Prawn shop pop

Fake plastic snowflakes hang between buildings in preperation for Christmas. The markets are candle-lit and it doesn´t truly get light at any time of the day now. The streets are packed with brightly coloured bescarfed and bag-laden couples, and chestnut sellers line the streets(and their pockets).

On Saturday I found a street that is full of music shops. I had to laugh because Barcelona is all about image, and one shop has only a Harley Davidson bike in the window. It sells music for Christ´s sake, and yet there were all these demi-goths hanging about gazing at the bike. Aren´t goths supposed to be into other stuff? But at least when you walk down the street you don´t feel threatened by the pantomime as they are all nice (in the Barcelona sense of the word) people. Although I do think some of those "don´t touch" signs in the shops should be removed. Why would I buy an instrument I´d never played?

Speaking of which, I found the Prawn shop in San Antoni, or at least that´s what I like to call it cos I find it funny and yes I know it´s not clever. I went in with 50 quid and I found so many things I wanted to buy I bought none. There was an overpriced string of tubular bells. There was a beautiful Washburn bass, which I would like to buy were it not 400 emus, which is a little to much for the poor relation at the moment. They had an old gameboy for 6 quid and Minidiscs for 100. Despite the smutty auld sale-of-work feel to the place, I think I will return sometime.

I went afterwards to see the film Broken Flowers with Darren. It´s an enjoyable watch I suppose, but a bit slow(which normally I like) and one-dimensional. But still interesting. I do like the end though. It was near midnight when it finished, so we went to a little cafe across the road for some coffee. The limegreen walls and plastic flower garlands should have warned us that the music would be dodgy Korean pop stylee, but nothing could have prepared us for the shock of hearing love songs sung LIVE by our host over a Karaoke machine! I am ashamed to admit that I fell into convulsive laughter, but I don´t think they noticed cos they were just too nice to us. There were only 3 other people in the cafe.

I was of course giddy as usual by now, seeing as that night seems to tug at some hormones in me that wanted to go and destroy everything, so I dragged Darren on a drink run. Or maybe we dragged each other. In any case, we ended up after the bars closed in La Paloma again, where one of the best DJs I have ever heard played. I asked her name and heard Giorgia De Frey but I will have to do a search cos I have no clue if I heard right. She was brilliant, and I danced for 4 hours rather than drink, and on the way home I jumped on window-sills and bollards, dancing to the posers in the square and only stopping from jumping on a taxi cos the driver glared at me convincingly.

On Sunday I was up bright and early and in great form which is not always a good sign in me as it indicates a crash. I went to Gordon´s for a rehearsal, and we are sounding good. I am looking forward to getting a few songs finished and gigging again. It´s been a long time, so long, in fact, that I am nervous about doing any performance when I go back to Dublin for the week.