Cath Aubergine

The longest version of the classic "this you?" tweet ever, but he's not wrong. To be fair one could pretty much "this you?" about 85% of the Starmerrhoids' policies these days but I'm still glad someone is doing it.

Sleeve of Half Man Half Biscuit album "Trouble Over Bridgwater"

Second. But yes, pretty good.

Indeed, 5th seems a bit low on anything I care about (never a Cure fan either though may watch some this year - didn't in 2012 - just because RS just seems like a proper good bloke). I don't think they would put two behemoths like the Cure and RH same night though.

Is there another headliner still TBA? I honestly give it very little thought between buying tickets and "ooh it's spring now so must be nearly time". I hadn't even seen the day splits! Would be surprised though if they had another "indie rock" headliner but you never kno (not a RH fan myself)

Technically 2025 (though only just, 11th Dec) it was stunning. The evening was billed as an Edward Barton retrospective featuring him and guests. She was sitting to our right during the opening acts, looking like any of us (about 120 people all aged 50-70) and then she stood up and blew our minds!

All of these seem fairly plausible tbh

No, seriously don't! Unless you really like being 250 miles from home and discovering that for the first time in about 3 years you were supposed to bring some bits of paper which you absolutely have not (but thank you to the lovely people at Aberdeen Music Hall for actually believing me!)

It's entirely possible this is true for some people, but my tickets which I bought from Seetickets are already live in my Ticketmaster app. Possibly witchcraft 🙄

Definitely an early gig of the year contender for me too, I think it was that one where they just went up a level!

See you later!
(I think I can safely say this now, never want to tempt fate too much where Transpennine Express is involved but all looking good)

Lucky bugger, but can 100% confirm that if I actually make it to retirement and my beloved Peer Hat is still there it'd be my first port of call 🙂

Photograph of an arrangement of trees on a hillside near Crawford, just next to the M74 and the West Coast Mainline, which looks a bit like a cock and balls. Today the hills behind have some snow. Customarily photographed for many years by myself and some other English gig going friends on any away trip to Scotland to the point where if you look at the heatmap on my Google images there's a massive cluster in this rather empty part of Lanarkshire.

Screenshot from a Ticketmaster email reminding me that Today It's Showtime for Mogwai at Paisley Town Hall.

First Cock Forest sighting of the year, always a moment of joy, and a nice snowy topped one poking out through the mist there. First proper awayday of 26, we're on the way 🙂

Very happy to discover this week that one of my favourite accounts back on the old place is here 😄

Cheers for the local info. Travelodge booked (ages ago!) and looking forward to a Saturday gig so we can have a nice wander around in the afternoon.

How anyone can be in a two person photo with the actual Peter fucking Mandelson and still be the most punchable face in it is utterly beyond me... and yet...

Substance for me but that's just because I am a bit older. And aside from Technique, which came later anyway, still my favourite.

A white china mug depicting ex royal nonce Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, on top of a stone wall, next to a grey glove, in front of some other stone walls

On holiday in the Lake District last August, we spotted one on a wall by the bus stop outside the museum in Coniston. I still wonder who left it there and why specifically then...

I bought this album and whilst it's not bad as a set of music, it's the one I have always cited as an absolute belter of the daft title genre. If you're unfamiliar, see how many you can read before laughing... (#3 still gets me 😄)
sleepmakeswaves.bandcamp.com/album/and-so...

Interestingly I just looked at my own facebook posts from that weekend to see if I had any good pictures (I didn't) and Qujaku were called Qujaku then, I do recall seeing them previously as The Piqnic but it seems in 2016 they changed their name after the lineup announcement but before the festival

Ten years ago? Really? Apparently so. Promoter reckons it was the best lineup he did, I reckon it was one of the best anyone has done. Appreciate that things change and nothing lasts forever but I do really miss Raw Power.

(And yes Qujaku = Piqnic, still great and clearly still love the letter Q)

Supersonic but even more democratic! Tbh I don't know of anything quite like it anywhere. I love it. If you go on the festival website you can look at each individual curator, see the sort of stuff they do. The first year was just 4 local independent promoters taking one pub each for an afternoon 🙂

I do get and agree with some of your comments about the new music showcase festival scene in general, but SFTOC could not be further from all that. I think in spirit if not musically its closest sibling would be something like Supersonic.

I would also disagree that SFTOC is a "new music showcase" (aside from the ghastly corporate connotations of the phrase eg shit fest like Great Escape) it's never been or marketed itself as such. You get all sorts from newcomers to perennial outsiders to veteran alternative legends.

That's how it's always been as far as I know, and I know quite a few people involved in the independent orgs under that *very* loose umbrella. Salford alternative arts scene has always been v decentralised and actively empowering. Now Wave just list SFTOC on their site because they do a stage.

SFTOC has been around longer than Now Wave, I honestly don't know if they run the whole thing these days (I always thought it was its own thing and they were just one of many curators) but stage lineups are still curated by different independent promoters who put on what they like.

If there are people who literally only go and see one band then fair enough, that is a bit weird, but do such people even exist? Surely if you're a music fan you're a music fan? I know a lot of people who have seen at least one band (various) 100+ times, but all go to a lot of other gigs too.

She does understand that people who go and see fave bands a lot also see other bands, right? Only seen HMHB 90 times myself but there's another band I've seen a lot more, over 50 acts I've seen 20+ times, and I usually average 500 different acts a year of which 200+ are new to me. Unimaginative? 😄

Andy Burnham - apart from looking like a character called ‘Andy Burnham’ from a 9:00 pm BBC2 drama from 1998 about an ‘ambitious Manchester mayor’- also somehow looks like *every single member* of The Smiths and New Order mashed into one.

Not all songs are literally autobiographical. Could be wrong but I always assumed it was from the point of view of an immigrant / ethnic minority man coming home from unsociable hours shift work. And maybe there wasn't a takeaway open at midnight near his home stop.

Do I even need to bother?
It's for the custard, dickhead 🐒🍌