R.I.P The Zodiac

"Where it all happens apparently. Unless you're a Uni student straight out of public school in which case it's where all the scary drug pushers, muggers and lefty bohemians hang out. A myth we're more than happy to perpetuate to keep bastards out." Nightshift Magazine as quoted in Wikipedia

Even as I type, The Zodiac on Cowley Road, here in Oxford is in the throes of its final night. I've mentioned this band/club venue several times on this blog and I've spent many other nights there that have gone un-catalogued.

The venue is going to undergo a 4 month, £2 million (or 3 million depending on which website you read) refurbishment and will reopen as the Carling™ Academy Oxford. The Zodiac name will survive as the name of the middle-sized of the three new venues within the new Entertainment Palace.

Those of you unfamiliar with The Zodiac may experience a glimmer of recognition if I say that the video for Radiohead's song, Creep from their 1993 album Pablo Honey was shot on the stage of the Zodiac (although I'm informed that back then The Zodiac was called The Venue). In fact, it's the very stage that you can see in the vid I took last Friday of The Destroyers, as blogged in the post directly before this one. Anyhow, there's more history on Wikipedia, if you care.

Once again, the magic of YouTube means that you can see Radiohead's Zodiac video below...

I'm reasonably ambivalent about the Zodiac sell-out. The venue will benefit from a good refit, hopefully with an improved PA (although the current one isn't too bad) and facilities. There will be an extra space (bar) to add to the 2 existing performance spaces and there may well be a boost in the touring bands who play in Oxford.

On the other hand, I hope that this doesn't mean that smaller bands such as my friends Stornoway and acts such as Sol Samba now won't get a look-in. I also hope that the new management won't suddenly feel the need to introduce character killing "security" measures (such as bag searches for "contraband" water bottles) in order to accelerate the Return on their £2m Investment by "protecting" sales of Carling. Likewise, I hope the ticket prices don't go up too much either.

That may be wishful thinking but we will see. The next time I'm there is likely to be The Decemberists in October. I'll let you know what it's like.

P3 Retro - Birthdays and knee deep powder!

Tele skiing the double black diamond run, Headwall at Silver Star Mountain in 2001

Even though I get millions of hits on this blog, only a few of you will know that my International tales of the minutiae of life actually started in 2000 on the now defunct eGroups.com (taken over by Yahoo! groups).

Here's some P3 retro; birthday stuff from the Yahoo! group archives...April 1 2001. Back then, I thought that using capitals at the start of sentences was soooo "off-line". Anyhow, that year I had one of my best birthdays ever at Silver Star Mountain in British Columbia, Canada.

Enjoy.

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"birthdays and knee deep powder"

hi folks.

thanks eveyone for the birthday wishes. i think i replied to all of
you who sent me a message. here's what i did on my birthday...

well slept in a little as we had another(!) keg evening. then got prepared
to go up to paradise camp for the party they were having up there....caught a
snowmobile (like a motorcycle on tracks) up to the place. that was very fun,
it was dark and snowing and the guy hooned up there. paid for one ale
during the night....kept getting drinks bought for me...there was a
funk/reggae/soul band playing and everyone was shaking their thing
like it was 1999, it being near the end of the season and all.

got a ride back part of the way, but instead of riding on the
snowmobile...got towed behind on my skis like water skiing, cept i
couldn't see much because it was dark...it felt kinda fast! met up
with dan the hostel manager, his sister and my roomie, France. they
had "crazy carpets" (no not crazy creeks, Paul D) a crazy carpet is a
thin sheet of plastic with 2 handles cut into it that you sled on.
anyway we all hiked up the mountain. they crazy carpeted down and i
skied by the light of the moon. i skied down the t-bar line next to
the hostel and made tracks down the line.it was so fun! we got back
to the hostel at 4:30am, thus capping off one of the most memorable
birthdays i've ever had.

anyway. remember my message saying the snow was deteriorating? well
in the last few days it has been snowing a lot. today i went out and
skied some trees on the back side...check out the trail map on the
egroup or http://www.silverstarmtn.com/about/maps/trail.html look for
headwall, rusty whistle, aabye rd etc.

there were drifts of knee deep powder in there today. that was so
excellent! i've been developing my tree skiing and also trying to get
a bit of air, since the landings are so soft. i think i'll head tot
he terain park tomorrow and try and get some hits off the jumps.

anyway...that's all for now...catch.

e

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Mixed emotions

A list of my favourite things would go something like this:

1. Family and good health
2. Kate
3. Friends
Equal 4th in no particular order:
Sleep
Travel
Cycling
Telemark skiing
Live original music
Good cooking
Original independent music on record
Arsenal FC
World peace and correcting inequality
Photos
Environmental matters
Outdoor activities like bushwalking/hiking

999. John Howard, Morris Dancing, Big Brother

Depending on my life circumstances at the time the equal 4th items move up and down the pecking order.

Tonight I have mixed emotions. To elaborate...Arsenal lost the Champions League final tonight in reasonably unfortunate circumstances....but...I received the new CDs of two of my most favourite of all time, Melbourne musicians; Marcel Borrack and The Killjoys. So even though yesterday I depressingly calculated that the carbon emissions that I'm directly responsible over the last 5 years of world travel, is about 30 tonnes of CO2...I'm reasonably happy because I'm fit and healthy and in PRETTY GOOD cycling form.