Leicester’s Comedy Festival kicks off again today. For a large proportion of February, those of us living in this fair city get the chance to laugh our socks off at shows. We can pretend that the world isn’t quite as shit as it actually is. By the end of the festival, March is pretty much upon us and Spring optimism is in the air. Perfect.
Anyway, I’ll be doing a fair few reviews for the Leicester Mercury, the local daily newspaper. I’ll try hard for it not to be the case but posts on Sonic Breakfast might lapse under the weight of alternative writing pressures. Before I head off into that world of giggles, I thought I’d make time for one quick post.
(Click on page 2 to read about Little Comets)
“You have to enjoy it no matter how stupid things get, ‘cause we always have each other and you always have yourself.” – Joel Gion, 2016
The film, Dig!, had quite an impact on me when I first watched it at the local arthouse cinema. I probably left the cinema and said to friends that it was the best music documentary ever made though I’ve always been prone to hyperbole in an effort to stress my point.
But, there’s no getting away from the fact that there’s something hopelessly desolate and tragically romantic about the way it tracks and contrasts the careers of the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. It’s sometimes not pretty viewing but it’s always exciting. As one band digs towards a drug-fuelled, psychedelic oblivion, the other spends millions on state-of-the-art videos. Creatively, we all know which band we’d want to be in – and it’s not the Dandy’s.
Joel Gion, the tambourine player in the Brian Jonestown Massacre, creates quite an impression throughout the film. He’s a cheeky space cadet and, for the most part, you can’t help being drawn to his impish humour and honest charm. Despite being off his head, you like him and want him to succeed. You worry that the story might have a tearful ending given the amount of abuse going on and breathe a sigh of relief when it doesn’t quite.
Over the past weeks, I’ve received a few E-mails from Joel’s PR company telling me about his new single, Tomorrow, which was released last week in advance of an album later this year.
(Read Sonic Breakfast’s review on page 2)
I can’t quite remember when I first crossed paths with Steven James Adams. I’m pretty sure it was at the Cambridge Folk Festival. As I queued to get a beer, he stood up and played an impromptu acoustic set with his band. This was many years ago.
A lovely friend, Nicola, encouraged me to listen to the Broken Family Band more. She was right to do so. I grew to love all that they offered. In a venue, here in Leicester, that has been gathering cobwebs and closed for years now, I once got so rowdy seeing them that I threatened a guy with a broken glass. Times have changed.
As my friendship with Nicola grew so did my love of the Broken Family Band. She procured tickets to their last ever show at the Portland Arms in Cambridge. On Halloween night we went along, experimenting with gothic mascara and stupid drugs. It was an incredible show.
Much as I’d loved, Steven James Adams drifted in and out of my vision. There was a far too casual gig for The Singing Adams in Leicester. We shook hands and I had a drunken fanboy moment with Steven and Dan Mangan backstage at the very last Summer Sundae whilst Jake Bugg played elsewhere (fact). There were new priorities then.
Heck, it’s lovely to discover that I’ve got catching up to do. The man has now spent four years doing a solo thing. There are two new records to immerse myself in. It was a random message from a PR company that once again piqued my interest.
(Click on page 2 to find out what piqued my interest)
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