I’ve had an unusually social few days. Saturday night was the much anticipated (by vain, show-offy me) Smiths/Morrissey karaoke night at Cinema Classics. Althought I managed to turn up about two hours early, it was a lot of fun, and definitely a very different way to spend an evening. People sang on a little stage in front of the videos (they used ‘the complete picture’ and ‘hulmerist’, two videos I own, but haven’t seen for 10 years or so). I sung ‘Sheila take a bow’ and minced around the stage. It was fun.

After a day at the beach, we went into town to see Pete Yorn, supported by Ours at Bowery Ballroom. Tickets had been bought for me by a Pete-loving friend who works at the label, so I went along. How was it? It was a very different experience to Tindersticks, put it that way. The crowd was all-American, with the state of New Jersey particularly well represented. Ours were a very tight, pretty rock band, far too rock for my taste, but clearly quite good at what they do. They ruined it all by doing a ridiculous cover of a fragment of Queen‘s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ though… Pete Yorn was ok. He’s a nice looking, rocking guitarist/singer, who has a tight band. I thought it was a sign of the times and an indication of ‘the CD generation’ when he mentioned his album, and introduced a song as ‘Track 8′. Anyway, there’s no point in hiding the truth – I didn’t like any of his songs, and he destroyed the Smiths‘s ‘Panic’ with rock posturing. Seemed like a nice guy and all, but it’s not my scene!

I have been buying a stupid number of records. I will start reviewing them en masse at some point.