At the weekend Eirene and I along with a collective of 10+ other people convened in Birmingham to join several thousand other people in The Q Club for the last ever Atomic Jam there. Back in the mid 90′s, Eirene and I went to one of the first Atomic Jam’s there – so last October when my friend said he was buying tickets – who was in?, I stuck my hand up. So very glad I did. An incredible night with some world class DJs in the main hall of a big old Methodist church. The night also featured two other rooms (+DJs), several bars, loads of corridors and cubby holes, stairways, landings, loads (and loads) of smashing people… and Techno.

‘Techno’ today as a genre remains very close in essence to its Detroit roots from the mid 80s, but arguably its roots go back way further that this. There’s something primeval about it; Techno is about utilising TECHNOlogy to make noises and structure them as patterns in rhythm. The first sound we heard was our mothers heart beat and it’s this that gives us our first taste of patterned rhythm. Pattered rhythm music has been part of humanity since the beginning – the worlds first musical instrument was almost definitely a percussion instrument (something that you hit, shake or rub  that makes a noise) and almost definitely, a rhythm was formed. Rhythm is something we innately understand and put into practice – for example – every time we walk.

We’ve been making music with similarities to Techno for a long time.  For instance –  here from India – the Mridangam Drum and from The Cook Islands the Log Drum. Both of these forms were formed totally without influence of each other thousands of years ago,  and along with Techno have a definable commonalities. They trigger a similar emotive response in a lot of cases and even though the pieces above are faster and with more complex time signature than most 4/4 Techno – they are predominantly a concentrate of patterns in rhythm. Some of the technology has moved on a great deal – the boxes that make the noises – from hollow logs to complex electronics as well as the things that peripheral with the noises – from sticks to Serato, but the feel and structure  has stuck with its roots; Patterned rhythmic music made by people who like to make noses for people to dance all night to – to me Techno has kept the bloodline of these origins of primitive party music, more than anything else.

The taxonomy of music gets more and more complex as time goes on – along with it, contention, as it fragments and re invents itself.  An easy split in definition is this:  music that was made on a computer and music that wasn’t. The skills of composing are often very similar – but the noise making objects differ. Old instruments – eg piano = pressing keys to make noises. New instruments – eg : computer = pressing keys to make noises.  Most computer music falls into what a broad brush describes as ‘dance music’. Techno, along with House music are the Godfathers of dance music. There’s no real definition on this – but to me, House music tends to be a bit lighter than Techno and House emulates and often incorporates more real instruments and vocals, and is more about the groove – Techno is more about the percussive rhythms and synthetic TECHNOlogically sourced noises.

In the early 90s I first fell in love with Techno at a venue called The Orbit in Morley, Leeds. Luckily for me, this legendary club – one of the finest Techno clubs in the world at the time – was just a short hop from home. Some of the DJs I’d seen there are still on the circuit – including Dave Clarke who I was lucky enough to see again at Atomic Jam at the weekend.

I like all sorts of music – but the weekend reminded me how much I ♥ Techno. Appreciating it properly is hard work takes a lot out of you – but it’s well worth it.

Eirene took me on a surprise weekend away last weekend, and a very nice weekend it was.  It’s been a while since we spent the weekend, sans kids. We did take the smallest of our brood with us though – Elsie (pic’d above) – our 12 week old Springador – who got her first official walk and was suprisingly excellent off the lead – I think we’ve blueprinted on her sufficiently for her to stick close.

What was billed as a surprise mystery location, but “close by”,  turned out to be The Chevin Country Park Hotel & Spa.  Our room was in fact a lodge type building with a grass roof type affair. Isolated and cosy yet close enough to the bar and restaurant (2 minutes walk)  for it to be hotel like in what it had to offer. As we dined on the 6 course taster menu on Friday evening, who should walk in but Chall & M, celebrating M’s 30th. A surprise for her also, we ended up having a few drinks and natters in the bar whilst a happy kilted wedding party got merry around us.

Saturday – After a beautiful walk along The Chevin, to see the view from Suprise View, with a very well behaved Elsie we headed back for snacks, naps and splats by the pool / sauna / steam room combo. Another 6 course taster menu that evening (reassuringly different from the Friday evenings), we headed back to watch Tommy Cooper’s Christmas Special on the tellybox. Just like that. Not like this, like that.

The final surprise was the discovery of an outdoor hot pool on the Sunday morning, where spent a blissful half hour in the rain,  pretending I was a Japanese Snow Monkey.

Alan Bennett - playwright, screenwriter, actor and author

Completely out of the blue on Friday afternoon, I got a call from an old friend who was involved with an event in Leeds that needed a photographer as the arranged chap had dropped out. I jumped at the chance, then jumped at a shower, then jumped at a smart black shirt and headed for Leeds.

Amid the Après-work city center who’s attention had been diverted to Children in Need, I found La Grillade,  a vaulted cellar French restaurant celebrating it’s 30th Anniversary. The format for the night was that of a charity night in aid of Yorkshire Cancer Care, in the company of, regular patron, Alan Bennett. The MC – Editor of The Business Desk - David Parkin, set the pace and invited everyone to think of questions to ask Alan, after he’d finished his tea. This teased out a few fascinating insights into Bennett’s creative process – basing his characters on specifics and how he’s actually not (by his own admission) very good at ‘making things up’, and how he really liked the Talking Head format where he got to focus on the detail of a single character at greatly zoomed in level.

Having been lucky enough to see a Talking Heads show at Harrogate Theatre in 2006, and having probably read watched and absorbed more of his material than I’d realised,  It dawned on me that I was in the company of a living Yorkshire legend.  I then went on to muse an idea that he is to Leeds / Yorkshire what L.S. Lowry is to Manchester. Like Lowry, he’s an acute observer of people and society. Like Lowry, he comes across as quite humble and down to earth with no airs and graces. Like Lowry, he is known by the masses but hasn’t sold out. Unlike Lowry, he’s illustrated 20th Century middle class where as Lowry was all about the 20th Century working class. Different mediums, but both portray a real character of people – brilliantly.

Back to the Yorkshire Legend notion – I’d say Bennett is up there with Hockney, Moore, Saville (of the Jimmy) , Boycott (of the Geoffrey). If  the measure of a legend is his legacy, Bennett has already got a fine body of work behind him. And from the twinkle in his eye on Friday night, I’d say there could be a bit more lead in his pencil yet.

As well as taking a bunch of photos of the evening (click here to view them)»

I shot a short video of him reading a piece called “Stopped, the key lost”:

The big highlight of the now is that we’ve got a teenager all of a sudden. Felix has turned 13. Lovely morning this morning of cards and prezzies. Xbox is the big un – clubbed together prezzy from several of us.  He’s having x2 sleep overs and we went out on Saturday for eats. A place called The Spice Quarter on Millennium Square in Leeds. Fantastic place – an all you can eat buffet that has Indian, Chinese, Thai and Italian cuisine on offer. Prior to that, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours in The Leeds City Museum (photos) – a superb free thing in the heart of Leeds. The natural history floor had some great things to see - defiantly worth a look!

Yesterday was also cool – we went to the Countryside Live show on the Great Yorkshire Showground.

Wasn’t quite sure what to expect – but discovered it was a less farmery and slightly smaller version of The Great Yorkshire Show. The highlight for me was a display of a sheepdog hearding first ducks, the geese. Only one of them got away. I spotted a flaw in this method of gaggle management. Things with wings generally have an omnidirectional choice – including up, over the dogs humble two dimentional options. Diggers and sheep, chickens and eggloos (of which Eirene now wants one of) and chat with some folks from a company called Oscar – suppliers of (what looks to be) high quality dog food.

It was one of those weekends that (for me at least – who’s not on half term) seemed to fly by far too quickly.

Perhaps his broad appeal and accessibility is behind the fact that he has not only a gallery honoring his name, but a theatre, a car park and a shopping centre also.

I’d had “take family to the Lowry, Manchester” on my todo list tagged #rainyday for about 2 years. Perhaps like pretty much everyone, he appealed to me.  His ubiquitous, iconic street scenes are the ones people know – the matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs.  Everyone, especially people who’ve experienced a northern UK town can identify with these but I found the gallery and the introductory film and other supporting info, emblazoned on the red walls of the main gallery space a brilliant eye opener into his world.

There’s another side to his painting. The memorising piece entitled The Cripples is, on closer inspection a self portrait. His work was punctuated with break-away styles – abstracts, self portraits, Dark erotica.  He was always questioning what and why he was doing what he did. Driven almost by an invisible force. His whit and incisive perception, the subject matter typically being the people in the world around him but there was also an esoteric side to his art, and a window into his obsessive and occasionally dark self loathing.

I love the moment you can get in a gallery where you ‘own’ a piece of art. Just before getting told off for taking the above photo (of his Oil on Canvas called ‘Ann’) I had a moment of exclusivity with it. I was captivated. Standing in front of a painting, able to get as close as 1cm – sans spectacles – is something I love to do. To breath in the brush strokes and see every spec and crumb of paint. Incredible.

We didn’t even explore the theatre side of the gallery (arguably, the ‘main event’) but from what we saw, we all loved it.

Click here for a link to The Lowry official site»

Eirene, my lovely wife of 11 years yesterday morning asked where I thought we should go for our wedding anniversary meal. I immidiatly brought out the big guns: “William & Victoria? Drum & Monkey?” The text thread went quiet. An hour or two later she came back with the suggestion of “Sage Bistro I reckon looks nice xxx”

The thing that sold it for me was her “They do liver”. After my hilarious quip about wanting to eat out rather than having a delivery we settled on booking us an early bird slot for sub £15 for 3 courses. With the phrase “Is a bargain ever a bargain?” rattling round my head we rocked up. In this instance – I think – yes it was.

The whole experience was full of nice touches. Upon arrival, we ordered a glass of champagne a piece and as we were settling in they brought us a  taster of a piece of tender duck on a bed of asparagus (nice touch). I ordered the best mushroom soup I’ve ever had for starters whilst Eirene went for the  goats cheese parcel – prepped to perfection served with a crisp salad. For main, Eirene had a very generous portion of sea bass and I had the calf liver (obviously – Eirene can’t stand it so I never get to eat it at home) with bacon, onion gravy,  mash and veg which I washed down with Tempranillo .  Eirene’s side of chips (not pommes frites) – the kind of golden chips that you dream of when you are hungry for chips – were ace. Upon asking for some mayo – we were told “Sorry, we don’t stock mayo – we like to make everything fresh – but I can ask chef to make you some” after a half hearted “oh no, don’t worry” a few minutes later Eirene was presented with a ramekin of freshly made mayonnaise (nice touch).

We both opted for the vanilla mouse with passion fruit topping. These were exquisitely and aptly presented in the shape of a love heart (nice touch – pictured above.). We were assured that there was no need to rush after we’d finished the meal – and to take our time finishing our bottle of red (nice touch). We topped it all off with a couple of espresso which were presented with some hand made chocolates (nice touch).

We’d heartily recommend this off the beaten track bistro to friends – a nice simple, intimate environment lacking pretension with happy attentive staff – service as well as the food – excellent. Only downside is their website – it just crashed my browser! Here’s the foursquare venue link instead.

A brilliant start to what turned into a really enjoyable evening. After eats, we went for a Long Island Ice Tea at Monteys followed by a quick look at the band playing The Blues Bar. The Hurricanes were playing. foot tapping 50s esque blues – coincidentally we’d just toyed with the idea of getting Hurricane cocktails in the prior bar. After that we caught up with our old friend Al, who was even older as he celebrates his birthday on the same day as our anniversary at The Regency. After darts, pints (TT Landlord)  and chats we stumbled home with big smiles about our noggins.

I think the big news of the day though has to be the Platinum – that’s 70 years – wedding anniversary of Eirene’s nana and grandad. Bravo.  An inspiration to us all!

Friday saw me and a friend popping out to a brand new pub in Harrogate. The Fat Badger on Cold Bath Road. I’d seen some noise on twitter about it along with rumour that it was a VIP ticket only launch. The power of social networking to find real-time information was proved to be hugely powerful – I put the question ‘out there’ and within minutes had on site live reporting from the venue itself. I found out it was a free for all so headed down.

Just before I got in there, I created an entity on foursquare and check in. (I’ve been getting increasingly obsessed with this new ish social media tool). It was rammed – like a new years eve without the countdown. Never the less, I battled my way to a gap in the bar flanks and got served after a wait – the staff we’re friendly and good – sympathising with us for waiting and properly keeping tabs on who to serve next ish (instead of letting us punters work out who’s next and not caring). The ale (and it touts itself as a real ale pub) looked to be a good selection. I had a Spitfire – a nice drop. The clientèle - There looked to be a hotelier and industry types and quite a few of the Harrogate ‘monied’ clique as well. I think there may have been a few drink tokens sloshing about, good PR move if that was the case.

Hard to tell what it’s really like as a pub under those conditions – but first impressions were good – as a real ale pub venue. Booth and group seating type arrangement with a big long bar, brightly lit and perhaps and if anything smacked of hotel bar bolt on, rather than that of a “real pub”. A strap line I saw proffering ‘everything a pub should be’ irked me somewhat – such a ubiquitous phrase conjurer up different things for different people. Shouldn’t this super-inclusive one size fits all concept be an amalgamation of the opinion of everyone on the matter in that case? Eg – music, dogs, real ale, a dart board, a snug, pies, fruit machines.. and ashtrays? etc. etc.? Mind you ‘everything we think a pub should be’ doesn’t work either. Anyhoo – semantics.

The kind of place I’ll look forward to going back to though. When the novelty wears off and the dust settles. We enjoyed a nice table outside on a warm evening and watched the world going by. A good summer haunt and I guess it’ll be a good cosy winter warmer venue. A nice quarter of town – The Blues Bar, Montpellier, Hales, the Bell Tavern and now The Fat Badger with club land just around the corner. Will there be any reason to go up the hill for a night out again?

Jaygo haircut before & after, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Jaygo asked me to give him a haircut. It’s been a while. He asked me to give him a haircut as he’s meeting the Mayor of Harrogate tomorrow and giving a presentation about his schools commitment to recycling. We have a deal when I’m cutting hair. He can play his Nintendo Playstation on a school night.

I’m quite pleased with the result. I can see my little boy again – I knew he was in there somewhere.

Sophie (aged four and eleven twelfths) just made made this using a google chrome app called Harmony.

We think it’s rather splendid. The artist goes on to say “Yes. I made it by my own but my brother helped me”

cake, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

We attended a 90th Birthday party last weekend. Eirene’s nana – who was 90 years young. Happy Birthday! Lovely evening / day / evening at Shrigley Hall near Manchester.

View a photo slide-show of the celebration»

View the album»

A traditional North Yorkshire Mummers Play

I saw a world that I didn’t know existed last night. Whilst sat having a quiet jar with a friend in the (Graeme) Swan on The Stray public house, we were ‘warned’ that there would shortly be a performance and we may not like it on the grounds that it may be “a bit loud”. We were told there was to be a ‘Mummers Play’ – some kind of “Medieval thing” and a profusion of pre emptive apologies were proffered. The up-coming performance was pre-empted along the same lines as if someone was about to enter with a small dog who takes a special interest in ones legs. The general ‘medieval, play and loud’ bits piqued our interest, so we decided to grab a ringside seat.

Several minutes later the show began. In comes the first player. A pitch of introduction, belted out at the top of the lungs by someone dressed in a top hat, a ‘blacked up’ face and dark suit covered in coloured rags. Over the course of the next few minutes, all of the players came into the pub in a similar vein. “IN COMES… ” and then their pitch. Intrigue, a sword fight and a back stabbing murder were the next events – quite outrageous for 8pm on a Tuesday evening in Harrogate! A unique spectacle of vintage surrealism. Some of our fellow patrons even put down their iPhones for a minute to passively observe this comedic spectacle.

I felt rather lucky to have been in the right place at the right time to have see this.  It certainly falls under the ‘you don’t see that every day’ category. I was quite amazed that others punters seemed to think of it as a bit of in imposition, an inconvenience at best. My friend Henry, who caught a later performance in the (Andy Flower) Coach & Horses also enjoyed it – he said “It’s nice to hop back a few hundred years during your pint! It reminded me of the mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream who do their own Mummers play.” He also noted the general apathy to get involved in this less accessible form of entertainment, which he summed up the patronage’s attitude with “Unappreciative and seemed narked at being distracted from thinking about their Audi’s”

I had a brief chat with one of the company after their performance and have subsequently done a little research – it seems the roots of The Mummers, although a little patchy, stems from the middle ages when troupes of actors used to perform a seasonal play to collect money from “The big houses” for charity. I am so pleased to see such a bizarre, obscure and quintessentially English tradition lives on and give this a  ’like – thumbs up’ in the traditional sense of the phrase.

More info & links

Catch The Knaresborough Mummers on tour! | link to their website»
See a video of the above described performance»
Read more about the history of this tradition»

Thanks to @RevDino for the photo

We’re chucking another log on it. Rehab, Boxing Day 9pm till 4am

We’re getting a few hundred FIRE branded 3D glasses made up, we’ve booked some top class DJ’s, they have been making and collecting some super-doop musics, we’ve been creating some head mashing 3D video and planning what lights, props, toys, tricks, boxes and bits to bring.

This time I’m hoping to capture it all on time-lapse – 12 hours or so from get in at 4pm ish to last orders at 4am. Quite excited about this one. I’m hoping to do two DJ sets – one early doors, chilled vibes, South American textured, heavy bass line stuff, then perhaps another set upstairs on the brand new booth later on – some right old funk and beats. Still not quite sorted the full line up upstairs, but downstairs looks like a doozie! Check out the facebook page for more intel. Hope to see you there!

Got round to getting broadband ordered at DragonDrop Centraal. Went with Virgin cable. We’ve had a T-Mobile ‘broadband’ dongle now for nearly the full terms of it’s 18 month contract and it’s been the most frustrating, next to useless, over priced, temperamental, erratic and downright grr bit of kit I’ve ever invested in. I’ve been counting down the months so that I could get a decent connection again (commercial sensibilities prevented me from having two active contracts running at the same time.) I was sold a prize stallion but by the time we’d left the stable, he’d turned into a lame donkey.  I’ve tried to get it to be a bit more broadbandish and failed. I’ve had the conversations with support and tried x, y and z. I’ve scoured the internet for answers and failed to get anything close to the utopian service that was described at point of sale. It shouldn’t be allowed to be called a Broadband dongle as it’s very misleading in my humble opinion. Something more akin to a Flawedband™ dongle would be a more apt moniker although not quite as marketable. Shame, because every other aspect of T-Mobile has been brilliant for me over the many years I’ve been a customers.

In readiness of a blistering pipe of information into the house, I’ve spent the last two nights deep cleaning my main machine at home. It’s been running like a sloth and had a virus apparently. Defragging, removing and moving junk around, that sort of thing. I’ve worryingly picked up an occasional blue screen of death problem though. Hope I haven’t done anything drastic. I’m currently trying to update windows over the t-mobile Flawedband™ dongle which could take a while. It seems that once you’ve started an update, there’s no turning back.  Well back to it I guess..

FIRE 50 photo set on flickr

What an innings. x 50 FIRE parties. Officially half centurions. I am the only person who has attended every minute of all of them (Allan nearly has, but he had to chip off early from one a few years ago as his better half went into labor – pathetic excuse if you ask me.)

What a party the 50th was. We were the official after party to the Harrogate Fringe festival – which itself was brilliant fun from what we saw. The set up for this FIRE, even though we were in a smaller space was way bigger than it normally was. We decided to go on the slightly smaller top floor and have it as more of a VIP party – wristbands and guestlist. It worked. Such a nice atmosphere in there. Those that were there had made an effort to get in there and as a result, it was spot on.

Only downside was that Dharma was away – playing a festival in France (again, pathetic excuse) – but we got old fave Craig Cameron in to fill the void and fill it he did. Loved his set. Len and Jimmy on the sax and trumpet were on top form as well and I had a right good bash on the congas for quite a while. All the other DJ’s were also superb – including new boy Nick Wakefield who did the tricky 4 – 6am slot.

Bottom Of The Bottle downstairs was so complimentary to our gig – and vice verca – I’m surprised we haven’t done it before! We declared the v’s bit and official draw. A second test is on the cards.

Looking forward to the next one – a new invigoration of enthusiasm has come about us – probably something to do with the milestone, something to do with the new format we tried out, something to do with it being such a top fun good times great songs ninety seven point two.

See the set of photos from the night here>>

Here was the mid punk gig raffle last Friday. Yes, you read that right. A raffle at a punk gig. Henry (featured in the hat) had the idea to have; a birthday party, 5 bands, cake, 4 DJ’s all to feature on the same night.

What a success! £524.60 for Médecins Sans Frontières was raised on the night. This is going towards Henry’s total, for when he does his next trick – runs 110 miles across The Cleveland Moors in September.

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