My Tiger My Timing...

are great, and they play Amersham Arms this Thursday 28th January. That's tomorrow. You should go. Also, check Anna and Seb from the band chatting to Tom Robinson on last Monday's BBC Introducing programme. Don't they sound lovely? Yes. Wouldn't you like an almost-Friday dance? Yes, of course you would. So go to their gig. As the French say, simple.

www.myspace.com/mytigermytiming

in a way...

"We’re all actors in a way. Sometimes you have to act as if you like someone’s blouse or something." - Matt Dillon

Please people, keep buying the Mail - so it can keep subsidising the Metro, and its quality journalism.

Kate McGarrigle

I grew up listening to Kate & Anna McGarrigle, on scratchy vinyl, and copying in crayon the cover of "Dancer with Bruised Knees" in an effort to convince myself I could draw. I couldn't. I've just dug out this album this week, after hearing the sad news about Kate's death on Monday. In all the tributes, different songs emerge as favourites - aged 8, the title track off this album was mine:

When I first knew her she was a dancer
She'd leap (confidently)
Knowing that should she fall
It would be into the arms of her partner
She never failed to get a curtain call

For years we had been one with the stars
A Pas de Deux of reknown
I'd leap and he'd catch me on the fly
But once I came crashing down

Now I'm a weaver
Wall-hangings if you please
In everyone I feature
A dancer with bruised knees

You can read tributes to this astonishingly talented woman here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/jan/20/kate-mcgarrigle

i have just listened to this song 9 times in a row

http://www.matadorrecords.com/mpeg/shearwater/leviathan_bound.mp3

wow.

Brilliant - an even later Best Of list than mine

http://thetorturegarden.blogspot.com/2010/01/songs-of-2008.html

You can stream tracks from here and from www.saidthegramophone.blogspot.com and they're both really really lovely places to listen to new things. That's what I'm doing now, while tracing down obscure broadcasts from years ago on Radio 3.

(NB Thanks Rob for showing me these first - I am in no way claiming them as my own discoveries)

Tim at the Roundhouse!

Yeh so a few days ago *this* was one of my top things to do this month:

25th - Beggar's Opera: Reborn at the Roundhouse
http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/productions/charles-hazlewood-s-4107
As part of the Reverb series - this is Charles Hazlewood's rethunk version of the Beggar's Opera - an all-star gig including those delicious Unthank girls and Adrian Utley. It will "reclaim our musical heritage for now"- so we should probably be there to witness it. Reverb runs from the 23rd and this ain't the only good fing in it.


Well, apart from sounding pretty good in and of itself - it's only gone and got a whole heap better. Because now, added to that all-star list is one TIM DICKINSON. That's right, our Tim Dickinson. Playing Macheath, no less. So go buy your tickets and see you there.

NB FYI re: c.28'57 Episode 4

Have noticed an error in episode 4. Tim asks me what the theatre is on St Martin's Lane where No Man's Land was performed. I, in my infinite stupidity, say, "The Duchess of York", as if I know what I'm talking about. I don't - it is of course "The Duke of York". My mind was befuddled by painkillers and I misspoke, and for this I apologise.

Just to clarify:

The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. (That’s in London)

Sarah, Duchess of York (née Sarah Margaret Ferguson; 15 October 1959) is a charity patron, spokesperson, writer, film producer, television personality and former member of the British Royal Family. She was married to Queen Elizabeth II's second son, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, from 1986 to 1996.

Now I will try and sleep soundly.