Old Year/New Year

Sat here watching this All Tomorrow's Parties documentary, realizing I don't know nearly as much about music as I think I do, wishing I hadn't have eaten so much Ben and Jerrys, I figure I should do one of those encapsulating this past year type things everyone seems to do.
     So, this past year...Ummmm? Way back in January we flew over to Dublin for our friends 30th birthday. I remember eating pate and drinking and listening to Major Laser and eating steak and drinking and the weather was bad. Lots of snow. The city was practically at a stand still and the airport closed temporarily. We did a lot of dancing, some more eating and a lot of reminiscing. Tom showed me his tentative wedding music playlist. And we watched a film, the name of which I can't remember.
    We went to Sweden in June for Tom and Cicilias wedding. Flying into Stockholm, and eventually getting the night train up to Ostersund. We walked all over Stockholm, saw a lot of kids dancing to bad dance music on the back of large flat bed trucks. We indulged in swedish cuisine at a restaurant called Pelican. We laughed out loud at the price of alcohol. We danced and admired the weird night sky that never got dark. We ate at cafes. And took lots of photographs. We went to the Photography museum for the Annie Liebowitz exhibition. It was very good. I was continually bewildered by the Swedish film posters and the weird rating system. each poster was covered in quotes from critics and a series of weird ratings symbols, similar to our 4 star rating system. Only there was a dozen of them and they were strange symbols like 4 ducks, 4 moons, 4 cars, 4 cats, 4 rainbows. I assume they perform the same function but I still don't understand why there were so many of them on each individual poster.
     We got the train up to Ostersund, and took in all the sights the fine city had to offer. We spent time in the strange hotel bar that always seemed to contain a weird mix of tourists, young locals, old locals, and rather seedy locals. We were impressed with the breakfast buffet, me personally with the endless trays of salami and brie. We met up with the wedding party and drank and laughed, eventually we went to the wedding and it was beautiful and the night do was legendary.At some point I drank too much swedish jaegermeister, the nights a bit of a blur after that.
     A few weeks later we went to Manchester to see Broken Social Scene at the Academy. We met my friend Jam and his lady there and all really enjoyed the show. Hearing Stars and Sons live is never any less exhilarating. While in Manchester we went to bar 99 I think its called(maybe) and watched England play Germany. It was an obviously sad display. Unless of course you were German or not English, and enjoyed really one sided displays of counter attacking football and just football superiority in general. We also went to a great little cafe/bar called Odd bar and had a wonderful breakfast.
      For our anniversary we got the train down to Liverpool. My first time in the great city. We stayed at a nice hotel and went to Jamie Olivers restaurant and the legendary Cavern Club, the latter a slightly disappointing experience. Still we were there. I wore a stupid wig for national Beatles day. We witnessed a hilarious encounter of a drunk scouser needlessly winding up a drunk homeless busking scouser. We marvelled at how much fun the city was in general.
      In September we flew back to Canada for a surprise wedding and family visit. We took in the Toronto International Film Festival, saw the great new Danny Boyle film 127 Hours and a brilliant new Korean film called I Saw The Devil. I went to see Buck 65 at the Drake Hotel. We went to various places for food and drink, including Smokes Poutinerie, Coras, The Fox and the Fiddle, and a great diner on Queen Street west, the name of which now evades me. We went to my Moms wedding and had a blast. We went up the CN Tower and enjoyed a lovely meal. We went to Niagara Falls, again. It was lovely, again. I think always will be. It is a ridiculously gigantic waterfalls, in the end. On the way back from the Falls we stopped off at a winery and saw a bronzed bust of Dan Akroyds head, that was a very good likeness. I spent lots of quality time with black cat and family and friends. I realized again, how much I miss Toronto when I'm away.
      Oh,just before Canada, we went up to Glasgow for Nic's birthday and to see Fever Ray. The beautiful terrifying exhilarating supernatural spectacle that is the Fever Ray experience. We had our minds duly broken into small pieces. It was one of the single greatest live experiences I've had in my life.
     Hmmmm? Most of the other things that happened this year are a bit of a blur. We saw Stuart Francis, the Canadian comedian, live. We went to Lancaster to see Sean Locke live. We went to the cinema to watch various great films including The Town, Inception, Kick Ass, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim VS The World, etc. We also went to the cinema to see various terrible films including Saw 3D, and ummmmmm? There were lots more but I forget what they were called. We also watched lots of films on dvd. Some were great some weren't. I watched some great tv shows, Justified, The Walking Dead, Dexter, True Blood, the Trip, Sons of Anarchy. I watched some bad shows too but, again, I forget what they were called.
      I listened to lots of music. I've been writing this too long already, and the idea of trying to think of all this years music is sucking all the energy out of me. Joanna Newsom, though, thats sticks out.
     Oh and we saw Ash live too. An old British band from the 90's. They were surprisingly good. Oh and Idlewild too. I almost forgot. They were superb. Really superb. We went to the Navy Club after that, sort of a Phoenix Nights type place, if you know what I mean, and we got very drunk and ended up dancing very purposely, like total weirdos. That turned into a bit of a theme this year. Dancing like total weirdos. Its fun, you should try it. You dance in weird shapes and jittery starts and stops and don't do any of it to the beat of the music. All the kids will be doing it soon. I did just the other night in Glasgow at the Flying Duck on New Years Eve. I started out just doing it here and there but then got caught up in it and did it all night. It got pretty weird but I had fun, goddang it. It was really just sort of a convulsion dance, just done at various speeds. Kind of like Ian Curtis only weirder and more erradic. Poeple either thought I was some weird cool guy or an idiot. I can probably guess which, but as you know, I could careless.
     Oh, we saw Buck 65 and Holy Fuck at King Tuts in November too. A show I coined the Holy Buck show. It was tremendous. Buck was doing a bit of weird convulsive dancing, which I will admit may have subconsciously been a massive influence on the increased weirdness of my dancing post Holy Buck.
     So, that is a basic, and decidedly half assed summarization of the year that was 2010. We did a bit of travelling, I turned 31, I danced stupidly, food and pop culture was consumed, the end. Okay, so thats an even more basic summarization.
      In the end, the bottomline for 2010 was, that it was a decidedly stressful year, not least because I did very little writing. Too many big ideas have remained on the backburner. A real shame given the amount of time I was forced by the government of the United Kingdom to have off work. It was a year of frustration financially and professionally and a frustrating lack of discipline creatively. So I guess that'll be my big resolution for the year 2011, my 32nd year on this planet. Be more disciplined creatively. And make 2011 a great year for the Claycocks.
      Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of things in 2010, and I am grateful for it all. Especially the births and marriages of close friends and family. And I look forward to more of the same this year.
      Anyway, I hope everyone had a great year, and I wish you all a great 2011. And if you made it this far down this blog entry, well, god bless you.
   

Sweden Stories (part one): Songs and Sunrises

We rode the train from Stockholm up to Ostersund City, the site of Tomas and Cecilia's wedding extravaganza. Stockholm is on the bottom of the country and Ostersund is in the middle, and the train ride was roughly seven hours. We departed just before midnight and arrived early the next morning. We grabbed our seats, our barely reclinable,fairly uncomfortable seats, after an uncertain thirty minutes waiting on the platform, wondering if we had somehow made a mistake and missed our train.
     We sat in our seats, trying to relax and prepare ourselves for the journey ahead. We got our books out and our ipods and our water and then sat in that awkward silence you always find sitting on a train with its engine turned off. Everybody around us sat in the same silence. We talked in that hushed whisper you always seem to use in these social situations. A dude sat across from me, in the seats across the aisle, looked kind of like Iggy Pop, and Nic, a bit louder than she had intended, whispered to Ryan, "Hey,that guy looks like Iggy Pops brother." I'm not sure if the dude heard her, but I heard her and I tried laughing as quietly as I could.
     The light on the train was murky and strange. The interior of the car had a vaguely 1970's kind of look going on. Still a far cry from the trains running from Budapest to Greece though. I can tell you that.
     Once we set off, we all tried to relax and stretch out a bit. Books were read, little conversations were had, windows were stared out of, eventually Ryan and Nic closed their eyes and tried to sleep. I'm terrible for sleeping on trains, or planes or cars and though I have less experience on them, I'd imagine boats too. So I read for a bit longer and stared out a bit more. Then I turned to my i-pod Clarence the second. The recently and tragically deceased Clarence the Second.
     I put on my headphones and searched for music that would be appropriate for an overnight train journey through the Swedish countryside,such as the one I was on. I was feeling something quiet. Something soundscapey, if that's a word? Something beautiful. Maybe something melancholy.
     Very quickly I was drawn to a few albums to which I am always drawn when on long quiet beautiful journeys and a few new records as well.
      For the next six or seven hours this is what I listened to, not necessarily in this order:
      - All three discs of Joanna Newsoms newest record Have One On Me, and Joanna Newsoms previous record Ys.
      - Explosions In The Sky's albums All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone, and The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place.
      - Mum's albums Finally We Are No One, Yesterday was Dramatic Today Is Okay, and Summer Make Good.
       - Arvo Part's beautiful album Alina.
       - Brian Eno's album Music For Airports.
       - Manitoba's debut record Start Breaking My Heart
       - Boards of Canada's album Twoism.

    Now I realize that's roughly ten hours of music I've claimed on a seven hour train ride. So I must have skipped a bit here and there, though I have no recollection of doing so. I also feel like I've left out a few things that escape my memory. Who knows, maybe this was a magic train journey, where having become so enraptured with the stunning natural beauty of the Swedish countryside, seven hours turned into twelve!
     This time of the year in Sweden, the sun never really sets. In Stockholm it got to a kind of dark dusk for three or four hours before brightening again. When you walked out of a club at 3am you found yourself standing in a weird half light, and sleepiness abandoned you and you just wanted to keep going. Maybe run down the main street kicking garbage cans and ringing door bells. Maybe try and run over a construction site like you were on the Japanese game show Ninja Warrior. And maybe Ryan would slip and hurt his ankle. Or maybe not.
      Ostersund being much farther north, the night stayed even brighter. This made the last half of the journey to Ostersund kind of strange. I remember sitting looking out the window, with the new Joanna Newsom record on my headphones, as the sunrise began somewhere around 2 or 3am and it seemed to sit just on the horizon,clinging to the side of the earth, for the rest of the journey. I remember listening to the uplifting crashing drums of Explosions In The Sky as the sky carried the same light in it hours later. A never ending sunrise. Everything bathed in deep reds and oranges and yellows. The trees and forests and fields of Sweden silhouetted against an always rising sun. It was something to behold.

Suggested listening for anyone riding the overnight train from Stockholm to Ostersund:
1.) Mum - Finally We Are No One. Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is Okay. Summer Make Good.
2.) Brian Eno - Music For Airports. Thursday Afternoon.
3.) Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. Suddenly I Miss Everyone.
4.) Arvo Part - Alina
5.) Joanna Newsom - Ys. Have One On Me.
6.) Boards of Canada - Twoism. Hi-Scores.
7.) Manitoba - Start breaking My Heart.
8.) Caribou (formerly Manitoba) - Swim.

I would suggest though, if you do happen to find yourself sat across from a gentleman who may or may not be Iggy Pop's brother, that you tell your friends discretely. Then sit back and enjoy the great hair, tight jean, weathered face combination.

And we enter Northern Ontario, unaware of what awaits us. (if only the higher powers had given us a warning. An omen, or a sign of some kind.

London to Barrow to Canada!!!