Prepare yourselves. This is long. A memorable and highly eventful day.
Autumn draws on and with it the number of the gigs I attend increases. There are any number I want to see between now and Christmas. It's all a wonderful prospect.
That's for later, I rise early as I need to be at work and start teaching at nine. So I bathe and grab a bowl of rice crispies, drink a mug of tea, write what I can to post here later, and I'm out of here by eight, to take the 20 minute walk to work I've taken on weekdays for the best part of twelve years now, since I moved into this flat.
I still love teaching, which is extremely gratifying after doing this and only really this for thirty three years since graduating in 1990. I've been a manager too, during that time, teacher training too but teaching is the essence of what I do, and I'm glad I've cut out the middle man and have been back to the chalk face these last three years. Sorry that's a crass cliche, byt the analogy always makes me smile.
After my lessons, I share my face briefly in the staff room and then I'm out. As I said, I love teaching, but staff room and general office politics are a different matter. I have no interest in them this far down the line. I exchange banter and pleasantries with those I like and get on with, avoid getting drawn into tiget traps by those that I don't and I'm out and my time is my own by one.
I've got a few hours to kill before my gig this evening, but mostly it's about indulging myself. I pretty much know what I'm doing tomorrow in class. So I do a bit of window shopping. Grab a strawberry milk shake at Crepeaffaire in the Eldon Mall and exchange some pleasantries with the lovely ladies there. We go back a few months now. These are the moments that make your day. I would make a very good retired person.
I have a habit of going into a record shop every day if I can. there's always an element of risk in this manouvere, I tend to find myself walking out with new records more often than I should. More often than I should in terms of the floorspace of my flat never mind about my bank account.
Still it's a risk worth taking. As I walk into Reflex Records on Nun Street, just off The Mall, they're playing Rock The Casbah by The Clash. Some might knock The Clash but they don't know what they're talking about and should shut up frankly. There's no way of measuring how important this band were to so many. We'll never see a band like them in the UK again I'm afraid. Life is like like that. It moves on. But not completely for the likes of me. Who remember them from the time. When I was young.
Sure enough I leave Reflex with two records in a plastic bag. They are two for £22 so I manage to kid myself that I've got a good deal. Transangelic Exodus by Ezra Furman and Protector by Aoife Nessa Francis. Hardly albums that I need or have been having sleepless nights about owning. But records I know I like and will enjoy listening to. I take the short walk hime. What next.
I'll give the folks a call. I get the engaged dial. What this generally actually means is that either mum or dad have left one of the landline phones off the hook. It might be half a day or even as long as 24 hours before this is remedied. They're quite difficult to contact otherwise. My parents are fiercely proud and independent people an at 88 and 89 they have every right to be. It's a slight irritant for me, being in Newcastle while they are miles away. Down South in Canterbury. But it's something I have to live with. On with my day.
Off to the pool. I try to make a point of going every day if I can. It's not always possible. But today I've got myself. I buy a bottle of Lucozade. I know it's not remotely good for me but I'm going through an addicted phase and I like the sugar rush I get from a chug when I'm in the sauna and braving myself to dive into the ice pool.
Speaking of the ice pool, someone is grinning at me from it as I walk into the fitness centre this afternoon. He's a young Arab guy, I don't know him, but he remembers me. I covered a class for a colleague a few weeks ago and I must have made a few crap, silly jokes that have stuck in his memory.
He's grinning his head off but also wincing from the ice pool. It's properly icy today. Apparently it matches the air temperature out on the streets and that has dropped today. I ask him about his degree course which he's on now and which football team he supports. Man City he replies. I sniff and turn into the empty sauna. Man City! If you're going to be an Arab glory hunter you might as well support the club in the city you're actually living and studying in. How about Newcastle United? They're actually owned by the Saudi Arabian government and they're playing their first Champions League home fixture tonight. Against Paris Saint Germain. Kylian M'Bappe and all that..
Football. Oh that! Football has always featured in terms of things I liked and loved since I arrived in Nottingham from Zimbabwe as a pecocious, curly haired tot at six. My eyes were opened to the wonders of the game. Having no genuine geographic loyalties and attracted by the sideburns, socks rolled down and derring do centre forward appeal of Malcolm McDonald. I chose Newcastle. They've been crap mostly since, But I've stuck with them and being able to watch them occasionally when I could summon up the courage was a major factor in me moving here 15 years ago..
Now things have changed. If I do get a chance to see them, I will go immediately expecting them to win. They do most matches. Home and away. But they are owned by The Saudi Arabian government. That murderous, sportswashing regime. They are evil. And so in the eyes of some am I. For jumping around with my mates in Rosie's. Whenever they win a match on their inevitable journey toward imminent trophies. Anyhow tickets are gold dust these days. Every match is sold out.
I sit in the sauna considering this paradox. Hassan in the plunge pool is emitting loud shrieks but not using the escape route offered by the ladder in front of him.Another person enters the suina. A young blond beauty in a bathing suit. She deposits herself on the top shelf and we start to chat.
She's a charmer. A mother of two young children. Both at primary school in Jesmond. Though she's from Gateshead herself. Clearly going up in the world. She reminds me immediately of Billy Nomates in terms of her look and 'don't give a flying one' spleen. I warm to her immediately.
Her language turns the air of the sauna blue as she goes on about the fucking Tories and I join in with a bit of expressive swearing myself at the sorry state of our nation. Then after a few minutes in the plunge pool myself for muscle relief, which I've been told it's good for, I'm off and into Toon.
I head for Slaters and look at their belts. I've lost some weight recently and need some new ones. I don't like what they have on show so I make my way home and fashion a new belthole on my existing belt on one of the kitchen surfaces with a sharp knife and a pair of scissors. Not as easy a task as it sounds. Try it yourself. Still at least my trousers won't fall down as I'm making my way down the Quayside this evening.
While I'm doing this I put En Attendant Ana's Juillet on my record player. They're the band I'm seeing tonight. To apply easy labels they're wonderfully indie, drawing on many of the C86 tropes and stirring something a bit more futuristic into the pot, Stereolab meet early Wedding Present with something distinctly Gallic always on display. Their's is an enticing brew indeed.
Off out at last. Walking against the tide as the first black and white striped scarved and shirted Newcastle gather to enact through time honoured pre-match rituals. I stop for a quick dish at one of my most beloved retaurants. The French Quarter near the Arch at the end of the lengthy Westgate Road which traverses the city centre.
I adore The French Quarter. You're served by young, peachy keen waiting staff, (students mostly), with permanent ear to ear grins. Eternally happy because they know just how special the package the place offers is and feeding off the pleasure the experience offers. The ambience is impeccable.
As always it seems the place is fully booked. I'm offered one on of its few remaining spots on the bar. Chat away with a young barman with an attractive Scottish burr and cool manner. I have a chicken casserole, trust me, it was more than just a chicken casserole. I'm on my way once more with a happy glow about me. The evening gathers momentum.
I've still got some time so I stop off for a pint at The Crown Posada. One of the reasons I've got much more energy is that I've stopped drinking almost completely. It's worked wonders frankly. For my body and soul.
But in the case of Crown Posada I'll generally make an exception. Theres' nothing quite like half an hour within its walls. The second oldest pub in the city, defined by its narrowness and fabulous hisrorical mien, fashioned by its pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows. You can't help but allow your heart to open in awe at the wonders that life has on offer.
I get in a conversation with a remrkably cool young lady on the neighbouring table with her hair up in a fetching fifties bun. She has such an air of impressive sophistication about her. She's Catalan. We agree on what an incredibly special, wonderful bar this is. She's kind enough to be aware that my interest has been piqued by the hand rolled cigarette she's clasping and hand it to me.
She gives it to me as her drinking companion returns and we wish each other well and I head out once more. Into the night for my walk along the ghostly, barely populated Quayside, the climb into the hills and graceful descent into the Ouseburn Valley. The walk that's become something of a rite as I've taken it so many times. This year in particular.
This particular walk is particularly memorable and frankly eerie. I'll never forget it. Because tonight I'm accompanied by the sound of the crowd from the St.James stadium the best part of a mile away. It's as clear as crystal. As church bells on a Sunday summoning the faithful to the morning service. It feels like the sound of a giant rousing itself from slumber. It fills my heart and it lifts me and I'm carried by it into Ouseburne and up the steep stoney staircase to The Cumberland Arms my end destination.
The Arms is already gull of vivid, folky life as it always is by this point in the evening. Revellers in the front bar, fiddlers jamming in the back room. Upstairs, young indie types are gathered for the evenings entertainment and pretty soon the first act are onstage and launching into their set. Glasgow quartet Sulka. And it's immediately clear that not only are they really good but that it's going to be a great evening.
Glasgow guitar bands are immediately met by the imposing legacy of their city's glorious musical past. As soon as they play a note or burst into song the listener, if your immersed in this stuff as I am, can't help but think. 'Ah Orange Juice,' or else 'Teenage Fanclub' or 'Belle & Sebastian' and so on. It's a straitjacket as much as a liberating factor.
But it's immediately clear that Sulka are aware of these potential pitfalls and are plotting their own course. Their set, mostly made up of selections from their recent album Distractions is diverting, unpredictable and highly enjoyable. If they remind me of anyone it's probably The Delgados. And that as high as my compliment go. I'll come back to them on here and consider them in greater depth in the coming days.
Sulka's singer Lukas Clasen and impossibly thin and lanky youth in an impressive bobbed haircut, thanks us for coming rather than to the football match that is taking place elsewhere. I imagine many of the other people in the room with me don't give a flying one about that, but I confess I do. I check my phone. Wonder of wonders Almiron has just put Newcastle one goal up. My night gets better and better.
Twenty minutes later Sulka's set is over and has been really well received. I have a brief chat with Lukas and say how great they are and why I think that is. I know I'm potentially a slightly annoying type but he doesn't seem to mind. Anyway Dan Burn has just scored a second at Sr James Park and nothing is going to burst my bubble.
These intimate gigs are great in that you spot interesting looking individuals wandering around and then suddenly they just step onstage and start playing and singing for you. That happens now. An imposing an incredibly attractive and healthy looking woman with long dark, flowing hair and broad shoulders steps to the mic and starts playing with her band, Nana Kino.
They surge into a dark independent anthem, somewhere between Throwing Muses, the Banshees and The Cocteau Twins. When that's done they're into the next. It's immediately obvious they're incredibly proficient, journeymen musicians. And I mean that as a compliment because this takes endurance and toil, hours of rehearsals and practice. And it's done not with any real anticipation of monetary reward but really just for the sheer joy of the exercise. I've got a lot of respect for people like this.
The band appear to be in the early days and have some kind of connection with Maximo Park, one of the better local bands of recent years. Their singer Sarah Suri, apart from being a very striking looking woma,n has one hell of a voice; one part Grace Slick, one part Siouxsie, one part Liz Fraser.
If I could give them any advice I'd suggest they stretch their songs out to achieve their natural range and scope and fulfil their potential power. And develop their rapport between songs. They seem to be selling themselves slightly short. But they're great nevertheless.
Newcastle are 3-1 up now so I can give what's going on here my full attention. It deserves it because great though what we've seen so far has been, what comes next is truly special. As soon as Nana Kino depart, the stage a group of five or six suave hip looking people descend on it and busily set about unpacking and setting up they're gear.
Of course these people are En Attendant Ana I realise. They're just so French. There's no other way of putting it. There was immediately an air apart about them as I saw them chatting away together on a downstairs table. That moustache on the guitarist kneeling on the stage directly in front of me. No Englishman could grow a moustache like that. We just don't know how. Pretty as English women are and they can certainly get damned pretty, they just don't give up the sveldt guile that Margaux Bouchadon exudes as she fiddles with her cool mini keyboard set up mid stage.
I'm sorry, I wonder if you can say these things anymore . But En Attendant Ana's trump card is their 'Frenchness' and when they start playing its immediately clear that they're very, very special indeed, that they need to be seen live to be appreciated in full. And that they're riding their wave right now.
I can't take my eyes off them and neither can the rest of the small audience upstairs at The Cumberland Arms.En Attendant Ana are not just a band that do that Stereolab Exotica Motorik thang, add some Indie pinches and stir with Gallic seasoning. They're a band that are enjoying their moment. If you have the sense you were born with, cotton onto it and enjoy.
Like all great bands enjoying their moment they're a treat to watch. They function as a team and their efforts combine to employ the ultimate cliche like poetry in motion. listen to latest record Principia, and you'll get some idea where they're at.
A couple of their players stand out. tonight The moustachioed Maxence Tomasso is their dynamo. A fluid and frantic player, he paces the floor on the stage right in front of me like a class midfield playmaker, (ah football again) waiting his moment to spring the offside trap and put his striker in on goal.
Meanwhile Bouchadon is a star. An enchanting performer with grac in spades. The band are set up to spotlight her charms and she knows exactly what to do. The audience are soon in the palm of her hand.
The crowd adore them. Frankly they could play on and on, but there's clearly some kind of curfew in play. They leave us with a truly lovely version of that truly lovely tune, I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day the traditional that the Pogues brought to life. And we're done.
I make my way home aglow. It's been a day apart. One that I'll remember for a long, long time. Most likely forever. It was a day when everything fell into place. In town the bars are filled with sated, glowing Newcastle United fans. The match finished 4-1. Don't talk to them right now about sportswashing. They're enjoying the moment. Magic in the night.
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