She Loves London

Category: Tried and Tested

Occasionally she tries something in the name of blogging, and tells you all about it.

  • In Praise of James Blake at Brixton Academy (and the bloke who told the crowd to shut up)

    In Praise of James Blake at Brixton Academy (and the bloke who told the crowd to shut up)

    There were quite a lot of signs dotted around Brixton Academy at James Blake’s gig on Saturday night.

    They were written in that polite, pointed, yet restrained way that British signs tend to have. You know, where you can tell the person wanted to really wanted to swear, but instead opted for the more rational “hey guys, would you mind…” approach.

    They were essentially asking people to keep the noise down during the show. And also advising them that if they really wanted to have a conversation, they’d be welcome to do so outside the main auditorium.

    The subtext: STFU you idiots, and have some respect.

    Pretty reasonable.

    Brixton Academy was also making a point of asking people to be quiet during the show on Twitter.

    If that wasn’t a big enough hint, they then started shutting down a few of the bars inside the main room before it started.

    And a few minutes into James Blake’s set, it was obvious why.

    Because as it turns out, getting a few thousand people to stand and listen to some insanely good music live in 2016 without also chatting to their mates at the same time is a nigh on impossible pipe dream.

    They won’t do it. They can’t do it.

    The crowd wouldn’t shut up.

    Which is why, when this man yelled “SHUUT UPPPPP” across the crowd at the beginning of Retrograde, it went down pretty well.

    Why bother coming to a gig if you’re not arsed about listening to the music?

    At one point, a group behind me were loudly observing that all his songs were slow, and it’s not what they expected, and shouldn’t they go to the VIP bit and have shots of tequila, and how annoying it was that they’d paid £24 per ticket. So I turned around and said “You know what’s annoying? Having someone in your ear” which seemed to do the trick.

    And if it’d been a really dull, boring gig, you could almost say ok, fair enough: have a chat. But it wasn’t.

    James Blake’s gig on Saturday was probably one of the best I’ve been to all year. Seriously: the man is brilliant live.

    Thankfully, James Blake himself asked everyone to be quiet while he recorded the loops for the encore of Measurements (“if it could just be me, that’d be good”). And the audience finally obliged. For the final track it was so quiet you could have heard a plastic beer cup drop.

    (and we did)

    It’s just a shame the crowd couldn’t have afforded him the same respect for the rest of the gig.

    Then again, maybe that’s not the only gig-going etiquette people were struggling with.

  • Space Makes Me Nervous But I Went to See the Cosmonauts Exhibit at the Science Museum Anyway

    Space makes me feel a bit weird.

    It’s not space’s fault, it can’t help being a vast expansive uncharted mass of darkness that makes everyone who looks at it and thinks too hard do a mind-shrivel into a never-ending hole of circular questioning and self-doubt, and it can’t help being an omni-present reminder of our relative insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe.

    It’s not Kim Kardashian for gods sake, it didn’t ask for this level of introspection.

    Give it a break, it’s just space.

    "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever"
    Space so deep

    Even so, I’ll even admit to getting a little bit nervous when the topic of space comes up.

    Because it might start with an innocent observation about the angle of Orion’s Belt, but it never stops there, does it?

    You point and say something like “oh look, is that the Plough? That one?” and gradually the conversation turns and then you’re feeling a pull, a weight, an irrevocable tug.

    And that, my friend, is your mundane constellation sighting gently reminding you that it’s all so infinite and endless, and the stars you’re looking at don’t even exist any more and haven’t been around for ages because it’s many light years and much distance and so oh god, oh god, where are they then, where did they go, it’s all just so big.

    Russian Lunar Lander in the Science Museum
    Lunar lander: massive, like space


    So I try not to think too much about stuff…out there.

    Far better to put space into a neat pile along with electricity, and phones, and Skype and things that I know exist, understand in theory, and as An Adult I should have a rudimentary scientific understanding of, but I don’t really, because how is my voice getting from here through a bit of wires and plastic to France again?

    How?

    Actually don’t worry, let’s leave it, it doesn’t matter.

    Tell me later. Or don’t.

    Let’s just have a cup of tea and eat some cheese.

    spacecapsule
    This is where the first woman in space lived for like 3 days

    And likewise, I know – in theory, and from pictures and news and astronauts on Twitter – that people go into space. 

    That humans and dogs and monkeys have been fired into the vast expanse around us on rockets, and that people are currently in massive, dark, neverending space right now just living there, investigating planets and moons, watching hurricanes tear up the Earth from thousands of miles away and floating around in special trousers, because there’s no gravity.

    No air. 

    I’ll say that again: There’s NO. AIR.

    So until you see space pods, and a cosmonaut’s kitchen table, and their trousers, and Russian lunar landers right there in front of you, it all seems a bit unreal.

    A bit too much like it happened on TV or in Christopher Nolan’s shed, instead of actual real life in 1957 with a bloke called Yuri Gagarin and a spacecraft called, of all things, Sputnik.

    Two Russian cosmonaut space suits at the Science Museum London
    But now all those sorts of things are in the Science Museum. 

    Before getting to London, these capsules and gadgets and things were only ever in two places: Russia, and space.

    They got here by sea and road, and the really big items like the LK3 Lunar Lander had to be dismantled and put back together again inside, with the rest of the exhibit built around them.

    And I felt pretty privileged to be in an empty Science Museum, sans all those people who sometimes make museums a bit of a faff, and able to see it.

    The best sort of exhibition is one that tackles the things that make you intrigued and also a bit nervous about your place in the universe (see also: dinosaurs and dead people) and this is one of those.

    Inside the empty Science Museum in London at night
    Big old empty Science Museum
    So if you’ve got even a passing interest in space travel, or the Russians, or mad decompression trousers and circular space pods, then Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age is a pretty good thing for you to see.

    And if, like big massive infinite vast neverending god what is out there it can’t just be us can it not with all that space, you prefer your museum without many people in it, I noticed that the Science Museum is open late on Fridays until 8:45pm, so maybe give that a go.

    Or don’t. But don’t blame me when the conversation about space comes up and you can’t contribute in a meaningful way.

    Thank you to the Science Museum for inviting me to have a look around.  The exhibition is on now and runs until 13th March 2016.
    Bonus fact because you got this far: A cosmonaut is what the Russians called astronauts, ‘cos they allllways got to be different. 

  • April’s Music Thing: Koreless + Jacques Greene at St John’s Church, Hackney

    There are 567,087 music events happening every night in London.

    That’s complete bollocks, obviously, but the fact remains: after Staying a Bit Late at Work Because You’re So Busy (isn’t everyone so busy these days?) and negotiating the Tube Strike Which Is Going to Really Bugger Up Commuting for the Next Two Weeks, most of us are too knackered to attend any of them.

    Are we busy though? Are we? Really? Because personally, busy for me could mean working through lunch, or it could also be time allocated for watching True Detective in bed on a Sunday – so, swings and roundabouts you might say.

    Anyway, in an attempt to win the War Against Being Busy, I’ve decided to go to one music-y / gig thing (am I cool enough to say “gig”?) per month. Aim low, and all that.

    So far this year I’ve done alright.

    Nothing in January. Nothing in February. March was the Broken Bells at Shepherds Bush Empire, so that was good, and now here we are in April when – SUCCESS! – another gig was got.

    Last night me and Harriet went to one of a series of “music + technology” nights called Convergence. This one was at St. John’s Church in Hackney which, as the name might suggest, is a church. In Hackney.

    st johns hackney

    This isn’t just any church though. No, no.

    It looks like a normal church, doesn’t it? All religious and clock-wielding, all those concrete pillars and crosses and stuff – there are even normal church-like pews inside and everything.

    But if you think this is just your bog standard church, I’m afraid you’re very, very wrong.

    You missed the clue, guys – it’s in Hackney.

    Hackney’s in East London.

    Therefore in Time Out’s eyes, this can never just be a church.

    No. It must be a Hipster Church.

    hipster church1

    So off we went to East London’s Premiere 221-year-old Hipster Church™ for a Hackney Hipster Gig™ full of Hackney Hipster People™ who are really just people with age on their side who like music, but hey, don’t let that stop you painting an entire swathe of society with a lazy moniker.

    Tell you what though, that Hackney Hipster Church™ was pretty good.

    They’d cleared the pews away and shoved all the Hipster Hymn™ books into a cupboard – apart from the one that Hipster Harriet™ realised she’d been standing on the whole way through at the end – and we watched Vaghe Stelle, Koreless and Jacques Greene do their thing while the speakers, screen, lights and lasers did theirs.

    hipster rave

    It was most enjoyable.

    I know it’s difficult for you to tell how good it was because I failed to capture every moment on camera, and that’s how you can usually see whether someone had a good time or not.

    Unfortunately I didn’t take any videos either so you won’t know how it sounded; you’ll just have to make do with me saying that if you like loud music and lasers and basslines and beats and stuff, you’d probably have liked this.

    I’m assured that everyone else in the Hackney Hipster Church™ was having a good time too.

    How do I know? Because of the attendee to iPhone Screen Glow ratio: look! Not a Facebook update in sight. Anyone would think it was 1992 down there or something:

    ratio

    So there we go.

    April’s music-y thing all wrapped up in a brilliantly different kind of venue. Thanks Koreless and Jacques Greene for the right little ear-treat, and Hackney’s St John Church for being Hipster enough to venture away from hymns and into electronic music. If this sort of thing is your bag, then there’s still more Convergence stuff you can catch this weekend.

    I’m currently missing a Music Thing for May, so currently my next stop is Field Day in June.

    If you know of anything happening in May that I can shuffle along to, then give me a shout. (Hipster credentials optional).

    Image: Fin Fahey via Flickr