Lord, has it really been that long since I last blogged? I know I haven’t had much going on, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, since I last talked to you, Great Britain showed that it really is great and hosted the best Olympic and Paralymic games ever (no of course I’m not biased); J K Rowling has released a new and completely brilliant book; The Hobbit trailer was finally released to a lot of excitement; I Am Kloot at last (thank heavens) announced some concerts ‘down south’; my computer and my washing machine both gave up the ghost (sadly in the same week) and Mrs H3 and I once again committed ourselves to attempting to attend this year’s Snow Ball in Edinburgh.

And now it’s that time of year again – I mean, of course, NaNoWriMo. Now normally at this time of the month I’m waxing lyrical about how I’m ready to tackle the 1,667 words that I need to write every day to meet the 30 November deadline of 50,000 words and as we all know from previous years I either start out well, then tail off or get sidetracked before I even really get going and then have a mad spurt at the end of the month. So I was all ready to go and actually even had a plot idea for once – something that doesn’t usually happen properly at this stage of the game, but sad to say I’m really not feeling in the mood for writing this year. I’m not entirely sure why, but at the moment I’m just not feeling the NaNoWriMo love and am thinking of skipping it for the first time since 2008. It may be that as the month goes on my need to write will return and I’ll make a late attempt but at the moment it just isn’t happening. However, if you want to have a go, please check out their website at the link.  

Although I’m not writing at the moment books have once again become a large part of my life. For some reason I went through a period of about six months when I didn’t pick up a single book, not even Harry Potter – and I’m sure anyone who knows me knows what a strange and shocking thing that is (and not just the not reading Harry Potter). I’m not sure why this was, but now I’m back with a vengeance and am voraciously reading anything I can lay my hands on. Terry Pratchett, Lauren Kate, Cassandra Clare, John Connolly, the lovely James Herbert, Dean Koontz and of course the wonderful J K Rowling have all featured in my reading list over the last few months – and all have been brilliantly entertaining and well worth checking out.

As the weather gets colder and the nights draw in, Mrs H3 and I are finally getting some evenings out. Firstly was a small and intimate, but completely wonderful evening with the fantastic Chris Singleton and the Distractions a couple of weeks ago, check out the link for a free download of Chris’ first album ‘Twisted City’. Although there weren’t anywhere near enough people there considering the quality of the band, those of us that were had a truly excellent night. The picture isn’t great quality as it was very dark in there, but not bad considering.

Chris Singleton and the Distractions

Next was our usual annual jaunt to the Halloween Night of Fear with Alice Cooper, which of course saw us dressing up in our scary best. Note the fantastic face paint that Mrs H3 put on me – she’s a true artist that one! Alice was good, but I don’t think he was a patch on previous years. I wasn’t keen on the Wembley venue (especially when it was scheduled at the same time as the NFL American football – trying to get to the venue through the thousands of leaving football fans was a complete nightmare and we only just made it in time) and the sound quality wasn’t very good. Initially I thought it was because I’d been struck down with the lurgy the week before and my ears were still playing up, but Mrs H3 and plenty of others confirmed that wasn’t the case. The stage show was scaled back too, which was interesting, but not as entertaining as the usual beheadings etc., although the snake and the strait jacket did make an appearance. Strangely he chose to do a tribute to Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Keith Moon which took four songs – a little surprising when he has such an extensive back catalogue of his own that he could draw upon instead, and when he didn’t play ‘Only Women Bleed’ which I thought was mandatory. It was still a good evening though, although very wet, which is unusual for Halloween and I’m sure was because I went for the full face paint.    

Do you think I've overdone the make-up?

And so onto the future when on 20^th November we finally get to see I Am Kloot for the first time in what seems like forever (definitely well over a year), playing a preview of their forthcoming album ‘Let It All In’. Obviously I’m extremely excited by this, although somewhat nervous as I am desperately hoping this latest Elbow-produced offering doesn’t have the lush orchestrations of the last one and makes a return to the raw, lyric-driven sound of their previous albums. Having heard the first single from it I’m not entirely hopeful, but trying to reserve judgement until I’ve heard the whole thing. The album is released in time for my birthday (hurrah) and is followed by a couple of concerts in London and Brighton in February, which we will, of course, be at. Actually, trying to get tickets was mental, something that has never been a problem before and there was a scary moment where it actually looked like we weren’t going to get them – which would have caused a strop of massive proportions from me. It’s already bad enough having to pay double what it used to cost to see them (since their Mercury music award nomination) without not being able to get a ticket!

Of course Gary Numan makes an appearance before Christmas too on the 7^th December, where hopefully he’ll be recovered from his recent move to Los Angeles. And then, just after my birthday on 31 January we’ll finally be seeing Passenger, a band that I’ve loved for years but have never yet quite managed to get round to seeing live.

And so once again Mrs H3 and I are heading to Edinburgh in an attempt to go to the Snow Ball  I’m fairly confident that this year we’ll actually make it as it’s being held at the beginning of December, so hopefully less chance of snow (and us getting stuck at both ends as we did last time) and we’re travelling the day before rather than on the day of the Ball itself just to make doubly sure. This year’s star attraction from the USA is the original wizard rockers Harry and the Potters, who we haven’t seen since Leakycon last year. With RiddleTM, Siriusly Hazza P and Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldronsproviding first class support it’s going to be a great evening and is the first Harry Potter event we’ve attended in ages and will help to soothe our bitter hearts for not managing to get tickets for Leakycon London next year (still not ready to blog about that). Expect lots of photos of all the lovely witches and wizards in their finest robes ready to Wrock the night away in the magical city that Jo Rowling calls home at Europe’s premiere wizard rock event.

The Wizard Rock Special Post

Talking of Harry Potter I want to announce my new Wrock-centric blog. Now that I’ve admitted publically my love of Wizard Rock I feel the need to talk about it almost incessantly. The quantity and quality of Wrock bands interest me far more than a majority of mainstream music these days, with the exception of my eternal favourites.

So if you’re interested in knowing more about Wizard Rock and what’s going on in the Harry Potter fandom’s own music genre then please check out my new blog using the link above or the one in the sidebar.

It's That Time Again ...

Good grief another month gone already! So once again you get the extremely late and horrendously long update.

Firstly a HUGE apology to Mrs H3 for not mentioning earlier that amongst all the things we were doing recently we were celebrating her 30th birthday on 27th March. Part of the reason for this is that for quite a long time she was panicking about reaching this milestone and I didn’t want to upset her any further with a reminder, but then obviously failure to blog regularly came into it as well and so instead of getting ready for the big event after a complaint that I hadn’t mentioned it on here, all I can do now is report on the weekend and say congratulations on getting through the celebrations and for realising 30 isn’t the end of your life!


The Music Bit…The Deal was for the Diamond and the Skulldozer!

So the last time I blogged we were on the verge of going to see Elbow at Wembley and what a fantastic evening it was too. Completely different from the Brighton gig in so many ways, not least the quantity of people in attendance (obviously, considering the size of the place compared to previous venues, although I have to admit I was surprised at how full the place was – I guess it really is finally their year). It was clear from the moment that Guy and the lads stepped onto the stage how chuffed they were to be there and the huge crowd added considerably to the anthem-like numbers such as One Day Like This, although as I said before I’m just happy to see them wherever they perform (however, not the show they’re doing supporting U2 – and not just ‘cos of the £150 price tag - and annoyingly, the concerts in Manchester with the Halle Orchestra sold out before I even had a chance to read their Myspace blog post about them!)

Unfortunately my snazzy new phone broke (the slider cable broke causing the screen to black out) and had to be sent back to Sony for repair however, once again Mrs H3 and I managed to take copious amounts of photos and video footage (pics below as ever … I really will get my Youtube channel up and running for the videos one day I promise).





So then began the Peter Doherty (yes Peter in the press now he’s turned thirty (just like Mrs H3!) and grown up, although actually he’s always called himself that) tour to promote his rather excellent new album Grace/Wastelands which began with two concerts in Brighton and Folkestone and ended on the Sunday after Lisa’s birthday at the Troxy in London. Disappointingly, for all those detractors who have done nothing but slag him off ever since I mentioned we were going to see him, he is now completely clean and turned up at every gig.

The first at Brighton Dome (where else) was an interesting affair to say the least. The first support band didn’t turn up so his drummer came out and did a few songs, followed by a friend of his who we’d seen at the Royal Albert Hall and hadn’t enjoyed, although he was better than the drummer. Finally came Dot Allison and her band, who weren’t my (or Mrs H3’s) cup of tea at all. Luckily, having parked ourselves in the front row of the stalls seats, we were having fun watching the other members of the audience which took our minds off the support. When Peter eventually made it onto the stage, dressed casually in jeans and jumper, he did so with his full band along with a three piece string orchestra and at one point a double bass player and Dot again (as she collaborated on some of the songs), as well as Wolfman who strangely didn’t sing along to For Lovers as I would have expected. The music ranged from his solo acoustic stuff to full on rock and roll chic with a lot of free-form jazz type stuff in between. At one point there were so many people on stage I thought it was turning into a Sigur Ros concert. However, throughout he was excellent, even if the pseudo free-form jazz stuff didn’t particularly float my boat and with a crowd that was very clearly upper middle class and awfully polite it was funny to see the excitement that songs like Fuck Forever and Can’t Stand Me Now produced. It was a really good, if somewhat different evening to the one I had been expecting. He finished without an encore, which came as a surprise to most of us, but as he’d been hit by a drink thrown by someone in the audience and then almost by a lit cigarette, perhaps not completely so.

The following night at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone was completely different. Firstly, we totally missed the support acts and then chose to go and sit on the balcony to watch the show rather than join the moshers. This was an excellent choice as it turned out as the crowd were very different in culture to the previous night. So was the show. Peter, who was once again sporting the casual jeans and t shirt look performed solo for the most part, with only occasional guest appearances by fellow Babyshambles cohort Mick Whitnall and the always value for money Wolfman (still dressed in the same clothes), to break things up (and no, he still didn’t sing on For Lovers). Peter spent a considerable amount of the concert proving his guitar skills with some lengthy riffs and even more time dodging the considerable amount of drinks that the very rowdy audience threw his way. After promising to finish with Albion, he did actually close with Can’t Stand Me Now. As is our wont Mrs H3 and I didn’t move when the lights went up, waiting for the venue to clear somewhat before heading home and it was lucky we didn’t for about seven minutes later Peter reappeared to do a blinding version of Albion to a by then largely empty room. As ever both evenings were caught in pictures and video.

And so to the Troxy - a beautiful art deco venue in Limehouse, London. This was the last night of the tour, and the last night of a very long weekend of celebrating for Mrs H3 and I. The audience was made up of a selection of the types of people that had been at the others - both the stylish and fashionable and the die hard beer throwing fans and the show was sold out. Once again we opted to miss the support acts, although we weren’t successful in the case of Dot Allison, who hadn’t grown on us at all. The gig too was a hybrid of the previous ones we’d seen – the band and the string section was in attendance as were special guests Graham Coxon, Wolfman (and yes this time he did sing on For Lovers and he was bloody awful – although he was wearing different clothes at last!) and Lee Mavers (the lead singer of 90’s band The La’s), which meant of course that the free-form jazz was back, but also there was the acoustic numbers (which I think on balance I generally prefer) too. Peter had chosen to be more formal for this last evening, dressing in a suit and hat, very dashing and very much in step with the venue. Unfortunately, the late arrival meant that we were quite far back and so my view of Peter wasn’t good enough to take any photos or video, although Mrs H3 did manage to. All in all I felt this was the most interesting of the three shows because of the mixture of styles, although I have equally enjoyed all of the shows just for the opportunity to spend a great deal of time gazing at Peter Doherty who, when clean, is a truly beautiful looking man.




So the next concert on the agenda is John Bramwell at the Half Moon in Putney on Thursday, the first time I’ve seen anything I Am Kloot-related for almost a year. Needless to say I am very excited at the prospect of seeing him (and hopefully Pete) again. I’m really hoping that he might be doing some of the tracks from the new Kloot album that he and the band performed in gigs earlier this year. This is followed on 22nd April by another evening with Peter Doherty in Camden and then the eagerly awaited (by me at least) Ultravox concert at the Roundhouse. Early May brings a visit to see the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Cadogan Hall in London as I have become interested in learning to play the ukulele (if anyone wants to teach me please feel free to shout).

Lastly, I just wanted to mention that the new album Hocus Opus One by one of my favourite Wizard Rock bands Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office has finally been released. This long anticipated album is a heavy duty slice of electro-dance pop and is definitely worth a listen so check them out at their Myspace page by clicking on the link. Hmmm, actually while I’m about it I’d also like to mention another excellent new release. Zoë from Split Seven Ways and Malfoy Manor is giving away free (as she often does – check out her Myspace pages) The Broken Bird e.p. under the name Zoë’s Adventures Underground. This is a beautiful piece of work and non-Wrock, for those of you still a little nervous about the whole Wizard Rock thing.

Concerts, Harry Potter and the wonderfulness that is Wizard Rock!

So it’s been a little while since the last catch-up again as I’ve got lots of things coming up in the future, but there’s been nothing much of interest going on in the recent past.

Valentine’s Day came and went without troubling me as usual and lack of money meant quiet evenings down the pub in lieu of any real excitement. But that all changed as the first of the two Elbow concerts we’re going to finally arrived last Saturday night after a somewhat drunken and uproarious Friday session that involved rather too much champagne among other things. Now I’m still ecstatic at the fact that they won the Best Band award at the Brits (although a little surprised I will admit) and then followed that up with another win at the NME awards, the well deserved Outstanding Contribution to British Music so was looking forward to seeing them immensely, especially after my disappointment at missing them last year.

So Saturday night found us at the Brighton Dome, tired from the previous night but happy and ready to be entertained. And what a good job Elbow did. The Acorn are supporting them on their tour, which is good as I really enjoyed their album Glory Hope Mountain and thought they did a fine job. But Elbow were sublime. Obviously incredibly happy at their awards and their ‘sudden’ fame Guy was happy to talk and joke with the audience and even at one point engaged in a question and answer session between tracks. The concert was uplifting and every bit as good as the BBC televised one earlier in the year, although of course the songs weren’t just restricted to Seldom Seen Kid as that one had been, nor was there the huge orchestra and choir.

Between us Mrs H3 and I took about 500 photos (see a selection below) and a good deal of video (hurrah for my fabby phone – although I did feel a slight pang for the crap quality of the old Nokia and am considering taking it to Wembley just for old times sake). So on 14th March we’ll be at Wembley with the guys (and possibly David Hasselhoff) doing it all again, except a bit different. It will be interesting to see the band in such a large location and I’m suffering those pangs of all fans whose bands go global, that I’m torn between wanting to see them in such large venues but at the same time still wanting to see them in smaller places. I expect knowing how down to earth Elbow are they’ll be doing a mixture of both for a while.



Also on the horizon are concerts by Peter Doherty on consecutive days at the Brighton Dome and Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone on 20th and 21st March and after a lot of praying and wishing on my part I Am Kloot, or at least Johnny Bramwell, is finally coming south of the Watford gap again and performing at the Half Moon in Putney on 9th April with an appearance at the Boileroom in Guildford on 11th May. We will be fitting in a visit to the Roundhouse on 30th April to see the newly re-formed (and believe me I’m very excited about this) Ultravox, who I haven’t seen since the Monument Tour in 1982. But the fun doesn’t stop there. It’ll be Chas and Dave time again on 14th May in Croydon and on 18th July Mrs H3 and I will be heading to London for the first day of the Lovebox festival. I am definitely expecting to see an eclectic mix of music there with bands like Florence and the Machine, N.E.R.D. and of course the mighty Duran Duran. The following week will see us at Shepherds Bush for the latest Gary Numan concert.

But one of the events I am most looking forward to is the Hogwarts Jamboree UK on 27th June which is being held in London. Now everyone who knows me knows that I am Harry Potter fanatic (what…you never realized?) and am into everything HP related. Through this I have become involved in a genre of music called Wizard Rock which, having started (rather late I will admit) as a vague interest of mine in hearing bands who called themselves after Potter characters and sang songs about the stories, has turned into devotion to the cause with a considerably increased CD collection.

How to explain Wizard Rock? My personal view is that it’s almost impossible (unless you have a complete hatred of music) not to like at least one of the bands around and believe me, although most of you not in the HP fandom will never have heard of this phenomenon, there are literally hundreds of Wrock bands out there. The musical styles are varied – everything from pop to blues to rap to country, with a healthy dose of comedy thrown in for good measure. In fact, think of a musical style and somewhere there will be a Wrock band that meets your criteria.

Initially started by American bands like Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys, it didn’t take long before the Wrock revolution spread worldwide (and I mean worldwide as there are bands in Sweden, Australia, Japan, Israel and Canada to name but a few) and Britain can boast what I think are some of the best bands around. Personal favourites are Split Seven Ways, Riddle TM, Peeved, Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons, Siriusly Hazza P and the awesome Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and excitingly for me at least, some of these bands will be appearing at the Hogwarts Jamboree.

Ok so this was a funny moment for me: As usual I had 4Music on in the background while I was working earlier on. On comes the video of Apologize by One Republic. I’m confused: the words are all wrong. Then I realize. I’ve listened to the Ministry of Magic’s cover version of the song so many times now that I’m automatically singing their words, rather than the original. And I have to admit I prefer the MoM version.

So lots of music already planned, with more to come I’m sure. After all Michael Jackson is rumoured to be doing a series of concerts at the O2, which I think must be a dead cert assuming the tickets aren’t stupidly priced, although knowing him…. Plus of course the festivals are just beginning to be announced. I’m really fancying Sunday of the V festival, even though Oasis are headlining on the main stage, as there are plenty of other bands that I love playing (read Elbow, James, Snow Patrol and Ocean Colour Scene) and Keane will be headlining the 4Music stage.