Back in the saddle

Hello

For a while now, I've been very busy with lots of stuff (brilliant stuff like getting married - yeah, LOVE being married! - and buying a house) which has meant that I've not spent anywhere near as much time collecting and listening to music and going to gigs.

Having done all of those things since I was about 13 I've come to kind of take them for granted. But when I haven't got a new record demanding that I listen to it again or a band that I'm really looking forward to seeing, it does sometimes take the edge off of life a little. After all, finding a new song or a new band is SUCH a joy!

So, it was a real treat this week to jump in the car with some of my oldest and dearest friends and head up to Birmingham to see Dr Dog.

The gig was in an odd setting - the small studio space next to the Glee Club.
It was a seated gig with an unexpectedly small capacity (about 50 /60 people max I would've said). And although I was initially a big gutted that it wasn't a big excited, chattering room full of fans waiting to wig out, it was fun. It felt more like a private audience. Or a bit like you were in the audience of Later with Jools Holland and it wasn't cack and the bands were really good and Jools didn't nob about interviewing Keith Allen or some old hack with a rock biography to hawk.

For anyone that doesn't know Dr. Dog are a 60s ish psych-pop band who like "Boggle, three-part harmonies, roman candles, slow dancing, the great outdoors, pizza parties, and diminished chords". They're great. They're songs are instantly familiar and yet full of surprises, melancholy but really uplifting.

The gig didn't disappoint even though lots of the stuff they played was off the new record or the one before Easy Beat which I haven't managed to get hold of yet. They record in a very specific way with analogue equipment and I was worried that they wouldn't be able to pull off the subtleties and Beach Boy-esque harmonies live. But they really did!

And one of them was dressed a bit like a gnome!

Check 'em out...