Fall 2 (Kemper is Newsom-ah!)

The Fall at The Bierkeller were exactly like The Fall at The Bierkeller. So far, so good; I've seen them before sounding like someone else entirely.

This time the drummer looked like a member of Hanson, the hotter-than-a-microwaved-cat keyboard fister was like a Slimfast(TM) Scissor Sister while on guitars and bass came two guys who looked like they'd just stumbled off the Microsoft programmers annual boat-ride to Dublin.

Beforehand, me and Psychbloke finally met up with Kid Shirt, Gutterbreakz and the elusive Farmer Glitch (who eluded soon after); fine fellows every one. We had a group photo with suitably cheesy grins but apparently it didn't come out which is almost certainly a good thing - the West Country axis perhaps needs it's anonymity, if nothing else to separate it from the London based New Puritan K-Punk Ghouls...

Still, it was weird seeing everyone in the flesh, even if they did sort of look like you'd expect: Kek with a mad grin and sunglasses after dark, Gutterbreakz reeking of calm fanaticism and mini-Moogs, the Farmer with the steely black-clad good looks of the well-travelled Cyberfiend...

Weirest of all was the much discussed Kempernorton who turned out to be indie Harp elf Joanna Newsom. It was late in the evening when she finally approached me, having seen my Loki badges (yeah, I know: we don't need no stinkin' badges...):

"Hi, I'm Kempernorton. You're Loki." Smile. Hair pushed behind ears.

"Last time I looked he was a kind of down-rent Edward Scissorhands and lived in Cornwall..."

"Yeah, well; look again. Memory plays more tricks than light." Smile. Hand moving to her nose.

I still wasn't sure it was really him when Kemper/Joanna invited me and Psychbloke back to her snowswept ice palace to hear her Milky album and some DATs of her latest collaboration with Otomo Yoshide (tentatively entitled 'Soil and Suffrage'). She has a lovely place and makes an excellent huckleberry stew. We lounged around there, playing drafts and discussing the Single European Currency while Kemper/ Joanna plucked strings and crawled around under various diaphanous spreads, apparently "trying to find a harpsichord" that she'd lost whilst entertaining Orville (not that one).

Later, I ditched Psychbloke and me and the Pixie Princess walked the grounds, arm in arm as the Summer breached the snow and the blossom from the trees fell on our moonstruck heads. She was just getting round to some seriously erotic tantric breathing ("I'm no Sting," I started...) when, well, Psychbloke messed everything up with his nude Chaka Khan headspinning and Bobby Ferrin scatology...

Joanna, if you could just find it in your heart to forgive me and remove your Halfling Spell that seems to distort my memory so that at times I think I just watched The Fall, walked home, ate a Chicken n Cholera kebab and then threw in all of Psychbloke's bathrooms, then maybe we could rekindle some of those beuatiful moments we spent together...

Or at least get back to that thing you were doing with your gills...

Joanna Newsom - Peach Plum Pear