Thursday 30 December 2010

Good Car

Got the go-ahead from physio regarding driving. Car started first time after 87 days lying unused in all the snow etc. Great stuff.

Tuesday 30 November 2010

Sunday 21 November 2010

Thursday 14 October 2010

Shut Up and Deal With It

…was the wording on the get-well card from my niece.

She will I am sure enjoy cheaply –framed photocopies of my arthroscopy pics as a wedding present.

Monday 11 October 2010

I was Johnny Colon’s Drummer

Trades Council

The Trades Council at 14 Picardy Place was used for
concerts in the late seventies.  Now Ego/Luna night club.

1978  29th November Freeze & Johnny Colon

The_Freeze-1978

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Shoulder Repair 4.10.10.

Shoulder

Capsule repaired and tendon decompressed. Worse inside than the scans suggested, but still should be worthwhile. Thanks to Miss McBirnie (surgeon) and Dr Semple (anaesthetist) and the nice nurses in the Day Surgery Unit.

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Album of the Summer

Review of Solferino in Music News Scotland, issue 64

Read the review here

“Solferino is an album full of short punchy and artistically performed songs. Arranged and performed with oomph and enthusiasm this could just be the album of the summer.”

Monday 27 September 2010

Lisbon 21-26 September 2010

250px-Pt-lsb1 

With Friends of the National Galleries of Scotland

Lisbon – Tagus cruise – Gulbenkian Museum -

Palacio de Fronteira – British Ambassador -

Bel̩m РPasteis de Nata - National Gallery -

Queluz – Sintra – Cabo de Roca – Casceis

Friends in Lisbon 337

Clube de Fado

 

View videos here

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Michael Rother

Played the old Caley cinema in Edinburgh 17.8.10 Powerful and moving , the real deal.

Dinger-beat, guitar, bass, electronica performing from Neu!, Harmonia and Rother back catalogue and new live stuff. Opened with Hallogallo, then Silberstreif, included Immer Wieder, Watussi, Dino( I think).

Thanks very much to Ian Clark for the treat.

2010-08-17 21.16.01_Edinburgh_City of Edinburgh_GB

Michael Rother and Friends – Silberstreif.

Thursday 12 August 2010

DM U.S.A. 2

Thank you so much for your kind words.  It was my pleasure to play Dancing Mice.  I really like the CD.  If you wouldn't mind, I would very much appreciate it if you could send some more music my way.

Thanks also for listening to the show. It's nice to know there are people out there interested in what I play. I like exposing my local community  (and by virtue of the internet, the world) to unusual and
eclectic sounds.

I assume you already have the station's address? You can just send to my attention. Let me know.

Best regards,
..Saramin

http://groovewitch.wordpress.com/

WCBN 88.3 FM Ann Arbor Michigan

Monday 9 August 2010

Chimneys

Chimney stack crumbled after 127 years, rebuilt by Christie of Edinburgh.Chimneys

Thursday 5 August 2010

Motoblur2blog

What will this display like?

Hm white text.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.9

Sunday 18 July 2010

Blue Light

Buscopanformula

Terrible abdominal colic, ended up in an ambulance to A&E. Jings. However i.v. Buscopan worked its magic. Very anticholinergic, nauseating but slightly mind-expanding.

Thursday 8 July 2010

Middlesborough Jingle

Hi guys,
Been playing a song a week off the album you sent me. Im just wondering if you could make a short mp3 of yourselves so i could play it before i play a track, something simple such as' Hi were dancing mice, and you can hear tracks off our new album, solferino, exclusivly on Jonathan's 1-2 show on 104.5 Community Voice FM'
Cheers
Jonathan

Here it is.

Halifax Home Insurance

As soon as you inform them that you are getting work done on chimneys which involves scaffolding, they REMOVE the accidental cover. You would never guess that from this, in the policy booklet:

Change in circumstances
• work is going to be done on your home which
is not routine repair, maintenance or decoration;

We may re-assess your cover and premiums when
we are told about changes in your circumstances.
If you do not tell us about changes, the wrong
terms may be quoted, a claim might be rejected or
payment could be reduced. In some circumstances
your policy might be invalid.

Tuesday 22 June 2010

Repair is possible

adis1

Phonecall today from surgeon, MRI shows classic anterior instability injuries and as such is repairable by arthroscopic procedure.

Monday 14 June 2010

MRI

Arthrogram today - MRI & CT . But will it show anything fixable, given that the X-ray showed only age related change at the acromio-clavicular joint ?

Pull The Plug

Hi Dancing Meeces,
Thanks for sending your new CD 'Solferino' to me (if you didn't then maybe it was your label?).
Anyway I'll be playing a track from it on my show Pull the Plug this Thursday (4pm - Resonance 104.4FM - http://resonancefm.com/ )
Haven't decided which track to play yet...
cheers,
john

A man of taste.

Sunday 13 June 2010

Leeds Music Scene verdict

Dancing Mice: Solferino

By Alexander Rennie

3.5

A couple of years ago I was handed this band's curious yet beguiling previous LP - 'Eroded.' Having re-read my thoughts on that offering (www.leedsmusicscene.net/article/9417) I can - for once - recall exactly what I liked about it. What is also clear is why I subsequently came to find it somewhat frustrating. It's not that it was a difficult listen, so much as that it resolutely refused to yield those mind-embedding highlights which distinguish truly great music. I still think of it as an album I ought to have loved, but one which became something I merely liked a lot.
Why am I dredging over old ground? Mainly, I fear, because the band's latest offering does so itself. Sure - there are a couple of new tricks added to the armory. The appearance of some female vocals doesn't go amiss ('Always On Our Own,') spoken word samples add interest ('Agenda For Change') whilst beguiling middle-eastern rhythms push the tempo along on the eight minute Crusade-inspired epic 'Jerusalem's Home.' Meanwhile, the off-kilter Tango structure of 'Poison' presumably informs the ballroom cover art. On the whole, however, it's left to the swirling retro sound of the organ to define the gloom-psych sound.
Once again I can see myself giving this disc a prolonged opportunity to prove itself as a 'grower,' but find it difficult to say how kind I - or posterity in general - will be. Too many of the tracks ('Death Makes You Feel Like A Man,' 'Watching Waters Rise,' 'Gone Girl' etc.) sound so similar to favoured tracks from 'Eroded' that judgement is likely to be similar, i.e. slightly equivocal. Having said that, the musicianship is unimpeachable and a considered listen to 'Solferino' is far from being three quarters of an hour wasted. I shall continue to follow future output from the Dancing Mice with considerable interest.

http://www.leedsmusicscene.net/article/12939/

Wednesday 2 June 2010

About Time Too

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/work/forwardwork_summary.php#trams

Solferino release blurb

On 2nd August 2010, Edinburgh’s Dancing Mice return once more on their irregular orbit with an iridescent collection of new songs called ‘Solferino’. Solferino: a colour, a battle and a soup. The songs are short, punchy and evocative, and reasonably well performed. The packaging is arty. The production is, for want of a better word, "better" than their last collection ‘Eroded’ which nevertheless was unexpectedly popular in the Ukraine. Eurovision here we come.

Ghost of Morag

Thursday 20 May 2010

Gig 34 – Solferino Launch

Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh 19/5/10

Henry's Gig 34

Setlist: Death Makes You Feel Like A Man, (We Were) Always On Our Own, Watching Waters Rise, Agenda For Change, Talking To Herself Again, It's Abnormal, Gone Girl, Blue Screen, Selling The Party.

Sound: Leonora.Not so good at first ( sorry Leonora), but good at the end, and the audience appreciated the moderate volume level.

Reception: Lots of smiles and applause. Good crowd rapport. About 120 people, lots of CDs and badges distributed. DM begin to rule the world.

Monday 17 May 2010

Hütter Speaks

"Everybody is becoming like ... " - he pauses - "a Stasi agent, constantly observing himself or his friends."

Thursday 22 April 2010

Canvassed

Sarah Boyack came round the houses last night canvassing for Labour. She blamed all the tram - problems on the SNP/Lib-Dem council, she said that 2014 estimate for completion was optimistic, and that stopping the line at Haymarket "must be" being considered. She admitted to being one of the original tram enthusiasts/instigators, and said if they had the chance to do it all again they would, but differently, making a RIE-WGH route first with perhaps a spur to Leith. She said that the cost of stopping it now would be greater than the cost of going on with it, so they had no choice but to struggle on, such were the costs of the contracts. Thanks be to Labour.

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Volcano Angst

Hi Anthony,

Firstly, thank you for your ongoing order with Disc Wizards.

As you must be aware, all UK airspace is currently closed.

For some orders, the parts and materials are sourced from outside of the UK, and these are flown into the country to fulfil orders.

This email is to inform you that there will be delays to your order until a normal air transport service into the UK is resumed. At this stage we're unable to provide you with a time-scale of how long the delay will be.

We hope to have more information over the next 48 hours - and as soon as we do know we will inform you.

We apologise for the inconvenience, and we trust you understand that the experienced delays are out of our control.

Kind regards.

--
Disc Wizards Customer Care

Thursday 8 April 2010

DiscWizards

I have sent the recordings to DiscWizards in London , I have used them twice before and I can recommend them without demur.
CD Duplication and CD print service
CD replication and DVD replication services

Wednesday 24 March 2010

The People's Queue

Posted the masters for Solferino off to London today. Tedious queue at the Post Office, then, horrid obsession that I had not signed the cheque. Luckily the compulsion to check became overpowering and... it was true, I had not added my signature. Funny thing the brain.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Over to Coke

How many codes you have - 1
Product and package size and type - Coca Cola 500ml
Color (sic) of the cap - Red
Where you bought it (name and address ...if you have it) - Margiotta's, Dundas St Edinburgh

The production code from the neck of the bottle -Jun 10 A ?? u25EM11011?? – illegible
The code(s) – 38R8NLCJH228

Thanking you in anticipation

And the consequence was 9 points in CokeZone. I was hoping for a new VAIO

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Coke's Response

Thanks for contacting Coke Zone. We're glad you took the time to email us.
Sorry for the frustration, but thanks for letting us know about the issue with your codes. We want to fix any
issues, so please let us know the following: - How many codes you have -Product and package size and type -
color of the cap -where you bought it (name and address ...if you have it) -The production code from the
neck of the bottle (unless you already recycled it) - The code(s) to the best of your ability. Thanks in
advance!
If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us again.
Sincerely,
Angela
I will see what happens

Monday 15 March 2010

Huge Coca-Cola Disappointment

They didn't recognise the code on my bottle. I may have won all manner of exciting prizes. I will never know. The phone-contact number on the website leads you to an irrelevant call-choice.

Thursday 11 March 2010

Recording Finished

We finished the final recordings for the new Dancing Mice album earlier tonight, now for a little mixing. The album is to be called Solferino and consists of 11 tracks with the usual mix of pop songs and the less straightforward.Xballroom-dancing

Monday 22 February 2010

e-Mails to TIE

THE TRO LEAFLET

Hello

I have looked at the TRO leaflet and there is an error in the Map for Section 2, Constitution St. to Leith Walk. Both the Balfour Street and Springfield junctions are shown as allowing right turn into Leith Walk. I gather from the larger more detailed plans that only Springfield will be allowed; Balfour Street will have a tram stop blocking egress. This should be corrected, otherwise you are giving very misleading information to the public.

Are you going to change the leaflet?

BUS ROUTES IN LEITH WALK

Hello

I would like you to tell me the planned changes to bus routes on Leith Walk. At the show-and -tell evening in St Mary's Cathedral I was told that the routes 10, 22 and 25 were to go.

I am concerned by the use of the term "Integrated". My fear is that Leith Walk bus routes become interrupted, meaning that passengers will have to get off a bus, on to a tram to get up or down Leith Walk, then back on a bus. Can you reassure me that this is not the case.

Anthony Moffoot

Thursday 18 February 2010

Gig 33



The Ark, Edinburgh 18/2/10


Setlist: Death Makes You Feel Like A Man, The g Factor, Dungeness, Happy Ending, Agenda For Change, Watching Waters Rise, Alpha Uniform, It's Abnormal, Selling The Party.


Sound: Tom. Found it difficult to balance the stringed and electronic instruments, new to the DM sound but did his best. Drums and bass low on stage, made Alpha Uniform particularly tricky but it came off well.


Reception: Some dancing, warm applause. Happy Ending described as "joyful". Surprise appearance of Ian's dad (80) . Unusually, Tom the soundman was enraptured and wants to collaborate with us. We will see.



The End of The Ark?

Some changes afoot at The Ark; markedly reduced back-line and no word of our proposed March gig. Change of ownership? Money laundering?
Gig later today 18th February 10 p.m.

Saturday 23 January 2010

Gig 32


23/1/10

Henry's Cellar Bar, Edinburgh

Setlist: Pictures Of Biggles, Cindy Does It Better, It's Abnormal, (We Were) Always On Our Own, Mouse In Love, Tamagotchi Girl, Watching Waters Rise, Freiburg (CH) '98, Selling The Party

Sound: Leonora, perfect on stage and off.

Reception: 97% strangers, attentive, complimentary, especially to Ian and Roddy

Dislocated

No, not the storming Robert Fripp/League of Gentlemen rocker but my left shoulder.

Wednesday 13 January 2010

Advance Notice – Gig 32










Dancing Mice will next play at

Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh

Saturday 23rd January 2010

also appearing

Mills and Boon – not to be missed