Back fae Hydro Connect

Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it. Connect, I want to do it all again.

Hydro Connect

I shall be a guest of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll again this weekend, for it is once more time for Hydro Connect. Nothing too exciting with the music this year, except Sigur Ros, but there’s a really good crowd of us going so I’m really looking forward to it. As we speak, Sam and Nic are winging their way west, and I’ve just walked down to B&Q to get me some wellies (last year the mud was unbelievable). Bring it on!

2 weeks till Connect

Just 2 weeks to go till Hydro Connect. Can’t wait, there are tons of us going this year. Tent hasn’t seen the light of day since France last year so figured it would be a good idea to let it breathe while Kat’s still away. Just hope I don’t break it when I come in tonight. Maybe heading to Death Disco at the Arches, should be a laugh. Love Glasgow.

I drew a turkey

Because on Sunday, I’m going there. I’m going to help take a Digital Communications and DSP for FPGAs course, to a satellite modem company (yup, more satellites). Bit daunted to begin with, seeing as I’m presenting a course I’ve never done before, but had a week to swat up and really looking forward to it now. Plus, the weather forecast looks amazing, I’m flying business class, and the hotel doesn’t look too shabby!

Tomorrow night is Radiohead on Glasgow Green. Can’t wait, it’s gonna be amazing. Bat For Lashes supporting too, which I’m really looking forward to. More face reviewing.

Matthew Dear’s Big Hands

Going to see Matthew Dear and his Big Hands tonight in Stereo. Expect some more double blogging and face reviewing with Bobby J.

Cancelled, bugger.

Last Graph

Well done Bobby J, or someone from his work, for finding this, cos it’s well cool. Bit more graph porn for the geek in me, click to get big… Plots my listening habits on last.fm for the last year-ish. Interesting. Check it out here.

The Sauchiehall Crawl

Bobby J and I went to see some music last night, The Sauchiehall Crawl, which was a kind of mini festival taking place in 3 venues on Sauchiehall Street. We had a few too many beers for a school night, enough to attempt throwing Bobby J’s camera across a train track, and to purchase King Rib. Filth.

Anyway, Bobby J came up with a genius idea for reviewing the gigs, this one might be a grower. We took photos of ourselves after each band we saw, trying to make a face showing what we’d thought. I’m now going to try to decipher Bobby J’s feelings, and he’s going to do mine.

Michael Jackson’s Masseef Hand

This made me chuckle. It can also get filed under geek, cos it’s a bit of nifty image processing.

His thrusting makes me feel really, really uneasy.

Bagad Kemper

Absolutely genius concert last night, Ruthy and I went to see Bagad Kemper at the Royal Concert Hall, playing as part of the Celtic Connections Festival. It was brilliant. Bagad Kemper are a Breton pipe band, so the obigatory pipes, as well as guitar, drums, sax (!), binioux and bombardes (I think these are the little pipe things they were playing). They played along with the Clan Gregor Society Pipe band, Scottish piper Fred Morrison (he was pretty darn impressive, and supposedly a total legend) and gaelic singer Julie Fowlis, who I really like. Julie Fowlis is amazing. She’s so fit, and she’s got an amazing voice. So anyway, at times there were probably like 100 people up on stage all playing together, incredible. Highlight was definitely everyone playing one of Julie Fowlis’ songs, Hug Air A Bhonald Mhoir, all together. It’s a great song at the best of times, and seeing it backed by 2 pipe bands and everything else was brilliant. It was so good they played it twice.

Ooh, and this was quite funny, here’s a quote from the Celtic Connections program…

“Bagad Kemper’s massed binioux, bombardes and bagpipes square up to the 40-strong Clan Gregor Society Pipe Band, accompanied by Brittany’s Bernard Le Dréau (saxophones) and Erwan Volant (guitars/bass).”

This is funny cos they had a guitar player and a bass player playing with them, and they were both called Erwan Volant. I like how they only put the name in once, even tho there were 2 different guys.