I recently sent a text message to the person that the text message was about.

Yes, we’ve all done it. This time it was sent to Mat and was originally a question to another friend to find out what Mat wanted for his birthday. Luckily not too much damage done there – a bit of a ‘doh!’ moment but it could have been much worse!

The incident reminded me of a song I heard on a Radio 2 comedy show recently, which I believe is incidentally titled “Sent a Text Message to the Person that the Text Message Was About”. I Googled for this and came up with a Myspace page that (almost) mentioned the phrase…this revealed that the composer and performer of the tune was none other than David O’Doherty.

David’s album is available from Trust Me I’m A Thief Records (both on CD and mp3 download) and I urge you to buy it. It saw me through my trip to and from work today and on more than one occasion I found myself cracking up, probably much to the bemusement of my fellow commuters. The album is recorded in David’s house and he’s got both great comical observations on life and excellent lo-fi songs. Here’s one from YouTube called “The FAQ for the D O D” (thanks Anna):

Brilliant stuff.

Many thanks to Ray for sending me a link to the reviews of Peter Andre’s and Katie Price’s album A Whole New World. Very amusing indeed. I won’t ask why Ray was looking at the album’s page in the first place…

I’ve recently started listening to Coverville, a fantastic podcast that is focused around cover versions of well-known songs. It’s really reawakened my passion for music and I constantly find myself writing down the artist and song names that come up on the show so I can investigate them further. Artists and songs that I currently want to check out are Richard Cheese (who creates fantastic lounge cover versions of well-known songs – check out the sample from his version of the Beastie Boys‘ Brass Monkey here), Prince’s Erotic City (the show played a cool cover by Berlin of Top Gun soundtrack fame), Damien Rice’s cover of Prince’s When Doves Cry, Nicky Thomas‘ Love of the Common People, The Folksmen’s cover of Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones (from the soundtrack to A Mighty Wind), The Kinks‘ Picturebook, and Albert Hammond (who I think did the original version of Air That I Breathe).

The show goes out two to three times a week and is usually between 30 and 60 minutes long. Brian Ibbott is the host and he does a great job – he obviously loves what he’s doing and is always very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the music he plays. Occasionally he’s joined by his wife and/ or his son at the end of the show for a ‘musically challenged’ quiz which is always quite fun to listen to. The show takes a number of formats – sometimes it’s a regular random show playing whatever he wants to play, sometimes it’s a ‘Cover Story’ which is focused around covers of and by a particular artist, sometimes there are all-request shows and occasionally there is an ‘Originalville’ where he plays the less well-known original versions of famous songs that were actually covers.

If you like all kinds of music and you’re looking for something new to listen to I thoroughly recommend it. It’s hardly been off my iPod since I subscribed and at the rate Brian produces the shows it’s likely to stay that way for some time!

I’ve recently started viewing a podcast called In The Attic and just had to blog about it as twice this week it has given me the ‘music goosebumps’ on my evening commute. From what I can make out, it’s a show that is spliced together from a live webcast. It’s a great format as it gives you the key pieces of the show within about ten minutes for you to watch whenever you want to.

The podcast is hosted by Rachel Fuller (blog here) and is regularly joined by Mikey Cuthbert, Simon Townshend and Pete Townshend (yes, he of The Who fame) – all of whom I believe to be Eel Pie recording artists. As well as a bit of banter, everybody has a bash every now and again at a tune and when they do it’s reallly worth listening to.

Two highlights for me have been a group version of The Who’s song I’m One on podcast 5 and a really gorgeous song called I Lose The Thread by Rachel on podcast 6. After hearing this I’ve taken the plunge and bought Rachel’s Cigarettes and Housework album from Amazon.co.uk; the reviews I’ve seen aren’t outstanding but if its as good as this song then it’s right up my street.

Just had an absolutely excellent weekend, topped off by a visit down to Brighton with Mat to see The Who. My wonderful wife bought me a pair of tickets a little while ago from eBay as a present as she knows how much I love the band. I’d thought about getting a ticket for their Hyde Park gig later this summer but I’m not a massive fan of humungous venues – this was great as it was a the Brighton Centre which only holds about 5,000 people.

Mat and I made a bit of a day of it – we got the train down to Brighton early, checked into the Hilton Brighton Metropole hotel (which at £65 was a complete bargain) and found ourselves a comfy pub to watch the football and catch up. A few shandies and a lovely dinner of fish and chips later and we were ready for the gig.

Doors opened at six-thirty; we got there about seven o’clock but didn’t miss much. The first band up were Two Choices and by the sound of things we didn’t miss much. The standing area was quite empty and and the lead singer seemed to really misjudge things when he tried to get everyone to repeat a long non-catchy chorus with screams of “I want to hear everybody here sing!” etc. Not so good. Next up were Casbah Club which features Simon Townshend, Pete’s younger brother, on lead vocals. They were much better and had some good songs – some much better than others. By the time they finished their set it was time for the main event.

I’ve been to quite a few gigs, especially in my student days, but I can’t remember feeling quite so excited before a band came on. By this time the place had filled up and there was a real sense of anticipation in the air. When Pete, Roger and the band came on the cheers were massive. The next hour and three-quarters passed by so quickly. First up was Who Are You which is a great song to start off the show, although Roger fluffed a couple of the lines and laughed as he said “well, I don’t f****** know!”. That didn’t detract from anything – the music was absolutely fantastic. After that they dived straight into I Can’t Explain, The Seeker and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere. All through the set the lighting was some of the best I’ve seen at a small venue – it always seemed to be pretty much in time with the music and the effects were used brilliantly, like the fade out to a near-black yellow glow at the end of a big number.

The band ran through a medly of songs from their new album (or, I think albums if I understood Pete correctly) that are due to be released next year. The music was good but because the crowd didn’t know it the atmosphere seemed to fade just a little. Pete gave a wry smile and said “Yeah, I know – wierd, isn’ it? You’ll get used to them.”

I can’t describe the feeling when the really big numbers started – Baba O’Reily and Won’t Get Fooled Again – with their amazing synthesiser intros (if you haven’t heard these tracks, trust me in that this is so much better than I’ve described it!) and everyone in the audience gave out what seemed to be a cheer with a simultaneous intake of breath as to what was about to happen. They really didn’t disappoint – the lighting guys even managed to recreate a little of the sweeping lasers during Won’t Get Fooled Again like they used in the famous video in The Kids Are Alright. Another highlight was Pete’s solo performance of Drowned on his “new acoustic guitar” – I’ve never seen somebody play the guitar so fast and so well.

The best bit of the show for me was when they launched into a suite of songs from Tommy. Amazing Journey/ Sparks was just fantastic and really did seem to take things to another level. You know you’ve seen something great when you can’t wait to get home and listen to all of the albums again.

I’ve had a quick look around the web for things posted about the show and have found a few good photos from the evening on Pete’s website. Lonewolf posted a good review this morning and hnclover’s blog entry has led me to find that you can watch tracks from future live gigs through a special Who website for a buck a pop, which goes to charity! I’ll try and tune in in future.

All in all, an amazing night. It’s put me in a great mood all day and I’ve got Who songs buzzing all over my brain. Thank you so much my lovely wife! You’re the best.

A few weeks ago my wife and I went along to the wonderful NFT to see Antenna 18, the latest in a long line of evenings where they present a number of music videos and have some of the directors and producers there to be interviewed and answer quesitions from the audience.

We had a great time – two videos that I would recommend viewing are New Me by Jamie Lidell and Geisterschloss by Oliver Laric – both fantastic. In fact, Oliver Laric can be seen in the first video as well – he’s the guy bopping along dressed in white – as it was directed by his girlfriend, Aleksandra Domanovic. Finally, if you haven’t seen the Plan B video to No Good, you should definitely take a look – it’s like Sledgehammer revisited!

It was fab to do something different – London offers so many great cultural events and we don’t go to enough of them. We may well be back!

Stumbled across this great website last week – a summary of the first 20 Now… albums. I didn’t realise that the pig didn’t grace the cover of an album until Now…3; I thought he’d been there from the start, but it’s not the case.

Seeing some of the old covers again brings back memories – I distinctly remember spending several nights on a school trip listening to Now…10. Think I’ll have to scour iTunes for some of those loved but forgotten tracks. Hue and Cry’s Labour of Love, anyone?

This fantastic song has been doing the rounds on a number of blogs recently. Do not download if you are adverse to swearing! Taken from the album Fitness to Practice by Adam Kay and Simon Biswas.

Received an email today from Ronnie Scott’s jazz club. Apparently Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames will be back there during 12-24 September. I think it’s time to put a date in the diary…

doot doot doodle oodle OOT doot do do
doot doot doodle oodle oot doot do do
doot-doodle oot oot
doot-doodle oot oot
doodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle doot doot

This cracked me up – an absolute gem from Ask MetaFilter all about the clown music!