The Banana Line

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Milkshakes and Ice-cream

It is funny how a simple Friday evening can get so complicated all of a sudden. We all have terribly busy weekdays, so that making up for all the 'wasted time' is absolutely essential for the sake of the full enjoyment of our miserable commuting lifes.

Let's say last Friday, we organises a very busy Friday Evening starting by one of the pop-up concerts celebrated at St Pancras Station that have been happening from February until last Thursday. Bringing the subject of pop-up events mentioned already last week, this Station Sessions were so pop-up that although were heavily advertised by Twitter, and in spite of going around the station a couple of time we were not able to find the stage.

Resigne by the epic failure after rushing through the infinite tunnels of the underground at King's Cross, we managed to make it on time, at the announced time. But still, we couldn't find them. Not very happy with the outcome of the start of the little adventure, we located the Eurostar counter, hoping to find a bargain ticket to go to Paris, as one of those crazy improvised things that happen spontaneously every now and then and become absolute topic of conversation for months. Unfortunately, although realisable, the improvisation would have costed us around 200 pounds per person. In stead, we decided to invest that money in ourself by treating us with a milkshake in a nearby coffee shop (while making a pact between us of not to mention the shameful attempt of going to Paris with not so successful result).

While escaping from the masses of the commuting home, I remembered how the new Concourse at King's Cross had just been renovated after months or probably years of works in the area. Looking like one of those very high-end new airports (*cough cough* Madrid Barajas), KC certainly showed an impressive new face, with a very interesting structural mesh at the ceiling, illuminated with an eye-catching pink light. Good one for the Olympics, we all thought.

After a few minutes decided we had enough of architecture for the day, my Twitter advised me of the exact location due to the guys in charge of the event. Turns out, the gig was going to happen, it was just that it was SO pop-up that literally bloomed in seconds. By the time we reached the Eurostar check-in area of the station, we finally bumped into the small crowd around the band: Clock Opera. The super-recognisable beard of the lead singer plus the red stripy jumper of the guitarist were noticeable enough to find them too at the Camden Crawl on Sunday. Small world.

As the time was passing by, the need for a very well reviewed milkshake by our friend K was digging an even bigger hole in our estomacs. After the band finished playing, without hesitation, we run into Drink Shop Do.

If I remember well, the previous weekend, we kind of did the same action of visiting this very quirky Coffee/Cocktail Bar on a Friday Evening with not very big results as it was fully booked and extremely busy. It was a shame as there was a competition going on to carve in clay the face of Lionel Richie.

This time we came earlier, but still, most of the tables were already booked so we had to use one table knowing firmly that we should leave it after an hour or so.

Still not sure if it was just our imagination being affected by the hunger we had or it was just genuinely bad, but certainly the wait to be served took way longer than our guts wanted. In fact, the feeling of the time ticking to evacuate the table was not in our first wishes. After around 15 minutes of uncertainty, a waitress informed us that the ice-cream, (note that it was barely 5:30pm, on a Friday) had run out and therefore the milkshakes would have none of it. We all shared a common face of odd-ness, like in a cartoon, raising comically one of our brows, at the same time we were giving enormous disapproval looks.

After recovering for the shock and after a couple of misunderstandings between the staff and us, we decided that the awkwardness was higher than our hunger for a very expensive milkshake, so we waved goodbye (and got our money back) feeling strangely betrayed and went on our hunt to find another place to feed our empty souls.

Trying to come up with an explanation of actually the failed third attempt to stay at this place, we decided to move on and keep our root of tasks for the day, so we headed to Shoreditch. Blaming it on the uncertainty, we took the longest and most uncomfortable route to the East End, deeply ignoring the presence of the Overground or the "famous three" to Shoredich High Street. In stead, we took the painful tunnel from Pentoville Road up to the Northern Line branch to Moorgate, and have the walk or our lifes until we reached our destination (actually it is not that bad, but felt infinite).

We finally reached Richmix with a terribly empty stomach. Fortunately arriving on time, we had the opportunity to see first hand a display of the polymeric clay street artist CityzenKane, which I have been admiring since I first set a foot on Brick Lane. Even though the display was not very big, it was a big oportunity to see a good range of his pieces all together, in stead of having to find them on the streets of London, where they usually get vandalised (CZN's Lord Jagannath has been removed recently)

On the Mezzanine floor, a small photography exhibition about British Sub-culture. Really good portraits. And it's free. We all love freebies, don't we?

The last step for our very elaborated plan involved proper sitting down for a decent meal. Taking the overground back North, at its last stop, Highbury & Islington and a couple of bus stops after we arrived at my beloved The Beach Hut. Our first decision was to study the level of hunger to ask for an appropriate size for their delicious fish and chips. Still, no matter the size you ask for, the portions are always extremely big.

A big piece of cod with proper hand cut chips and a cream soda after, playing some Tic Tac Toe, our stomachs still had some room for the best thing about the Beach Hut: THE ICE-CREAM. Two glorious gigantic scoops of ice-cream, that in my case were Honey & Lavender and Coconut settled the night and we went home to die of joy.

Friday evening not necessarily as smooth as planned, but definitely worth trying.

Monday, 7 May 2012

Camden Crawl 2012

Sunday at the Camden Crawl. Only a 10 minutes bus ride from home commuting wise and pretty much hassle free.

The day started at the Press Room at Camden's Holiday Inn, where we got ourselves geared up for the day.

James Allan from Glasvegas happened to be around for a bit. All dress in black in his also black leather jacket. With a (yes, again) black guitar (like mine!) probably 20 times more expensive than mine, decided to grab a chair, accompanied by his cousin Rab sat down and played a couple of tunes in acoustic. Nice start. Needless to say, Rab was also wearing black. I liked James sunnies, now that I remembered.

With Regent's canal at the back, the press room was warming up for the last night of the Festival.

By 5 or 6 pm the bands were hungrily waiting at The Diner's door, queueing to grab a bite before the event. We made it on time to the restaurant avoiding all queues. Perfect timing.

For you information, this was the set menu for lunch from the winners, I mean, the bands, and the roadies. True story.

Due to our lack of knowledge about most of the bands listed on the line up, we decided to gamble and play by venues. We had the risk of going for the worse bands, but at least we could cross out from our personal list venues that we hadn't been on before. We decided on the starting point to be The Jazz Cafe, so we crawled into the rest of the venues on the way to the Lock Market, in a very optimised number of them optimising the number of venues per hour.

Binary. When we arrived it had already started. I liked the first tune that I heard but the rest resulted a bit much for me though. They had energy, must admit. The crowd was not helping much either, we were probably 20-25 in the floor. Post-punk stuff.

As it finished, the lead singer, angrily threw away the microphone, not sure if he was making a statement, he was clumsy or he just fancied doing so. Anyways, after Binary, we headed to the Electric Ballroom, in which I had the opportunity to see a couple of months ago Sleigh Bells. I visited the Ballroom a couple of hours before for undisclosed reasons. Quite funny actually.

On the advertising wall next to Camden Road I found this VERY disturbing ad to prevent hearing loss with loud music.

Yes. It was a mega big nail.

Ghetts. When we arrived at the EB, there were just two songs left. A very overpowered bass and speakers left us a bit like the ad above but still, we did enjoyed the performance. Chaps from East London apparently. Not my immediate type of thing but made us dance.

After chatting in the Press Room with some people and realising about the hype from the fact that Supergrass' Gaz Coombes was playing at The Cuban and how tiny was the venue, we decided not to care much about the gig but to go to the venue itself just for the sake of our curiosity. While having the conversation, I wasn't really realising who were we talking about until it suddenly hit me. Funny was that I am pretty sure that I bumped into Gaz him self minutes before, on my way back from the Barfly and thought: 'isn't this guy the chap from Supergrass?'. Turns out yes, he was.

Random Impulse. Funny thing is that before entering the venue, our friend C hinted us with the permanent 'sick' smell that The Cuban has at all times. It certainly remained yesterday. It was indeed a very small venue, and again, we played for the location more than for the band. Turned out to be quite a good gamble. A very unusual lineup of musicians turned up on the stage of the cuban themed pub. Main singer Jover Walker, which I just read to be named the Black Ed Sheeran (!!!) from North London. A very energetic bloke surrounded by the rest of the band to play their 'Britraprocker' music show (yes, first time I heard this word myself, but it is the right denomination according to The Guardian).

Mr Walker himself made all introductions accompanied at all times by his classical black Fender Stratocaster. On this left, 'Baby Face', that in other context would look like the typical 20 year-old IT friend that everybody has, but in this case, he was kitted up with an electric guitar too and which by they way, was not a bad guitarist at all. At the back of Walker, 'Delicious Bob', a funny action guy in the drums and finally 'Uni', the newbie of the band and certainly the youngest (and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody asked for his ID before being allowed into the venue). The first thing that really shocked me was the size of the 6-string bass that 'Uni' was carrying, that apparently was an *googles it* Ibañez SR506. The poor thing looked pretty shy on stage in spite of the size of his instrument (sorry for the very obvious pun). But certainly, the very disturbing thing was imagining the story behind that mix'n'matched lineup, how it turned out to be together.

Jover made his homework quite well encouraging all of us in the crowd, unaware of their existence a few minutes ago, to engage with their songs and he certainly achieved it. 'Come on, some sing along with me guys. It's easy, just LALALALALA with me and you guys can pretend you heard the song before'. The lyrics talked about everyday issues 'like having no money and going overdraft' and all sorts, with melodies very clearly influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, but nevertheless, they all made us had a really good time.

Yeah, some random and not necessarily exciting Street Art that I found on the way to the venues.

Look! Naughty Queeny!!

Two Wounded Birds. Under my preferred list, I had jotted down the presence of 'Angry Birds' (nickname given by my friend C), in one of the probably dodgiest venues of the night, the Dingwalls. As it happens when booze is involved in any activity, a group of 18 year-old spent the whole gig dancing inebriatedly right in front of the band, putting them and the rest of the crowd in not a very good mood. 'Marry me Johnny (the main singer)' were screaming constantly. Nevertheless, their american vintage shirts from the guys and the fog machine diverted our thoughts from the disturbing group of kins after all. I sort of felt bad for the band as they were not officially listed on the program and they were just announced on Twitter a couple of ours before the event. Despite of all disruptions, the show was pretty good and the played a bunch of what I suppose are going to be, the tracks of their new LP.

As C wanted desperately to see The Cribs, we ran downhill to Koko (well, we didn't run that much), to try to get in as soon as possible before all the crowds filled the venues. As I had suspected, I had the feeling that this year's CC2012 was not as crowded as the previous one (most probably because of the HORRIBLE WEATHER), so I knew we were not going to have any problem to get it. In fact, we could even get the chance to be there halfway through Glasvegas show (win! 2x1). It was certainly a big contrast, seeing them a couple of ours before sitting down with their acoustic guitars and a couple of ours after with their full lineup and their standing-up drummer girl.

Once the Scottish had finished, we feared for our lifes for a couple of minutes as Koko was dangerously crowded close to the bar and the toilets, which by the way, everytime I see them, I think they used to be secret war tunnels or something like that. They are certainly narrow and confusing. After the masses cleared at some degree, we placed ourselves closer to the stage to have a better view.

And The Cribs started their show.

Just in case anybody had any doubt, they ARE from Wakefield.

Even though all the hype around them and the fact that they appear in every single issue of the NME, they couldn't beat my physical exhaustion. Taking on account that I had just slept 2 hours the day before because unfortunately I had my phone stolen, their 15-song show appeared to me painfully long. After 3 of the songs, I refused get showered by flying pints of beer and moved to the side to a covered place. The views were fantastic and I was almost witness of the potential death of a drunk woman certainly excited dancing amusingly exited from one of the balconies in front. Fortunately, the night turned out safe as the husband hopessly holding her by her belt for safety.

While hiding from the pushing crowd and while easing my pain from my sore neck, I found out a furry creature on the corner of the little cave. After minutes of paranoia, it turned out to be a very tacky handbag from the lady besides me.

After 5 more songs, I couldn't the energy of the band, but for some reason all the songs sounded the same to me. By the time they were playing the 13th song, non-stop between each, I decided that I had had enough, and headed home for a much needed rest.

It might be a fact that we didn't make the wisest choice of bands at the beginning of the day, or at least the most interesting, but it certainly turned out to be extremely funny.

I forgot to say that in our way back, that resulted not as short as the way in, we witnessed a non-programmed last gig in the bus itself, performed by a very stoned Rastafari.

Oh, and I high-five-ed with a walking Banana.

Sunday, 6 May 2012

First Impressions on Earth

I could say that I have been living here in this city time enough to feel comfortable with it structure, and be able to get a feeling of what to do and where to go easily. It is exactly at this point in which my 'sponginess' for knowledge is used as a base to start collecting 'The best of...'.

It is right now when I carry my little black book of Greatest Hits and start jotting down ideas and places. And it cannot be denied that feeling comfortable in a place enough to want to come back it is definitely a winning situation. A little coffee place, a restaurant, a favourite dish or drink and just want to take your friends there all the time.

This happened this weekend. After some time wasted spent trying to find something appealing or decent to do around Bermondsey, unexplored area for me, gut feeling told me to go further down South to Brixton. My friend M directed me to Brixton Market. It was 6-ish, time for stalls and stands to be closing down. Remains of wrapping film, fruit skins and washing water on the floor was a clear sign of the end of the trade time. Inside the corridors of the market, after a bit of doubt of where exactly to go and what did we wanted, we ended up in Seven at Brixton.

M had been there before, eating some churros before. I was strangely craving for some cake and a cup of coffee, as unfortunately this spring is not proving very warm. Our first instinct moved us to seat on the booths, next to the working heater and probably thinking about using the blankets that were availble. A traditional paper luggage tag advised us that the table was reserved, so we headed to the bar sitting on the stools, facing the market alleyway.

While amused by the Menu reigned by Spanish dished and the presence of Tarta de Santiago, again, we instinctively looked back to the main bar, to find a big collection of books carefully organised by colour, like a colour pencil case, and next to them, a pile of board games. Without not much hesitation, we went for Connect 4. Another clever turning back to explore the place, we found a passage that headed to the upstairs floor. Even though we had just ignored the hint from the amicable waiter about the presence of the second floor, it wasn't until that second that we decided to keep being explorative and see what was in there.

The passage was mystically lighted by dozens of white thick candles, like in a castle. Only lighted by that cosy candle light, but almost in the darkness, we headed up, climbing the narrow and stiff stairs to that second floor. This new area, also barely lit, was the entrance hall to different rooms. A big watch on the wall with all number 7s reinforced the name of the place.

On a very exploratory scan of the floor, the first impression was that the place looked a bit like a squat. However, the quirkiness of the place, the randomness of the furniture and the different decoration of each room removed all oddness that just lasted a couple of seconds.

We decided to sit in one of the rooms that faced the market, with a big window that allowed the bright light from the street to come inside. The room was covered in wall paper with an amusing pattern of blue ink scribbles, sketches, faces, people. As it could be represented on a film, the paper had been ripped off (on purpose) giving the slight impression of a madhouse or an abandon house.

Looking at it closer, it certainly was a very amusing piece of art, that as soon as we sat in, we started to capture on camera. An even closer look gave us more information about the author: Adam Hemuss. It was definitely impressive.

Once sat down, M and I decided that the place was certainly a pleasant surprise and it had been a really good choice us adventuring ourselves into the second floor of this very interesting place.

While catching up, and still amused by all the visual stimulus, we reaffirmed ourselves in our choice of churros with hot chocolate and Tarta de Santiago. The warm cinnamon and sugar covered churros and the very moist Tarta gave us energy to recover from the cold and go back into business: Connect 4.

Full of joy and full of victory, after finishing our treats, we decided to head home and write down this place's address for future reference in our little black books. We certainly loved it.

Needless to say, I won to M three times. But that's another story.