Espin

I love this Ron Burgundy sketch....

The Cinematic Orchestra

One of my favourite bands at the moment is The Cinematic Orchestra. I was introduced to them about 6 years ago by my then flatmate Calum when I tagged along to seem them play live. It was an unusual gig, which played on the name of their album 'Man with a Movie Camera' (taken from an experimental 1929 silent documentary film of the same name by Russian director Dziga Vertov.)

The band were hidden behind a screen and played along to the film. They only revealed themselves at the end of the film when the screen lifted up. Like everything else these days though, rather than tell you about it I can just show it to you. (You might recognise the tracks from my USA trip DVD - sorry Burt, I still haven't sent you your copy!)



They sound much like their name suggests, cinematic and orchestral, but with a contemporary jazzy sort of feel, with looped samples forming the basis of a lot of the songs. The band consists of a 'conductor', if you will, who acts as a front man and plays the various looped samples, an awesome drummer, who's pretty amusing live, a cool saxophonist, a double bass player and a guitar player. They don't sing on any tracks themselves, and as a result a lot of their work is instrumental. They do, however, tend to collaborate a fair bit, bringing in male and female vocalists.

I've seen them twice since that first gig. Once a couple of years later, on my own, and earlier this year with Laura, who is also a fan. The opening act that night was a Canadian band called Patrick Watson (he's the lead singer and plays piano). They were pretty good. The lead singer came on to sing with TCO for a few tracks. Turns out he sings on a couple of songs on their latest album, Ma Fleur. In fact he sings on the opening track. Here's a live version of it. Unfortunately they didn't play this when we saw them. I think it's a beautiful song. Ironically, TCO don't play on this at all (they do on the album track). You can see them just off to the right in the shadows.

Chill FM

You may or may not recall that I was never really one to listen to the radio much when we were growing up. Not on a regular basis anyway. Mainly because I couldn't find a station that played the kind of music I liked, and I got annoyed by being forced to listen to wacky DJs and tons of ads, so I tended to listen to tapes and CDs. That stuck with me through my student years, and until fairly recently.

We've got a couple of DAB radios in our home and they're great. There's so much more choice, it's easy to find stations (they tune in right away and tell you the name of the station - and information about what you're listening to), and the reception is clear and perfect, no fuzz. But there's one station we've discovered in particular which has changed my perception entirely about listening to the radio. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but they play the kind of music I like, with interesting stuff I've never heard. Best of all there are no DJs or ads, just the occasional call out to remind you who you're listening to and where to find it. It's called Chill FM. You should check it out sometime. It's really easy to access. Just click on 'listen live' and it pops up with a separate little media player.

The McCartney Years

Thought you might be interested in this Wayne?

Penguin Parade

I stand corrected. Laura tells me that the number of penguins on parade is entirely dependent on the willingness of the penguins. The zoo keepers open the gates and let out as many penguins as want to come. I guess it was too cold for most of them at the weekend.

A Day at the Zoo

Laura's birthday is on Monday. But, as it's the weekend, we thought it'd be nice to do something to celebrate it a couple of days early. I'd booked a table for dinner at a French restaurant in town, Cafe Saint-Honore, later in the evening, and as Laura had never been to Edinburgh Zoo before and wanted to see the penguins, we went there for the afternoon.

It'd been a while since I've been to the Zoo myself. I'm not sure where I stand on the whole zoo thing. Yes, I hate the whole caged animal thing, and some of the animals we saw clearly looked bored / pissed off, especially the big cats who were pacing back and forth in a pretty disturbing and sad kind of way. But there's also the whole ' zoological society' / educational aspect, where they're helping to preserve / maintain endangered species in some cases. Good and worthwhile work I'm sure. But it's fair to say that in today's society the idea of keeping animals locked up in a cage for human entertainment is questionable.

Nevertheless, we had a nice day. It was bad timing in a way as it's the winter season, so the park was a little quiet, and some areas were closed, partly due also to building work going on; there's a new Chimpanzee House under construction at the moment - looks great. Also, there was only one restaurant open, so our choices for lunch were limited. I use the term 'restaurant' loosely. It was more like a high school cafeteria. By the time we got there (we wanted to see the penguin parade at 2:15 so it was a late lunch) most of the hot food was gone and we had to settle for a couple of scones and a packet of crisps. A third of the eating space was also taken over by a kids jungle gym (which parents had to pay to use!) so it was a little noisy and chaotic. A sign of things to come perhaps! I joked with Laura that it felt more like being in a zoo than it did out in the park.

Anyway, that was the low point. The high point was probably the penguins. They were very entertaining. They had a little penguin parade, which involved two penguins being chaperoned around a circuit of pavement just outside their compound, led under close supervision by a couple of zoo keepers. Very cute, but not quite what I'd call a parade. But funny nevertheless. Afterwards we checked out the main penguin house. It's pretty nice, has a big pool and everything! They were pretty photogenic too. One in particular with funky yellow hair. There was also a bit where you could check them out swimming underwater through thick glass. Pretty cool.

There were plenty of monkeys. Dom would have liked it. I'm sure we'll go back again when the wee one's out and about. It's a good day out. I've posted some other photos on my flickr site if you want to have a look.