ally's journal

I asked you a question
I didn't need you to reply
Is it getting heavy?
And then realize
It's getting heavy
Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be

Is it overwhelming
To use a crane to crush a fly?
It's a good time for Superman
To lift the Sun into the sky
Cause it's getting heavy
Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be

Tell everybody
Waiting for Superman
That they should try to
Hold on the best they can
He hasn't dropped them, forgot them or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift

i've been watching glastonbury on tele, wishing i was there and tonight i really listened to the lyrics to 'waiting for superman' by the flaming lips. what a great song. i always liked it but somehow tonight the lyrics really hit home. wayne coyne of the band is such an enthusiastic guy, i adore what he's doing. in interviews he comes across as so passionate about what he's creating and a generally lovely man. he's been playing with the band now for 20 years and i find him and the band totally inspirational...

i think i shouldn't be blogging today coz it's too nice and sunny and warm outside. these kind of days/night are all too rare. it's definitely a time for playing the beach boys' 'friends' album loudly and stealing someone's frisbee in the park. so if you don't mind i'm off to roll around in some grass. oh i wish i was going to glastonbury tomorrow, that would be fantastic. maybe next year...

another monday swings around. it feels a bit like groundhog day just now. i honestly have no idea where the days are going. they just all seem to melt into one. i've written this new song, but i've yet to write the lyrics. i kind of know what the song is about but i've just not sat down properly to work all the words out. usually the best way to do that is just to play the song over and over until i finish the words. it feels more real that way, a bit truer than sitting trying to contrive words. it's more natural if the words spring from the feeling of playing/singing my heart out in the song. anyway, it's a bit of a slower one, kind of reflects my mood just now which is kind of taking stock of a few things and trying to figure out the best way to move forward. i realise in some of my songs i ask questions that i'm looking for answers to. i think it's a kind of therapy but i hope it's not self indulgent.......i think alot of my songs are pretty universal and are about emotions and feelings that people will relate to.

i might get to see the thrills tomorrow night, which would be good. i really love the single 'big sur' (and the ones before that to a lesser extent) so it'll be interesting to see them live at king tuts. it's a good place to watch bands and i've always enjoyed playing there. so hopefully that'll come off. i can't believe how horrible it is outside. it's like october all over again. it's really quite depressing. i'm always aware that i concentrate more on the bad weather when i've got negative things on my mind. if i'm happy i tend not to focus on what's happening outside of the window. they say that in some scandinavian countries there's a high rate of suicide during the winter when there's perpetual night. that would be really depressing and a bit confusing too i guess. i'd be permantenly in bed or a bar.

i was talking with my friend barry the other day in a bar/pub in town and he put forward his latest theory. he believes that pubs with carpets should be avoided at all costs. we were both despairing at the rise in mass chain pubs with crap, pre-programmed music and all the charm of a fishmonger's fingernail. the sad fact is that these tastless places are spreading and the places with individuality seem to be on the wane. so never go into a carpeted pub. ever! unless of course you're broke and wanna just get a quick bar meal coz you've absolutely no other options (but you must be in and out there in 15 minutes with a minimum of fuss) or unless you only have two pounds and desperately need a shot of vodka coz you've just witnessed the lighthouse family in a live arena.

apparently glasgow zoo will be closing. i've never even been to it before and i live in glasgow. i'm sure there are alot of people like me who haven't been so i guess that's why it's having to shut its doors. i was at edinburgh zoo once when i was a school kid. our class won a competition to adopt a monkey. i wonder what happened to the monkey? i was thinking that today actually. anyway, we all got a photograph of this pretty cute looking little thing wrapped up in what looked like a dish towel. oh and we got a certificate of adoption. then we all forgot about him and focussed our attention on bmx bikes coz we could do wheelies on them and not on a monkey.

i guess that's what happens with zoos and animals generally sadly. there's a lot of arguement over whether zoos are a good thing or not. i don't know to be honest, i'm not an expert but i have to admit that i'd find it a little sad seeing animals locked up. but then zoos can also help with breeding and conservation programmes and that's a good thing. it's a pity we can't lean through the bars of the cage and ask the monkeys if they're happy in their prison or if they'd rather be in the wild getting shot at by people for fun. someone told me you could buy a bengali tiger for 2,000 pounds when zoos close. It would be like a closing down sale; every species must go. "how much for the slightly hyperactive baboon dave?" "this exotic parrot is slightly dented, can you knock a fiver off it?" "6 penguins for 99p?" that's a good deal. oh well, i hope the animals are okay.

breaking news according to the bbc "the A1 motorway in Lincolnshire is closed after a lorry spilt 18 tons of mushy peas onto it." 18 tons of mushy peas, that's a lot of peas. it's an absolute sea of peas. hopefully no one's drowned. my biggest nightmare would be if a lorry carrying 18 tons of parmesan cheese crashed outside my flat........the smell of just one small bowl makes me feel sick. i'd be stumbling around giddy and vomitting. not nice. anyway, fingers crossed there will be no dairy product related transport accidents near me in the forseeable future.

i like eugene kelly's new song 'older, faster'. it's out on geographic. it's being played a bit on the radio up here which is great.

how awful are nickleback? through no fault of my own i've heard that 'hit' song of theirs twice today. 'how you remind me' i think it's called. it's horrible. i don't like to slag off bands coz everyone is doing their own thing and i know i'm very sensitive to criticism.......i'm far too sensitive i think. so i now try and make a real point of not criticising people who make music. but i can't help myself sometimes. anyway, i'm sure me being mean to that bearded log chopper who fronts the band won't cause him to lose any sleep:) and of course having a beard doesn't mean you write stomach churning insipid music. grandaddy sport some fine, manly, grizzly chins yet they write lovely songs. i had a goatee once, how embarrasing. i think it lasted a few months before i ripped the hairs out of my chiny chin chin. it basically grew one summer and i just left it, to see how it would look. 'awful' was the word, though at the time i reckon my mirror needed a really good scrub. come to think of it did i write songs when i had it? maybe a few and i'm sure they would have been rubbish. so maybe grandaddy are unique. i'll go now and try and think of some good songwriters who have hairy faces. if you can think of any let me know. i'm probably overlooking some really obvious ones..

i was in edinburgh yesterday, the sun was shining and as usual the place looked stunning. edinburgh's not got as much going on music wise as glasgow, but it's got a different vibe happening. alot of people dislike it during the summer coz it's quite busy but that's when it comes alive i think, when there are americans in bermuda shorts with massive cameras stumbling along the royal mile in search of a haggis. it gets better too during festival time (august generally) when the place just becomes a sea of international visitors and the biggest arts festival consumes absolutely everything. not good though for the edinbugh residents who can't get their bus to work for peruvian pipe bands, russian ballet troops and confused hungarian tourists. but that's its charm and i'll be there alot hopefully in augst.

because i've not been feeling so great these last few days i've been lying around seeking comfort in something. some people have comfort food that they like, for instance chicken noodle soup or tomato soup and soft white bread. or music often does it for some people. but for me it's comedy. anyway, i've been listening alot to the shuttleworths recently. it's a comedy show that was broadcast on bbc radio 4 over the last few years and i find it incredibly soothing to listen to. it's also very funny, though in a north of england type way. there's no way the humour would translate to other countries.

i remember my friend who lives in london telling me about this gig he went to. it was a japanese comedian and the audience consisted in part of londoners and in part of japanese people who were in the city at the time (or lived there i guess). those with no grasp of japanese were issued headphones and the act was translated live for their amusement. so you'd have the japanese people all laughing the instant the joke was delivered then the english people with headphones on all laughing a few seconds later. i found that really charming and surreal.

oh, there are some sound clips and things at the unofficial shuttleworths site. it's www.shuttleworths.co.uk if you're interested.

here's a statistic for you. did you know that the evening in the week that most people don't know what to cook for dinner is a wednesday evening? that's tonight for me and i have no idea what i'll have. maybe fish though.....with spuds and some asprins.

it's come to this, that i'm typing on my journal what i'm having for dinner and i've only been doing these posts a few days. but the statistic is interesting! you might have learned something. okay, so here's another one. butterflies taste with their feet. if you ever get into a heated discussion about butterflies you can pull that out of the hat.

another fact is that i'll be recording the next batch of songs next month. very excited about that. think i'll do 'i feel fine' and 'calling out to you'.

leave a message on the 'board if you're passing and say hi.

the electric chair was invented by a dentist........women blink twice as much as men.....

i'm feeling a little under the weather today, not sure if it's lack of sleep or a bit of a bug or whatever. hopefully i'll shake it off soon and be fighting fit. last night as i flopped out in bed there was a tv show on about this english university professor who went to an incredibly remote part of papua new guinea to meet some indiginous tribespeople who were only discovered by the outside world 20 years ago. they estimated that at least 500 of them still hadn't had any contact with the wider world. i don't know, i found that fascinating, like in this day and age of the global village and super fast communication etc there might be some people out there who have absolutely no knowledge of the big mac. anyway, the university professor stumbled wearily into their area in the swamps and was immediately surrounded by 3 utterly irrate and furious looking tribespeople with bows and arrows. he panicked and froze and a standoff ensued. it was great tv. i don't blame the tribesmen for being annoyed though, i'd like to see his reaction if the three of them turned up uninvited for macaroni cheese at his bungalow in oxford.

i've been a bit tardy with my blogs last couple of days. anyway, tonight's gig was a strange one. i didn't quite feel i was altogther there. felt quite spaced out but i thought it sounded okay. apart from when i completely forgot the lyrics to the new song. that was a bit hairy. i looked up and i spotted someone's panama hat and i started to focus on that for some reason then next thing i was rapidly panicking and 'la la la 'ing ' to my song. bit disappointed about that but that's how it goes i guess. i'm really tired and should go to bed very soon but i've got a real urge to listen to ennio morricone. but sleep is the more sensible option right now for sure.

sunday nights. a time for reflection as i've said before on the messageboard. this morning was so nice coz it was raining really heavily and i could almost hear every drop of rain bouncing off every leaf in the garden. i woke up briefly, heard it, felt exhaused, panicked that i had to get up and go someplace then realised i didn't have to jump up out of bed. and for this period of realisation - about 4 seconds maybe - i was incredibly happy. so i smiled then fell gently back to sleep. which is where i'm headed now.

good night.

there seems to be a problem with the spacing on these entries, but it'll get fixed i'm sure. i've been mostly listening to luxuriamusic.com today as well as the new grandaddy album 'sumday', teenage fanclub's 'songs from northern britain' and a really great compliation tape that duglas made for me of ennio morricone. i'm a fan of astrud gilberto and she features on some of these tracks. my favs so far however are 'a fistful of dynamite' and 'my name is nobody'. i need to investigate his music more, definitely.

raspberry beer is on the agenda this weekend i think. it's really delicious if you haven't tried it i'd recommend it. i also need to practise for the little acoustic set i'm doing on sunday night, i'm looking forward to it.

there's a cat i see alot near my flat and he's got a tag on his neck that says 'please don't feed me'. but what if he gets lost and is losing weight?? come to think of it i've not seen him around for a while. maybe he's been kidnapped.

there's always something to worry about. but i won't worry coz it's a waste of time at the end of the day. a bit like this posting so i'll stop right here. there's a temptation to go back in and edit posts i've made later on, but i must avoid that. it ruins the spontenaity of it all. plus i could end up getting attacked by an irate comma.

hello, i'm just testing this out. it might change a bit over the next few days. my friend and bassist graeme makes the structural changes to the site (all i'm able to do really is update the news) and he put the whole thing together initially. i'm really pleased with how it's looking. he's done/is doing a great job.

so why a blog. well i didn't even know what a blog was until today. i'd heard people talking about blogs, especially during the war in iraq coz some residents of baghdad were keeping people informed anonymously with their blogs. i like the word blog. it's short for weblog apparently. blogs. so right now i'm in the process of blogging. i'm all blogged out now. more blogs will follow. blog on.

this is allykerr.com web log. it's just being hammered together by tiny elves and a mouse with a big stick, but should be rolling along nicely over the next few days.