty quickly from my sister’s house – of course this still meant we were 20 minutes late to Hanif Kureshi’s wonderful Q&A. Kureshi, author of Buddha of Suburbia amongst others, is a wonderful raconteur – even when hung over. He can make you laugh and think in the most economical number of words, each perfectly chosen.

Next we wandered around avoiding the rain before squeezing in outside the pitifully small comedy tent to listen to Bill Bailey. Some hilarious song spoofs, but somehow not as funny as he is on quiz shows. Ah well. Then it was back down to the even tinier literary tent to avoid the rain and stake a place for Iain Banks’ bit – which meant we caught the excellent Word Theatre, presenting love letters from the ages read by stars of stage and screen, including the gravelly David Soul.

As soon as Iain Banks kicked off the crowds appeared, as did the torrential rain. Banks is a big hero of mine, and it did make me think that you should sometimes never meet your heroes – especially after just hearing Hanif Kureshi.. Iain’s stories run on indefinately in a machine gun fire lilting Scots accent, and funny though they often are it somehow felt less than wonderful. Ah well, his books are still amazing and I’ll treasure the tattered copy of Walking on Glass that he signed afterwards – thanks for that, plus the random sighting of Phil Jupitus wandering around at the same time.

Book stuff over we re-joined my sister and family for some food, with Seasick Dave in the background before checking out Elbow for a bit of their excellent set. Then it was over to the start of Mars Volta – which was a bit too intense for me – and finally back with strong coffees in hand for the amazing sounds and lights of Sigur Ros. Wonderful.

Highlight of the day was definitely Mr Kureshi, CBE – and only today’s final line-up, including Blondie, will tell if that is my festival highlight. More later. And in the meantime here are more photos of Latitude Festival day 2.

Rise and Shine

We all had a splendid afternoon yesterday at the Rise Festival – a diverse collection of musical groups that combined together to support racial tolerance in the form of a free concert in Finsbury Park. The weather had been threatening all morning, but once we got there and met up with Chris et al the weather stayed lovely and sunny for the most part. Of course none of us had brought suntan lotion so there are a few tan lines today.

We arrived in time for the Dub Pistols, who I don’t really know, but they were accompanied by Terry Hall from The Specials who I do know which meant we all got very excited when they played some Specials tracks. They also played a dub version of Peaches by The Stranglers which made me think for a moment they had some of those guys up there with them as well, but unfortunately not. And as Terry Hall reminded us, this festival is not really about music, it’s about saying ‘F*ck the BNP!’ Nice. In-between the main bands we were entertained by beatboxing from Beardyman, who is something quite special indeed with his beatbox versions of most popular dance anthems.

My personal highlight of the day was CSS – who were as strange and bouncy as ever, even if the sound was a bit off. Although they got most of the crowd bouncing, they were outdone by Jimmy Cliff who played some classic tracks that had the whole crowd swaying along. Lovely stuff, and the sunset that accompanied him was perfectly timed.

Another Pre-Failed Government Policy

The British Government in an attempt to curb the ‘increasing’ scourge of knife related violence has decreed that youths caught carrying a knife should be made to visit victims of knife crime in hospital. Genius. I mean what would really stop a young kid, scared enough to carry a knife at the thought of being attacked by other kids with knives, other than seeing how gruesome knife wounds are. Plus if you’d just been put in hospital with a knife wound then getting lots of visits from young thugs, some of whom might even be the ones who knifed you, would surely be a wonderful aid to the healing process. Not.

Perhaps a better way to fix this would be to take an approach like learner plates on cars. Until you’ve learnt that carrying a knife is not a responsible way to behave then you should be forced to wear an embarrassing t-shirt or cap visible at all times, something so ugly and patently designed by a committee of caring types that it could never become a badge of honour. In fact can I suggest the London Olympic logo committee as a good place to start for design suggestions.