Xander & A Solero Mocktail

Cliffey has his car back.

Remember this blog? Well disregard it, because Cliffey has his car back.

Sarah was working yesterday evening, and it wasn't hard to persuade Cliffey to drive to Next and pick her up at 7 (he was pretty excited just to be driving again). After a brief diversion involving some Penarth girls and waiting far too long to get served at Buffalo bar (although in all fairness their chips and that Solero mocktail thing were awesomatic), we decided to go to Sarah's house in Swanbridge and pick up the door that her dad had been keeping for Cliffey (he wants to make a dartboard stand or something, I don't know).

So we made the journey to Swanbridge, humming along to Klezmer Kollectiv all the while, but upon our arrival we encountered a problem: the door didn't really fit in the car.

We tried our best. Cliffey folded down seats, twisted and turned it but eventually admitted defeat.

But all was not in vain, for in addition for the lovely drive, we ended up going to Harvester afterwards.

We were very full afterwards. Good to have you back, Xander.

Joel.

My Year In Lists

...And what better way to kick off the new year than with a series of lists analysing the previous one.

TOP 5 ALBUMS OF 2010

1. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
2. Tindersticks - Falling Down A Mountain
3. John Grant - Queen of Denmark
4. Liars - Sisterworld
5. Wayne Robbins & The Hellsayers - All You Need To Sleep

I got a few more for Christmas so this list is subject to change. The Suburbs is getting there but still not as good as any of these just yet.

TOP 5 SONGS OF 2010

1. Four Score And Seven - Titus Andronicus
2. Wo Bist Du Gewesen Vor Prohibition? - Klezmer Kollectiv
3. Where Dreams Go To Die - John Grant
4. Factory Girls - Tindersticks
5. What's In It For? - Avi Buffalo

Honourable mention goes to Mondegreen by Yeasayer, Scarecrows On A Killer Slant by Liars, So Long Goodnight by the Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, and I Just Had Sex by The Lonely Island.

TOP 5 SONGS THAT WEREN'T ACTUALLY RELEASED IN 2010 BUT I'VE BEEN ROCKING ANYWAY

1. Here Comes A Special Boy - Freezepop
2. Sometimes It Hurts - Tindersticks
3. Do You Hear The People Sing? - Les Misérables
4. The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot - Brand New
5. Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen

I avoided the temptation to put Natasha Bedingfield's Pocketful of Sunshine in instead of The Boss.

TOP 5 GIGS

1. Flaming Lips at Green Man
2. Titus Andronicus in Bristol
3. Klezmer Kollectiv at CAI
4. Tindersticks at Green Man
5. LCD Soundsystem & Hot Chip at the CIA

No, Arcade Fire, you may not be in any of my end-of-year lists. You are already in too many, and your live show was tainted my nasty men who somehow found time in between having a go at people for no good reason to know all of the words to the new songs and make me feel silly for not having listened to the new album enough. In fact, you don't even get to come 6th, because Yeasayer were better. Yes, I went there.

Basically my year was ruled by Titus Andronicus and Tindersticks.

Real blogging returns on Monday, if I can be bothered, maybe. Happy 2011 y'all.

Joel.

Your Daddy's Car

I don't think I made a note of it at the time so I'll mention it now: Xander, Cliffey's car, passed on to the Great Tesco Car Park in the Sky. Some time ago, actually. If you didn't already know this, I'm sorry you had to find out this way. I told Cliffey to mention it on The Xander Appreciation Society's Facebook page, but I don't think he did. It's a sad state of affairs - he should be able to get a new car with the insurance money, but it obviously won't be the same. And there's always a hint of tragedy in his voice when he says he's going to get the bus to work.

So rest in peace, Xander. You were one of my favourite places to listen to the Klezmer Kollectiv.

Why do I bring this up now, I hear you ask between your heaving sobs? Because we made a trip to big Tesco's last night in a different car, and it was an unmitigated disaster.

Well, that might be a little strong. But I'm sure it would have gone better in Xander.

Sarah, Josh and I had just seen LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip at the CIA (a real slayer of a gig, I might add, particularly All My Friends), and had come back to a house with Tom in it. An average Friday night. Once I had recovered from a) the gig, and b) the walk home, Cliffey and I turned on the N64 and did another Royal Rumble on No Mercy. I won with Kane - Cliffey's really not very good at Royal Rumbles - and was all ready to call it a night when the decision was made to head to Tesco's for a late night shop.

So we piled into Tom's car (which I think is called Shaniqua) - me, Sarah, Soph, Cliffey, and of course Tom - and set off. Pete wanted to come to, offering to ride in the boot, but we decided that was a bad plan and, given what followed, that was probably a good shout.

We were somewhere near Roath Lake, getting our collective groove on to my Destiny's Child album, when suddenly Tom shut the music off and pulled over. I initially protested at this abrupt silence, but soon shut up when I realise that we'd been pulled over by the police.

The blue lights echoed in the rear window. We sat silently and waited for judgement.

Turns out Tom had just forgotten to look before going across a junction or something. The fuzz were soon on their way again, but it was a nerve-jangling experience while it lasted. The police have never seemed scarier*, what with their uniforms and their questions and the fact that it's kind of hard to see their faces when you're in the back seat and they're standing outside the driver's window.

Of course, the fear was somewhat nullified when we saw another policewoman, in full uniform, trying to choose between fried eggs and hot lips at the pick 'n' mix in Tesco. A fun moment.

Tom, probably still a little shook up from the police incident, drew further criticism at the self-service checkouts. One of the shop assistants apparently told him:

"Hurry up, I know what you kids are like."

Charming. The expedition wasn't a total cropping fail - I did get a nice loaf of tiger bread, and we discovered the existence of the Yumberry, which is cool - but as I say, it probably would have gone better in Xander.

Joel.

*To me, anyway; I think everyone else in that car was fairly certain that we weren't going to get arrested. I just have a slightly over-active imagination, and am extremely naive.

Around The Horn

Cutlery regrets to announce the cancellation of The 50th Post Special. Instead, please enjoy this light-hearted tale of folly and redemption on the buses.

I know, we're disappointed too. I don't know how Joel managed to get so big in Slovenia with this attitude. I daresay Slovakia will be a lot less sympathetic to this shit.

* * *

Monday morning is always band practice. Seven of us and our various instruments get together and make sweet sweet music for a couple of hours, before the midday cultures lecture come and dampens our spirits.

Yesterday, however, our noise-making was a little delayed. The beardy guy on reception refused to give me the room key without permission from our course leader, Ben Challis, and the ensuing wild goose chase (I never did track down Dr. Challis) meant that we wasted an hour or so talking amongst ourselves in the corridor. By the time one of the nice techies from the second floor helped us out, we were already halfway into our allotted time, and not looking too likely to accomplish much.

But this post isn't a tirade against the people on reception at the Atrium, nor is it a play-by-play of our abridged band rehearsal. This is a story about a boy (me) and his baritone (my baritone).

It's fair to say that I don't treat the old thing with a great amount of care. My bandmates are often left aghast at the way I toss it around, knock it over, and generally don't show it any respect.

Well yesterday it seems I was so excited to finally get into the practice room that I didn't even bother to bring my instrument in with me, leaving it still sat in the corridor. Our drummer, Luke, grabbed it for me and suggested - not for the first time - that I really ought to take better care of it. I agreed half-heartedly, and said that it was like a parent to me - I treat it horribly, but I'd be fairly sad if it were gone, perhaps because it's so important to getting me through uni. No more was said on the matter, and we used the hour as best we could. Songs were played, and I introduced my Spaghetti Western version of Holding Out For A Hero.

Now. There's an hour-long gap in my timetable between the band practice and the cultures lecture, and I usually spend this hour on the computers in the library, or I take the opportunity to go and get a bit of food (having to be in uni at 9am doesn't leave a lot of time for breakfast). Yesterday, however, I had a plan. I was supposed to be meeting Sarah straight after my cultures lecture and going to Swanbridge with her for an evening away from the city, with its noise and pollution and people who ask you for spare change and shout at you when you don't have any. I didn't want to have to drag my baritone, ungainly as it is, to the far side of Penarth, so I decided to get a bus home, drop off the horn, and speedily get a bus back into town in time for my lecture.

That was the plan, and it was going swimmingly until I got off the bus on Crwys Road and realised, at it sped off into the late morning sun, that I had left my baritone on the luggage rack.

Oh no! My dear sweet baritone horn! Would I never again sound its brassy tone? Would the makeshift handle never again slice into my weary fingers? Would my brave attempts at playing Klezmer Kollectiv tunes by ear never again make my housemates long for the wormy peace of the grave?

I wandered, shaken, back to the house, where I informed Cliffey of my plight:

"I've left my baritone on the bus."
"That's the saddest sentence I've ever heard."

I was in no mood to eat, but, knowing that I had to keep my strength up, I managed to choke down a bakewell tart. I prepared to head back to uni, taking a little consolation in the knowledge that Cardiff Bus does have a lost and found, and how money second-hand baritone horns does one bus company rake in over the course of a day?

I waited mournfully at the bus stop, not looking forward to the two hours of "the music industry wants to rape you" that lie in wait for me back at the Atrium. As the number 38 pulled up, I found the driver oddly familar. He didn't recognise me, of course, but that didn't matter because as I hopped onto the bus I saw, in the luggage rack, my baritone case. Somebody, apparently, likes me.

I was never worried, of course. I timed my journey perfectly so that I would catch the same bus on its return journey to central station. I hadn't even considered how useless  I would be to my uni ensemble without my horn. And I  knew that the driver wouldn't bat an eye at the fact that I got off the bus carrying a large brown case that had been there since before I got on.

So that's my good karma gone for the rest of the year, anyhow. I hurried back to the Atrium, baritone case swinging recklessly in my hand, and settled into my midday cultures lecture, where we were told, amongst other things, that session musicians no longer exist.

I was a bit alarmed; my cousin's a session musician. I should probably make sure he's okay.

Joel.

* * *

I know, that was rubbish. He didn't even mention the awesome Halloween parties, of which there were TWO. You'd think he'd remember at least one of them, right?

Wound Up and Ready to Play

I love music. Obviously.

Which is good because there's music everywhere! From the crap that you have to listen to when you're playing Fifa because the dicks who keep beating you some goals-no goals over and over and over again think that Akon is God to the awesome stuff that you've been listening to on YouTube for the past two months and finally bought the album for a fiver, it all colours in the whiteness that is otherwise life.

The past weekend has been particularly musicalicious for me, and as the too long sentence above suggested, it started with Cliffey and Tom making me listen to Akon while they beat me at Fifa. And yes I know I've already complained about Akon once here, and I almost kind of found him slightly okay prior to all this nonsense, but their insistence that I actually love him only makes me hate him all the more. Sorry chaps.

On Saturday I was up bright and early because my dad and I were heading to Bristol. It's a thing we do occasionally; he goes to lots of charity shops to buy Penguin Classics, then I go to Fopp and buy lots of CDs. I spent £34 there this time, on such wonderful artists as Tom Waits, Stephin Merritt, Sparklehorse, Grinderman, and Bombay Bicycle Club, although that last one was for Sarah. I also got a Tindersticks album, because they played this song at Green Man and I've been completely enamoured with it recently so I thought it was about time I bought the album. I put said album on in the car on the way back, and I think my dad would have been more open-minded about the whole experience if the first line hadn't been something about strangling.

Saturday evening, and a few of us (namely me, Sarah, Mark, and Elusive Dave, whom I may or may not have mentioned before) went to see Josh play his SCRIBER songs in great big capital letters at Cathays Community Centre. It was part of the Swn festival, although I feel that just seeing my friend Josh and some sort of youth punk band doesn't really count as "going to the Swn festival", so when my lecturer asked us in the session earlier who had been to the Swn festival, I kept quiet. Anyway, Josh was excellent as ever, and I managed to keep mostly quiet with my incessant heckling this time. He did a cover of Girl From The North Country and all was right with the world*.

That night we went out to see in Meic's 20th birthday at the Owain Glyndwr or however you crazy Welsh people might go about spelling it. Meic asked me to write a couple of rap songs to put on the album he has to produce for his course, so I should probably do that at some point; as good as P-Town is, it's only one track, and he needs six**. I also admitted to really liking Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny) by the Pussycat Dolls but was very pleased to find that Sarah, instead of mocking me, also confessed to liking it. Then Bad Romance came on and I was very pleased about that, too.

Yesterday, Sunday, was my mum's birthday, so Sarah and I went over to my parents' house to fork over her present and card. I got her a purple handbag from Sturff, because she said she liked it and I get honorary employee discount there so woohoo. My mum was just surprised to find that I was giving her anything other than a CD, which is all I usually stretch to. I even got her a card, generous bastard that I am.

Sarah and I somehow ended up reminiscing over Digimon memorabilia, before retreating to my room for a power nap on my far more comfortable than our bed in the student house bed. The nap was soundtracked by British Sea Power's Do You Like Rock Music?, which is a great album whether you're asleep or awake.

In the evening we went to The Globe to see oh my goodness it's British Sea Power what a coincidence. They played many wonderful songs with names like Lights Out For Darker Skies and Favours In The Beetroot Fields, and people had leafy branches to wave and I bought a t-shirt from the merch desk which had placemats with ducks on and Sarah reckoned the bassist and the violinist were going out because she touched his bum at one point but I didn't see it. I also managed to get my grubby hands on a setlist, which was itself fairly grubby because I think the keyboardist trod on it. Good times.

So that was my weekend in music. I'm currently listening to Freezepop's Here Comes A Special Boy for something like the seventh consecutive time, a song made all the more awesome by the fact that it's about Achewood, which everyone should read so here's a link to that too.

I was trying to play a Klezmer Kollectiv song on my baritone earlier. I'm getting quite good.

Joel.

*I was, however, absolutely APOPLECTIC that the free CDs Josh was handing out had moons printed on them. Mine just has writing on it, although it is a limited edition first pressing so that kind of makes up for it.

**Speaking of P-Town, some kind soul put it up on YouTube the other night, just over a year after it first went up. It's not got a whole lot of views yet, so everybody go watch it.

Cutlery

I have often thought about the concept of Student Life, and I've long since decided that I'm not living it. I've never been drunk, and when I talk say that I'm going to town, I mean that I'll be in Spillers at about 3 in the afternoon buying a British Sea Power EP. Last year I lived in a proper student accommodation building; the latest I ever went to bed was 5.30am, after watching the extended version of Return of the King.

And I've not made any major changes this year. In fact, since Sarah's dad lent us the Town Called Eureka boxset, I've barely left the house at all. We have house parties occasionally, but I usually make myself fairly scarce, and will often slip off to bed before it's even past midnight.

So I'm really only a student insofar as I go to university and pay less at the cinema. But surely I'm the pale-skinned, seldom-seen recluse in a house otherwise full of drunken crazy people, right?

Man, I would hate that. But fortunately, I'm in very good company here. There were some rumours of a party on Sunday, but Gem is doing her best to squash those. Some of us have lectures on Monday morning. Gem is actually out on the town tonight, but after initiating a house-wide tidy on Saturday, she's earned it, bless 'er.

So who in this tidy, tidy house is living the Student Life? Cliffey was going out a lot, but now that JR and Andy have left, he seems to have lost his fresher's spirit. He's at work right now, but I'd wager that if he were at home he'd probably be watching Monsters Inc. then going to sleep. And more power to him for it. 

You might think that Pete is a more typical student, looking at the state of his room, but he's currently somewhere in Cornwall, probably dreaming about all the different rocks he'll be excavating tomorrow. And Pete never goes to clubs. He's more of a 'chicken burger at the pub quiz' kinda guy. 

Actually, I take that back. Pete did come to town with us that Saturday night a couple of weeks ago. But was that to experience some phat beats and dance himself into a K-hole? Were we there to bear witness to the sound of drum and bass? No. We were in CAI, waiting to see the Klezmer Kollectiv (which was awesome, by the way).

Soph...well Soph's not even a student. She likes a drink as much as anyone - probably a little more, in fact - but she almost always has to take her hangover to Boots with her the next day. Judging by the sounds that were coming through the wall, she and Alex were just catching up on The Inbetweeners, but I think they've gone to bed now. 

In case my stance on all this hasn't come across thus far, I love living here. It's awesome and exactly what I had hoped for. I don't want to drag myself around the stickier parts of central Cardiff until 4 in the morning; I want to have a chat with my friends, do the blog, and go to bed at a sensible hour. I may be old before my time, but to hell with Student Life - this is Joel Life.

Pete asked me a few weeks ago why I named this blog Cutlery. To be honest, there's no great backstory; I created this blog two days before moving into the house, and I didn't really know what sort of time I'd be having here yet. Having not even packed all of my stuff, all I knew about the house at that point was that it would contain me, several other people, and the things we brought with us. Our TVs, games consoles, guitars, glockenspiels, laptops, clothes, bedclothes, cuddly toys, pens, pencils, crockery, cutlery.

So that's all it was, and it wasn't easy turning it into a cheesy, faux-profound paragraph like that. But I have since discovered that cutlery has a surprisingly large bearing on life. Always on a knife-edge, trying to navigate forks in the road, and all the while trying to make time for some spooning.

And judging by the sounds now coming from the ceiling, Soph and Alex have just found time for a little forking. So before I tap out another cheesy, faux-profound paragraph, I shall sign off.

By the by, it's just gone 11pm and Sarah is asleep with her Mr. Bump plushie beside her as I type this. Obviously living in this house full of party animals has made no impression on her. 

Joel.

P.S. Sorry for the essay, I had intended today to just post a video here and leave it at that. But Blogger's video uploader failed me, so I had to improvise. Maybe tomorrow.

In Anticipation of Klezmer

So slowly but surely we're preparing to slot into our respective routines. I've had my first lectures of the year, Gem sorted out her plans this morning, and Cliffey is enrolling tomorrow morning. Having said that, Pete's being somewhat vague about when he starts, and Soph's taking this whole week off work, so we've not all got our noses to the grindstone. Lazy Soph.

Now. I seem to have neglected to mention the gig at CAI the other night. Basically, we had heard previously of a "funk/ska/gypsy/swing" gig at the arts institute on Saturday, but only realised on the day that it was the Klezmer Kollectiv, whom our regular followers will recognise as the band of the moment around here right now.
So we got to CAI around 9 and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I asked the barmaid when they'd be on, and was told "around half 11,ish".
We waited.
At around 11.45, I asked the woman at front of house. She told me that they'd be on at about half midnight.
We waited some more, and they finally came on and played some music. But who was in attendance? And what were their reactions?
Joel - pleasure at slowly getting to know the songs he was hearing
Sarah - tiredness at having waited so long
Cliffey - ecstasy, particularly at realising he had worn his Tetris t-shirt
Peter - joy at shouting "Hey!" so often
Tim - unusually unhinged and wild and jumpin'
Andy - rather taken with this new discovery
Meic - mild enjoyment, possibly
Tom - utter bewilderment, judging by his expression
Soph wasn't there but she suggested that we were "pretty gay" for going to see this band. She hasn't heard the Kollectiv because she left Milgi's early the first time we saw them and she doesn't spend much time in Cliffey's car.
Gem offered no comment.
Joel.
P.S. JR, Cliffey and I played Risk earlier today but I didn't win so I didn't feel it merited inclusion in the main body of the blog.
P.P.S. JR won.

Sharments

A correction. Yesterday's blog was not quick; it was in fact quite long.

Another correction. It's Klezmer Kollectiv, not Kolectiv. Two L's. Sorry.

And now, a bullet point blog!

THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY

• The main Thing That Happened Today was that we went to Tesco. This was mostly so that Cliffey could exchange his trousers and do a big food shop, but other people bought things too. Pete bought a Blur compilation and 10 frankfurters. Sarah bought a cheesecake and some juice. Anna Sharp, who came along, exchanged several bags of shrapnel for a crisp new £10 note (and some more shrapnel). And I bought four iced buns and a Flump. It was a good trip. One funny thing was that Cliffey picked up a bottle of high juice and attempted to 'flare' with it. He dropped it. We even bought a brand new bin! It has a lid and everything. I put it on and pretended to be a spaceman. Sarah later did the same but one of the builders outside our house told her she looked more like a toilet.
• On the way back from Tesco we got lost and ended up driving through Pentwyn. This was unfortunate, and resulted in our getting stuck in even more traffic, but it was good in that it meant we got to listen to the Klezmer Kollectiv for another fifteen minutes or so. 
• Before any of this, I met Sarah at Coleg Glan Hafren and she bought us chips on the way home. We ate them with bread and butter. They were very nice. Cliffey had one.
• While Sarah was in college, I ambled over to Chez Payne in order to pick up my drum certificate (if you read yesterday's instalment then you'll know that I passed grade 8 with merit). As it turns out, I got a better score than my teacher, who did the grade 8 exam on the same day! The student becomes the master. On my way there, I listened to Manowar's seminal Kings of Metal album, which is very good apart from a song called Pleasure Slave which is a bit sexist.
• This evening we watched quiz programmes and fell in love with a man named Gerry on The Weakest Link. He didn't get to the final but we all felt that he should have.
• After that Sarah decided to get another pizza from Domino's. We were going to walk but then Cliffey offered us a lift. We parked outside the Co-op and discovered a secret back entrance! We were amazed. While we were waiting in Domino's, the three of us compared the cards in our wallets. I won because I had a shiny Charizard.
• Strictly speaking, this is not a Thing That Happened Today, but I feel that it is worth mentioning anyway. When Cliffey was going to work yesterday, somebody crashed into his car. He was not best pleased because Xander has just come out of the car hospital and now this happens. He got the other guy's insurance details though so that's good.
• Pete just called Cliffey a nigger over a game of Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction.
• Speaking of Pete, he acquired the internet today. He and Meic ran a cable from the router in Gemma's room to the PC in Pete's room. I am now the only non-connected house member, and that includes Sarah, whose iPod gets the friggin' internet. 
• Sarah would also like me to point out that she beat me at Tekken six times earlier. Six times in a row. 
• Gemma is not going to be working for a while as she has bad hands.

I think that's everything so I'll see you tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed Joel Writes Like An Autistic Day. Normal service resumes tomorrow.

Joel.

Bahrain, hey!

Still no Internet on my laptop. This'll be a quick one because I'm writing it on an iPod.

Yesterday, Cliffey, Pete, Sarah and myself took a trip to Penarth Road to get Pete a wireless card for his computer.

The plan was good enough on paper. Pick Sarah up from college at half past 4, carry on to Novatech, get the part, and return home in time for tea.

But there were complications. Sarah had finished college early, and by the time we got there, she was already on a bus going the other way. Sarah is not blessed with a mobile phone, and not only could we not inform her of the plan, we also couldn't tell her that the house she was heading for was locked and unoccupied.

So back we went, and rescued Sarah from knocking endlessly on an unforgiving front door. Once we were on our way again, we put on the Klezmer Kolectiv CD that we had bought for Cliffey, and it made for good driving music, except perhaps during those long moments stuck in the pre-rush hour traffic.

Eventually, we got to Penarth Road, and the actual wireless card-buying went pretty well. Sarah managed to crash one of the Novatech demo computers, but she covered it up quite well and besides, she bought us all jelly babies so we weren't complainin'.

The real trouble was getting back. The traffic that had been building earlier was now in full swing, and as a result it took us about 20 minutes to conquer City Road. Fortunately, we had the Klezmer Kolectiv to keep us kompany!

Now these songs aren't really the kind everyone can sing along to on a long car journey; there are no lyrics. Still, we were in no mood to be quiet and listen, so we made up our own words. We took it in turns to sing a line about the traffic, the takeaways we were passing, and especially Bahrain. None of us were too sure where Bahrain is, but we soldiered on regardless. Occasionally, Pete would do a spoken word bit about "the old country".

The best part is that, even with the wireless card, Pete still can't get the Internet.

Joel.

P.S. This instalment of Cutlery is dedicated to the radiant Sarah Macleod, who lent me her iPod to write it on, and who is currently sleeping next to me as I type.

P.P.S. I passed my grade 8 drums with merit. Yay to that!