Accounts of our weekend as Tokyo guides in London are now all over the blogosphere, from kineticfactory's description and Flickr page (Kineticfactory is an Australian called Andrew who lives in London) via Ross Hawkins' account on his blog The Ideal Tiger (Ross is an Englishman living in Toronto who makes music under the name Idle Tigers, pay attention at the back there!) to Among the Aisles, which even includes a little video embed of our performance. And in Andrew's photo here you see an amazingly similar idea we discovered at the Royal College of Art on Friday, a London-as-Tokyo piece by Sayako Ishida.
On Saturday night we were lucky enough to catch a rare performance by The Idle Tigers, a gig at a private birthday party held at an obscure nautically-themed pub down an alley in the dead London district dedicated to heraldry, yeomanry and inns-at-court. Idle Tigers recently signed with Matt Jacobson's label Le Grand Magistery, releasing a most original electronic vaudeville long-playing record entitled The Spirit Salon, available through Darla and via the iTunes store in America. I believe the Idle Tigers came to Matt's attention via an entry on Click Opera last year which described the band as occupying the intriguing place where "Lewis Carroll meets Brian Eno, music hall meets the avant garde, and the breezy meets the zany".
The show was great, and I videoed "the second best song I've ever written about Lord Byron":
We also met the charming Edine from London / Hong Kong indie band Marshmallow Kisses, and, after quaffing a jug of Pimms fruit punch on the hot South Bank superturf, we ended up dining with her and Andrew and bringing them to see the Idle Tigers show.
Here are a couple of video glimpses of Marshmallow Kisses. This is Everyone Else Is Ahead, Far Ahead:
That's Sayako Ishida's work, not mine. But Comic Sans is one of my themes this week, I'll be blogging on Friday for the NYT about Serious Sans, its new rival / sibling.
I would say that Idle Tigers are destined to become the balladeers of your particular world of neo-retro-fops, Whimsy -- and I know that you are a particular inspiration to him. Two things were very noticeable at his concert:
1. That Ross had put together all sorts of items of apparel which were, in themselves, everyday (his pointed shoes, he told us, came from C&A), yet produced an effect of bygone elegance through devices like the sock-tucked breeches.
2. That Ross' audience is all about crinoline and literary biography. When he launched into "My Girlfriend Was Insulted by a Futurist Artist" (with its line about "the very great Ford Madox Ford") you could have cut the delight with milliner's shears. These were not people eager to get back to the European Cup coverage.
I loved your unreliable tour of the Whitney Biennial-one of only two things I had any interest in! (the other was Ryan Trecartin's wacky video). Picked the wrong weekend to go to Brighton. *sigh* Oh well.
(Ross explains the video of the Byron song, and tells us the lyrics.)
A short song from my recent London set, kindly captured on video by Momus. This song is part of a continuing song-cycle written around Lord Byron — lyrics below. There’s a reference to Byron’s horse; I can’t let the opportunity pass without mentioning that when he was a Cambridge undergraduate, Byron’s horse was called Oateater. My next album is looking likely to have quite a lot of horse content, in one way or another.
Let’s be honest, you’re a mincing little poser But I want you to take me now. You’re a ponce with a perverted constitution But I’d like you to take me at some point this evening.
You shit! You shit! You metrosexual shit! You shit! You shit! You metrosexual shit!
You cosmopolitan little cad, your entire family’s mad You drink water and your horse drinks shandy. Are you in a bit of bother? You fucker! You rotter! Playing pocket billiards with a dandy.
You shit! You shit! You metrosexual shit! You shit! You shit! You metrosexual shit!
Accounts of our weekend as Tokyo guides in London are now all over the blogosphere, from 
kineticfactory's description and Flickr page (Kineticfactory is an Australian called Andrew who lives in London) via Ross Hawkins' account on his blog The Ideal Tiger (Ross is an Englishman living in Toronto who makes music under the name Idle Tigers, pay attention at the back there!) to Among the Aisles, which even includes a little video embed of our performance. And in Andrew's photo here you see an amazingly similar idea we discovered at the Royal College of Art on Friday, a London-as-Tokyo piece by Sayako Ishida.
