Breeding Fun

Kevin and I went to see The Breeders last night. Silke drove us to the venue, Blackheath Hall, with Clare's navigational help. We met Silke's friend Dave outside the venue, and Helen joined us later on when the support band had already left their unengaging music behind.

The best surprise of the night was running into adrasteah and yaruar. After a couple of Breeders songs, I turned to Kirsten and said that it was really cool watching a gig with her and Nick. And it really was until a group of eager guys split us in half. Later, one of those guys tapped me on the shoulder and said "I don't mean to be an asshole, but can you move to the side? You are blocking my view of the stage." Was he not aware that he was at a gig?!? Meanwhile, some guys in front of us kept screaming at the stage "4AD! 4AD!", which must be the first time hecklers call out a record label's name at the band.

The Breeders were very unassuming. They play the kind of gig where you can show up with whatever clothes you were wearing during the day, no matter how old and dirty. The fact they were playing to a crowd seemed like a surprise to themselves; they kept sharing little happy smiles, as well as dorky jokes with the audience. I caught Kelly Deal mouthing a conversation with someone in the front, where she told the person to open their mouth and sing like "Waaaaaaaah" to the song.

An unknown man sang with Kim Deal during a track I didn't recognize, and two ladies kept joining them on stage for backing vocal, violins and banter. I could imagine them packing up their instruments afterwards and heading for the nearest pub.

In rock, give me a woman in jeans, sweater, a big glass of vodka and coke in hand, a cigarette in her mouth, and a sense of humour. You might think you can't sell her to me, but that's exactly what I want, and nothing else.

Oh, and give me a drummer who looks like he could be in I.T.

The Meaning of the Word

They say that King Frederik was away at Elsinore. They say that Queen Sofie, when she was young and before she had begun her habit of scolding and cursing and hoarding money, loved to be rowed in a little boat to this island and there sit in the sunshine and indulge in secret in her passion for knitting. This activity had been proscribed throughout the land as tending to induce in women an idle trance of mind, in which their proper thoughts would fly away and be replaced by fancy. Men called this state 'woolgathering'. That the wool itself could be fashioned into useful articles of haberdashery such as stockings or night bonnets made them no less superstitiously afraid of the knitting craze. They believed that any knitted night bonnet might contain among its million stitches the longings of their wives that they could never satisfy and which in consequence would give them nightmares of the darkest kind. The knitted stocking they feared yet more completely as the probable instrument of their own enfeeblement. They imagined their feet becoming swollen and all the muscles of their legs beginning to grow weak.

- from Music & Silence, by Rose Tremain