Tuesday, Wednesday heart attack
Feb. 2nd, 2006 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaWhen you present your membership card to enter a club, and the person on the door looks at it and says "oooh, old-skool" you know that you're not the newest member they've got.
On Tuesday night, Jo and I dusted off our mid-90s issue IMSOC membership cards, and headed along to their club night, Vertigo.
Back in the glory (ie my) days of IMSOC - which is the university Indie Music Society, for those too lazy to follow the link above - the club night "Panic" ran every week (during term time) at the Coven. I followed it through its various incarnations: Acetone, Safari, and Panic again while I was still a student. I Watched it move from the Coven to the smaller Latinos and back again, and ultimately drop down to once a fortnight.
(Incidentally, I always assumed it was "Panic" after the Smiths' song, and "Acetone" after the Kenickie song. Can anyone (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kauket?) confirm or deny this, and tell me where "Safari" came from ?)
In recent years the club night seems to have settled at twice a term, so I was rather expecting to find it a small, struggling, straggling club.
Wrong. Jo and I arrived at the Cellar just before 11, and squeezed ourselves into the completely rammed bar area. The last band (who really only registered on my consciousness as "loud" and "more industrial than expected at an indie night") were just packing in.
Several things rapidly became apparent: one, we really are old. The students are tiny. Two, indie kids have got a whole lot smarter since our day. Particularly the blokes. I blame all those pesky art-rock bands with their sharp blazers and perfectly asymmetric hair. Thirdly, student DJs still can't operate decks for shit. I actually don't think I've ever heard so much dead time - not even in Greg's heyday at Disturbapurgalivatory.
It's interesting to note which songs have remained on the playlist (presumably) for the past ten years. I have a very distinct memory of dancing in Latino's with PeteG to Radiohead's Just[*] c.1997, which suddenly sprung to mind as they began to play it on Tuesday. Laid, by James, and The Day We Caught The Train, by Ocean Colour Scene[**], however, weren't really songs I'd have expected to reach "classic" status. Then again, maybe they were being played with irony. I hear you can get away with anything these days if you do it ironically.
There was new stuff, of course, too. And surprisingly little in the cheese or nu-metal veins. Arcade Fire makes better dancefloor material than I'd have expected, and a song I didn't know really took my fancy. Subsequent googling has revealed it as by Iron&Wine - does anyone know owt about them ?
Oh, and by the way: don't believe the hype. Judging by dancefloor attendance, the Moldy Peaches are considerably more popular than the Arctic Monkeys. Which is odd, really, because Who's Got The Crack? is a natural floor-filler in the same way that molluscs are natural piano-tuners. I mean, you can jump up and down during the chorus well enough, but there's not a lot to do during the verses. Jo and I settled for throwing ridiculous slow-motion shapes and got glared at by some artistically-haired Doherty-wannabe for not taking it seriously enough.
It reminded me of a conversation with an ex-IMSOC president many years ago when he claimed that they'd held a special committee meeting to form an IMSOC committee policy on how to dance to Paranoid Android. "It does," he conceded when I expressed some doubt, "consist of lying on the floor for extended periods."
In a bid to acknowledge our age, we left at a sedate 1am. And reminisced happily about long, cold walks back from the Coven all the way home (in the nice warm car).
[*] Better known as "the one that goes you do it to yourself, you do"
[**] A band, who, owing to the persistance of a friend of mine many years ago, I can't help but think of as Ocean Colour Wank.
Irrelevantly, I was in Cargo (the posh house-stuff shop) at dinner time today. In among their reduced-from-Christmas piles they had a long, slim box of little candles. They were labelled:
Monday - it's blue
Tuesday - it's great
Wednesday - too
Thursday - I don't care about you
Friday - I am in love
Saturday - fun
Sunday - early to bed
Does that strike anyone else as bloody peculiar ? If you're going to make Cure knock-off candles (and sell them in Cargo!), do it properly. If you're not, don't look like you are.
On Tuesday night, Jo and I dusted off our mid-90s issue IMSOC membership cards, and headed along to their club night, Vertigo.
Back in the glory (ie my) days of IMSOC - which is the university Indie Music Society, for those too lazy to follow the link above - the club night "Panic" ran every week (during term time) at the Coven. I followed it through its various incarnations: Acetone, Safari, and Panic again while I was still a student. I Watched it move from the Coven to the smaller Latinos and back again, and ultimately drop down to once a fortnight.
(Incidentally, I always assumed it was "Panic" after the Smiths' song, and "Acetone" after the Kenickie song. Can anyone (
kauket?) confirm or deny this, and tell me where "Safari" came from ?)In recent years the club night seems to have settled at twice a term, so I was rather expecting to find it a small, struggling, straggling club.
Wrong. Jo and I arrived at the Cellar just before 11, and squeezed ourselves into the completely rammed bar area. The last band (who really only registered on my consciousness as "loud" and "more industrial than expected at an indie night") were just packing in.
Several things rapidly became apparent: one, we really are old. The students are tiny. Two, indie kids have got a whole lot smarter since our day. Particularly the blokes. I blame all those pesky art-rock bands with their sharp blazers and perfectly asymmetric hair. Thirdly, student DJs still can't operate decks for shit. I actually don't think I've ever heard so much dead time - not even in Greg's heyday at Disturbapurgalivatory.
It's interesting to note which songs have remained on the playlist (presumably) for the past ten years. I have a very distinct memory of dancing in Latino's with PeteG to Radiohead's Just[*] c.1997, which suddenly sprung to mind as they began to play it on Tuesday. Laid, by James, and The Day We Caught The Train, by Ocean Colour Scene[**], however, weren't really songs I'd have expected to reach "classic" status. Then again, maybe they were being played with irony. I hear you can get away with anything these days if you do it ironically.
There was new stuff, of course, too. And surprisingly little in the cheese or nu-metal veins. Arcade Fire makes better dancefloor material than I'd have expected, and a song I didn't know really took my fancy. Subsequent googling has revealed it as by Iron&Wine - does anyone know owt about them ?
Oh, and by the way: don't believe the hype. Judging by dancefloor attendance, the Moldy Peaches are considerably more popular than the Arctic Monkeys. Which is odd, really, because Who's Got The Crack? is a natural floor-filler in the same way that molluscs are natural piano-tuners. I mean, you can jump up and down during the chorus well enough, but there's not a lot to do during the verses. Jo and I settled for throwing ridiculous slow-motion shapes and got glared at by some artistically-haired Doherty-wannabe for not taking it seriously enough.
It reminded me of a conversation with an ex-IMSOC president many years ago when he claimed that they'd held a special committee meeting to form an IMSOC committee policy on how to dance to Paranoid Android. "It does," he conceded when I expressed some doubt, "consist of lying on the floor for extended periods."
In a bid to acknowledge our age, we left at a sedate 1am. And reminisced happily about long, cold walks back from the Coven all the way home (in the nice warm car).
[*] Better known as "the one that goes you do it to yourself, you do"
[**] A band, who, owing to the persistance of a friend of mine many years ago, I can't help but think of as Ocean Colour Wank.
Irrelevantly, I was in Cargo (the posh house-stuff shop) at dinner time today. In among their reduced-from-Christmas piles they had a long, slim box of little candles. They were labelled:
Monday - it's blue
Tuesday - it's great
Wednesday - too
Thursday - I don't care about you
Friday - I am in love
Saturday - fun
Sunday - early to bed
Does that strike anyone else as bloody peculiar ? If you're going to make Cure knock-off candles (and sell them in Cargo!), do it properly. If you're not, don't look like you are.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 08:49 pm (UTC)Iron & Wine is basically a guy with a big beard, bit Will Oldham-ish. Has made several CDs, gets praised by Uncut/Mojo* a lot.
'Uncut Mojo' would make a great name for a band.
Panic -- the one that goes 'hang the DJ' and 'Burn down the disco'? Can someone please ban students from using irony, its too painful.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 08:52 pm (UTC)That's the Panic I meant. Along with Just, it forms the basis of the list of songs you can never match up properly to their titles.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:30 pm (UTC)I used to go out with one of the guys from Stuck Mojo when I was 15!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:39 pm (UTC)I realise that sounds sarcastic, it's not meant to - you do seem to know a surprisingly large and varied bunch of people.
(It wasn't a bad gig (http://venta.livejournal.com/151306.html#cutid4), either.)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 08:59 am (UTC)All of my rich and famous stuff is always through the most mundane connections, though - I went to school with his younger brother, or they're my parents' work friends, or the like.
I'm just waiting for the day I randomly bond with Johnny Depp over a shared love of punctuation...
you can never match up properly
Date: 2006-02-03 09:58 am (UTC)Re: you can never match up properly
Date: 2006-02-03 10:21 pm (UTC)Re: you can never match up properly
Date: 2006-02-04 12:44 pm (UTC)Because of the deceptive way that, on a few hearings, you'd expect it to be called "Hang The DJ" :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:01 pm (UTC)Oh dear. Maybe I don't mean him, then.
Not that I've got anything against Wilco. But the song I heard was (I think) rapper poppy and had a female vocalist. Reading the lyrics made me think it was Such Great Heights, but maybe not.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 08:52 pm (UTC)I think they should have used the 'Monday's child is fair of face' rhyme. Then Saturday could have been 'works hard' and Sunday could have been 'gay'.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:05 pm (UTC)Mind you I'm even older than you two, and just got thanked by one of last night's bands by email for calling them young when apparently they range from 26-32 :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:10 pm (UTC)You are ?
<checks your use info>
Blimey, you are :)
Not by a lot though - same school year, which is probably what counts when reminiscing about student days.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 10:23 pm (UTC)I've been wondering about going along, and one evening I popped my head around the door to have a look, but decided not to stay...awww happy happy memories of going to IMSOC nights, and yes the walk back from the Coven, stopping at Hussans Kebab Van on the way back to New College, or when I was president and we were at Latinos, the committee dragging the record collection back to New College, and then drinking until dawn.
I should go to their next indie night, I do love the indie dancing, and Transformation at the Zodiac doesn't quite hit the right buttons.
I prefer: Monday, no fun, Tuesday, the same, Wednesday I go out, at least some days. Thursday, the day after Wednesday, Fridays I go out, at least some days (Hit - Wannadies).
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Date: 2006-02-02 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-02-03 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 09:41 am (UTC)I think they should have ripped off Sting's seven days myself, if only for the cool time signature.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 09:45 am (UTC)Those long walks back...
In my second year in Oxford it was Coven -> 'out by the bingo hall'[1] as a walk home each Monday. And none of my mates liked the indie stuff much so I was always on my lonesome. I wasn't going to waste time/energy at a club actually meeting people - foolishly. I have fortunatley got more social since.
But walking on my own became a part of the ritual and did lead to me making friends with a nice black cat. We'd regularly meet up at one end of St Mary's Rd, and it would walk along the walls of all the front gardens while I walked along the pavement.
Those proper plastic IMSOC cards...
fab, and anyone with the modern ones is always jealous.
[1] The bingo hall which is no longer a bingo hall (and disappointingly stands empty rather than being turned into something interesting)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-03 02:22 pm (UTC)"The Day We Caught The Train" has that big arm-waving "woah, woah, la-la-la" chorus, and "Laid" is just brilliant all the way through, so I'm not surprised either of them has hung around on the playlist.
While sorting through old junk at home over Christmas I found a list of indie songs I'd written down as some kind of "Best of PANIC" playlist ... nerdtastic or what! Will see if I can find it again and scan/post it for general amusement.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-04 12:43 pm (UTC)And if you're ever in Oxford on the first-Saturday-of-the-month, don't forget that an Imsoc card gets you into the Twon Hall record fair for cheap :)