Features

The first thing Paul Major says when Endless Boogie shuffle onstage is, “This is the last song of the night.” Droll joke, it seems. But 35 minutes later, as the band come to a juddering halt and ponder whether to attempt an encore, it turns out to have been true. One song, infinite possibilities.

Roy Harper arrives on stage at the Festival Hall with a healthy selection of excuses. He hasn’t played in three years. He’s only had half a soundcheck. He met the soundman at four o’clock – no, at ten past five. The first song is brought to a temporary halt after about thirty seconds, due to his guitar sliding on the passport secreted in his trouser pocket.

Post-electoral shenanigans notwithstanding, quite a day in prospect; another run at the six and a half hours of the Jack Rose tribute album (I’m writing next month’s Wild Mercury Sound magazine column about it, in theory), then Joanna Newsom at the Festival Hall tonight.

I haven’t done one of these round-ups for a while and, with a week of probable live reviews looking likely here, it seemed logical to mop up a couple of things this morning.

A comment from Cliff on yesterday’s playlist arrived earlier: “Also, Endless Boogie, more of the same?”

One of those weeks where the distractions of putting a magazine together and, right now, England vs Pakistan, have conspired to limit blogging activity. Michael Yardy: I am dumbstruck.

A café in North London, late 2000. For the first time in an age, Neu!’s three completed albums are to be reissued, and Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger have made a precarious truce to promote them.

What would Murdoc make of it? Previously, Gorillaz live performances have seen the “real” musicians play anonymously behind a curtain. But not tonight. If anything, tonight’s show abandons the notion of Gorillaz as a “virtual band” altogether. It seems more about establishing Damon Albarn’s overdue re-emergence as a front man, after spending close to a decade in the background on a number of collaborative projects, from Mali Music to The Good, The Bad And The Queen and Gorillaz.

Slightly shorter playlist than usual this week, since I finally downloaded and began investigating the six and a half hours of astounding music that make up the “Honest Strings” Jack Rose tribute. Can’t recommend that one enough: I have a vague plan to write much more about it for my next column in the mag version of Uncut.

A nice email last week from Michael Taylor, alerting me to the existence of his band, Hiss Golden Messenger, and their new live album, “Root Work”: “Touchstones, as I see them, would be Traffic's ‘Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys’, possibly some live Dead, some vintage-era Tubby/Jammy,” writes Michael, enticingly.