I Actually Don’t Mind Being Thirty-Two (feat. Leith Tape Club & Overtime)
By Milo | October 4, 2009
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, because I’ve been really busy at work, and with getting other shit sorted, which is pretty annoying as I’ve got loads of things to post – so hopefully the frequency will increase a bit in the next wee while.
I turned 32 on Thursday, not the most momentous age, but evidence that time waits for no man, and that while I mess about trying to work out what I’m doing with my life, time is ticking on. Still, compared to how I felt when I turned 30, I felt pretty good this year.
Night Out – Overtime & The Burgh
I didn’t even celebrate my 30th birthday, so down in the dumps was I, but this year I had a brilliant laugh. The picture above is from a birthday card kindly made for my by my pals Sharon and Colin, who joined me and a bunch of others for ‘Overtime’ at the Electric Circus, expertly DJed by DJ B Burg (I believe) and my pal John-Paul Mason (who does a show on Leith FM every Sunday) with just the right mix of cheesy classics and er.. very fucking cheesy classics. And yes, I even danced to Simply fucking Red. Before that we went for a meal at Vittoria’s with our friends Danny, Ruth, Laura and Alison and met a bunch of other people at Edinburgh’s best karaoke dive bar, The Burgh for a feast of ridiculous karaoke and dancing and fun was had by all.
Spotify Playlist inspired by the night:
Thirty Fuckin Two, where have the years gone?
Leith Tape Club – Men Diamler, Animal Magic Tricks & Ian McKelvie (The Colourful Band)
In order to try to retain some of my musical credibility (ok I’ve probably failed..) on my actual birthday Mel and I went to the Leith Tape Club (which is organised by Fence Collective member Little Pebble) to see Men Diamler and Animal Magic Tricks, in one of the most intimate settings ever seen for a live gig, in a wee room above the otherwise unassuming Iso Bar. Also playing was Ian McKelvie of the Colourful Band, who I’ve not seen before.
It’s not every gig you go to where each latecomer is greeted personally by the performer in between songs, but when we arrived to an extremely hushed room, Ian said hello to us and others who arrived after. He went on to play a delicate set that had the select crowd of not much more than 30 people transfixed. Then, the beguiling Frances Laura Donnelly aka Animal Magic Tricks played a strange and wonderful set that was unfortunately plagued by a few technical problems, meaning that a song about the sex scene in Don’t Look Now came to an abrupt halt just as it was about to come to a dramatic (and no doubt satisfying) climax.
Men Diamler was trying out some new material too, having just written, in ridiculously prolific fashion, 35 tunes in the previous week – and some of it was dark and horrifying, and some of it was daft and dramatic – and the poor man seemed exhausted by the effort, but then as a peformer there’s very few who put in as much effort as him as the below youtube video shows. So all in all, it was a bloody good birthday!
5 Comments
Nine on 04/10/2009 at 4:58 pm.
Happy belated!
Milo on 04/10/2009 at 5:03 pm.
Cheers Nine
Nick on 04/10/2009 at 8:22 pm.
Sorry I missed it Milo. Had to be in work early doors on Saturday so it would probably have been unwise to reach the state of drunkenness required to sing along with Mick Hucknall…
Milo on 04/10/2009 at 8:41 pm.
Perfectly understandable Nick. Really no amount of drunkeness can excuse for the Hucknall faux pas. I think there were only two of us dancing, everyone else treated it with the contempt it deserved…
Ian McKelvie on 12/01/2011 at 5:30 pm.
Hi Milo,
thankyou for this amazing snippet of reviewing.
I enjoyed meeting you in person at Matthew and Kates
All best for 2011 !
Ian
ps am trying to link you on our blog but am a computer numpy
Ian McKelvie´s last blog ..2011 – onwards