Well it’s Friday night and I’m struggling to resist the call of the Off Licence. So far so good, but red bush tea just isn’t cutting it tonight. I could so easily sink a bottle of Merlot but tomorrow it’ll be a week since I touched a drop so I’m determined. My iPod shuffle is doing its best to distract me and thus far is doing a fine job of throwing out ideas for the show tomorrow. Nothing like a few tangents to get the blood flowing. Sadly there’s no news from Chris at Decor records so an interview with Mark Eitzel is looking increasingly unlikely. But the questions are prepared, just in case. Maybe it’ll be a last minute dash to the venue for a pre show chat? I hope so because I love the guy and he’d miss out on meeting me J If I hear nothing I’ll just stand at the front & scowl tomorrow night.

There are many rich seams of music out there and one that has risen in my estimation over the last few years is the bolt of gold that is Stephen Merritt. I happened across his band the Magnetic Fields whilst hanging in a record store several years ago and some may recollect the track ‘I Thought You Were My Boyfriend’ from the 2004 festive round up. His songs are always concise and shot through with witty observations and charming vignettes of life, the universe and everything. It really warms my heart and makes me very proud that many of my favourite artists of the last decade are gay. This is my Pride. What a difference a week makes & how times change J  Stephen joins Rufus Wainwright, Antony Hegarty, John Grant (swoon) and Mike Hadreas at my fantasy dinner party. Obviously John and I would end up making out and Rufus would get jealous. He can’t stand not being the centre of attention.

Lulu the iPod led me to a number of gems tonight and ‘When You’re Young and in Love’  is taken from Stephen’s recent ‘Obscurities’ record which I picked up at a Magnetic Fields gig earlier this year. They exceeded all my expectations and wowed the crowd. Hurrah! With any luck I’ll sneak this beauty in tomorrow as it is lovely, short and wonderful, just like me. One day I’d love to meet the man and share an iced bun or something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Er8K1HCyb4

You can teeter on the brink of a precipice
Over an infinitely deep abyss
And somehow not even notice this
When you're young and in love

You can grow a little older every day
Watch your stupid life wasting away
Somehow everything is a-ok
When you're young and in love

But when you're not,
The poisoned fangs of time
Become quite plain
When you're not,
It almost seems a crime
Not to go insane

I’m already excited at the prospect of the Bowie V&A exhibition in March next year. As I suspect David will never tour again I’ll have to live with the odd hologram instead I guess. My favourite Bowie record changes (yes I resisted) from year to year but the dial currently flickers on Diamond Dogs. This was a transition record from the glam rock of Aladdin Sane to the Philly soul of Young Americans. Bowie also played most of the instruments which gives it a raw and ragged edge. The record actually started out as a musical version of George Orwell’s 1984 until the estate refused to release the rights to the book. The V&A show will not only feature Bowie’s own storyboards for the musical, handwritten lyrics and word collages, diary entries and album artwork but a set model from the tour which is very exciting to me at least. It was the first of its kind to take a big theatrical show out on the road and it set the bar for all that followed. I had the pleasure of meeting Herbie Flowers who played on the album and tour many times when I worked at the old Komedia in Manchester Street. He’d wander in on Fez Bar nights for the sound check and then head to his car with a triple shot coffee I’d made so that he could savour it with a pre show joint. I once asked him about the Diamond Dogs tour and he grinned broadly and said ‘it was so good, I can’t remember.’ The track sequence ‘Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)’ is a masterpiece scrawled with scratchy guitar and sax from the great man himself. Joan Wasser (Joan as Policewoman) often performs the first section as an encore at her shows so the song is alive and well. The vocals are wonderfully desperate and histrionic but totally splendid. I’m glad you waited, here it is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrfc8c6VkTA

It's safe in the city to love in a doorway
To strangle some screams from the dawn
And isn't it me, putting pain in a stranger?
Like a portrait in flesh, who trails on a leash
Will you see that I'm scared and I'm lonely?
So I'll break up my room, and yawn and I
Run to the centre of things
Where the knowing one says:

Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing
Boys, Boys, its a sweet thing, sweet thing
If you want it, Boys, get it here, then
'For hope, Boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing

The sleeve to Diamond Dogs also caused controversy at the time because it featured David as a huge dog with exposed genitalia. The Americans in particular where outraged as all dogs in the USA wear underwear.

Ok boys and girls I’ll leave you with Joan’s version performed last year at the Naked Song Festival. Enjoy.

http://vimeo.com/26033713