This and That

A week ago today, I went to Lucy O'Brien's book talk in a very swanky club off Shaftesbury Avenue; Lucy has just published the book Lead Sister, a biography of the wonderful and tragic Karen Carpenter. I'm looking forward to getting hold of a copy and reading it. Travis Elborough who was interviewing Lucy said he was moved to tears at the end of the book, so it's obviously a must-read. Here's the review in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/05/karen-carpenter-singer-myth. It's on my list!

On Saturday, I went to The Moth Club in Hackney to see The Loft, supported by David Lance Callaghan. Although I know three members of The Loft, I haven't explored their recorded material in depth and it was a very pleasant surprise to hear what I'd describe as sunshine pop with a bite. The audience was absolutely with them 100% and it was touching to see a group of people I know getting such a positive response. David's set was wonderful too. The sounds was very good so you could fully enjoy the intricacy of his playing and as for his guest drummer... well, this is the second time I've seen the duo and that guy is a marvel. I think he must have trained in a marching band. Such manual dexterity and such perfect tempo. Wow.

And on Monday- what and extraordinary night! Because we've done an animation collaboration based on apples (here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jt42MokU30&t=85s), Joan invited me to see Matthew Herbert's night at Tate Modern. We heard a talk about the apple industry from an expert based at The British Library; the sound (and smell) of burning dried apples as fragrant smoke drifted across the auditorium; a talk about migrant fruit pickers from an expert journalist; music made from the picking, washing, sorting and distribution prices, and poem about fruit stickers. Finally, we were all invited to rub, tap and bite into the apples we'd been given at the outset. Names to follow- what a brilliant and inspiring night!

Yesterday, I spent two hours waiting in queues of 2000 people for Eurovision tickets. Whenever I got to the front of the queue, the computer said 'no', there were no tickets left and would I like to try something else, at which point I went to the beginning of the next 2000-person queue. Great publicity for Ticketmaster, I'm sure, but a monumental c*ck up, actually, and I was relieved to give up. They shouldn't have been given the ticket franchise.

On another talk, a late arrival at my art workshop yesterday drew such a realistic pencil that two of us tried to pick it up to put away at the end of the session! Trompe d'oeil extraordinaire!

An Happy Women's Day, too! https://soundcloud.com/mccookerybook/women-of-the-world