Where idiots behind wheels wear shades behind tinted windscreens and are dazzled by women whose reflective silver lame handbags and gold lame eye make-up blend bad fashion and good road sense.

Where city scaffolding is twisted tree trunks under pink Tuffa towers and people seem keen to start new buildings before the old ones are finished.

Where flaunting wealth means talking on a mobile for the first twenty minutes of the opera and paying more for the call.

Where housing developments designed to spell out the initials of the local bully's name when viewed from passing weather satellites enjoy a water supply less predictable than the British Summer.

Where bloated dead dogs at the side of the road warn of the hazards of walking along the verge, and rusting bus skeletons scree slowly down stone-strewn slopes while cats' eyes stare from potholes in the road.

Where people light votive candles in monasteries, then tie votive offerings of cloth to nearby tree branches as their pagan ancestors did before the church was built on the shrine's ruins.

Where the church turns a blind eye while Yezri Zoroastrians sacrifice animals for God, Satan, or good measure, and the priests themselves bless sacrificial animals whose meat is given to the poor.

Where pretty polyglot guide-girls recite chapter and verse about Ararat, genocide, and religion, and about great national poets and intellectuals, who discussed and wrote poems about Ararat, genocide, religion and pretty polyglot girl guides.

Some things I found to be more familiar: it's more painful to form a snowball than be hit by one, and it's hard to remain straight-faced when everyone around you is laughing.

(Gallery Here)

Friday 25th April at the Cannon in Newport Pagnell

Tickets are on sale for this at my homepage via paypal; Sukilove have had some airplay on Radio 1 this last week, and they've put a podcast of one their November gigs here..

This is what they look like (you can tell they're belgian, they have names like fruit pascal and douffel bag)

And this is what Karmatic look like:



And you already know what I look like...tickets are still a bargain at £6/£4 concessions and doors are at 20.30

See you there I hope

Dan

Hi there

King's Head Open Mic

It's the OM's 2nd birthday in June and last week's was one of the best - as well as being consummately hosted, bookended and mixed by moi (initselfreasonenuff2cum) there are now (free) drinks for performers, with some caveats (they offered me some but I don't care how expensive it is, it just tastes like salty grit to me).

Pete Morton, March 18th Old Black Lion Marefair Northampton

I've been to see Pete several times, and reckon he's worth seeing again, so maybe I'll see you at the Northampton Folk Club on Tues 18th. He's a bloke with a guitar and some tunes and some ideas, so if that floats your boat....

Sukilove 26-29th April

Pascal Deweze fronts this 5-piece band over for a short tour from Antwerpen, Belgium. They may be persuaded to come up to Milton Keynes or Northampton rather than staying in the smoke, but if they don't I'll be going down to see them in Brixton on April 28th. I have their eponymous first album which is full of irritatingly good lyrics (the only time I've ever heard a non-native english speaker writing lines I wish I'd written) and great tunes; when I saw them before Christmas their direction had changed but it remained a mesmerizing performance..)

Folk on the Green, 15th June Stony Stratford

This is worth travelling for. The festival has one stage with music running from 12-8pm, stalls, dancing, a bar (yup, just about all the things you'd associate with the word "festival" then)...And I'll be playing there, time TBC.

All the above are to be found in my friends list, so do check them out if you have time -

Hope you're well and that we see each other soon

Dan

Hello, and welcome to Front Row, where this week we'll be discussing what shite to avoid, with a few notable exceptions, including a naïve but spirited offering from fusion Jazz/Folk pioneers Dansmall.

First on the list are the first two thirds of the Jason Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Crapspiracy and the Bourne Inanity. They fit pretty much in the same Schublade as the third film to be reviewed, new release, "I am Legend".

Jason Bourne knows he is very special, and quite hard, and that the world is against him, and that women fancy him, and that he can read a map of  Paris while simultaneously outdriving dozens of french police cars (in a mini), but remains totally ignorant of his place in the world. He has various identities and piles of cash. So basically most 14 year-old boys' wet dream, stretched out over two films with crappy music to cover the lack of script. Matt Damon's deltoids feature in several shots, including one in the first film where he (presumably) beds the female lead. The films take place in Europe's major cities, helpfully signposted for americans with the Eiffel Tower, the Colliseum, etc.

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In I am Legend, Will Smith plays an army scientist stranded in New York following the outbreak of a virus which turns everyone (?) but him into flesh-eating photofobic zombies capable of super-human feats, co-operation, setting intelligent traps and smelling blood, but not, apparently, using weapons or machinery. He dies at the end (whoops, sorry) but in a noble allowing-the-rest-of-humanity-to-survive way.

On the way his dog gets the virus and he has to kill him (whoops, sorry again, the dog was the saving grace and I nearly cried when I realised what was going to happen, about five minutes before it did).

This film should appeal to people who like guns, sociopaths who live in a city but hate other people always getting in their way and who secretly fantasise about being able to take anything they want from shops without paying or being polite to anybody, and teenage girls who think Will Smith is buff and like watching his glistening pecs during chin-ups – but don't believe me, look at the reviews at http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/84260/i-am-legend.html?cpage=2&ccat=11top_comments_main ..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

õ L

The Kite Runner, Enchanted, and 21 grams are each very good, however, as is

dansmall (Dan Plews / Guy Fletcher) - love's sweet/drowsy maggie

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Thanks,

Dominic Plewson

You can see pictures from Saturday's gig at Hinwick House here (Heidi's page) and here (John's page).

Thanks to the other performers, and all the people who came along to see Dansmall (sorry for the long gap between sets - won't happen next time). We're going to do it again in the new year and look forward to seeing you all - check out the events at Heidi's "mansion" page and try and make it to what is an excellent venue.

Cheers

Dan 

Hi there.

I'm looking forward to playing tonight at the Forester's Arms on Wolverton Road in Stony Stratford Milton Keynes, and have some new toys to try out; there'll probably be a guest fiddler but no promises... both of the last two gigs have been great fun..

Also coming up is a Dansmall gig 10 miles east of Northampton at a country pile owned by Ronan and Heidi, who are putting on a concert series (in one of their wings or the old servants' quarters or something). Anyway, I've been there and it looks great, so don't miss it! Several other acts on, only one of which I've seen before, and she was very good. Flyer below and in my photos. Sorry if some text is difficult to read.

On a personal note, I'm currently working very happily at Northampton College teaching students on the BTec and HND Music courses when I'm not gigging, and trying to get a plumber to answer my calls to do a load of work and enable me to accomodate a yet-to-be-found lodger, hence the stupid status update suggesting my account had been hacked by Frankie Howerd. Made me laugh anyway..

Toodle pip

Dan

Hi there.

Ich habe neulich Fotos von Cambridge Festival und Schwarze Kueche Muehltroff bekommen falls ihr die angucken wollt! Danke Mark, Brita, Minga.

Over the last few days I've received new photos which are now up in their respective albums - Thanks to Mark Ross, Brita and Minga

x

Dan

I'm just back from Germany having survived four gigs and two all-night drives – sat here with a cup of tea it's hard to remember how many bottles of red wine I drank through the five days there, but I think that's the point (Friday's bad news gave me an excuse (if I needed one) to become comfortably numb).

While there I met up with a few old friends who had travelled to see me in Dresden and Muehltroff and that really made my night - and I also made some new friends enjoying down-home East German hospitality like it used to be in the good old bad old DDR-days… It was nice to return to Zum Geruecht in Dresden. The bar is great, like a bohemian-theme bar, except it's not a chain and it's in Bohemia – really folk-clubby atmosphere, which I needed after Muehltroff madness.

Unfortunately I only got a few pictures and only at Muehltroff, but what a gig that was – the place was called the Schwarze Kueche, or "Black Kitchen", and was in a castle in Muehltroff,  a spot of a village. The entire music room is a former kitchen (duh) and at one end there's a 15m high chimney blackened with the soot from centuries of roast vassal (often serfed with side salad of slav).

Tillerman's Friend (Ronald, pictured with Frau Doktor Suzi Klughose) was kind enough to play some of his hits towards the end and I joined him on expensive bouzouki-shaped congas; then a strange thing happened.

Sometimes when I have a few light ales I wake up the next day knowing that I must have got home safely because I'm there, but still none the wiser as to how it happened, and I have learned to accept this as one of life's happy mysteries. Rarer and perhaps more worrying is knowing that the gig must have finished at some point, since it is obviously over (everyone has gone home and no-one is blowing sunshine up your arse any more), but none the wiser as to how it came to be over. Anyway, it was over and I hope to come back again soon so it can be over all over again.

In the meantime I'll keep with me memories of the lovely gigs, meeting my first ever real-life-not-in-a-folksong-buxom/lusty molkmaedl, and eating take-away Sunday roast from Aluminium Foil in Detlev's summer house while Minga ("min-gar")sat smoking in his underpants (classy name, classy guy) and Detlev waxed lyrical about english rugby (a game played by people who have no fear of head injuries, and no reason to fear head injuries). Below is a picture of the classic german corner seating arrangement (sorry no pictures of Minga in his pants, this is a family show).

PS if the Hessisch Traffic Police (speed enforcement section) are reading this, it is all lies and I have never been to Germany, you sneaky tossers.

Also, ich habe mich sehr gefreut in Annaberg, Plauen, Muehltroff und Dresden zu spielen. Schoene Gruesse und nochmals "Danke" muss ich allen sagen die mir geholfen haben, und das ganze ein riesen Spass gemacht haben mit Ihren Gesellschaft, Gequatsch,Rat, Rotwein und Renft. Jana, Katrin, Ronald und Suzi, Tim, Ulli und Kerstin, Detlev, Minga und Brita und Dr Bernardo: Ich freue mich schon auf's naechste Mal. Inzwischen werde ich aber schlafen muessen..

(Slide Show Here)