Greetings from the front,

It’s a rather rain-lashed day today on the coast; in fact I have not left the house in days. As a tonic against the inclement weather, I have had days of endless cups of tea and immersed myself in motion pictures and musical esoteria. There is a bright side to ill health you know.

This weekend sees the Cabaret heading into the studio to start work in earnest on our LP. We are hoping for a fairly honest representation of our live sound; a direct, country beatific record. Once the recording of our debut is out of the way, we will get weird on the second record – beards, pedals, keyboards and Eno (one of those is made up). Punctuation applied to our batch of songs if you will.

On to our recent live happenings, I must say a big thank you to everyone who came down to Waihi Beach Hotel gig – it was a truly fantastic night. You know it is going to be a good night when you walk into the venue and they are playing ‘Alabama’. However, I was quite disconcerted to see our bass playing aesthete, Dylan, tucking into a burger roughly the size of his head pre-gig; really, how can one play with a meat football congealing in your stomach?

We returned to Hamilton recently to on a cold, cold night, too. It was okay… The highlight for me was a visit to Mathew and Pip’s rather deluxe hotel suite; no thanks to them, however, for not letting Stef and I sleep on the floor – for the life of me I can’t think why? Can you?

I have to make a tea now, please find below my media over the past two days.

Films and documentaries

A Taste of Honey

Moonraker

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

The Saint Series One

A Kind of Loving

What’s New, Pussycat?

Postcard Records – The Sound of Young Scotland.

Joy Division

Home Again

Music

Doc at the Radar Station – Captain Beefheart

Cut – The Slits

Ralf and Florian – Kraftwerk

Ege Bamyasi – Can

Music in a Foreign Language – Lloyd Cole

Live at CBGB’s – Suicide

Neu 1 – Neu

Heaven up Here – Echo and the Bunnymen

G.B.