Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Escape From Nash-Vegas

In 1997 when I arrived in Singapore, I realized that Internet search was becoming more powerful. I decided to use it to track down my old high school buddy and game developer chum, Alan Laird (owner of likk.net my host for this web site.) I knew Alan lived in Tokyo but that was all and I hadn’t seen him for 6 years. I found him. Found an email address for him and soon afterwards had an invite to Tokyo to celebrate Chinese New Year 1998 - The Year of the Tiger. I got to meet Alan’s wife Kaori who speaks English with a Glasgow accent that she picked up while living there for 5 years (before she met Alan). Chinese New Year isn’t such a big holiday in Japan as they aligned New Year with January 1st in the early 20th Century. Alan was working most days. One lunchtime, I found myself taking coffee in the cafe at the top of the Shinjuku twin government towers with Kaori and discussing of all things the emerging Glasgow band scene. She told me that the hot new act was Belle and Sebastian. On arriving in America (after Singapore via Dublin, Ireland) in 1999, I went out and bought If you’re Feeling Sinister just after its release and loved it.

Fast forward to Tuesday night. I was sitting in the back of a cab with Francis returning from a restaurant in the Vanderbilt area of town and I happened to mention that I bought some new music last week - last year’s Coldplay album, the recent Depeche Mode album and the just release Belle and Sebastian album. The cab driver choked and blurted out, “What did you say?”
“What do you mean?” I replied
“The name of the band, did you say ‘Sebastian’?”
“Yes, ‘Belle and Sebastian’”
“I just had them in the back of the cab. They are playing the Ryman tomorrow night.”

Naturally, I thought he was joking but a visit to the concierge desk at Nash-Vegas (ah hem The Gaylord Opryland hotel) confirmed it and tickets were still available.

So, I invited fellow FDD practitioners Clementino Mendonca (who took the photo) and Eric Willeke to come enjoy some top tier Scottish culture with me. And now I have to rush out and plug the holes in my CD collection. These guys are just awesome musicians. I never saw a band that resets the stage for every song and swaps instruments in the way they do - never mind the range of styles exhibited. The house was packed - mainly with teenagers and people half my age. What a night out - and gee I should have been in my hotel room rehearsing for my own performance later today. Technorati tag: Agile, David+Anderson, CMMI, SEPG, Clementino+Mendonca, Belle+Sebastian