Halloween, Hiking and Hilariously Good Music

Last one is a bit of a stretch but you know, alliteration is cool.

My building had a Halloween party back a few weeks ago and everyone at the University of Kent showed up. Was pretty decent fun until some drunk ass who lives downstairs threw one of our meticulously carved pumpkins out his window, breaking both it and the pumpkin and getting OUR flat (not his, mind you) in trouble - one more offense and we collectively pay 150 pounds. Lame.

That aside, it was a happening shindig...some pictures:
That's Sandy as Beast from X-Men and myself. You can't really see the towel or half-shaved face, but I was "Just getting out of the shower." I'm cheap and the costume cost me 0 pounds.
The girls as the Four Seasons - bet you can't guess which one is which! Note the flowers in the background which have been dead for a solid month.

Two weeks ago my friend Evan from UVM, who happens to be studying in Brighton for the semester, decided to pay a visit. I showed him around Canterbury - the cathedral, the pubs, some hiking, the pubs and...the pubs. In fact, the hike we took was from a book called "Pub Walks in Kent," so we really covered all the bases on his visit. The pic is Evan, Sandy and myself on our 8 mile pub walk from Wye, around through the King's Wood (a medieval royal hunting ground) through what was basically a cul-de-sac with a pub passing itself off as town and back to Wye, though we got a ride back there after a couple of pints, the last mile and a half not sounding all that appealing considering night was falling. Despite it being a strangely pub-less "pub walk" (only two!), it was gorgeous and we saw lots of great old churches and sheep. All in all, a successful day and visit, Evan leaving the next night after the obligatory Cathedral trip.

Before coming to England I was perusing the London concert lineup and saw that Thrill Jockey Records was having a 15th Anniversary party at Koko in Camden Town, North London. Considering Califone, a newfound favorite of mine, were playing (along with The Sea and Cake, another great band, The Fiery Furnaces, who I'm not so fond of, and a slew of bands I'd never heard before) I figured it would be worth the 15 pound price of admission and booked a hostel and bus ticket. Unfortunately, no one else shared my enthusiasm for relatively obscure psychedelic folk bands so I made the trip solo - which wasn't nearly so depressing as it sounds.

My dad gave me his "old" digital camera for my nine months in England and, low and behold, it can take video! I am now going to attempt to upload videos I took of the concert to this blog - cross your fingers, here goes...

Didn't work, I guess the video file type is different than those compatible with blogger.com. I might try and post them on YouTube and if that works I'll link them here. In the mean time, here is Horoscopic Amputation Honey, my favorite Califone song which they just so happened to open with: http://www.mediafire.com/?2lolpxx1ed4

Downloading from there should be self-explanatory, so enjoy.


This is Daniel Higgs and a woman who was playing violin with him for this show. I had tried getting into him before the show but failed and, while he wasn't BAD live, I still can't imagine throwing him on while doing pretty much anything. Basically it's just him singing hilariously overwrought poetic lyrics in a dramatic voice over banjo plucking with the occasional string backing. Kinda cool, but mostly just silly, especially considering how serious he took it. Still, not the worst opening band I've ever seen."Radians, from Vienna" as the bassist pointed out at the end of their set. I knew nothing of these guys going in and they blew me away with their really evil, noisy electro-jazz. Pretty out there and dark; imagine R2-D2 having a bad acid trip. Dudes could play too, the drummer especially. Not pictured between Daniel Higgs and Radians are The Zincs who were boring, sucky rock I didn't bother taking a picture of.

Arboretum, who have backed Will Oldham (folk singer you should totally listen to) and recorded with his older brother Paul, of whom I know nothing. They were slow, plodding rock but with some very awesome guitar solos. Also the lead singer kind of looked like David Grohl. I had heard a song of theirs before so expected pretty good things from them and they did not disappoint, though by the end I was just waiting for them to clear the stage to make room for...

Califone! Shown above playing "One" which is the 45 second feedback/keyboard piece that segues into HAH which I uploaded for you above. They were everything I hoped they would be, and was only disappointed by the length of their set, but considering there were eight bands playing, I expected that. Great setlist, great music, entirely worth the trip.

Finally came The Sea and Cake, who I like but don't love and were surprisingly rocking considering how mellow their studio stuff feels. All are accomplished musicians and the crowd was very into them so that helped me enjoy their set. The drummer played like mad, I was really impressed (I think he also plays in the amazing pseudo-jazz group Tortoise who blew my friends and I away at this year's Bonnaroo fest). I have a Sea and Cake album on my computer so here's a track by them for those interested ... http://www.mediafire.com/?6ld1gwhuv0m

Trans Am came on next and weren't very good and since I didn't care much for the closing band/headliner (The Fiery Furnaces) I left a bit early, still having enjoy a solid six and a half hours of music. I spent the next day before my 5pm bus wandering around the City Museum of London and the Natural History Museum, which had dinosaurs:


Dinosaurs! Need I say more?

All in all, great weekend, and being alone was fairly liberating, being able to wander the museums at my own pace and do whatever it was I wanted to do. What can I say, I'm a loner by nature. People are fine, but going off by myself feels very comfortable. That said, I'm heading on another trip with the Mountaineering Club next weekend to Wales with a bunch of folks (after having to cancel a trip to visit an old football buddy in Ireland this weekend due to lack of funds...) so that should be fun/social, and you can expect the next post to be about that. Until then, www.vermontcynic.org should have my new article up, click B-Side and wander around there, my bi-weekly column is called "A-Broader View" (which is what this blog SHOULD be called, if someone else wasn't just as clever before me) and this week is one of my favorite pieces I've done, if I do say so myself.

Keep reading and, in this case, listening!