Strange Fruit's Ballboy gig 26/7/01

Hmm...perhaps. But thank you for the kind gesture though.

Ah well, Spearmint will probably never get paid more than £5 for one song so they might as well enjoy such a neat encapsulation of their economy.

I don't want any of you to go. Because I don't want any of you to laff (and I know you mean cruel persons will LAFF) at my ridiculous attempts to play an entire set of sugary girly dronepop (to prove certan persons wrong as to its nonexistence) without ever once resorting to Stereolab. Laugh at my efforts, I know that you will. Sigh.

I definitely will be there, a chance to see Kate's deck skillz cannot be refused ;-)

I'm afraid I won't be there this time, although I will be going to see Ballboy at the Point here in Oxford on Friday. The local music rag Nightshift describes Ballboy as being like Belle & Sebastian and the Wedding Present, which is an interesting combination.

Oh, you are going to laff at me. Sigh. I have no dek skillz. In fact, I have a huge temptation to just bring the Rocket Girl, Kranky and Spin Art compilation CDs, and set the CD player on random... heh.

i thought ballboy were like arab strap?

Oh dear... Kate doesn't know that DJ CD players don't have a 'random' setting! It's all 'Cue' 'Play' and 'Scratch'...

Anyway, Kate's on early, so get there around 8pm to see her in action. And the Belle and Sebastian meets The Wedding Present tag is very accurate indeed!

Oh, they're a bit like Arab Strap too, but infinitely more melodic.

Hey, I got a press release today which said that the Strange Fruit people were lovely people. Are you lovely people?

Really? From where?! That's weird...

We are lovely, I guess. Lovely or gullible, in all honesty. Depends which way you look at us!

Groovy groovy people! We're all... groovy groovy people...

Sorry, Paul will now kill me when he gets home. If he was even old enough to remember what that's a reference to.

I thought it was Tempertwig that sounded like Arab Strap. The only similarlity between Arab Strap and Ballboy are that they are both drunken rambling Scotsmen! Oh wait...

Alright Paul, I'm coming. Tomorrow will have to be another DG Big Day Out!

I Hate Scotland is like a less mumbly Arab Strap and therefore great. The rest of their stuff is like a less fey B+S.

"A less fey B+S" -> "Like B+S, only not".

Did anyone else parse this that way?

Ballboy are all PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. This is a fact.

I used to have a piece of paper signed 'Ballgirl' by Katy. This is also a fact.

Any band from Scotland who have spoken word bits in their songs must sound like Arab Strap. Lazy Rock Journo rule 1.

Any band from Scotland who have melodic bits in their songs must sound like Belle and Sebastian. Lazy Rock Journo rule 2.

Hey, I'm a lazy rock journo! Can I have my job at the NME now?

SOOOOOO...

I know some of you went. Go on, laugh at my DJ-ing Skillz. Extra points if you name the only boy that I played all night.

And what did you think of Ballboy and their intimate, acoustic, lights out cause they ran way overtime and the soundman turned off the PA and the stage lights set?

And the singer of the second band looked like the bastard offspring of Jason Pierce and Bobby G. Surely *that* can't go without comment, can it?

Bugger Bognor! We were going to go to Ballboy at the Point tonight but of course you know why we didn't. Oh for our lives to get back to normal.

Not only that, it looks as though I'm going to have to delegate my annual DJ "skillz" demonstration elsewhere, i.e. King's College Hospital summer "do" at Griffin Sports Club in Dulwich Village on the Friday before the Friday before the August Bank Holiday. Got my set list all set up but looks like my mate Chris Wilkinson (whom some of you might have seen on the BBC 10:00 News tonight, doing the same publicity schtick for the Caldecot Centre which I wrote for him in 1998 when I was still running the place) will have to deputise. Bit like getting Kenny Ball when you were expecting Dave Douglas, but never mind.

Ballboy...hmm...not bad, wouldn't mind seeing them again but I probably wouldn't buy anything by them. I had a nice time though, thank you all very much! :-)

Haha, thank you random thread time machine!

Ugh. Time machine really could have left that one be.

However, it was my first ever go at DJing. Good things were to come. And the lovely band turned out to be Black Neilson. I ended up reviewing all of their albums for various magazines.

I thought this was going to be a new thread claiming that this was a seminal event at which all the movers and shakers of our times were in attendance. It seemed a far-fetched idea.