A lot has happened this week, so I’ll just mention a couple of highlights. I spent three days in Copenhagen hanging out and going to concerts. I saw Doves at Loppen and it was a very good show. They played about 75 minutes on a stage, which was about foot high, which meant the audience stood very close to the band. I was standing about 6 feet away from singer Jimi Goodwin, which meant I could look him straight in the eyes when he was singing, which was a bit weird. But they played a cool set with tracks from both Lost Souls and The Last Broadcast and ended with a track called Space Bass, which sounded like a Sub Sub track, but I think it might just be a new Doves track. Either way it was a kicking way to end the show.

The next day I saw Hawksley Workman at Rust and that was simply amazing. He played a long show accompanied by a piano player called Mr. Lonely. There weren’t a lot of people at the concert, but it seemed like most of them were diehard fans (Tinka was there, but I didn’t see her). He told weird stories and sang his weird songs and it was just incredible. My favourites were No Sissies and Sad House Daddy of the For Him & The Girls album and it was especially cool to hear the crowd take over vocal duties on the latter. He has the most remarkable vocal range going from theatrical Bertolt Brecht-like singing to Jeff Buckley-like falsetto, so it was actually quite funny hearing the fans trying to sing along with mixed success. Hawksley looks remarkable like Casey Affleck, but the scarf, earrings and sleeveless t-shirt made it easier to tell them apart.

Besides going to concerts and hooking up with friends in Copenhagen I played Fifa 2003, which is unbelievably cool and I saw 61*, which I also quite liked. The movie is about the season where Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris both tried to break Babe Ruth's homerun record. But it's actually a lot more about the two players as people and not so much about baseball. And I got to listen to the new Badly Drawn Boy album, which sounds mighty promising.


I saw a fun episode of Leno recently with Bill Maher and Marilyn Manson (Maher was plugging his book and Manson his DVD). I like Manson and I think he’s pretty funny, but the best bit was Maher going over the reason why George W. Bush wants to invade Iraq:

[Mentions several bizarre reasons to invade Iraq]
Maher: He (Saddam Hussein) tried to kill my Dad. This time it’s personal!
Maher: And he gassed his own people.
Leno: Well, didn’t he?
Maher: Well yeah. In the 80s! Talk about your late reply. I mean are we looking into why Wham! broke up?

Right now I’m listening to the Ravens/Bengals game through NFL.com and it’s pretty exciting. For some reason the Ravens organisation doesn’t broadcast a signal from the games, so every week I’m listening to the opponent’s commentary and except for one guy these commentators are remarkable fair. Obviously, they support their own team, but they always give credit where credit is due and generally describe the games fairly. Except for one guy. Every time the Ravens play against the Pittsburgh Steelers a guy called Myron Cope makes me what to fly to Pittsburgh and open up a can of whup-ass. He has the most annoying screechy old-man’s voice ever and he gets so excited during the game that he stutters uncontrollably. He is completely unfair against the opposing team and last the Ravens played the Steelers he began making up words, so even his co-commentators had no idea what the hell he was talking about. You know how John Turturro has a face for radio in The Quiz Show? Well, this guy has a voice for newspapers. He’s the main reason I hate the Steelers, because every time we played them I have to listen to that old fool talk nonsense for three hours. If you think I’m exaggerating try going through this treasure chest of babble (this is my “favourite”).

And finally I got to meet someone this weekend, who I’ve been emailing with for ages. It’s always a bit strange meeting someone you know through emails face-to-face for the first time, but I thought this encounter was remarkably uncomfortable comfortable. [update 4/12/2002: I can't believe I wrote uncomfortable, when I meant the exact opposite! I just noticed my mistake today, so I guess I owe someone an apology.]

Posted by John Fogde at November 10, 2002 09:35 PM | TrackBack