Abigail Washburn - City of Refuge

Part of this week I've been glued to PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets. Some might say 'locked away'. My background music of choice has been Abigail Washburn.

Abigail has just released a new album and is touring around the UK at the moment, including small venues like Monday evening at the Slaughtered Lamb. I've followed her through various bands like Uncle Earl and then The Sparrow Quartet as well as her solo music. Her main instrument is the banjo as well as fine vocals and the mix of bands has created quite a fusion of styles.

The City of Refuge album is like a kind of road trip. Parts of the lyrics talk of a border man taking the papers and telling that you are now free. There's burdens left in the towns departed. Where there's rails they don't run in circles, they only shoot straight lines. There's running down the frontage road off of Highway Three and kickin' off the old home soil.

And the optimism of bright morning stars rising.

The music is a kind of progression of bluegrass, in this case with blends of Chinese influences in the way the notes sway.

And in case you think its all too serious, here's an older and somewhat unconventional video of a previous band, complete with early hints of Chinese undertones. As well as a clog-off.

And I've dropped the EPK here too. It's quite interesting how Abigail fell into the music.

the sandwiches are wicked and they know you at the mac store

We've been trying to bail out the water from a Macbook.

It's difficult to know how quickly it would evaporate or drain away, but I guess it could take several days.

The strange thing is, when you search on the internet, there's plenty of videos of people pouring water into their MacBooks which remain steadfastly working.

I'm not planning to dismantle this one.

My previous experience with the pictured and once legendary 12 inch Powerbook informs me that they are quite a snug fit into the case and can be very difficult to reassemble.

Instead, I sense a visit to the Mac Store in the near future.

heatless

After Paris it evolved into a kind of chill-out weekend - rather literally.

A late start to Saturday and some good weather made it seem like an opportunity to step out of 25x8.

That's when I heard the ticking in the cupboard.

The control unit for the heating was protesting. First noises and then all the little words on it turning into a sort of ransom note. Needless to say it switched off the heating and water.

The 'ever-open' plumber shops were closed. They are only open until 12:00 and not at all on Sunday. I could call an emergency plumber but that would get very expensive.

Instead try switching it all off and then back on again. It's partly worked. Not properly, but survivable for a few days.

I'll call the plumbers again on Monday, but meantime I've ordered a replacement part from the internet. We'll see which works fastest.

i know cafe debussy doesn't exist

Paris this week, although it was the usual blur of meetings, taxis and hotels.

At least I saw the Eiffel Tower, even if from a distance. It gives that sense of being somewhere recognisable, as if the interesting driving wasn't enough.

At one point I commented to my fellow passenger that I usually ended up getting lost in the tunnels around la Defense and driving in circles. Of course our professional driver wouldn't do that...Or would he? Yes we drove around the same area three times looking for the exit to the hotel.

It could have been a scene from a gritty gangster movie where we were eventually dropped. We found our way past some loading hatches and then into the hotel by what seemed to be a side entrance.

La Defense is a busy daytime office area, but I'm not sure that it has quite the vibrancy of downtown Paris in the evening.

Still, une nuit a Paris.

mixin' it in the tumbler

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.

All those moments will be

lost in time

like tears in rain.

.

Being Human again

Being Human Series 3 kicks off this evening.

They move to a new gaff in Wales and Annie seems to be stuck in the television.

Spot the Fawlty Towers reference in the preview scene.

I'll be watching.

the impossible girl - kim boekbinder

I first ran into Kim Boekbinder's music when she & her sister Zoe were singing a song with Amanda Palmer that subsequently appeared on the "Who Killed" album.

Then Kim produced daily a string of 31 different lyrics during January 2009, which became a kind of spur for me during February 2010 to have a bash at the February Album Writing Month.

In Kim's case the writing process was shared via her blog as she managed to put up a treatment for each song pretty much on the day. From day one it was interesting and the lyrics had twists, like the watery predicament in the love-struck "Underwater" and the quirkyness of the Hell's Diner.

Later came a more lengthy project to produce a full album, but by using the Web as a funding source and some of us pitched in a few dollars of encouragement to see what wonders would emerge.

And the songs started appearing, far from daily, but this time in blocks of around three, spread over a longer period during 2010.

Then Lo, by mid December in America - or with postal delays to the UK - by mid January, the sparkly album has appeared in a shower of fairy dust small pink glittery stars and hearts.

"Tell the world!" said the little note included, and yes, that's what I'm doing.

From the first claps in the intro to track one, to the shimmery last chords of the poppy Tinkerbell, it's an enjoyable album (My theory is there's an earlier ending to the main album, by the way).

What I also like is that it really plays through as an album with a few tracks that directly link and sections of a narrative that lace through most of the album.

There's also some very hook-based tunes included yet a sparseness in places that is very reminiscent of the earlier songwriting. A range of musical styles, with a core consistency that holds it all together.

I also really like the stripped down style which keeps direct personality that can sometimes gets glossed over in other peoples' productions. The lyrics are also smart and the twists that were apparent in the "31" still apply in a Sex, Drugs and Nuclear Physics with maybe a quantum fiddle kind of way.

So even if she does show up with 23 friends in the middle of the night, I'll know the irony of being captured by someone impossible.

virtuality

The last few days have seen me racking up the business dinners. Typically English, one night was a curry, another night was an Argentinian steak house, next was an Italian and then yesterday we were in a Chinese with the spinny table in the middle.

It was a co-incidental series of face to face meetings in the day-time and then suppers before people headed back to their respective countries on the next mornings. We had Americans, Dutch, Belgian, French, Swiss, German, Finnish, Danish, Italian, Canadian, Swedish, Slovenian and probably more mixed together at the various sessions.

I couldn't help notice the change to the 'now-ness' of these events though. They were all on a still personal scale, perhaps 10-15 people together at a time, rather than huge filled ballrooms. But in all cases there was an 'always-on' culture of laptops, iPhones and Blackberries.

Its a bit like inhabiting two worlds simultaneously. The physical, and the parallel virtual one. Many of us already do this on phone calls and teleconferences, where we'll also be connected to email and the net, but when its face-to-face I suspect it can dilute effectiveness.

The availability of networks raises a more general point about the way meetings work. What's the level of engagement we can expect? Nothing against multi-tasking, but there's also a need to use judgement about when to be in the moment and to 'switch it off'.

all is not what it seems in bedlam

I see that the forthcoming television series about a converted asylum is getting ready to launch a property web-site to support its activities.

Also that the copy for the web-site plays around with some of the plot-line such as its references to 'existing residents' and 'residents old and new'.

The green lettering has something in common with the goo that will run down the wall in the opening episode. And don't get me started on that messy bath. The soundtrack is pretty good and this is one to watch in the dark or with flickering candles to get the best effect.

For The Triangle I did something similar with its deliberately confusing related site.

The Bedlam storyline is around a new metro lifestyle housing block in a converted building where some of the 'older residents' seem to still have a point of view about what should happen.

Excuse the pencil-drawn placeholder logo below. I'd move the sofa away from the wall.

bodyguard manouvre

Yesterday evening featured a business dinner. In fact this week is filled with various evening sessions, as well as a couple of lunches. The thing that made yesterday's unusual was partly because I was a late arrival. I'd been told the venue and made my own way there, about an hour later than everyone else.

I had a good reason for being late but it meant I missed the briefing about the nature of the event.

So when I arrived I was shown to a private room where the door was very carefully opened. I could see inside through a small opening and there on the table were a couple of black assault rifles, next to a few magazine clips. Across the room I could see someone firing a handgun and further across the room I could see glasses where the table had been set for a meal.

I felt my pulse rate quicken before I worked out what was happening.

"You'd better put these on," I was instructed, as someone handed me some safety goggles.

Of course, the theme of the session was about focus and targets for the new year, and someone had decided to make it very literal with what out to be supervised target shooting.

Luckily there was quite a gap before it was my turn to be instructed in the ways of bodyguard defence.

A real case of shooting from the hip.

radar

My new car has just flipped past 4000 miles and had it's first car wash. I've also reached that point where I think I will need to read the manual. Not all of it, but a few points that I can't quite fathom.

The main one is the phone, which on my old car had a facility that let me program a few handy fast dial numbers. This one has a different system and instead you have to press a little button and say a word like 'home'. Like the television comedy sketches, it's easy to get confused and end up in the navigation menu, or changing the music, instead of the correct number. I'm sure I will master it, but I think I will need some practice first.

Another interesting facility is the radar system. Not one of those speed detector things but radar connected to the cruise control. There was an article about something similar in the papers at the weekend saying it will be available in about ten years time. I seem to already have something like it, where once a speed it's set, the car knows when to slow down and speed up again. Rest assured I have been using it with some caution.

It's a bit like when I first started using an automatic, after years of manual gears. I soon came to the conclusion that the automatic's heuristics were better at deciding when to shift than I was. I put both these features into the realms of "quiet technology". Doing useful things with minimum fuss.

Now, about that phone dialling...

Anna Calvi

Anna Calvi - Jezebel (Live)
I can understand the feedback from someone I attended a gig with recently who said "I'm not sure what I've just seen!" at the end of it. It's a bit like that for me with Anna Calvi.

I've been listening to her album for a couple of weeks and it's a classily engineered production with quite a bit of space in the mix. Guitar sounds that evoke a kind of Jeff Buckley live session and some jagged lyrics with occasional reminders of something that would fit within a Twin Peaks soundtrack.

The reason I think I'm struggling is because I listen for a while and then feel the need to flip to something slightly more conventional - Paloma Faith or Imelda May. And I don't think I'm easily phased by new things. This is just somehow isn't quite clicking.

On paper it ticks the boxes. Singer/songwriter. Interesting background. Musicality. Performance skills. I'm just not quite engaging with the performance. I understand its supposed to be challenging, that Brian Eno has helped out, that its supposed to push some boundaries. Normally these would all be pluses for me. But I'm just not sure with this one.

I've added it to the iPod now, so I can listen in the car.

The trouble is, Paloma and PJ are waiting.