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26th May 2002

While searching for Dada Moutton Noir, I found: http://www.arthole-international.org.uk/ - about the visual arts in Birmingham and the West Midlands.

Looking for info on Mum I found the BBC Radio 3 Mixing It page on contemporary Icelandic Music - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/mixingiticeland1.shtml There's some video clips and samples of music on there.

I've also downloaded the Opera 6 webbrowser from http://www.opera.com - I'm sick of Netscape 4.7 crashing, and don't want to use Micro$oft IE - my grounds being 1) it's made by Microsoft, 2) security, 3) standards compliance and creeping MSIE only features.

24th May 2002

Went to an opening of a show at Chuck Works, called Birmingham Works, sponsored by Birmingham Art Trust. There was way too much to look at in the time I was there. The show itself is billed as "a survey of contemporary art in the city 2002" - probably 15 or so artists were represented, with some very interesting work. I also got to see Dada Moutton Noir - who were as wierd as I expected - reading what appeared to be cut-up poems whilst wearing strange paint splashed sheets, and running around the gallery (warehouse) space with 12 foot long arms. Some of the music was very heavy - and it was quite fun to see the stream of people leaving when it started, most of whom were 30 years younger than the band.

Went on to The Medicine Bar where I saw Mum (except apparently there's some sort of accent over the U in the Icelandic Stylee).

23rd May 2002

Heard Kenneth Williams on the radio - singing a Ramblin Syd Rumpo version of Green Grow The Rushes Oh. Knowing that you can find anything on the internet, I found lyrics at http://www.monologues.co.uk/Green_Grow.htm - and also a Wikipedia article on Polari ( http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Polari ) and a lexicon of Polari ( http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/cello/Polari.htm )to help decode them!

Sometime between 23rd and 19th

The Birmingham Blogs pages inspired me to try find more Brummie Blogs, I located:

• http://phrenzy.org/
• http://www.high-strung.org/turntablism/blog.html - not a lot there, and not definitely Brummie.
• http://blogs.student.com/blog.php?b=136

19th May 2002

Heard dramatisation of a book (Bonjour Tristesse) by Francoise Sagan on Radio Four. About a young french woman, Cecile, on holiday and her interaction with and interfence with her fathers lovers.

Got an email read out on Broadcasting House (Radio Four). They did a piece on (leaks about) John Birt's proposals for transport in the UK - one of which was a toll motorway network parallel to existing motorways - about as unimaginative and ineffective idea as you could come up with. I mailed in the following and they used it:

"Instead of toll motorways with no exits, why not build new car-carrying railways parallel to the motorways

They'd be far safer, saving lives and you could travel at around 150 mph and still use a mobile phone - a boon for travelling salesmen."

Nigel Corbett emailed to say he'd added me to his list of Birmingham Bloggs at: http://www.birminghambloggers.contactbox.co.uk/

18th May 2002

Did TV interview with Carlton (Central) on the Stop Esso campaign.

17th May 2002

Foxy Brown, Cinetusi, MAC.

Darker than I expected in places - a classic blackploitatio movie starring Pat Grier as Foxy Brown - one mean, but hot, chick. And lets face it, after whatshe's been through, she's a right to be mean. Good stuff, but not as light as previous showings such as Our Man Flint or Helles Belles.

Sun 12th May 2002

Discordian Festival at The Railway

Saw Dog Food, Dufus, Herman Dune and Mistys Big Adventure at the Old Railway. Herman Dune were on first, and consisted of 3 people - 2 swiss? brothers who sang and played guitar plus a drummer. The lyrics were good and the music melodic, though the 2 singer/guitarists had quite different styles - one heavier, darker and noiser than the other. Certainly contemplated buying one of their CDs. At the front of the room most people sat on the floor to watch HD.

Next were Misty - everyone stood up as dancing broke out after a couple of bars of the 1st song - the "cow in the field". Misty played an excellent set, but much shorter than when I'd seen them last at the Academy. Songs which stand out in my memory are the one with the "recorder breaks" and the one featuring both sax and trumpet, also the one where the lead singer sings "Hello" and the audience/band sing it back to him, and the track which goes: "Up 'n' down, mulling it over. Left and right, shoulder to shoulder. Lots of calls for "more" when they had to leave the stage - but with another 2 bands to go, they had no choice.

Dog Food were both easy and hard to describe. Fronted by Mr Simon on keyboards, they are a 3 piece,featuring a guy wearing the most amazing blue hair like jumper, and kind of Pajama style multi-coloured trousers, and a drummer who looked bit like one of those faces you make out of iron filings and who managed to strip naked during the performance without me noticing!

Dufus were a bunch of 5/6 Americans with very mixed styles - a smartly dressed keyboard (etc.) player, a hippyish looking female vocalist and a guy with a bushy bead and dreds. It was hard to tell when the stopped tuning up and started the first track - which is something I like in a band - most of the audience realised fairly quickly I think. All I can remember is that they were good, with wierd vocals!

Apologies for the quality of prose - I'm very busy!

Weds 8th May 2002

Read some of the Skeptical Inquirer ( http://www.csicop.org/si/9903/silver-lake-serpent.html ) an excellent publication.

Experimenting with visualisation of audio spectrums using Win Amp's AVS. Managed to get a very simple display of frequency vs time, minus 1st and 2nd harmonics, which really shows up the sounds of some of the tracks. Amazing the different spectra which music presents. Pure-ish electronic music, such as Broadcast, Pram esp. Omnichord (Terry:Funken Mix presents some quite clear patterns, Art Of Noise samples of Birds, waves, motorbikes, again look very interesting.

Tues 7th May 2002

Went to the opening of an exhibition at City Scape - digitally manipulated photographs by Ian Muir (?). There was going to be some live sound stuff too - but this was delayed by computer problems. Hopefully this will be playing CD, rather than live I think, by Sat.

Uploaded my updated Curriculum Vitae (Resume).