Thursday, October 30, 2003

Brighton is, I'm told, buzzing with excitement with Radio 1 down to stay for the week. Apart from a noticeable increase in young men with feathered hair in the Station on Monday night, I've not seen much evidence. Last night's Careless Talk Costs Lives gig at the Albert was nominally a radio 1 event, but there was little to denote the fact except a banner behind the stage. It was the Everett True show, really - he compered, DJed and - as his alter ego The Legend! - played the second set of the night.

I've wanted to see La Momo for ages, having admired their website and influences previously, and they were no dissapointment, better than the first band on stage has right to be. Doing that hyperactive space-rock thing with a clattery drum machine and a bit of gusto, they were occasionally brilliant - when the singer added a tom drum to the mix they invariably sounded twice as good, just as they did when their odd and stretching backing vocals added peculiar harmonies. I really enjoyed their set - they made me think of The Residents 'Hello Skinny', which was fine.

The Legend! did a good job, it must be recorded, of emptying the room. One wonders whether their set (beer and poetry over taped piano and a squalling guitar) would be tolerated if it was anyone other than Everett True centre stage. Probably not. Nevertheless, I'm not being deliberately provocative when I say that I enjoyed the set through my furrowed brow, and - alone it seems - never once willed it to end until the final few minutes when it was, perhaps, going on a bit. All the same, it was a kind of hotch-potch of Simon Munnery, avant-mode Sonic Youth and - best of all - Gavin Bryers' unequalled 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet'. It was laugh-loud funny in places and I could have danced to it if I wasn't so inhibited. Nevertheless, should anyone tell me it was self-indulgent, over-long and embarrassing, I wouldn't be able to argue. Still, see them once, do.

Miss Pain know how to dance. Or at least, their singer (confusingly also named Miss Pain) does. Miss Pain (collective) are an elegantly conceptualised synth pop act with dashings of punk guitar - Goldfrapp and Huggy Bear in air-hostess uniform. I envied them their lovely keyboards and their bravery. They dispensed Mills and Boon novels, circulated a mirror to be kissed, sang through a megaphone and fell over lots. Their songs were called things like 'Campari and Sex', but I saw them having crafty swigs of Grolsch between songs. It kind of gave them away. They were great.

Thursday, October 09, 2003

Lots of off-topic posting recently. Just to remind you why I'm here....

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Wednesday, October 08, 2003

I always tended to write Billy Bragg off on account of his stullifying earnestness, and I certainly don't recommend too much listening to his music. In isolation, however, some of his songs are stunning, and - all round - it's pretty hard to resist the general feeling of geniality towards him.

Went to Waterstones at lunch and read some of Michael Moore's new book, the brilliantly named 'Dude, Where's My Country' and noticed ruefully that the book is priced at £17.99. Whose side are you on Mike?! I can't remember Billy Bragg, an equally direct if rarely as funny kind of activist, ever pricing himself so out of the market. Indeed, his new triple CD (though a retrospective) is only eleven pounds. I know this because, after going to Waterstones (or the pub), going to MVC to see what dross is on their listening post is my wasting-my-lunch hour-method of choice. The choice is usually pretty crap, and the only good record on there recently (the new album from the intriguingly un-starry Siobhan Donaghy) I've already heard. But the Billy Bragg record was on there today and I thought I'd listen back to some of those early songs which, despite their earnestness, bear repeated listening (I suggest three years apart, or every time Tony Blair does something right, whichever comes soonest).

Between The Wars still raises hairs, crackling on the nape of my neck. But how naive it sounds now - and how far away his sentiments seem. It's the kind of song that makes you want to belong. But how? Can I really claim that my England is 'the green field and the factory floor'? Or hanker after England 'Between the Wars' And what do you when that history hasn't been passed down to you, or is as unfamiliar as an overheard conversation? You stand in MVC until your lunch hour ends and walk back to work wondering whether you can pay £17.99, or £11.99, for someone else's heritage - Flint, Michigan or Barking.

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Lots of reading recently; the Guardian is going through a purple patch at the moment, with great recent articles by Jon Ronson and Michael Moore, an interview with Rod Liddle and more besides. The new Martin Amis novel - Yellow Dog - is deliciously Amisian, as was the following exchange, reported in the Guardian

On Friday's Night Waves (Radio 3), Martin Amis talked movingly about getting older, writing, and smoking. He was brittle and brilliant on the subject of hostile reviews from younger writers. "The Matts, the Nats, and Theos and Jeds... I only have to see these Christian names to know I'm going to get a stinking review. If they're called Brett or Toby, I've had it. They're Christian names and I'm a surname in the most horribly resonant way."

And still enjoying, though still perplexed by the musical references, Blissblog.

I sometimes think I would rather read about music than listen to it - there are many bands who I have read about and felt transfixed by the idea of, who in reality have in some way failed to meet the expectation I had; have not matched up to the hyperbole of their reviews. I don't mean rubbish like The Libertines or The White Stripes who are talked up and never deliver, but the kind of bands whose description summons up oblique and unfamiliar concepts which are out of the realm my experience.

So when I read about the icy robotic future-funk of Kraftwerk I imagined something very different to what I heard (and liked) later on. Later still I heard a little known group called Clatterbox who sounded exactly as I expected Kraftwerk to sound. That doesn't happen very often. You can't get their record now but I'll copy it for you if you ask. Still - imagined music can be more real that the real thing, and the real thing a disappointment - witness The Residents, Van der Graaf Generator, Lee Scratch Perry, Pole, 'Sandanista' by the Clash, early Detroit Techno, OutKast, Syd Barrett, Aaliyah.

That's not to say that those artists aren't (sometimes) brilliant, but they sounded better when I was just imagining their 'electronic dub / pyschadelia / pre-punk prog / progressive hip hop etc. Anyway. Looking again at Blissblog I notice that Simon Reynolds says of a piece of writing...

Course I'd much rather prefer to read this description than actually listen to a Dillinja record these days

So it's not just me. Anyway, spent much of last night listening to Dizzee Rascal and the convoluted point to all this is.... that his record is every bit as magnificent as the writing of Reynolds and Alexis Petridis led me to expect.

Monday, October 06, 2003

We had a fun rehearsal on Saturday; Pete was in Oxford and, though it's never as good when one of us can't make it, it usually gives us an opportunity to spin off in a different direction. We rehearsed a few new songs - Easy to Leave, which is coming together around it's 303 spine, and Vine to Vine, which Anne-Sophie sang, and which sounded much better for it. The rhythm of the song is misleading and I always struggled to play the (easy) guitar line and sing the chorus simultaneously, so this way I could play the guitar with a bit more vim, and Anne-So's got a better voice than me anyway.

Then we worked on a new song of mine, 'Engines and Anvils' and completely deconstructed it. After a bit of tinkering, it begins with a loping piano riff, adding drums, a weird guitar riff (which we eventually disposed of - Pete can resurrect it perhaps) and an evil sounding synth line on the 303 which threatens to drown all the prettiness of the piano with glitches and bursts of distortion. It builds up and then suddenly breaks back down to another, two chord piano riff and a first appearance of my much-maligned melodica before building up again in a long instrumental passage. I thought it sounded great, probably my second favourite thing we've done in the last few months (after Easy To Leave) and I can't wait to get back to it. So that was good.

Later that day I finally dispensed with my much-and-totally-fairly-maligned computer, thank god. Andrew has just bought a new G5 so he donated his previous Mac to me; am more excited than I should be. iTunes, in particular, is an incentive to sit listening to music all day and night. Hmm - perhaps an incentive I can do without. Nevertheless, it's fab.

Went to The Juggler on Western Rd on Sunday and noticed that everyone had a fashionable t-shirt on except me. Then I remembered I had one on myself (under my jumper), and felt much better subsequently.

Friday, October 03, 2003

sporadic pos(t)er though I am, a couple of blogs have caught my eye recently. Blissblog is maintained by Simon Reynolds, who used to write for the Melody Maker when - for a few years in the early 90s - it combined great music with great writing in a way that's increasingly rare. Reading Blissblog is quite similar to reading MM actually - there's that same feeling that you've stumbled across something rare and exclusive which, if you work at, you might be permitted to share in. It's the opposite philosophy of the modern NME, which editor Conor McNicholas speaks of now as a "club [which is] a hell of a lot easier to join". That's as maybe, but the quality of the journalism is shocking. Blissblog covers 8step and Dizzee Rascal in depth, but the last few week's postings find plenty of opportunities to mention the residents, bleep'n'bass, the byrds, jungle and an intriguing debate about London as the UK's centre of musical innovation.

One blogger who hasn't said anything in the last couple of weeks when half the web has been alight with gossip about the seven players rumoured to be at the centre of the rather horrific rape case in the news, is the author of footblog. Hardly surprising. He is, apparently, a player in a top English team intent, like the wonderful Aki Riihilahti, on demystifying the world of English football. I've got no idea if this is for real, but it's compelling reading regardless. Whether he will address the behaviour of his fellow (cough, cough) professionals, I don't know.

And although everyone seems to know the names of those (apparently) involved, it's hard to see anything but harm coming out of their (surely inevitable) unmasking - another prejudiced trial, though with DNA tests involved this should be a bit less cut and dry. The players involved should be sacked from their clubs if it's proven and their registration's held so they can't pick up their career elsewhere. It'll be interesting to see how ITV deals with the matches involving their teams on Saturday - there's bound to be uproar from the crowd if the players are picked, and if there are chants or banners then ITV risk a libel case themselves. I suppose they will have to edit the sound. Anyway.

Thursday, October 02, 2003

Went to see British Sea Power and the Tenderfoot last night with Vic, Pete, Anne-So and Sam. The Old Market in Hove is a nice venue; somehow reminiscent of a school hall, but with a nice sound and a good atmosphere. The Tenderfoot sounded lovely; they're a very delicate band, very deliberate and precise with faint, pretty tunes and a good line in between-song banter. All the same, they lacked muscle; they reminded me of Tindersticks, a group that never really took their sound anywhere, just down a blind alley - but all the same, you won't hear a better song this year than 'Still Holding My Stomach In'.

BSP, on the other hand, are all taut aggression and drama. Opening with footage from David Lean's 'Great Expectations' and playing an album-heavy set to a lively reception, they were good but short of convincing; the odd song - Lately, and Carrion, particularly - sounded superb, and welded the two extremes of their style (early 80s gloom-rock and sub-N.O.U chaos) well; at other times they were self-indulgent and dull. When I last saw them I didn't know any of the songs and they seemed bright and chaotic - seeing them playing the songs I now know I felt disappointed that they weren't as eccentric as I first thought.

Towards the end of Lately, however, when they dispensed with caution and launched themselves up a gear, they mimicked Pavement's glorious 'Filmore Jive' so accurately that they were briefly transformed. And - conversely - at one point during the flabby encore the singer's 'It's time to get some sleep' refrain echoed the same song's gorgeous 'I need to sleep - why won't you let me?'. But by that point they'd been playing the same two songs relentlessly for the best part of an hour, and it was a question I felt like asking too.

But there's something about them that is endearing; maybe just the fact that they are doing something different, and as a visual spectacle they're still brilliant. It was a good evening - Vic even bought me a t-shirt, which is really nice. It says 'Bravery Already Exists'. Hmm. I suppose it's fairly brave to play a 15 minute instrumental coda at the end of your encore...