Apple’s flagship, open 24 hours Manhattan store = nerdgasm.

NYC Disillusionment Alert

Following other people’s and my own comments here about our dreams of living in New York, Penelope Trunk, whose blog is an addictive combination of excruciatingly personal revelations and interesting career advice (mainly for slightly younger and more go-getting peeps than myself), suggests you ask yourself a few questions first.

Geekwatch – facesquatting, Wired UK, iPhone 3G-S(tupid?)

Facebook vanity urls caused a bit of excitement on Twitter this past weekend as people raced to get theirs before someone else stole their very identity out from under their nose. The term Facesquatting was coined. Mine is www.facebook.com/milomclaughlin (but you’ll have to add me as a friend to see my profile) In order to set yours, once you are logged in just go to www.facebook.com/username

 I’ve been a reader of Wired US for some time, at least when I can find it in RS McColls – so was interested in buying Wired UK when it came out. I like it so far, but there seems to be some crossover of content from the US one to the UK one which leaves me a bit confused as to whether I’ll now have to buy both to make sure I don’t miss out on any decent articles.

Anyway this column by Warren Ellis is shaping up to be a must read he’s right on the button when he speaks about the iPhone in the current, third issue- guilty as charged!

“Enter the iPhone, that vile, characterless slab of 1980s Star Trek plastic banality from the Bay Area Federation. Bad enough that everyone I know in tech/design circles swaggers around with one jammed in their pocket, like they’re getting cyber-frottage from a magic wand. “Look,” they whisper to me, holding it up as carefully as if it were some elf they’d found close to death in an enchanted forest and had nursed back to health. “It even makes phone calls!”

Speaking of which..

iPhone 3GS(TuPID?)

A whole bunch of disgruntled O2 customers here in the UK are not happy about having to either wait until their contract ends or buy it out at an extortionate cost to get their hands on the new, slightly improved iPhone 3GS. Not only that but the new tethering facility is also far too expensive. I think there are similar issues with AT&T in the US and they’re not even offering tethering or MMS yet.

Of course if you enter into a contract you are getting a subsidised phone which you are then paying off with each monthly installment so it’s only fair you should have to come to the end of your contract before that agreement comes to an end, however the misalignment of the contract period and Apple’s annual upgrade cycle seems to be the real problem here. Jailbreaking the iPhone would allow for free tethering, but then you wouldn’t be able to upgrade to the free 3.0 software out tomorrow.

And I for one am too excited by the possibility of (gasp) cut and paste and (swoon) MMS to wait even a second longer than I have to.. Seriously though, the thing I am most looking forward to in the 3.0 update is the finder like search ability so you can search for apps and also search within email at last.

Overall the new iPhone is only a minimal improvement so I’m happy to wait until the end of my contract by which time a new one will be imminent. I do think it’s a pity though that the price cut for the 8GB model to $99 doesn’t appear to have crossed the Atlantic – and would like to see some justification from 02 on that particular decision.

Music Watch

Have combined the two this week due to a lack of time. Perhaps I am trying to do too much having a geek watch and a music watch though. 

Anyway, I’ll try to keep it brief.

Mmmm Cheesecake!

Glasgow Podcart have discovered possibly the greatest band of all time – well they have a great name and one great song so far – I present to you Cheesecake, who kick off Glasgow Podcart’s current podcast with 8 minutes of instrumental brilliance. They feature members of a few other well known local bands but I’m not sure if they want that to be public knowledge just yet..

Rob St. John who is a great musician who thinks I am purposely avoiding his live gigs (though I promise I am not going to any gigs right now, not just his!) has written a great post for Under The Radar in which he rightly credits Tracer Trails for re-invigorating the corpse of the Edinburgh music scene with a well-placed injection of decent music and clever choice of venues.

AND FINALLY – MORE MALCY!

Here’s a brilliant wee documentary about Malcolm Middleton which makes me jealous in all kinds of ways – I love it. I like what he says about writing sad songs not meaning you’re a lonely, sad person, it’s just that he writes songs when he’s in a certain mood. (via Andy Lobban & Fence Records)

Malcolm Middleton – ‘Waxing Gibbous’ from Mike Hemsley on Vimeo.

Don’t forget you can hear Malcolm’s song Carry Me on this month’s podcast. 

At the weekend we went over to visit my dad and relatives over in Derry in Northern Ireland. We also visited the cottage where I lived for 3 years (between 11 and 14) in a very small village called Culoort or Killourt (depending on how you want to spell it) which is in Malin Head in Inishowen, Co. Donegal. This video shows what it’s like – very picturesque but it wasn’t always a great place to be a teenager, especially one who was used to living in the city and whose English accent made him stick out like a sore thumb!

As it’s a traditional Irish thatched cottage it needs to be rethatched approx every 7 years – the one next door which I also filmed shows how quickly these 200+ old buildings can fall into disrepair. 

I recorded the music on my dad’s out of tune mandolin using the iTalk app on the iPhone. I also made a rough demo using the same recording which you can hear over at myspace (if you’re brave).

Blur – This is a Low- because it mentions Malin Head – but only because it is one of the places mentioned in the shipping forecast..

“All of us had such a fine time wining and dining around the city that I have no recollection of any daytime hours, and even my recollections of nighttime are foggy.”

Suze Rotolo, A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties

Okay maybe that isn’t a completely accurate description of our New York trip, as we did get out and about during most days, and I do remember what we did (during the day at least). But my cousin Rory and his wife Michelle did make sure at least one full day was a write-off, as we drank and drank til the early hours on the Sunday night, but seeing as it was an amazing night we’ll forgive them. In fact they were amazing hosts and we were treated like royalty by them and their friends the whole time we were there.

Central Park

The main thing I have to report is that on the first full day we were there I proposed to Mel on a rowing boat on ‘The Lake’ in Central Park and, perhaps overcome by the city fumes, she foolishly said yes. Despite nearly crashing into numerous other boaters, we made it safely back to the shore. As most people have said, after 11 years, it was about time! 

I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City

I’ve not got around to writing this until now because 1. I wanted to install iMovie 09 before I edited the video to try and stabilise some of the shakier shots, and 2. it really is difficult to put into words how much I loved the place. Even if you discount the religious aspect of the song, I think Harry Nilsson put it best with ‘I Guess The Lord Must Be in New York City’ and that’s why I’ve used it in my wee video diary. As you’ll see, the vid is very much a personal account but hopefully there’s enough general footage of NYC there for people who aren’t in the least interested in my personal life to get something out of it. If you are interested in my more personal photos of the trip, I’ll be putting them up on Facebook shortly.

The Strand Bookstore and other sights

We tried to take the advice of the people who’d commented here and on Facebook, and we managed to do most things we wanted to do, but there’s so much left to do that I’m desperate to get back. The first picture above is of the wonderful Strand bookstore, thanks for the tip Tart! I think both of us could have spent hours and many many dollars in there. We were too far away to grab breakfast at the Tick Tock diner as suggested by Nick, and we just didn’t have time for Ellis Island unfortunately but we did go on the Staten Island Ferry and had a wonderful walk over the bridge to Brooklyn, where we ate lunch, drank Brooklyn Lager and walked along the promenade with it’s awesome views of Manhattan. Great place for wedding photos:

 The things we missed out on are a great reason to go back as soon as possible! Anyway, Lis and Andy were right – we were soooo not disappointed. The city is so exciting, so fast-moving, with something happening on every corner. The people are friendly, helpful and very welcoming, plus there are so many characters, interesting people to look at and listen to snippets of their conversations, and so many beautiful women! (I know, I know, I shouldn’t be looking). Frankly if I could get a visa and afford the rents, I’d move there right away.

The Sidewalk Open Mic

I could go on and on about everything we did, but I will spare you. Lastly though I must speak of my open mic experience on our final night. It followed the night we got absolutely hammered (witness the singing on the video if you want to hear just how drunk we were). Neither of us felt our best and in the end Mel wasn’t able to make it along to the Sidewalk, home of antifolk, in the East Village, so I grabbed a cab there myself. I hadn’t managed to meet up with Mr Antifolk Chameleon due to some type of text message failure, so I was incredibly nervous – here I was in New York, on my own, with the hangover from hell, ready to take to the stage. 

When I get nervous I clam up and become even more socially awkward than normal (if that’s possible) and so I sat in the corner quietly sipping my water. When the time came to queue I was delighted to be picked ninth, especially as the queue was out the door and the signing up process took over three-quarters of an hour! So after some amazing acts it was my turn. I had managed to borrow a guitar off a very generous lady who had announced on stage that she was moving from New York to Toronto – (my nerves prevented me from remembering her name even though she told me it twice) and just before I went onstage, the lovely Nan from Schwervon appeared, who I had chatted to when the band stopped in Edinburgh a couple of months ago as part of their UK tour promoting their excellent new album Low Blow. She was also playing the open mic that night (she rocked!) and was very supportive. It was great to have someone who I knew there gunning for me, and it helped my confidence a lot as I fumbled with the guitar strap etc. 

So I sang I Ain’t Your Mailman, and Disassemble Me, the two songs I did at the Song, By Toad Christmas Party. I really threw myself into it and when the whole room started clapping along to Mailman I knew I had the crowd behind me. I think it went pretty well, and I had fulfilled one of my ambitions, to play at the Sidewalk in NYC. 

We spent the next day checking out Greenwich Village and a few of Bob Dylan’s old haunts and I felt I’d got a great taste of the city and it’s cultural history. Before I left I put It’s Blitz by Yeah Yeah Yeahs on my iPhone really load and wandered about near where we were staying around Fifth Avenue (and popped into the 24 hour Apple Store and a cool toy shop with lego Darth Vaders and Chewbaccas). Sad to be leaving and still in awe, Karen O’s expansive melancholy hit me hard as the towering buildings spun round me, and I bid NYC a reluctant farewell.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz on Spotify

 Note on video: This was my first time using iMovie 09, so I used pretty much every effect there was going. The stabilisation feature was really handy, though some of what I filmed on my wee digital camera was too shaky to be fixed. Hope you enjoy – you might also want to check out my footage from Peaches at the Webster Hall.

On Thursday Mel and I are heading New York City for the first time ever for five days. To say we’re excited is something of an understatement. We’ve both discussed going there many times since the day we got together – and we’ll be celebrating 11 years since that fateful day while we’re there (yes I am bloody old)- so I’m hoping some of the romance from the above picture will rub off on us (after all I don’t need to be in Manhattan for the Woody-esque morbid neuroses and unintentional slapstick comedy to commence).

I also have a personal link to NYC as my grandparents on my Dad’s side emigrated there from Ireland many years ago, and went through the whole Ellis Island process when they arrived. My cousin Rory lives there now and I’m hoping we can hook up with him when we get there.

I guess the trip could be a let-down given the expectations built up over the years through the iconic imagery of countless classic films, and through reading about all the amazing musical history that’s taken place there, not least the emergence of Bob Dylan, one of my all-time heroes. Of course, things aren’t the same as they were in the 60′s but I’m guessing that there’s so much going on there I won’t have time to be disappointed. 

I’ve also managed to get myself into another fine mess by declaring that I am going to take part in the notorious open mic night at the Sidewalk Cafe on Monday night, which the likes of Beck, Jeffrey Lewis, The Moldy Peaches and Regina Spektor have previously performed at. It could be a tough crowd, but I have one friend there, a man who calls himself Antifolk Chameleon (after the venue that Lach used before the Sidewalk) who has already offered me the loan of his guitar. And as he has been very supportive in the past of both my Tantrum Man and Swivel Chair musical projects, I can’t very well let the man down. 

So please wish us luck, let me know if you’ve been and if so what you recommend doing. Oh, and send me good vibes on Monday night!