I began playing basketball again this week, which means I've been a little beat up this week. We trained on Monday and had a game on Tuesday and it looks like the plan is that from now on I'll train once a week and play games on weekends. I have absolutely no game right now and couldn't make a three pointer if my life depended on it. But hopefully that'll change in the next couple of weeks/months. Obviously, joining a team wasn't my idea. I haven't played ball for years (for three or four years we used to have a game every Saturday morning, but that's been over for ages), so although I've thought about joining a team I just never got around to it. But a friend of mine is a basketball coach, so Saturday night (after the Phoenix guys had left) he asked me to come train with his boys and without thinking I just said I was up for it.

I have a tendency to just say yes no matter what people suggest. Like, a couple of weeks ago we're watching an Arsenal game and someone suggests that we go to Holland to watch the Eindhoven game and I immediately said I was up for it. I don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out off, so I'm going to have to do some thinking to figure out how I'm going to rustle up enough cheddar to finance a trip to the Land o' Pot. But I'm sure it'll work out somehow and so far we are five friends, who'll be going together to my first ever Arsenal game, so I'm way excited about going.

I took these pictures in my neighbourhood recently. The name Marquart is written on a closed down bikeshop, which looks really terrible. But for some reason I really like the sign which totally clashes with the rest of the building's appearance. The other picture was taken around the corner from my apartment, where apparently someone was doing a spot of redecorating and decided they had no room for a trashed piano. Why they stuck a bike in it is still a mystery, though.

I still listen to as much music as always and I still watch a ton of movies. I just haven't gotten around to writing about them. But I have to mention "Together We're Heavy" by The Polyphonic Spree, which I've been listening to lately. Imagine if you can an even more positive, happy, and life affirming version of The Flaming Lips and you've got a pretty good idea as to what The Spree are about. I'm definitely from the school of the-more-depressing-and-whiny-the-better, but there's just something really great about this record. I've also been listening to "Red Bedroom" by The Fever a lot lately and it's really cool if you like bands like The Killers and The Strokes.

I found an article on Elvis Costello yesterday, which I thought was pretty interesting. Besides his collaborations with Burt Bacharach and Wendy James I haven't really followed up on his collaborations with musicians from pretty much all existing musical genres. The article also mentions his attack on Ray Charles in the late 70s, which I'd heard about before, but wasn't really sure what was all about. So I did a little research and found an old Rolling Stone article, where it's mentioned in a bit more detail. It's hard for me to imagine Elvis Costello as an aggressive drunk spewing out racial slurs, because to me he seems like the nicest guy ever. But I guess debating music you think sucks can bring out the worst in even the nicest guy.

I've been following the I Found Some of Your Life weblog lately and I just think it's one of the most interesting blog ideas I've seen in a long time (seems like something's wrong over there right now though, but hopefully it'll get fixed soon).

Angels in America, which was awarded eleven Emmys the other night, is running here as a three part mini series, which will end on Sunday. The weirdness factor is definitely up there, but it's a fairly remarkable piece of work and since I've rediscovered Mary-Louise Parker first in the terrible Cupid & Cate and later on The West Wing I pretty much watch here in whatever. The rest of the cast is equally fantastic and especially Jeffrey 'Basquiat' Wright is really cool.

Last night I played my first ever DJ gig at Voxhall, which is the best concert venue in town and maybe even in the country. I'd been booked to play before and after the concert with French band Phoenix, who are out promoting their second album "Alphabetical". I started out playing fairly quiet stuff and then as more and more peple arrived I got into more of a party mood. There were probably about 300 people at the show and when the band went on people seemed very excited and into the music.

I don't know Phoenix's music that well, but I really like their latest singles Everything is Everything and Run, Run, Run and was pleasantly surprised to hear that they rocked out a lot more than I'd expected. But people actually seemed to be a lot more into the stuff off the "United" album, which I guess I'll have to check out at some point. People were actually so into the music that Phoenix played two sets of encores, which was pretty cool. After the concert I continued to play records and since a lot of people stayed at Voxhall after the show it turned out to be a really cool gig. After a while the band came out and talked to people and hung out, which I always think is cool. A couple of them came down and said hi to me (one of them wanted to know which song I was playing, which was Guided by Voices - Everywhere with Helicopter, and got really excited when I followed it with The Cure - Let's Go to Bed) and generally they seemed really into the music and enjoyed hanging out with the fans.

I played until half past one and after hanging out for a bit one of the crew guys came over and asked me if I knew the bar Sway. I've DJ-ed down there quite a few times and I hang out there probably once a week, so I know Sway and when asked if I'd like to take the band down there for a few drinks I obviously said that it would be my pleasure. Trying to coordinate a bar trip for ten dudes isn't easy (and I don't speak any French), so after waiting by the tour bus for a while I finally had to yell out, 'Excuse me - French people - we're leaving now!' and that did the trick. I'd phoned ahead to let people know we were coming, so when we arrived the owner had a bottle of Jack D. ready for the band, which they were quite impressed by. It was an A-List night at Sway, so the place was packed and a lot of the people there had been at the show. So we got quite a few stares when we entered (and then tried to coordinate drinks for everybody), but quickly people started talking to the guys and it seemed like everyone had a really good time.

So not only did I have a great time playing at Voxhall and seeing the concert, but we followed it up with a really cool night out. The Phoenix guys were really cool and I got a chance to talk about French football with singer Thomas Mars, who supports Paris Saint Germain. The best bit was when he told me about how unhappy former Arsenal player Sylvain Wiltord was with having to move from London to Lyon. He said that every time Wiltord was interviewed on French television he looked so incredibly sad even when he had scored and/or Lyon had won a game. So it was a really fun night and I can't wait until the 8th of October where I get to DJ before and after the Jesse Malin gig.