Have I tried to quit using and found that I couldn’t?
Well, my musical mojo has been revitalised by a lovely weekend seeing bands in Glasgow and Newcastle, DJ’s in Newcastle, and friends in Glasgow, Newcastle and Cumbria. And I’ve been taking photos, sticking them up on “Facey”, and people have being saying nice things about them (although the trick seems to be to take about 250 photos and see if you get 4 or 5 good ones). And I think this blog needs a kick up the arse. At the moment, I’m ploughing through the Narcotics Anonymous “Steps Working Guides”, and it feels like a bit of a slog and a rather too-personal exercise, in a bad, navel-gazing sort of way. My intention was to go through the whole book, but at the current rate, we’ll be on it in 2011. So, I’m going to finish Step 1, maybe missing out some questions, trying to be a bit punchier, and we’ll review it at the end of that chapter. OK readers?
The Glasgow gig was actually a little outside Glasgow, in Darvel, Ayrshire, at the Darvel Homecoming festival. The theme of the festival seemed to be the niceness and warm-heartedness of the organisers, from the moment they personally emailed me and told me my ticket would be waiting for me, to the incredibly friendly welcome when I arrived, and then band after band saying how well they had been treated. Apparently there’s home cooking for all performers instead of a fiver and being pointed in the direction of the chip shop. The whole thing has an atmosphere of local friendliness and I can’t recommend this festival highly enough.
The name “Dropkick” is one I’ve seen floating around the Teenage Fanclub messageboards and other similar web places, but for whatever reason the band has passed me by until Friday night when I saw them play Darvel. Consisting of 2 brothers and 2 non-brothers, they are a Scottish alt-country power pop band and were just really rather good in that relaxed diffident way that very talented people are. Here’s a photo I took (for once!) and the track “Obvious”, which seemed be my thought about today’s question from the NA literature. I’ll be writing more about the festival over the coming days. Eager fans of factual accuracy can in the meantime read this speedily produced and handy review.
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Tags: alt-country, blog, Darvel, Dropkick, festival, glasgow, higherpowermoment.com, Narcotics Anonymous, power pop, powerlessness, scotland, step 1, Teenage Fanclub