tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34658207777143681532024-02-20T23:58:05.518-08:00ninetyeightytwoNinetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.comBlogger164125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-58100007155487610622013-11-01T07:25:00.001-07:002013-11-01T07:25:32.038-07:00Lou Reed Week - Assessing The Live Albums
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Whilst it's perfectly possible to get all of your Lou Reed kicks from his studio albums, I believe that the true essence of his genius can be found on his live albums. They range from fierce and confrontational to sweet and mellow, but the loose performances, the sheer passion and the unremitting flow of words ensure that no matter what he's playing, and no matter when he's playing it, the effect is never anything less than mercurial.
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The appeal is threefold. First, there's the dedication to the material that dictates that, when playing live, Lou Reed is often the least <i>technically </i>talented musician onstage. His backing bands were always comprised of trusted and road-honed cohorts, and the songs were always adapted to suit their individual styles. As a result, songs take on a whole new life in a live setting, yet do so in such a way as to retain their original essence.
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Second is the archivist's approach Lou took to setlists. Whilst including many a crowd-pleaser, Lou would delve into the most obscure corners of his back catalogue, emerging with half-forgotten lumps of coal which, live, he would transform into glittering gems.
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Finally, there's the man himself. His range might have been limited and, in later years, he might have been all but static, but Lou's stage presence was so magnetic you can almost hear it on the live recordings. It's in the reactions of the crowd – their laughter and cheers – and in his stage patter which, like the songs themselves, ranges from the languid and cool to the deranged amphetamine rant. In early years he'd bark his lyrics with bile and bite, but as he aged his voice took on a refined and gravelly grace, to the point that his delivery is, at times, unbearably moving.
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In this week following his passing I've found myself listening to Lou Reed's live albums above all else. These recordings – whether they're soaring and searing or simple and elegiac – are without exception indispensable to anyone with even a modicum of interest in Lou Reed's ability to make something beautiful out of something ugly.
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I'm only looking at his solo live albums, which means that I'm emitting not just his Velvet Underground work, but also his collaborations with John Cale, Nico, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn and The Metal Machine Trio. They're presented in chronological order, which does not necessarily correspond with their order of release.
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<b>American Poet (2001)</b>
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Though only officially released in 2001 (it had long been making the rounds as a bootleg), this is actually from the early days of Lou Reed's solo career. It features material from his eponymous debut, the freshly released <i>Transformer</i> and several Velvet Underground songs, which were seemingly just in the process of being “rediscovered”.
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The sound is clean, crisp and immensely satisfying, though the main appeal is the inclusion of a WKJY interview, in which Lou talks about his time spent in England recording <i>Transformer</i> with David Bowie. He shrugs off the implications that they were sleeping together, but expresses his appreciation of the English term “naughty”. His English accent is hilarious.
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Best of all, the special edition version I received as a gift included a t-shirt!
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<b>Rock'n'Roll Animal/Lou Reed Live (1974-75)</b>
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Despite the man himself apparently not being a fan, <i>Rock'n'Roll Animal</i> is now a canonical example of bold, brash, bombastic and sexually ambiguous 70s rock. In the hands of this phenomenally potent sextet, these dark songs, largely drawn from <i>Berlin</i> and The Velvet Underground, become technicolour firework displays, verging from being punishingly intense to irresistibly joyous, often within the space of the same song. The moment when Steve Hunter's soaring intro segues into the riff from <i>Sweet Jane</i>, followed by an almighty roar from the crowd, must be one of the most exciting moments in the history of recorded sound.
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But to get the full show, not only do you need the special edition of <i>Rock'n'Roll Animal</i>, you also need the <i>Lou Reed Live</i> album, which was originally released a year later. <a href="http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/lou-reed/1973/academy-of-music-new-york-ny-4bd3d746.html">You then need to sequence the songs thus</a>. As a result, the animal will evolve into a 90 minute <i>Rock'N'Roll MONSTER</i>, and all will be right in the world.
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Retain the <i>Rock'n'Roll Animal</i> cover for your fan-made double album, though. The cover of <i><a href="http://peelslowlynsee.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/lou-reed-live-cover.jpg">Lou Reed Live</a></i> has always reminded me of <a href="http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/QKjTXJwGLUw/hqdefault.jpg">Mason Verger</a>.
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<b>Take No Prisoners (1978)</b>
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This one's notorious for having more in common with a stand-up routine than a live album. And, yes, on two or three occasions Lou abandons the song completely, instead embarking upon long, rambling amphetamine monologues concerning whatever happens to pop into his mind or his line of sight.
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Yet with the musical backing (the band do a great job of keeping it together throughout the rambling), this sounds more like riotous performance poetry than drug-addled rants. I could listen to Lou Reed recite the phone book, so to hear him so unhinged is frequently hilarious and often a genuine pleasure. The words keep coming and never stop. Ever. Oh, to have been in the audience. Springsteen was there! At one point he even gets a call-out, presumably because he'd just appeared, incognito, on <i>Street Hassle</i>.
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People seem to forget, though, that amongst these moments of madness are actual songs, played in full, with no digressions. And they're largely excellent. In the stoned, droning interpretations of <i>Satellite of Love</i> and <i>Pale Blue Eyes</i> you can hear the roots of shoegaze, specifically Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized. The foul-mouthed version of <i>Street Hassle</i> sounds like a field recording of hard-boiled street chatter, and during the intro of <i>I Wanna Be Black</i>, Lou Reed temporarily fronts the best darn bar band in the universe.
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Strangest, though, is the 14 minute version of <i>I'm Waiting For My Man</i>, which actually features the lyrics from <i>Temporary Thing</i> whilst managing to sound like neither song. And that man on the cover terrifies me. He's exactly the sort of violent amoral horror I pictured when I read William Burroughs's <i>Wild Boys</i>.
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<b>Live In Italy (1984</b>)
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The liner notes to this one seem to be addressed to fans of guitarist Robert Quine, implying that <i>Live In Italy</i> is better considered as an example of his rare abilities than it is a live Lou Reed document. Yet as incendiary as Quine's work is, <i>Live In Italy</i> still has much to offer your common or garden Lou Reed obsessive.
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Some of the performances on this album are so superior to their studio originals that they should be considered the definitive versions. Indeed, I would not hesitate to place the <i>Live In Italy</i> version of <i>Kill Your Sons</i> in my top five list of Lou Reed songs. The seamless mix of <i>Some Kinda Love</i> and <i>Sister Ray</i> into a sizzling 15 minute onslaught is similarly inspired.
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<i>Live In Italy</i> is perfectly complemented by the 1991 concert film <i>A Night With Lou Reed</i>. It was recorded at about the same time and features songs not included on the album (though loses five in the process). However, these songs are what you might call “deep cuts” from some of his lesser known 80s albums. Needless to say, they sound so much better live.
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I've got <i>A Night With Lou Reed</i> on VHS. It is available on DVD, but this version apparently omits Lou's interactions with the crowd, an essential part of any live experience.
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<b>Perfect Night: Live In London (1998)</b>
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This is it, my personal pick of Lou Reed at his very best. This is the side of him I like most: Old enough that his words and his voice has a solemn gravity, but not so old that you can't still hear the fire in his belly.
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Recorded during Laurie Anderson's Meltdown Festival, <i>Perfect Night</i> takes the very bare bones of a rock band – two guitars, bass and drums – and from this simple combination creates pure incandescent magic. I know it was recorded in some dark and cavernous concert hall, but when I hear some of these performances I can't help but picture a brightly-lit glass house, filled with plants, through the ceiling of which you can see a spellbinding night sky, so swirling in stars as to appear almost purple.
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It's interesting how all the “fan favourites” are played first. The opening duo of <i>I'll Be Your Mirror</i> and <i>Perfect Day</i> is hard to beat, and the version of <i>The Kids</i>, shorn of the unbearable crying of children, cuts to the core of this heartbreaking song where previously it might have been considered exploitative.
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Towards the end you get a strange choice of songs. The title track from <i>New Sensations</i> shines for the very first time, and <i>The Original Wrapper</i>, where on record it might have been considered a joke, live becomes such an incredible flow of words that there might well be truth in Reed's claim that he was rapping before anyone else.
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To cap off the evening with <i>Sex With Your Parents</i>, his rant against Republicans, is a fine example of his perverse humour at play, but he instantly wins back the favour of those he may have alienated with a triumphant <i>Dirty Blvd</i>.
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And in the middle you get two songs which simply cannot be found anywhere else: <i>Into The Divine</i> and <i>Talking Book</i>, the latter of which doesn't receive nearly as much love as it deserves.
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<b>Animal Serenade (2004)</b>
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This is Lou Reed in full elder-statesman of rock mode, playing largely without drums with a veteran backing band, his Tai Chi master throwing shapes to the side of the stage. The tone is warm, welcoming and mellow throughout, as Lou draws from his entire career across 19 ½ songs (we only get the opening riff of <i>Sweet Jane</i>, as we're told that the secret to success is to secretly include a fourth chord in a three chord song).
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Some of <i>Animal Serenade</i> is stunning. Lou boasts from the outset that we're witnessing a real band, that nothing will be pre-recorded, and the performances are fantastic throughout. Special mention goes to the sweet, soulful versions of <i>Sunday Morning</i>, <i>Call On Me</i> and <i>Vanishing Act</i>, whilst Lou's reading of <i>The Raven</i> is far superior to Willem Dafoe's from the album of the same name.
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Sharing vocal duties are bassist and BFF Fernando Saunders and Antony Hegarty, who the following year would receive due recognition as an artist in his own right with his beautiful <i>I Am A Bird Now</i> album. On <i>Animal Serenade</i>, he's allowed to sing lead on <i>Candy Says</i>, and the results are devastating.
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Less appealing is when the spotlight is given to Fernando Saunders for a seven minute song of his own composition called <i>Reviens Cherie</i>. Don't get me wrong, he has a gorgeous voice, and it's touching sign of admiration and respect that Lou should have given him the opportunity to steal the show, but still. The song's nowhere near as strong as anything else played, and you have to wonder how many people went to the bar for its duration.
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<b>Berlin: Live At St. Ann's Warehouse (2008)</b>
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<i>Berlin</i>, played in all its brutal, terrifying and poignant entirely, for the first time in 30 years. What's not to love? The songs have been fleshed out to allow for soloing, meaning that there's a certain looseness to this that's often missing from attempts to play entire albums back to back in the live setting.
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Also stunning to think is that, apart from the café clatter at the start of the title track, not a single sound is heard that isn't being played live. Bob Ezrin himself – the maniac who captured the anguished cries of his own children on the original album – conducts a small orchestra whilst wearing a lab coat befitting of his status as a mad scientist of the studio.
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Apart from the added guitar dynamics, some of the songs are almost indistinguishable from their studio originals. That said, there's a real weight to the music that you can only ever get from musicians playing live together in the same room. Some of the vocals, too, are slightly preferable. I simply cannot listen to the original version of <i>The Kids</i>. I just can't. Live, though, Lou barks the words “they're taking her children away” with palpable disgust, meaning that a song that was originally upsetting and nihilistic now becomes more vitriolic, but no less bleak. It's somehow easier to take.
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Come for <i>Berlin</i>, but stay for the encore. Continuing the gloomy and elegiac feel of the album is another chance to hear Antony sing <i>Candy Says</i> (always welcome) and a version of <i>Rock Minuet</i> that I'd use to convince a doubter that it might even be an understatement to describe Lou Reed as a genius.
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The only let-down is a tired version of <i>Sweet Jane</i>, a crowd-pleaser that attempts to throw light where it need not have been thrown. In the film version of this concert, which is worth 80 minutes of anybody's time, this closing number is cut short by the credits. It's no great loss.
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And finally, here's some footage from his last ever solo show, at London's Royal Festival Hall in August 2012.
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He still had it:
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<br/><br/>Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-48566758678809540292013-10-31T03:39:00.000-07:002013-10-31T03:41:46.773-07:00Lou Reed Week - The Raven<br/><br/>
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Happy Halloween everyone!
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My Halloween celebrations and my week of Lou Reed commemorations have overlapped with a listen to his ambitious 2003 concept album, <i>The Raven</i>. A 36 song exploration of the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, it's ideal listening for this, the gloomiest of days.
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The list of collaborators alone makes <i>The Raven</i> an irresistible album. Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Willem Dafoe, Anthony Hegarty and, best of all, <i>Steve Buscemi</i>, who proves that he has a really quite lovely singing voice.
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And, unbelievably, it's only in the past few days that I've learned that the squalling reeds on <i>Guilty</i> are brought to the table by the immortal Ornette Coleman.
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<i>The Raven</i> is a mix of songs and readings. Here you'll find some of the most refined and moving songs of Lou Reed's entire career. <i>Who Am I?</i> is just the very song that got me into this mess in the first place. <i>Call On Me</i> is equally as poignant, whilst on <i>Burning Embers</i> we get the curious sound of Lou Reed channelling Dr. John. There are new and vastly different versions of <i>The Bed</i> and <i>Perfect Day</i>. <i>Fire Music</i> is a return to the punishing noise of <i>Metal Machine Music</i>, whilst in <i>Vanishing Act</i> and <i>Guardian Angel</i> we have two songs which, in the wake of Lou Reed's passing, I find almost too much to bear.
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The readings are a bit of a mixed bag. Taken in isolation, though a tad hammy, they're marvellously gloomy realisations of some of Poe's gravest words. Willem Dafoe in particular seems made for this project. Yet when mixed amongst the more bombastic and stirring songs, they can tend to break up the pace.
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<i>The Raven</i> is a double album, and once you get used to the spoken word sections, it can be the sort of sprawling monolith in which you can happily immerse yourself. On headphones, alone, at night, with red wine and candles, <i>The Raven</i> is a contender for my very favourite Lou Reed album.
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The critics, though, weren't too keen. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030219065233/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/reed_lou/raven.shtml">Pitchfork hated it</a>. Without a doubt the laziest and most boring thing anyone can say about any double album is that, contained within its bloated ranks, there's a perfectly contained single album just waiting to get out.
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The thing is, in the case of <i>The Raven</i>, that happens to be true.
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<i>The Raven</i> was also released as a single CD album. Though I have plenty of time for the spoken word tracks, I must admit that <i>The Raven</i> flows so much better when the majority of them are cut, as they are on the single CD edition.
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I listen to the single CD version a lot more than I do the double, which is reserved for lonely nights and such special days as Halloween.
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However, for the best possible listening experience, you have to make a few substitutions of your own. The full band version of <i>Who Am I?</i> as found on <i>NYC Man</i> is much better than <i>The Raven</i>'s AOR version. Also, with all due respect for Willem Dafoe, Lou Reed's own reading of <i>The Raven</i> is a lot more thrilling than Willem's studio version (skip to about 1:34:00 in the video below).
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Whether you dip into the odd track, replay the single CD or delve fully into the sprawling 36 song banquet, today is the perfect day indeed to revisit <i>The Raven</i>.
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But for some truly diabolical Halloween chills, here's <i>The Fall of the House of Usher</i>.
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<br/><br/>Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-6157865465946785032013-10-30T17:39:00.001-07:002013-10-30T17:39:32.814-07:00Lou Reed Week - This Magic Moment<br/><br/>
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I saw Lou Reed live twice. The first time was in Liverpool in 2005, on the same tour from which I believe the songs on the <i>Animal Serenade</i> album would ultimately be drawn. The second time was as part of the Manchester International Festival in 2009, and it was incredible.
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That night he performed with Laurie Anderson, and it was the first time the two had ever played together in the UK. Was it also the last? I'm not sure.
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The night was full of stunning moments. A heartbreaking performance of <i>Who Am I?</i>, an early version of Laurie Anderson's <i>Only An Expert</i>, blistering guitar solos on <i>Mystic Child</i> and, best of all, Laurie singing lead to Lou's accompaniment on <i>Pale Blue Eyes</i> and <i>I'll Be Your Mirror</i>.
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But the weirdest point of the evening was a sudden segue, at the end of a punishing feedback onslaught, into Jean Knight's <i>Mr. Big Stuff</i>.
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It was more a lighthearted, throwaway moment than a serious cover, as we only got a few bars of the chorus. But remembering the moment, I was struck with a sudden realisation – you can almost count Lou Reed's covers on one hand.
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Maybe he had so much to say that he never saw the need to indulge in covers, or maybe he knew that his voice was simply too idiosyncratic to suit any style other than his own. In any case, it's extremely rare that such an influential artist with such an extensive career in any genre should leave behind such a dearth of covers.
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According to <a href="http://www.coversproject.com/artist/lou%20reed/">The Covers Project</a>, Lou Reed recorded just six covers across his career. We can discount <i>All Tomorrow's Parties</i> (as it's ostensibly his song), but beyond that we have covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, Kurt Weill and Victoria Williams – all of which were recorded for compilation albums celebrating the songwriters in question.
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To this list we can now add his rendition of Peter Gabriel's <i>Solsbury Hill</i>, for the <i>And I'll Scratch Yours</i> album.
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Beyond the multitude of standards you inevitably encounter when you listen to jazz and folk, I'm not usually interested in covers. Too few songwriters leave their own mark when handling the material of others, and I'm always much more interested in what they have to say themselves than I am in their interpretive skills.
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But that said, it just so happens that one of my favourite ever Lou Reed recordings also happens to be one of his only covers.
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With 1992's <i>Magic And Loss</i>, Lou Reed recorded an entire album of elegies to late songwriter Doc Pomus. The two were good friends, so in 1995, he contributed a song to a Doc Pomus tribute album entitled <i>Til The Night Is Gone</i>.
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Reed's offering is <i>This Magic Moment</i>, a song originally recorded by Ben E. King with The Drifters.
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It's a curio for two reasons. Not only is it a very rare example of Lou Reed interpreting someone else's words, it's also an even rarer example of him tackling a love song with no ambiguity or dark undertones. The result is sweet and endearing, and the dingy yet effervescent arrangement, drenched in feedback, makes for exactly the sort of thing I often want to hear when I want to hear music.
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That I first heard the song in the background to the love scene in David Lynch's <i>Lost Highway</i> suggests that my feelings were always going to be strong for this one.
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Here it is again, set to a montage of clips from David Lynch films. Sometimes life is so beautiful.
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<br/><br/>Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-29195079146813803792013-10-29T17:16:00.000-07:002013-10-29T17:16:07.542-07:00Lou Reed Week - 5 Songs Of Death & Drinking<br/>
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It's a common misconception that Lou Reed only ever wrote about drugs and transvestites. In truth, he wrote stories. Yes, many of the characters in his stories were transvestites, and pretty much all of them were on drugs, but a lot of the time these trappings (for want of a better word) acted as springboards to explore much deeper themes of love, loss, addiction, obsession, hypocrisy, vengeance, hatred, cruelty, anxiety, lust, sacrifice, faith and, on one unforgettable occasion, the best place to find Cream Eggs in New York.
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In the past few months, I've paid a lot of attention to the times when Lou sang about booze. Like with most every subject he touched, when it came to the sauce, Lou used a variety of characters to explore the topic from every conceivable angle – from the bleary, dizzying highs to the grim and sordid lows – without ever quite offering his own personal “take” on the matter along the way.
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Which is one way of looking at it. Some Lou Reed albums are self-contained narratives, but I believe I might have found a five-song suite that, over the course of four albums and ten years, tells a very sad story indeed.
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It's interesting, but over the course of his career, Lou's songs about drinking become increasingly bleak, which makes me think that whilst assessing humanity's relationship with intoxicating liquids, he was, at the same time, battling his own demons.
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Or you could say that this is all about the same man, and that Lou only ever wanted to tell the story of how enjoyment can so easily become dependency, of how life just loves to kick the crutches from underneath you.
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Is this a morality play, a cautionary tale, a form of therapy or the fruit of too much thinking - or too much drinking? In any case, I believe that this is truly the stuff of great art.
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<b>Perfect Day (Transformer, 1972)</b>
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Perhaps his most famous song, thanks to a BBC Children in Need ensemble single and an unforgettable inclusion on the <i>Trainspotting</i> soundtrack. <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_16757_the-9-most-inappropriate-soundtrack-choices-all-time_p2.html">Those who take great joy in sneeringly highlighting the “horrifying undertones” of everything in the world</a> love to point out that <i>Perfect Day</i> might <i>sound</i> nice, but it's actually about heroin, yeah?
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I don't think it is. In the liner notes to the <i>NYC Man</i> collection, Lou himself talks about how <i>Trainspotting</i>, and specifically <i>Perfect Day</i>, served to remind people that he can write nice songs, too. Perfect Day might just be about a perfect day. That it was originally titled “<i>Summer Day</i>” only compounds its blissful, bucolic qualities, and for me one of the most evocative parts of the idyllic picture painted has been the idea of drinking sangria in the park.
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The closing lines of “You're going to reap just what you sow” - is that a suggestion of something much darker, or just a warning about the impending hangover?
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Or maybe the protagonist of <i>Perfect Day</i> is the same guy that appears in all of these songs. What follows is a descent into something really quite nasty. What he's reaping is dependency, and what he'll sow is...well, we'll see.
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I heartily believe that <i>Perfect Day</i> is just a nice song. A nice, lovely, innocent song. It just <i>might</i> point towards something altogether less pleasant.
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<b>The Power of Positive Drinking (Growing Up In Public, 1980)</b>
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This catchy little number comes across as an attack on those self-righteous sorts who'd scorn you for enjoying a drink now and then. The tone's jubilant, and if there's any hint of dependency, it's too subtle for me to spot. However, the narrator's self-assurance could so easily transform into self-delusion.
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“Some say liquor kills the cells in your head / And for that matter so does getting out of bed / When I exit, I'll go out gracefully, shot in my hand.”
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Friend, I'm afraid that's not how it's going to end for you.
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<b>Underneath The Bottle (The Blue Mask, 1982)</b>
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The party didn't last very long. Is the world-weary narrator of <i>Underneath The Bottle</i> an older, sadder version of he who previously enjoyed a <i>Perfect Day</i> before extolling <i>The Power of Positive Drinking</i>? Whilst ruining his liver, he's also ruined his life. Now he sleeps two days a week and he keeps finding mysterious bruises on his body.
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Yes, it's grim and alarming, but backed by one of his most satisfying riffs, it's also as pleasurable as the initial mellow rush of a binge before it starts to hurt.
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<b>The Last Shot (Legendary Hearts, 1983)</b>
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One year and one album later, things are worse than ever for our hapless, sozzled hero. The mysterious bruises have been replaced by blood, which is everywhere – on the dishes in the sink, inside a coffee cup, on the table top...
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<i>The Last Shot</i> deals with what must be the most terrifying thought for all drinkers: That you <i>can't</i> quit any time you want to. Because “when you quit, you quit, but you always wish that you knew it was your last shot.”
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If you knew that it was your last shot, you might have made more of an occasion out of it. You might have savoured it a bit more.
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Soon, though, even the idea of taking pleasure from the booze will be as distant a memory as those heady days of sangria in the park.
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<b>Bottoming Out (Legendary Hearts, 1983)</b>
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Goodness, another one from <i>Legendary Hearts</i>? Is this his booziest album? Perhaps. As a result, we might have here an example of a particularly bleak Lou Reed album, though to even consider the existence of a “particularly bleak Lou Reed album” is a bit like considering the existence of a “particularly wooden tree”.
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Forget <i>The Kids</i>, forget <i>The Bed</i>, forget anything that Caroline ever said, <i>Bottoming Out</i> is a contender for Lou Reed's gloomiest song, especially if you consider it as the end of a downward trajectory that started with <i>Perfect Day</i>.
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The attempts at redemption suggested in <i>The Last Shot</i> have failed. Now our hero has a “violent rage, turned inward,” that “cannot be helped by drink”. Thus we have what must be an even more terrifying prospect for drinkers: The idea that drinking might not always make you feel better. And yet he still needs to drink.
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It ends with our hero “cruising fast on a motorcycle”. “I'm drunk, but my vision's good,” he says, “And I think of my child bride / And on the left in the shadows / I see something that makes me laugh / I am that bike at the fat pothole / Beyond that underpass.”
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I'd drink to his memory, but that might not be in the best taste, all things considered.
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Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-65103772471605352822013-10-28T11:47:00.000-07:002013-10-28T11:47:40.733-07:00Introducing Lou Reed Week
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I believe I'm the only person in this or any universe who prefers the solo material of Lou Reed (and John Cale) over anything by The Velvet Underground.
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My love of both musicians started just like everyone else's, with <i>The Velvet Underground and Nico</i> album. It was my brother's copy, and we listened to it together whilst he read and I played <i>Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix</i>.
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On the whole, I think we were both slightly underwhelmed by that first listen. The liner notes contained excerpts from press reviews of the initial <i>Exploding Plastic Inevitable</i> shows, and there was lots of talk of volume, about how this band produced the loudest noise since the sinking of the Titanic, or something. When the sweet, lilting <i>Sunday Morning</i> drifted into life, we were confused. Lovely, yes, but how could this possible have induced such fervour?
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Of course, many, many, many, many subsequent listens changed my relationship with that album. Nonetheless, I can now pinpoint the exact moment on <i>The Velvet Underground & Nico</i> that sowed the seeds that would grow into obsession. It's the chord change in <i>I'm Waiting For The Man</i>, the bit where Lou sings “<i>Up to Lexington, 125/Feeling sick and dirty, more dead than alive</i>.”
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I can't quite explain how or why, but that chord change was, even on that underwhelmed first listen, stunning. That chord change, and the endorphins it released, I now recognise as the start of something truly special, something that will, I know, keep me hanging on for the rest of my life.
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That must have been in 2002. In 2003, Lou Reed released a double best-of collection entitled <i>NYC Man</i>. In Barcelona, waiting for a flight, my mum let me choose a CD from an airport music shop. I narrowed it down to either <i>NYC Man</i> or Dave Gahan's <i>Paper Monsters</i>.
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I cannot for the life of me remember why I ever considered <i>Paper Monsters</i>, though I was definitely drawn to <i>NYC Man</i> as a result of that chord change (and all the chords, words and drones surrounding it), and this incredibly moving Jools Holland performance:
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(Incidentally, "safe" choices of guests or not, I will always defend Jools Holland's shows simply because they introduced me to Lou Reed, and no amount of boogie-woogie piano solos will ever change that.)
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Needless to say, I chose <i>NYC Man</i>, though I now wonder if life would be any different had I chosen <i>Paper Monsters</i>. Would I now be a Depeche Mode obsessive, or would I have eventually found Lou Reed anyway? It's impossible to say, but my brother once proposed that had I gone down the <i>Paper Monsters</i> route, I might now be sub-managing a branch of Carpet World.
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At the time, summer 2003, I was for some reason enamoured with long songs. So when I put on <i>NYC Man</i> for the first time – shortly after boarding the flight from Barcelona, aged 16 – I immediately skipped to <i>Street Hassle</i>, purely because I saw that it was 11 minutes long.
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So the first time I heard the strings of <i>Street Hassle</i>, along with the sad, brutal and beautiful intonations that I'm now able to recite in full, was during take-off, as we gained altitude, broke through the clouds, and as the lights of Spain grew increasingly distant below us...
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...which might explain why I've always found the music of Lou Reed to be so wonderfully transcendent.
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Of the 31 tracks on <i>NYC Man</i>, only five are Velvet Underground songs. I've always used compilations as springboards for exploring a band or artist's back catalogue, so this alone might explain why I would go on to prefer Lou Reed's solo material to his Velvet Underground work. From the outset, there's been more to explore, more to discover.
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But when it comes to the sort of music I want to hear, the sort of music that connects with me like little else, it's in the solo work of Lou Reed where I find the most joy. I find few sounds more moving, more invigorating, more inspirational than the sound of Lou Reed's voice, effortlessly rattling off a seemingly endless stream of words, accompanied by a stripped down arrangement of twin guitars, bass and drums.
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It's the simplicity that gets me. It's a sort of purity. Lou Reed's music isn't exactly complicated. You can play most any of his songs with just the D and G chords, and it's not like he's ever been a technically astounding powerhouse of a singer. But in these bare-boned compositions you'll find a near-perfect example of just how powerful a force music can be. From these simple components springs alchemy. You don't have to be an academic to appreciate it, and you don't have to be a master to replicate it. In that no other word can come close to describing it, it's magic.
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Which is to say nothing of Lou Reed's voice, which alone seems to render me helpless. When coupled with his truly unique phrasing and inflections, it can be devastating.
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I always thought that, when Lou Reed died, I would find some way to have his knuckles made into cuff links, so that I could literally wear my influence on my sleeves. Now that he's gone, though, I just find myself feeling sad. A little angry, but mostly sad.
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It's nice to see so many nice things being written about Lou Reed. I just wish this outpouring of reverence hadn't been brought about by his death.
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I'd write thousands of words about just what he and his music has meant to me over the years in an impenetrable labyrinth of purple grief, but who'd want to read that?
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On the other hand, I notice that most every obituary and thought-piece is focusing mainly on his Velvet Underground days. With very good reason, of course, as they're inarguably one of the most important and influential group of musicians to ever have gathered.
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Well, you can argue with that notion, but not without coming across as a <a href="http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/sacred-cows-%E2%80%98the-velvet-underground-nico%E2%80%99">smug and complacent twat</a>, the inglorious writer of words you might subsequently disown.
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But to focus on Lou Reed's Velvet Underground material is to focus on five years (or so) in a career that spanned nearly six decades. So instead of moping and eulogising, I'm instead going to spend the next week looking at various aspects of Lou Reed's solo career, his non-Velvet Underground work which, as far as I'm concerned, offers so many more rewards.
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To Lou Reed! Whilst I'd much rather he hadn't died, and whilst my thoughts are with Laurie Anderson (for what it's worth, which is very little indeed), my stance is: <i>How can he be dead when we still have his music?</i>
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I'm going to celebrate his legacy in every way I can.
<br/><br/>Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-23142429017508712852013-10-21T16:33:00.001-07:002013-10-22T04:09:39.099-07:00Profane Grass - I'm Coming Out As A Fan of New Age Music<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_XCo_qxorC64v9_Vs6ecHG0CJ-97Mc1kZJPaHTsPNq3k4u-0QyonVnSmquVweq-vP6Pi6msilKpNVfaJZSeWttTJC9sxrOmkxfUphEHnBKP8CwnUwmNB6AFGXVlQhvdF4siaF2b5S7Vw/s1600/New+Age+Magic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_XCo_qxorC64v9_Vs6ecHG0CJ-97Mc1kZJPaHTsPNq3k4u-0QyonVnSmquVweq-vP6Pi6msilKpNVfaJZSeWttTJC9sxrOmkxfUphEHnBKP8CwnUwmNB6AFGXVlQhvdF4siaF2b5S7Vw/s320/New+Age+Magic.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/introducing-profane-grass-with-mgmt.html">Profane Grass is the exact opposite of a Sacred Cow</a>. A Sacred Cow is something that's so revered as to be generally above criticism in the eyes of all but those who go out of their way to be iconoclastic. Profane Grass is something that all agree is awful, and heaven help he who disagrees.
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Most of the time, I disagree. Heaven help me.
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In terms of art consumption, for the richest, most rewarding and most interesting experience, you should generally accept the existence of Sacred Cows and question the existence of Profane Grass. Embrace Sacred Cows, and the absolute worst that could happen is that you'll find yourself slightly underwhelmed. Reject Profrane Grass, and the absolute worst that could happen is that your prejudices will be confirmed, but having taken the time to sample the water yourself, you'll emerge stronger, more discerning, and more open to new ideas.
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But if you make it your mission to topple the Sacred Cows and openly accept the existence of Profane Grass, well! Who knows what you could be missing?
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I spend more each week on incense than I do on milk. I insist upon sleeping beneath a sizeable dream catcher. My favourite t-shirt, bought in the Green Fields of Glastonbury, depicts a Stonehenge union between the Earth Spirit and the Seed of Man.
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This is the story of how I embraced the New Age spirit, quite by accident, over the course of about a decade.
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I should make it clear. I have very little interest in New Age ideas as religion, philosophy or as a political movement. If you look at the New Age <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_age">Wikipedia entry</a>, you'll find that not only is the movement considered offensive by certain indigenous American cultures, but also that it draws from so many different sources and means so many different things to so many different people that, as an ethos, it must sit somewhere on the scale between “vague” and “meaningless”.
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No disrespect intended to those who base their lives on New Age teachings (who must be some of the nicest people you can meet), but my interest in New Age extends to the imagery and, above all, the music.
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The focus of this piece will be on the music, but a brief word on the imagery. What's not to like about stars, moons, planets, dolphins, rainbows, dragons, wizards, crystals, unicorns and waterfalls? New Age art can hardly be said to be in good taste, but come on. It's brilliant! If I lived alone, my walls would be full of lurid airbrushed and computer generated disasterpieces. Seeing as I live with a young woman with quite impeccable taste and a zero-tolerance policy on dragons, I'm instead limited to certain small corners of the house in which to unleash my inner Zen (or something).
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But New Age Music! As a term, it's become synonymous with the sterile and static Muzak usually associated with elevators, waiting rooms, and those strange CDs with names like “Pan Pipe Reflections” that used to be sold in service stations and gift shops. It's thanks to this misconception that New Age Music might be considered the quintessential Profane Grass. The term is often deployed as a shortcut to describe the sort of music that makes your mind rot and your thoughts stagnate.
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But it's so much more than that. Wikipedia describes New Age Music as “peaceful music of various styles intended to create inspiration, relaxation, and positive feelings while listening”, and I cannot understand how anybody might have a problem with that. Some fascists insist that all music must sound a certain way or perform the same basic function. Evangelical metalheads might insist that, if it's not metal, it's not music. Nosebleed ravers might shirk away from the sort of music that doesn't invite dancing. People with Paul Weller haircuts might decide that only guitar music is “real music”. Also, <a href="http://ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/dancing-about-architecture-part-1-nick.html">Nick Hornby</a>.
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The fact is, music is capable of so much that only the foolish would insist that it must do certain things or sound a certain way. There's plenty of room in the world for music that specifically sets out to be relaxing. Therefore, there's plenty of room in the world for New Age Music.
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But where do you draw the line between New Age Music and, say, ambient music, chillout music, or even some forms of minimalist electronics? This is the the crux of the problem. New Age Music might be used as a derogatory term to describe underwhelming, unadventurous and uninspiring examples of the above. Similarly, musicians might object to the label in fear of the connotations, or they might not wish to imply a connection to the New Age movement.
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Light In The Attic Records are about to release a stunning two disc collection of Private Issue New Age Music recorded between 1950-1990. It's called <a href="http://lightintheattic.net/releases/943-i-am-the-center-private-issue-new-age-music-in-america-1950-1990">I Am The Center</a>, and it sounds incredible. They attempt to recast New Age music as a more mystically-minded branch of outsider music, a “reverberation of psychedelic music”.
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“This is analog, homemade music,” they say, “communicating soul and spirit, often done on limited means snd without commercial potential, self-published and self-distributed.” In short, the compilation attempts to recast New Age Music as “great American folk art”, and why not?
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I'd hate to impose a definition of my own, but perhaps New Age Music could be used as a vague and adaptable means of describing the sort of instrumental music that sets out not just to help you to relax and unwind, but also to meditate; to transcend; to consider that there's a whole world out there, or to invite you to consider the possibility of a higher power.
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When listening to I Am The Center, an immensely varied collection of 20 beautifully moving meditations, I hear roots. It makes me think that New Age Music is so hot right now, darling. The likes of The Orb, The Future Sound of London, Biosphere, Brian Eno and more contemporary explorers such as James Ferraro, Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, Four Tet, Com Truise, Boards of Canada and Pye Corner Audio each owe a substantial depth to these gorgeous meandering instrumentals.
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Of course, critics will pass off the notion that they might sound “a bit New-Agey” as irony, deploying an impenetrable mess of pseudo-academic drivel to “explain” their appreciation. But judge this music on its own merits, and the rewards feel endless. There's a whole world out there, and Constance Demby's Om Manu Padme Hum is one of the most affecting pieces of music I've heard in a very long time. It's like finding an old photograph album, presumed lost, of a trip that changed your life.
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It feels liberating to be able to declare yourself a fan of New Age Music without a single quantum of irony, but how did this happen? How did I evolve into a New Age Music fan?
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Let me count the ways.
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<b>1.</b> I'm a migraine sufferer. They've never been as frequent as they were when I was a child, but they've never been as bad as those I started to get when I first left home and went to university. They were the absolute pits. The usual instinct is to clench your eyes shut, bury your head in a dark room and try to sleep through the worst of it. But these evil migraines actually intensified when I was supine, and somehow got even worse when I shut my eyes.
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To prevent myself from going mad, I used to try and lose myself in music, and my most reliably transcendent album, at the time, was U.F.ORB by The Orb. If New Age Music sets out to take you out from your body and ease your pain, then that's exactly what The Orb used to help me achieve.
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<b>2.</b> I come from a prog family. The surreal photography of Storm Thorgerson and the Hipgnosis crew and the fantastic landscapes of Roger Dean undoubtedly sowed the seeds that would eventually grow into a deep appreciation of New Age art tropes.
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<b>3.</b> I stumbled across a soul-stirring broadcast on Information TV called <a href="http://ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/hungover-moments-of-clarity-with.html">The Landscape Channel</a>. It sets nearly static images of landscape to earthy and relaxing instrumental music. The Landscape Channel is to New Age Music what CBGB is to punk.
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<b>4.</b> Some of the best times of my life have made me associate <a href="http://ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/10-things-i-learned-at-glastonbury-2011.html">The Glastonbury Festival</a> with pure, unbridled happiness. Happiness itself, then, is to be found on the doorstep of the tie-dyed folk, the sort of people who speak of crystals, auras and wood-turning.
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<b>5.</b> I saw a film called <a href="http://ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/2012-film-challenge-31-beyond-minds-eye.html">Beyond The Mind's Eye</a>, a showcase of “state-of-the-art” computer art from the early nineties with a Jan Hammer soundtrack. That film flicked a switch in my brain, kickstarting what will be a lifetime fascination with early computer-generated imagery, much of which, of course, has an undeniably New Age look and feel.
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For the ultimate in Profane Grass, look to New Age Music. Too long has it been a byword for everything that we're supposed to hate, for Mike Oldfield.
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But I can't hear much difference between the more becalmed electronic sounds that have always seemed to be popular and that which is commonly derided as “New Agey”. And I don't think this comparison makes a mockery of low-key electronic music at all. Rather, it puts New Age Music on a plinth that it's been unfairly denied for too long.
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If I were to throw a New Age coming out party, would anyone come?
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Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-73173404371681906832013-10-14T16:22:00.000-07:002013-10-15T00:18:47.955-07:00Flogging A Dead High-Horse - The Increasing Irrelevance of Critics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEKePBEKofJpK72AhErc6pSlrtv02nh5XyegC81Z9pGg_IAvGh2beLSaPEk69TsckOPjEmDg95iXVWF8JbktKW5l1jWyhJMdeIDLVoxqcx6kTQwEackvHknvfviF3VCoJwtYuCmltN-o/s1600/the-critics.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJEKePBEKofJpK72AhErc6pSlrtv02nh5XyegC81Z9pGg_IAvGh2beLSaPEk69TsckOPjEmDg95iXVWF8JbktKW5l1jWyhJMdeIDLVoxqcx6kTQwEackvHknvfviF3VCoJwtYuCmltN-o/s320/the-critics.png" /></a></div>
In one episode from The Simpsons' undisputed golden age, terrible lawyer Lionel Hutz invites Bart to imagine a world without lawyers. What he imagines is a world in which everyone gets along in a blissful harmony so infectious that stereotypical representatives from every conceivable culture cannot help but link arms and smile at each other in a gesture of beatific acceptance.
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Earlier this year, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jul/29/independent-titles-cut-back-arts-coverage">The Independent fired all of their arts critics</a>, which obviously resulted in much furore. But amongst this, in his assessment of Mark Kermode's book about critics, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/09/hatchet-job-mark-kermode-review">Will Self penned a reaction</a> that essentially extends to “Good! We didn't need them anyway”.
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It appears that the role of The Critic in society has never been more hotly contested. The latest development is that Simon Price, an erstwhile Independent arts critic who doubtlessly has an axe to grind, <a href="http://thequietus.com/articles/13597-simon-price-critic-will-self">has written a piece for The Quietus</a> which critiques every conceivable critique of The Critic whilst arguing, once and for all, that The Critic is an essential part of any society.
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To re-read the disaster that was the preceding sentence is all it takes to appreciate how much of a mess this situation is. Simon Price's argument is neatly summed up in a gobbet that probably took him months to hone. “A world with uncriticised art,” he concludes, “gets the art it deserves.”
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I don't usually swear on this blog, because <a href="http://www.collapseboard.com/">certain</a> <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_uk">resources</a> have convinced me that some modern writers use profanities as a lazy shortcut to come across as “edgy” or “passionate”. But in response to Simon Price's conclusion that “a world without uncriticised art gets the art is deserves”? <i>Does it fuck.</i>
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Or to put it mildly: prove it.
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This is one of the closing paragraphs from Simon Price's piece:
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<i><blockquote>“Historically, criticism has also had a crucial role in honing and refining the art it describes. An ongoing dialogue existed between critic and artist, even if the latter was invariably loath to admit it. To put it bluntly, in the past, bands knew they could not get away with releasing the same lazy shit over and over without someone calling them on it. Furthermore, by championing uncommercial but innovative music, critics have often pointed to the art's next step forward in a way which the industry could not... If critics are taken out of the equation, and bad art goes unchallenged, ask yourself: who wins? Follow the money for the answer. It won't be the readers. It won't be the art. Only the major entertainment corporations.”</blockquote></i>
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It seems that, in the past, if a blogger without influence has taken exception to a comparatively influential piece of writing, then they'll take it upon themselves to tear apart the offending piece on a line by line basis. Seeing as such hatchet jobs often come across as unbearably sanctimonious (and that's coming from me), rather than picking apart Price's argument one line at a time, I'll instead respond with a simple “Citation Needed”.
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Throughout Price's article, there's not a single example of an instance where a critic has influenced, positively or negatively, the prevailing artistic trends. There's a very good reason for this: We just don't know what course art would take without the snivelling intervention of critics.
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This is largely because the role of The Critic has only ever been jeopardised by the emergence of The Internet, and The Internet has only been so widespread as to pose a threat for the past decade or so. So if you're to take Price's arguments at face value, it's only in the past ten years that the world has received “the art it deserves”.
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And has the past decade been a windswept artistic wasteland in which only “the major entertainment corporations” have been allowed to flourish? I hate to resort, once more, to swearing, but <i>has it fuck</i>.
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Price invites us to imagine a world without critics, and implies that he and his kind are the last bastion of resistance against an onslaught of mediocrity. This idea is pathetic and more than a little insulting.
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I'd be tempted to argue that a world without critics would be a lot like Lionel Hutz's world without lawyers – a peaceful utopia in which all are free to follow their own paths. More likely though, especially in this age of the internet, a world without critics would be absolutely indistinguishable from our own.
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Critics have always vastly overrated their importance. How often have you read about “alternative universes” or “just worlds”, in which this week's obscure gem was more popular than Titanic or Coldplay? If critics were truly so instrumental in repelling the forces of “bad art” as Price believes them to be, then critics would never need to paint imaginary worlds in which all is well, and nobody watches the wrong films or listens to the wrong music.
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Thanks to the internet, everybody has access to everything all of the time. In this landscape, critics can either mutate or die. They must accept that they're no longer tastemakers or arbiters of the good and the bad (as if they ever were). Instead, they must realise that they're essentially competing on the same level as bloggers. Granted, they might have more experience, and they certainly have bigger platforms, but they must no longer assume that they somehow know more or know better than anyone else. This notion could only ever be based on the assumption that a critic has simply heard more, seen more or read more than a layperson. But now that everybody's got internet access, the playing field has been significantly levelled. Critics have lost their edge.
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Are they therefore to fade into obscurity? Not at all. Price laments that publications have become little more than “Which CD?” guides, but this is a predictable response from a self-styled fallen god. I sway more towards Will Self's assessment:
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<i><blockquote>“Now we have instant access to an unparalleled library of films, books and recordings, we are wallowing about, really, in an atemporal zone of cultural production: none of us have the time... to view all the films, read all the texts, and listen to all the music that we can access, wholly gratis and right away. Under such conditions the role of the critic becomes not to help us to discriminate between "better" and "worse" or "higher" and "lower" monetised cultural forms, but only to tell us if our precious time will be wasted – and for this task the group amateur mind is indeed far more effective than the unitary perception of an individual critic.”</blockquote></i>
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People blog because they really, really like music, films, television, books or comics. Furthermore they're confident and articulate enough to express their passion in writing, and so skilled are they with the written word that their passion can be infectious, even inspirational.
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Critics must accept – gracefully – that they've never been anything more than particularly popular bloggers, or impressively articulate fans. They must peacefully abandon their delusions of grandeur and quit their presumed roles as gatekeepers. There has always been a tide of “bad art”, but even without their guidance, people are really quite good at sourcing more appealing waters, thank you very much.
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It might be the case that there has never been a better time to be a fan of music. We have unprecedented access to everything that's ever been created, but even better, it's never been so easy to create and distribute art of your own.
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If anything, the death of critics has been accompanied not by a corresponding drought of good art so much as a tsunami. When there's a greater danger of drowning in good art than there is in never finding any in the first place, what's the use of critics, with their hatchet jobs and their gleeful slaughtering of sacred cows? I've said it before and I'll say it again: <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/introducing-profane-grass-with-mgmt.html">Life's too short to dwell on things you don't enjoy</a>.
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Liberated from their self-imposed responsibilities as guardians of taste, critics now have a brilliant opportunity to use their platforms, their talents, their influence and their knowledge for good. Rather than assuming the last word in any matters of opinion, critics can now lead and join debate. Music writing is no longer a tablet, handed down from the clouds. It's now a dialogue. True, some voices might still come to the fore, but they'll do so not because their ideas are inherently superior. Perhaps they'll just be better at expressing themselves.
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But what of the “bad art” that Price cannot stand to go uncriticised? Ignore it. It won't go away, but consider how much better the good art looks in comparison.
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The internet has knocked the loftiest of critics from their pedestals. When they rise, rubbing their foreheads, they can either accept that the world has changed and so must they, or they can languish miserably in the snarky and sneering world they once knew.
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But where does that lead us? <a href="http://thequietus.com/articles/13597-simon-price-critic-will-self">Bitter axe-grinding</a>. <a href="http://thequietus.com/articles/13500-music-golden-age-60s-beatles-dylan-balls">Sanctimonious think-pieces</a>. <a href="http://www.tinymixtapes.com/">Pseudo-academic non-reviews</a> and, worst of all, <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7498-cobra-and-phases-group-play-voltage-in-the-milky-night/">odious “concept reviews”</a>.
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It seems that this is what you get when you write from a position of assumed superiority. Yet just as we can ignore bad art, we can also ignore bad music writing. And you will know bad music writing when its written by someone who describes themselves, with glowing pride, as a Critic.
<br/><br/>Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-39603552218119172852013-09-25T16:50:00.000-07:002013-09-25T16:50:02.527-07:00Introducing PROFANE GRASS - With MGMT!<br />
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<b>I find myself inherently distrustful of critical and popular consensus.</b><br /><br />Don't get me wrong, there are things out there that receive huge amounts of praise because they deserve huge amounts of praise, just as there are things that receive huge amounts of criticism because they deserve huge amounts of criticism. <br /><br />However, whilst I'm fine with the existence of sacred cows, I'm somehow less accepting of whatever the opposite of a sacred cow might be. Profane Grass? <br /><br />This is almost certainly hypocritical, but let me explain my position a little. It can certainly be fun, invigorating and beneficial to reappraise a sacred cow, but for me, it just feels like life's too short for such behaviour. Why put so much effort into arguing that people are, for whatever reason, “wrong” to like something? <br /><br />But the exact opposite behaviour – defending the Profane Grass – that's very much my bag, baby. This is the first of a (hopefully) regular feature in which I'll take something that seems generally agreed to be awful, and I'll tell you why you're wrong! <br /><br />Science is on my side! <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments">Popular Science Magazine have just disabled comments on their website</a>. They did this because it's been discovered that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/this-story-stinks.html?_r=1&">negativity can erode the popular consensus</a>. Of course, they're talking about things that actually matter – such as evolution and climate change – whereas I concern myself with books, films, music. <br /><br />But I couldn't help but wonder. If the public opinion of scientific theory could be swayed by overwhelming negativity, could the same apply to art? <br /><br />Probably not. But it's food for thought. What if there are things out there – things that are generally considered to be “awful” - that are actually really good? What if Profane Grass only exists not because people have genuinely taken the time to make such an assessment based upon immersion and independent thought, but because people have found their minds to be swayed by overarching negativity? <br /><br />Right now I'm practising bad science. However, defending the indefensible is fun and good for your soul. I'm reluctant to believe that there's anything out there that's genuinely devoid of worth. If the sign of a discerning critic is to slaughter a sacred cow, then surely he who venerates the Profane Grass must have God on their side.<br /><br />I hope to cover many, many acres of Profane Grass, but I'm just so busy these days that I might not. Still, nobody's going to die if I neglect this place for long periods of time.<br /><br />As an introduction, though, know that the new MGMT album isn't nearly as bad as most everyone says it is. In fact, it's really rather good.<br /><br />
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<br /><br />I know it's been out for less than a fortnight, but I'm really good at recognising lazy criticism these days, and Those Who Know Better Than All Of Us About These Things have already declared this one to be a “failure”. But why? Well, if you read pretty much every review that's been written, you'll read the same narrative again and again.<br /><br />Critics love a good narrative, and MGMT's is too tasty to resist. A band has two phenomenally successful earworms before dedicating themselves to meandering psychedelica? Hold me back! Hold me back!<br /><br />Chart success, of course, is only ever treated as an important indicator of quality when it can be used as a weapon. That MGMT probably won't write a song as universally appealing as Kids or Time To Pretend ever again doesn't make them a failure of a band. Nobody's ever argued that cult appeal is a bad thing. Except, of course, where the Profane Grass grows.<br /><br />MGMT (the album's eponymous – also apparently a bad thing) is a dense, dazed, queasy and meandering album. Many reviews have argued that it's devoid of melody, thereby proving that there are music critics out there who don't know what a melody is. The AV Club went as far as to declare that MGMT doesn't have any music on it. There goes that bookmark. How can anyone trust the judgement of a site that apparently doesn't even know what “music” is?<br /><br />Essentially, the music of MGMT has been compared unfavourably to the second half of their first album, to the entirety of their second album and, most egregiously, to the music of the Animal Collective. So where do you stand if your appreciation of MGMT extends beyond their two megahits? More importantly, where do you stand if you recognise Animal Collective as part of the holy trinity of bands who serve to give your life meaning?<br /><br />Detractors of MGMT (the album and the band) seem to think that people are still showing up expecting immediately appealing synthpop. Some people almost certainly are. But what about those with different expectations? What about those who have endless time – ridiculously late nights – to dedicate to sprawling fuzzy psychedelic jams? What about those who want their music to sound like a melted Beach Boys CD, or the aural equivalent of a drunken stupor on a hot afternoon? Do the opinions of these people not count?<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1kdedKuzcKA?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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It's absolutely fine for those who dig nothing of MGMT beyond those songs to dislike their more outlandish side - which, having overpowered their “accessible” side since day one, can be said to be their modus operandi. However, you must never, ever, <i>ever</i> let anybody tell you that you're "wrong" to like this album. <br /><br />This dense music takes time to absorb, to inhabit, to explore. There are melodies here – beautiful sundrenched melodies, happily floating in space – and they're not even buried that deeply. And these songs might, on a first listen, sound aimless, but in time tight and hypnotic grooves begin to reveal themselves. Put simply, these aren't the random sound collages the critics would have us believe. They're positively laden with hooks, and if you allow yourself to be snagged, you will be snagged. <br /><br />But before you're snagged, you must free your mind and allow it to drift. I recommend tea, incense, solitude and incense. It's that sort of album. <br /><br />MGMT might not be an example of Profane Grass. It's only been out for a fortnight, after all, and reappraisals might be made by one and all once these grooves become more ingrained. The signs don't look good, though, and I fear that we might have to wait until the critics are unleashed upon their next album before it's begrudgingly acknowledged that MGMT wasn't <i>that</i> bad.<br /><br />Until then, though, I will proudly fight for MGMT's corner. I'm going to tend to this Profane Grass, give it the love it deserves, because there's a huge hole in my life that's filled quite perfectly by music of this nature, thanks.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-54985802888345102032013-08-27T16:45:00.001-07:002013-08-27T16:45:38.560-07:00My Ten Favourite TumblrsBeing an aggregator of both links and images, Tumblr is definitely the most addictive of all the various social media platforms. You can lose hours there, just looking.<br /><br />I think I might one day start a Tumblr of my own. But honestly, what would I post? So instead, I would like to share my ten favourite Tumblrs. <br /><br />These I find to be consistently interesting. They all make me feel as though I should get out more. Or perhaps they instead suggest that I should stay in more, so that I can spend more time looking at things. <br /><br />And it must be pointed out that each image linked here is for illustrative purposes only. I don't own the rights to any of them and I will remove them if anyone asks me to/looks at me funny/threatens me with legal action.<br /><br /><br /><b><br /> </b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCsRVVGEguZ3WR3jETjC7K-3fXz6Qh6h7BIJvcrDe4O8UKMajHzhIVMAakVqe3gQ-Vuk0WzgFx6dDa21PcJZMDy5rp8oKaGae3ze-ueUw1n8wSSX6CCc2kIG2m79LjLAbEZfG6oX5nJG8/s1600/Screenshots+of+Despair.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCsRVVGEguZ3WR3jETjC7K-3fXz6Qh6h7BIJvcrDe4O8UKMajHzhIVMAakVqe3gQ-Vuk0WzgFx6dDa21PcJZMDy5rp8oKaGae3ze-ueUw1n8wSSX6CCc2kIG2m79LjLAbEZfG6oX5nJG8/s1600/Screenshots+of+Despair.jpg" /></a></div>
<b><a href="http://screenshotsofdespair.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Screenshots of Despair</a></b><br /><br />Is there a term for the inhuman yet strangely miserable sentences generated automatically by computer programmes? Screenshots of Despair seeks out the best of them. Douglas Coupland and William Gibson probably have this one open in a tab at all times.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdT748L5mcG7mS_sA05qQ4ScYhKWx2PMv-hboHZ6NS72NXZnq6Sly1pipDGJjOFxNFlziIxjdqJSr5p0jL0KV_uX19nqZ5dZ3C7YqXUJJXBpAcTpD-35XRU0I74uDQlFIIT_vKv0sxJd0/s1600/NatGeoFound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdT748L5mcG7mS_sA05qQ4ScYhKWx2PMv-hboHZ6NS72NXZnq6Sly1pipDGJjOFxNFlziIxjdqJSr5p0jL0KV_uX19nqZ5dZ3C7YqXUJJXBpAcTpD-35XRU0I74uDQlFIIT_vKv0sxJd0/s320/NatGeoFound.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://natgeofound.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">National Geographic Found</a><br /><br />A collection of horizon-expanding photographs from the length and breadth of time and space as we know it. Spellbinding.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPDv0cnfuoYPgw-CVzUbobGhe-XI_Jr6UA_QXQCO9pqGpE1Sobm0xw21DyoEn4A1rlzpeGV7zJWWagRD-k3L7PxfPmqkUf0s_vzbj3WZW04JNZoaiy5hej4K7CZzYeXnXq-hoUv1RRTw/s1600/Uncertain+Times.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPDv0cnfuoYPgw-CVzUbobGhe-XI_Jr6UA_QXQCO9pqGpE1Sobm0xw21DyoEn4A1rlzpeGV7zJWWagRD-k3L7PxfPmqkUf0s_vzbj3WZW04JNZoaiy5hej4K7CZzYeXnXq-hoUv1RRTw/s320/Uncertain+Times.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://uncertaintimes.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Uncertain Times</b></a><br /><br />Like QI but without the smug self-satisfaction. Evidently run by a historian and a scholar, this one's a collection of curios, artefacts and photographs. Above is A Map of Nowhere Showing Everything. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzE1r6xSwFOlT6Pfe0v-8GNLHEkJlPIcTLmA5V9SKh_32i-TchrKcHlZu9_s6Ymy0bGZb1dfiEkQkvKAozSCbkVIR_zuJ5HXBqu0LntvWLrCD0ifVrOy4q3I6Kc6CMfmRYOtdOKLv1u_o/s1600/1987.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzE1r6xSwFOlT6Pfe0v-8GNLHEkJlPIcTLmA5V9SKh_32i-TchrKcHlZu9_s6Ymy0bGZb1dfiEkQkvKAozSCbkVIR_zuJ5HXBqu0LntvWLrCD0ifVrOy4q3I6Kc6CMfmRYOtdOKLv1u_o/s1600/1987.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://cheaptime.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Wild Planet</b></a><br /><br />A hideous/enthralling mess of images and gifs that will strike a chord with anyone born circa 1987. James Ferraro probably has this one open in a tab at all times.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsozB6Ucv107aennqPzdLSMul9D9hOSFKzzus5u1srMgpttXlVlMNAG8OuAanu6E7HrU3T9RiZHAYbkFQ1PTvm1Eu16gjHzrP1POVniJp8w_jK6izH2iVD_RiLIC9pXfoKE7UYk1qgdx8/s1600/WWWTXT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsozB6Ucv107aennqPzdLSMul9D9hOSFKzzus5u1srMgpttXlVlMNAG8OuAanu6E7HrU3T9RiZHAYbkFQ1PTvm1Eu16gjHzrP1POVniJp8w_jK6izH2iVD_RiLIC9pXfoKE7UYk1qgdx8/s320/WWWTXT.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
<a href="http://wwwtxt.org/tagged/img" target="_blank"><b>WWWTXT</b></a><br /><br />Revisiting the early internet! Images from when the internet promised everything and was yet to fail us. (1980 - 94)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD6PiNpRWjdHuIvTS7bn5AwPy3ADLiIXcyH-2ZNjz3dcKnX7VAdJsg-UIv_7Eo_CAR8hP8pC4qjNKuFN2KGvjR00wqijYPtHXlv24Yeo0QX_mepK-bpmgoI82ZysWCeq5r9Ny8LkZMxzA/s1600/Gigs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD6PiNpRWjdHuIvTS7bn5AwPy3ADLiIXcyH-2ZNjz3dcKnX7VAdJsg-UIv_7Eo_CAR8hP8pC4qjNKuFN2KGvjR00wqijYPtHXlv24Yeo0QX_mepK-bpmgoI82ZysWCeq5r9Ny8LkZMxzA/s320/Gigs.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
<a href="http://ihavenorecollectionofthis.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Gigs</b></a><br /><br />It's amazing how much time you can spend looking at pictures of people playing music.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqM4_Eyhfri3ALIVAeKwtO9W1Y-l7sMGg2eeXRinikPNXHggLSdgHTsyTWGpClqX4qsBFKCq2MZztzA0lF0Ue20-BvQvQo0OQ2DWlcaUS43__zrMiNSCMsBGQv-zGPhamvxNKPsetVdVk/s1600/Stanley+Donwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqM4_Eyhfri3ALIVAeKwtO9W1Y-l7sMGg2eeXRinikPNXHggLSdgHTsyTWGpClqX4qsBFKCq2MZztzA0lF0Ue20-BvQvQo0OQ2DWlcaUS43__zrMiNSCMsBGQv-zGPhamvxNKPsetVdVk/s320/Stanley+Donwood.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://whathaveyoudonetomyface.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Untitled</b></a><br /><br />This is Stanley Donwood's Tumblr! Radiohead artwork in alternative forms or as works in progress!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtM0MC4dwTlgpcoQx5hwxj9F4UaQP7Pq3rpYMEsEvOoa0weUl8aJtH0SpL2l7Q1mcvt7SXWsOXkwYZCPzozCNG7IQqXdRA8iSoGb3Nrf-thZGRDfEJEE76bGw67JzUjCMdVNeGV9_yXp4/s1600/Shot+By+Shot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtM0MC4dwTlgpcoQx5hwxj9F4UaQP7Pq3rpYMEsEvOoa0weUl8aJtH0SpL2l7Q1mcvt7SXWsOXkwYZCPzozCNG7IQqXdRA8iSoGb3Nrf-thZGRDfEJEE76bGw67JzUjCMdVNeGV9_yXp4/s320/Shot+By+Shot.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://shotbyshotfilm.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Shot By Shot</b></a><br /><br />“A celebration of beautiful cinematography.”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTVOoks8hop-XzYLvgVVivgp8uJWXUWhRh2AYyz2iMaP1etSRM6CN3Nz1aRy0mYhEthQ8zyhGcAhq1GHV81U0LCxDfTo9kRT499YREp2GBwL-JFX_ho2kOGQmokR6WG-6RdVqKPSKwko/s1600/Midnight+Mushrumps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTVOoks8hop-XzYLvgVVivgp8uJWXUWhRh2AYyz2iMaP1etSRM6CN3Nz1aRy0mYhEthQ8zyhGcAhq1GHV81U0LCxDfTo9kRT499YREp2GBwL-JFX_ho2kOGQmokR6WG-6RdVqKPSKwko/s1600/Midnight+Mushrumps.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://midnightmushrumps.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Midnight Mushrumps</b></a><br /><br />An immensely colourful and seemingly endless collection of images drawn from the worlds of sci-fi, fantasy and prog rock. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8odXv1oyCO0EK0UtoryqPuim9rkYXWpu3RTUqXQ353YPejdQ6jYYDJT5DB_q0BFzp1aTEzKvvQuD1FTHViDM3OrRlK2uI08OrvE7G_XZ78YQ_TskCUXflN44Nc3JO_Sbcx46-HRBCPc/s1600/Bumpkin+Agency.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8odXv1oyCO0EK0UtoryqPuim9rkYXWpu3RTUqXQ353YPejdQ6jYYDJT5DB_q0BFzp1aTEzKvvQuD1FTHViDM3OrRlK2uI08OrvE7G_XZ78YQ_TskCUXflN44Nc3JO_Sbcx46-HRBCPc/s320/Bumpkin+Agency.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://bumpkinagency.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Bumpkin Agency</b></a><br /><br />Actually, do not, under any circumstances, go here. A disturbing and consistently nauseating stream of toys, food, comics, cartoons and some things that are best left unmentioned. For a bit of horrible fun, spend two hours listening to latter day Scott Walker whilst trawling through this atrocity exhibition. Then see what happens when you attempt fiction.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-84201877290883057172013-06-11T03:11:00.000-07:002013-06-11T07:27:17.533-07:00First Listen - Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest <br />
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I've said before how much I dislike doing things for the first time. Reading books is fine, and watching plays, but when it comes to films and albums, your first impressions are to be distrusted at all costs. Your first exposure to something is an experience to get out of the way as soon as possible. Only once it's been overcome and your mind's free of preconception and prejudice can you truly appreciate what's there to be appreciated.<br />
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First listens are problematic enough when it's an album by The National or My Bloody Valentine, but when it's your very favourite band? How are you supposed to approach something so weighty?<br />
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One of two ways. Either you make the circumstances as informal and off-hand as possible or you go to great lengths to make things special and memorable. Having pre-ordered it the night it was announced, I had always assumed that my first listen to Tomorrow's Harvest – the new Boards of Canada – would be on headphones, in the dark, on vinyl. Yeah. I'm one of them.<br />
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I'd completely forgotten, though, that my vinyl pre-order also came with an MP3 download code. And last night I found myself alone in the dark, a little drunk, a bit sad and quite scared. Perfect circumstances, I thought, to listen to Tomorrow's Harvest for the first time.<br />
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But it seems I was more drunk than I previously thought. Because I woke up this morning with no recollection of having listened to the album. However, I find that I'd posted a stream of hysterical messages on Twitter, along with a series of images sourced from lord knows where.<br />
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Looking at those messages and images this morning, I realise two things. First of all, that I must have had rather a lot of wine last night. Second of all, that I must listen to Tomorrow's Harvest again as soon as possible.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“62 minutes and I'm in love with life again (if a little terrified of the future)”</blockquote>
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“IT'S THAT GOOD. IT'S FUTURE FEAR AND PAST YEARNING UNITED IN PRESENT BALM”</blockquote>
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“Hey, Boards of Canada? You make EVERYTHING seem OK. I need you. As it happens. Who knew?”</blockquote>
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Oh lord. This is already filling the hole only partially filled by Pye Audio Corner and Ghost Box over the past 8 years.”<br />
<br />
“NO MUSIC HAS EVER BEEN OR WILL EVER BE BETTER ARGH I'VE MISSED THEM SO MUCH”<br />
<br />
“THIS IS WHY MY DREAMS HAVE BEEN SO MONOCHROMATIC FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS DON'T LEAVE ME AGAIN”</blockquote>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
That, evidently, is how you handle first listens. It turns out you have to be drunk and it has to be dark.<br />
<br />Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-18550319414082486332013-05-12T16:24:00.000-07:002013-05-12T16:27:17.787-07:00Post-Rock - Then What? Bill Drummond Says...<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/O15y77SNgA8" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
Some ten years ago Bill Drummond – a pretentious stain who's successfully post-moderned himself into almost total obscurity – did something utterly unforgivable. He took his midlife crisis and attempted to turn it into an art movement.<br />
<br />
Upon realising that he didn't like music as much as he used to, he transformed what was most likely a dopamine release failure into a much wider “problem” with music itself and attempted to instigate an international day of “no music”.<br />
<br />
He <a href="http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2013/05/sixty-bill-drummond/#more-24076" target="_blank">wrote</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“All recorded music has run its course.<br />
It has all been consumed, traded, downloaded,<br />
understood, heard before, sampled, learned,<br />
revived, judged and found wanting.<br />
Dispense with all previous forms of music and<br />
music-making and start again.<br />
Year zero now.”</blockquote>
<br />
And, with all due respect, the moment I read that I immediately lost all respect I could ever have harboured for Mr. Drummond. What a tedious embarrassment of a piss-artist.<br />
<br />
Anyway, Mr. Drummond just turned 60, and he spent 17 hours of his sixtieth birthday stood on a manhole cover at the bottom of Liverpool's Matthew Street (because he's Bill Drummond). It turns out that he's been training a choir, and he didn't want to unleash it upon the world before turning 60 (because he's <i>Bill Drummond</i>).<br />
<br />
In his words:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“People who have ever had any success within popular music (which I guess includes me) should never think their success gives them the right to do other art forms. The history of pop being littered with examples of highly regarded musicians who then go and embarrass themselves and compromise their achievements by attempting to mount exhibitions, publish novels, compose concertos, or even save the world. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<br />
"I did not want to be one of those.”</blockquote>
<br />
If his ethics make doing anything such an immense problem, surely he'd be much happier not doing anything at all? I for one would applaud his quiet retirement, so long as it was as quiet as it could possibly be. Silent, even.<br />
<br />
But this is interesting. To quote Carrie Bradshaw, I got to thinking...<br />
<br />
Specifically, I got to thinking about the subsequent careers of those “who have ever had any success with popular music”. It's fascinating, isn't it? If you've spent a significant portion of your young life playing chords, singing songs and giving interviews, what then?<br />
<br />
I'm always keen to find out.<br />
<br />
I once read that an ex Boo Radley now teaches IT, and that someone from The Thrills is now quite a whiz at LinkedIn. <br />
<br />
And whilst those two fates are, in themselves, quite interesting, I have a couple of case studies which I find to be almost inspirational. As in, despite what Bill Drummond insists, creative minds need not be consigned to a single medium. Everyone's got a “right” to do whatever they want with their lives – not just “other art forms”, <i>Bill</i>.<br />
<br />
For starters (and, you'll soon see, that that was a very clever pun), let's look at Sam Herlihy.<br />
<br />
Sam used to sing and play in The Hope of the States. Now he writes about food. <a href="http://www.pidginfood.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Sam Herlihy is a food writer</a>. I don't read many food writers, but I don't think I've ever read better.<br />
<br />
Sam Herlihy can write. His lyrics for The Hope Of The States could tend to be a bit overwrought, but Jesus Christ, his food writing's incredible. It's tangled, rambling, caustic and utterly delicious. It's like haggis served atop a bed of green spaghetti washed down by cheap wine that tastes expensive.<br />
<br />
Some choice excerpts:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Quorn is to food what Japanese-porn is to porn; weird, the best bits blocked out, really grim and miserable.”</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“I have been forced to change my cooking style. Out with my usual spicy Asian Szechuan hipster fatty nonsense and in with plainer food. More simple food? No, I can still render our kitchen as downtown Nagasaki if a fridge had exploded instead of an atom bomb. Quicker food? Nope, I can still take four hours over the cooking. Nicer food? Nah, it’s not my world this butter and potato and rosemary planet. My food is trying to be ‘Bladerunner’ and Raiden from ‘Mortal Kombat’ and this stuff is all period drama Keira Knightly and Mr Darcy britches or something.”</blockquote>
<br />
Not only do I want to eat that man's food, I want to listen to him – all night – talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Having read just one of his articles, Sam Herlihy instantly leapt to the top of my fantasy dinner party guestlist. He's not only the guest of honour, though. He's now also the chef.<br />
<br />
What makes his writing so compelling is its very groundlessness. His tangents, his anecdotes, his crazy ideas and the impression you get – probably accurate – that he's writing this in one sitting and has something of a cavalier attitude towards editing. <br />
<br />
He's apparently burning up with bitterness and resentment (<a href="http://pidginfood.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/what-is-up-doctor/" target="_blank">he doesn't have a lot of nice things to say about Morrissey</a>, for example), but never is his writing more engrossing than when he hates on himself. <a href="http://pidginfood.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/the-egyptians-and-self-loathing/" target="_blank">This one</a>, where he talks about finding his first ever restaurant review, is priceless.<br />
<br />
But it's never more fascinating than when he veers wildly from the topic of food to talk about what must be his deepest passion – music. <a href="http://pidginfood.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/sweet-technique/" target="_blank">This one</a>, on the discrepancy between skill and technique, is truly one of the finest, most compelling pieces of music writing I've ever read.<br />
<br />
So that's Sam Herlihy. The Hope Of The States were brilliant, but I do believe that in food writing he may have found his true calling. Take that, <i>Bill</i>.<br />
<br />
And then comes Crispian Mills. It may not be wholly accurate to talk about his latest endeavours as a “post” musical career, as Kula Shaker still seem to be an ongoing concern, having released an album as recently as 2010. But again, as much as I enjoy Kula Shaker, I do believe that Crispian Mills was always supposed to be a writer/director.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kk85_E4XUPM" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
His debut film is <i>A Fantastic Fear of Everything</i>. It didn't appear to make much of an impact upon release, but having just watched it, I believe it to have all the trappings of a future cult-classic.<br />
<br />
It's a strange film set in a strange world. Like the films of Wes Anderson, it's not exactly a period piece, but nothing's new. This is a terrifyingly oppressive world in which bookshelves turn into skulls, launderettes are the scariest places imaginable and you're still allowed to smoke in restaurants. Everybody's dressed like it's the 70s and they listen to gangsta rap on cassette.<br />
<br />
Simon Pegg plays Jack, an accidental children's author with a carving knife glued to his hand. He's driven himself to the point of insanity through researching Victorian serial killers, and his life becomes unbearable when he learns that he'll have to visit a launderette.<br />
<br />
Jack is like a cross between Withnail and I, and it therefore comes as no surprise that the film's based on a Bruce Robinson short story. But what's truly remarkable was the look and feel of the film. Crispian Mills, responsible for such lyrics as “you're a wizard in a blizzard”, directs like Edgar Wright and Michel Gondry collaborating on an episode of <i>Psychoville</i>. It's unhinged, hysterically stylised and absolutely beautiful to look at. Best of all, though, are the periodic forays into stop motion animation by co-director Chris Hopewell (who was responsible for Radiohead's <a href="http://youtu.be/5u8lglJ5h1I" target="_blank"><i>There There</i></a> video).<br />
<br />
<i>A Fantastic Fear of Everything</i> is one of those films that's “not for everyone” (but what film is?), but it left an indelible mark on me. I won't stop thinking about this film for some time. It's imperfectly structured and, at times, somewhat clumsy in its execution, but credit where it's due - this <i>is </i>a directorial debut. I'm just...stunned that the man who wrote <i>Govinda </i>should go on to create a film that pays tribute to both Michael Mann and <a href="http://youtu.be/oW0jvJC2rvM" target="_blank"><i>The Hedgehog in the Fog</i></a>. Incredible.<br />
<br />
Bill Drummond wouldn't like <i>A Fantastic Fear of Everything</i>, and he'd probably find Sam Herlihy's writing a little tough to swallow. But then, Bill Drummond doesn't actually like <i>anything </i>(because he's Bill Drummond).<br />
<br />
Personally, I find it quite wonderful that these two musicians (who were, in the grand scheme of things, “also rans”) should have avoided disappearing completely. That their subsequent work is, in some ways, a lot more appealing than their music perhaps ever was should be a real “egg on the face” moment for old Bill.<br />
<br />
I hope for similar changes in direction for all of the stars of Britpop and its immediate aftermath. Maybe Shed Seven could open a holiday camp!Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-1321403441575496862013-05-01T13:20:00.001-07:002013-05-01T13:20:48.280-07:00There's No Messing With Doris Lessing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I'm not likely to ever appear on Desert Island Discs, but of the three things they ask of you – seven records, one book and one luxury item – I think I'd have the greatest difficulty in deciding upon a single book to satisfy me for the rest of my days.
<br />
<br />
Doris Lessing's <i>The Golden Notebook</i> is exactly the sort of book to which you could dedicate a few lifetimes and still uncover fresh layers on subsequent reads.
<br />
<br />
Yes, this book is layered. But it's not layered like an onion – neat, even and stacked – it's layered like a scrunched up ball of paper – violent, overlapping and chaotic. Less than 100 pages in I understood that this – my initial reading – wouldn't be enough. Having finished it this afternoon I was gasping for breath. It's now been added to a pile – alongside James Joyce's <i>Ulysses </i>– of books that I'll need to read again at some point.
<br />
<br />
And that pile could act as a shortlist for the sort of books that I could happily take to a desert island, though I doubt that even a few decades in the sun would be enough to uncover all that could be uncovered. These aren't Desert Island Books. They're Eternity Books. Afterlife Books.
<br />
<br />
Like everything written at any point before today, <i>The Golden Notebook</i> is, in parts, a little dated. It's also utterly, horribly overwhelming. It's about so many things that it would be disingenuous to say that it's “about” any one thing, but it can be broadly summed up as an exhaustive exploration – in extreme close-up – of one woman's nervous breakdown, one thought at a time – over 576 demanding pages.
<br />
<br />
And in detailing this descent, it touches on so many themes that reading <i>The Golden Notebook</i> is like simultaneously reading five heavy novels at once in the back row of a particularly demanding socio-economic lecture.
<br />
<br />
Art, literature, identity, humanity, creativity, motherhood, communism, race, sex, gender, betrayal, writer's block – you can't describe this book without sounding like <a href="http://therumpus.net/2013/04/swinging-modern-sounds-44-and-another-day/" target="_blank">David Bowie describing his latest album</a>.
<br />
<br />
I was very, very pleased to finish, because every single second spent with <i>The Golden Notebook </i>eventually felt unbearably heavy – just like, I imagine, would every single second spent with depression. I'm glad to have come out from the other side, but I don't regret, for one second, having picked up the book in the first place. Maybe I'll return to <i>The Golden Notebook</i> when I've more time on my hands, more experience under my belt and no tempting pristine copy of Gertrude Stein's <i>Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</i> – freshly donated by a friend. But until then, I feel drained.
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
But what a wonderful, indispensable draining experience it was. Because Doris Lessing! This was my first exposure to Doris Lessing, but even if I just had the text of <i>The Golden Notebook</i> to go on, I'd already have enough evidence to suggest that even a word as magnificent as “genius” doesn't even begin to describe her.
<br />
<br />
Because bookending <i>The Golden Notebook</i> was an preface from Lessing – recently written – and an interview. On this initial exposure, I took much more from her non-fiction than I did her fiction, simply because her words and her ideas are nothing short of inspirational – perhaps even life-affirming.
<br />
<br />
I've been thinking a lot, recently, about the position of critics in our society. Do we need them at all? Probably not. But Lessing puts their role – their responsibilities – in a most intriguing light:
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“...writers are looking in the critics for an alter ego, that other self more intelligent than oneself who has seen what one is reaching for, and who judges you only by whether you have matched up to your aim or not... But what he, the writer, is asking is impossible. Why should he expect this extraordinary being, the perfect critic (who does occasionally exist), why should there be anyone else who comprehends what he is trying to do? After all, there is only one person spinning that particular cocoon, only one person whose business it is to spin it...It is not possible for reviewers and critics to provide what they purport to provide – and for which writers so ridiculously and childishly yearn.”</blockquote>
<br />
So according to Lessing, critics have an unrealistic idea of their position in society, and writers have nobody but themselves to blame for this, for it was they who placed critics on their pedestal.
<br />
<br />
But it apparently goes further than this. Lessing believes that, from a very young age, we're conditioned – even brainwashed – to refuse to recognise the true value and intent of what we read.
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“It starts when the child is as young as five or six, when he arrives at school. It starts with marks, rewards, “places”, “streams”, stars – and still in many places, stripes. This horserace mentality, the victor and loser way of thinking, leads to “Writer X is, is not, a few paces ahead or Writer Y. Writer Y has fallen behind. In his last book, Writer Z has shown himself to be better than Writer A.” From the very beginning, the child is trained to think in this way: always in terms of comparison, of success, and of failure.”</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Lessing extrapolates political connotations from this – children are conditioned to respect authority, to not think for themselves – but when I read this I also applied it to every other kind of criticism – especially music criticism, the obtuse nature of which has given me so much gripe in recent years.
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“These children who have spent years inside the training system become critics and reviewers, and cannot give what the author, the artist, so foolishly looks for – imaginative and original judgement. What they can do, and what they do very well, is to tell the writer how the book or play accords with current patterns of feeling and thinking – the climate of opinion.”</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
When I read that, I wanted to shout: “Ha! Take THAT, every critic with whom I've ever taken issue.” I wanted to reach through the page and give Doris a high five. 15 pages into my first ever exposure to the writing of Doris Lessing, and I already wanted to marry her.
<br />
<br />
Critics aren't nearly as important at they think they are – or as they want us to think they are. Instead, due to inherent weaknesses instilled from childhood, they are nothing more than, as Doris so brilliantly puts it, “litmus paper”. They're not arbiters of taste and opinion. They're products of taste and opinion – just like everyone else.
<br />
<br />
Critics – and writers too – could learn a thing or two from Doris. It seems that the relationship will always be codependent, but there's nothing stopping it from being healthier.
<br />
<br />
Less cynical and pessimistic – but infinitely more poignant – is the interview included at the end of my copy of <i>The Golden Notebook</i>. Asked if she stops reading other people's books when writing her own, she replies:
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“ I have stopped with my current book, because my time is running out. I'm 87 [she's now 93], I'm not going to live forever and I want to finish this book I'm writing now. I'll go back to being a good reader when I finish it.”</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Wow.
<br />
<br />
Finally, she offers a very good reason for good people - “boulder pushers”, as they're called by <i>The Golden Notebook</i>'s protagonist – to remain optimistic. She's asked how living through “one of the most tumultuous centuries in our history” has affected her.
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
“Well, I've lived through Hitler, ranting and raving; Mussolini too; the Soviet Union, which we thought would last for all time; the British Empire, which seemed impregnable; the colour bar in Rhodesia and elsewhere; the heydey of European empires. It was inconceivable to think that these would disappear. They seemed permanent. Now not one of them remains – and I think that is a recipe for optimism!”</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
So to sum up, I think I'm in love with Doris Lessing.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-55837348970499397182013-05-01T10:34:00.000-07:002013-05-01T13:34:08.997-07:00Wrapped Up In Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
No friends, no money, no daylight. My first semester at university was terrible.<br />
<br />
The closest thing I had to a social life were weekly meetings of the Warp and Megalomaniac societies, both of which were all-but filled with embittered third-years and mature students - hardly conducive to the wild and boundless hedonism that I had expected university to be. Warp was the science-fiction society, where no discussions of science-fiction ever took place. Instead we sat in a bar designed for mature students that was lit like a dentist's office and smelled a bit funny. Still. The jukebox was good. <br />
<br />
The Megalomaniacs described themselves as “the political satire society”, and I think the only way you could have met a more unpleasant bunch of people would be had you attended a meeting of the University of Manchester Young Tories, Facists and Football Fans Society. Cynical by default, they never smiled, only sneered. They weren't all bad. Indeed, one of them would later help to secure victory for Manchester in University Challenge. But as a group they were set in their ways and about the exact opposite of the sort of people I wanted to meet.<br />
<br />
No money – well. No student has much in the way of assets. But I was, for some reason, particularly poor – to the extent that I was surviving almost exclusively on a diet comprised of three staples – brown bread, crunchy peanut butter and Lidl's own-brand 8p instant noodles – with the odd pint of Fosters boosting my weekly calorie intake every time I did a load of laundry. I was very likely in a state of malnourishment – evidenced by the sores that appeared on my face, the cluster migraines I got at night (that would only intensify when I closed my eyes) and the fact that I blacked out when I went home for Christmas and ate some turkey and vegetables.<br />
<br />
And no daylight. This was because my ground-floor room looked out onto a concrete parade ground that students often used as a football pitch. They had a tendency to stare into my room, so I took to shutting my curtains every time a game started. Eventually it got to the point where I wouldn't bother opening them again. <br />
<br />
My first semester at university was terrible.<br />
<br />
But I read a lot. It was, to all intents and purposes, all I had. Reading filled time. I had a lot of time to fill, and not much of it could be filled with studying. So I read and read and read – knowing, at the back of my mind, that I'd be at a genuine loss as to what to do with myself were I to run out of books to read. I was therefore really quite frightened of running out of books. It didn't bear thinking about.<br />
<br />
Now that I've a lovely circle of friends and family, three more jobs than I deserve and plenty of sunlight, I don't have nearly so much time for reading – but I wouldn't have it any other way. But I find myself buying books all the time, to the extent that I've already acquired more books than I could possibly read in a lifetime. <br />
<br />
Having such an immense backlog – combined with my tendency to <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/happy-new-yearfilm-challenge-2011film.html">compel myself to do a set amount of things in a set amount of time</a> – has, I now realise, made me develop a less than ideal approach to reading. Rather than considering that I have the remainder of my natural life to devote to reading as many books as I want, I've found myself, on a few occasions, only reading a book for the sake of reading a book – so that it could be removed from the pile.<br />
<br />
This is the exact opposite of the position I was in during that first terrible university semester. Back then I learned to appreciate the immense importance of books through convincing myself that, without them, I would die. These days I'm trying to recapture the ability to read one book at a time – and to grace that one book with every ounce of appreciation I'm willing to give it.<br />
<br />
But still. It's nice to know that no matter how bad things should get, I will never, ever, ever run out of things to read – which is possibly about as close as you can possibly get to ensuring lifelong happiness.<br />
<br />
At the very least, I'm never going to get bored.<br />
<br />
So I'm here now, with an immense guilty groan of books next to me, most of which are just waiting - quite impatiently - to be read. I don't necessarily structure my reading habits, but I have certain rules. As a new year begins I find myself reading colourful genre fiction – possibly in reaction to the relentless drabness of that time of year. Over the summer, I want plot and I want as many pages as possible – the sort of story in which you can really lose yourself. Towards the end of October I'll turn to ghost stories, because who doesn't? As Autumn decays into winter I'll see through the change with some Victorian Gothic, and then, come Christmas, it's time for Dickens. I read one or two Dickens each year over the extended Christmas period, and I like to think that once I've finally read through his oeuvre, I'll simply read it all again. And again and again, until I die. Yeah!<br />
<br />
Books are inexpensive, lovely to look at, lovely to hold, and whether they're ordered or cluttered, when you have a lot of them in your life your life feels more complete. <br />
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Books, then, are your friends for life. They even smell nice. Go hug a book now. NOW.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-73997801906820817762013-04-29T11:44:00.001-07:002013-04-29T11:44:48.654-07:00Ready Player One - It's Egg Hunting Season!<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QW2-rstKvuE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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In little over a week, the whole <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-return-of-boards-of-canada.html">Boards of Canada Easter Egg Hunt</a> has progressed significantly. At the time of writing, we have five of the six numbers – but we're still no closer to discovering what it all means.
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It turns out that <a href="http://bocpages.org/wiki/Record_Store_Day_incident">The Record Store Day Incident</a> (as it's now being called – how Fortean!) was just the kick-off. Whilst everyone initially thought that there'd be a different code on each of the six records (of which only four have apparently been found), instead it appears that each code will reveal itself in a different way.
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First there was all the rigmarole on the band's YouTube channel. Since then, subsequent codes have been variously revealed through clever gif manipulation; through broadcasts on NPR and on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show (<a href="http://www.thingsthatexist.com/2013/03/the-conet-project.html">number stations!</a>) and, best of all, through the above advert that was broadcast on The Cartoon Network (of all places).
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The most intriguing event, though, has been a projection on the building opposite London's Rough Trade store (where the second vinyl was found). The staff of the store claimed total ignorance. And, despite rumours circulating that the door of the building would open at midnight (for the first Boards of Canada gig since 2002?), very little came of this.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuACErHEeTFd7L76SXMO3MeWN4Uv5SD2t8doh2-lIHaMwvK84z2p9yVm4T91gIW3_YXRjolctPycAKob3WODw7iJzZD0VUDEoN_P9QcQ31FtTKURGoMdUZQS8nxtcHps6Ich8vwEa9ix4/s1600/Boards+of+Canada+Projection.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuACErHEeTFd7L76SXMO3MeWN4Uv5SD2t8doh2-lIHaMwvK84z2p9yVm4T91gIW3_YXRjolctPycAKob3WODw7iJzZD0VUDEoN_P9QcQ31FtTKURGoMdUZQS8nxtcHps6Ich8vwEa9ix4/s320/Boards+of+Canada+Projection.jpg" /></a>
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Still, it seemed to confirm not just the authenticity of this whole thing (as if there remained any doubters), but also the unbearably exciting notion that something's happening.
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Unfortunately, despite the fact that my love for Boards of Canada runs through me like the lettering on Blackpool Rock, my part in this will only ever be as an observer. With a string of six numbers making up a 36 digit code, it's obvious that this will ultimately present a mathematical problem.
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Reincarnation is a nice idea, and I like to think that, before you regenerate, you get to choose certain traits – like an RPG character creation screen. Well, if I'm given a second chance of life, above all I'd like to try my hands at being somebody with an inherent interest in science, technology and mathematics.
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At the moment, though scientific and mathematical theories can pique my interest, I feel as though the very wiring of my brain prevents me from truly comprehending anything I read about – let alone from forming or applying any of my own theories.
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It's always been like this. At school I pushed myself to get an A in GCSE Maths, but I was really only learning by rote exactly the information that would be required to pass that specific exam. I had no underlying understanding or appreciation of the information, and I promptly forgot pretty much everything I'd learned the second I finally put my pencil down at the end of the exam.
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Still. I might not have developed a very scientific mind, but I think I've more than made up for that through my love of music, films, history, words, grammar and stories – by which I mean books.
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So whilst I can't play an active part in the Boards of Canada Easter Egg Hunt, I can at least enjoy it as a bloody good story.
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And as a bloody good story, it's particularly enjoyable because the whole thing reminds me of a bloody good story I read recently.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLccuaDMdK3S7MBJWAaIz8D2q6Wj3ThsJ3S3PF3MPWtr1SpPcoz2N_y6yGb3PHZM_bX6VK8W2Oo05VjIvNAjhCbcCGI753hVAeUuA7CxP1YZLKo4PBs_0x1a6v2RztQUEHXuaNLHEiGQE/s1600/Ready+Player+One.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLccuaDMdK3S7MBJWAaIz8D2q6Wj3ThsJ3S3PF3MPWtr1SpPcoz2N_y6yGb3PHZM_bX6VK8W2Oo05VjIvNAjhCbcCGI753hVAeUuA7CxP1YZLKo4PBs_0x1a6v2RztQUEHXuaNLHEiGQE/s320/Ready+Player+One.jpg" /></a>
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<i>Ready Player One</i> by Ernest Cline is a very popular book indeed. It's so popular, that people dress as it for Halloween. Not as characters from the book, mind, but <a href="http://www.readyplayerone.com/image/34706217804">as the book itself</a>.
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I don't think even <i>Twilight </i>elicited that level of devotion.
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<i>Ready Player One</i> takes place in 2044. The world isn't quite a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but society and the economy appeared to have collapsed and things are quite awful. So most people spend their time inside a ridiculously immersive virtual reality environment called OASIS.
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Designed by an obsessive savant called Halliday, I really wish that OASIS actually existed in real life. It's a seemingly infinite universe in which you can be whoever you want, do whatever you want and fully-explore the locations of pretty much any sci-fi or fantasy universe you could care to mention. <br/><br/>Before passing away, Halliday reveals that he's hidden an Easter Egg somewhere in OASIS, and whoever finds it will inherit his vast fortune. The novel details the exploits of a player called Parzival and his friends in their quest to track down this elusive egg.
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As the novel goes, it's far from perfect. It's told in the first person – from Parzival's perspective – and it's implied that he's telling his story so that future generations will understand “what really happened”. But if that's the case, I've no idea why he feels the need to pepper his narrative with such excessive cultural-economic infodumps. It's fascinating for us early 21st century readers to get an insight into his world, but surely Parzival's intended audience would already be painfully familiar with the world he's describing? After all, they've never known any other.
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The world-building, then, is clumsy at best, and the final “message” appears to undermine absolutely everything that's come before. But still, <i>Ready Player One</i> remains some of the best genre fiction I've read in recent years.
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This is partly because it's so engaging. The idea that your obsessive knowledge of pop culture might save the world (a virtual world at that) is very appealing to anyone who likes films, music and video games as more than just part of a lifestyle.
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But the most remarkable thing about Ready Player One is that everything Parzival achieves he does so under his own volition - using a combination of knowledge, intuition and incredible courage. Parzival is therefore a real hero, and a most refreshing change from the “chosen one” trope that still seems to dominate genre fiction.
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Honestly, is there anything more boring than a meek hero who has greatness thrust upon him? I'm certainly had enough of that idea. From now on, I only want heroes who know what they're doing, know why they're doing it and, crucially, who want to do it.
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Which is why <i>Ready Player One</i> is such an engaging, refreshing read. All this useless knowledge I've built up over the years? It might not always be useless.
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So my lack of mathematical knowledge might force me to take a regretful back seat in this Boards of Canada Easter Egg Hunt. But you never know. One day, there might be something greater at stake – the fate of the world! - and it might depend on deep knowledge and appreciation of my specific interests.
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But until then, hey! New Boards of Canada album!
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Probably. All of this has to lead to something.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-3962668353044332622013-04-22T08:18:00.004-07:002013-04-22T08:18:53.963-07:00The Return Of Boards of Canada<br />
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<br />It's funny, sometimes, how things pan out.<br /><br />I was listening to <a href="http://www.thingsthatexist.com/2013/03/the-conet-project.html">The Conet Project</a>. I'm still listening to The Conet Project – it's about 4.8 hours long. So far I've recognised numerous sequences from Boards of Canada songs. It seems that every time a sequence of numbers appears in their music, it's a Conet Project sample.<br /><br />But anyway, just as this spark of familiarity flared, I noticed on my Twitter feed that Boards of Canada are back, and they're back in the best way possible.<br /><br />It seems that New York's Other Music was visited by a representative from Warp Records at about 15.00 on Record Store Day. They dropped off a record – just one – a supremely cryptic dispatch from Boards of Canada. This record was bought almost instantly by a <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/boardsofcanada/comments/1cry5b/i_got_a_really_weird_record_today/">Reddit user</a>.<br /><br />On the sleeve were a series of dashes, slashes and Xs, arranged thus:<br /><br />—— / —— / —— / XXXXXX / —— / —— <br /><br />On the record were about twenty seconds of music (which sound like a riff on the ambient intro to <i>Everything You Do Is A Balloon</i>) and a sequence of numbers (making it even stranger that I should have been listening to The Conet Project when I learned about this).<br/><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qe4UCjjyr8U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />The numbers are 936557.<br /><br />All we have beyond that is an upload to Boards of Canada's official Youtube channel – a new video for <i>Julie and Candy</i> from <i>Geogaddi</i>, entitled “1977 snow computing amateur footage beards synthesizer”. It was originally labelled with a series of dashes, which appeared initially at the 4:20 mark of the video, then, on the next day, at the 4:19 mark.<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/h-y8HNhJkyM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><a href="http://www.consequenceofsound.net/2013/04/boards-of-canada-tease-new-music-with-surprise-record-store-day-release/">Consequence of Sound</a> believe that they might be counting down to something. If a new album's in the pipeline, this suggests that it might be out in less than 300 days!<br /><br />This has made me extremely happy for two reasons. First of all, a new Boards of Canada album. Get in.<br /><br />But second of all, how often has it been said that the internet's stripped all mystery and romanticism from music? <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/my-least-favourite-thing-about-twitter.html">I'm looking at you, Twitter</a>. Now that we're prithee to the every thought of every musician, it does feel as though we've lost something.<br /><br />Also, we can now hear (and criticise) albums months before they're released. We can sing every word of every unreleased song ever played at a gig.<br /><br />That Boards of Canada can retain this esoteric edge even in these days when everybody knows everything all the time is wonderful. Truly wonderful. <br /><br />What's more, they appear to be using the internet not to spread information, but to spread mystery. It's been reasoned that there are six of these records (as there are five more dashes on the front of the record), and presumably they've been placed in locations all over the world. <br /><br />Boards of Canada attract the sort of fans who'll pore over every clue they're given in an attempt to uncover whatever mystery's waiting to be uncovered. In releasing this dispatch in this way, they're encouraging people to get together online in order to pick apart and piece together what little information we have.<br /><br />Case in point? On the same Consequence of Sound article as linked to above, it's already been pointed out in the comments that the sequence of numbers – 936557 – correspond to <a href="http://www.colorhexa.com/936557">a turquoise sort of colour</a>.<br /><br />The significance of that is enough to indue a sharp take of breath for any Boards of Canada fan.<br /><br />So next time anybody complains that music's been ruined irreparably by the internet, point them in the direction of Boards of Canada. It takes a very special kind of band to spread so much hype through saying so little.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-86363489332504321162013-04-03T16:39:00.001-07:002013-04-03T16:39:33.398-07:00How To Overcome Writer's Block<br />
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<b>Hey everyone, it's my 150th post!</b><br /><br />So now it's perhaps time to address just what the hell is going on with this blog.<br /><br />It started off as a <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Music" target="_blank">music blog</a>. Then it morphed into a <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Film" target="_blank">film review blog</a>. Over the years, I've also written about <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/books" target="_blank">books</a>, and <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/why-you-should-boycott-tesco.html" target="_blank">why you shouldn't shop at Tesco</a>.<br /><br />I've also written about <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/music%20writing" target="_blank">writing</a>. And I think, ultimately, that's what it's all about.<br /><br />I started this blog in 2009. Recently, it occurred to me that, since starting this blog, with very few exceptions I've spent at least an hour of each and every day just writing. <br /><br />I've written many things. Blog posts. Articles. Emails. Letters. Poems. Songs. Reviews. Short stories. Long stories. Plays. Sketches. Sales copy. Static content. Briefs. Drafts. Redrafts. You name it. But scarcely a day has gone by without me dedicating even a short stretch of time to writing.<br /><br />I've realised that this blog has been not just an outlet, but also a means of practising what I really want to do in life. I consider myself to be a writer, but I know that I still have at least a decade of fruitless plugging ahead of me before I truly have anything to show for my efforts. Therefore, as writers go, I am still in the “aspiring” category – and I will remain in this category for a good while yet. Perhaps the rest of my life!<br /><br />So whilst I'm not yet in any position to offer advice to any aspiring writers, I can at least share my experiences. And one thing that seems obvious, even at this stage, is that it's a very good idea for any aspiring writer – whether their aspirations are in fiction, journalism or otherwise – to have a space like this – a place where they can be themselves – where they can find out what works and what doesn't work - with or without an audience.<br /><br />It seems to me that aspiring writers in the 21st century have it much better than aspiring writers have ever had it before. Susan Sontag might have written realms of thoughts in her diaries, but during her formative years, nobody could ever <i>tell her</i> that she was brilliant, that she should absolutely keep doing what she's doing. However, people can actually swoop in and <i>tell me</i> that my sentences are too long. And then I have something I can work on. Something to address. The second sentence in the previous paragraph, for instance? Far too long! Thanks!<br /><br />You never know. Perhaps if he'd been able to blog (or, indeed, to self-publish), John Kennedy Toole would still be with us. And, whilst <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one" target="_blank">Jonathan Franzen</a> suspects that the internet is detrimental to good fiction, I'm finding the wisdom of the numerous “<a href="https://twitter.com/AdviceToWriters" target="_blank">Advice For Writers</a>” Twitter feeds I follow to be genuinely inspirational.<br /><br />We have the internet. Have any other generations of new writers had such a vast wealth of advice and pointers at their disposal? Alright, it's somewhat ironic that every day I seem to read the old “<i>writing is 3% talent and 97% not being distracted by the internet</i>” nugget. But still, that the biggest obstacle for aspiring writers to overcome in the 21st century is distraction and procrastination suggests we have it quite good.<br /><br />Like I say, my comparative lack of success and experience when it comes to writing means that I'm not exactly qualified to dish out any advice, but I have been doing this non-stop for some years now. And it struck me the other day – in my four years or so of uninterrupted and diverse writing, not once have I suffered from serious writer's block.<br /><br />Yes, I've had long periods of crippling, debilitating doubt. Indeed, I'm having one right now! But it's seldom been the case that I've actively struggled to get the words out.<br /><br />So don't think of this as “advice”. Think of it as something that's always worked for me.<br />
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I don't think of writer's block as a dearth of ideas. <a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things" target="_blank">The Oatmeal recently did a truly inspirational piece on the creative lifestyle</a> in which creativity was likened not to a lake, but to a river. Your ideas aren't a finite pool that'll ultimately be depleted. Rather, they're a raging and chaotic torrent, the richness of which depends upon the richness of your life, your relationships and your reading.<br /><br />So if you were truly meant to pursue this path, your writer's block does not signify that your pool of ideas is in danger of running dry. Instead, I've come to recognise it as nothing more than a highly specific fear. It's not necessarily a fear of failure, though that does come into it. However, any such fears are symptoms, not causes, of writer's block. As I understand it, it all boils down to a very basic wariness of the blank page.<br /><br />Any difficulty I have with writing is with starting or continuing a project. Once I get going I can write uninterrupted for hours. But it's in achieving this desired flow that I have problems, and the problems seem at their most insurmountable when I'm confronting a blank page.<br /><br />Yet this can be overcome in a matter of seconds. The moment – <i>the very moment</i> – that <i>anything's</i> down on the page, I'm fine. Even if it's just a word, a sentence, or a random stream of characters, it's enough to get me started. So many of my finished stories, articles, blog posts etc. have started life as something utterly nonsensical. Something like fdsjgjlbndaoigjk rw. Anything to make footprints in the terrifying white expanse of nothingness. Even gibberish can act as a great starting point – a nonsensical block of wood to be whittled into something resembling a word or sentence – the forceful kick to the ancient engine that sets the old Russian satellite back on track.<br /><br />Neil Gaiman's contribution to the noble lineage of advice from writers simply boils down to “<a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2013/03/princess-and-some-thoughts-on-writing.html" target="_blank">keep writing</a>”. If, God willing, I'm ever in a position to offer my two cents, my contribution to the rich tradition of writing advice will probably be “<i>start</i> writing”. The <i>moment anything's</i> down, you're off. Keep going, and don't look back until you're done.<br /><br />Picking up the thread where you left off is sometimes even harder, but the remedy's much simpler. All you have to do is ensure that you stop your daily writing in the middle of a sentence. That's it. It works! You can then pick up exactly where you left things when you next sit down to create.<br /><br />Yep, my words are currently meaningless as I've not really had much success in that field. But that's why you have to <i>keep</i> writing.<br /><br />Right Neil?<br /><br />Thanks Neil.<br /><br />We have it so good. We can follow Neil Gaiman on Twitter!Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-62637240365343153792013-03-27T13:46:00.000-07:002013-03-27T13:46:12.108-07:00My Least Favourite Thing About Twitter<br />
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It's revealed just how petty I am.<br /><br />I love Twitter. I'm not one of those who dismisses it as a place where idiots waste countless precious hours – though I am an idiot and I do waste countless precious hours there. But I'm not deluded enough to think that all those celebrities I follow actually care about my existence – though I was shamefully proud when the great <a href="https://twitter.com/robertflorence" target="_blank">Robert Florence</a> replied to one of my tweets (even though his reply was essentially dismissive and consisted of just five words).<br /><br />But though I'm quick to latch onto the tweets of anyone I vaguely admire like some kind of demanding, entitled limpet, I'm equally quick to unfollow even my most beloved of individuals<i> the second</i> they say anything with which I disagree.<br /><br />I unfollowed childhood hero <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelRosenYes" target="_blank">Michael Rosen</a> when he said something mean about HMV. He laughed at all the “crocodile tears” being shed over its closure. No, I thought. That's a lot of people out of work and it's now utterly impossible to buy new music anywhere on the high streets of so many UK cities. Goodbye, Michael.<br /><br />I unfollowed <a href="https://twitter.com/themonsterist" target="_blank">Pete Fowler</a> – responsible for some of the best album covers of the past 20 years – after he made a few unsavoury comments about Alt-J. Alt-J made one of my favourite albums of last year, and I really don't care that Pete Fowler didn't care for it. But he was actively wishing death upon them and doing so apropos of nothing. Goodbye, Pete.<br /><br />I unfollowed <a href="https://twitter.com/LukeHaines_News" target="_blank">Luke Haines</a> – songwriting genius – after I realised that all he ever did was sneer that music's not as good as it used to be. I know he's a celebrated misanthrope, but what sort of moron openly revels in the notion that rock music might be dead or dying? Goodbye, Luke.<br /><br />Unforgivable on my part, though, is that I unfollowed <a href="https://twitter.com/cox_tom" target="_blank">Tom Cox</a> after he said something nasty about Blur during their 2012 Brit Awards performance. Tom Cox wears tweed, is bearded, lives in Norfolk and writes witty and captivating articles and books about cats, folk customs and nature. He and I would undoubtedly be the best of friends if we met in real life. But all it took was a subtle suggestion that Pulp are better than Blur, and that was it. Goodbye, Tom.<br /><br />I would much rather have not learned that about myself – that I'm so unwilling to expose myself to opinions that are even slightly different to mine. I like to think that I'm reasonable, open-minded and mature. But the second someone says something at all disagreeable? Whoosh – it's playground politics. <br /><br />Still. It's one thing to simply unfollow those I admire before thinking ever so slightly less of them. At least I'm not painstakingly and obsessively documenting everything I hate about the world whilst ostensibly compiling a list of the <a href="http://100worstpeopleontwitter.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">100 Worst People On Twitter</a>.<br /><br />The 100 Worst People On Twitter must be one of the worst websites to ever have existed. And in making that assessment, I include any right-wing atrocity or bad-porn ring you could care to mention. The world is a sad, horrible and merciless place as is. It's almost unbearably depressing that there are some people out there who seem to think: “Hey, you know what this world needs? More negativity!”<br /><br />This is cynicism for the sake of cynicism. They claim to be looking out for those that “represent something bad beyond their Twitter account. The insularity of the British media classes. The sinister creep of threatened masculinity. The banality of modern alternative culture.” But I know this not to be the case.<br /><br />How do I know this? Well, there are two people on the list who I really quite admire. Let's look at Charlie Brooker first. His writing is fresh, imaginative and energising – especially when he tries his hand at fiction. I can, however, fully understand a lot of the criticism he gets. <br /><br />The 100 Worst People On Twitter, though, attack him on the grounds that <a href="http://100worstpeopleontwitter.tumblr.com/post/31871041573/29-charlie-brooker" target="_blank">he had Shoreditch hipster Nathan Barley listen to Supergrass</a>.<br /><br />Meanwhile, their no-holds-barred denouement of <a href="http://100worstpeopleontwitter.tumblr.com/post/33573929251/19-david-mitchell" target="_blank">David Mitchell</a> opens with this curious sentiment:<br /><br />
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<i>“The obvious point to make with David Mitchell is that he, Webb, and commisioning editors made the mistake of thinking that being able to memorise some words on a piece of paper and repeat them, sometimes while pretending to do things, meant that was enough to make you destined for greatness in the field of writing, because the words they read happened to be funny.”</i></blockquote>
<br />Sorry, <i>every actor that ever lived</i>. But your ancient craft is nothing more than “being able to memorise some words on a piece of paper and repeat them, sometimes while pretending to do things”. That's all you're doing. So stop pretending you're talented. Because according to the good people of the 100 Worst People On Twitter – who, as you know, are the sole arbiters of acceptable behaviour – you're essentially worthless.<br /><br />OK, these are two people I admire, so perhaps I'm naturally defensive. That I'm familiar with their work, though, means that I'm able to identify where these guys have just cherry-picked irrelevant and unrepresentative nuggets from extensive careers to support the thesis that Mitchell and Brooker don't really deserve to live.<br /><br />It stands to reason that if they've taken this cherry-picking approach with these two, then they must have done with everyone. Which means that the roastings of those celebrities who I <a href="http://100worstpeopleontwitter.tumblr.com/post/29545315863/57-frankie-boyle" target="_blank">actively unhealthily dislike</a> must be equally as ill-informed and vindictive.<br /><br />But the worst thing about The 100 Worst People On Twitter is the sheer hypocrisy of those who compile it.<br /><br />The introduction to their piece on David Mitchell suggests that they have no time or respect for actors or acting. Similarly, their piece on Charlie Brooker makes explicit their contempt for video games, for people who like video games and for people who write about video games.<br /><br />But oh, <a href="http://100worstpeopleontwitter.tumblr.com/post/32662848056/23-english-50-cent" target="_blank">heaven help those who have anything bad to say about hip hop!</a><br /><br />According to these guys, if you don't like hip hop, you're definitely racist. <a href="http://100worstpeopleontwitter.tumblr.com/post/31938663167/28-richard-dawkins" target="_blank">Oh yes</a>.<br /><br />If you disagree with me, you're essentially evil. Now <i>that's</i> petty.<br /><br />The amount of energy, research, redrafting and resentment that must have gone into writing much of what's on The 100 Worst People On Twitter genuinely makes me despair. Why would such conscientious individuals – such obviously talented writers – put so much effort into something <a href="http://www.leejamesturnock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/charlie-brooker-poundland-peter-bagge.html" target="_blank">that will only ever be used by people to justify their vindictive hatred</a>?<br /><br />One of the worst effects the internet's had upon creative types is that it seems to have kickstarted a tendency to sneer at the worst of everything (as opposed to seeking out and celebrating the best).<br /><br />
If you're <i>looking </i>for the worst humanity has to offer, you'll doubtlessly find it on Twitter.<br /><br />But even if you're not seeking outrage, Twitter can disappoint you. How horrible it is to learn that those who you admire don't agree with you 100% of the time!<br /><br />And that's my least favourite thing about Twitter. It's like a terrible funhouse mirror that makes humanity look much uglier than it really is.<br /><br />The revelation that I'm so petty is just the start of it.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-44502363420474553792013-03-11T15:38:00.000-07:002013-03-11T15:38:54.189-07:00Making A Cup Of Tea For Everyone In Belgium & Other Heartwarming Scrapes<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EC0TDci9hqg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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In the first decade of the noughties writers everywhere were apparently struck by a desire to have a wacky adventure that <i>just so happened</i> to involve a lot of tax-deductible travel. It resulted in a strange sub-genre of personal quest/travelogue books that to this day dominate charity shops and the humour section of Waterstones.<br /><br />The adventure was often passed-off as a silly bet, and it invariably transformed into a journey of self discovery. The results were mixed. In some cases you got a genuinely engaging and often hilarious travelogue of intrigue. Mostly, though, you got the literary equivalent of JP from <i>Fresh Meat</i> – droning on about his gap year whilst describing everything as “<i>literally well-random</i>”.<br /><br />Dave Gorman is the first name that comes to mind. With his<i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gorman#Dave_Gorman.27s_Googlewhack_Adventure" target="_blank">Googlewhack Adventure</a></i>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Gorman#America_Unchained" target="_blank"><i>America Unchained</i></a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_Dave_Gorman%3F" target="_blank"><i>Are You Dave Gorman?</i></a> books, he certainly struck upon some truly original ideas. His work is let down, though, by a tendency to take himself – and his self-imposed projects – far too seriously. Each of his books at some point spirals into a really quite terrifying meltdown. You want to reach through the page and say, “Dave, maybe you should <i>calm down a little</i>?”<br /><br />If Dave Gorman took things too seriously, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_Ireland_with_a_Fridge" target="_blank">Tony Hawks</a> had exactly the opposite problem. He travelled <i>Round Ireland With A Fridge</i>, played <i>The Moldovians at Tennis</i> and tried to have a number one single in any country, anywhere. Tony Hawks is a mild-mannered and mildly-spoken man who you might remember best as the “host” of<i> Better Than Life</i> on Red Dwarf, or as the uptight rapper behind <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAIOzM7SsMo" target="_blank">The Stutter Rap</a></i>. His books, though, were painfully obvious attempts to highlight just how quirky he believes himself to be. I gave up after <i>A Piano In The Pyrenees</i>, in which he struggled to wrest anything approaching humour from his relocation to the French mountains.<br /><br />Then there's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Moore_%28writer%29" target="_blank">Tim Moore</a>, who <i>is</i> funny. Really funny. What sets Tim Moore apart is that, like Bill Bryson (whose travel writing arguably inspired this curious sub-genre), his books are less self-consciously “wacky” projects that happen to involve a lot of travel and more straight-laced travel writing that just so happens to be utterly hilarious. Tim Moore drew comedy not from an absurd situation or idea, but from wry observations about the perfectly normal world around him. He's not a man that places himself in strange situations and begs you to laugh. He's a skilled comedian with a subtle delivery, excellent timing and an impeccable eye for detail. Moments from <i>Frost On My Moustache</i>, <i>French Revolutions</i>, <i>Spanish Steps</i> and <i>Continental Drift </i>are amongst the funniest scenes I've ever encountered in any medium.<br /><br />So what would you call this sub-genre? The Humorous Travelogue? The Personal Project (With Hilarious Consequences)? The Comedic Wanderer? I don't know, but I was quite sure that the genre had exhausted its potential, and I was convinced that I'd exhausted all the enjoyment that could possibly be drawn from the writings of grown men with too much time on their hands who really should know better.<br /><br />But then I read <i>The Know-It-All</i> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJ_Jacobs" target="_blank">A.J. Jacobs</a>.<br /><br />
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An American journalist and editor of <i>Esquire</i>, A.J. Jacobs endeavoured to read the entire 2002 Encyclopaedia Britannia back-to-back. <i>The Know-It-All</i> is a document of his efforts, and it really is a lot funnier than a literary marathon has any right to be. More than that, it's frequently fascinating, often touching, sometimes sad and shocking and, ultimately, it could even be described as life-affirming.<br /><br />In reading <i>The Know-It-All</i>, not only did I learn a lot of lethal facts for future deployment, I believe I also stumbled across exactly the reason why so many efforts by Dave Gorman and Tony Hawks failed in their efforts to amuse and engage. Their ideas might have been variously wacky and fascinating, but all too often they approached their projects with a sneer and a smirk. The books can therefore come across as so cynical as to be alienating. It's like they're saying “I know it's stupid, but you're the one who bought this book, aren't you? Have you any idea how rich this made me? And I got to go to China, too. Joke's on you, moron.”<br /><br />Jacobs, though, seems perfectly aware of his limitations, and doesn't ever shy from sharing his shortcomings or anxieties. At no point does he present himself as the noble or begrudging hero caught up in something beyond or below him. And when his self-imposed task starts to dominate his life, you really do get a sense of how unhealthy his obsession is becoming, and how difficult he himself is becoming for all of those around him.<br /><br />When Dave Gorman or Tony Hawks complain about their projects, I can't help but roll my eyes. The “problems” about which they complain are even more trivial than <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/first-world-problems">first world problems</a>. Jacobs's quest, though, is framed in a narrative concerning father-son rivalry, hypochondria, new parent anxiety and a fear of death, decay and dementia. It's real, it's human and it's affecting to no end. Every time I put the book down, I found myself thinking of Jacobs – hunched over his well-thumbed EB, eyes straining in the darkness, whilst his brooding wife lay neglected, asleep and alone next door. <br /><br />The sheer scope of his task and the none-more-human element raises this book so far beyond the cynical adventures of Dave Gorman and Tony Hawks that you may as well compare <i>Anna Karenina</i> to <i>Twilight</i>. If you put a thousand Hawks in a room with a thousand typewriters, you'd have to wait years before any of them cranked out anything even half as insightful and touching as this:<br /><i><br /></i><br />
<blockquote>
<i>“I know that everything is connected like a worldwide version of the six-degrees-of-separation game. I know that history is simultaneously a bloody mess and a collection of feats so inspiring and amazing they make you proud to share the same DNA structure with the rest of humanity. I know you better focus on the good stuff or your screwed. I know that the race does not go to the swift, nor the bread to the wise, so you should soak up what enjoyment you can. I know not to take cinnamon for granted. I know that mortality lies in even the smallest decisions, like whether to pick up and throw away a napkin...I know that you should always say yes to adventures or you'll lead a very dull life. I know that knowledge or intelligence are not the same thing – but they do live in the same neighbourhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning. And I know that I've got my life back and that in just a few moments, I'm going to have a lovely dinner with my wife.”</i></blockquote>
<br /><i>The Know-It-All</i> is a celebration of life, of humanity, of knowledge, or learning, of reading, of family, of friends, of food and of brilliance. But in celebrating the brilliance, it can also makes those who can only dream of such lofty heights feel proud of their life and achievements. It champions eccentricity, yes – but never for the sake of eccentricity. It made me laugh, but it also made me feel gifted – lucky to be breathing and genuinely happy to be alive.<br /><br /><i>Piano In The Pyrenees</i>, though? That just made me want to read something – anything – else.<br /><br />Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-49343536206037615012013-03-11T09:12:00.001-07:002013-03-11T15:39:13.196-07:00David Bowie - The Next Day
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Today I was finally in position to do
something I thought I'd never do. Something that music lovers have
been doing for four decades. I was able to buy a new David Bowie
album on its day of release!</div>
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I'm quite wary of listening to it. I
hate listening to things for the first time. I never trust my first
impressions. They're far too tempered by prejudice, precedence and
expectation. I much prefer the curve of gradual appreciation and the
ultimate feeling of warm familiarity to the shock of the new. This
doesn't mean that I'm adverse to trying new things. It's just that I
cannot think of a single album that means anything to me that
clicked immediately on the first listen. It takes time to absorb and
inhabit music. The first listen isn't something to be treasured. It's
something to get over with as soon as possible.</div>
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I'm sort of the same with
films. There are many films – like <i>Wreck-It-Ralph</i> – that are
instantly appealing. But those that we deem to be “classics” are
often so-called because they bear repeat viewings. And the main
reason they bear repeat viewings is because they're layered – you
can't take-in everything in at once. “Classics” are often subtle
slow-burners, so I'm always wary when it comes to watching
any film that has anything approaching a reputation for the first time.
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So I don't want to comment on David
Bowie's new album just yet. Nothing I say now can be at all trusted. But if you're really interested in what I think, come back to me in a
month or two.</div>
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I do believe, though, that there aren't
enough hours of existence remaining for me to ever learn to love the album cover.</div>
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<i>The Next Day</i> has one of the worst album
covers I've ever seen. A crude white box placed over the iconic
<i>“Heroes”</i> imagery. Whilst the image underneath has a lovely
silvery sheen to it, this still looks like the sort of thing that
could easily have been produced on MS Paint in less than a minute.
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Things improve a little on the inside.
There's a black-on-black square that reminds me of the sort of
designs that adorn Autechre albums. It contrasts nicely with the
white square on the CD itself, creating a sort of triptych with
Bowie's moody disembodied head in the middle.</div>
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The lyrics are printed on a colourful
fold-out that somewhat resembles one of those posters you
used to get in those brown bags dotted around Manchester. In fact, on
the inside<i> The Next Day</i> is really quite beautifully designed.
Which makes me wonder – <i>what was he thinking with that cover?</i></div>
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It may be awful to look at, but I don't
think it's devoid of meaning. The cover is horrible, but the inside
is striking. Is this a “comment” on the album itself? A sort of
“don't judge a book by its cover” message?</div>
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Or is it a sad statement concerning the
phasing-out of physical formats in favour of digital? As a collection
of MP3s,<i> The Next Day</i>'s cover will only ever appear as a small
inscrutable square on a media player. Does Bowie think that people
have stopped pouring over album covers? Did he see no point in
putting any effort into album covers if they're ostensibly going to
be ignored?</div>
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Most likely, the cover of <i>The Next Day</i>
is probably supposed to represent some kind of interplay between the
past and the present, or between perception and reality. I wonder if
these themes are covered in the lyrics?</div>
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This is why I don't like initial
listens and why I don't trust first-impressions. There's always too much to
take-in.</div>
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In any case, the cover of <i>The Next Day</i>
is not exactly unprecedented. For one thing, it can be listed alongside <i>Earthling</i>
and certain editions of <i>Lodger</i> as an album on which Bowie's face
doesn't appear on the cover. Similarly, the artwork of 2002's<i> Heathen</i>
featured swathes of paint thrown against canvasses and pages torn
from books. The only difference, really, is that here Bowie's
sabotaging his own work rather than that of another artist.</div>
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So whilst the cover of <i>The Next Day</i> is
hideous, it's by no means without meaning. I therefore don't think it
can necessarily be described as “lazy” or “throwaway”. Just "ugly" and "unappealing".</div>
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As for the relative merits of the
music? I can't wait to find out!</div>
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Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-85061343458760526362013-03-04T17:09:00.000-08:002013-03-04T17:09:05.793-08:00Things That Exist<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DI6G7yIKr4M" width="420"></iframe>
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Presenting <a href="http://www.thingsthatexist.com/">Things That Exist</a> - a brand new blog all about things that exist!
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If you're interested in contributing, do get in touch.<br />
Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-72619198784005634712013-01-31T14:44:00.001-08:002013-01-31T15:39:54.662-08:00Dancing To Architecture Part 3 - Disapointed By Idiocy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJEkmUTrEDbx8ybBI94gWTI80N5aT4pF3QImW8nw7f0L-6lVWFwRoYLPFlTcNGhk-H-c_R9v7WnRPy90yIHpypSXp2EJ6WXMHZLREjBc5EK44TzScyBjxANHB2UROAuEU-IfAku61FsyI/s1600/Patrick+Wolf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJEkmUTrEDbx8ybBI94gWTI80N5aT4pF3QImW8nw7f0L-6lVWFwRoYLPFlTcNGhk-H-c_R9v7WnRPy90yIHpypSXp2EJ6WXMHZLREjBc5EK44TzScyBjxANHB2UROAuEU-IfAku61FsyI/s320/Patrick+Wolf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Why is it so disappointing when the people we respect and admire turn out to harbour wilfully obtuse and misinformed opinions?</b><br />
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I'm not talking about the soul-destroying moments when it transpires that a beloved children's entertainer liked children a little bit too much; or when your idolised prog rocker is a member of the Countryside Alliance; or when a seemingly-sensitive country singer has sympathies for either Bush. That's a different matter entirely.<br />
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I'm not even talking about the head-shaking disbelief felt when a thrilling literate rock band proclaims that Radiohead lost their way after The Bends; or the bemusement felt when your trusted writer of spellbinding spiritual wonder proclaims that there's no magic left in music; or when your favourite psychedelic wizard uncle attacks your favourite indie rock preacher.<br />
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No. I'm referring to the moment at which someone you believed to be a sensible, open-minded and forward-thinking purveyor of genuinely interesting music turns out to be just as unimaginative and regressive in their beliefs as your average <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/dancing-about-architecture-part-1-nick.html" target="_blank">middle-aged hack</a>.<br />
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Earlier this evening, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01q9v7y" target="_blank">Patrick Wolf appeared on Steve Lamacq's Round Table on 6Music</a>. For those unfamiliar, Patrick Wolf is a singer songwriter who, in 2004, seemed to be a viable alternative to the dominating glut of the sort of landfill indie that romanticised crack, Stellar and squalor. Steve Lamacq's Round Table is a show where they ask musicians to comment on a series of new singles. 6Music is the single greatest radio station that ever has or will exist.<br />
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Anyway, they played Steve Mason's latest single. For those unfamiliar, <a href="http://www.stevemasontheartist.com/" target="_blank">Steve Mason</a> is the erstwhile singer and guitarist of The Beta Band who has also recorded as The Black Affair, King Biscuit Time and under his own name. His music is often <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQZjCPQ04rI" target="_blank">heart-stoppingly beautiful</a>, and he's apparently come close to doing something awful so many times that his every single release is undoubtedly a gift to be treasured.<br />
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Patrick Wolf didn't like Steve Mason's latest single. Now, had he just said “no, I don't like this,” I'm sure he and I could still be friends. But no. He went further. He suggested that it's completely without any merit, giving it 0/10 and saying something along the lines that “music like that shouldn't exist in 2013.”<br />
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Some might say that Steve Mason's latest has something of a 60s vibe about it. I'd disagree. I'd say it sounds timeless, soulful, organic – and it just so happens that a lot of 60s music also happened to sound timeless, soulful and organic. But that's not the point.<br />
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The point is, since when has <i>Patrick Wolf</i> been the arbiter of what sort of music “should” and “shouldn't” exist in any given year? If a song's well-written, meticulously structured and of such touching poignancy that it strikes a devastating chord for some, then surely it doesn't matter in the <i>slightest</i> how it sounds? Also, ten years from now, nobody will care what year a song was released. Instead, they'll judge their song <i>on its own merits</i>, beyond any notions of relevancy. You know, like normal people do; Those who listen to music without an agenda but <i>because it gives them a reason to live</i>.<br />
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Also, Patrick hinted that the reason such music “shouldn't exist in 2013” is because it sounds a bit like the music of the 1960s. For someone who makes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVYjxocJcxI" target="_blank">music that sounds like it could have come from the 1760s</a>, such a comment goes way beyond being “a bit rich” and enters the realms of “downright hypocritical”.<br />
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My ethos is that there's so much good music out there that it's a waste of time to dwell upon anything you don't like. I therefore apologise for the negative tone. But it's interesting. If some anonymous moron on an internet board said something similar about the music of Steve Mason, I could write them off as a reactionary, misinformed troll. If one of my friends said such a thing, I could at least talk to them and point out the flaws in their argument.<br />
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But Patrick Wolf?<br />
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I suppose what's irritated me is that I thought he was above such opinions. I thought that somebody who made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFI9s6INJPQ" target="_blank">such imaginative music</a> might be a bit more imaginative in their outlook. You know – a bit more open to the idea that there are alternative ways to look at the world. Yes, I appreciate the irony that I'm attacking someone on exactly the same grounds, but come on – what right has someone who's music could belong to any decade from the 1760s to the 1980s to attack a song on the grounds that it has a 60s vibe to it?<br />
<i><br />Wind In The Wires</i> and <i>The Magic Position</i> are great albums, but I've not heard any others. It's a shame, though, because I know that this single moment of poor judgement on Patrick's part will forever colour my future enjoyment of his music.<br />
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It's immensely and unforgivably hypocritical on my part too, I know this. I suppose that people are just precious and protective about some things – and in some instances it really is the case that it's one rule for some and a different rule for others.<br />
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Which just goes to show that you must be really careful when writing about music. Writing about music is not the same as talking about music. When you talk about music, you can at least pass off your statements as being transient. They belonged to the then and now. Writing, though, has a real permanence about it. Because anything you write has the potential to outlive you, it belongs to the ages.<br />
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Music is an intangible and intensely personal entity that, at its very best, represents the absolute pinnacle of human endeavour. It speaks to different people on different levels. Everyone has a different relationship with music, and any song that's ever been written has the potential to change someone's life – for better or worse.<br />
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How could you <i>possibly </i>put something so powerful into words? How could you <i>ever </i>do something so all-encompassing and transcendent the justice it deserves with something so comparatively banal as words on a page?<br />
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Or a screen, for that matter.<br />
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So there you go. All Patrick Wolf did was give his ill-thought yet honest reaction to a song, and, having written about it, suddenly I'm questioning the very idea that we should ever attempt to put in words the indescribable power that a good (or bad) song can have on us.<br />
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That proves one or all of the following:<br />
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<b>1.</b> I think too much (but I already know that to be the case).<br />
<b>2. </b>That you really can get so defensive that, with just a few words, former allies can become enemies.<br />
<b>3.</b> That music creates such complex feeling and ideas that it can, at times, lead to moments of intense confusion.<br />
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So, either I now hate Patrick Wolf, or myself. <br />
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I still love Steve Mason, though.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-60628913332841085792013-01-23T05:14:00.000-08:002013-01-23T05:14:58.279-08:00The Driller Killer - Perception vs Reality<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5DzVrXxMPDA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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I saw <i>The Driller Killer</i> for the first
time last night, and I've since decided that you must not form opinions, conclusions or ideas about anything before you yourself have taken the plunge. There is <i>never</i> any substitute for watching, reading or listening to something yourself. Of course, you can gorge yourself on images and synopses, but nothing will <i>ever</i> compare to that unique connection created between you and any given work of art
should you ever grace it with your full and undivided attention.</div>
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I've heard it said that, when questioned by the Pythons over whether they'd actually bothered to watch <i>The Life of Brian</i>, those self-righteous moral guardians replied along the lines of “You don't have to see a pigsty to know that it stinks”.</div>
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But this isn't about close-mindedness. It's about the discrepancy between perception and reality, and it happens to me all the time. I'm not in the habit of forming opinions in advance of experience, but I can't help but harbour ideas about things. And, in my defence, <i>The Driller Killer</i> does itself no favours.</div>
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For a start, there's the name. And the poster:</div>
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And the tagline: “<i>There are those who kill violently!</i>”</div>
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And the whole video nasty connection.</div>
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OK, <i>The Driller Killer</i> is a nasty film that leaves you feeling grim, grimy and in dire need of a wash. But, despite a superfluous lesbian shower session and a completely unnecessary scene that details the butchering of a skinned rabbit, I'd hardly call it exploitative. Rather, it comes across as a low-budget labour of love which, at times, veers deliriously close to the art-house.</div>
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There are some moments of extreme violence, but even those seem tame by today's standards. The remainder of the runtime is taken up by a dark, dank and claustrophobic account of desperate New York City low-life. It's like a cinematic interpretation of a Lou Reed song, or a loose adaptation of a forgotten Bukowski.</div>
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It's a visceral thrill, with talking paintings, performances that are either terrible or faithful to a whacked out state of mind, and scratchy footage that's so grainy I'm sure it would be rendered unwatchable on a HD TV.</div>
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But what I really wasn't expecting is just how <i>punk rock</i> is <i>The Driller Killer</i>. I don't use the term “punk rock” to describe something that's self-consciously anarchic. Rather, it evokes a snotty glue-sniffing frazzled sort of energy, with an in-house band called The Roosters who would be amazing (so long as they weren't living next-door). At the start you're even instructed that “THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD ”.
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An extreme close-up of a life I'd never want to live myself but which I find utterly thrilling to visit, I would never have expected so much from <i>The Driller Killer</i>. For so long I've been happy to think of it as an exploitative, ultra-violent video nasty. Instead, it's a DIY low-budget <i>Taxi Driver</i> with an incredible soundtrack.
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I might never have gone out of my way to see <i>The Driller Killer</i>, but I'm happy to have learned, in the best way possible, that everything has the power to surprise you.</div>
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Another recent incident of reality eclipsing expectation came last Halloween when I finally got round to reading Mary Shelley's <i>Frankenstein</i>.</div>
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Thanks to seemingly <i>every adaptation ever</i>, I had certain preconceptions about Frankenstein that involved lightning, a hunchbacked assistant, deranged cries of “IT'S ALIVE!” and a lumbering monosyllabic hulk of a monster.</div>
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So imagine my surprise when, upon initially confronting his creation, Frankenstein's monster replies in these words:</div>
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<blockquote>“All men hate the wretched; how,
then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet
you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art
bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You
purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty
towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind.
If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at
peace; but if you refuse, I will glut in the maw of death, until it
be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.”</blockquote></div>
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That's right. Frankenstein's monster isn't a shuffling green giant with bolts coming out of his neck who communicates with one groaned word at a time. He's an athletic,
acrobatic, eloquent philosopher who manages to teach himself how to talk, think and reason just by observing a family from a distance.</div>
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Again, I was quite happy with the images that sprang to mind when someone said “Frankenstein”. The reality, though, is infinitely preferable to my perceptions.</div>
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Then there's Phileas Fogg, who never once uses a hot air balloon in his journey <i>Around The World in 80 Days</i>. And Captain Nemo, who doesn't travel to a depth of <i>20,000 Leagues Under The Sea</i>. Rather he <i>journeys </i>a <i>distance </i>of 20,000 leagues.</div>
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My dad hasn't seen <i>Titanic</i>. Every time he's asked about it, he jokes “I know how it ends!” The implication is that there's no need to see a film if you know the
ending.</div>
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I've passed over so many books of which I've already seen the film adaptations. Similarly, there have been many times when a preconception has made me somehow reluctant to watch a film or listen to an album.</div>
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It has been proven to me, numerous times, that even if it doesn't differ so much, the experience always outweighs the expectation.</div>
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I wonder how many life-affirming, mind-expanding, soul-enriching or just plain entertaining experiences I've denied myself as a result of skewed perception?</div>
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Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-16591327715706714232013-01-15T07:59:00.003-08:002013-01-15T07:59:58.123-08:00Dancing To Architecture Part 2 - Gateways To Obsession<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Continuing my <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/dancing-about-architecture-part-1-nick.html" target="_blank">dubious denouement of Nick Hornby's <i>31 Songs</i></a>, I'd like to call your attention to something.<br /><br />No, please, stay with me. This is interesting. You might like where I'm going with this.<br /><br />This is Nick Hornby in reference to his love for Rod Stewart. Ignore his irritating and outmoded tendency to refer to all music that isn't jazz or classical as "pop music" and look at this:<br /><br />
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“...the people who stick with pop music the longest...are those who entrust themselves at a tender age to somebody like Stewart, somebody who was clearly a fan himself. Those who fell for The Stones got to hear, if they could be bothered, Arthur Alexander and Solomon Burke and Don Covay...Zeppelin fans might have been moved to seek out Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.”</blockquote>
<br />Remember, Hornby believes that those whose opinions differ to his don't <i>really </i>like music. Witness:<br /><br />
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“The antecedents of Yes and Genesis were Pink Floyd, and before that nobody much, really, and that was, in retrospect, part of the reason I didn't like them very much. The music felt airless and synthetic, and it seemed even then as if all the prog rockers would rather have been classical musicians, as if pop were beneath them, somehow. They led you up a blind alley; there was nowhere to go.”</blockquote>
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OK. Ignoring, for one moment, the fact that Pink Floyd's very name is derived from two old bluesmen (the work of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Anderson" target="_blank">Pink Anderson</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Council" target="_blank">Floyd Council</a> could therefore be considered as highly valid antecedents to Pink Floyd), what's <i>wrong </i>with a rock musician aspiring to be a classical musician? Nothing much, really.<br /><br />Hornby claims to dislike prog rock because it's a “blind alley”. Once you've listened to the big names, there's nowhere else to go.<br /><br />This is nothing short of absolute horsetwaddle. Beyond the classical and avant-garde composers from which prog rockers ostensibly took their cues (Hornby evidently believes that such music is beneath him), it's important to remember that a major antecedent to prog was psychedelica. Psych is to prog what punk is to New Wave; and psyche is an ocean of considerable depth into which millions of intrepid musical obsessives delve every day.<br />
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With psyche, you've got a vast pantheon that thrived on both sides of the Atlantic. For just the very apex of the iceberg, think of The Kinks, The Beatles and The Who in the UK; Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead in the US. Each of those bands offer a unique entry-point into a vast world of new musical discoveries, and you'll have a vastly different experience depending on where you happen to start. The Grateful Dead alone must surely have enough material to keep you happy for life. <br /><br />And every single one of these musicians took inspiration from expansive swathes of roots, folk, country, blues etc; again from both sides of the Atlantic. Also, going on at the same time was a vibrant scene of bands who might only have recorded and released one single before fading into obscurity. So if the past holds no interest for you, why not explore the present? <i>Nuggets </i>is just a tiny, tiny bite of something immense. That's why they called it <i>Nuggets</i>. And trace a path forwards from <i>Nuggets </i>and you get to garage rock, punk, New Wave, indie...<br /><br />So you see, <i>even if you use Pink Floyd as an entry-point</i>, you've got enough musical exploration to be getting on with to nourish you for a lifetime.<br /><br />From this we can draw two conclusions. First of all we can reiterate that Hornby is a pretentious bore who, when you apply even a base amount of scrutiny to his assertions, clearly doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about.<br /><br />Second, we can conclude that, if you like music enough,<i> it really doesn't matter where you begin</i>. Any band, scene, musician or genre can act as a viable entry-point into an obsession just as deep as Hornby's. Just as deep, but if you grew up with internet access, your love will likely be a lot more open-minded.<br /><br /><br />
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To illustrate my point, I'd like to talk about my own entry-point into what I already know will be a lifelong obsession with music (and not just “pop music”).<br /><br />I believe I started with Radiohead. I still consider them my favourite band, and one major reason as to why I continue to value them above all others is because it's now possible to view them as the centre of an immense hub from which everything else I love stems. I could likely trace any band or musician I value back, in some way, to my early love for Radiohead.<br /><br />It began when my brother bought the <i>Paranoid Android </i>single from a street vendor in Glastonbury (the town, not the festival). That song, and the two b-sides (<i>Polyethylene pts. 1-2</i> and <i>Pearly</i>) would sow some highly potent seeds, but things wouldn't take off in earnest until the release of <i>Amnesiac</i>. Y<i>ou And Whose Army?</i>, heard on a Q best of the year CD, was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. You could say it blew my mind.<br /><br />I saved up for, bought and immersed myself in the album. It was the start of something beautiful, and I freely acknowledge the role of the internet in kindling my love. I would scour online archives for hours for any material pertaining to Radiohead, and as I went I was making an unconscious mental note of any and all bands or artists listed as influences or descendents.<br /><br />In this way I got into Aphex Twin and, as a result, most everyone on the W.A.R.P roster. Brian Eno, too, and Jeff Buckley. Remixers such as Four Tet and Zero 7. Krautrockers such as Can, Faust and Kraftwerk. Contemporaries such as Martin Grech, Beck, Sigur Ros and Clinic. In recent years I've started to discover the daunting but enthralling world of jazz. Call me a philistine if you must, but I entered via the very sounds referenced by Radiohead – John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Miles Davies – the same names that get everyone into jazz, surely; but I know that I might never have even considered making the leap were it not for Radiohead.<br /><br />But perhaps most importantly, my love for Radiohead made me pay more attention to the music to which I already had access. Adventurous 90s guitar bands such as Blur, The Auteurs and Super Furry Animals wouldn't hold nearly as much sway over me were it not for Radiohead; whilst my parents' Pink Floyd and Genesis albums (on which I had basically been raised) suddenly seemed<i> a lot</i> more interesting.<br /><br />So I got into prog rock. I even considered Radiohead to be prog rock. For a long time, I referred to myself as a prog rock fan. I still do, but for a long time I was <i>all about the prog</i>. The proggier the better. <br /><br />And from there – well, see above.<br /><br />If the potential for deep musical appreciation is within you, it doesn't matter <i>in the slightest </i>where you start. If it's in you, through an insatiable need for sustenance, you'll eventually find your way to achieving that ideal state – a love for music that's free from the artificial constraints of time, space and cool.<br /><br />Nick Hornby <i>thinks </i>he's there, but he isn't. How can we tell? Well. Because he doesn't see how genres he dislikes (classical, prog etc.) can be worlds in themselves – worlds which are, importantly, inexorably linked to that which he values so much. And even if they aren't linked, they're no less valuable. And because he can't see that, well. I hate to say it, but it might be the case that <i>he doesn't really like music at all</i>.<br />
<br />Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-19150859285675109162013-01-14T10:35:00.000-08:002013-01-14T10:35:59.647-08:00Dancing About Architecture Part 1 - Nick Hornby's 31 Songs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I read <i>31 Songs</i> by Nick Hornby. It could be pointed out that it's a waste of time to review a book originally released over a decade ago. But it's OK. Nobody reads this blog for hard-hitting opinions on things that are actually happening now.<br /><br />There might even be scope for removing all but the first four words of that last sentence, but that's another argument.<br /><br /><i>31 Songs</i>, then. In this book, Nick Hornby writes about 31 songs that he loves (or has loved). I was dubious to begin with, because on the surface the whole thing looks like a navel gazing vanity project. And that's exactly what it is. Though it's obvious that Hornby's love of music runs deep, I've no idea why he wrote this book. It's a loose and unusual concept; an answer to a question asked by nobody: <i>So why do you like music, Nick? </i><br /><br />The problem is that, for Hornby, appreciation of music is akin to membership of an elite club. It was probably this belief that influenced him to take to his keyboard to begin with. Hornby wants it to be known that not only is he a high-ranking member of this illustrious club, he's also the arbiter of who may and may not be granted entry. For you ultimately get the impression that, for Hornby, there's no greater insult than to insist that one doesn't “really” like music.<br /><br />And, surprise surprise, throughout the book it's revealed that those who dare to like the music that Hornby doesn't (or, even worse, <i>those who like music in the wrong way</i>), don't “really” like music at all.<br /><br />Those who like a song because it reminds them of a certain time, place or person don't really like music. Those who like classical music don't really like music. Those who listen to sample-based music don't really like music. Those who “still” enjoy loud guitar music don't really like music. Those who don't like Rod Stewart but who do like Pink Floyd or Elton John don't really like music. Those who enjoy solos don't really like music. Those who like Bob Dylan more than he does don't really like music. Those who don't listen to lyrics don't really like music. And, perhaps most heinous of all, those who like extreme or experimental music not only don't really like music, but they must also have lived unfulfilled lives to have developed such tastes.<br /><br />Well. I'm a Pink Floyd fan. I <i>definitely </i>like Bob Dylan more than he does, and I often find myself moved by classical music, extreme music, experimental music and sample-based music. I love solos and I don't <i>always</i> listen to lyrics. I still love loud guitar music; and I attach strong memories of people, places and periods to pretty much all of my favourite songs. I <i>definitely </i>like music, but according to Hornby's condescending absolutism, I don't <i>really </i>like music.<br /><br />So you'll forgive my pettiness in deciding that those who write intimate, confessional non-fiction in <i>exactly </i>the same voice as <i>every single one</i> of their fictional protagonists – be they male or female, old or young – can't really write at all.<br /><br />Credit where it's due, though. The chapters concerning Hornby's autistic son are so vulnerable as to be genuinely affecting. Also, like all people who consider music to be more than simply part of a lifestyle, Hornby obviously spends rather a lot of time thinking about things. When he's not insisting that those who see or enjoy things differently to him are somehow inferior, Hornby strikes upon some genuinely intriguing ideas.<br /><br />For example, he has the future of music criticism nailed:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“This is what has to change, if pop music is to survive...we must learn the critical language which allows us to sort out the good from the bad, the banal from the clever, the fresh from the stale; if we simply sit around waiting for the next punk movement to come along, then we will be telling our best songwriters that what they do is worthless, and they will become marginalised. The next Lennon and McCartney are probably already with us; it's just that they won't turn out to be bigger than Jesus. They'll merely be turning out songs as good as <i>Norwegian Wood</i> and <i>Hey Jude</i>, and I can live with that.”</blockquote>
<br /><i>31 Songs</i> does contain a few moments of right-on inspiration, and all obsessive music fans are doubtlessly as arrogant as Hornby. Perhaps, in the face of his few genuinely thought-provoking ideas, we should forgive his small-minded tedium?<br /><br />Perhaps. But then you come to the addendum, in which Hornby takes it upon himself to listen to the current top ten albums in America. And suddenly, <i>31 Songs</i> is read through your fingers as Hornby unwittingly becomes the most out-of-touch square that ever walked the earth. This chapter perhaps marks the <i>precise</i> moment at which Hornby enters middle age, and it makes for an excruciatingly painful read. His “knowing” assessments of the music of Alicia Keys, Stain'd, D12, P Diddy and Blink-182 read like blustered biological field-notes. I don't hold any of those artists in anything approaching esteem, but it's suffocatingly cringeworthy when Hornby insists that, of course, <i>his </i>music is <i>objectively </i>superior. He even warns, in words that read like a 50s B-Movie horror announcer, that there might be someone listening to Blink-182, right now, <i>on your street</i>. Oh no!<br /><br />At the very least, <i>31 Songs</i> has made me able to decide upon the exact definition of “good” music writing. It's simple: Good music writing makes you want to listen to music. At times, <i>31 Songs</i> undoubtedly achieves this. I certainly want to hear a lot more Teenage Fanclub having dragged my way through Hornby's book. <br /><br />Bad music writing, on the other hand, can be many things; but three huge warning signs are that a) clear and definite battle lines are drawn between “real music” and, presumably, “fake music”; b) clear and definite battle lines are drawn between those who “really” like music and those who don't and c) it's hinted that music simply isn't as good as it used to be.<br /><br />As a result, at its worse <i>31 Songs</i> is a definite example of bad music writing; and reading it is often an experience akin to being cornered by that droning musical bore at a party who laughs at your Gomez t-shirt.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3465820777714368153.post-61602286433689177832013-01-06T09:32:00.000-08:002013-01-06T09:32:20.501-08:00Grim Fandango; Video Games as Art & My Dream Game<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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1997's <i>Grim Fandango</i> must surely be one of the best games of any genre and on any platform to have ever been made. Through telling a compelling and original story through a visually stunning and interactive medium, it singularly gives weight to the argument that video games can be art.<br /><br />Taking delicious visual cues from Art Deco, film noir and the Mexican Day of the Dead, it puts you in the shoes of one Manual Calavera – a frustrated pencil pusher at the Department of the Dead. Manuel (or “Manny”, as he's called by most everyone), with his impeccable dress sense, burning ambition, fierce loyalty and dry sense of humour, is a protagonist of extraordinary depth and likeability; the antithesis of the gravelly voiced man-tank space-marines who seem to have infected the medium as a whole (though he does have a gravelly voice). I'm so taken with Manny as a character that I tried, with very limited success, <a href="http://www.ninetyeightytwo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/haunted-weekend-of-scary-peril.html" target="_blank">to dress as him last Halloween</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Grim Fandango</i> takes the idea of the grim reaper and turns it into dreary bureaucracy. The vision of the afterlife presented is somehow simultaneously depressing yet optimistic. Everyone's given the chance for salvation, but the worse the life you'll live, the harder you'll have to work to achieve it.<br /><br />At the very bottom of the scale are the likes of Manny and his co-workers. They've lived such sinful lives that they have to work menial jobs for an indefinite period before they're even given a shot at salvation. Manny works as a reaper. It's his job to ferry souls from the land of the living and sell them transcendence packages upon their arrival. Though a return trip to the Land of the Living makes for a surreal early highlight of the game, reducing the role of grim reaper to that of a glorified travel agent is just one of the many aspects that make <i>Grim Fandango</i> a fascinating work of genius.<br /><br />Those who have worked saintly lives are given a golden ticket on The Number 9 – a gorgeous Art Deco train that whisks you to heaven in a matter of minutes. Those who have lived good lives (but not great lives) are still given transport, but of decreasingly less speed and sophistication. This ranges from a car right down to a lowly walking stick with a compass in the handle (“The Excelsior Line”). Given the amount of land to traverse and monsters to battle, walking to heaven is very much a form of penance, and it's probably to this fate that the majority of humanity is doomed. Only the truly determined will make it, and it is indeed possible to die a second death. <br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1oRqDkadeUw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />It's never revealed what happens to those who die in the Land of the Dead, but the means these skeletal mobsters have of killing each other is disturbingly brilliant. Playing on the old “pushing up flowers” metaphor, there's a lethal substance in the Land of the Dead known as “sproutella”. This is placed within darts which are fired from handguns. Should a skeleton get hit by one of these darts, the sproutella will immediately start to flow through their marrow and cause flowers to sprout through their bones.<br /><br />Just imagine how potent a substance would have to be to course so quickly through bone marrow. Just imagine how blindingly painful it would be were flowers to sprout with such force that they could penetrate your very bones. Of course, sprouting is used as a form of torture as well as execution in the world of <i>Grim Fandango</i>. Late in the game, a sprawling meadow of flowers takes on a sinister and immensely disturbing new light once you step into the greenhouse...<br /><br />Corruption is rife in the Land of the Dead. An obese crime lord (who really is “big-boned” as opposed to fat) struck upon the genius idea of selling people tickets on The Number 9. Regardless of the life you've lived, if you've the resources, salvation can be yours in no time!<br /><br />This creates something of a problem when the rightful owners of the golden Number 9 tickets suddenly find themselves rid of their speedy transcendence. The plot of <i>Grim Fandango</i> kicks into life once Manny accidentally presents the saintly Mercedes with the lowly walking stick instead of her rightful golden ticket. This immediately exposes the scam, and suddenly Manny's life is in very grave danger. Luckily, he's rescued by the beret-wearing Salvatore – an anarchic skeleton with a French accent who's somehow able to grow a moustache – and enlisted into the Lost Souls Alliance.<br /><br />And it's from this point that, over the years, I was able to painstakingly devise, one bit at a time, my dream game. Every gamer has one – that game which will never, ever, ever get made but which would tick every single one of their boxes. For me, it's an action RPG by the name of <i>Lost Souls Alliance</i>.<br /><br />In <i>Lost Soul Alliance</i> (LSA), you would play as a member of said organisation and would work to uncover and destroy corruption in The Land of the Dead. It would play very much like <i>Deus Ex</i> – with a first-person perspective that would switch to third-person every time you have a conversation. You'd receive mission-briefings from Salvatore himself and then, in true open-ended fashion, it would be absolutely up to you as to how you achieve your objectives.<br /><br />But being the Land of the Dead, the gung-ho approach wouldn't really ever be a viable option. Instead of an arsenal of high-calibre weaponry, you'd have access to two different strains of sproutella – slow and fast. Fast you could use to quickly clear rooms once the going gets tough, but the slow one you could use to <i>extract information</i>, as it were, in a move that would give the game an immediate 18 certificate. You could offer soothing liquid nitrogen in exchange for answers.<br /><br />An intriguing gameplay dynamic would arise should you yourself get hit by a stray sproutella dart. Once sproutella's in your system, there's not a lot you can do to stop it. You can freeze its progress with liquid nitrogen, but that won't help you with the fast-acting stuff. Your only other recourse is amputation, as seen in the original <i>Grim Fandango</i> where a sprouted LSA agent is reduced to a skull hopping around on a single arm.<br /><br />As a result, your character may, at some points, be forced to remove either single limbs or the entirety of his (or her) body; leaving only the sentient skull behind. You could then fit yourself with spruced-up replacement limbs, which could introduce a wonderful steam-punk element that would be perfectly in keeping with the game's “period” atmosphere.<br /><br />At the completion of tasks and missions, you could be given a choice between experience and money. Experience determines how quickly you can achieve transcendence (everybody's ultimate aim in the Land of the Dead), and the faster you build it up the faster you can get yourself a ticket for the Number 9. This done, you could, if you wish, abandon the game altogether and move on – leaving behind all the people you've promised to help along the way – a moral dilemma that Manny himself grapples with towards the end of <i>Grim Fandango</i>.<br /><br />But choose money, and salvation will drift further away, yet you'll suddenly have the means to get yourself new equipment, new limbs, or even to gamble on roulette or giant cat races.<br /><br />Choose experience every time and you'll complete the game quicker but have a much harder time doing it. Choose money and the game will take much longer to complete but you'll have an easier - and perhaps more fun - time doing it. But with the contrast between money, experience and difficulty, <i>LSA</i> would become a rare example of an RPG that lends itself well to those crazy <a href="http://youtu.be/BfPNhNyhCBg">YouTube speed runners</a>.<br /><br />An open-world adventure in which you play as an undercover LSA agent in The Land of the Dead – I simply cannot imagine anything better.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />But it won't happen. Ever.<br /><br />Unless Tim Schafer decides to crowd-source it? That would be a kick-starter in which I'd be more than happy to invest.Ninetyeightytwohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07537175150792508067noreply@blogger.com1