Aeroplanes take off

From Aeroplanes

What a great gig last night. Bristol's Blue Aeroplanes played a pre-SXSW gig at The Thunderbolt. The line-up was Max Noble (guitar), Dave Chapman (guitar), Chris Sharp (bass), Wojtek Dmochowski (dance), Gerard Starkey (guitar and vocals), John Langley (drums), Garard Langley (vocals), Rita Lynch (guitar and vocals) and John Stapleton (DJ). I don't know how long it is since John Stapleton has performed with the 'planes but I don't think I've seen gim since I saw the 'planes play the Hope Centre back in the year dot.

From Aeroplanes

The band played a great set ("Raise The Roof", "Warhol's 15", "Sulphur", "25 Kinds of Love", "Angela Carter", "Play On Empty", "Oak Apple Day", "Police 38 Divinity", "Lover and Confidante", "One World Passport", "Tied To You", "Nothing", "Birthday Suit And Badge", "Jacket Hangs", and "Bury Your Love Like Treasure") and great encore ("Your Own World", "Too Drunk To Fuck", and "Breaking In My Heart"). The new material sounds great - "Sulphur" is excellent on a first hearing (I think - maybe they played it at Christmas) and "25 Kinds of Love" is not enough. (Sorry, I mean is fast becoming a favourite).

From Aeroplanes

This gig was so much better than the sad years when the Christmas show seemed like a "Gerard Swaggers - a Blue Aeroplanes Tribute Band". It's great to hear the good new material and the old stuff being revisited. It's as though the "Swagger" is no longer weighing down the band and they have moved on to pastures new and old.

Picasso and Picasa

Early this year I visited Las Vegas in the quiet season, just after CES, for a meeting of the Board of EEMBC. The meeting was held in The Wynn hotel owned by Steve Wynn who recently hit the news because he ripped a hole in his very valuable Picasso painting.

I think I was told that the the Wynn was the most expensive hotel ever built in Las Vegas (at least until the next one). I was very disappointed with it. The room I had for my first night was very noisy and I got myself moved for the second. More importantly, the place seemed to lack class. It oozed money but lacked class.

From Las Vegas

You can see that a lot of the money was spent on marble. These pictures were taken in the men's "restroom" (as the locals call it) in one of the public areas. The walls of the cubicle are solid marble. Very tasteful.



Why "Picasso and Picasa"? Because these pictures are stored on Picasa Web Albums, Google's (sort of) Flickr-alike. I don't think Picasa's web presence is as interesting as Flickr, but it integrates nicely with Picasa the desktop photo-app.