Seaside and a Gambling problem

Hey ho,

I know I should have done this like, oh, days ago but since we wereputting an issue to bed I haven’t had a chance to breeeeeathe. But the other weekend was a day or so spent at the Great Escape and at best, it looked like this.

Which is a damn sight better looking than the bits and bobs of London that you see as you travel on the train, i.e. blackness of the tunnels. Of course, as I was heading down there on mah lones, I was treated to two wannabe band boys kicking up their heels and cider cans and having a right old name-drop. I plugged my ipod into my ears, hard, turned Hurts on repeat and shut my eyes. I actually fell asleep. Man, I must be getting old (and since when I read that back it sounds like Tim Westwood speaking, I reallllllly must be old).

My Partner In Crime, la PIC, and I checked into a hotel which was the size of a rabbit hutch and had a bathroom that looked like it had been painted with the blood of the last guest. It was Psycho without the dude in the wig. Scary. PIC wouldn’t pose against the mirror with a knife so I just had to settle for taking a photo of myself in it instead.

It was a good thing we’re not all that fussed about views though. Cos what was outside our window was almost the sea. But mostly rooftop and scary amount of seagulls. Yes, we had stumbled upon their resting place when they are not attacking old ladies and their chips on the Pier. They just sat there, dead quiet, waiting for the right moment to take flight and make it onto Funniest Home Videos for eating a toddler. Fucking seagulls, they’re like the rejects from Britain’s Got Talent: beady-eyed, greedy and useless.

By the time we actually went and had some drinks – in the Dome, where people like us (annoying ones with passes that we think means we can swan anywhere we like and earns us a swit kick in the shins) go and snaffle free beer like ‘s the end of the world – and put our noses back outside for some food, it was nearing 9-ish and racing off to find Hector’s House to watch Violent Soho and Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster.

Violent Soho (http://www.myspace.com/violentsoho) were raucous and raw in equal measure. They are keeping the grunge spirit alive and if the Violent Femmes and The Pixies make your toes curl with joy then these boys are for you. It’s sometimes a little struggle to keep the sound as if it were being tortured out of an artist and the presence of a melody in place. VS have it in the bag. ‘Jesus Stole My Girlfriend’ feeds through shrieks and sneers until it reverberates in the back of your head while ‘Bombs Over Broadway’ stamps its punk tinged vigour over the room who begin a sweaty moshpit, limbs colliding and beer splattering all those around.

Eighties Matchbox… have returned with an album that pretty much nails the coffin shut on their previous incarnation of seaside goths (oh wait, what is that?) and despite some of the crowd dressed in old EMBLD uniform, the boys (with new members in tow, one of whom we thought was Mick Hucknall’s love child) now sport a kind of deep South son of a preacher dress-code. The older material is received with rapturous screams but the new material, like new single ‘Love Turns to Hate’, comes out far more accomplished and solid than perhaps their old-school fans might have thought possible. Properly outstanding.

Trying to leave Hector’s House was a bit of a mission. I’m a girl who loves big handbags. Hyphenate that if you wish, I am not ashamed. In a busy venue though, big bags are big mistakes. As I exited I managed to swipe a table of 20 drinks. PIC, behind me, saw them fuckers fall. She was aghast as I swanned out, oblivious to my grievous ways, and staggered out afterwards, convulsing with laughter, trying to tell how one young man saw the Bag go for the Drinks and he, like the Six Million Dollar Man, slo-mo’d to save them. But failed. The Big Bag chuckled evilly and dragged me and PIC further into the night.

The next morning, my hangover was NOT quelled by tea and this shit above. ‘Tastes’ like fresh milk… clearly means it’s made with the nipple lactations from a troll. Eugh. Vile.

I decided to try and find cool people to take photos of but it was clearly too early (11am) so I only found this dude and this chick who would let me near them. Oh and these band guys. And some bloke called Johnny Marr.

Mr Marr was a lovely lovely man! After we’d finished praising him, we chuffed off to the arcades on the Pier and spent many pennies on machines. Seriously, and for what? I am very glad I am poor and riddled with bad luck because I am pretty sure a gambling problem is on my horizon somewhere.

I wanted a Hello Kitty toy and thought that maybe for the first time in history those machines wouldn’t be rigged and I could get one. They were rigged and I failed. So the PIC went next door to the wildlife shop and bought me a penguin. Awww. I named the penguin Sebastian and I think it’s a gay penguin cos he insisted on having his photo taken with the cute boy also in it on the train home. Naughty penguin.

xxtaylor