Journeys in the Banana Bus

Progress on the van has been slow of late as we've been busily constructing a home in anticipation of our new arrivals. They're here at last! Margo and Barbara have settled in and will keep the Banana Bus company at the back of the garden for the time being...which is nice.
The bus, though, has been getting a new lick of paint too - it looks very bright and shiny inside and the lightness of colour makes for a feeling of more space - always a bonus when there will be two small children in it on any future trips. And we're obliterating the awful lilac (!) cupboard interiors and dark brown sticky paint as we go.

The paint is not one I'd recommend, the colour is nice but as for "one coat"? Forget it. B&Q, your paint stinks! Didn't stop me from buying another can of it on a trip to Glasgow this week though did it? Well, I've started so I'll finish and all that.

Since I was paint shopping I reckon that makes it a bus related trip which allows me to crowbar in a blog entry even though the Banana Bus wasn't present, so I will.

Excellent day in the west end waiting for the car to be serviced (loads needing done by way of "advisory" notes but we'll see how long we can keep limping along for, though the front tyres could do with being replaced) but not very fruitful in terms of finding the second hand records I was after. I seem to recall Byres Road being better served for music shops when I was a lad, as it was I only bought a "new" CD - Maximo Park's excellent "A Certain Trigger" for the princely sum of £6 from Fopp. Let it Bleed, Dirty Laundry and LA, Memphis & Tyler, Texas will just have to wait.

The other purpose of the visit was a visit to the Barrowlands for a gig by the still excellent Barenaked Ladies. I saw them on the first trip to Scotland back in 1993 on two great nights at King Tut's when they were still an acoustic band. The last time I saw them was at the Carling Academy in Glasgow which I reckon is a crap venue and it wasn't a great gig. They played there on Sunday too, the night before the Barras gig, but as soon as I saw they were doing a second night elsewhere I thought I'd give them another go. I'm very glad I did - Steven Page's voice is quite incredible and the banter is amazing.

The old favourites, Brian Wilson, What A Good Boy and The Old Apartment were full of life in front of a very appreciative crowd and the band's trademark improv-rap (honest, it's better than it sounds!) was based on a pair of massive "PLEASE MIND THE STEP" signs and provided an excellent inspiration for Ed to freewheel on the dangers of 3 inch drops in concert venues. "If I Had $1million" just about brought the house down; so good was it in fact that I was almost tempted by the BNL's visionary e-commerce tactics: £20 buys a pen-drive with tonight's gig available 15 minutes after the band come off stage. That's genius. A long way from the days when I used to go to the Barras market of a Sunday and try to buy a bootleg tape of gigs from the venue above...they were only three quid back then mind you.