Juxtaposed With U

Despite Thanksgiving being over, I find myself with many new things to be thankful for.

First off, to the Super Furry Animals. Everybody's favourite wacky Welsh band released one of this year's best albums in the form of Phantom Power (not to be confused with another band's album of the same name) which adds to their already brilliant discography. They also put on one cracker of a show this past Friday. SFA have got the "show" portion down to an art - we're talking a stage full of characters from their latest album (including cartoon ghosts, horses, and smokestacks - complete with working smoke), a full multimedia presentation to accompany the songs, big dance beats to get a groove during the encore, and the obligatory final encore performance of "The Man Don't Give A Fuck" dressed as yetis. And of course the music was outstanding. What more can one ask for at a rock show? Go and see them if you get the chance.

I'm thankful to my buddy Kevin for recommending that I spend some cash on comfy Gore-Tex hiking boots. I followed the advice, and hill-walking is ever so much nicer.

I'm super thankful to my buddy Mike for his much-appreciated package from Toronto, featuring fab compilations of tunes that I hadn't heard before. But most importantly, a Stars concert T! I was representin' the Soft Revolution last night on the streets of Glasgow.

I'm also thankful for Icelandair for the seat sale that made it possible to head over to Reykjavik. In a nutshell - Iceland is a bloody amazing country. But that story is surely worthy of a separate entry? Stay tuned...