Mark Eitzel at the Lousiana

I’ve never tried to write a review of a gig before, but something has happened to compel me to do so: the arrival of one my favourite artists, Mark Eitzel, at one my favourite Bristol venues, the Louisiana.

In case you didn’t know, Mark Eitzel is a singer/song writer in his own right and with the band The American Music Club. His work is hard to categorise, it has been on the verge of many styles but is never quite formulaic enough to fall into any particular one. You can find rock, folk, emo, country and many others on just one recording. Regardless of musical style, the songs are connected by musings on the themes of loneliness, love and alcohol.

Alone on stage Mark Eitzel is something of a paradox, he seems to bare his soul to sing his beautifully crafted songs, with the emotion behind them still strong, you might even say, still raw. This is despite the fact that he has been singing them for so long, for at least 16 years as one fan in the audience reminded him. Yet between songs, he is almost, and you may not of heard this term used in conjunction with comparable acoustic angst meisters; jolly. He even laughs and stops in the middle of a song to announce ’sorry but this [guitar] is so out of tune’ he resumes the song, in tune, at exactly the point, to the word, where he left off.

The set list is a good one, scratch that, it’s awesome, he includes the American Music Club greats new and old, which are of course his own, and there are a lot of them. He is generous to the crowd, often stringing songs together without a break, and abridging songs to ensure his complete works are represented. The lyrics are often subtly changed, and that’s refreshing to hear, it distinguishes the performance from some of other bands I’ve seen recently, whose on stage performances seem more like recitals.

Despite sharing the same lead singer, and songs, this is a very different show to an American Music Club Gig, as a band they are so polished and together they can build a wall of sound so substantial, it will leave you, and I’ll steal some lyrics here, reeling “like the hub caps of of a car that crashed into a sign that says this
way to the night club.” I preferred the solo treatments of the older (California era) songs, at the Louisiana there was a little more gravity to them, closer to the originals than the faster live versions I’ve heard recently.

The audience at the Louisiana was tiny, much less than it would have been a while ago, and far far less than a writer of this caliber deserves, but I would guess for most of the people there, that was a good thing, we could really hear the songs, there was almost no need for the amps. Before the closing song a typically humble Mr Eitzel says ‘Thanks for coming’, and you know what? I was thinking exactly the same thing.

Snowboard Survival

Its the winter season again, and for the umpteenth time I’ll be heading to the mountains to get an all too brief boarding fix. This time though I’m older, marginally wiser, and proficient enough to spend more time off piste

With this in mind, watching Ray Mears on television, as he harped on about being prepared, I wondered why I’ve never carried any survival kit; in probably the most hostile environment I’ll spend time in. I wondered why I’d never even been given the advice to ignore.

Even if you try to restrict yourself to the piste its easy to imagine getting lost in a white out, taking a wrong turn and popping over the wrong side of a mountain. After a mistake like this, going back up may not be an option. Should you happen to accidentally nip under a boundary marker or two, perhaps due to being distracted by some fresh untracked powder, for example, even more risks arise.

Searching on google I find that this isn’t an entirely irrational fear, it does happen, all be it infrequently.

In this article a chap froze to death close to the resort, after losing his friends and becoming disorientated, in less than 24hrs. Another site catalogs snowboard deaths

Well I don’t want to join any of these lists, so I shall follow the words of the great man Ray (Mears) I’ll do some research, and be prepared. I’ll make sure I have the basics to survive for a night on the mountain if needed. Given that a 10 quid survival bag could be the difference between being rescued with toes, or without, it seems well worth the effort.

Festive car repairs

So, in the latest of a long line of comedy breakages, today I repaired the windscreen wipers on my Fiat Punto. Previous breakages this year include a gear knob which wouldn’t stay on the stick, and a bonnet which a qualified mechanic couldn’t open.

This time a small rubber washer on the wiper arm actuator had worn leading to it popping off the ball joint it was seated on. This caused one wiper arm to stop moving, which unbalanced the system and caused the opposite washer to fail. I phoned Fiat parts to get a replacement washer, and in order to get a new washer you need to buy the actuator it is attached to, and the motor which moves it. I’m no expert in market forces but at 110 GBP I’d suggest that’s an expensive washer.

This brings me, in a round about way, to the point of this post. I don’t mind spending 110 on my car, the problem was a design floor, but this isn’t Rolls or a Merc, I expect that kind of issue at this price range. What I do object to is having to throw away a number of perfectly good working parts, including the most environmentally expensive ones in the system, in order to replace a single cheap component. People are getting better at recycling so that waste is used for other purposes, but there is a marked lack of effort put into reducing the ‘designed in’ waste in first place. To promote reuse, shouldn’t ease of repair be considered when creating products?

Ultimately its the manufacturers who need to change their designs, but they are unlikely to do so without external pressure, its a nice little earner for them if every time a product fails consumers have to buy expensive replacement parts, or replace the item entirely. On the other hand many consumers would be reluctant to spend the odd couple of quid extra on a product if it meant it could be repaired and reused, although peoples willingness to shell out of warranties might indicate otherwise. It complex topic, with no easy answer, so I think I’ll go back to the advert paper and look for a nice easy to repair sixties mini cooper………

Hello World

So here it is, my first blog entry. Blogging is not something which really
appeals to me, why should I write down things which I already know, for an
audience I don’t? It seems rather like standing behind a fence near the
high street and shouting random details of your day at work. Actually, I
don’t know that from experience, but maybe I’ll try it next, if blogging
doesn’t work out for me. Something I do know however, is a number of clever

people who do rate blogging. Clever people have a frustrating habit of being

right about things, so it seems only fair that I should give it a try.

This first entry also calls to mind some wise words, said by one of those clever people in fact; Its never to late to start.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!