I didn't make it to the AIDS Wolf gig in the end, due to various fuck-ups. Cue a following day of reading comments on Prestone about how it was "the best gig ever" :(

Oh well, I expect I'll survive. I suppose if I had gone I may have even walked away feeling a bit underwhelmed by all the awe evinced by everyone else. I tend to do that with gigs a bit. I like gigs. The concept of them, that is. Something about the idea of going to see a band can excite me. But generally the actual experience pales before the idea (as with most things in life I guess). I suppose to me music has always been a particularly personal experience. That indie trope of the boy in the bedroom listening to records by himself has always informed my relationship with music I think, both as an audience member and as someone peripherally involved in actually making it. Generally speaking the gigs I've enjoyed the most have involved good company and a lot of alcohol, which sort of suggest that they rather than the supposed focus of the night are where my enjoyment's coming from. The music becomes a hopefully pleasant and/or memorable backdrop to the evening, like in a nightclub. I don't think I've ever had that transcendent feeling that some people seem to get from it, of feeling that they're part of something that necessarily involves the music happening there and then to them and the others around them. Like I said, my connection with music seems to be personal rather than communal, as much as I like then discussing it with others. Gnostic or neurotic, depending on your point of view.

Anyway that's all just an amazingly long-winded way of saying that I'm annoyed at missing the gig but eh, whaddaya gonna do?. I think I felt a similar way about ATP selling out. I both really wanted to go due to the amazing line-up, but at the same time had this nagging voice in my head saying "yeah but do you really want to spend a hundred quid just to see some bands?" Hmmmm.

It's been a bit of a quiet weekend overall really, due to people generally being off and away. I did thankfully avoid a Saturday night spent sitting around in an empty house by going to Will & Cat's house to play boardgames. I wonder what it'll be like when I finally end up in a place of my own. In a lot of ways I find the idea of my own space to be more and more appealing, maybe as I get more of a sense of what I'd do with that space as I get older. Maybe just as I become more of a crotchety fucker obsessed with unwashed cutlery. But at the same time I've spent my whole life so far living with other people and I still get a bit weirded out by long periods of time by myself. It's funny how I could spend two basically identical evenings mostly sat in my room in an empty house or in a house where other people were in other rooms and for some reason the former has some sort of emotional effect on me. Like the inability to interact with other people upsets me in some way despite the fact that I may well not interact with them if they were there.

Meh, I'm waffling now. This is what happens if you leave me alone for too long!

So I'm going to go off and do some supermarket shopping. I hunger for kung po!

Speaking of the Orient, you should probably watch this.

Oh, the reason I'm being all verbose today is probably because I'm overcompensating after reading a vaguely fascinating online seminar about China Miéville's novels in general and most recent one in particular. Very well thought-out and terribly informed, two things guaranteed to make me feel stupid. So that's probably why I feel this sudden urge to muse and get all erudite (and use words like "erudite"). Sort of like whenever I watch The West Wing I want to start speaking entirely in quips and bulletpoints. Anyway the Miéville thing is interesting, a lot of political and literary criticism goes right over my head but I do agree with quite a few of the points made about what's both exciting and frustrating about his books.

Today's song follows the Wolf Parade trend and is by Sunset Rubdown, the sideproject of WP's Spencer Krug. It's off the forthcoming album which features the band actually fleshed out as a real band, rather than just being Spencer's bedroom recording hobby.

Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings