NME Radar Tour - Coventry, Warwick Uni.

The venue was The Copper Rooms a student Union Bar at Warwick University. It's a small dark venue will a low ceiling and you got the impression when crowded it would be very hot in there. We arrived a little after 9pm and saw the end of the Local Natives set, unfortunately Marina & The Diamonds didn't show up but the Golden Silver's set adequately made up for that small disappointment featuring True Romance, Please Venus and Arrows of Eros. It wasn't particularly crowded when the bands were playing and we easily got a good view near the stage, but, as we left we noticed a long queue of students all clambering to get in. It looked like a monstrous student party was about to kick off. So we left the rampant freshers and we headed home for some *Horlicks!

FLY 53 download album | The Copper Rooms


*Horlicks here is being used for the more general term red wine.

NME's Radar Tour hits Coventry this Friday

The NME's Radar Tour reaches local shores this Friday when headliner's Golden Silvers and supporting acts Marina and The Diamonds, Local Natives and Yes Giantess play at The Warwick Uni. LGO will be there!

tickets|Golen Silvers (Last fm)

Coventry 2 Norwich 0

Chris Coleman's Coventry side getting off to a great start in the Championship League at home. Triumphing in the face of pressure from Norwich thanks to a Elliott Ward penalty 47mins & Leon McKenzie 86mins.

Link: aron Gunnersson story

Bedroom 747

You would never guess the things that go on in the homes around you. This story is a bit old but its new to me.

John Davis spent eight years and 15,000 building a Boeing 747 flight simulator in a room in his house. And now the 47-year-old's hobby has turned into such a full-time occupation that he has jacked in his job as a graphic designer to run a full-time flight simulation business from his home in Coventry, UK

Story on Gizmodo:. Bedroom 747: Man Builds $30,000 Jumbo Jet Simulator in his Bedroom

Cov Stock 08

After a considerable gap LGO is back. I'll try and keep it a bit more frequent from now on, I promise!!

I'm also delighted that Art Brut will be playing The Godiva Festival in July. Result.

The Music (Myspace)

The Enemy @ The Jaguar Exhibition Hall, Ricoh Arena, Coventry

Sat 5 Apr – The Enemy, Boy Kill Boy, Lowline

One thing we hadn’t expected was the massive size of the the Jaguar Exhibition Hall at The Ricoh arena it is truly huge with an 8000 capacity, we hadn’t really thought about how many people that was. There is no restriction on which area your ticket allows you into and there was no seating. You were free to roam right to the front, if you dared, or right to the back and you’d still hear the sound system perfectly from there. Kids and parents', angst teens, twenty, thirty and forty something's all partied together in what was a festival atmosphere.

We arrived in the hall for The Enemy's home town concert about half way through Lowline's warm-up act performance and found a spot about half way up the hall. Boy Kill Boy followed half an hour or so later on. A dodgy DJ played between acts but he was redeemed by the selection of music. The house lights finally went down for The Enemy about 21:20ish they played for what I think was about an hour. Proceedings started with ‘It’s not OK’, included all the anthems you expected to hear added a new song 'Sing When You're In Love/ Sing When You're Out Of Love' then finished with a cover of the Sex Pistols 'God save the Queen' and finally ‘You’re not alone’.

The wait between the three acts was acceptable, although there was plenty of time for people to buy lager from the bars and throw it at each other. At no point where we were stood did it get ridiculously crowded. The pre-booked car park, although a £10 ticket, was worth the money and the queue to get out wasn’t too excruciating.

Set list:
It's Not OK
40 Days And 40 Nights
Pressure
Had Enough
Aggro
We'll Live And Die In These Towns
Song About You
Away From Here
Sing When You're In Love/ Sing When You're Out Of Love
Happy Birthday Jane
God Save The Queen
You're Not Alone

Bomb in the city

The bomb squad (not a job I'd enjoy) are on their way to Coventry city centre as an unexploded WWII bomb has been unearthed in the centre this morning during the construction that is currently being undertaken on the new Belgrade Plaza site. This isn't much of a shock when you consider the amount of bombs dropped on Coventry during the blitz. Shoppers and local employees have been evacuated from the vicinity. Upper Well Street and Radford Road are closed to traffic and Junctions 1 and 8 on the ring road are shut. This has meant my wife has spent some of her working day in Starbucks. Unfortunately her car is trapped in the danger area, hopefully we can retrieve it later. I'm also hoping the ring road is open when I head towards home.

MP3: The Bomb Inside The Bomb - We are Scientists 
Last FM | Buy | Wikipedia

Just up the road from the city centre is the Memorial Park. It will, again, be the venue for the  Godiva Festival 2008. This will be held over the weekend of 4th - 6th July. This will be the 11th festival.

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly @ The Kasbah Coventry

Last night we went to see Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly supported by Emmy The Great at The Kasbah (formerly The Colosseum), (formerly The Tic-Toc for the truely ancient amongst us).
Arriving a little later than planned we grabbed a drink and headed for the main room as the main act had already took to the stage. The refurbishment to turn the Colly into The Kasbah seemed to focus on Morrocan arches painted in black around studded doorways, the main room was adorned in similar decor. Basically same old venue, with a new lick of paint. There was a new armband that was required to get a drink at the bars!!!
Pushing as far as we comfortably could into the main room we found that we hadn't missed much of the main act and enjoyed the rest of the performance, it included Call me Ishmael, I spy, War of the Worlds and the new single Find the time that will be available from 3rd March.

The tracks below are live from last years Reading festival.

MP3: I spy (live at Reading 2007)
MP3: War of the Worlds (live at Reading 2007)

album | website

Save Godiva Festival

This debate and threat seems to come back every year. Let's hope the council see the good for the community that the festival brings. People getting out and meeting each other, coming to our city - that sort of thing. Coventry should be proud of Godiva Festival not shun it!

Coventry's Memorial Park has become a focal point in our city for cultural festivals and events. The Godiva Festival, in particular, regularly attracts more than 60,000 visitors each year, making a valuable contribution both to our local economy and the vibrancy of our city. Residents of the Memorial Park's local vicinity have long campaigned for this small number of festivals to be stopped, claiming 'noise and nuisance' as their reasons. We do not agree that the events held at The Memorial Park cause any undue or additional noise or nuisance to the local residents on the very few days each year they are held. Furthermore, we believe that Coventry's Memorial Park exists for the use of ALL of the people of Coventry. The Godiva Festival is a highlight in the city's cultural calendar, whose benefits to the wider population of the city far outweigh the somewhat questionable case of a very small minority. As such, festivals and events like The Godiva Festival should be protected and continue unhindered and unrestricted.

ref: here

Sign the petition here

PS: Spread the word

Driving in darkness

The local traffic was hideous this morning. Driving through Kenilworth and into Leamington at 8am was like queuing to get into Vfestival but without the bacchanalian blowout at the end. As I drove home last night, in the perpetual darkness this time of year offers, I noticed that some people have already bought pine trees and dressed them up like tarts in tinsel and then covered their properties with 2000 rhythmically flashing coloured lights. I don’t mean to be a scrooge, but 'dudes!', your tree will be dead and void of any needles come the big day, half of the lights will have fused and the Santa will have fell from the top of your porch on at least two occasions and will be minus its head. The inflatable snowman hung from the chimney will be deflating and look more like a hung villain rather than festive décor.

It seems that the roman calendar has been altered whilst I was on the nod and it now reads October, November, Christmas, January. Christmas is of course the time of year when Jesus was in the Walsgrave after giving birth to Santa by caesarean. It ordinarily would have annoyed Jesus being in hospital for Christmas but he quite liked the morphine and would be out by New Year’s Eve anyway.

Sunrise from Corley

Boom!

An appropriate track for today from one of my favourite local bands called Death by Miss Adventure. This is the title track from their Fireworks EP. Enjoy.

Discover more

MP3: Fireworks

Manchester United 0 Coventry City 2

Congratulations to the giant killing Sky Blues for their Wednesday night Carling Cup slaying of the mighty Manchester United and three cheers for the Maltese Falcon Mifsud for his brace of goals. Marvelous.
story

Other city news includes local band The Enemy who have apparently snubbed a civic-reception with Coventry's mayor and instead offered to take him for a curry at the Ocean restaurant on Jubilee Cresent Radford. I'll be keeping an ear out for developments on this one.
story on I spy

The Bucks Hill Tornado

Emergency services were called to Bucks Hill, Nuneaton this morning as high winds ripped apart trees and tore roof tiles from homes. This was the scene that greeted me as I drove up Bucks Hill at 6:45am this morning. The journey from Coventry had been bad enough contending with torrential rain and gusty wind but as I climbed Bucks Hill towards The Bucksford I noticed there were parts of tree branches all over the road and up ahead was the blue flashing lights of a police patrol car that was blocking the entry to Trafford Drive. The trees near the Trafford Drive shops on Bucks Hill looked like they had been savaged. I managed to squeeze my car past the police car, which I don’t think particularly impressed the copper inside, but then I had to pull up immediately anyway as there were more police cars and a whacking great fire engine blocking Mallard Ave and the houses on the corner of Trafford Drive and Mallard Ave had varying degrees of their roof tiles missing and there was debris all over the road and pavement.
It was blatantly obvious I was not going to get to my destination down Mallard Ave anytime soon so I turned the car around and headed back to Coventry. On the way I went down Astley Lane to discover Seeswood pool had partially flooded the road, and The Nuneaton Road near Fillongly was also flooded. I finally managed to get to work in Leamington Spa praying the rain would ease up as Leamington Spa floods like a bath.

Hard-Fi at the Colly -7 Sep 2007

Big band little venue is a good recipe. The Colosseum, Coventry, was pretty much packed and inside it was hot and sweaty, and your beer came in a plastic cup, just like a gig should be. Hard-Fi got Suburban Knight’s out of the way about third track in and the crowd really to rose it. The highlights of the show included the clash-esque Television and We Need Love which was my personal favourite. Most of the new CD was covered plus Cash Machine and a really loud version of Tied Up Too Tight, (cue crowd participation and leaping around) I can’t remember the exact set-list as I had been drinking and generally enjoying myself but I can remember a good spirited crowd who were really up for blowing off a bit of steam on a Friday night. There was an encore but my wife and I headed for the doors because we were knackered and it was also easier to get a pint in the other downstairs bar, in which I discovered there was a DJ performing. The Colly is still the good old tatty venue it has been for an age but now features a very strange fellow in the gents with aftershave and other cleansing potions and a smokers area which runs down the side of the venue.

Verdict: Good laugh

Freecycle Coventry

A website bought to my attention today that I thought was worth a mention. Freecycle is a global organisation that finds homes for unwanted items that otherwise would end up in a land-fill. Basically, it’s an internet network moderated by volunteers who set up local groups. By joining your local Freecycle group you get access to a message forum where people offer and giveaway items to those who want them.

Link: Coventry Freecycle
Link: Freecycle UK site

Air Ambulance Festival photographs

Photography by Chris Johnson from the event can be found here

Away from Here - The Enemy (Godiva Festival 2007)

Celebrating Coventry Weekend

click image for readable program

Reading and Leeds weekend is here, at which local lads The Enemy are playing. and it looks like it’ll be bathed in sunshine unlike Vfestival last weekend. Last night, I met up with a friend who was at VStafford and he said despite the rain he had enjoyed the weekend his highlight being Mark Ronson’s set, he described it in full detail, non of which I can remember. He did mention some heavy handedness by the police a sentiment which was echoed by someone else I talked to who was there, he said the festival was ‘a bit on top’, I will find out exactly what he means when he returns from Skegness were he has been holed up recovering from last weekend.

Local fun this weekend includes various theatre, dance and music taking place arcoss the city centre under the banner of Celebrating Coventry Weekend. I hope it goes well, my wife has been down town this evening and said the music had already started. Sunday will see local artists and bands, signed and unsigned, playing in the Upper Precinct between 12:00 & 3:00pm which will be kicked off by Olivia Broadfield who we rate highly and we once saw perform with SumladfromCov at The Maudsley, she has now adobted a more electronica sound since those acoustic days, you can find out for yourselves on her myspace page where you can have a listen. Thats my tip for the day.

A bunch of us have also managed to grab a couple of tickets to see Hard-Fi at The Coliseum in Coventry on Sep 7th, so we are looking forward to that the last time we saw them was at The Brixton Academy last year and with a hotel and The Mega Bus this time it'll be less of a journey.

Its Vfestival weekend

Sadly I am not present at this years festival. As for many festivals this summer it looks like the revellers that are attending are going to have to contend with at least some rain. This includes several close friends who are either camping or have day tickets. The coverage on tele isn't as comprehensive as it was for Glastonbury but there is some coverage on E4.

Kenilworth town centre earlier this week

BBQ review 2



Last weekend we managed to have another BBQ and we roadtested another disposable BBQ. This time is was a Supagrill Instant barbecue (spelt this way), which was bought at our local shop. As with the Sainsbury's one this came with legs in the form of a wire stand. It lit easily and got to temperature better than the Sainsburys one and featured vents in the foil container to aid air circulation. It didn't come with a lighting 'stick' as the Sainsburys one did but this BBQ performed and cooked better (although the veggy burgers I chose to cook turned out to taste like shite). So enroute to becoming a disposable BBQ connoisseur I have now discovered that I can buy a better disposable BBQ closer to home and help support the local economy without going all the way to a Sainsbury's, who were out gunned here by a specialist manufacturer. I have a Morrisons one to test but looking out the window I don't think that will be this weekend. More later.