Interesting to read that Karl Lagerfeld is outraged that H & M are selling his new range of clothes for 'slim and slender people' in sizes 14 and 16! He is furious apparently. I was going to suggest that you boycott Hennes as a consequence, but it seems they're not very happy about his comments either, so I'll just have to suggest you boycott Hennes because all the clothes are nasty, cheap and shiny.
Over on his jolly-entertaining-but-I-only-rarely-get-round-to-reading-it blog, Warming Up, Richard Herring details how he has been using the remarkable feats on display in mountaineer climbs down mountain with broken leg film 'Touching The Void' to inspire him onwards in times of trouble. For instance, he buoys himself along while swimming 20 laps in his local swimming pool by telling himself
"No, if old Touching-the-Void can crawl down a mountain with a broken leg, then you can swim five more lengths of a not even full-size swimming pool." And my body said, "But I am too hungry to do it," but I told my body, "Listen old Touching-the-Void-o didn't have any food for about three days and only snow to drink."
Driven by this, Herring is justifiably proud of his achievement.
It was an amazing story of what the human body can achieve under duress and I expect that Channel 4 will make a film about this too. With an actor playing me recreating the swim, whilst I talk about what was going through my head at length 18 and so on. "Yes, by this point I was too tired to do front crawl, so was attempting more a doggy paddle, mixed with a bit of breast stroke. I really thought I would never see my family again, but something pushed me onwards." Maybe they could also have a talking head from the old woman who was walking up and down in the slow lane and what she remembers about the event, "Well, I'm not really sure I recall anything about it. Was it a fat bloke who can't really swim very well?"
Good stuff.
Okay - what better opportunity to prove yourself a member of Jonathan's 'inner circle'.
Take the How Well Do You Know Jonathan quiz now!!!
Don't bother putting in your email address and stuff like that, but you need to put in a name. I recommend 'Paul Boeteng'. At the end a couple of windows will jump up (unless you're using Firefox). But you should be quick witted enough to extract your score from the relavent window and match it up to Jonathan's scoring system, displayed below.
1-9 - Pah! Call yourself a friend?! If Jonathan finds out how little you know him he'll excommunicate you. You have no idea that Jonathan prays nightly to an effigy of Damon Albarn.
10-18 - Not too bad. You know, perhaps, that Jonathan is haunted by nightmares consisting of Arsenal doing the double again this year.
20-27 - Ah, that's more like it. You know Jonathan well, and have been told that Jonathan used to own several albums by Iron Maiden. And he's told you the story about the bee.
28-36 - You are Jonathan! You must be. Either that or you are his best friend in the world, and know all about that unfortunate incident with the... er... y'know.
Quoting Tom, over at his Tomment blog
"at some point along the way, Shoreham Airport became semi-renamed ‘Brighton City’, which i like. Euroexec have just announced new flights connecting Brighton City with Jersey, Guernsey and Le Touquet. Their plane (I guess they only have one) has only 9 seats."
Good news for the Jersey contingent of Assistant, that. And for my parents, too, who have a bit of a Le Touquet fetish. Course, they'd have to drive down to Brighton in the first place, obviously.
Assistant have just competed in the Juice FM Demo Clash! Here's the track that was played (right click and save target as to download). Details on how to vote for us follow...
Well, that's the first time my voice has ever been transmitted on the radio, let alone the first time that the good people of Brighton have had to suffer my one solitary guitar solo which consists of more than three notes. It was a very odd and exciting experience! 'It's Alright' is quite a long song, which dispenses with all lyrics half way through and rattles off on a slightly random bent thereafter. But Claire played almost all of it, and thoroughly enjoyable it was too.
Listening was weird, like I kept forgetting that I wasn't just listening to our CD and then getting a jolt, thinking, agh, this is on the radio. Of course, the experience makes you feel insecure too, thinking 'we didn't do that right' or 'why didn't we record backing vocals' or 'why did she choose this track?". Well, anyway, I thought our song was the better of the two.
That was great. More Assistant on the radio please.
Please vote for us - you need to email Claire Kember with the subject line 'Demo Clash' and of course, tell her that you would like Assistant to win. It would be much appreciated.
Ah, just got back from an exhausting rehearsal. Give or take a bit of buggering about, the setlist next Monday night will be:
1. Theme
2. I'm Shit
3. It's Alright
4. Drinking With You
5. August Song
6. Get Away
7. Don't Ask Me
8. Easy to Leave
9. What It Means
10. You Should Know
11. Engines and Anvils
The rehearsal was good, although we got a bit sidetracked with 'Don't Ask Me', making it all sound a bit complicated by messing around with the synth line rather than just perfecting it as it was. Consequently we considered dropping it from the set but have - unless it goes terribly during the last rehearsal - decided to play it and call it a referendum. Getting that song finished has taken pure bloody-mindedness and a desperation to complete, rather than divine inspiration. So if you do come to the gig, unless the song gets a rapturous response from the punters, it's probably the only chance you'll get to hear it, as we've got better stuff to come next time round.
Old-timers will notice a couple of old songs in the set, too - 'Get Away' and 'It's Alright'. It was always our intention to mix setlists up a bit so we're playing different songs each time, but we haven't played live or rehearsed frequently enough to get this going. As of the New Year Assistant will be playing a lot more, both in private and in public - so this will change.
Don't forget to listen to Juice 107.2 FM tonight if you're local (Brighton and Hove). We'll be played sometime between 8 and 10. Apparently you can listen online via this URL, but I couldn't get it to work. If anyone can, let me know.
Assistant are featured in the Demo Clash on Claire Kember's excellent Totally Wired radio show this coming Sunday on Juice 107.2 FM. Claire will be playing our recording of 'It's Alright' along with a track by another Brighton band.
Here's the current Demo Clash page on the Totally Wired website. If you can't tune in on Sunday you should be able to hear the songs on the same link from next Monday afternoon, and you will of course be able to vote for us, which is what I really want you to do, naturally.
I'll update again on the other side of the weekend. If we win the votes war we get played again the next week (which is, usefully for us, the day before our next gig). No idea who we're up against yet but... am childishly excited at the idea of Assistant on the radio.
I've made a few mentions of The Vines on this blog, mostly because I've been interested in the unusual behaviour of their singer, Craig Nicholls, who was recently - as I mentioned the other day - diagnosed with aspergers syndrome; another subject which interests me.
I wasn't one of the people proclaiming the first Vines LP as 'the greatest debut album ever made', although the NME were going all guns blazing on that front at the time of its release. Back then, opinion seemed to be sharply divided. I thought that the first two singles from the album, 'Highly Evolved' and - particularly - 'Get Free' were tremendous, but when I mentioned this I would often be rebuked by friends who thought that The Vines - and Nicholls in particular - were the epitomy of shallow, overproduced indie rock masquarading as 'punk'.
In many senses, they were right - the album itself was thin, trebly and one-dimensional (or rather, two dimensional, as it resorted to, in turn, karaoke grunge and stoned californian balladry). The production was hopeless and the songs generally either too fast, too slow, or too sludgy. Meanwhile, Nicholls was making a fool of himself whenever his band appeared; seeming childish and conceited in interviews and crazed on stage.
I watched one performance of The Vines on Later with Jools Holland and remember it as the most embarrasing TV appearance by a band in living memory - Nicholls trashing the stage, screaming incoherently and wrecking the song with clueless guitar playing. At the time I had started to agree with my friends that The Vines were a contrived mess, and felt that Nicholls was just a joke. He didn't even seem to know what he was angry about.
Fast forward a couple of years - plus a second album which all but sunk without trace - and it's tempting to apply a bit of revisionism to the Vines story. Diagnosed with Aspergers, Nicholls' misunderstandings in interviews, stage behaviour and odd and obsessive behaviour begins to make a little more sense.
Asperger's Syndrome, also known as Asperger's Disorder or Autistic Psychopathy, is a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) characterized by severe and sustained impairment in social interaction, development of restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. These characteristics result in clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.Now the Vines's manager, Andy Kelly, has explained that
unfortunately the shape of the attached flyer prohibits my posting it up here, without wrecking my sensitive and sickly template (ie, it would thrust the links pane on the right down to the bottom of the page), but I can post a link regardless, and you can take a look at it for yourselves. I can't do everything for you anyway, someday you'll be out on your own in the big, malevolent world, etc.
Click here to see Anne-Sophie's flyers for the cable club gig...
Have I reached that point in my life when I just don't get the music on the radio? Nah, I don't think so. But I just listened to three live tracks by the White Stipes on the Steve Lamacq show and they were just absolutely dreadful - bordering on unlistenable. Their rendition of a song I've heard of (Button to Button, is that right?) was, on first listen, reminiscent of one of those Spinal Tap comedy songs; all dirty, cliched riffing and absurd falsetto vocals. I just couldn't understand it, couldn't understand why anyone would listen.
So it's come to this.
Hey you! Yeah, I mean you. Turn that fucking music down.
Having a couple of websites has turned me into a real sleuth; always trying to spot new links, monitoring google searches, trying to figure out who you anonymous commenters are, god damn you... Five minutes ago I wandered over to the printer at work and noticed that one of my fellow workers has printed out a large chunk of a blog which I visit regularly, and now I'm feeling possessive and curious, and wanna know who it is. So I'm working with my head at a painful crooked angle, watching for the next person to come and pick up stuff from the printer. I look like an angle poise lamp. No takers so far. And you know, I just know that when I do look away, they'll disappear.
Excellent to see Simon Reynolds reviewing 679's grime compilation ('Run The Road') in the Observer yesterday (thanks to Chantelle's World of Grime blog for drawing it to my attention)
"As a sound, grime is still very much an underdog, and so its fantasies of triumph and living large are much more precarious and affecting. ... You can hear all this in the music, in those pinched, scrawny voices - the sound of energy squeezing itself through the tiniest gap and grabbing for a chance that no doubt will prove to be a mirage."
The first essential release of 2005?
The Observer - Review: Run The Road
And actually, while I'm taking a long overdue look at Simon's blog, I note this article, too, which is great...
House of Zealous Rockers: Simon Reynolds on DFA.
Anyone who's not yet heard LCD Soundsystem's 'Movement' (which doesn't feature on the essential looking DFA Compilation #2 but which is the new single by DFA man James Murphy's band) either BUY IT RIGHT NOW or do the illegal download thing. It's ace.
Today the Observer says that Paul Evans, an American 'super-cop' brought in by the Home Office to cut Britain's crime rate warned last night that
"the nation's binge drinking culture was spiralling out of control and fuelling an epidemic of violence outside pubs and clubs that threatened to overwhelm the police."
Ah, well, we've heard that before, even if we know it's probably true. But I read in the Guardian yesterday a more interesting article which went some way to factoring me into the equation, where previously I thought,
"binge drinkers, eh, tut tut".
According to new research, the system by which we measure our alcohol intake is hopelessly outdated - for example, since 1985 the average pub-bought glass of wine is 50ml larger and on average 5% stronger. We're told that a unit represents one glass of wine or half a pint. In fact, a standard glass of wine in a pub is now accurately measured at 2.3 units. A pint of Stella is 3.
And if you - like me - regularly go out and drink three pints of lager then guess what? You're a binge drinker too. And if you do it every night then you are a chronic drinker, you statistic, you.
Best paragraph in the article was, however, less sobering...
The timelessness of our desire to get drunk has led anthropologists such as Kate Fox, director of the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, to speculate about the British character. She concluded that we are all suffering from a "congenital sociability disorder", a disease whose symptoms are akin to a kind of autism combined with agoraphobia. In plain talk, the British are uniquely buttoned up and starched stiff. Animal watcher Desmond Morris says that if we were monkeys we would be picking imaginary fleas out of each other's fur, in an act of "social grooming", a pretext for prolonging social encounters. Instead we have for centuries propped up the bar.
A national characteristic has been identified in numerous scientific trials. In one, British volunteers were plied with drinks, all purporting to be alcohol, half of which were placebos. Everyone became equally loud, crude and garrulous, the technically sober behaving identically to the genuinely drunk. Similar tests carried out on volunteers from Mediterranean countries found no such associations. Scientists concluded that British people invested alcohol with "magical disinhibiting powers".
Agh, anyone else really crap with their iTunes housekeeping? Just been trying to sort stuff out, delete duplicates, get genres and attributions rights, etc - what a monumental chore, but everyone talking about how it's 'so handy' to have all their music in one place always makes me think, god, my copy of iTunes is just stuffed with incorrectly named, archived and ripped files. Ah well. I will sort them out...
Last ten songs played while I ramble through...
1. XTC - Senses Working Overtime
2. Nick Cave - Let the Bells Ring
3. Dave Clarke - What Was Her Name?
4. Mighty Sparrow - Village Ram
5. Bedsit Bomber - 20202
6. Curtis Mayfield - Give It Up
7. Sonic Youth - Slaapkamers Met Slagroom
8. Clylobotnia - Hip Hop Gamelan
9. Maximo Park - Graffiti
10. The Fall - How I wrote Elastic Man
Cast your votes now for John Peel's final ever Festive Fifty.
And before you do so, you should really listen to the new Wedding Present single. It's a grower, and you can hear it here.
My first choice of three was 'The Valleys' by Electrelane.
Cheers John.
This is interesting, from the NME website.
THE VINES’ singer CRAIG NICHOLLS has been diagnosed with ASPERGER SYNDROME.
Nicholls’ condition was revealed during a hearing at Sydney’s Balmain Local Court yesterday (November 19).
The star was facing charges of assault and malicious damage, which were later dismissed. The charges stem from an incident at the Annandale Hotel (May 27) when he allegedly kicked a photographer’s camera during a gig for radio station Triple M.
According to The Herald Sun, following the brief ten-minute hearing Nicholls said: “I’m free.”
Nicholls was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome after one of the band’s crew members alerted management to its existence, despite years of attempts by psychologists and psychiatrists to find the correct diagnosis.
Asperger’s Syndrome is a neurobiological disorder which causes the sufferer to exhibit autistic-like behaviour and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills.
People with AS have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness. They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest.
Cold and crisp here in Chichester today, and sunny for the first half hour of my lunch. I went for a walk down by the canal and was surprised to find that the grass around it was freshly cut; the smell of cold cut crass is out-of-place in November, and refreshing. And of course when you cut grass wet it turns into a kind of paint, so the path was criss-crossed with mossy green lines.
When I was walking back I glanced down and saw a worm on the pavement in front of me, and had a peculiar moment of disgust, as if it was something horrible. Perhaps because it was still and therefore perhaps dead. But I looked again and it was a snapped grey elastic band, a thick one, and not a worm at all. So, odd that I thought it was, and odd that I was disgusted. I'm not worm mad, but I don't mind the little blighters.
I had a bitty lunch hour. At one point I suddenly remembered a very vivid dream which must be ten years old, where I was forced to drive around North London doing various errands, the novelty being that I can not drive. It wasn't a particularly exceptional dream, but I remember it very vividly indeed, almost as if it was a real memory.
And lastly, and rather less poetically, I note that the road sign just past work, which normally reads 'CANAL PLACE' has been vandalised. Someone has tipp-exed out the first letter. Not much to do in Chichester, but you've got to hand it to the kids; they find ways to amuse themselves.
According to the BBC,
A Fathers 4 justice campaigner handcuffed himself to children's minister Margaret Hodge at a family law conference in Manchester [today]. Jolly Stanesby, who was handcuffed to the minister for 40 minutes, said he had made "a citizens arrest"
Matt O'Connor, of Fathers 4 justice, said Mrs Hodge had been chosen for the stunt because she was the "bogeywoman of family law, who doesn't even believe in equal parenting"
Meanwhile in the UK a quarter of mothers who apply for maintenance receive none at all, while another 20% get less than they are entitled to.
Rights for fathers? Do me a favour. How about responsibility for fathers first. Then it might be appropriate to talk about rights.
Saw Fuji Heavy again last night, and damned if they don't grow on me with each gig - at least two of their songs are veritable hits, and the rest are relentlessly entertaining. Funnily enough, all the guys seemed a little disappointed with how it went afterwards, which just adds to my theory that what a band calls a good gig is often not what the audience does; I like seeing a band a bit frustrated, it gives them a bit of edge. Andy's guitar playing last night was really great, all the more so because he seemed to be trying to throttle the instrument at the same time as play it.
Last time I wrote about Fuji I talked about which other bands they sounded like, because that's often what strikes you about a band you've only seen once or twice. Now I'm getting to know the songs, I've stopped thinking about that. Last night I thought they sounded like, oh, what do you call them? Ah yes. Fuji Heavy.
The other bands were awful - a Snow Patrol-Coldplay lite on after Fuji and then a nasty sub-Aerosmith metal band, complete with a leather-trousered singer intent on asking 'how you all doin'?' to a room rapidly retreating to the bar. 'Aaaoowww', he added, after a moment's thought. Most of the rest of the night was spent drinking, talking rubbish and watching Vic and Andy caterwauling nonsensical lyrics along with the faux-Aeros. Great stuff.
Hungover today, but greatly cheered to see that Andy, clearly feeling a bit better about the Fuji performance, had sent me a nice photo of a tree this morning. Thanks Andy - that'll come in useful.
I probably should write about reality TV more often, seeing as the one post I ever wrote on the subject probably garnered more search engine referrals than anything else I've written. Barring stuff about piranhas.
New bloggers - just got started and keen on finding a subject that'll get you some hits? Piranhas. Never fails.
Well, I won't fall into the trap of reviewing every single reality show I've watched in the last six months, even if it will give me a few more hits, because frankly, reader, I'm bored of them. Granted, I watched 'Wife Swap' last night and spent the first ten minutes complaining that "this is a tired format". (You have to imagine a voice weighted with gravity and wisdom here....
"this is a tired format. Everything about is tired; tired, contrived and generic. Why haven't they axed it yet?")
... and the next fifty minutes rapt, pausing occasionally only to laugh and take cheerful glugs from my glass of wine.
And, erm, yes, I like 'No Going Back'. And anything about teenagers behaving badly or getting pregnant at the age of 12. And that one with Anna Raeburn when they divide up a messy house into a series of small prison cells for the wayward children, or build a shed in the garden where they banish the elderly grandfather (whose previous role was to just sit around shouting 'eh?') And those ones where your mum and dad come and sort out your finances. Or Alvin Hall does. And those kitchen ones with Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsey. Or....
Or Faking It. This one seems to be have been around so long it's practically the elder statesman of Reality TV. That and 'Would Like to Meet', which is still the genre's defining programme. I haven't much watched Faking It in recent years, but I did see a really excellent episode a couple of months ago which was - now I finally get to the point - filmed in Brighton. It's repeated tonight, and is essential - and thoroughly entertaining - viewing. C4 at ten.
So a young toff (and really, if you ever wonder if your class prejudices might need revising, you should watch this - firstly to note that there's still nothing worse than a posho, and secondly to see that there's still hope) is sent to Brighton to immerse himself in UK hip-hop culture, and 'fake it' as a graffiti artist. Well, the show is fascinating and utterly winning, not only because the starlet turns out to be a lovely lad (Jonathan doffs cap in the feudal manner) and a good sport, but because his supporting cast are just so.... lovely. Now, I'm not sure if being 'lovely' is desirable in the British rap scene, but if it is, the inhabitants of Brighton's graffiti community should be at the pinnacle of cool.
Seen around town graffing (see how I, unlike our hero, effortlessly pick up the lingo), rapping, breakdancing and poking affectionate fun wherever possible, the kids come across as caring, artistic, hardworking and (broadly) responsible. At the centre of events is Brighton's graffiti hotspot, a converted space in North Street at the centre of the North Laines, where kids line up boards and practice their art. Anyone reading this from Brighton or Hove should go and check the place out on the weekend, where it's invariably a hub of activity. The shop is owned and run by the programme's 'mentor', who I've seen around town a few times now, and always want to go and say hello to, ridiculously.
Anyway - it's well worth watching, if you can tear yourself away from the racist monkey chants over on BBC1.
some graffiti, this morning.
I love Music.
"Music hates me".
This is Richard.
"I love music, I buy it by the ton and I watch it performed live as often as I can. My girlfriend is, amongst other things, a musician in a band. She owns an Apple iPod but she is way too busy to load our CD collection onto it. So, during a recent period of unemployment I decided to rip the lot to mp3 format and load it onto the iPod – over 7000 tracks.
I BRIEFLY shared the iTunes folder containing the ripped mp3 files on KaZaA. The damn thing went crazy, and, after a couple of days, I stopped sharing the folder. Unfortunately, during this period, the BPI were listening in."
Shit. Hope things work out OK.
Click on the link up at the top of the post for more...
Nice to see David Aaronovitch talking good sense over at the Guardian today, locking horns with the kind of person who says, of Theo Van Gogh's awful murder in Amsterdam.
"Theo wasn't killed by Dutch society but by a Muslim. But then Muslims rarely do much soul searching."
"See that!", Aaronovitch snaps.
"In a blink of a cursor? See how "a Muslim" so quickly became "Muslims"? There are a billion Muslims with a hundred thousand interpretations of the Koran, but they are all now transformed into the Muslim who killed Van Gogh."
He goes on to say that...
"there is today - even among intelligent and thoughtful people - a story of Muslims as there was, when my father was young, a story of Jews. The story of Jews was about the clannishness and closeness of a self-designated 'chosen people', and how they used their undoubted talents to manipulate the media, the world of finance and (latterly) the US political process. And if one was caught in a fraud, then (as I once overheard a Daily Mail columnist say to Norman Tebbit), wasn't that 'their' way?
The story of Muslims is of a backward, super-sensitive religion which mistreats women and suppresses dissent. It is as true and as useful as the story of Jews, and, if we keep on telling it, leads to a similar place."
Full article here: David Aaronovitch: All Muslims are not the same.
this is getting ridiculous - listen up, musicians.... we need you. Stop dying, please. First ODB over the weekend (appalling news, I couldn't believe it) and now John Balance of Coil has succumbed to this disturbing new fashion. Apparently he fell from a 15ft first floor landing and died shortly afterwards. Awful. And I found out today that someone I have recently started working with, a young, fiercely inventive academic (and musician) has died too. The weather has only just changed and already this feels like a particularly bleak, chilling winter.
joe strummer john peel john balance ol' dirty bastard johnny ramone arthur kane rick james
I did just read that the Gang of Four have reformed, which is interesting. I still need to get hold of that last Wire album, which sounds pretty good.
Ah, the first proper Assistant rehearsal in ages yesterday, and it was really good. Doing mini-plays round at someone's house is a satisfying way of working on new material, but nothing beats a proper band rehearsal, and it's been so long that Pete was complaining about the noise. Andy and Ali, who have been rehearsing through the Assistant hiatus with Fuji Heavy and Diomedes, thought we were quieter than usual - so me and Pete, more used to calm these days, were just needing to adjust.
To begin with we ran through the last set we played and - actually - I was really surprised how well we all remembered the songs. In addition, when you rehearse and gig regularly you get tired of songs, or songs become so polished that they lose their edge. After a break they gain a bit of punchiness; I'm Shit, Drinking With You and What It Means were rawer than I remember, and better for it. You Should Know, which I'd gone off a bit, was chaotic because of some truly wayward and forgetful guitar playing by me, and v. enjoyable. Actually, by saying 'wayward' and 'chaotic' I imply some skein of Malkmusian genius on my part - what I mean is that I forgot the chords and played the solo really badly.
We also gave an airing to Get Away, one of our earliest songs, and I was surprised to note that it sounded pretty good, so, resuscitated, we'll play it at the gig. Elsewhere, we brushed up Easy to Leave by chopping out a verse and chorus, making it a bit sharper in the process. So setlist so far will definitely include Theme, I'm Shit, Drinking With You, You Should Know, Get Away, What It Means and Easy to Leave - with a strong possibility that we'll play It's Alright and Engines and Anvils too.
Added to this, our promise of new songs....
There should be two to look forward to, with the thinnest possibility of a third. The first new one we worked on yesterday, August Song, started out as a slightly dreary guitar track which I created on my computer a couple of months or so ago, a simple, slightly melancholy idea about meeting up with an old flame and observing that "the year has been faster than I knew, and suddenly I find that I've exaggerated you". On the original demo the saving grace is a fast, dubby bassline which holds most of the song's promise.
Doing it with the band, we cut the song right back to that part and Ali's tight, rolling drums. The chorus is just a vocal and a synth. So it's a quiet and oddly restrained song, with little elliptical guitar runs like something off 'Think Tank', and sudden, piercing breaks of noise which were maybe a little Mercury Rev-ish. It sounded ace - and while not quite note-perfect, I think we'll have it ready for the Pressure Point gig.
The other track will be familiar to long-term readers of the blog (if there are any). I've been writing about us trying to get Don't Ask Me finished since the summer of 2003. This time we've pretty much cracked it - stripping the song down to a nice and simple verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus structure and dispensing with our disco section (tellingly added in the midst of summertime Franz-fever). It's still a good song, but I'll surely jinx it if I go into any more detail. We'll play it in December, I (half) promise.
There's an outside chance that we might get time to work on a new version of one of Pete's instrumentals, too, but time restraints will probably mean that'll have to wait 'til the New Year for an airing.
Really pleased with August Song, though - you'll like that one.
the groop, once more. in a trolley. they wouldn't let me out, afterwards.
Ah, that's more like it - a wonderful post from Quin, who is exploring how many o's one can type in to the word 'google' before you, er, go mad.
"20 Os : Yay! A copy of Google in Japanese, but with 20 Os instead of 2."
The big Google O test
Over at The Wire website, they've started streaming their 'Office Ambience' chart from the magazine - which I always read faintly depressed, thinking 'haven't heard that, haven't heard that, where am I going to hear that?'. Well, now there's an MP3 stream and it's full to the brim of good stuff, namely...
For starters; some clunky, clicky house with a hint of junior boys and some delicate guitars from the awfully named Githead, Harry Partch's sublime 'Cloud Chamber Music', which everyone should hear, and some of what I can only describe as African acid-rock, by Mingiedi's Konono no. 1 project, which sounds marvellous on a first listen. More needed.
Strønen/Storløkken play glitchy, percussion led modern jazz, LCD Soundsytem do their usual punky dancy thing with the Crass mix of their 'Yeah', and Greg Davis presents some bewitching drone music which makes me feel lopsided. More on him here. Elsewhere, Lydia Lunch does her NY cool thing but I'm a bit tired of Lydia Lunch after all this time. There's more obscure stuff from Dean Roberts, whose restrained and sparse guitar atmospherics bear repeated listening, as do the menacing bass and vocals from Alexei Borisov & Anton Nikkilä, whose very plain, typewriter style website had me briefly inspired to delete all the boxes on mine, a minute ago.
Inching back towards a tune, Soft Pink Truth's tech-house take on Crass's 'Do They Owe Us a Living', treads a fine line between sound art and kitsch. It's the first thing I've heard from their much talked about 'Do You Want New Wave or DoYou Want the Soft Pink Truth?' LP on Tigerbeat. I kind of like it.
I hope The Wire keeps this up - it's a great feature. The link is up at the top, where it says 'The Wire'.
Meanwhile, can I just put a marker down. You like the Futureheads? Mark my words. Maximo Park. Next. Big. Thing. Awesome.
Looks like the Democrats and Hove CLP are not the only people who need to find someone to lead them into their next (respective) elections. Tommy Sheridan has resigned his leadership of the Scottish Socialist Party with immediate effect.
More information here.
A statement released by the SSP says,
"Whether it was on striking workers' picket lines or his championing of the abolition of the council tax, Tommy Sheridan brought to Scottish politics a unique voice that spoke up for those who had no voice in the elitist world of establishment politics"
Some interesting information in amongst yesterday's oh-so-predictable report that - guess what - a major donation of £50,000 was made to the Labour party earlier this year by Peter Coates, a major player (geddit) in the gaming industry and someone who is - presumably - not too disappointed with recent Labour party policy on the gambling industry, although I shall, for the sake of fairness, allow the other side of the story to be heard.
"A Labour spokesman said: "Peter Coates is a regular donor to the Labour party so there is nothing out of the ordinary about this donation, which is clearly made because Mr Coates is a supporter of the Labour party and for no other reason. Mr Coates has never sought to influence policy as a result of any donation nor, as far as we are aware, has he met any minister or political adviser in connection with the gambling bill, and nor is there any suggestion that.." oh fuck it, you get the picture. Whatever you say.
Anyway, what I meant to talk about was the following paragraph in the Guardian story.
"The list of donors also suggests a reason why Ivor Caplin, the junior defence minister, has decided not to fight his marginal seat of Hove. The former Tory MP for Hove and ex-minister Sir Tim Sainsbury has given the local Tories £15,000 to campaign against him."
So have Labour got any hope at all in Hove?
courtesy of the Bookseller.
Ian McEwan
Saturday
Jonathan Cape, 3rd February 2005, h/b
Sure to be huge, naturally. The novel is set within a single day in February 2003, as war in Iraq looms. A successful neurosurgeon unwittingly offends a small-time thug in the course of the day; that evening, the thug appears at his luxury home, bent on revenge.
John Updike
Villages
Hamish Hamilton, 3rd February 2005, h/b
A massive literary star, though without the same sales profile as McEwan; the American master returns; telling the life story of Owen Mackenzie, which takes place in villages in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, and involves many romantic and other relationships wit the female inhabitants of those villages.
The former looks good. The latter - well, we all know Updike is good. But anyone else look at that synopsis and think, oh right. female inhabitants. surprise surprise.
Hurray, thanks to Paul for letting me know about this, I like this bit of information. Not only, as we know, are the Wedding Present fully reformed and about to release a new single, but the lovely David Gedge is now living in - of all places - nearby Newhaven. Hmm. I've not been to Newhaven but I've, um, heard about it.
Newhaven, Dave: why???
Interesting news from Hove, home of Labour MP Ivor Caplin. Always a target for the Tories at the next election, Hove must have just jumped up in their reckoning at the news that Ivor will not be standing at the next election - this looks a sure thing for the conservatives now, no? On the other hand, Caplin is so universally disliked in Hove that this might prove the filip needed to retain the Labour vote.
How Caplin voted.
(PS - yes, I have noticed that the Evening Argus displayed above is no longer the one with the nice big 'MP In Quit Shock' headline. It's changing daily. Thing is, I rather like that. So bookmark this post and come here daily to see what's on the cover of the er, Evening Argus).
I love following the trail of blogs, it's what the internet does best. I started with my own, noting I'd been quoted on Bush on Silent Words Speak Loudest (thanks Ben), along with, amongst others, Bob Mould, whose blog I haven't read in a while. He writes,
"One day passes, and not much changes. I suspect it will be that way for a while. Once the slide begins, though, it will be noticeable, and hard (but not impossible) to reverse. Our leader has been handed the receipt. He sees it as a mandate. I am fearful for the young men of this country."
Bob leads me away in another direction; to a New York Times article about 'Rockism' - the system of denegrating pop by its perceived shallowness. The author, like me, doesn't seem to hold much truck with it (take your Wellers and your well-meaning, furrow browed men - it's always men - away).
"could it really be a coincidence that rockist complaints often pit straight white men against the rest of the world?"
On the other side, we hear, are the "The pop star, the disco diva, the lip-syncher, the "awesomely bad" hit maker", and I read that and I think, these are my people...
Here's a test. Think 'Great rock music', then 'great pop music' - and tell me which thought is stolid, sweat-drenched and reductive.
Mike Moore has posted "17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists". I feel a bit better.
Here's number 17.
"17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal."
Here's number 6.
"6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water, all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in lava. And no more show tunes!"
And number 9.
"9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't have to buy now."
I've been spending most of the past couple of days talking about the election, and - particularly - reading about it, and I have to say that there is an absolutely tremendous amount to say on this, and I feel slightly disappointed that I won't get the chance to compile all the links I'd like to, write all the comments I'd like to, and engage with as many people as I'd like to. I should point out, for any new readers, that this blog ostensibly exists as a slick marketing tool to promote my band, but things don't seem to work out so easily. Anyone who is here to read about Assistant, I'll get back on message soon, I promise. But it's at times like this when you think about the nature of blogging, and to what extent it is just me satisfying my ego, talking to thin air, or just working through thoughts which would otherwise just rattle around my head.
But if the election has made me suddenly introspective and mindful of my limitations, elsewhere there is some stunning writing about how things panned out in the US. Most of what I have said, or will say, has been influenced by the extraordinary variety of emotion and tone which can be found on the web right now. I think I should perhaps put together a list of the sites which have helped me understand things the best, but I've not time right now, so I'll just plough on with a few more thoughts about the election, with a general credit issued to all my fellow bloggers, who have been a revelation the last few days.
As I've said, I don't like the tendency to scapegoat 'the American', as if he is a homogenous artifact, a symbol of stupidity. Yesterday I wrote that we should not call Americans stupid as a kneejerk reaction, and I stand by that, but I read some stuff by Timothy Garton Ash in the paper today which made me want to qualify what I said. I think I tried to explain away much of America standing by their war president on the grounds that he made them fearful, that they felt threatened and voted with him on that basis. To some extent I think that's right, but the phrase I used was 'In any country the majority of people vote in order to protect their best interests' - and that they felt Bush was best placed to protect those interests. Well. I have also tried, where possible, not to turn this into a 'Christian thing'. I'm trying to be fair, here.
But Garton Ash writes,
"The gut reaction of so many American voters, like Ida Blair, [is] to put moral, cultural and lifestyle choices before anything else, including their own economic self-interest. Family values. No gay marriage or abortion. Gun ownership. God, motherhood and apple pie. I just heard on the television that married women voted overwhelmingly for Bush, single women for Kerry."
He's right. When I talked about best interests I guess I was talking about the (perceived) threat of terrorism, but it's undeniably true that in many other respects people did indeed make moral choices, not political ones. In that sense, it is to some extent a Christian thing, like it or not. And it confirms the grizzly suggestion that, with the voting so closely mirroring what went on in 2000, America has divided it's moral choices into party colours. This, obviously, makes the prospect of a Democratic revival (all the way ahead in 2008) even harder to achieve.
Garton Ash goes on to articulate the line which I've been pushing ever since I first saw the election maps yesterday morning.
"In fact, this election has shown that America is more divided than ever over essentials of politics and faith. It's one country, but two nations".
Well, he's right to an extent. The left and the right have never been so far apart in terms of the moral instincts at the heart of their allegiences. But he undermines his point (as I have) by defining the difference in geographical terms. While it's certainly true to say that the map of the voting patterns makes its own point (solidly democratic at the edges and in the North Midwest, and republican elsewhere, swelling the map with a great, red belly of conservatism - middle America and the South. I saw one map jokingly divide them into the 'United States of Canada' and 'Jesusland'), it remains misleading to set up this as the contrast at the heart of the country. The liberals by the sea and the rednecks in the heartlands.
I didn't get this until I saw the map below on the wonderful Boing Boing blog.
As David Brake, on his Blog.org site (which drew my attention to the map) writes,
"There are still plenty of Democrats in most of the “red” states - just not enough to swing the election this time around."
There's no reason why the Democrats should give up on the red states. One wonders if it isn't true, though, that as history proved with Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, that they need a smooth talkin' Southerner to do it. Whence Michael Dukakis? Whence John Kerry...
That said, some of the allegiances just look so hard to reverse. Here's how society voted by church attendence, from the Guardian.
More than Weekly
63% Bush
36% Kerry
Weekly
58% Bush
41% Kerry
Monthly
50% Bush
50% Kerry
Few times a year
44% Bush
55% Kerry
Never
34% Bush
64% Kerry
See how the numbers reverse themselves the less people pray. It's so clear cut it's almost a beautiful pattern, almost organic, almost natural. And what can we do about that? Well, we have to fight to reverse it, I guess. I still don't think we should call our American cousins idiots, but the fact remains that half the country is making choices of a kind which are, to anyone not cowed in deference to the US church or the neo-cons, profoundly disturbing.
*apologies to anyone who dislikes my use of the phrase 'we', there. Sorry, it sounds crap and naff, and self-aggrandising - especially from an Englishman who isn't in any way involved with politics. I am not trying to flex my blogging muscles, I just can't stop talking.
Incidentally: one interesting point from the always interesting Harry's Place.
"The much-vaunted "youth vote" went for Kerry, but it wasn't much of a vote. Despite "Rock the Vote," "Vote or Die," etc., only about one in ten of 18-to-24-year-olds went to the polls."
UPDATE: The above factlet is - in fact - false; see here for further details. Thanks to Tim, Andrew and David for putting me straight.
Hurray, as exclusively speculated by me back in August, the Futureheads (after announcing a new UK tour which will take in Brighton, yay) have announced that the next single to be released from their brilliant debut album will be their take on Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love'. Regular readers, I am mindful, will be bored with me going on about that song, so I shan't repeat past mistakes. Nevertheless, it's due in February. That gives me three months or so to try to shake the bit in 'Meantime' when they bark 'False conversations!' out of my head.
I think - hope - that talk of the US engaging in another merry jaunt overseas to interfere in another country's business (Ok, a bit glib) is overstated. As far as I can see, Bush is going to have his hands - and troops - tied up in Iraq for the next few years, and it's hard to see how he could divert enough of his military to Iran, North Korea or Syria without repeating the catastrophic mistakes in Afghanistan, where he left the business of catching Osama Bin Ladan to others, outsourcing the operation to Anti-Taliban warlords who, frankly, were in it for the money - so that he could send troops into Iraq. The devastating consequences of his actions should tie his hands for a while, one hopes (not that one wishes to see Iraq descend further into chaos).
Nevertheless, it's gratifying to hear Jack Straw say, as he did this morning, that he is able to rule out any prospect of Britain backing American military action against Iran. He said,
"Not only is that inconceivable, but I think the prospect of it happening is inconceivable. ... I don't see any circumstances in which military action would be justified against Iran."
No offence, Jack, but I'm writing that down, so just so we've got it on record.
Elsewhere, I note that Yasser Arafat has slipped into a coma. Yasser, I felt that way too when the results came in...
I'm guessing you're feeling as bad as I am at the moment, but (almost) half of the vote in the US went to a candidate with liberal ideas on abortion, gun control, stem cell research, taxation-for-the-rich, the environment... And we can't feel as bad as those poor good folk do right now. In any country the majority of people vote in order to protect their best interests. Bush may not be a clever man, but he was clever enough to convince people, almost right at the start of his presidency, that they were under threat. America has re-elected a war president, and it was always likely that they were going to, for all Kerry's efforts.
What we have to do now is hold Bush to account wherever we can on whatever he does to further erode civil liberties, human rights and global peace. Many decent Americans and Europeans have spent much of the last four years campaigning and fighting for justice; that won't stop now. By any measure, the re-election of George Bush is a catastrophe; but plenty of moderate, sensible people - all across the world, including the US - will continue to oppose Bush's naked avarice, bigotry and beligerance; this burgeoning groundwell of activism will continue.
Now is the time to make a stand. We need to exert our influence and keep going. It's not the time to despair - it all still matters too much. Any democrats reading... I'm sorry you have to put up with this guy for four more years. I'm sorry we all do. You're welcome over here anytime you feel you need to get away :-)
oh please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please
Acid trip 1
Found this super site via Olivia's blog. It's really interesting. An artist is given a dose of LSD and monitored for eight hours subsequently; his drawings present a fascinating development. But never mind the art, the captions along the side are worth reading alone.
"Upon completing the drawing the patient starts laughing, then becomes startled by something on the floor."
Ok, well, at least I'm not the only one getting a bit worked up this week. Am on my lunch break, and catching up with a few blogs here and it's salutory to note that just about everyone is as gripped with election fever as me. Honestly, though - I worry. Just about every blog I come across is doing nervous somersaults and praying for a Kerry victory tomorrow. If all else goes wrong, I look forward to the most malevelont days worth of furious entries on Wednesday / Thursday. The blogosphere will let out such a yell of collected frustration if Bush wins it. Christ. Picking out specifics, I'm worried about, say, Pete Ashton, who writes
"this time it all feels somewhat critical, so much so that writing about it seems pointless. Everyone with a brain knows this is make or break . Even if they can't articulate exactly why there a palpable sense that if Bush gets back in we're all, in some way, fucked"
Poor old Quin Parker, meanwhile, is haunted even in his sleep. His most recent blog entry needs to be seen to be believed, but I'll draw out one quote myself so you get the idea. Quin, suffice it to say, is having strange dreams...
"The dragon was unkillable, so the only thing I could do is turn the room into a giant 70's disco, where the dragon quickly got lost and had to leave because of the strobe lighting. As a direct result of my actions, John Kerry won the election and Dick Cheney the Chinese dragon had to go back up into the cloudy mountains."
Read on here....
Over on his Shot by Both Sides blog, John B picks out a letter sent to The Times last week by a combination of British politicians (actually the Britain In Europe group) including Chris Patten, Menzies Campbell, Kenneth Clarke, Robin Cook, Geoffrey Howe and Neil Kinnock. "Start a proper liberal party, already", John shouts. The letter reads.
"Sir, On Friday the nations of the European Union come together to sign a “second Treaty of Rome”.
This treaty will create new and simpler constitutional arrangements, replacing almost five decades of complex and overlapping documents with a single text. It will protect the sovereignty of Europe’s nation states and set limits for the first time on what the EU can and cannot do.
The treaty makes it easier for us to work together to deal with the cross-border issues that define the 21st century, such as global warming and the threat of international terrorism. It will give a bigger role to the Parliament and people of this country. It commits Europe to work for the economic and social benefit of us all.
Across Europe this treaty is viewed as a landmark success for Britain. It will protect and enhance our vital national interests and enable us to work more effectively with our partners to change Europe for the better."
Why can't the Labour Party articulate with similar brevity and reason the broad aims and principles which they espouse? And why can't they make this much bloody sense?
Last night's Panorama stuck to the general consensus that the US election race remains a dead heat, which makes the Guardian's implying that Bin Laden's video had had a positive and near decisive impact on Bush's campaign over the weekend all the stranger. Current polls suggest it remains close. But Panorama did seem to suggest that Bush had the means to win, and if he does mobilise his voters, then he should win it tomorrow. I hope to god it doesn't pan out that way. But there did seem to be several reasons to worry.
The show revealed that 4m evangelicals neglected to vote in the last election (the late disclosure of Bush's drink-driving conviction putting paid to their support) and emphasised that - under Bush - the peculiar re-alignment of the Latino vote has solidified since Jeb Bush's re-election in November 2002. Republicans can now rely upon the support of Florida's large Cuban American vote (no surprise, then, to see Bush lambasting Castro yesterday, and even implying that the US under a second Bush term would consider intervening in Cuba). Although there's little evidence that the hispanic vote as a whole has transferred allegiance in this way, Jeb took 56% of the overall Hispanic vote in 02. If such a switch is played out over the country it would be a disaster for Kerry.
Of course, he retains the black vote, but it was salutory to note that the Hispanic population in America now outnumbers the African-American one, making it the single largest minority in the land. The thought of Bush mobilising this base is very worrying indeed, as is the prospect of those 4m evangelists responding to the president's moves on abortion and stem cell research and returning their support to to the republicans.
All this, to me, looks like Bush edging ahead, despite what the polls say. I hope not. The consolation is that pollsters have little access to first time voters. Young Americans, disilussioned by Bush, could yet tip the balance - but until election day we won't know how many will come out to vote. Their intervention could be crucial. Either way, I'm getting nervous. I though the balance was tipping Kerry's way. Now, I'm not so sure.
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