When you blink your eyes...

I am currently typing this at an internet enabled McDonald's in Liverpool. It has an annoying ass keyboard that makes it really hard to type. I'll do my best for now and fill in more details later because I only have 30 minutes on this bastard.

It was a long train ride up here to Liverpool from London. I think I got a lot of good photos here mainly at the mouth of the Mersey River as it empties into the Irish Sea which is where the downtown buildings of Liverpool are at.

Tomorrow we go to Manchester. I hope to do some shopping there. I have noticed things seem to be much more reasonably priced here. Also people have more cool accents here probaly because they are closer to Ireland and Scotland. You can really hear the Beatles in the way some of the people talk. We tried to find The Cavern where the Beatles first played but it didn't seem to exist anymore. Well this keyboard is too much bullshit and their is annoying music and annoying kid and bright flourecent lights in here so I'm going to cut it here. I definitely want to fill in a lot more details about yesterday as well when I get a chance.

Since the last post I've walked probably over 15 miles around the London streets. Last night I started walking and just kept going. I ended up going all the way to Buckingham Palace and then all the way down to Chelsea Bridge and back to the hotel in Kensington. I wasn't really going to see those sites so much. I just like to see how people live. How people look and how they interact with eachother.

Today I walked probably over 12 miles. Kevin was still sick and stayed back at the hotel. Today I walked circles around the Soho area of London. Its a more trendy area. Actually somewhat similar to the Soho district in New York. There were tons of places to shop for clothes and records and everything else. I must have looked at 1000s of people today. I like to just study them and see what kind of clothes they are wearing and how they walk and interact with the world.

All this got me thinking about the book I was reading on the flight over. Oscar Wilde's only novel, "A Picture of Dorian Gray." Coincidentily, the Futureheads at Reading played a song called "My Picture of Dorian Gray", which I thought was really cool. A picture of Dorian Gray is about the Aesthetic movement in the late 19th century. So far what I've gotten out of it is he is saying style and looks are the most important things in life. Also, its about "Dandies", guys who look very pretty and act feminine in many ways. Oscar Wilde turned out to have homesexual tendencies later as well. All the time I'm reading this it makes me think of the current metrosexual phase that is going on right now. I don't want to get too much off the subject of London but I just wanted a bit of background on what I was thinking. I really don't believe in a lot of what he has to say as far is beauty being the most important thing in life. But I have recently begun to feel style is very important. I am all about creativity and self expression and style is something that can represent these things.

So anyway, I noticed London really has a lot of style. Even more so than the US. New York is close. Many people there have style. But in London even the old people, the mom's and dad's, the grandparents, all seemed to be dressed pretty stylishly. At least from my day and a half's wirlwind view. The metrosexual idea that has kind of swept accross the US is really just how most males are in London. It seems that many of the social mores about men having to act manly and prove to everyone that they are not homosexual all the time are not as apparant. Its not to say that it doesn't exist. But that's just how I saw it today from my study.

The destinations I went to today included Trafalger Square, Picadilly Circus, Harrod's, Oxford Street, 10 Dowing, The War Room, Hyde Park, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc. But really I'm not too much into those touristy type of things. I just want by them so I could say I've seen them and take a few photos. I would much rather experience the city as the people of the city do as much as possibly.

One thing I've noticed is that London seems a to be a bit more of a toy city than London. I don't mean really that its less signaficant, it just seems like it has more rounded edges. In a way I do feel more safe here. I feel like I get less strange looks from people on London than New York. Maybe I look more normal here.

When I finally got back to the hotel my legs were about to fall off. Kevin and I want to a good Lebanese restaraunt I had seen that wasn't too far from our hotel. I saw they had hookahs there and I had to try one. I got a bit lifted after finally finishing that thing, it was pretty good. I also had a good Lebanese beer called Lebiza. The food was also excellent, I had baby chicken with garlic mayonnaise. I haven't had baby chicken before, but I'm a fan of the baby cow so I thought I'd give it a try.

Well, they are about to close the internet cafe so I've got to cut this off. We are going to head to Liverpool tomorrow. We should get Saturday to also check out more stuff on the east side of London.

I am now in an internet cafe in London. I can hear the sound of the tube through the wall while I'm typing and its just starting to get dark.

On the last day of the festival yesterday I ended up seeing a couple more great shows. I saw the Futureheads, a nice little Scottish outfit that sounded kind of like Devo and Talking heads a bit. Then of course Fiery Furnaces who's album I love so much. They weren't amazing live but it was great to see them anyway. Then one of my favorite bands of the last year The Stills. I love the album so much I was curious as to why they weren't on the main stage as a headlining band. But seeing them in person I see they were much younger and less experienced as I thought. The show was still great, it was interesting to see what they look like after listening to the album so much.

After that I went back to the hotel and was able to take a shower for the first time in probably 4-5 days. It felt great. My body really needed it. I laid down for a bit then went back to the festival. I saw bits and pieces of performances by 50 cent and the Von Bondies but one show really blew me away.

I ended up taking a chance and going to the show by an English band called The Others. It turned out to be one of the greatest performances I saw of the entire festival. They were 4 fellows who really looked like "The Others". The drummer looked like a scruffy Jack Black with a Joy Division t-shirt on. The bass player who I thought from the back might be an ugly woman at first turned around and had an exact replica of Robert Smith's haircut from The Cure. The lead guitar player was a thuggish bald fellow. The lead singer was a scrappy little fellow with curly untamed blond hair. He looked like one of those little guys who sells newspapers in period piece films in London. It turned out they were outstanding together. It was beautiful post punk at its best. The lead singer was just the right amount of inebriated. He wasn't too drunk as to not sing the words properly, but drunk enough to really get into it and get the crowd going. They did seem to have influences from both Joy Division and The Cure but the sound was raw and unique. The singer jumped in the crowd several times and never missed a note singing which was impressive as people were pulling his hair and grabbing him, but he enjoyed that. For the last number, with sarcastic grin on his face, the singer made a call to the crowd. He said "it will be a bit harder than last time because instead of just 2 security guards from the last show there are now 12 but I wish you good luck mates to all come up on stage. Best of luck to you mates, see on on the other side." The crowd went nuts. By the end of the show there were about 30 people on stage. It was truly a great show.

I hobbled back to the hotel after that as Green Day began the final show of the festival. It was worth all the pain and dirtiness for the great experience in Reading.

So far London reminds me a lot of New York in a lot of ways. After a night of sleep in a bed and another shower this morning I felt much better today. We got here about noon today. Took the train in from Reading. We had seen on the news there was a carnival up on Notting Hill which isn't too far from where we are staying down in the Kensington district. The reason for the carnival and also one of the reasons for the Reading festival is a national bank holiday today. It turned out to be a bit of a walk but it wasn't too bad. We walked through Kensington Gardens which is just adjacent to the Hyde Park. We saw Kensington palace on the way. It turned out the carnival had a ridiculous amount of people. It was absolutely crazy. Really interesting but we were kind of looking for something a little more laid back after what we went through at Reading. Unfortunately we had got ourselves into the middle of Notting Hill and it wasn't easy to get out. We saw some interesting sites on the way.

I noticed today that I saw more people smoking marijuana than cigarettes. I know its not legal but it is very accepted. Everyone does it out in the open even with a ton of police around. I guess they do arrest some people but the penalties must be light because no one seems to worry about it at all. Maybe that's the reason most people seem to be less angry and cordial to each other.

There was some great street parties of all kinds of music. It seemed a lot more racially cool than in the US. They still have the black thugs here but they are much more friendly it seemed. Probably because the white people seem to be more accepting. That is just my initial take on it so far.

On the way back we stopped off by a beautiful pond/lake area in Kensington Garden. I went to sleep for awhile there. I sat in this lawn chair for a few minutes. I thought, what a nice place that they provide lawn chairs for everyone. It turned out it costs 1 pound per 2 hours to sit in it so I just laid on the ground. We walked around through the Kensington area for awhile by some museums. We saw Albert hall which made me sing "A day in the life" in my head for several hours after that.

Kevin isn't feeling well so he's back in the hotel right now. I feel gung ho about trying to see everything possibly this evening and tomorrow I can in London. We should also have Saturday as well to see more stuff in London, there are a ton of things I want to see here. Hopefully Kevin will be feeling better tomorrow.

So far it seems things are a bit more reasonably priced here than in Reading. Also a much better selection. But still things are a good bit more expensive than in the US.

Well, I am going to walk around some more tonight and see what I can find in London. I'll try to post again tomorrow if possible. I plan on a big day of exploring tomorrow so I'm sure I'll be tired. I've taken 300 photos so far. I am going to try and take the other 400-450 that I have space for before I leave here.

I'm currently in an internet cafe in Reading. My back is kind of sore, my feet have blisters, and my hair is greasy but I'm having a great time.

After night sleeping all night from the last post I didn't sleep much either on the 8 hour flight from Atlanta. It turned out we could have gotten first class if we would have worn business casual, I plan on buying some slacks before the trip back. It will be totally worth it.

I just spent the past 3 nights sleeping in a tent in a huge muddy field with thousands of drunk/high/insane British punks. It rained for the first part of the festival so it was very muddy the entire time. Most people were wearing rubber boots or "wellies". I purchased a pair while at the festival because I didn't want to ruin the only pair of shoes I brought with me. Sleeping in the tent was not comfortable at all. The only way I could go to sleep was from being very exhausted and tired from the day's activity. At night their were masses of drunken hooligan's parading around singing tribal chants and shooting off fireworks. The tents were lined up within feet of eachother, it was completely packed. Tents were even later set up on the roadways into the festival. The camping area was totally nasty in the moring, the ground was coverd with beer cans and trash. Some people were sleeping on the ground with just tarps over their heads. In contrast was the beautiful river Thames about 200 meters away.

It turned out a great way to be completely immersed in the culture and hear thousands of different people speaking British and hear what they talk about and see all the crazy looking people. I have never seen so many mowhawks in my life. It was interesting that even most punks in Britain are still very courteous. No matter what if someone bumped into you it was "sorry mate". Instead of saying "have a good day" its always "Cheers mate".

The music I've seen in the last few days is absolutely ridiculous. Especially the big headliner show last night. Four of my favorite music artists in the last year all in a row at the end. Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines, Morrissey and The White Stripes.

I've also seen many other performances from some of my favorite artists including Modest Mouse and The Shins. I also really enjoyed the performance by the Bronx which is much harder than what I usually like but I think they are a great modern punk band. Two bands that I was really impressed with that I had not heard before were The Depature and The Bloc Party. I plan on getting those albums when I get home. Also Razorlight was quite good and appear to be Britains new answer to The Strokes.

Last night we pushed our way up to almost the very front of an insanely huge crowd of people. Luckily we were bigger than the majority of them. For a bit were were right up in the middle with all the crazies, we backed off to the side a bit so we could take photos and not get knocked around. I think I really got some outstanding shots. I was brave enough to take my backpack in and put my 300MM lens on so I could get some close shots. I carried the backpack in the front so I could protect the camera when getting knocked around.

Morrissey was simply spectacular. His stage presence is great. He was cocky and sarcastic just as his music is. He wore a purple crushed velvet blazer and his hair was all flaired out in the front as usual. He even sang some Smiths songs which was really a treat. I don't think he had played in England for quite awhile. He made some comment about how North England, where he's from, is better than South England were Reading and London are. That got a boo and he had a snide sarcastic smile on his face. When he got hot after several songs he carefully took off his blazer and handed it to a roadie who handled it with great care as a tailor would hold your clothes. It was humorous when compared in contrast to all the other bands their who would just take off their shirts and throw them to the side. The two Smith's songs he played were some of my favorites "Shoplifters of the World Unite" and "There is a Light that Never Goes Out". They were excellent renditions even without Johnny Marr. His more recent solo material is also very quality.

The White Stripes were the grand finale. It was worth all the pain, blisters, soreness, chaffing, and strained bladder to see this outstanding performance. I didn't think anything could have been better than Morrissey, they were at least right there with him. To start the Stripe's roadies all wore black suits, black bowler hats, and red ties which was rather unique. When Jack starts playing he totally wails live. I don't know if it is the fact their is just two of them and it makes it easier to sync up but they are one of the best live bands I've seen. The song selection was excellent. I heard most of my favorites. The last two songs they finished with in the encore where a Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover and then 7 Nation Army.

In about an hour we are going to see some more bands play including The Futureheads, Fiery Furnaces, The Stills, The Streets and more. Hopefully somewhere in there or soon after I can take my first shower in many days and sleep in an acutal bed. We decided to go ahead and get a room at the Holiday Inn who luckily had an open room. We very much need the rest. This is the second time I've typed this thing out. The first time some stupid pop-up blocker thing came up and cleared out the entire post. I have been frequently saving this time. I will try to fill in more details later in the next post. We need to get going back to the festival to prepare for the next show. Tomorrow we are off to London...

My journey to England begins in a matter of hours. It is now 1AM and my ride will show up at 5AM so I don't plan on sleeping. I still have a few things I want to do before I leave. I will have plenty of time to sleep on the plane and in the airport tomorrow. I wanted to document the plan for the trip before I go on it to see how it compares with what actually happens. Hopefully I can find an internet cafe or 2 to make a couple of posts during the trip.

We are flying stand-by and leaving tomorrow at 6:40AM to Atlanta. Then we have to wait around for the flight to England. Just as long as we make it to England sometime on Thursday we'll be good. We will be landing in Gatwick Airport in London.

From Gatwick we will be taking a train to Reading. The reason the plan for the trip was originally conceived was to attend the annual Reading Music Festival which always features an amazing line-up of bands. This year is no exception. There will be 4 shows going on at once so you have to make a decision. Its going to be a ridiculous amount of music. I'm preparing for the worst on weather, I actually like the rain but I just want to be able to see all the bands. The festival lasts from Friday-Sunday. We will be camping there for 4 nights.

Here is my list of bands I know and want to see at the festival. The ones with (*) mean I must see them if at all possible.

Friday
------
Hives
*Modest Mouse
Pretty Girls Make Graves
*The Shins
!!!

Saturday
--------
*White Stipes
*Morrissey
*Libertines
*Franz Ferdinand
*Stereolab
The Bronx
Features
TV on the Radio
Coheed and Cambria

Sunday
-------
*The Streets
Thrice
Placebo
50 Cent
*The Stills
*Fiery Furnaces
Futureheads
Supergrass
Von Bondies
Secret Machines
Devendra Banhart
*Radio 4
Rahzel

On Monday August 30, we have reservations for 2 nights at the Barkston Gardens Hotel in London which appears to be pretty decent according to expedia. Its located in the Hyde Park district. Hopefully it should provide some comfort after being dirty and tired from the festival.

On Wednesday we will take the train north a few hours up to Liverpool and we have a reservation at the Britannia Adelphi Hotel. I am really excited to see this city, of course because of the Beatles but it also just seems like its going to be really beautiful there on the Irish Sea.

The next day I'd like to see Manchester which appears to be a short train ride to the East. Manchester is the home of one of my favorite bands The Smiths. It and Liverpool are also famous for their soccer teams. It would be awesome if we could see a game I don't know if we will be able to or not.

After that we have reservations at 2 different hostels in different areas of London the next 2 nights.

I would like to get a chance to go to the West and see Bath and Stonehenge in this time. Also, possibly go east and see Dover.

I think this is a good skeleton of a plan that leaves a lot of room for exploring. I plan on taking a ton of photos. I've got the iPod all charged and loaded up with the latest cuts so I'm ready to go.

The tide that left and never came back, is on my mind tonight.

I listened to this track by The Veils on repeat for about 3-4 hours today. I've seen the video a few times on subterranean and it really started to grow on me. It really has that 80's post-punk/new wave renaissance feeling that I've been into for awhile. Also, I find it that reminds me of the theme to The Fall Guy for some peculiar reason which I always liked. On this week's subterranean The Veils were the featured guests. Unfortunately, 3 members had dropped out of the band leaving only the lead singer Finn Andrews to appear on the show. I'd like to hear what the rest of the album sounds like.

While I am very excited about going to England in approximately a week I am also very excited about something else. Interpol will release their second full length, Antics, on September 27. Turn on the Bright Lights, while only a few years old now, is up on my list of all time favorite albums. I am currently wearing my Interpol t-shirt for the second consecutive day and I'm listening to Stella was a Diver and She was Always Down at the moment, quite dorky I know. I have listening to that album probably more than any other in the last 2 years.

In addition to the music being a blackish-gray conglomeration of post-punk with a slight goth tinge, the style and physical appearance of the band is amazing. I used to think The Strokes were the coolest for awhile until I started getting into Interpol. I still like The Strokes a lot, but Interpol was just more enigmatic and aloof. They can always been seen in the most stylish European style suits and clothes on stage. I really think inspired a lot of current bands. I know most of what Interpol did was a renaissance of early 80's but it was just the right time for it. Interpol was really what prompted me to dig much deeper into the music of the late 70's and early 80's post punk.

I found a site that actually has the lyrics to all the songs on Antics. I'm curious as to where they got them. I'm really anxious to hear what the album sounds like. I think its going to be very hard for it to compare to Turn on the Bright Lights. Hopefully they can come through like The Strokes with a very respectable follow up to their highly successful debut. Both bands were extremely influential for me to get into music as much as I have in the last 3 years.

The clock is set for nine 
But you know you're gonna make it eight
So that you two can take some time
Teach each other to reciprocate

I watched a 4 part series this morning that I hoped would prove to be valuable preparation for my upcoming journey to Great Britain. Tivo thoughtfully captured all 4 parts for me to watch at my leisure (pronounced "lez-yure"). The saga I speak of is the Family Ties Vacation special where the Keaton family goes to London to take Alex to Oxford.

Within the last couple of weeks I started getting back into Family Ties and asked Tivo to add it as a season pass, which he gladly did. While I enjoyed seeing the Keaton family in an alternate location than their familiar residence in Columbus, Ohio, I felt this mini-series left a little to be desired. First of all, it was shot on film rather than video (on a side-note, I found an interesting article about the differences of film vs. video so I could get my terminology correct to write the previous sentence). Secondly, their was no laugh track to queue us as to when something funny had occurred. Thirdly, the writers had a hair brained idea to add an "international criminal planting microfilm in a hairbrush" backstory to decrease the humor even further. Also, it really didn't show too much about London. Somehow the rest of the family stayed there 2 weeks and didn't really do too much of anything while Alex took some classes at Oxford. Alex did learn a valuable lesson about fitting in which was very low on the heart warming scale for me. Overall, I'd much rather stick with the regular episodes than what appeared to be an 80's ratings gimmick that I can't imagine paid off very well.

I also watched what I would consider to be one of the more outstanding episodes of one of the more outstanding sitcom's in television history. Interestingly enough (maybe only to me) it and Family Ties both first aired in 1982. It was a 1985 episode of Cheer's featuring the first appearance of Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier Crane. It reminded me how amazingly the writers could balance semi-dramatic topics with constant comedy with interesting characters. This show was truly a masterpiece of modern television. While many did not like Shelley Long on Cheer's I felt the contrast of her character to the rest of the bar's inhabitants proved to be very entertaining. Her annoying snootiness always provided excellent comedic setups, a role which was later filled by Fraser and Lilith in Diane's absence.

For some reason I searched for Anson Williams today because I was curious as to whether Potsie was spelled "Potsy" or "Potsie". I learned what I consider an interesting yet useless fact that I'd like to share. Anson William's full name is Anson William Heimlich and he is the nephew of Henry Heimlich who came up with a famous manuever. Which made me think of the great commentary about this maneuver I saw recently in Eddie Izzard's video Dress to Kill. The end.

I was able to finally get a hold of a copy of The Fiery Furnaces - The Blueberry Boat. It took a few listens of the album but I concur with Pitchfork's review that it is truly an outstanding album. Three artists mainly came to mind when listening to it, at least for my personal experience. The Microphones, Wilco, and Captain Beefheart. This album really covers a lot of ground and is very expansive at approximately 76 minutes long. It has been dubbed as a "rock opera" which is true at times. Sometimes its just insane and crazy. Other times it can be slightly corny, but in a good in a funny way. It is worth a try, but be ready for a bit of effort to appreciate it.

I just saw Bjork sing at the opening of the Olympics and she had a dress with a map of the world that covered the entire stadium. Very interesting and quite odd. Which reminded me that my friend Kevin keeps telling me that 130,000 condoms will be distributed by Durex at the Olympics this year, up from 90,000 last Olympics. That is a lot of prophylactics.

I made my weekly stop at Guest Room Records in Norman and found a great new album. I was really looking for the new album by the Fiery Furnaces on the review I read about it on Pitchfork. GRR was out of stock for the second week in a row so I had to look for something else. I just couldn't come out of there empty handed.

I ended up grabbing the recently released album by Comets on Fire - Blue Cathedral. This was also one I had only read about from Pitchfork's rave review. I found out this record was actually playing in the store while I was browsing. I actually didn't know if I liked it at first from the brief listen in the store. It turned out after listening to the entire album all the way through I totally dug it. It is a fireball of energy, it actually sounds like a comet on fire, if I could guess what that would sound like. I can see a lot of influence of Led Zeppelin and Hendrix but with a modern take on it. In some ways it also reminded me of the way The Mars Volta is influenced by these old classic roots but adds a new spin on them. The classification that comes to mind for Comets on Fire to me is psychedelic tinged post-punk. I can also see a big influence of bands like Gang of Four and Wire.

Hopefully, I can get Fiery Furnaces next week and it will turn out to live up to the hype as much as Comets on Fire does.