Sweet Time by Leonard Cohen

by Ian on January 29, 2012

How sweet time feels
when it’s too late

and you don’t have to follow
her swinging hips

all the way into
your dying imagination

From ‘Book of Longing

51HZCU4VBKL. SL160  Sweet Time by Leonard Cohen

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Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

by Ian on November 11, 2011

The Gate Arts and Community Centre is definitely quite a strange venue for a Throwing Muses gig – a  converted 19th Century Prebytarian Church in Roath, Cardiff with many fixtures and fittings still in place. Main theatre/hall is on the first floor:

thegatecardiff Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

The Gate set up for the Throwing Muses, 8th November 2011

Quite small and intimate venue, capacity of around 300, I think. Great little Cafe Bar on the ground floor with many bottled real ales, so no complaints there. We took the wrong route up to the hall – ended up going up in a lift and emerging in the band’s ‘backstage’ room (behind the door to the left of the stage in the picture) amongst Kristin Hersh and the band icon smile Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

The piano in the picture is not for the Muses but for their support act Teitur, a singer-songwriter from the Faroe Islands. Very laid back with long, meandering chats between his songs. Stayed sitting on a pew for his set, but there was no way I wanted to remain there for the Muses and moved to the floor. Only complaint is that the stage is very low – not easy to see over the heads, too old to push my way to the front!

throwingmuses1 Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

Throwing Muses on stage at The Gate, Cardiff

Set list the Throwing Muses played was

Soul Soldier
Shimmer
Garoux Des Larmes
Speed and Sleep
Bright Yellow Gun
Start
Shark
Hazing
Tar Kissers
Say Goodbye
Limbo
Furious
Vicky’s Box
Bea
[Encore]
Hate My Way
Pearl
Mania

On stage for about an hour and a quarter, excellent performance which got better as it progressed, but would have liked longer icon sad Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff From the sound point of view, musically all very sharp but from where I was standing Kristin’s vocals could have been a little more prominent, again particularly for the first few songs.

throwingmuses2 Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

Kristin Hersh

Few more pictures – quality not too brilliant I’m afraid – small camera, dark venue, audience in the way!

throwingmuses3 Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo

throwingmuses4 Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

Kristin Hersh, David Narcizo, Bernard Georges

throwingmuses5 Throwing Muses at The Gate, Cardiff

Throwing Muses, The Gate, Cardiff, 8th November 2011

 

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Throwing Muses

November 3, 2011

Fantastic that Throwing Muses are touring again. Will be going to More on this later!

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Snowdrops by A. D. Miller

November 1, 2011

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011, which was ultimately won by Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending - deservedly! Snowdrops, like Barnes’ novel, is not a long book. I thought it was quite a surprising Booker nomination – fairly predictable story, simply written and pleasant to read, but I couldn’t find any real depth or [...]

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Wages by D.H. Lawrence

October 19, 2011

Browsing through a book of poems by D.H. Lawrence last night and came across this, which I’m sure I’ve read before and forgotten about. It may suit the ethos of this site! Wages The wages of work is cash. The wages of cash is want more cash. The wages of want more cash is vicious [...]

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Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy

October 13, 2011

It’s been quite a long time since I read any of Kafka’s novels. Metropole by Hungarian author Ferenc Karinthy was a timely reminder that I probably should revisit them. A central character thrust unawares into an unidentifiable situation and left isolated and lonely floundering for explanations. That’s The Trial and that’s Metropole. Rather than being embedded in the pseudo-legal [...]

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Morrissey, refusing the spectacle

October 3, 2011

Morrissey, refusing the spectacle Very rarely even see a bit of ‘The One Show’, but I do remember this appearance by Morrissey Some choice moments from Morrissey’s appearance this evening on the mind-numbingly banal One Show. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to ask Morrissey, proud job-shirker, for advice on finding a job [...]

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Amazon bookmark

May 26, 2011

New Amazon customised bookmark: http://amzn.to/directbook Now, everyone start using it!

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New users

April 20, 2011

Suddenly got a flurry of new users registered on this blog. Who are you? Spam or genuine – make a comment somewhere so I can see!

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SETI@home

April 8, 2011

Just started contributing to seti@home again after a long break of nearly five years (I think!). Need to look into what other distributed computing projects are now up and running using the BOINC client. Must be some other worthwhile ones! Posted via Blackberry and http://nntk.net/ – Posted By ianam to ianam on blogger on 4/08/2011 [...]

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