Blue Period

   A few years ago I wrote a post about finding out a fellow-teacher at the London college I work at was a former member of post-punk band Swell Maps. Earlier this year I moved to a different college and was intrigued to learn that one of the other teachers in my staff-room is a member of the Blue Aeroplanes, an indie group I used to listen to in my 20s but who are apparently still gigging and recording.

    Refreshing my memory with YouTube clips, I remembered that they were certainly one of the more poetic bands on the scene, their vocalist Gerard Langley intoning his lyrics in long meandering monologues rather than singing them, rather like a less irascible and more garrulous Mark E Smith. One song on the early album Tolerance is inspired by MacNiece's 'Bagpipe Music'; the video is a single from the same album.