if there's a bustle in your hedgerow...

Evening. I've been tidying up a few dusty, neglected corners.

The gig list has been updated. We're approaching the end of the first quarter of the year now, but is it just me, or is 2009 looking a bit thin on the gig front? Still, it's Elbow tomorrow (at the Sheffield Academy), so it's not all bad....

I've also scratched around in the cavernous, echoing recesses of my mind to try to remember what books I've been reading since the back end of last year. You can find that list here, and regular followers of this may be surprised and delighted to find that I've mostly put the comics aside and have been reading proper, honest-to-goodness books. Mostly Ian Rankin books, it's true.... I'm afraid I've discovered Inspector Rebus and have been steadily working through the series in chronological order.

I've also been doing a bit of moonlighting over at The Art of Noise. Ben's been running a feature called "Memories Can't Wait" for a few weeks now: every couple of weeks we write about songs that remind us of a particular topic. So far we've done:

New Beginnings (I wrote about "Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye" by the Black Crowes)
School ("From Out of Nowhere" by Faith No More)
Winter ("Romeo And Juliet" by Dire Straits)
A Friend ("The Riddle" by Nik Kershaw and what Jim didn't fix for me)

(yes, this does so far seem to be an exercise in how much I can embarrass myself....)

Also on the Art of Noise, LB's had a crack at acting the svengali in "Conceptual Art" and has put his fantasy band together. Timberlake. Chisholm. Filan. O'Meara. Barlow. Dreamy.

My imaginary band is also now up.... and as it contains a 67 year old in semi-retirement, a dead Bahamian guitarist, an entirely fictional bassist and a 66 year old recluse who produces albums at a rate of one every 11 years and thinks a side of pork is a percussion instrument, it's got to be worth a look, right? Rock and Roll!

Right. That's it.

As you were.