Thursday, June 24, 2004

24 June 2004: Haircut

Mauro, legendary barber to all male students in Southampton, thinks the Denmark - Sweden game was fixed. It finished 2-2, the one result that pretty much guaranteed his beloved Italian team would be knocked out.

So you think it was fixed? I ask as he removes my not-far-off-being-a-proto-mullet with his sabre-toothed buzz-cut machine.
He stops, looks at me in the barber shop mirror, and puts his hands out.
What you think? he asks in his lilting Neopolitan accent. Of course they do. It's the Italian manager's fault, though, they need get rid of him.
I nod, hoping he won't take his vengeance on me.

Half an hour later I'm here in the lab, hair quite radically shorter, noticing for the first time that the blind above Steve Harris's desk has been lifted, allowing sunlight and a view of the trees into my line of sight. First time in nine months that has happened, and suddenly Bay 10 has a very different feel.

KFOG, bless 'em, have introduced me to two new bands recently: Train and an Aussie threesome known as The Waifs. Very folksy, quite Bob Dylan in fact (they've been touring with him recently), and the song KFOG have been playing to death is called Lighthouse. Lots of acoustic guitar and harmonica, but I like the sound. Therein some hope for all of us who thought there was no Aussie music outside of Kylie and Holly Vallance. Also, of course, something to tide us over until the new Marc Cohn album is released. I can hear definite parallels between them, especially in the drum/percussion arrangements for some reason.

I clearly need to be doing more gigs. Just not with this haircut.

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