off to london for a week’s holiday tomorrow, so blatantly no updates here for time. listening to one of the Thin White Luka’s excellent (east london pirate radio) tapes dead loud to prepare. especially love this bit where riko calls out more fire crew’s neeko on a show that roll deep’s wiley is doing. suppose should throw the tape away and concentrate on another, as pirates are very much ‘art in one moment’/tossed-off unrepeatable fine works; and listening endlessly to just the one document might not help one the greatest with ref. to trying to find out about london pirates culture, etc.
not that there’s owt wrong with fetishising the one thing.
ever since juicy couture started clothing the likes of j-lo and all the girls started wearing pink velour the last six months or so, well, basically, dunno where i stand on this. know that lots of trackies are now more chic than ever before, but just like every girl seems to be peakin on this particular avenue (and many blokes are into a combo of studied NYC retro, beckham/justinesque mix’n’match sleaze/arena-isms, and ironic metal/bhangra up yo azz schtuff), hmm, dunno.
is it a good ting?
hmm.
wish one could eloquently transpose one’s own words onto classic-era old underground indie gods, but some boys do that better than others…
Friday, 30 May 2003
Thursday, 29 May 2003
Some particulars and such about the life of Stan Brakhage that you may be
interested in.
January 14, 1933, born Kansas City, MO.
1952, “25 minutes of adolescent love under viaducts” that is
interim sees the light of day.
1954, moves to NYC, for a short time.
1955 is the year for both desistfilm and the way to shadow garden.
1958, anticipation of the night, another work.
1959, releases Wedlock House: an intercourse, featuring himself and first
wife jane collom.
1961-64, dog star man is done.
1963, the book metaphors of vision comes out (“imagine an eye
unruled by man-made laws of perspective…an eye unprejudiced by
compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of
everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an
adventure of perception”).
also 1963, mothlight is formed, “four beautiful minutes of life in
death and artifice in nature”.
1969-81, brakhage teaches for one term annually at school at AI Chicago
(which is simply wonderful,
having spent a day there fact fans, mean the AI, not the school of the AI).
1971, the art of seeing with one’s own eyes looks at mortuaries and
their slabs.
1987, divorces, 1989, marries marilyn jull. From his first marriage has
the kids myrrena, crystal, neowyn, bearthm, and rarc. With marilyn stan
has two more kids, anton and vaughn.
1996, diagnosed with bladder cancer.
March 9, 2003, dies at age 70.
Anyway, the bloke was a truly fine one-off, adored by great writers (Dale
at the Astronauts Notepad) and mediocre rock bands (Sonic Youth) alike.
P. Adams Sitney once said of him that ~
In the entire history of the medium, when all the pop-culture interests
have faded, a hundred years from now, he will be considered the
pre-eminent artist of the 20th century.
What a fine bloke! All hail etc., his beard and cakes and ale, and his way
of scratching about at the surface of things with his fingernails and
strange paints and delirious child naming policy, in order to find deeper
stuff.
Beautiful like mathematics. Ah.
In wanting to parapharse Mike Dirnt (though he was talking about PUSA
circa ‘Peaches’) just like to observe, having followed
conversations with other (far more astute) football watchers than myself,
would like to – firstly; register my displeasure at Sam the Man and
his ludicrous Bluebirds the true club of Wales trope (they’re called
Swansea, for a start) all this huge team nonsense (as could Hull be, sir,
if they were in the right division), and whilst wanting to pay homage to
the 30,000 QPR that made the more noise on Sunday (yes indeed) must also
observe, er, - ; secondly, that it’s not the most surprising thing
to read of an associate of his being charged with attempting to wake the
Super Hoops players from their slumbers the night before by setting off
fire alarms or whatever, etc., at their hotel. Hmm.
Having said that, Neil Warnock’s team lost (boo-fucking-hoo), the
romance of Wolves carries on (exqueeze me, but DID you SEE –that-
toaster banner?!), saw loads of Cherries and Imps friendly bantering at
Crewe station on Sat. arvo, and shedloads of Juve outside the Gorse pub
today, AC everywhere in general.
In stretford daubed on walls news, vinny gatt’s mum’s
celebrated communique opposite the lovely smelling orianne’s
delihouse (legend w.indian caff) has been joined, alas, by a far less
salubrious one asserting someone with a one syllable first name is
“a rapist”, alas. Under the subway, “Chemz?” is in
full effect, motherfucker, and watchers of old hands like
“Terz” are waiting for any riposte. “Chemz?” is a
fine new one, and certainly someway more interesting than any for a while
of a spell.
Anyway, david keenan relatively recently reviewed the book commonly known
as SONIC COOL: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, by (that)
man like Joe S Harrington.
Keenan approvingly quotes Bangs who said in 1970
“personally I believe that real rock ‘n’ roll may be
on the way out, just like adolescence as a relatively innocent
transitional period is on the way out. What we will have instead is a
small island of new free music surrounded by some good reworkings of
past idioms and a vast Sargasso Sea of absolute garbage.”
(incidentally, is lester here being approvingly priescient about the
strokes feeding off television or whatever with “some good
reworkings of past idioms”?)
basically, i do like keenan, honest, but the stuff where he says “at
least back then swill was swill, he laments, whereas now critics,
seemingly unaware that mainstream rock ‘n’ roll is merely a
façade, still gamely oil its cogs with critiques of lil’ kim videos.
As the comedian bill hicks would have cautioned’ ‘you’re
getting all confused: it’s a piece of shit. Now walk
away’” just sounds all too baiting-of-SashaFJ to me. At the
end he even bigs up the likes of no-neck blues band and fushitsusha (who
are taken or left round here; also admittedly mentioning the utterly
brilliant marianne nowottny {shell is swell etc.}) but it just sounds all
too marginalia rock to me, ignore good sonic lessons elsewhere? Oh, i
dunno. Props to Harrington for writing about the Fugs and Sun City Girls
anyway.
So keenan concludes that rock ‘n’ roll is still out,
“whether hidden under a rock or burned onto a CD-R handed out at an
art centre gig {art centre gig, ack?! It’s like reynolds on
leftfield music culture siding up with the establishment or whatever
trevor… }, rock ‘n’ roll is still mutating. It’s
just hard to recognise with all of those extra limbs.”
That’s a nice ending to be fair, who, after all, can resist such a
dynamic narrative?
Oh, unsure if keenan –disagrees~ with harrington’s conclusion
that rock ‘n’ roll reached its peak in the late 60s, but there
we go.
was glad AC one, Ancelotti's a good bloke. used to manage Parma, him and T. Brolin kind of had the same sort of vaguely puffed up face on ocassion sorta.
i don't know, gout.
anyway.
Did you see the footage of that helicopter crash in the Himalayas, on
Everest? Horrible, so awful.
interested in.
January 14, 1933, born Kansas City, MO.
1952, “25 minutes of adolescent love under viaducts” that is
interim sees the light of day.
1954, moves to NYC, for a short time.
1955 is the year for both desistfilm and the way to shadow garden.
1958, anticipation of the night, another work.
1959, releases Wedlock House: an intercourse, featuring himself and first
wife jane collom.
1961-64, dog star man is done.
1963, the book metaphors of vision comes out (“imagine an eye
unruled by man-made laws of perspective…an eye unprejudiced by
compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of
everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an
adventure of perception”).
also 1963, mothlight is formed, “four beautiful minutes of life in
death and artifice in nature”.
1969-81, brakhage teaches for one term annually at school at AI Chicago
(which is simply wonderful,
having spent a day there fact fans, mean the AI, not the school of the AI).
1971, the art of seeing with one’s own eyes looks at mortuaries and
their slabs.
1987, divorces, 1989, marries marilyn jull. From his first marriage has
the kids myrrena, crystal, neowyn, bearthm, and rarc. With marilyn stan
has two more kids, anton and vaughn.
1996, diagnosed with bladder cancer.
March 9, 2003, dies at age 70.
Anyway, the bloke was a truly fine one-off, adored by great writers (Dale
at the Astronauts Notepad) and mediocre rock bands (Sonic Youth) alike.
P. Adams Sitney once said of him that ~
In the entire history of the medium, when all the pop-culture interests
have faded, a hundred years from now, he will be considered the
pre-eminent artist of the 20th century.
What a fine bloke! All hail etc., his beard and cakes and ale, and his way
of scratching about at the surface of things with his fingernails and
strange paints and delirious child naming policy, in order to find deeper
stuff.
Beautiful like mathematics. Ah.
In wanting to parapharse Mike Dirnt (though he was talking about PUSA
circa ‘Peaches’) just like to observe, having followed
conversations with other (far more astute) football watchers than myself,
would like to – firstly; register my displeasure at Sam the Man and
his ludicrous Bluebirds the true club of Wales trope (they’re called
Swansea, for a start) all this huge team nonsense (as could Hull be, sir,
if they were in the right division), and whilst wanting to pay homage to
the 30,000 QPR that made the more noise on Sunday (yes indeed) must also
observe, er, - ; secondly, that it’s not the most surprising thing
to read of an associate of his being charged with attempting to wake the
Super Hoops players from their slumbers the night before by setting off
fire alarms or whatever, etc., at their hotel. Hmm.
Having said that, Neil Warnock’s team lost (boo-fucking-hoo), the
romance of Wolves carries on (exqueeze me, but DID you SEE –that-
toaster banner?!), saw loads of Cherries and Imps friendly bantering at
Crewe station on Sat. arvo, and shedloads of Juve outside the Gorse pub
today, AC everywhere in general.
In stretford daubed on walls news, vinny gatt’s mum’s
celebrated communique opposite the lovely smelling orianne’s
delihouse (legend w.indian caff) has been joined, alas, by a far less
salubrious one asserting someone with a one syllable first name is
“a rapist”, alas. Under the subway, “Chemz?” is in
full effect, motherfucker, and watchers of old hands like
“Terz” are waiting for any riposte. “Chemz?” is a
fine new one, and certainly someway more interesting than any for a while
of a spell.
Anyway, david keenan relatively recently reviewed the book commonly known
as SONIC COOL: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, by (that)
man like Joe S Harrington.
Keenan approvingly quotes Bangs who said in 1970
“personally I believe that real rock ‘n’ roll may be
on the way out, just like adolescence as a relatively innocent
transitional period is on the way out. What we will have instead is a
small island of new free music surrounded by some good reworkings of
past idioms and a vast Sargasso Sea of absolute garbage.”
(incidentally, is lester here being approvingly priescient about the
strokes feeding off television or whatever with “some good
reworkings of past idioms”?)
basically, i do like keenan, honest, but the stuff where he says “at
least back then swill was swill, he laments, whereas now critics,
seemingly unaware that mainstream rock ‘n’ roll is merely a
façade, still gamely oil its cogs with critiques of lil’ kim videos.
As the comedian bill hicks would have cautioned’ ‘you’re
getting all confused: it’s a piece of shit. Now walk
away’” just sounds all too baiting-of-SashaFJ to me. At the
end he even bigs up the likes of no-neck blues band and fushitsusha (who
are taken or left round here; also admittedly mentioning the utterly
brilliant marianne nowottny {shell is swell etc.}) but it just sounds all
too marginalia rock to me, ignore good sonic lessons elsewhere? Oh, i
dunno. Props to Harrington for writing about the Fugs and Sun City Girls
anyway.
So keenan concludes that rock ‘n’ roll is still out,
“whether hidden under a rock or burned onto a CD-R handed out at an
art centre gig {art centre gig, ack?! It’s like reynolds on
leftfield music culture siding up with the establishment or whatever
trevor… }, rock ‘n’ roll is still mutating. It’s
just hard to recognise with all of those extra limbs.”
That’s a nice ending to be fair, who, after all, can resist such a
dynamic narrative?
Oh, unsure if keenan –disagrees~ with harrington’s conclusion
that rock ‘n’ roll reached its peak in the late 60s, but there
we go.
was glad AC one, Ancelotti's a good bloke. used to manage Parma, him and T. Brolin kind of had the same sort of vaguely puffed up face on ocassion sorta.
i don't know, gout.
anyway.
Did you see the footage of that helicopter crash in the Himalayas, on
Everest? Horrible, so awful.
Sunday, 25 May 2003
Saw the potter lad yesterday and thrillingly his bruv too, an artist of computational models and such (who lives in a magnificently cluttered gaff on the outskirts of Hanley with his missus, a good woman from the fair port of Hull, and no bog roll, though some cheap Rough Guides and decent teabags).
His bruv was as pleased as punch – as many others have been too – about that Gerhard Richter interview on the telly some months ago or so, when he told all the jargonistic critics his own opinions on the meaning of his work.
There was much ribald discussion of Emin and Hirst, and i had me own two penn’orth about Rothko etc. which was certainly enjoyable.
He also had a sweet as poster from the delightfully pocket-sized JACK magazine on his wall (cheers James, ~used~ tenners under the old knotty ash, 5pm tomorrow) of a frog or somesuch morphing into something else. This came as a bit of a shock to the freres round our way, as our JACK poster is of a fine looking Run DMC back in the day, all good expressions too. It sits alongside the front cover of Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Backlash’ which is good.
He also had a monograph he’d recently got of some Matthew Barney Cremaster stuff, which was wonderful to browse. Co-incidentally today’s Sunday telegraph magazine has a feature on the model/former Pentagon intern/athlete/etc. Aimee Mullins, who ‘featured’ with Barney in some of his interesting work.
About being rude about manitoba yesterday, what do i know, one of my favourite electronic/dance singles of the year thus far is queen + vanguard’s flash, with its “rudimentary” and “technically quite badly done” (c. muzik’s fine review), but really it’s a beat with some brian may guitarwork and samples from the movie, so can’t fail eh. In addition purchased, some weeks ago, Vanessa Carlton’s ‘Pretty Baby’ purely for the b-side of ‘A Thousand Miles’ (live in NYC) hoho.
One of the worst failings of a review at linenoise.co.uk is when i gave ‘illmatic’a mere 8, in retrospect a chillingly poor thing to do, what a crumb, we are after all discussing an album, a body of work, that – alongside the likes of LOVELESS and PILLS’N’THRILLS AND BELLYACHES and SAW 85-92 – is one of =the= most essential, vitally fine collections of accesible popular song in the previous decade.
His bruv was as pleased as punch – as many others have been too – about that Gerhard Richter interview on the telly some months ago or so, when he told all the jargonistic critics his own opinions on the meaning of his work.
There was much ribald discussion of Emin and Hirst, and i had me own two penn’orth about Rothko etc. which was certainly enjoyable.
He also had a sweet as poster from the delightfully pocket-sized JACK magazine on his wall (cheers James, ~used~ tenners under the old knotty ash, 5pm tomorrow) of a frog or somesuch morphing into something else. This came as a bit of a shock to the freres round our way, as our JACK poster is of a fine looking Run DMC back in the day, all good expressions too. It sits alongside the front cover of Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Backlash’ which is good.
He also had a monograph he’d recently got of some Matthew Barney Cremaster stuff, which was wonderful to browse. Co-incidentally today’s Sunday telegraph magazine has a feature on the model/former Pentagon intern/athlete/etc. Aimee Mullins, who ‘featured’ with Barney in some of his interesting work.
About being rude about manitoba yesterday, what do i know, one of my favourite electronic/dance singles of the year thus far is queen + vanguard’s flash, with its “rudimentary” and “technically quite badly done” (c. muzik’s fine review), but really it’s a beat with some brian may guitarwork and samples from the movie, so can’t fail eh. In addition purchased, some weeks ago, Vanessa Carlton’s ‘Pretty Baby’ purely for the b-side of ‘A Thousand Miles’ (live in NYC) hoho.
One of the worst failings of a review at linenoise.co.uk is when i gave ‘illmatic’a mere 8, in retrospect a chillingly poor thing to do, what a crumb, we are after all discussing an album, a body of work, that – alongside the likes of LOVELESS and PILLS’N’THRILLS AND BELLYACHES and SAW 85-92 – is one of =the= most essential, vitally fine collections of accesible popular song in the previous decade.
Friday, 23 May 2003
love this: -
‘as nicky katt, who stars as hitler in full frontal’s stageplay-within-film, the sound and the fuhrer, says: “I’m not ready to share. I’m swimming in Lake Me at the moment.” it seems Soderbergh’s dived in there, too.’
~ Larushka Ivan-Zadeh dismisses wor-Steve’s latest.
“Having grown up with the record collections of my two older brothers, I didn’t start collecting records of my own until my late teens. My friend Malcolm Garrett [of Assorted Images] introduced me to Kraftwerk’s Autobahn in 1974. I was so impressed with the 30 minute title track that I had to have a copy of my own.
Not only did the music have a profound influence on me, the sleeve made a lasting impression – the appropriated road sign symbolising the excitement and romance of travelling through Europe. It was my introduction to semiotics, and inspired a use of visual codes that I would develop later through Factory Records.”
Peter Saville in London, 23 May-14 Sept., this year folks.
www.designmuseum.org
my kid has a factory tatt, it’s on his left wrist, in tasteful and small very dark navy, it says fac 23, which i think is the catalogue number for ‘love will tear us apart’, although think he’s more of a new order than joy division fan really. still.
i’ve wanted, for yonks now, to get a tatt in the same place with a similar font and colour scheme, that said something in latin about (st.) cecilia, but am mulling over the phrasing, and also exactly whether one should choose what ‘looks’ best in latin, or what makes the strictest nicest poetic/etc. sense in english translation. Or perhaps just a tatt with the factory catalogue number for the hac, it was something like fac 401, that would be good.
i have never been to the city of ulm.
my mate byron sent me a postcard from the national aquarium in baltimore it’s fuckin buzzin. i thought i went to something called the national aquarium in new orleans, maybe nola’s was just a big aquarium, i can’t have thought there’d be two ‘national’ aquariums, mind you there are a lot of americans, and both those cities are maritime.
hafta say, there’s a picture of emma bunton in the paper and she looks fantastic, really nice bod.
dan snaith (the dude’s on a phd in abstract maths at uni in the smoke) said in last month’s sleazenation in response to the interviewer thinking ‘the album sounds pretty big for one man’, that : -
a lot of music people have been excited about over the last year has been stripped down. electroclash is one synth and drum machine. New rock bands use the same guitar and drum sound. There’s also a trend in idm to be minimal, but there’s absolutely no reason why. Does nobody have the ambition to make the biggest/greatest record anywhere? What are you trying to do if you’re not trying to do that?
While one supposes you gotta applaud such grand Wilsonian ambitions as at play here (arthur lee to lobby), wonder if this’ll all turn into some episode of sorry Faustian over-reaching?
The astronaut’s notepad has had somedisco peaking off it fairly recently with its thoughts on manitoba’s new and improved ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ nu-nu-folktronica (was actually reading a kieran hebden interview the other week where he specifically bigged up manitoba when asked about who he liked in his current neighbourhood) but people who i know who dug start breaking my heart say that up in flames is kinda more of the same, only bigger/etc. therefore better, obv.
Must admit, manitoba’s new direction for some reason just doesn’t interest me, think Jon Dale nailed it when he said he’d much rather hear Snaith’s “UK Garage rip”, that ‘if assholes could fly, this place would be an airport’. i got the jacknuggeted ep a while back for which had VERY high hopes, given all the positives i’d heard about it, it has ole, thistles & felt, and seaweed on the b.
For some reason, couldn’t hear all the stuff that lots of elegant testifiers were hearing in the title track (let’s say we got off to a bad start), though do like ‘thistles & felt’ quite a lot. Even that one track though, sort of i suppose could say one could criticise it for the same reasons am not quite feeling the other tracks. But no, thistles and felt is nice, it’s sort of like lots of reindeers belling along in the lapp countryside and chocolate box houses. And this nagging string that is wound up and wound up and not getting released is nice and tense, and it’s nice music. The last track seaweed does remind a bit of that, what was it, glimmer’r, or whatever, that daniel figgis did, one of his tunes anyway (he’s good, actually; investigate if you like russell mills).
But generally i really really could take and leave the latest manitoba stuff, it must be some horrible kneejerk reaction of mine to his copy, it just sounds to me that a quote like the above is some manifesto he’s setting out, and perhaps this is all too reynolds like (him not peaking off the roots or common or the lips’ latest, cause he wrote they were ~deliberately~ saying things that he didn’t just wanna be in the mood for) of me (well, not p’raps, of course it IS of me…) but just can’t be doing with it. which is my loss (and a horribly pathetic way to not be bothered investigating much further music), but will stick to neither this new narrative that seems to be coalescing (e.g., both the Sunday telegraph and daily express of late, having never really paid attention to idm in their lives, suddenly noticing this geeky, insular music within the context of a four tet review solely so they can slag off everything else and applaud the new four tet marriage of idm-ey stuff with more pleasingly rockism modes of gasp, “Proper” instruments, etc., ooh jeff mills and burt bacharach in a lift, with only a portuguese guitarra for company) around some of this sort of thing, but also should shy away from being some kind of avant-yob aping poophead.
Anyway, my mate dan is currently listening to UP IN FLAMES, look at his kewl site, it’s at erase.net, you’ll like it. he is one of the finest sons of stockport, and an immeasurably good lad. One of the many good things about him is i’m jealous of him hearing, eg kewl justin cut ups by well dressed antipodean men, we contend just with the chart material round here (justin and sean paul and girls aloud and a good r kelly song {shocker!} were on TOTP tonight). But he has a fast computer.
Also big brovaz, who i heard loads of little scally kids in the old trafford area badmouthing last week, apparently they’re crap (a little asian boy and a little black boy were slagging off two little white girls who were off into town, they were content to hang around trafford bar metrolink stop all day, abusing travellers, apparently the girls were “sell-outs” for wanting to go into town, they even had a little freestyle directed against them in an amusing fashion for this crime, about them being sell outs).
i think the management should be told, as this isn’t some tedious pretentious slocore listening 16 yr. Old/boring fan of The Boss on one of their manufactured rubbish/etc./etc. rants, but the actual constituency one assumes the mgmt. Are aiming for? Young, w/c, urban etc. kidz? They’re apparently crap. So who buys their stuff? Hmm. They’re all bloody good looking, must say.
Another good lad of stockport is steve speight, an old gaffer of mine at a bakery. He is from portway, wythenshawe but nowadays resides in the more salubrious edgeley, stockport (near the county ground) and works at a bakery in bredbury, stockport. Actually, one of the gaffers at my current workplace lives reddish way, although he’s from baguley wythenshawe, there’s clearly something about M22/23 life that wants to shove you off to SK when you’re done, in that case i’m aiming for fucking heaton norris me (or poynton/marple obviously), nice round there.
there’s what sounds very like a good charlotte bootleg with chatter on top from east london emcees on one of luke’s tape, which is actually really good as you’d expect.
‘ooh I just love to dance’.
Speaking of analogies (e.g. the good charlotte above) there was “jarvis cocker…let loose on the soundtrack to a 1980s molly ringwald movie” which is just crap, of course. In tonight’s manchester evening news.
This was written by, i think, that man again (dan martin). It says, re. the fairly not very good actully ARE weapons playing in town soon, that “Excitingly, support comes from electronic Manc punk heroes Nylon Pylon, who are striding ever closer to top 10 infamy with fab new single Foot in Mouth.”
Nylon pylon, well buy that single and judge for yourself, but personally i ain’t getting THEM apples one bit… (parochialism does affect local criticism, firmly believe that, normally in the adverse uncritical manner etc.; unless everyone’s just bought a handsome reissued CD edition of the suicide debut this year, in which case we’re okay).
Dizzee rascal’s ‘fix up look sharp’ that’s brilliant. It’s like a dj shadow backbeating thing with kitschy j-pop vox accompaniment and some bloke biggin up ya chest of some reckless MAN, y’ getme.
‘as nicky katt, who stars as hitler in full frontal’s stageplay-within-film, the sound and the fuhrer, says: “I’m not ready to share. I’m swimming in Lake Me at the moment.” it seems Soderbergh’s dived in there, too.’
~ Larushka Ivan-Zadeh dismisses wor-Steve’s latest.
“Having grown up with the record collections of my two older brothers, I didn’t start collecting records of my own until my late teens. My friend Malcolm Garrett [of Assorted Images] introduced me to Kraftwerk’s Autobahn in 1974. I was so impressed with the 30 minute title track that I had to have a copy of my own.
Not only did the music have a profound influence on me, the sleeve made a lasting impression – the appropriated road sign symbolising the excitement and romance of travelling through Europe. It was my introduction to semiotics, and inspired a use of visual codes that I would develop later through Factory Records.”
Peter Saville in London, 23 May-14 Sept., this year folks.
www.designmuseum.org
my kid has a factory tatt, it’s on his left wrist, in tasteful and small very dark navy, it says fac 23, which i think is the catalogue number for ‘love will tear us apart’, although think he’s more of a new order than joy division fan really. still.
i’ve wanted, for yonks now, to get a tatt in the same place with a similar font and colour scheme, that said something in latin about (st.) cecilia, but am mulling over the phrasing, and also exactly whether one should choose what ‘looks’ best in latin, or what makes the strictest nicest poetic/etc. sense in english translation. Or perhaps just a tatt with the factory catalogue number for the hac, it was something like fac 401, that would be good.
i have never been to the city of ulm.
my mate byron sent me a postcard from the national aquarium in baltimore it’s fuckin buzzin. i thought i went to something called the national aquarium in new orleans, maybe nola’s was just a big aquarium, i can’t have thought there’d be two ‘national’ aquariums, mind you there are a lot of americans, and both those cities are maritime.
hafta say, there’s a picture of emma bunton in the paper and she looks fantastic, really nice bod.
dan snaith (the dude’s on a phd in abstract maths at uni in the smoke) said in last month’s sleazenation in response to the interviewer thinking ‘the album sounds pretty big for one man’, that : -
a lot of music people have been excited about over the last year has been stripped down. electroclash is one synth and drum machine. New rock bands use the same guitar and drum sound. There’s also a trend in idm to be minimal, but there’s absolutely no reason why. Does nobody have the ambition to make the biggest/greatest record anywhere? What are you trying to do if you’re not trying to do that?
While one supposes you gotta applaud such grand Wilsonian ambitions as at play here (arthur lee to lobby), wonder if this’ll all turn into some episode of sorry Faustian over-reaching?
The astronaut’s notepad has had somedisco peaking off it fairly recently with its thoughts on manitoba’s new and improved ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ nu-nu-folktronica (was actually reading a kieran hebden interview the other week where he specifically bigged up manitoba when asked about who he liked in his current neighbourhood) but people who i know who dug start breaking my heart say that up in flames is kinda more of the same, only bigger/etc. therefore better, obv.
Must admit, manitoba’s new direction for some reason just doesn’t interest me, think Jon Dale nailed it when he said he’d much rather hear Snaith’s “UK Garage rip”, that ‘if assholes could fly, this place would be an airport’. i got the jacknuggeted ep a while back for which had VERY high hopes, given all the positives i’d heard about it, it has ole, thistles & felt, and seaweed on the b.
For some reason, couldn’t hear all the stuff that lots of elegant testifiers were hearing in the title track (let’s say we got off to a bad start), though do like ‘thistles & felt’ quite a lot. Even that one track though, sort of i suppose could say one could criticise it for the same reasons am not quite feeling the other tracks. But no, thistles and felt is nice, it’s sort of like lots of reindeers belling along in the lapp countryside and chocolate box houses. And this nagging string that is wound up and wound up and not getting released is nice and tense, and it’s nice music. The last track seaweed does remind a bit of that, what was it, glimmer’r, or whatever, that daniel figgis did, one of his tunes anyway (he’s good, actually; investigate if you like russell mills).
But generally i really really could take and leave the latest manitoba stuff, it must be some horrible kneejerk reaction of mine to his copy, it just sounds to me that a quote like the above is some manifesto he’s setting out, and perhaps this is all too reynolds like (him not peaking off the roots or common or the lips’ latest, cause he wrote they were ~deliberately~ saying things that he didn’t just wanna be in the mood for) of me (well, not p’raps, of course it IS of me…) but just can’t be doing with it. which is my loss (and a horribly pathetic way to not be bothered investigating much further music), but will stick to neither this new narrative that seems to be coalescing (e.g., both the Sunday telegraph and daily express of late, having never really paid attention to idm in their lives, suddenly noticing this geeky, insular music within the context of a four tet review solely so they can slag off everything else and applaud the new four tet marriage of idm-ey stuff with more pleasingly rockism modes of gasp, “Proper” instruments, etc., ooh jeff mills and burt bacharach in a lift, with only a portuguese guitarra for company) around some of this sort of thing, but also should shy away from being some kind of avant-yob aping poophead.
Anyway, my mate dan is currently listening to UP IN FLAMES, look at his kewl site, it’s at erase.net, you’ll like it. he is one of the finest sons of stockport, and an immeasurably good lad. One of the many good things about him is i’m jealous of him hearing, eg kewl justin cut ups by well dressed antipodean men, we contend just with the chart material round here (justin and sean paul and girls aloud and a good r kelly song {shocker!} were on TOTP tonight). But he has a fast computer.
Also big brovaz, who i heard loads of little scally kids in the old trafford area badmouthing last week, apparently they’re crap (a little asian boy and a little black boy were slagging off two little white girls who were off into town, they were content to hang around trafford bar metrolink stop all day, abusing travellers, apparently the girls were “sell-outs” for wanting to go into town, they even had a little freestyle directed against them in an amusing fashion for this crime, about them being sell outs).
i think the management should be told, as this isn’t some tedious pretentious slocore listening 16 yr. Old/boring fan of The Boss on one of their manufactured rubbish/etc./etc. rants, but the actual constituency one assumes the mgmt. Are aiming for? Young, w/c, urban etc. kidz? They’re apparently crap. So who buys their stuff? Hmm. They’re all bloody good looking, must say.
Another good lad of stockport is steve speight, an old gaffer of mine at a bakery. He is from portway, wythenshawe but nowadays resides in the more salubrious edgeley, stockport (near the county ground) and works at a bakery in bredbury, stockport. Actually, one of the gaffers at my current workplace lives reddish way, although he’s from baguley wythenshawe, there’s clearly something about M22/23 life that wants to shove you off to SK when you’re done, in that case i’m aiming for fucking heaton norris me (or poynton/marple obviously), nice round there.
there’s what sounds very like a good charlotte bootleg with chatter on top from east london emcees on one of luke’s tape, which is actually really good as you’d expect.
‘ooh I just love to dance’.
Speaking of analogies (e.g. the good charlotte above) there was “jarvis cocker…let loose on the soundtrack to a 1980s molly ringwald movie” which is just crap, of course. In tonight’s manchester evening news.
This was written by, i think, that man again (dan martin). It says, re. the fairly not very good actully ARE weapons playing in town soon, that “Excitingly, support comes from electronic Manc punk heroes Nylon Pylon, who are striding ever closer to top 10 infamy with fab new single Foot in Mouth.”
Nylon pylon, well buy that single and judge for yourself, but personally i ain’t getting THEM apples one bit… (parochialism does affect local criticism, firmly believe that, normally in the adverse uncritical manner etc.; unless everyone’s just bought a handsome reissued CD edition of the suicide debut this year, in which case we’re okay).
Dizzee rascal’s ‘fix up look sharp’ that’s brilliant. It’s like a dj shadow backbeating thing with kitschy j-pop vox accompaniment and some bloke biggin up ya chest of some reckless MAN, y’ getme.
Thursday, 22 May 2003
“The common criticism of jazz-rock argues that it pursued the worst excesses of each genre, and caused irrevocable damage to both…the outstanding exception was Soft Machine.”
Concise, eloquent, accurate: a model of good criticism (John Cratchley and Samantha Brown in The Wire).
Actually, both a feature on The Ex and one on Mauricio Kagel have been good this month.
‘the most liberating night of my entire life’
~james mcnew on attending a minutemen gig.
The wire is certainly a few rituals of mine, namely always turning to the global column (normally richard henderson) if there is one, and the dub column (steve barker, and actually dub/roots, with phantasmagoric sideshuffling into thinking aloud on jungle etc.) and sometimes the hiphop one.
So, let’s see, some habits of mine (having given up the pretence that this is anything but another hateful, self absorbed irritatingly solipsistic blog, yunno “hi, I’m an angsty american on drugs and this is a picture of my dog yullie, and here’s some verse inspired by latterday vonnegut” {or whatever} god, that’s so mean of me, i’m sorry):
The dub and global columns in the wire
Matthew norman’s restaurant column in the Sunday telegraph magazine
Emily bearn’s column in the same
Checking twanboc and about 20 odd other musicky blogs pretty much daily (well, maybe not all the time or anything)
Nigel slater in the observer and books
Crocodiles
Travel supplement of course
The ongoing ‘war of attrition’ between mark steyn and robert fisk
Interesting rightwards leaning blogs, australians are often quite good
News.google.com and the beeb site
Pining for the words “whatcha’ doin’” said in a specific way, by a specific someone
Don’t like all these expensive café chains argh
Humorous peers, esp. daves scouse, brummie and chunklife, toms whitby and barney, our kid, kentish rob and waggers, and dry witticisms in general, the legend that is Dom Miguel the baiter of Basques or nites on the lash with Diebs
Sauce trains to London and assorted northern towns
Writing about football
Scyld berry on cricket
David smith’s javanese puppeteer hands on channel 4 news
Laughable pretence at exercise also
Shameless trope of boosterism re. mcr vs other provincial british cities, rather tiresome
Erm, that’s a bit boring eh.
Can’t work out if you’d rather see the boredoms walk into a crappy chain pub a la edwards, or mission of burma, in a drear provincial british town, and which would be the biggest shock.
Think i’d prefer to get sloshed with the pop group actually, or bedhead, or maybe those red krayola types.
Alex thomson was actually really compelling on channel 4 news tonight, interviewing imran khan in that case of the afghan asylum seekers who hijacked a plane that eventually landed at stansted about three years ago they claimed they’d done it under duress of course. Provoked a memorably batty littlejohn column in the sun (tagline : = “it is intolerable that a milkman from brentwood should have his holiday ruined because…”) anyway thomson had khan on the backfoot about all very well being under duress to escape the regime, but what about the hostages under duress on the plane, and khan kind of had to concede. Rather compelling and fascinating to watch.
Most bestest piece of slogan writing/non graffiti.graf on a wall today since the celebrated ‘ricky fiddles kids’ episode of featherstone, w. yorks.
In gorse hill, mcr, near a carpet warehouse, and opposite the tantalising smells of a Caribbean caff there is, large dirty and white, the lettering VINNY GATTS MUM SELLS WEED FROM __ ______ (street no./name omitted here of course).
Brilliant.
i am listening to ‘dubnobasswithmyheadman’ subversive and quiet, then so to bed.
Antigone.
One thing that is ABSOLUTELY fantastic is that the vending machine at work is run by a company called Selecta. This means when you get a hot drink it comes in a plastic cup with the word SELECTA proudly emblazoned on the side, and so, like catching a bus through the ghettoes of central Southampton bullets all over my boink, you can be all UK garridge (innit) whilst drinking a no.51 (cappucino, no sugar).
My mate qasim’s ploy to avoid the old irish feller is to pretend he has capgras which might work but there again he fucks hugo weaving from the matrix so we doubt it.
Concise, eloquent, accurate: a model of good criticism (John Cratchley and Samantha Brown in The Wire).
Actually, both a feature on The Ex and one on Mauricio Kagel have been good this month.
‘the most liberating night of my entire life’
~james mcnew on attending a minutemen gig.
The wire is certainly a few rituals of mine, namely always turning to the global column (normally richard henderson) if there is one, and the dub column (steve barker, and actually dub/roots, with phantasmagoric sideshuffling into thinking aloud on jungle etc.) and sometimes the hiphop one.
So, let’s see, some habits of mine (having given up the pretence that this is anything but another hateful, self absorbed irritatingly solipsistic blog, yunno “hi, I’m an angsty american on drugs and this is a picture of my dog yullie, and here’s some verse inspired by latterday vonnegut” {or whatever} god, that’s so mean of me, i’m sorry):
The dub and global columns in the wire
Matthew norman’s restaurant column in the Sunday telegraph magazine
Emily bearn’s column in the same
Checking twanboc and about 20 odd other musicky blogs pretty much daily (well, maybe not all the time or anything)
Nigel slater in the observer and books
Crocodiles
Travel supplement of course
The ongoing ‘war of attrition’ between mark steyn and robert fisk
Interesting rightwards leaning blogs, australians are often quite good
News.google.com and the beeb site
Pining for the words “whatcha’ doin’” said in a specific way, by a specific someone
Don’t like all these expensive café chains argh
Humorous peers, esp. daves scouse, brummie and chunklife, toms whitby and barney, our kid, kentish rob and waggers, and dry witticisms in general, the legend that is Dom Miguel the baiter of Basques or nites on the lash with Diebs
Sauce trains to London and assorted northern towns
Writing about football
Scyld berry on cricket
David smith’s javanese puppeteer hands on channel 4 news
Laughable pretence at exercise also
Shameless trope of boosterism re. mcr vs other provincial british cities, rather tiresome
Erm, that’s a bit boring eh.
Can’t work out if you’d rather see the boredoms walk into a crappy chain pub a la edwards, or mission of burma, in a drear provincial british town, and which would be the biggest shock.
Think i’d prefer to get sloshed with the pop group actually, or bedhead, or maybe those red krayola types.
Alex thomson was actually really compelling on channel 4 news tonight, interviewing imran khan in that case of the afghan asylum seekers who hijacked a plane that eventually landed at stansted about three years ago they claimed they’d done it under duress of course. Provoked a memorably batty littlejohn column in the sun (tagline : = “it is intolerable that a milkman from brentwood should have his holiday ruined because…”) anyway thomson had khan on the backfoot about all very well being under duress to escape the regime, but what about the hostages under duress on the plane, and khan kind of had to concede. Rather compelling and fascinating to watch.
Most bestest piece of slogan writing/non graffiti.graf on a wall today since the celebrated ‘ricky fiddles kids’ episode of featherstone, w. yorks.
In gorse hill, mcr, near a carpet warehouse, and opposite the tantalising smells of a Caribbean caff there is, large dirty and white, the lettering VINNY GATTS MUM SELLS WEED FROM __ ______ (street no./name omitted here of course).
Brilliant.
i am listening to ‘dubnobasswithmyheadman’ subversive and quiet, then so to bed.
Antigone.
One thing that is ABSOLUTELY fantastic is that the vending machine at work is run by a company called Selecta. This means when you get a hot drink it comes in a plastic cup with the word SELECTA proudly emblazoned on the side, and so, like catching a bus through the ghettoes of central Southampton bullets all over my boink, you can be all UK garridge (innit) whilst drinking a no.51 (cappucino, no sugar).
My mate qasim’s ploy to avoid the old irish feller is to pretend he has capgras which might work but there again he fucks hugo weaving from the matrix so we doubt it.
there are few pleasures as anticipated or simply profound as an englishman retiring to the lavatory, newspaper in hand.
yes, the french may be getting bolshy, the yanks uppity, there may be insurrection on the thai border, food riots in nigeria, or bombs in israel, but an englishman and his paper are inseperable.
vive such unions.
yes, the french may be getting bolshy, the yanks uppity, there may be insurrection on the thai border, food riots in nigeria, or bombs in israel, but an englishman and his paper are inseperable.
vive such unions.
Wednesday, 21 May 2003
Nick drake. Used to like the 2nd one the most, then the debut, nowadays it’s pink moon. i think this is the fave of my good mate potter pete (top lad, celan and rich prose and purple verse, bookended by faith).
Anyway.
like ‘horn’ and ‘things behind the sun’ and of course the retrospectively interesting lyrics of ‘parasite’. But ‘know’ has been doing it lately round here, it’s almost like a white blind willie johnson or something for a bit, the wordless vocalising it’s great. Really full of possibilities, and quite quite super.
Hugging the ground and entrails of dry ice in the studio, really buzzin’.
“I rap in front of mo’ n*****s than in the slaveships/I used to watch CHIPS, now I load Glock clips”
“an’ I’m a Nike head, I wear chains that excite the feds”
“I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death”
“and biters can’t come near, and yo go to hell to the fell cop who shot Garcia”
in stretford subway today, there were many scattered milkcrate type things at close of play, as if youngsters had been having merriment with larks and much chucking of bread rolls etc. the longsite girls are loudly augmented, forgot to mention, not just with Ali but the likes of Stush with her happy, large faces and Charlene. Other than that, it’s been pissing it down all day.
Though am not into, say, Swell Maps (long ago into Reynolds’ passe column i imagine alongside the Residents though Rocket from the Tombs i dunno) these days (been many a year since a copy of ‘…marineville’ was scalped) still do dig, well, some rock n’roll when it’s done by the like of mission of burma from time to time. Anyway, just wanted to observe that ghostface killah’s opening lines on ‘bring da ruckus’ are the most rock n’roll lines for me, since probably “My night out big fun BIG FUN”. The elephant toughness and hiding with the hide, and all manner of hearse-backwards- stuff, it’s good.
Wonder why i didn’t hear about james miller’s death? he was filming a documentary for american TV with saira shah in the gaza strip about kids that live with violence. It was on a recent dispatches documentary on channel 4. There was a very nice IDF spokeswoman, Sharon Feingold i think, who, unfortunately, appeared to be chatting out of her posterior.
i quite like mark steyn, i like his vigorous red-raw scrubbing brush words about the vitality and youth of american democracy compared to moribund and inert european polities, but i do wish he’d stop with the eurinal/eurabia/etc. jokes, as part of his ongoing trope (you spot references to it quite often with him) about europe being overrun by islamofascist migrants etc., apparently in 50 years time there’ll be sharia in odense and lisbon, one infers from reading some of his stuff.
Hmm.
Anyway.
like ‘horn’ and ‘things behind the sun’ and of course the retrospectively interesting lyrics of ‘parasite’. But ‘know’ has been doing it lately round here, it’s almost like a white blind willie johnson or something for a bit, the wordless vocalising it’s great. Really full of possibilities, and quite quite super.
Hugging the ground and entrails of dry ice in the studio, really buzzin’.
“I rap in front of mo’ n*****s than in the slaveships/I used to watch CHIPS, now I load Glock clips”
“an’ I’m a Nike head, I wear chains that excite the feds”
“I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death”
“and biters can’t come near, and yo go to hell to the fell cop who shot Garcia”
in stretford subway today, there were many scattered milkcrate type things at close of play, as if youngsters had been having merriment with larks and much chucking of bread rolls etc. the longsite girls are loudly augmented, forgot to mention, not just with Ali but the likes of Stush with her happy, large faces and Charlene. Other than that, it’s been pissing it down all day.
Though am not into, say, Swell Maps (long ago into Reynolds’ passe column i imagine alongside the Residents though Rocket from the Tombs i dunno) these days (been many a year since a copy of ‘…marineville’ was scalped) still do dig, well, some rock n’roll when it’s done by the like of mission of burma from time to time. Anyway, just wanted to observe that ghostface killah’s opening lines on ‘bring da ruckus’ are the most rock n’roll lines for me, since probably “My night out big fun BIG FUN”. The elephant toughness and hiding with the hide, and all manner of hearse-backwards- stuff, it’s good.
Wonder why i didn’t hear about james miller’s death? he was filming a documentary for american TV with saira shah in the gaza strip about kids that live with violence. It was on a recent dispatches documentary on channel 4. There was a very nice IDF spokeswoman, Sharon Feingold i think, who, unfortunately, appeared to be chatting out of her posterior.
i quite like mark steyn, i like his vigorous red-raw scrubbing brush words about the vitality and youth of american democracy compared to moribund and inert european polities, but i do wish he’d stop with the eurinal/eurabia/etc. jokes, as part of his ongoing trope (you spot references to it quite often with him) about europe being overrun by islamofascist migrants etc., apparently in 50 years time there’ll be sharia in odense and lisbon, one infers from reading some of his stuff.
Hmm.
This clive davis chap wrote an article for the times a month or so ago and
it was just getting felt round this way so much in the billybargain bin
that here’s some quotes wholesale. Okay, so there’s some rough
and personal anecdotalising here and just getting put up for the scansion,
but there we are. Incidentally, dunno about pinter’s verse, but
motion was daft during the iraq war, that oh so sophisticated “oil
and dad” thing he put out?
Please.
~ ‘
Exhibit 1 is the poetry (for want of a better word) of Harold Pinter, a
once-respected figure who has turned into the literary equivalent of a sad
old man with a “The End Is Nigh” sandwich board.
Exhibit 2 is Justin Butcher’s play The Madness of George Dubya, a
denunciation of “lunatic US/British militarism” which has just
transferred to the West End’s Arts Theatre. (I loved the throwaway
line in The Guardian’s adulatory review: “It may underplay
Saddam’s cruelties but it makes its political point.”)
Exhibit 3 is the near-unanimous acclaim for Michael Moore, the woeful
kindergarten satirist whose book Stupid White Men is compulsory reading
(did actually see a well dressed middle-aged Sloaney bloke reading this
whilst drinking in the Starbucks on Hampstead High Street a couple of
months back, so maybe there’s something there… ..is it
obligatory to type ‘oh the irony’ at this point?) for the
latte classes. One of my most embarrassing experiences of the past year
was going to his live show and hearing his thesis that the September 11
hijacks would never have succeeded if the passengers had been black folk
and not feeble white honkies.
I can recount endless examples that I have experienced at first hand.
There was the US musician who assured me, a few months after September 11,
that none of the hijackers were Saudis. (When I gently mentioned that we
knew their names, he shrugged: “Names don’t mean anything.
They could have been Jews.”)
There was the arts functionary who told me only the other day, with a
straight face, that Bush plans to invade China.
I could go on. The melancholy truth is that, for many figures in the arts
and media realm, the clocks stopped in 1968…When the BBC decides to
seek out American voices it invariably opts for those tribunes of the
unreconstructed Left (sic), Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. I happen to be a
fan of both men’s early work. Sadly, they slipped into the realms of
self-parody a long time ago.
……It’s ironic that one of the most profound accounts of
American life ever written came from the pen of a foreigner, Alexis de
Tocqueville, the author of the 19th-century classic Democracy in America.
‘~
so to be fair people could eloquently argue they’re still true
patriots and the USA of Cheney-Haliburton and Dubya and Ashcroft (or
whoever it is they slag off) isn’t their USA of Paine and Lincoln
and Walt Whitman, fair dos like, but nonetheless, it engaged me, and
he’s right about de Tocqueville, along with the likes of various
Hannah Arendt works, easily one of the greatest political writers in the
last couple of centuries or so. Admittedly Reynolds said to me once how he
admired (I assume Simon doesn’t mind me saying this, or me calling
him Reynolds like we’re in a Jennings and Darbyshire/Richmal
Crompton subplot manner), yunno, New England councils the arse end of the
Victorian period, proper democracy there, but not much anymore in the US
in his opinion, only the two parties etc, la la. So I don’t know.
Anyway.
It looks like the firefighters may accept the latest deal. Or probably
have, by the time this is written.
16% the paper said.
it was just getting felt round this way so much in the billybargain bin
that here’s some quotes wholesale. Okay, so there’s some rough
and personal anecdotalising here and just getting put up for the scansion,
but there we are. Incidentally, dunno about pinter’s verse, but
motion was daft during the iraq war, that oh so sophisticated “oil
and dad” thing he put out?
Please.
~ ‘
Exhibit 1 is the poetry (for want of a better word) of Harold Pinter, a
once-respected figure who has turned into the literary equivalent of a sad
old man with a “The End Is Nigh” sandwich board.
Exhibit 2 is Justin Butcher’s play The Madness of George Dubya, a
denunciation of “lunatic US/British militarism” which has just
transferred to the West End’s Arts Theatre. (I loved the throwaway
line in The Guardian’s adulatory review: “It may underplay
Saddam’s cruelties but it makes its political point.”)
Exhibit 3 is the near-unanimous acclaim for Michael Moore, the woeful
kindergarten satirist whose book Stupid White Men is compulsory reading
(did actually see a well dressed middle-aged Sloaney bloke reading this
whilst drinking in the Starbucks on Hampstead High Street a couple of
months back, so maybe there’s something there… ..is it
obligatory to type ‘oh the irony’ at this point?) for the
latte classes. One of my most embarrassing experiences of the past year
was going to his live show and hearing his thesis that the September 11
hijacks would never have succeeded if the passengers had been black folk
and not feeble white honkies.
I can recount endless examples that I have experienced at first hand.
There was the US musician who assured me, a few months after September 11,
that none of the hijackers were Saudis. (When I gently mentioned that we
knew their names, he shrugged: “Names don’t mean anything.
They could have been Jews.”)
There was the arts functionary who told me only the other day, with a
straight face, that Bush plans to invade China.
I could go on. The melancholy truth is that, for many figures in the arts
and media realm, the clocks stopped in 1968…When the BBC decides to
seek out American voices it invariably opts for those tribunes of the
unreconstructed Left (sic), Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. I happen to be a
fan of both men’s early work. Sadly, they slipped into the realms of
self-parody a long time ago.
……It’s ironic that one of the most profound accounts of
American life ever written came from the pen of a foreigner, Alexis de
Tocqueville, the author of the 19th-century classic Democracy in America.
‘~
so to be fair people could eloquently argue they’re still true
patriots and the USA of Cheney-Haliburton and Dubya and Ashcroft (or
whoever it is they slag off) isn’t their USA of Paine and Lincoln
and Walt Whitman, fair dos like, but nonetheless, it engaged me, and
he’s right about de Tocqueville, along with the likes of various
Hannah Arendt works, easily one of the greatest political writers in the
last couple of centuries or so. Admittedly Reynolds said to me once how he
admired (I assume Simon doesn’t mind me saying this, or me calling
him Reynolds like we’re in a Jennings and Darbyshire/Richmal
Crompton subplot manner), yunno, New England councils the arse end of the
Victorian period, proper democracy there, but not much anymore in the US
in his opinion, only the two parties etc, la la. So I don’t know.
Anyway.
It looks like the firefighters may accept the latest deal. Or probably
have, by the time this is written.
16% the paper said.
Tuesday, 20 May 2003
Do like leicester and hull and cambridge and norwich (“a fine city”) and bradford and sheffield the next, to be fair.
Anyway.
So to prove we’re not an uncritical Mancunian boosterist place, somedisco now briefly propose to take issue with Dan Martin’s Manchester Evening News column in the Go ents. Supplement from Fri.18/04/03. Let’s see what he said.
“A year ago, people used to use the word ‘electroclash’. It was a silly word, based on nothing more than about five records made in one neighbourhood in New York. The word was made up by a man called Larry Tee from Williamsburg, NYC, as a joke…electroclash was silly…there was, in fact, no such thing as electroclash… …Yet what was going on that was a year was a smoke signal for the way rock, pop, clubbing and gigs would change completely this year… …Although not a ‘clash’ as such, the spidery, minimal, 1980s-fuelled dance influence has been the only forward-thinking strain of dance music…as ever, Manchester is at the forefront of this tradition.”
Martin goes on to mention admittedly fine club nights such as Club Suicide (the Fat Truckers played there last Friday, at Rockinghams on Harter Street near UMIST) and the Attic’s Music is Better.
He also mentions some halfway decent Manc acts like Roger, Bynatone, Nylon Pylon and Double Grey. However, stuff I’ve heard from these folk ain’t that good (that’s right, any of them), although these are the best, apparently.
Don’t want to take issue with the general slagging off of electroclash, though that’s unfair and perhaps a minimal house or any other actually forward thinking strain of dance music (christ, even the new and improved folktronica of the Daily Express/Sunday Telegraph approved Four Tet new one) could convincingly take issue with the “Only” forward dance music thing.
Basically all it is is punk-funk cut ups/general soundclashy tropes he’s talking about that everyone with a pencil and pad was wittering about at the beginning of the year, etc., and what’s this supremely arrogant thing that Mcr is the centre of all this, acts that believe me aren’t that good actually getting bigged up cause they’re local?
By discussing in glowing terms a place of the “international electro androgyny” one might infer that Mcr 2003 is, fashionwise, where Rome was in 1998 and Williamsburg and Hoxton a couple of years ago. And yet it’s somehow at the front? Every city nowadays certainly seems to be populated by a lot of dazed and confused cast offs, certainly, I’m just confused (though certainly wasn’t a fan personally) by the practically embittered and rather ire-filled rant against electroclash, I wonder why he goes off on one?
Don’t understand.
You get this stuff that could certainly be mistook for scales in eyes parochialism in the local rags all the time, Joy Division, Factory, ACR re-issues (actually, the MEN prefers to concentrate on Inspirals refits and not ACR interestingly enuff), blah blah, even some daft article in City life a bit ago about Brazilian MTV saying after a night at somewhere indie-ish leftfield like Night and Day you didn’t get clubs like that in Sao Paulo. Well, you don’t get dnb clubs in Mcr of the quality you get in Sao Paulo, as any reader of Sherburne can see. Six of one, half a dozen of the other innit.
Hmm.
Anyway.
So to prove we’re not an uncritical Mancunian boosterist place, somedisco now briefly propose to take issue with Dan Martin’s Manchester Evening News column in the Go ents. Supplement from Fri.18/04/03. Let’s see what he said.
“A year ago, people used to use the word ‘electroclash’. It was a silly word, based on nothing more than about five records made in one neighbourhood in New York. The word was made up by a man called Larry Tee from Williamsburg, NYC, as a joke…electroclash was silly…there was, in fact, no such thing as electroclash… …Yet what was going on that was a year was a smoke signal for the way rock, pop, clubbing and gigs would change completely this year… …Although not a ‘clash’ as such, the spidery, minimal, 1980s-fuelled dance influence has been the only forward-thinking strain of dance music…as ever, Manchester is at the forefront of this tradition.”
Martin goes on to mention admittedly fine club nights such as Club Suicide (the Fat Truckers played there last Friday, at Rockinghams on Harter Street near UMIST) and the Attic’s Music is Better.
He also mentions some halfway decent Manc acts like Roger, Bynatone, Nylon Pylon and Double Grey. However, stuff I’ve heard from these folk ain’t that good (that’s right, any of them), although these are the best, apparently.
Don’t want to take issue with the general slagging off of electroclash, though that’s unfair and perhaps a minimal house or any other actually forward thinking strain of dance music (christ, even the new and improved folktronica of the Daily Express/Sunday Telegraph approved Four Tet new one) could convincingly take issue with the “Only” forward dance music thing.
Basically all it is is punk-funk cut ups/general soundclashy tropes he’s talking about that everyone with a pencil and pad was wittering about at the beginning of the year, etc., and what’s this supremely arrogant thing that Mcr is the centre of all this, acts that believe me aren’t that good actually getting bigged up cause they’re local?
By discussing in glowing terms a place of the “international electro androgyny” one might infer that Mcr 2003 is, fashionwise, where Rome was in 1998 and Williamsburg and Hoxton a couple of years ago. And yet it’s somehow at the front? Every city nowadays certainly seems to be populated by a lot of dazed and confused cast offs, certainly, I’m just confused (though certainly wasn’t a fan personally) by the practically embittered and rather ire-filled rant against electroclash, I wonder why he goes off on one?
Don’t understand.
You get this stuff that could certainly be mistook for scales in eyes parochialism in the local rags all the time, Joy Division, Factory, ACR re-issues (actually, the MEN prefers to concentrate on Inspirals refits and not ACR interestingly enuff), blah blah, even some daft article in City life a bit ago about Brazilian MTV saying after a night at somewhere indie-ish leftfield like Night and Day you didn’t get clubs like that in Sao Paulo. Well, you don’t get dnb clubs in Mcr of the quality you get in Sao Paulo, as any reader of Sherburne can see. Six of one, half a dozen of the other innit.
Hmm.
Things observed in the last few weeks in the stretford subway, the one crossing the main road near the met station and the arndale on the chester road, that you take to get to the gorse and OT. Etc. oh,and specifically the tunnel to get to the town hall side, obviously there’s a few tunnels, but I only go down the one.
With apologies in advance for any misspellings (people reading the following should know, for clarity the following information; namely that the council repaints stretford subway {by my observational reckonings as someone who has now been using it [current job] at least 10 times every seven days for the past four weeks} pretty much literally daily, in a weak greeny colour, as there’s that much fresh etchings there, and so you know what councils are like, they somehow appear to think ugly industrial blocks of painted over colour are more beautiful or at least satisfactory than the individual desire to chalk one’s place and bear witness to modern urban life yadda yadda).
About a month ago TERZ was boss. TERZ had a fine tag, arty and skittish, all over the place, in orangey colours. Really do mean ALL over the place, whoever this kid is they were industrious. There was a large line running about 40 yards straight (I thought it was a nick crowe and ian rawlinson modern art piece at first) to the end of its junction, where TERZ had put MY TOWN. Lots of motifs and stuff, all good eggs. I noticed this my first morning at the new job.
The next two to three days there were two to three repaintings and TERZ came back, but after about the third painting has not been since which is a LARGE shame, and I think Trafford MBC it’s their fault basically, and I’m a Trafford voter, so hmm.
Then loads of stuff by everyone as per, but the next thing really noticed was the LONGSITE LESBIANS, dunno what kids from Longsight are doing in Stretford bit of a trek, they were all FUCKED UP early SUNDAY MORNING and there’s ALI and another girl and it was good. I like SCUZ, he’s good, all in green (know it’s a he, incidentally).
There’s also some kid from Higher Blackley (“Benchey ov”) which is a definite mish from Stretford, a London analogy would be someone from Brent going to Streatham to do that, still (or El Barrio to Chinatown if you’re in Manhattan, or at a stretch Sutton Coldfield to Ladywood if you’re a Brummie {Mcr, Brum and London are the only English cities I care about, well Bristol and Liverpool are next best, but really…).
In conclusion it’s all good and suppose, to be fair, don’t actually notice that many individual ones, just mourning TERZ, clearly the best, at the moment for a good week now the LONGSITE LESBIANS keep coming back strong after a good five or six repaintings one should say.
HENDON, LEWISHAM, TOTTENHAM, BARKING, EAST HAM, others too.
With apologies in advance for any misspellings (people reading the following should know, for clarity the following information; namely that the council repaints stretford subway {by my observational reckonings as someone who has now been using it [current job] at least 10 times every seven days for the past four weeks} pretty much literally daily, in a weak greeny colour, as there’s that much fresh etchings there, and so you know what councils are like, they somehow appear to think ugly industrial blocks of painted over colour are more beautiful or at least satisfactory than the individual desire to chalk one’s place and bear witness to modern urban life yadda yadda).
About a month ago TERZ was boss. TERZ had a fine tag, arty and skittish, all over the place, in orangey colours. Really do mean ALL over the place, whoever this kid is they were industrious. There was a large line running about 40 yards straight (I thought it was a nick crowe and ian rawlinson modern art piece at first) to the end of its junction, where TERZ had put MY TOWN. Lots of motifs and stuff, all good eggs. I noticed this my first morning at the new job.
The next two to three days there were two to three repaintings and TERZ came back, but after about the third painting has not been since which is a LARGE shame, and I think Trafford MBC it’s their fault basically, and I’m a Trafford voter, so hmm.
Then loads of stuff by everyone as per, but the next thing really noticed was the LONGSITE LESBIANS, dunno what kids from Longsight are doing in Stretford bit of a trek, they were all FUCKED UP early SUNDAY MORNING and there’s ALI and another girl and it was good. I like SCUZ, he’s good, all in green (know it’s a he, incidentally).
There’s also some kid from Higher Blackley (“Benchey ov”) which is a definite mish from Stretford, a London analogy would be someone from Brent going to Streatham to do that, still (or El Barrio to Chinatown if you’re in Manhattan, or at a stretch Sutton Coldfield to Ladywood if you’re a Brummie {Mcr, Brum and London are the only English cities I care about, well Bristol and Liverpool are next best, but really…).
In conclusion it’s all good and suppose, to be fair, don’t actually notice that many individual ones, just mourning TERZ, clearly the best, at the moment for a good week now the LONGSITE LESBIANS keep coming back strong after a good five or six repaintings one should say.
HENDON, LEWISHAM, TOTTENHAM, BARKING, EAST HAM, others too.
What was that bbc report on the six news talking about with reference to the celtic-porto game tomorrow? with reference to the merriment created by our glaswegian chums in the host city, the geezer was saying as how it had never seen owt like it.
is he not aware that the seville derby is every bit as passionate as the old firm?
Hmm.
One possible moral here is don’t send who appeared to be a non-sports reporter to do a sports reporter’s job.
‘got bad manners cause I’m from a bad manor’, I like that one. Am listening to one of luke’s tapes, it’s dead good.
The original white cube was opened on the 14th of may, 1993. Jay jopling used to set himself on fire when a salesman, then demonstrate the effectiveness of his product – fire extinguishers.
~’taste-maker, hedonist, lousy businessman, promiscuous homosexual’~ _______harriet vyner on robert fraser.
“I think saatchi was about a time and a place. His gallery is a monument to the 1990s.” ~philip dodd, director of the ICA.
Oh, and Jopling bought the set of Goya prints that the Chapman’s decorated with clown’s heads and puppies. It’s “Incredibly violent” for an artist to do that to another artist.
is he not aware that the seville derby is every bit as passionate as the old firm?
Hmm.
One possible moral here is don’t send who appeared to be a non-sports reporter to do a sports reporter’s job.
‘got bad manners cause I’m from a bad manor’, I like that one. Am listening to one of luke’s tapes, it’s dead good.
The original white cube was opened on the 14th of may, 1993. Jay jopling used to set himself on fire when a salesman, then demonstrate the effectiveness of his product – fire extinguishers.
~’taste-maker, hedonist, lousy businessman, promiscuous homosexual’~ _______harriet vyner on robert fraser.
“I think saatchi was about a time and a place. His gallery is a monument to the 1990s.” ~philip dodd, director of the ICA.
Oh, and Jopling bought the set of Goya prints that the Chapman’s decorated with clown’s heads and puppies. It’s “Incredibly violent” for an artist to do that to another artist.
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