De La Soul

Caught the final night of De La Soul’s seven day residency at the Jazz Cafe last night. Always a punchy call to go out on a Monday, but overall I’m glad I did.

Songswise (and not necessarily knowing the entire back catalogue), on the chirpy older crowd–pleasing side, I think they did Pot Holes in My Lawn; Me, Myself and I and Buddy from Three Feet High and Rising and Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) from De La Soul is Dead. On the slightly harder more recent side, I think they did U Can Do (Life); My Writes and Oooh from Art Official Intelligence and unsurprisingly, they also did some stuff from the latest album, The Grind Date, but I hadn’t heard that album before so I couldn’t recognise tracks.

They were supported by a guy called Butter V, from Florida, who guests on the latest album. He was OK, if not amazing; and of course it’s always more difficult to get into something when you don’t know any of the material. Also, during the De La Soul set, Talib Kwali came on and did a couple of tracks, which was cool. Butter V came back on for a song (presumably, that on which he appears on the new De La album?)

The sound was alright, but not great — not great clarity and quite hard to make out the lyrics to the songs you didn’t know. The crowd was fairly diverse, but tended towards the studenty (Monday night, I guess). Both Butter V and De La on several occasions exhorted the crowd to “put your hands up if you love hip hop”, which got a mixed reception from the crowd. “Put your hands up if you smoke weed” a bit later on got the biggest cheer. Perhaps in an attempt to keep the old hippy image stuffed firmly back in the past, Dave “Trugoy” also invited the crowd to “put your hands up if you do cocaine”, which they did, somewhat equivocally (joined enthusisatically, however, by Butter V from the wings, I was amused to note — I understand that the stuff is used instead of baby powder in Miami, right?). I am pleased to report that “put your hands up if you do crack” was widely booed, although Trugoy confessed to partaking (perhaps tongue in cheek?!) “on three days of the week”.

That exchange kind of illustrated the vibe of the evening. Although it was a good evening, I had a funny feeling throughout that De La Soul were kind of taking the piss out of the crowd, but that not everyone was quite getting it. Despite the comments about it being their last night, London being off–the–hook and De La wanting to make the final night the biggest party of the trip, there just seemed a slight air of cynicism and a hint that they were raising a slightly weary eyebrow about being received to some extent as a bit of a “heritage” act, where the joints that got the biggest cheers were those from 18 years ago. Kind of like Steve Hackett playing an old Genesis tune — but whereas you get the impression that Steve Hackett doesn’t care, De La still seemed just slightly pissed off about it to me. Maybe I’m tripping…

Anyway, it was still a good night and worth seeing, not least because having been around for 18 years, they are great on the mic and on the deck and put out a highly professional set. Nice intimate venue, also.

Council Tax Revaluations - hang on a minute

So, there’s been some stuff in the press lately about how people have been “spared” dramatic increases in their Council Tax, because the Government has postponed a revaluation of residential property. According to the reports, the big increases in property values since 1991, when values were last assessed, means that many people will be asked to pay more as their properties jump several Council Tax bands.

Hang on a minute. That doesn’t work, does it? Local Government needs a certain amount of money each year. That’s why the Council Tax varies each year. The fact that houses are revalued has nothing to do with how much money local Government needs. All it means is that people will be placed into bands based upon an up–to–date (and presumably therefore more accurate) valuation of their property. It doesn’t mean that everyone is going to have to pay more as properties jump up through the bands. The total amount will still be divided according to the relative values of people’s houses across the borough. You should only pay more if your house has risen in value relatively more than others in the borough. In which case, you should pay more, if you accept that tax for local services is to be charged according to the value of the house you are lucky enough to be able to afford to live in (which you may not). In fact, a revaluation should be good for me, because presumably the value of my house (and therefore its Council Tax band) was assessed in 1998 when it was built, unlike the many houses in the borough that were actually around in 1991 and were assessed at the (generally) lower values prevailing at that time. A revaluation now would re–level the playing field in my favour.

Back

Been away for a bit. Points to note include

1. Sardinia is a wicked place with some absolutely superb beaches (most notably from my perspective on this trip, Piscinas on the Costa Verde and Porto Tramatzu in Cagliari province) and great food;
2. Watch out for excess baggage on Ryanair;
3. The Renault Modus is a surprisingly decent car;
4. The prospect of speaking in front of 450 people at a wedding can sure put you off your dinner.

Congratulations to Chrishola and his lovely wife on their wedding. Very happy for you guys.